#i do think that they’re reusing plot devices that have worked well such as the grizzled old man + cute child dynamic

[biblioflyer]

Raffis & Juratis: a Star Trek fandom personality test.

This take may strike the reader as overly baked, but there have always been aspects of the fandom that approach it with childish wonder and another side that recoils at the merest hint of a lack of genre savvy or illogic. Ironically it's probably the Juratis who love Raffi and the Raffis who despise Raffi for her total lack of composure and also Jurati for her cloying idealism.

I’m going to tell you how old I am without telling you how old I am. I was aware of and a poster on Mike Wong’s Stardestroyer.net before the prequel trilogy seemed to kill off any ability he and the rest of the “Star Wars scientific realism” crowd could truly feel any joy in Curtis Saxton getting “scientifically realistic” interpretations of how Star Wars technology should work, especially the firepower, clearly stated in Legends canon.

What does this have to do with Star Trek? Well besides the fact that there used to be an intense Star Trek vs Star Wars rivalry in which each tribe went to war constructing their own extremely specific interpretations of canon and tortured the scientific method in the effort to scrutinize special effects to extract ever more “biggatons” (if you are unfamiliar with that term, you’ve lived this long without knowing, just forget I mentioned it and go touch grass) this is a way of outlining how the Star Trek fandom has always had internal tensions over “realism.”

This conflict pits people with a fairly high threshold of tolerance for their immersion being broken against who struggle with characters who don’t behave “realistically” and world building that seems a bit too ad hoc at times. They’re rather combustible when writers get scientific facts wrong or invent multiple troubled siblings for Spock that he never talks about prior to them being written into the canon. Both are emblematic of a sort of “laziness” that harms “immersiveness.” 

Now to be fair, I don’t actually want to police other people’s capacity to suspend disbelief. 

I absolutely want to police the policing of other people’s capacity to suspend disbelief.

In service to that desire to police the policing of other people’s suspension of disbelief, it bears repeating over and over again: realism and continuity are often highly subjective. 

I’ll repeat that: realism and continuity are often highly subjective.

Now I have previously and certainly will again make arguments about whether or not this or that seems consistent with a character, organization, or other setting element’s previous presentation. (See also my exasperation with how Picard, Riker and Beverly were behaving in S3E3.)

This is also separate in some fashion from the “facts” of a setting, although not entirely. As I’ve described previously, I used to be Raffi. I used to be hung up on minutiae and continuity. As a reformed prior member of the “Star Trek is a History of the Future” side of the fandom, I don’t think these things are unimportant: continuity and consistency do matter! This ain’t the Twilight Zone, an anthology where stories have no real relationship to one another other than perhaps the reuse of certain actors and plot devices.

However, if we all allowed ourselves to accept that Star Trek is just a teeny bit like the Twilight Zone, I think we’d all be a lot more mentally healthy for it. Hence my gradual recognition of Star Trek, and all fandoms really, as being more like modern mythological traditions. 

Just like Aphroditie has no less than four document origin stories, sometimes things are going to get a little weird. Sometimes Spock is going to have a mysterious sibling he refused to acknowledge before that sibling became relevant to the story. Sometimes Spock is going to have ANOTHER mysterious sibling he refused to acknowledge before she became the protagonist of her own storyline.

Is this implausible? Is it tropey and fan fictiony? Maybe. Depends on your perspective.

I bet the Romans would have devoured this stuff like candy. After all, they made themselves into refugees from Troy who survived their own totally awesome Odyssey that involved confronting some of the same hazards Odysseus did before landing in Italy and founding a kingdom based on wolf’s milk and fratricide.

Humans are cheesy. We really are. We’ve apparently always been that way.

So this brings me back to Raffi. I love about half of what she says. I hate about half of what she says. The half that I love is frequently a meta-commentary on every security lapse and contrivance that happens, culminating in Raffi berating Picard for bringing aboard an entirely unvetted and unprepared computer geek and Jiurati being too bewildered by Raffi to even be mad as she replies: “Who are you lady?”

Raffi is us! Or at least those of us who boggle at how naive our heroes often are for the sake of having a story to tell.

Jurati represents those of us who love our heroes and are enchanted by their naive optimism and their flaws, both intentionally written into the plot and those that are there entirely by accident. Jurati is just happy to be in the room where it happens. 

And so am I. 

Even though my heroes are absolute dumbasses who couldn’t tie their shoes when the plot needs them to be.

[pinkfey]

okay i’m gonna talk owk criticism in the tags for a sec 😵‍💫

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Not sure if this your areas, but do you have any tips for incorporating literary allusions/intertexual references into your writing? (By the way, I've been going through your writing posts and they've been a big help!)

I’m going to scream; I was almost ready to post this and then Tumblr stole everything.

Okay. Let’s try this again.

This is something I wish I was better at. I’d like to be a writer people recognize as well-read from my writing. That’s probably pretentious, but I am not free of pretension, and it’s something I desire.

There’s a lot of ways to do intertextuality. In fact, you’re definitely doing it unintentionally, because every piece of media is a product of the environment it was formed in, and the environment it was formed in is heavily shaped by the media the creator was exposed to. Your pool of references, but also your understanding of narrative structure, of characters, of storytelling, of literary devices, of everything, will be shaped by the things you’ve read and watched.

But the major, obvious, intentional categories you’re probably asking about here are:

Retellings/adaptations/pastiches/etc.: Taking the original story and/or characters and reusing it to say something different. YuuMori isn’t saying the same thing about life or fiction or people or the world or religion or anything that the original Sherlock Holmes stories did, for example.

Quotation: Taking a specific line or moment and language and reusing it to say recall a moment/scene to recontextualize it. Most people in a Western or Christian culture would likely recognize, “Let there be light,” from Genesis and ideas of beginnings and newness and godliness and goodness and acts of creation.

Comparison/Reference: I kind of made up this term because I can’t think of what it’s called. This is the kind of thing where someone else refers to a character as Icarus, for example, verbally or in narrative. It’s not retelling or quoting anything, just leveraging a known story as shorthand to describe something else.

Basically, intertextually is generally used to recontextualize...something. Either the original work, or the work you're writing and leaning on something commonly known and understood to twist what's happening in a new light.

Knowing your audience is vital to doing this correctly. If it's vital to understand the reference to understand your writing, your audience needs to be someone who likely understands it. If it's not vital but adds Extra Meaning, you can get away with things less known to your audience who will delight if they do know it, or delight once they stumble upon the original, or delight if they come back to your work later after learning of the original.

And different cultures, different generations, different subcultures, different...everything, have different reference pools. I, for example, would almost certainly not recognize a reference to a telenovela. But there’s a lot of people who would. But a lot of people wouldn’t recognize me saying, “See you Space Cowboy...” They might not need to, depending on the context, but knowing what I’m referencing might add something.

Now for a practical example to discuss. This is a story I outlined in college, and it’s the most obnoxious, up-its-own-ass English Major of things. I outlined this entire thing, and then never wrote even 1k words because I’d outlined it and that meant death.

As you can see, each chapter is named after Classic Literature. The conceit was that the protagonist was a college freshman taking a broad literature introduction course and would read each of these one week (do not talk to me about what monstrous professor would assign Great Expectations to be read and discussed in one week, the first week of classes) in his semester, and the events and themes of the literature would be reflected in the plot of the chapter!

Cool!

Except there’s a lot that can go wrong here. Easily. First, how long are the goddamn chapters going to be if they’re trying to cover that much stuff? Second, many of these have wildly different themes and statements about nature. How does White People Ableism The Secret Garden match with African American community and liberation in Their Eyes Were Watching God? What do you even do with that that’s not a surface-level analysis of the work?

So, you’re going to want to be choosy about your references. Too many can start conflicting with each other and muddle what you’re trying to do. What are you trying to say? Make sure the references you’re using and the way you’re using them will facilitate that. If you want a lot, you might confine it to one character--and then it begins to say something about that character instead.

All of this is to say, I think the main points to consider are:

How are you incorporating the intertextuality?

What are you trying to say by using it?

Who is your audience and are the references you’re choosing appropriate for them?

Why have you selected this vehicle to say this thing?

(Also, thank you for sending this, it was fun to write up, and I’m glad you enjoy my posts about this)

[astrologista]

jason stop dying

ooooook i just watched ditf. it was PRETTY GOOD.... i only wish there was MOOORE! watching this REALLY brought me back to 2011 times to see it and i think they did a good job with most of the character design and animations insofar as matching it to the original. (maybe i’m totally wrong but i thought it looked good for the most part... also i just really love these character designs in particular). obviously the budget is not what it would be on a feature, so there are a LOT of places where animation gets recycled and many still frames. some parts are basically a slideshow lol. but i only sort of came to that realization awhile after watching, so i think they did a fairly good job of masking this... ymmv

so let’s get into it!!! 

SPOILERS a-head! do not read until you’ve watched it because i’ll spoil everything

now obviously the thing to be aware of if you are not is the fact that this adaptation is not a panel-by-panel adaptation of the original death in the family comic. all references to jason’s mother (save one mention of her dying of illness) are completely removed, they go to bosnia instead of africa, and the circumstances around jason leaving are also heavily altered to fit the new narrative. this adaptation does slot perfectly into the universe established by the under the red hood animated movie from 2011 though, without which one would be pretty confused when watching this. it’s kind of a mystery as to why they didn’t just package this with utrh and release the entire thing as a collectors edition. instead they package it with like 4 or 5 unrelated dc showcase shorts which makes absolutely 0 sense but go off i guess. anyway

i liked that they took the time to adapt the scene from the original ditf where bruce is talking to alfred about jason! (i do not like that alfred didn’t get any lines. bad choice). tbh i can’t understand why they bothered showing us alfred, barbara and dick if they weren’t gonna give them any lines..... like come on........??

HOW INTENSE BRUCE LOOKS WHEN HE FINDS JASON IN SARAJEVO and just. grabs him lol. hes smad :)

ok so one two skip a few and we get to the first branch. instead of calling 1-900 we now get to choose whether jason lives or dies. there are 7 possible endings i think i got em all so let’s see what we got here.

“Hush” Route - Robin cheats death

hgrgdggr. i definitely think this is one of the more interesting endings, if not the most interesting one. this is also the only ending in which both bruce and jason survive the bombing. bruce is still too late, but this time jason barely clings to life and survives. as a hurt/comfort fan i was 100% on this shit from the word go but then jason? runs away from home lmao lmao i thought that was SO funny because 1) hes super messed up, how is he able to just literally run out the house that is SO funny to me and 2) implying that bruce would ever not be keeping an eye on him after that is just, lmao. it’s so zany. i call this the “hush” route because of the bandages but there are no other references to hush so ok. that’s fair. so anyway jason is now angsty for loosely explained reasons but the most fun part is yet to come.

when talia showed up, i really thought / was terrified for a second that they were gonna bring up certain “events” regarding damian’s parentage / who damian’s father is but then she mentioned bruce and i was like OH THANK GOD WE CAN STILL GO TO HEAVEN. i am so so grateful to the writers for NOT going there. cuz it was damn close ok. im not sure what the implication of this route is in terms of talia, jason and damian being a family unit but i want to believe talia sees jason as a son and damian’s brother (which is how she refers to him, damian’s brother) and not... yknow. i mean. jason raising a baby is kind of like a baby raising a baby...

no actually the reality of this scene is really dfuckin interesting like. they actually go with the “birth of the demon” (forget if it was birth of the demon or bride of the demon. one of those.) explanation for damian and that is something i’ve NEVER seen adapted so whoever wrote this can have a cookie and i kNOW this is something a certain someone will appreciate :)

not only that but the implications? are interesting? so talia’s claim is she miscarried so bruce won’t have to “choose” between damian and jason and idk if she’s supposed to be all on the-up-and-up in this universe but. i’m sitting here like GIRL YOU DON’T GOTTA DO THIS HE HAS A PRIVATE JET HAVEN’T YOU HEARD OF SHARED CUSTODY and BETTER YET HE HAS A MANSION JUST GO ON MAURY AND GET THIS SORTED OUT RIGHT NOWwwww

i’m also LAUGHING at the implications of jason thinking theres anywhere on earth that he’s going to go and hide damian’s existence from bruce. because you already know he’s just going to be tearing the planet apart looking for jason so this is actually hilarious. imagine he finds jason in one piece and also a baby. his baby. he’d be like (@ talia) “OMG WHY WOULD YOU THINK I WOULDN’T WANT THEM BOTH u are tearing me apart talia......” BUT THEN HE WOULD BE SO FREAKING HAPPY BECAUSE HE HAS TWO ALIVE SONS AND HE THOUGHT THEY WERE BOTH DEAD / (lost to crime)!!!

please lord imagine all of jason’s angst probably just originating from the fact that he has a brain injury that hasn’t fully healed and the trauma of going through all those surgeries probably gave him a lot of fear / paranoia about bruce and associating him with the joker because his neural pathways are all messed up but after he leaves he starts slowly healing back and regaining some of his lost sanity and thats when he realizes he misses bruce so much... but hes also raising his child... and every day it gets more difficult for him not to just take damian and bring him home and i ;v;

anyway i thought this route, while it had a few inconsistencies in it, was really freaking interesting and it gave me feels and plot bunnies and is probably the one i want to write about the MOST despite the fact that baby damian looks like a character from one of those web flash games in this lol

“True” End - Jason Dies

now if you select that jason dies the route basically defaults to the canon of under the red hood and the fact that utrh does not come packaged with this movie is a rather mystifying choice to me as i don’t think this adaptation would stand on its own very well. like you need quite a bit of background to really get anything out of watching this on its own, which is probably why it’s classified as a “short” and not as its own movie.

instead of showing all of utrh, it seems they took the opportunity to give a ~30 minute recap of utrh with basically entirely reused animation but they allow bruce to sort of. give his dvd commentary over it.

the biggest feeling i have on this is that it’s sad that they had to waste 30 minutes like this that could’ve been used to do something new and much more interesting, but honestly i’m not mad. it seems kind of obvious that this choice was probably made for budget and/or runtime reasons because a short does not get the same budget set aside as a full length feature film does. so they basically took the option of recycling 30 minutes of animation from the movie and dubbing new audio over it.

in evangelion they ran out of budget and that’s why the last two episodes consist of nothing more than still pencil drawings and frames while the characters engage in philosophical debates concerning the nature of reality and human connection. and i really enjoyed that. and for the same reasons, i also really enjoyed this.

i enjoyed seeing the clark kent of this universe. i enjoyed that he was basically out on a date with bruce. i enjoyed that bruce was willing to open up for once and tell clark all of what happened with jason. but what really makes this segment shine bright are bruce greenwood’s line reads. there are SO MANY good line reads in here. and i LOVED how many times he said the word “son”. very wholesome. the way he describes how he felt during the final fight with jason? probs my favorite FUCKING part.

and then him and clark joking together about contingency plans and then they’re going to work together to find jason and i ;_; this is probably the closest thing to a “good” ending but as a continuation of utrh i thought it worked really well. i really want to believe that bruce and clark did find jason in this route and that there was some closure in the end even though we didn’t get to see it.

including clark in this was DEFINITELY the right move as well, considering that he played a rather large role in the original ditf so it’s a welcome nod.

The rest of the branches exist under a separate option where Bruce makes it in time to save Jason from the warehouse... but Bruce dies......... :O

let me tell you bout it... bruce’s fucking DEATH SCENE i don’t know WHAT my man bruce greenwood is on, but the freaking LINE READS in this dialogue had me making INHUMAN NOISES. LIKE NOT ONLY WAS THE DIALOGUE GOOD, NOT ONLY DID HE SAY “I LOVE YOU, SON”, but this man is just an amazing actor. not just voice actor, but actor. he really really really really gave it the most i don’t know how else to say it....... it was very very well done and punched me sideways in the heart and i haven’t recovered and i’m not going to recover. and

ok so once we get past that.... scene.... u have to choose whether you’re going to catch the joker or kill the joker. bruce asks jason to promise not to kill the joker but technically jason doesn’t promise so........

Let’s start by choosing to kill the Joker. Jason attends Bruce’s funeral and various members of the Justice League show up to talk with him and just generally hang out. He has Alfred, Dick and Barbara as his support system, but Jason has some other plans.

This leads to a scene in a cafe where Jason meets with a man who... something something Killing Joke, flashlight, more Barbara being used as a plot device when she deserves better, Jason kills the Joker with a butter knife.

Once you do this you can choose to surrender to the police, or retaliate and escape.

Jailbird Ending

basically if you surrender to the police jason ends up in prison where he can actually attack even more criminals so.... ya

If you retaliate and escape instead you go to the Red Robin route where Jason becomes a vigilante who kills people much like the Red Hood and you get a further choice in a fight with Two Face where you can control how Harvey’s coin lands. 

Tim Ending!

If you choose the coin to land clean face up, the thing rewards you by having Tim show up and I forgot what happened (wasn’t really paying attention lol) because i was so focused on TIM!

Prolly they felt sorry for him what with Jason stealing what is essentially his outfit (ok I know it was Jason’s first, but Tim made it cool) so they let a little baby tim have an appearance :) he’s very smol

I guess in this ending Jason gets reintegrated with the family somehow and Tim becomes “Bat-kid” which is hilarious to me but you know what it’s cute. CUTE.

The one ending where the coin lands scarred side up

i honestly forget what happens if you choose to have the coin land scarred side up but let me just say this is a FUCKED route to take, not only have you had jason survive and bruce die, you’ve now chosen to kill the joker against bruce’s dying wish, you’ve chosen to attack the police, and at the end of that you really are gonna choose harvey’s coin to be scarred face up???? choosing this made me feel like a DICK because here i am supporting jason’s whole fall to madness and villainy thing the way it wants me to and now he’s gonna die HERE? i hate it here.

interestingly enough he doesn’t actually die in this route. he ends up at home with barbara and dick while dealing with the fact that he killed the joker but the route ends with jason saying “i promise” so i guess this is supposed to be kinda sad. im so confused lol ok

So that is all the options if you choose to kill the joker, I believe. You can also make the choice to just catch him instead of killing him but amazingly enough, those routes are even more FUCKED up. 

If you do this option Jason goes home, mourns Bruce with Dick, Barbara and Alfred, and becomes Red Hood BUT with a twist, he’s entirely on a bloodless operation in line with Bruce’s wishes. OR.... IS HE?

Things then follow the events of UTRH until the scene on the bridge with the van and the guys. Jason finally confronts Joker, who reveals the truth. 

Apparently in this route Jason has actually been killing and decapitating his victims just like in the original movie, but he’s repressed it so as to not even realize to himself that he’s doing it.

that is FUCKED. also. i wanna cry because jason doing all of that stuff but not even realizing it ;------; jason blocking it out, because he wanted to honor bruce’s wishes for him not to kill anyone ;______; but he’s doing it anyway ;_____; he’s actually hearing voices telling him to kill ;____; like it’s a very cheap twist in a sense and also really quite cruel but.... damn, son.

There is a branch here where you can choose to spare or kill the Joker at this point (UNDERTALE???) but from what I can tell it seems to be totally meaningless what choice you pick because you end up at the exact same point either way, I think there’s a small variation in what happens after you make the choice but after that they just coalesce back together into the following two endings. Which seems incredibly cheap to me, I mean making a choice like that should alter Jason’s path completely but, it doesn’t! So... ooook....

Either way Jason ends up on the Wayne building and Talia shows up with a re-animated Bruce from the pit. Here’s another fun blast from the 2011 past with more gratuitous Grant Morrison dreck, remember that shit? Well, they’re gonna jam it down your throat here, too.

The reanimated Bruce is the Zur En Arrh Bruce and he’s already dead so this is all meaningless but basically Jason fights him and you get to choose whether everybody lives or dies.

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Lives!

if you pick this, jason actually gets the re-animated bruce back to the batcave and they lock him up down there because he’s still pit-mad and the prognosis is not great. but i’m not sure what they expected, he is the zur-en-arrh guy so I don’t think he’s getting better. 

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Dies!

pretty much there’s an explosion and all three of them die and that’s it

I think that should be all the possible endings there are.

By the way the different ways in which black mask dies in this was actually a fairly clever running gag lollll. let that mf burn we don’t need no water.

overall there are a couple of things i would have done to SIGNIFICANTLY improve this adaptation beyond some of the obvious ones.

- the fact that all of the branching options are branched exclusively under the “jason lives and bruce dies” branch is a huge wasted opportunity. imo this is the most egregious problem with this, i was really looking for a more balanced tree / explanation of different things. i am probably super biased though being a fic writer and used to fic, we’re the ones making huge ass trees every day lol.

- the fact that there is no “good” ending here is something i kind of expected but given the context of this is lackluster. i sort of get it though because granted, the original ditf ends in an unresolved manner but it’s distinctly unsatisfying here. i secretly wanted an ending where bruce, like, figures out about the different endings and hacks reality to try to find a good ending where jason lives and everything is fine lmao. like a bat mite ending.

- i was disappointed in a sense that the narrative given in here is so basically simplistic? maybe i’ve been spoiled by games like 999 and undertale where shit gets messy and that’s not what this is supposed to be but when i play something with multiple endings in this day and age, at least play with the concept a little bit and connect some of the branches together narratively. use different devices. i was also hoping some of the choices would be a little bit meatier like you could choose to “forgive bruce” or something cool like that lol. but it looks like the majority of choices have to do with who lives or dies. and i felt like they couldve been a bit more creative with that ya know? being able to control harvey’s coin was a GREAT example of having some more fun with this.

- it is a huge missed opportunity not to have a “secret ending” on something like this. like where. the fuck. is my secret ending for completing everything. come on. and in a similar vein there should’ve been at least something in terms of bruce and jason interacting in a “true ending”. even if very brief. the closest thing to an ending this has is the “jason died” route and then the ending where he’s talking to clark which i feel like was a REALLY nice good optimistic ending as far as this goes, but it comes off as kind of disappointing i guess

there were SO many interesting nuggets locked into this thing though. i can’t deny it bugs me how many wasted opportunities there were with how they chose to structure things but i guess it’s the best you can do with limited runtime. i thought it was really well done though, makes an interesting companion piece to the original utrh, and is definitely something that i will be re-watching again soon!! overall i give it a 7/10 and some parts an 8/10+!

[bubonickitten]

i'm so happy you got into tma!! i've always enjoyed seeing you write meta posts for dragon age, so seeing you write meta for tma is such a treat! thank you for your words! i hope you have a lovely day :)

Thanks!! it’s been awhile since I’ve written meta for anything, I forgot how much I liked it. Once I realized how emotionally invested I was getting in the characters, I should’ve known I’d end up having to make a dedicated TMA meta tag. 

And not to be dramatic of anything, but TMA really is a masterpiece of horror imo. I like horror, but it’s always a minefield because so much of horror really does (sometimes unintentionally, sometimes not) employ some really awful racist, ableist, etc. tropes, or rely on sexual violence or hate violence as a narrative device without making any critical commentary on those subjects. So sometimes there’s a horror story that has a neat premise, but then it’s so saturated with unnecessary and harmful tropes that I just end up feeling alienated and frustrated. 

Even a lot of supernatural horror falls back on Lovecraft, and a lot of people don’t realize how racist and xenophobic his works really are. admittedly, there are some cool, more recent transformative works that reappropriate Lovecraft into something new (e.g. some stuff in the New Weird genre), but sometimes people just grab the aesthetic without knowing its roots. And I get it, it’s a cool aesthetic, I love monsters and tentacles and things that slumber in the deep and the dark -- it just ends up being bad when people aren’t conscious of what Lovecraft was actually saying. which, I know, is how tropes work sometimes -- creators reuse tropes because they’re so salient in fiction, but sometimes the roots are really horrible and we just don’t know the history, and horror is a genre that is really susceptible to that. 

Getting off topic -- what I mean is, I really think Jonny Sims is a brilliant writer and this is one of my favorite horror stories I’ve come across. He’s a master at character development and foreshadowing. I’m on my third time listening through and there’s just so much detail that I didn’t notice on my first listen, so many thematic elements and parallels and keywords that he snuck in from the very first few episodes that become so important later. It starts out as having a horror anthology vibe, with really brilliant short stories embedded in a larger framework, but then you realize that every single one of those stories is connected to the larger metaplot. 

I joke about Jonathan Archivist Sims and his conspiracy corkboard thinking, but I’m really sitting here listening with my own conspiracy corkboard during each episode -- sometimes reading too far into things, sometimes not, but damn is it enjoyable to try to pick apart the web (so to speak). 

I think it’s incredible how well Jonny Sims manages to pull all those strings together. It’s partly because he had the whole plot mapped out before they even recorded episode one, but it’s impressive to me, because I always have trouble following through on a story -- I’m not good at being decisive or consistent with my writing, I’m always changing my mind and losing the threads of what I was originally trying to do, and honestly most of the time I don’t have an end in mind anyway, so I end up giving up on things too early. 

One of the other things I appreciate is just... how compassionate Jonny is when writing his characters. One of my biggest complaints about Dragon Age was always that I felt like certain characters weren’t written with real compassion and weren’t given a chance to grow and so much of their potential was wasted. Jonny Sims, otoh, puts his characters in some dark, painful situations, which can be heartwrenching and anxiety-inducing to listen to (especially when it’s characters I relate to), but he also allows them to grow and change throughout the story, and that adds to their complexity. Even the characters I hate, I can still wrap my head around their motives. Without giving away too many spoilers for anyone who hasn’t listened and wants to eventually, the Big Bad is repulsive in every way but his motives are so realistic and emblematic of real world horrors like imperialism, Machiavellianism, totalitarianism, and a willingness to abuse, manipulate, groom, and oppress others for self-profit. 

Jonny Sims manages to utilize common fears, horrors, and phobias to present some really clever and thoroughly unsettling short stories. Even the ones that explore a fear that I don’t personally have make my skin crawl -- he’s just that good at descriptive imagery and conveying psychological horror. And a lot of the episodes also have social commentary (which is a hallmark of good fantasy, sci-fi, and horror for me) -- sometimes it’s subtle, but then sometimes he comes out with these episodes that knock the wind out of you. Especially the most recent episodes. He comes right out of the gate sometimes with a treatise on war or institutional violence or xenophobia and it’s... well, it’s powerful. 

And, god, I could write forever about how this story deals with the question of what it means to be human in the most horrific of circumstances -- what choices we make, what we are versus what we do, whether we grow or stagnate, the importance of human connection and trust and love even (and especially) when the world seems against you. The potential for character studies is... oof, I want to write an entire essay.

You know those books that are like, “The Philosophy of [Fiction Story]”? Oh, I am so tempted to write a full essay on the philosophical concepts presented in TMA. Especially existentialism, lmao. “What use is a philosophy minor?” people asked. Apparently the answer is, “Spend time during quarantine writing a treatise on existential philosophy in a horror-tragedy podcast I binged within a week and now can’t shut up about, because it’s been nine years since I had a philosophy class and I forgot how much I enjoyed pointlessly navel gazing about the nature of existence.”

I’ll shut up now. TL;DR if anyone wants to ramble at me about TMA, chances are I’ll be excited to respond. I’m having trouble focusing on creative writing right now, and I think my hype over this podcast might be helping me with writer’s block a little bit. 

[tainbocuailnge]

ive played all the story chapters and a bunch of side missions and tried out a handful of characters so now it’s time for The Official Lance Tainbocuailnge Review Of Fate/Extella Link if you’re like me and were kinda on the fence about buying it after extella massively let you down

tldr; gameplay is actually fun and varied with loads of different objectives and the same servant can be played in different ways so it doesn’t get boring. main story is a bit disjointed and most servants only have a quick cameo but it gets charlemagne’s plot beats down well enough and the silly everyone-knows-everyone banter is delightful. everything looks better, the world actually feels populated, and there’s a lot of care put into special interactions. link will not disappoint you like extella did

the gameplay has much more variation than just press button use moon drive repeat. you’ve got a mix of regular attacks that lead into various combos and active skills with cooldowns. each servant has like 7 of them, generally some combination of damage skills buffs and debuffs, and you can set 4 at once so there’s a degree of customisability to how you play each servant even within the fighting style they’re inherently geared towards. servants with similar regular movesets (like cu and scathach) still have decidedly different active skills so they don’t feel interchangeable. certain moves from servants that were already in extella are generally reused either at the end of some combo or as an active skill which for me goes a long way in still making it feel like the same game, just better

attacking builds moon drive meter, and fighting enemies while moon drive is active earns you np meter. this means you can use your np as often as you can charge it instead of the pathetic One time it was in extella and you can just blow up a whole sector without remorse. you can also end moon drive early with a weaker version of your noble phantasm. some active skills are labelled as class skills and if you use those in a combo against a servant you get the button mash attack that extella had. altogether it really gives the sense of an all-out servant battle

allied servants are much much much more proactive. they’ll actively go out and conquer sectors for you and will try to join you wherever you’re fighting the boss servant. if your allies are nearby more of your active skills will get the class skill property and they’ll join you in the button mash attack. before the battle you also set two support troops, who will randomly join in on your combos or defend you when you’re in a pinch. hakuno is also out on the field, so combat is much more a team effort than before

stage objectives are varied too, there’s field effects, map jamming, hunting down messengers before they can call for reinforcements, escorting allies to specific locations, waves of shadow servants, lancelot disguising himself, robin or lishu going invisible, iskandar or darius with endless armies, drake or gilles bombarding from afar, all often used in various combinations too. on top of that the extra stages will provide random additional challenges so even replaying the same stage will be different every time. 

there are four difficulties (that I’ve unlocked) but I haven’t tried any of the higher ones yet so I don’t know what they change to make it more difficult other than enemy level. there are like. i think at least 50 maybe even 100 extra stages to play after you’ve cleared the ~30 main story battles that continue until servant level 200 or something so there’s a lot to do even after you’ve gone through the story. servants unlock by clearing story battles and I didn’t realize this until very late and was very pissed off that the game wouldn’t let me use cu but that’s on me. the money is power system is still in place so you don’t have to manually train any new servant you want to try out you can just powerlevel them. install skills are also still in place and you do need to level servant bond if you want to use any decent number of those

there’s a pvp mode too but I haven’t tried it yet so no comment on that beyond i bet skilled lancelot players are The most annoying motherfuckers to fight against

graphics are a huge step up from extella. reused areas got a complete visual makeover while retaining the same feel. everyone’s models got spruced up and now they don’t look plastic anymore. there is an unreal amount of care put into sculpting karna’s asscrack. the ost actually slaps beyond the main theme this time as well as featuring some ol reliable CCC tracks. everything looks much more polished

the story is somewhat disjointed because of both the large cast and the splitting routes. the story splits up at various points to create an excuse to make different battles but it means a lot of things happen at approximately the same time in slightly different ways and it can be confusing to keep up with what happens in which order. for that reason I suggest looking closely at what path leads to which ending and playing all the quests of each converging branch before moving to the next day. the story seems to go out of its way to be ambiguous in when what happens exactly and how it’s even supposed to follow the events of extella so I think it’s best to look for the themes and the fun lore details over the linear coherence

overall the atmosphere is pretty silly and servants constantly banter back and forth even during tense situations, but it lands the occasional serious moment well enough imo. charlemagne and karl are the only ones who have any significant story focus but since they’re the only newcomers it’s not like the other guys particularly need the screentime. charlemagne himself is a pretty silly and lighthearted guy so he goes along well with the general feeling and it actually works in favour of his heavier plot beats because of the contrast. I grew attached to him incredibly quickly, not in the last place because he gets hyped about every single person he meets and it’s hard not to get excited too

the servants who weren’t already in extella generally get to show up more in the main story than the already familiar faces but most of them don’t have much more than a cameo. having a lot of people just randomly roam around with no idea what’s going on goes a really long way in making the moon cell feel populated beyond the people directly involved in the story so I actually like it a lot. they came up with like 3 different convenient plot devices to give you servants to fight without worrying about what that means for the alliances and it gives room for a lot of cool character moments

a good chunk of the extra stages come with their own mini stories told through the combat dialogue which adds to the liveliness of the setting. my favourite so far is the one where liz and nero try to hold a concert and hakuno frantically tries to explain to charlemagne in the middle of combat why it’s absolutely vital to keep them from doing that

everyone seems to know everyone so a lot of story dialogue is banter in varying degrees of playful versus vicious between both likely and unlikely combinations of servants and there’s a lot and i mean a LOT of care put into specific interactions. if two servants even remotely have an opinion on each other there’s special dialogue for it, and I even picked up unique dialogue for when archer acts as support troop for cu which no doubt means it exists for other combinations too (altho that’s not subtitled so i dont know what they’re saying there i could just tell it was the usual bickering because of the tone lol). some servants have unique win quotes from hakuno, she calls gilgamesh by his nickname ‘gorgeous’ for example. servants will sit around your home base and have a default line to say but sometimes they have lines that refer to each other instead. compared to how barren extella was, link is overflowing with the sense that these people have lives outside the current conflict and se.ra.ph is a thriving and vibrant world for them to live in

there’s a scene where karna and arjuna use their noble phantasms against each other in mutual destruction and it fucking RULES

[rogueshipagogo]

ppl have been asking me my opinions on space channel 5 vr... and i guess since i bought a vr headset off craigslist just so i could play it and speedrun it before work the day it came out... i should talk abt it now... i dont rly think i’ll be able to separate it into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ things i think i’m just going to do a rambly stream of consciousness bc i have a headache... but i DO have good things to say abt this game... so st.... sta stay t tune  d

right off the bat, the thing i appreciate most abt this game- i like that space channel 5 vr doesnt have cash grab vibes. i Do genuinely believe that they Wanted to make this game For the people who are still obsessed with it, and that they ultimately did what they set out to do when they intended to scale certain aspects of the series up conceptually to match the way the fandom perceives it nowadays. but like i’ve said before... i’m not going to Disagree with the very common conclusion that it Needed to be longer, or at Least more intricate plot-wise. one of my fun and fresh excuses for sc5vr being as short as it is is because you arent really supposed to be playing vr games for too long anyways, its really disorienting and kinda painful, but even that doesn’t account for why so much of the game that we got is a rehash of old settings, concepts, songs, and characters. [i dont even have a problem with reusing old songs, i just think the ones they chose ended up being misleading]

for example i think it makes sense that the first report is a remake of the first games first report on the surface, it’s meant to take you back to the way the first game felt and give you an idea of what it means that the games classic scenery can be rendered in actual high quality detail now [same with the recurrence of events like encountering the space pirates in the asteroid belt/the last battle against a villain being singing to it about what it’s done wrong], but i really thought, like, report 1 was going to end up being a simulated scenario for the benefit of lou and kee’s training... which i dont think ended up being the case??? i think they really did write ‘ok here you are in the first game’s setting again, fighting the old enemies again, because... :^) ok have fun playing report 2!’

and then whats report 2... you fight another old boss from the first game... but theres Still no clear villain or motivation for anything thats happening... and there wont be until like... basically the end of the game...

like, glitter is a really cute character, but its kind of underwhelming that shes just a random citizen who was kidnapped by an entity that we NEVER LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT... like part 1 was extremely notable for being about corporate greed and corruption, part 2 honestly wasnt that political in comparison but at least made you do a think wrt purge’s motivation and his methods, and this game just has a plot device that feels like it’ll do smth but then ends up not doing anything beyond what we already learned about it from the information on its character bio before the game was out. if it turns out that cell x is actually relevant again in a future entry in the franchise and they do have a more developed concept for what cell x Is in mind, i’ll do an entire backflip, but for now its just chalked up to being the result of More Space Hijinks that dont need to be explained

ESPECIALLY WITH ALL OF THE ALLUSIONS TO CELL X BEING AN ENTITY THAT FEEDS OFF OF DANCE ENERGY... it had me thinking that there would have to be some New Method of fighting it off that didn’t just lend it more power in the process, but nah apparently just tacking on the disclaimer ‘*this dance energy is not for glitter’ is enough to turn it from smth it can consume for power into big attacks you can use to kill it... like honestly it sounds like im asking for a lot from a game that has Never made too much sense, but considering that in part 2 they could add details like ‘oh didnt you know purge can open pocket dimensions? ulala is capable of manifesting tangible dance energy and the only other person who can do that is purge???’, its not like they havent come up with weird new shit for dance energy to do within the plot before. they just didnt do it in this game fsr

like did anyone else think that cell x/glitter was going to be the result of tossing purge out into deep space and him encountering the sc5 universe’s equivalent of an eldritch alien creature, smth more bestial than morolians?? even if purge wasnt part of it, when you say ‘uh oh, this guy Eats this society’s only source of energy!!!’ i expect the stakes to get HIGH, and i want the ramifications of it to be kinda STARTLING, because blank wanted money and purge wanted to ritualistically end the world but something this near to an ecological disaster that would force an entire paradigm shift hasn’t occurred yet in the series?? its totally new!!! there’s a lot they could do with this but OH DONT WORRY ABOUT IT EVERYONE ulala knows how to make dance energy kill cell x instead of feed it she’s got this we’re good no need to investigate more into all that

i can’t explain why the game is like this. and i dont expect grounding to address it in any meaningful way either. i’m sure they’re Aware of these complaints by now- the game reviewing community has Not been kind to sc5vr specifically due to all of these shortcomings [i didnt even touch on the issues with motion sensing and how many of the games mechanics were removed in favor of smth presumably easier to program yet much less satisfying, like Secret Moves just being mini quicktime events and Turning Your Ratings Into Stars just being replaced with the standard Three Strikes You’re Out method of scoring], but the pr team still seems very enthusiastic abt the game and is still promising dlc and potentially even more games in the series after this one- heres hoping that they’ll at least take these grievances to heart and consider making the experience not only more accessible [aka it will... go back to being a rhythm game with controller input.... and not... an exclusive vr experience...], but also as immersive and detailed as the old games, with less reused plot beats. i can let some of it off the hook in this game simply because i’m aware that it began its life as a tech demo that was only supposed to be that initial first report from the first game But Happening All Around You!, but i Really dont think they could get away with doing this little to expand upon the groundwork set by the first two games again. not with the way people remember part 2 being such a vast upgrade from part 1... the bar had been set so high that this just felt like a huge backslide into something even sillier and harder to take seriously than part 1 before we had any idea what kind of staying power the franchise would have as a hallmark of sega’s quirky antics. like... this game is what i think space channel 5 looks like to people who don’t understand the appeal of the first two games. and that scares me

but i guess for the most part, aside from wishing they had done more to revitalize the setting and the lore of the sc5 universe itself, im kind of glad it didnt do a lot to change the existing storylines the characters have kinda forged for themselves- here i was stressing out that they would pull out some plot development that would utterly and drastically change the way we talked abt the series for the rest of time, but so little happened and so little was added to the bank of sc5 lore that we can kind of all just carry on as usual and keep having the same headcanons we always had.

BUT!!! there ARE a lot of cute little details here and there that make the experience feel wholesome and like i said not an utter cashgrab- like so many of the character profiles referencing previous games [all of the references to npcs in this game being relatives of the npcs of the last games made me lose it] and how often ulala changes her expressions up and looks right at you and talks to you. the new music they wrote for the game also all slaps and everyones redesigns [if they got a redesign... rip pudding] are stunning

one of the most important things they did in this game was give a nice sort of Update to every character.... for example explaining that ulala isn’t a rookie reporter any more like she was in the first 2 games, that she’s moved up to being in charge of training new channel 5 reporters, and that while pudding is still somewhat stuck on her rivalry with ulala her career isn’t stagnant either, she was just cast in a romcom series as the lead... which is really nice considering how in the past she was portrayed as somewhat of a loser with almost no remaining fans left from her idol years

and you knew i was going to bring up jaguar at some point HES ALL OVER THIS GAME AND IT LITERALLY MADE ME FEEL LIKE MY LIFE WAS WORTH POWERING THROUGH THESE LAST FEW YEARS AND ALSO LIKE IM A GENIUS FOR SPENDING SO LONG POSTING EVERY SINGLE DAY ‘NO REALLY, HE’S THE SECONDARY PROTAGONIST OF THE STORY, ITS ABOUT CHANNEL 5 AS A COMPANY AND THEIR IMPACT ON EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER ENCOUNTERED THEM AND THAT INCLUDES JAGUAR AS WELL AS ULALA HES INTEGRAL TO THE PLOT BC SHE WOULDNT BE ALIVE IF IT WEREN’T FOR HIM’ i feel like it’s really incredible how in this game he has genuinely nice energy and doesnt withhold praise from ulala just to be helpful in a mysterious way later and he like HAS FRIENDS now. like consider how he went from disgraced former ch5 employee who got mad every time he saw them, to kidnapped robot henchman kinda humbled by the fact that now the turns tabled and ulala had to rescue Him, and now 3 years later his bio is all about how he has a new tv show thats super popular and he has a new entourage of ladies who he considers his '’’’’’comrades’’’’’’’ within the station he founded??? AND AFTER 20 YEARS THEY WERE FINALLY ABLE TO GIVE HIS MODEL JUICY ASS CHEEKS??????????????? NO MORE PANCAKE BOOTY???? THE BOY HAD A GLOWUP AND NO I WONT STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

WHEN I SAY MEOW MATCH THE POSE MOTHERFUCKERS THIS BLONDE BASTARD GETS TO BE IN CHARGE OF THE HUNDRED STAGE BATTLE NOW TOO THIS IS THE YEAR OF THE SPACE PIRATES BAYBEE

[ducktracy]

138. porky the rain-maker (1936)

release date: august 1st, 1936

series: looney tunes

director: tex avery

starring: joe dougherty (porky, porky’s father), tedd pierce (narrator), earle hodgins (salesman)

the first cartoon to have a narrator! tex in particular would play around with narrators, whether it be in his travelogues or to serve as important plot devices like in the village smithy. this is also the first cartoon where porky is considerably slimmed down—he’d fluctuate weight, especially contrasted with tashlin’s large interpretation for him, but especially with the addition of ub iwerks and eventually bob clampett in 1937, porky shifted onto a diet, tashlin the last one to slim him down after porky’s double trouble. here, porky and his farmer father are in the midst of a treacherous drought. porky spends their remaining money on a selection of pills rumored to bring on any weather event at will. however, trouble strikes when the farm animals accidentally eat the miracle pills instead.

tedd pierce fills us in as we open to a long, beautiful pan of a farm. an overlay of visible heatwaves paired with his commentary indicates that we’re in the midst of a severe drought. “valuable crops scorched by blistering heatwave! shortage of feed threatens farmers with ruin—their only hope is rain!” zoom in on an apple tree that wilts in an instant. “uh-oh, looks like there’ll be no shade—“ a chorus of hilariously dissonant voices join in, singing the classic “—under the old apple tree.” all of the crops suffer from the heat: apples shrivel up in seconds, corn stalks are stripped of their contents... we even hone in on some more predictable yet slightly rewarding puns, such as water boiling inside watermelons or eggplants cracking open and frying eggs on the ground.

porky and his father observe the drought solemnly, porky’s father (dougherty once more, only speaking in his natural voice, stutter and all) lamenting “worry, worry, worry.” a clamor from various farm animals calls over their attention, and they approach the barn to see what all the fuss is about.

as the narrator implied, there’s been a lack of feed thanks to the drought. no crops to sell, no money to make, no feed to buy. the animals are none too pleased, forming their own union and going on strike. haughty hens strut along, one carrying a sign reading “NO FEED — NO EGGS!”, the hen behind her matching with a simple “DITTO!”. a disgruntled horse is next, “NO FEED NO WORK” plastered on his side. a cow marches along with her nose in the air, her udders protected by a barrel that reads “CLOSED SHOP”—a very amusing gag that works both ways. of course, closed shop implies that she isn’t giving out any milk, but it’s also a labor union term. essentially, only those in the union can work at the shop/place of business. and, of course, only the cow can give the milk. how can you have milk if you don’t have any udders to milk? if you didn’t know tex liked gags, you do now.

despairingly, porky’s father reaches into his pocket and pulls out a sock, complete with a clasp at the top. he opens it, stuttering “here, my son. take our last dollar—“ he fishes in the sock for a dollar coin, “—and buy them animals some feed.” porky accepts the coin and heads on into town.

just as he’s about to stroll into the general store for some feed, a sharp voice catches his ear. in the middle of town proudly stands a merchant on his stage, selling a product to the congregation around him. the sign behind him tellingly reads DR. QUACK’S FAMOUS RAIN PILLS — $1.00. sure enough, dr. quack is ranting and raving: “now friends, i’m here today to advertise my famous rain pills!” earle hodgins does a wonderful job of the salesman, his lines full of energy and greedy passion. he lures his audience in, asking if they’re fed up with their dying crops thanks to this treacherous drought. he holds up his box of pills, assuring that they can bring instant rain. “each and every one of these capsules is guaranteed to make it rain where and when you want it!”

the cost? as the sign behind him advertises: a dollar. clever execution and timing as little porky pops his head up in the front row of the crowd at mere mention of the cost. to make the deal even sweeter, anyone who purchases a rain pill gets a free box of assorted pills with all the weather events you can think of. rain! snow! ice! lightning! thunder! tornadoes! earthquakes! fog! wind! you name it, it’s there in that measly little box! porky is absolutely enraptured, hoisting himself up to lean on the platform so he doesn’t miss a single beat. wonderful comedic timing as the salesman seamlessly pauses his long-winded rant just to shoo porky away, nudging him with his cane and instructing “don’t lean on the platform, son, you bother me.”

porky obeys, still taking in every word as the salesman blabbers “i’m going to pass out... these umbrellas!” (more fantastic timing and a great gag), distributing umbrellas to the crowd to showcase a demonstration. once everyone is armed with their umbrellas, dr. quack stuffs a rain pill in a little tube and spits it into the air. the pill is propelled into the air and explodes.

sure enough, the clouds grow heavy and dark, real rain showering upon every citizen in the square. porky is just beside himself as he sticks his hand out to feel the raindrops—“oh boy! real rain!” dr. quack eyes his audience, asking “now who’s gonna be first to buy one of these rain pills?” zero hesitation or remorse as porky fishes in his pocket and thrusts his father’s last earnings into the greedy hands of dr. quack, who hands him the fated pandora’s box. porky heads back to the farm, ready to knock the socks off his father.

porky’s father paces along, still muttering “worry, worry, worry” all the way. his face brightens up as he sees his loyal little boy marching towards him with the feed he so diligently went to the store to buy. feed in the shape of a box. with pills inside the box. rightfully so, porky’s father is furious. “PILLS!? i told ya to get FEED, not PILLS!” porky, unable to decipher why his father is so angry, ducks as his father tosses the useless box away.

the contents of the box scatter all across the farm. one of the picketing hens stumbles upon a spare pill, a lightning pill. mistaking it as feed, the hen happily gobbles down her food and grins contentedly at the audience. however, her delight is quickly put to a stop as volts of incomprehensible electricity jolt through her body and electrocute her. she flops to the ground, winded, and attempts to run for her life, squawking along the way. it’s too late—she turns into a literal lightning bolt as she tries to outrun from herself. the entire gag, from the contented grin to initial jolting reaction to turning into a lightning bolt in the midst of a frenzy would be reused in porky’s duck hunt, with daffy and an electric eel substituting the chicken and her lightning pill.

elsewhere, the picketing horse stumbles upon a fog pill and wastes no time ingesting it, too. a cloud of fog grows around his stomach, and in no time his surroundings are shrouded in mist. a horsefly (literally a horse with fly wings, which would serve as a minor plot point in a similar tex porky cartoon milk and money) comments into a microphone “altitude 10,000 feet. no visibility. ceiling: 0.” the gag is amusing, but slightly incomprehensible and lacks a smooth transition. enough to get the gist, though. meanwhile, a curious goose gobbles down both a thunder and wind pill, its body shuddering and shaking around as it regurgitates artificial wind from its body, blowing around aimlessly.

porky and his father observe in steely silence, his father glowering and sulking. helpful is porky, who finally pipes up with “there’s a pill there that’ll make real rain, pa.” porky’s father freezes. he whips his head around: “well why didn’t ya say so? where is it?” he crawls through the wooden fence and gets down on all fours, searching on his hands and knees for the fated miracle pill.

spotting a cyclone pill, porky reaches out to grab it. unfortunately for him, a chicken swoops in and swallows it before he can retrieve it. porky’s predictably peeved, glowering at the chicken, but his anger turns into awe as the chicken is whisked away into her own personal tornado. things finally settle down, and all that’s left is a nude chicken with a single tail feather. she glares at her feather, but it too turns into a mini cyclone and flies away. hilariously deadpan, she turns to the camera and gasps “well, imagine that.” not at all unlike an oswald short tex worked on in 1933, the zoo, a bear’s fur reduced to shreds thanks to a swarm of hungry moths. instead of screaming or overreacting, the bear also mildly states “well, imagine that.”

never mind the cyclone pill—porky spots another pill scattered on the ground, an earthquake pill. he reaches for it, and yet again another hungry chicken swallows the pill. this time an earthquake erupts in her body. amusing incongruity as the hen stalks away with her beak held high in the air, interrupted by frantic bursts of spasms and shakes. she clings to a tree for support, the entire landscape around her shaking. when the earthquake has finally paused, she ogles at the camera in disbelief.

porky and his father continue to search for the remaining pills, crawling on their hands and knees. porky finds something in the distance and trots over to it. sure enough, the fated rain pill is right in his reach! surely nothing can go wrong now, right?

wrong! the goose who had swallowed the thunder and wind pills is still aimlessly blowing around the farm uncontrollably. it knocks right into porky, tossing both of them to the ground. nevertheless, the goose is unscathed, seldom hesitating as it gobbles up the rain pill. porky ever so calmly and politely wrings the goose’s neck, calling it a varmint. he opens the goose’s beak and peers inside. no sign of the pill. frustrated, porky grabs the head of the goose and slams it on the ground, the goose settling back to normal as its head bounces back up. sweet, mild mannered porky!

his animal abuse may bring about some good after all. the goose, now shaken up, regurgitates the rain pill, sending it flying into the air. with a familiar snap, the pill explodes. could it be? yes! it could! the clouds darken and dump buckets of real, genuine, miraculous rain. all of the farm animals (and porky’s dad) crowd together, all sticking out their extremities just to feel the rain, reveling in it and soaking up every single last drop. apple trees grow back to size, corn stalks are nice and hearty again, all of the crops spouting 5x the amount of goods than what they used to. a gag that would be reused in many cartoons (especially and situationally in swooner crooner), a hen eagerly runs inside of her coop and lays an astounding mound of eggs, poking her head out of the coop and sighing in relief.

the joyous celebration continues, and everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief. good times are here at last! nary a problem in sight, only one little caveat. just one teensy little issue that needs taking care of... the animals still have the pills inside them. the celebration is cut short as all the animals jolt, jitter, shudder, fly, you name it. even porky and his father feel the effects. the false sense of security is pulled off strongly and coyly. everyone poses defiantly at the camera, a happy cartoon close sting... and then silence except for an array of sound effects as the pills take their course. tex plays around with the iris out as the goose blows itself out of the iris and into the black void, where rain is still pouring down. the goose frantically pounds against the black wall, squawking frantically. the iris opens one last time as porky yanks the goose inside for good.

a very amusing and creative cartoon for sure. milk and money would follow a similar route—porky needs to help his father earn money for the farm, and hilarity ensues (and there’s also a horsefly involved.) i like that one a bit more, as i feel it’s a stronger cartoon. this one came off more as a showcase of gags than anything, not having too much plot, but it was still definitely there. some gags were certainly funnier than others, but this still remains as a relatively funny short. the ending is particularly amusing, with the coy “all’s well that ends well” poses of the gang and the orchestral swell, interrupted by the natural elements inside each animal. the first appearance of porky’s father, too, who would make a handful of appearances, even during the mel blanc era with porky’s poppa in 1938. not tex’s best cartoon, but certainly watchable and amusing. worth a potential watch!

link!

[s4lticid]

The Shady as all Hell Whistleblower: Or why we shouldn’t take Romelle at face value.

Some firsts:

First and foremost, my deep thanks to the wonderful family at the Lotura Discord Server.  In the midst of dumping this stream of consciousness mess on you all, I may pull some ideas that were discussed there and are not original to me.  Where possible I will try and credit individuals, but if I miss anyone my deepest apologies and know that everyone there has had a great deal of influence over my thought process.  My love and thanks for all the great discussion and support – even the stuff I haven’t been present for!    

Second, this and the stuff to come right after, was the work of lots of thought and research that started right after S6 dropped.  That is a long time, and I wanted to get something out sooner but I have just been too swamped with RL, which has decided to become a giant, bloody, throbbing, pus-filled buboe blocking me from doing much of anything fun at all ever again.   Thus you will be treated to a stream of as much shit as I can spit out at once in the time I have to get this down, and it may not be in the best format or particularly well written, but here goes…  oh, and this is also another reason I may forget who said what in conversations exactly, because some of it happened nearly 2 months ago.

I am aware there have been a few metas written about Romelle.  I haven’t actually read any of them at this point, except for Leaking Hate’s awesome meta here, because  I didn’t want to get overly influenced by the ideas of others.  As such I have been on reading and participating in fandom even less that RL gave me a chance to.  So if you see something here that was said by someone outside of the Lotura Server and they are not credited, it is not me copying someone, I have just been holding on to it until I could post this.

That said, this builds off of some things LH posted in the above link, and I will do my best to credit those conversations I can remember reading and/or participating in within the Discord.

~oOo~ 

OKAY.

 I’m going to come right out and say it:  

Romelle is not who she says she is.

There are too many inconsistencies in her story.  So, let’s start at the very beginning and begin poking the holes to prove my point:

1.  Keith and Krolia find Romelle:

Keith and Krolia are in the Quantum Abyss riding a Space Whale and it brings them to a planet. Krolia takes a reading, and finds the same signal as the strange quintessence the Blade has been tracking on that planet.  

Note: Krolia first sees the readings from space and tracks them to the planet.  She doesn’t find any Quintessence signal anywhere else, she specifically states that it is strong and coming from exactly one place. 

It is coming from here:

So, if there was a moon base absolutely full of Alteans being drained for their quintessence, as they were shown later, why ever did such a larger source not register first and foremost rather than that cute little dome Romelle is in?

Speaking of that Dome, it’s pretty small, isn’t it?  It’s a bio-dome.  Meant for a few inhabitants.  Does this look like it could house a colony, or even a village realistically? No.  It can handle a handful, maybe a dozen people.  Probably, it was meant to house just one.  But we’ll get to that later.

Keith and Krolia break in and find Romelle, alone and by a riverside.  Washing clothes?  Why do that in her only clean water source when she has technology all around her? And make no mistake here, she is alone and demands help.

 ~oOo~

Now I am going to digress here for a moment before I go on to point 2, so I can point out a parallel to the original show, Defender of the Universe (to be referred to from here on as DotU for brevity’s sake, and for my fingers).

There are a LOT of nods to the original shows, (GoLion too), throughout VLD.  Some are flat out mirrors for the original, same plot ideas remade, lines taken and reused, Characters, Mechas, motives and situations, they’re all here, though sometimes reworked in very unexpected ways.  It’s beautiful seeing them all.

Finding the pretty Damsel alone by a stream, helpless, perhaps even passed out, is one plot device DotU used a LOT.  

For instance, when Allura’s Aunt Orla comes to visit, Haggar intercepts and captures her, and then takes her form and lies down to appear knocked out after an attack on her carriage.  She is found lying by a stream.  That was a plot to get to Allura:

Or how about the time Haggar herself was caught being pretty for a day – in apparently her original form – and cursed the person who saw her?  

Again, found by a river.

Fine, you say.  But this isn’t Haggar pretending to be Romelle.  That didn’t happen, right?

Oh but it did.  “It’ll Be a Cold Day”:

Ok, so she wasn’t found by a river this time.  But two out of three combined with the VLD writers’ way of reworking things make this a nice little reference point for this original trope.

Something else to note here is there is always some part of Haggar that is a tell.  Some part which she cannot disguise.  I would posit that we have one with VLD Romelle too: Her clothes.  As you go through this post, where you see images of other Alteans, please get a look at their garb.  There are several styles that are re-used among each of the people shown. However not one of them wears the same cut we see Romelle wear.  And yet someone does.  Who?  Haggar/Honerva.

No, I am not saying Romelle is actually Honerva/Haggar in disguise.  But she could easily be in league with her, and at the very least she definitely is not the innocent she appears and claims to be. Not just because of these fun little references to the original, but they are nice signposts along the way.  

 ~oOo~

2.  Romelle’s Story:  The Colony

Romelle starts her story to the Paladins by telling them she comes from a planet where there are thousands of Alteans.  

This bears repeating:  Thousands. Of living Alteans.  

Not “were” thousands, but are.  

Lotor apparently hunted down every Altean who had been off planet at the time Altea was destroyed, and their offspring, to bring them to the first Colony.  

Here is an image of the beginnings of that colony:

Here’s another:

Green as far as the eye can see and a giant ship that, as Leaking Hate pointed out in her meta and on Discord,  is easily the size of the dome we were shown above where Keith and Krolia first found Romelle.  

That ship would never fit in the bio-dome.  And as the upper picture of these two states in the subtitles, Lotor chose a remote planet beyond the Quantum Abyss, not in the Abyss.  A planet with a sun such that plants could grow, not a pulsar.

This means it cannot same planet as Romelle was found on, because she states the colony planet is beyond the Abyss, so the Abyss and the Pulsar within it already existed back then.  Neither could that ship ever hope to fit inside that dome, as is shown in her memory.

And that colony that was built, shown in the lower picture?  Is easily twice as big, or more, as the one Romelle is found in.

 3.  Romelle’s Story:  The Second Colony

Generations ago, once the Colony was very successful, Lotor began testing Alteans for special characteristics such that they could survive the journey to and live on a “Second Colony”. “To better our chances for survival”.

Let’s start with who was chosen.

Around Nine Thousand Five Hundred to Nine Thousand years ago – assuming time for Lotor to mature enough to do all this, knowing that he ages slowly thanks to the writers – Lotor would have started the first Colony.  The last people brought might have been found within a couple of hundred years of that range, but probably less.  

Think about how long a time that is.

Now, get a look at the faces that came in with some of the survivors found way back then:

 Now look at who is being tested:

(Note: I circled a few faces, but if you really look you will see many of the same ones from the above pic)

And note two of the faces I circled.

We know Alteans have a long life span.  Far longer than Humans.  But we also know from Allura’s reaction that they shouldn’t be anything like at least Nine Thousand Years or more.

So how are First-comer Refugee Alteans alive and young at the same time – ‘Generations Later’ – as both Romelle and Bandor?  

Let’s argue that they could be.  Bandor and Romelle were just younger then and not chosen.  So then Why have neither of them aged at all by the time Romelle related that eventually Bandor was old enough to be tested and passed?

And look, here are some of the first people chosen.  Recognize at least one face and clothing? (Not including Petrulius who is a contemporary of Romelle’s as she identifies him on the Moon Facility)

Sure they could be chosen much later, but then why have they not aged at all?

So were Romelle and Bandor refugees?  If so then why did Romelle say she was born onto that planet?

Were they born on the planet as she claims? 

Did Lotor start testing for special Alteans earlier than she says?  Or was it really later?  If the latter then how are these original refugees still so young?

However you look at it, her timeline does not add up,

 4.  Romelle’s Story:  The Monument

Thanks in advance to Trisha, Giobana, Crystal Rebellion, Leaking Hate and anyone else who contributed to the conversation that led to this one.

Romelle shows us in her memory that there was a memorial wall to those who went to the Second Colony. Whether she mentions it to the Paladins, I don’t know, but what is shown in the episode looks very much like a memorial to the Fallen.

The base of the Lotor’s statue is covered in names, and we see it cracked with age.  People go there to pay respects and leave flowers – and not just any flowers, but pink flowers.  

This kind of memorial is what you do for Fallen Soldiers and Fighters in a struggle, not people who are alive off somewhere on another colony and whom you hope to see again once the struggle is over. We even see this is a cross-cultural, cross-species, and intergalactic practice when we see the monument planet Pidge first traced Matt to. 

And what do we know about Pink to Alteans?  From Allura:

Fallen Warriors.  Not people who have gone to a second colony in the hopes of keeping their people alive.

Actually, let’s look at that little tale there.  Any colony, in order to be successful, requires a genetically diverse population, a breeding population.  A handful of people at a time, because they test as special is not going to provide that. Particularly not in what has been portrayed as a potentially dangerous and harsh journey and place – that alone would be safer in numbers.

Add to that we clearly see that Lotor has separated breeding pairs – Couples – in the few images we see of those chosen.  If he is trying to establish a new colony why would he logically do that?  The Alteans are intelligent and have some technological expertise, at least some of them, how did no one question that?

I call Shenanigans.  

Whatever was going on, it was not another colony and the Alteans all knew it.

This wall?  Is a War Memorial honoring warriors who the Alteans think are probably dead. 

 5.  Romelle’s Story:  The Communicator

When Bandor is chosen, he is portrayed as giving Romelle a communicator to try and stay in touch with her. 

This, despite his being portrayed by her as someone who deeply believed in the importance of not compromising the location of each colony through stray communications that could be picked up and tracked.  He is portrayed as explaining to Romelle, in such a ways that impies he has explained it to her time and again, why it was so very important that there be no communication.  He seems to understand and believe that it could be life and death.  But he creates one anyway?  

And then, he doesn’t think to give it to her until he is about to board the ship, in front of the guards:

Look at this picture above.  If you zoom in, everyone is looking at them and watching.

This whole part of the story is flat out ridiculous, and makes zero sense. There is no logic to this chain of events or his giving her the thing only at that very moment and not before testing just in case or something.  

It is a lie on the level a six year old might tell.  It shouldn’t even be considered as more than that.  And it is here, I think, that we fly into the realm of pure fantasy. Everything up till now was probably half-truths and misdirection.  From here on out though, her story really starts to fall apart and it is very likely we are seeing total and full fabrication.

 6. Romelle’s Story: The Dome

We know Romelle never gets chosen for the second Colony, or at least she never states that she does. Her never being chosen for the second colony wouldn’t be something to hide, it could totally benefit her story.  It would also help to explain why they didn’t try to warn anyone or stop the testing once they found the moon base – a fact that no one questioned, which itself is suspicious.  But she implies by her story that she remains at home, among her people, all alone and depressed because now she has no family.  

So she is supposedly still at the original colony when Bandor finally does contact her.   He has crashed by the woods.  She goes to him and what does she see?

The roof of the Dome. Which we have already established does not exist on the First Colony.  So, where is she?  Why is she now in this Dome?

What happened in the intervening time that she is not telling us, and is this story about Bandor crashing and the communicator even true?  Or are we now in fully manipulative fantasy?

There appear to be no other people in the Dome at all.  At least neither Keith nor Krolia relate having seen even one single person to corroborate her story.  No other Alteans on this original Colony she is supposed to still be on, which is where Keith and Krolia supposedly find her, and where she states very clearly in the beginning of her story that there are thousands of living, healthy Alteans.Why did Keith and Krolia not see one other person? 

Why does Romelle know about a flight bay on the outside of the Dome such that she can take Keith and Krolia to it, but they are supposed to be on an open planet?

When Romelle shows them to said pod, she actually says that “No one else here would know how to fly them if they wanted to”.  She represents in this line, once again, that this is the First Colony and there are other people here.  So where are they?

 7.  The Moon Base

Let’s begin with a question I asked at the beginning.

Why, when they were coming in to the planet, did Krolia see  

no quintessence signal at all

 from that moon base?  

These supposed people are supposedly being harvested – and Keith uses the active verb. 

These people

Are.  Not. Dead

.

The signal of Quintessence from a place so full of so many people, and the energy being harvested from them, not to mention the pods of Quintessence being harvested off in a storage room somewhere, being collected and stored for pickup, would have logically dwarfed the signal coming from Romelle and her little Dome.  They would have ended up here first, not at the Dome.

Even when they finally get there, at first Krolia only says she sees something down on the moon, not that she is getting any kind of Quintessence signal there.

Why?  Because there isn’t any.

The pods and the people are a mirage, created by them and for them; woven out of their own pre-existing prejudice and hate, and so very easy for them to believe.

Lotor never was portrayed as taking so very many people at once.  For that many people to still be alive and being drained on that station, almost every single Altean would have to still be alive and being used. ��

A key thing Lotor has been portrayed as is not wasteful. Realistically, and if this were true, Alteans would have died of age.  Some even may have died from the process itself.  

Why would you keep a dead body in a pod like that for generations, and just build another?  

You wouldn’t.  You would dispose of the corpse and reuse the pod.

There wouldn’t be so very many of them if what Keith and Krolia saw was real, and was what they thought.

Let’s get a look at the pods, btw.  They are very reminiscent of Earth Batteries or Quintessence Capsules themselves, aren’t they?  Why do you think that is?  Perhaps because they are being manufactured from the thoughts and imaginings of Keith and Krolia?

Here is what real Galra Pod Tech looks like – this is the most recent example, but we HAVE seen it before in earlier seasons.  I am just too lazy to go and find it.

Lotor is a Prince, with access to resources and a scientist who designs and creates his own tech advances, ships and fleets.  To top that he has access to all of the best and latest technology in the empire.   

Does this really look anything like real, known and hi-tech Galra technology, except in a passing, functional way?

And why, after they have seen this and come to the conclusions they have, if the colony is right there and they have not only the proof but are themselves outsiders, giving them credibility….  WHY do Keith and Krolia – both Altruistic heroic do-gooders – not go and try to warn the rest of the Colony?  Get them to stop participating or submitting to the tests?

Again, that makes no sense at all according to their personalities.  Instead, they run headlong back to Allura to blow the whistle on evil, evil Lotor. No stops, no questions, no thought about the others still at risk.  

Also, no proof aside from this one little girl and her story, which without other evidence amounts to nothing more than Heresay.  No pictures, no video and no attempt to grab a jar of Quintessence to prove their case.

We find out in S7, that Keith at least sent a message to Kolivan and asked him to send a squad out there.  But what did Kolivan’s team find?

Nothing.  The place was empty.  “Cleaned out”.  And judging by the lighting when they got there, it was already probably empty and shut down.  They just imagined the pods.  How else would it be empty?  It’s not like Lotor had any time to clear it.  Neither did Honerva, if Kolivan acted right away – and honestly, Kolivan would have acted as fast as he could.

Speaking of Honerva:

 8.  On the Castle of Lions

Honerva is watching through Mommy Cam Kuron.  Nowhere in this episode is she at all surprised or disturbed to see another living Altean.

We find out later when she speaks to Lotor that she is aware that he has continued her work and succeeded where she could not.  That work was partly involving Alteans, but I will get to what that means later and probably in a different post.

So she is aware that Alteans exist, but she is still not at all surprised to see Romelle there in the castle.  At all.  As if it is part of her plan.  Could Romelle be in league with Honerva?  A part of a plan?

OR, thanks to the Blade being compromised by the alliance with Lotor – which Keith points out in S7 – Honerva found out about the investigation into the Quintessence early on into the new Alliance and traced the path herself.  She has access to all databases and resources in the Empire, after all, and we do not know what she was doing for a looong time while a lot of other things were going down in S5 and S6.

Kolivan and the blade, despite their own resources, were having trouble tracing the source and route of the quintessence.  Perhaps what they did find was carefully fed to them when Honerva was ready for them. When both she and Romelle were prepared.

And let’s talk a moment about how not one of the members of the team, including both Hunk and Kuron – both great voices of calm and reason for the team – questioned any of the discrepancies of the story I mentioned above, or Keith and Krolia’s actions, lack of corroboration and lack of trying to help the surviving colonists.  

They have started to build a relationship with the Galra, learn their culture and working hard for peace for months and months.  They were all starting to get to know and like Lotor even.  They know the careful balance going on right now in the empire.  And then one girl shows up with an MIA team member and has an uncorroborated story, and starts ordering people to shoot Lotor down, not caring that Allura is there too.  Even after she is told that Allura is there she doesn’t care.

Her story starts preying on emotion and projecting her own obvious desire to see him dead.  And the team members all get very emotional and ready for violence as well, as if the last several months never happened.  Their reasoning starts to slip, they don’t question or think out what they’re being told, not even the ones that normally do that no matter what.

And then we have this foreshadowing from waaaay near the beginning of the show:

Keith is still a hothead in many ways.  And he was too impatient to get Lotor to be focused against mind control.

He shows up on the Castle ready to rush into the rift and attack.  Even after hearing that Allura would be caught in the crossfire he presses to try and do just that and has to be bitchslapped by Lance.

The sheer venom and anger in all of the Paladins’ responses once Romelle is done with her story is off the scale.  Especially Hunk and Shiro.  Shiro’s tone when he says once Lotor and Allura land they will separate them and “Take Lotor down!” is a tone I have never once heard from him in the entire series.  It’s sheer rage fueled bloodlust.  This is not any of them.  This is them being manipulated.

A brief thought about S7…  Never mind that Romelle’s Altean frankly sucks, and she seems able to read Hunk’s mind – convenient that.  How about Romelle identifying Lotor’s fleet by sight?  When did she ever see enough of that, while living isolated on the colony, to know his ships by sight?

 SO. Who or what is Romelle?

Well, we have seen how characters are reworked from the original.  And there is one major character from the original we still haven’t seen.

Merla.

It makes no sense to bring in a new character now.  But merging her with another character already brought in, one who disliked and enjoyed thwarting Lotor as much as the original Romelle did?  That is not only possible, it is plausible, considering many of the character merges and re-works the VLD Team has already done throughout the series.

Merla is telepathic, but more, she can control people.  Partly via telepathy, but most often she uses the trope known as Emotion Bomb:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EmotionBomb

It is so much easier to control people through emotions and insecurities they already have.  And by the behavior of the Paladins that day? That is exactly what was happening. Not one of them acted rationally or completely within the current development of their character to Romelle and her appearance/story.  Not even Keith and Krolia did when they found her, as pointed out earlier.

They are all being manipulated and at least mostly, lied to. They are pawns and Romelle a tool to get Lotor out of their Alliance and out of his safe space with Voltron.  This is why Honerva was not surprised about Romelle being there on the ship.  This is how Honerva knew about the Alteans and the research when she finally got Lotor back onto her ship to try and talk to him.

Honerva is back to herself and she wants to get back to her people, probably to lead them.  She wants her son back now that she has herself again too.  To get even a chance at that she needs to get him away from his safe and stabilizing place with the Voltron Coalition.  She wants his Sincline ship, so she wouldn’t need Voltron anymore.  She certainly wouldn’t want him cozying up to Alfor’s Daughter.

Honerva has put a nice chess game onto the table, getting Romelle on her side, manipulating the Paladins, and forcing the breach in the budding New Empire and Alliance.  

Romelle is pissed, perhaps understandably, and has a bone to pick.  She may have been exiled to that planetoid by her people and Lotor, for starting shit on the Colony, and found there by Honerva, or she may have been set up there by Honerva.  In the end the result is the same.  Perfect tool.

Because Lotor had not been harvesting Alteans all this time.  Romelle, as he said in the episode, was not telling the truth and did not know what she spoke of.  What would be the point of that, there is no research in that, only death.  No, he has been developing fighters like the one we saw in the end of S7.  Fighters that fuse Altean Alchemic Magic and fighting skill from the pilot, allowing the pilot to see and experience straight through the ship’s sensors, and powering the ship through their own Quintessence – very like the Lions only more.  (My thanks to Crystal Rebellion who helped me develop this base idea with this meta.  There will be more to come on this.)

The special Alteans who went with him from the colony were test pilots, heroes to their people, to help ensure their survival.  A new protective military force.  .  

Test pilots have a dangerous job, one that is known to lead to death.  And who knows, maybe some Galra had snooped around at times. Regardless, that memorial to fallen warriors was just exactly that, and all the Altean people knew exactly what they were volunteering for.  

Even Lotor said a few were martyred for an important cause to save the future for thousands.  One cannot become a martyr unless everyone knows what they did and why.

Lotor is their greatest Hero and Savior.  And now his Mother is likely there – having forsaken the Druids – and has given the Colony a story of betrayal, and the Komar to perfect their fighters.  Perhaps a wounded and/or Comatose Lotor is with her if she managed to pull him out of the rift first.  But regardless, the Alteans are not friends to Allura, Voltron or the Coalition.  They are going to see Allura and the Paladins as enemies, who betrayed and hurt their leader and protector.

That fighter was not a part of Sendak’s fleet, she was a forward thrust.  A shot across the Paladin’s bow.  The Alteans will be hunting Voltron.

I’ll leave you with a parting thought.

The writers also said in the end, we would look back and see that Lotor was never lying.  And that he came from a genuine place, though he never had the tools and choices the rest of the Paladins were given in their upbringings and lives.  And lastly, that his feelings for Allura were indeed genuine.

I am working on a meta for Lotor.  I’ll get there soon.

My thanks again to everyone on the Lotura Discord.  You are all amazing, wonderful people and I am lucky to have met you and to be able to discuss ideas with you.

Thanks to Crystal Rebellion for helping me last minute find links at 2 AM so I can get a bit of sleep before work

And thanks to the love of my life for putting up with me being tied up so late tonight. 

Without your support I can do so little.

[rwdestuffs]

Done dirty: Worldbuilding.

Not pictured: Actual worldbuilding.

In all honesty, I don’t know how to start this post.

Yeah, I have the image that’s there to help inform people about the subject at hand, but it’s hard to do a post about something that’s practically nonexistent.

Like, doing a post about how Yang got mistreated in certain volumes, and not getting development from facing the stigma from her Vytal Festival incident is one thing. So is pointing out how Sun is literally just there to be eye candy for Blake’s arc with little to no development to his character whatsoever. Same with how Pyrrha is just a prop for Jaune and a plot device to set off Ruby’s plot device. Same for the grimm in general, or dust.

Talking about writing concepts is hard because it has to be there for a person to talk about. Most mediums that take place in fictional worlds at least understand how to properly world-build.

There’s a show from the 80s that had better worldbuilding in it. And that show has a half-naked superhero cheap action figure as their main protector from an ineffective villain who needs a friend so that he could feel good about himself!

Joking aside, other worlds also have very little issue with worldbuilding. Like the Legend of Zelda games. Thanks to interaction with NPCs, the bits of lore that are scattered around, and the ways that it’s made, you can get a good idea as to how the world works. Hell! There are different species, and they all have different cultures and societies that are unique to them!

Zoras are prideful and are often talented musicians. They pride themselves on their sense of duty and order.

Gorons are prideful of their strength. They feed off of rocks, and they greatly enjoy competitions that show off their strength.

Gerudos are terretorial, and don’t like strangers. They’re a warrior race, and are proud of it. They only have one male child every hundred years.

This is from a Video Game. Admittedly, a Video Game with over twenty-five years of history and other mediums, but still! They managed to have distinct races and cultures despite their limited medium.

Look, the primary reason I’m avoiding the subject is because… there’s is no subject. There’s hardly any worldbuilding, and whenever there is, it’s often contradicted in a later episode, or through the director’s commentary. The same could be said about character traits, but I think I’ve covered that pretty well in other Done dirty posts.

Take the thing about gods, for instance. Qrow says, in the same scene I might add, this:

Which is it, Qrow?- Are people not religious, or have they made gods of their own?- Like… You have literal relics from the past that definitively proves one single religion. Sure, you’d have a few holdouts, but still!

Now that I think about it, uniting under a single religion would probably be enough for dickhead god 1 and ass-face god 2 to say “Yeah, humanity’s united. Okay, you’re all good.”

But we don’t get that.

Even in Marvel, where a literal Norse God regularly visits New York, there are a few skeptics. Here’s an article that details that storyline: https://arousinggrammar.com/2013/02/19/life-questions-with-thor/

Like… All I’m saying is that when you place something extraordinary into the real world, people tend to take the effort into thinking how society would adapt to it. Some people would adapt by thinking nothing is wrong at all, some would adapt by obsessing over it, some would make statues, some would resent the extraordinary, and so on. There are also ways in which the government could adapt. Like in the X-Men series, where the subject of mutant rights is often brought up so often, that you kinda want to see how other countries are handling it (Sidenote: Someone send this idea to Marvel so that the aren’t recycling and reusing the same storyline over and over and over again).

And if it doesn’t have that big of an impact on the ‘real world’ then they tend to find a way to showcase why. In Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Stands are invisible to normal people, so there is no reason for society to have adapted to their presence. In American Dragon Jake Long, the magical world is kept secret, so there’s no reason for there to be big societal adaptations for their presence. Same thing with the show The Life and Times of Juniper Lee (Does anyone remember these shows?- They were pretty good). And when the “fantastical world” does get exposed, like in X-Men or in Danny Phantom, there are societal adaptations. People and society adapt to what is new and not normal. It’s ultimately an interesting way to create a world based on the real world, but still feels separate from ours.

So yet again, we circle around to how the show fails at this. We don’t get the little interactions that make it easier to understand the world. We don’t get the moments that detail how dust changed society. The faunus racism is hardly a thing, and we don’t know if there are clothes specifically designed with faunus traits in mind. There are no societal protections against the grimm like walls around the cities or more emphasis on the importance of Hunters. Apparently the maidens have been around for a long-ass time, but there’s no recorded history of them despite the selection process being random at certain times.

Like, what?- Was there never news about sweet young Olive suddenly summoning the winds without dust or aura consumption?

And speaking of aura, does that cut down on accidents or murders?- What about semblances?- do they cut down on death caused by accidents or murders?- Do they contribute? We don’t know. And that’s because the writers didn’t want to create a. fantastical world that makes sense. They just wanted to get their characters from point a, to point b, and have a few fights along the way to build up tension that ultimately goes nowhere because the fights have no real stakes to them. Because the heroes always win. The only times they didn’t was the fight where Yang’s trauma got fixed the moment she put on her arm and the one where Qrow’s poisoning got fixed thanks to a Deus-Ex-Machina airship to Mistral.

Without stakes, the viewer is left to try to make sense of the world. Which they can’t do because there’s hardly any worldbuilding at all.

We know jack shit about Vale culture or how the society works, and what we do know came from Qrow’s biased review on the continent in the WoR video. Same with Atlas, Mistral, Vacuo, and even Menagerie.

No worldbuilding. Just a travel pamphlet.

And I don’t want no stinkin’ pamphlet. I want a freaking book or website that details all the attractions, and the history of the place. What the people are like. What are the main means of trade. All the things that you could get out of good worldbuilding.

If I can’t have that, then at least build the actual overall world of Remnant. Like how dust effects society and makes it different from ours.

But we also don’t get that.

We get just some generic talks about how “Jaune used to go to a certain town with his family” or Generic backstory about the village that Ren’s family was slaughtered in.

Nothing special. Nothing to make me actually care about the towns.

Just some generic stuff that is never brought up again.

And I for one, am really sick of the world not actually feeling like a world.

I’m not asking for worldbuilding or made-up cultures on the level of Star Trek, but I am asking for is a bit of effort so that it doesn’t feel like the bare minimum was put into it.

[rainbow-squirrels-7]

!!ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD!! Since I did it last year with Infinity War and now that I’ve seen Endgame twice here are my ramblings:

But before we begin apparently I accidentally predicted Endgame’s title during my IW ramblings and then completely forgot about it...

-so like that friggin beginning tho poor Clint like the entire movie. Agreeing with a favorite YouTube movie reviewer of mine, this was really Clint’s shining movie despite his uh- downward turn for a bit there -but on the bright side I’m glad his older kids’ names are canon now; like legit I thought those (Cooper and Lila) were made up by the fanfictioneers. Maybe they were and the writers were like ‘huh okay less work for us- yoink’ -then Nebula and Stark playing table football that was adorable. The shiny paper reminded me of that one Chris Hemsworth gif you know the one of him making a face at his reflection? -and heck yes Carol coming in hot to save the day what a legend -woohoo go get Thanos time -and he’s just in a frickin farm in a T-shirt (a T-SHIRT?!?) collecting some fruits and starting a new YouTube cooking channel -“what’s up half of the universe today we’re making weird bumpy fruit stew” -but heck yeah Thor cut off that guy’s head -and then just like whoa five years later. I usually can’t stand time jumps but it’s alright. It really gives a perspective of ‘yeah the world isn’t better with half its population. Everyone’s so sad’ -good job of Steve starting a therapy group tho even if he doesn’t take his own advice -I can’t believe a rat saved Scott talk about lucky -unless that rat was actually Loki -just sayin -and the bike kid: “wouldn’t you like to know weatherboy” -I forget how old Cassie was in Antman and the Wasp but +5 years to that I guess. She looks a bit too old to me but what do I know. I’m very glad she didn’t disappear though cuz I love Scott very much and I don’t want him to go through that -tbh Scott saved everyone cuz he had the time travel idea in the first place. I love an optimistic boy -UHBUHH I HAVENT TALKED ABOUT CAROL’S HAIRCUT YET UM HECK YEAH -it’s very good I’m very gay -anyway -I liked Nebula’s prominence in this movie she’s growing on me but of course it doesn’t take a lot on account of me loving robots (cyborgs?) so much -getting the band back together! -baby Morgan Stark/Potts was Very Good -ohmygod Thor -so chub -I was annoyed being without beefy Thor the first time, but rewatching it though I thought his Look was maybe not only reflecting his depression (cuz yeah) but maybe mythological Thor? Like I’m just throwing spaghetti at the wall but maybe in actual Norse myth Thor was (well, actually a redhead) that chub/beef combo but he did have the fluffier beard that MCU Thor had this time. Idk, like I said- spaghetti -Valkyrie’s back! Love her -they call her that though? Isn’t that what she is- like her job? Does she not have a name? Could have sworn it was Brunhilda or something -and Korg and the sharp bug guy are back too! Love them -friggin playing Fortnite -jokes aside though I do love that deep look into Thor’s guilt throughout the whole movie. Like he thought killing Thanos would just make everything better but it didn’t and just couldn’t deal and would rather drink to forget -Clint’s guilt was also interesting, like showing that ‘oh god he could really go there, he could get this bad given the circumstance’ -just Blade Runner-ing all around Tokyo -I haven’t seen Blade Runner but it has neon lights and rain right? -but yeah I do like the “the Snap took away good people and bad people but like it could have just took bad people and since it didn’t I’ll have to instead” -sad boy -he was very uh ‘Magnus rushes in’ if you will, during this movie. Not caring for a lot of it if he lived or died cuz he’d lost so much -god he was good in this movie -anyway -I also called the time travel:

-it still doesn’t completely make sense to me though? Like time travel is confusing enough but adding in a multiverse just makes it even more so -I loved the revisiting the old movies! -low key wanted an Age of Ultron revisit so we could have OMG we could have seen Pietro again -still on the #bringbackpietromaximoff train guys -but anyway we could have seen some good Wanda scenes and also my boy Vision again -but it did make more sense to get the three in NY at the same time -it was real cool to see the bald wizard lady (Minerva from TAZ Amnesty) defending the wizard building during 2012 Avengers- like that is so believable and now we can watch 2012 Avengers and be like “oh hey the wizards were there” -“that is America’s a**” I love how much Scott hero-worships Steve like we saw that in Civil War and yes it’s so funny and I love it its great -Steve vs Steve fight?? Great -“I can do this all day.” “Yeah yeah I know.” -And again, we can totally watch 2012 Avengers again and be like ‘yes meeting with Secretary Pierce and the other Shield guys- this is totally believable, it’s exactly what would have happened we just didn’t see it.’ -the elevator scene! I thought for sure Steve was gonna do the “now before we begin does anyone want to get out” but the “hail hydra” was just as good -“they’re hydra but we don’t know that yet” “they Look like bad guys!!” -and I guess Loki using the Tesseract to escape during that scene is setup for a... tv show? He’s gonna be wreaking havoc through time and space I guess?? Glad he’s back though -anyway revisiting more movies -friggin Guardians 1 -Quill singing Come and Get Your Love really badly cuz all we heard was the actual song and OhmyGOD that was hilarious -I’m glad Rhodey and Nebula got on a team cuz they can be prosthetic buddies -but did Nebula just not tell Clint and Nat that one of them would have to die for the Soul Stone? Or did they know and just not wanna talk about it till it came up? -TBH I though the ‘lose someone you love for the stone’ requirement would have been filled by both Clint and Nat already cuz Clint could have been like “um my dude do you even know how much I’ve lost already??” -apparently not though -Nat’s hair was great for the time travel parts I liked the red fade to white -though it was a sad and intense moment with Clint and Nat deciding who of them had to die it was also sweet cuz you can see how much they care for each other -and I was- well not glad but I really wanted Clint to see his family again -not that The Avengers weren’t his family -that friggin line “did she have family?” “Yeah. Us.” GOD -and then there’s that whole rigamarole with double Nebulas and oh Gamora’s back too -again time travel/the whole multiverse thing apparently doesn’t make sense to me so I’m just gonna gloss over it as much as I can until I can get more into it later -anyway the other time travel to the 1950s! -cool callback to Winter Soldier like you could see Zola going into the bunker -like So many people were there at the Camp Lehigh (idk if that’s how it’s spelled) like Everybody was there -good good moments with Tony and his dad -I thought it would have been cool for Tony to have given his dad the inspiration for his own name but oh well. Maybe that wouldn’t have even worked with time travel and all -Steve’s prank call to Hank Pym that was funny “um the box is glowing” -but oh geez the scene where Steve finds Peggy oh god when he goes in the room with her name on the door my roommate and I were watching it together the first time I saw it and both of us went “ohhhhhhh oh nooooooo” -cuz like that’s the first time he’s seen her since he went in the ice! Or at least seen her how he remembers and not old in Civil War hhhhhhhh GOD -I think seeing her there was a factor in his decision later but I’ll get to that later this is a long heck movie -oh and the OG human Jarvis showed up! I like him, I only saw season 1 of Peggy’s show but I remember liking him a lot -but yeah back to the present unless- well I’m sure I missed something -OH FRICK THOR’S BIT -I can’t Believe they went back to The Dark World -tbh I actually like The Dark World I think it’s a good movie but it’s not universally liked -callback to the scene with Loki tossing the cup in the air ahaha that one was always good -so if they had Rocket’s pokey device during that movie the whole plot of that movie could have been avoided? -anyway um Frigga?? What a queen. Literally -I loved “I was raised by witches I can see with more than my eyes” -she’s really what Thor needed there but god the “she dies today” poor boy -she’s so good though -I loved that ‘measure of a hero is being who you are not who you’re supposed to be’ Yes -and the “I’m still worthy!!!!” Thor needed a win -“eat a salad!” -Now back to the present -Stark-Tech can apparently channel Infinity Stones? And doesn’t need a special heart of a dying star and giant dwarfs to forge a special gauntlet um okay -“what do I have flowing through my veins right now?” “Cheese whiz?” -Bruce is so good though so strong I loved the “I was made for this” -so sweet when Laura called Clint! Yes! Everyone’s really back! -and double Nebula just Had to ruin everything tho -before I get into the final battle- I wonder how much of the time travel scenes were reused from old footage and how much was reshoots with the same actors/costumes/sets? -anyway -um rude blowing up the compound -and god the water scenes were so stressful the first time. Water/specifically-about-to-drown scenes always freak me out. Also trapped under ice and squished under something scenes -Clint finding the gauntlet and getting away from Thanos’ cronies! Every time anyone was running with the gauntlet all I could think of was that one goof from TAZ Balance in Petals to the Metal- Taako’s “Grab the Gauntlet and don’t look back” friggin

-also when Steve, Thor, and Tony all go to confront Thanos who is waiting for them, there’s a specific song playing in the background: https://youtu.be/H_9mnO_NOjk?t=120 (it starts at around 2:00) and you’ll hear this series of deep bell sounds? For the life of me- that specific sound sounds SO FAMILIAR and I can’t friggin place it. I can’t decide if it just reminds me of the Wind Dance song that plays in TAZ Balance whenever the Hunger shows up (which is fitting tbh)? Or if it sounds like some boss battle music that I can’t place? Maybe from Pokémon or Mystery Dungeon? I just can’t remember. It sounds real cool tho -but uh yeah UM -STEVE!! WORTHY!!!! -I mean we all be knowing but! -such a cool scene. I started clapping the first time I watched and others in the theatre joined in -not as cool as when Vision lifted the hammer but I’m biased -but things look dark at this point and I can’t remember if it’s at this part or one one next but there’s this real cool wide shot, this real nice tableau of Steve on a hill or something and this light behind him as he faces Thanos’ army and yeah it just looks real good. Like a good computer background I’d like to have or a poster -but yeah then! -“ON YOUR LEFT!” -Yay!!! Portals open and ‘oh yeah! Everyone’s back now! We have friends to help us fight!’ -gave me some good TAZ Balance episode 68 vibes. Could have called for a cool Lup-esque speech tho from Steve since he’s so good at that- “You see this? This is scary. But we can do this.” -EXCEPT -now we reach the part of my rambling where it turns into somewhat of a rant -because I’M annoyed but only for a specific reason that won’t affect the average moviegoer since Apparently not everyone’s a fan... -cuz Literally the only person who doesn’t show up -is my boy Vision -I mean Yes -I Know he was one of the people who died before Thanos snapped -but my hopes were Way Way Up that he’d come back somehow -and UHHH APPARENTLY I WILL JUST HAVE TO BE DISAPPOINTED -everyone Else came back??? Why not my boy?? -he wasn’t even mentioned despite being So Important in IW -except vaguely when Wanda pulled a real Taako in Balance episode 67 “You f**king took everything from me!!!” -she could have took out Thanos on her own for sure like he had to call in the big guns just to stop her from doing just that -strongest Avenger heck yeah -and Carol came too! -friggin Star Wars Episode 8-ing up in here shooting through Thanos’ spaceship that was So Cool -and the Girl Squad! Girl Squad! part!!!! Yes!!!!! So good!!! Protec small Peter! -somewhere, Nat smiled -Spider-Man’s instakill that was great -I loved the ‘pass the gauntlet’ part though -when Clint handed it off to T’Challa, T’Challa called his name and that was good cuz callback to Civil War when Clint said “we haven’t met yet. I’m Clint.” And T’Challa was like “I don’t care”. He does care now! Lol! -Carol just friggin Beast mode Thanos can’t even touch her he had to pluck the Power Stone from the gauntlet to even knock her back! We stan! A legend! -and oof Tony to Stephen Strange “14 million and one we win? Is this it?” “If I tell you it won’t be” -cuz oof -it really was a good ending for Tony though -he started it all way friggin back in 2008 -and the “I am Iron Man” Yes -and also I think it was in Age of Ultron that part when Tony was talking to Fury and it was like “I saw them all dead and that wasn’t even the worst of it” “the worst was that you didn’t” -so it’s very fitting and so so good -lining up with and going against Howard’s earlier “the greater good rarely outweighed my personal interest” and proving that Tony really was so heroic -so like it’s sad but it’s fitting and not like an unsatisfying end for his character -and it’s not like he won’t be friggin mentioned ever again or anything he’s friggin Iron Man he’s already in the new Spider-Man trailer -(no shade at all in the ‘not begin mentioned at all’ category...) -anyway oh wait -oh god Peter Parker tear my heart out again sad boy he’s so good at making us sad when he’s sad about Tony -yeah anyway again -loved the “proof that Tony Stark has a heart” disc from the first movie that was good -oh and so like the camera is moving through all the different groups of people on the dock and moving towards the house -(just an interlude but CAROL IN A SUIT UM YES) -there’s a shot of some random kid! And I didn’t know who it was until I was leaving the theatre and another guy heard me and my dad talking and he told us! It’s the kid from Iron Man 3! Now That was a nice throwback -but yeah then it gets into the I guess TAZ Balance Rebuilding Year-esque scenes -which were all Very good! Good family scenes; Hope and Scott and Cassie, and T’Challa and Shuri and their mom, and that scene with Wanda and Clint was very good BUT -would it have been So Hard to do just a small scene of maybe somewhere in Wakanda like Shuri helping to rebuild Vision with all that vibranium while Wanda was there watching? Maybe even from his old body?? Would that have been so hard?? Just Something to give me hope?? -why are all these movies So Against Wanda being happy??? -but yeah almost to the end -more time travel with Steve going to return the stones! I’m glad Sam and Bucky got more lines I love them both -but what I really loved was that Steve got his Magnus ending -not in a “how does Magnus die” way but a “how does Steve live” way -love me a good happy ending esp if it involves dancing like that’s All he wanted -like I said earlier, I think just seeing Peggy again was enough for Steve to be like ‘oh it doesn’t matter if I can’t live without war action (a la what Ultron said in AoU) i do really want that life with Peggy and I can do that now’ -it was just Good -but it does raise a few time travel questions -like if Our Steve went back to the 1940s (he did go to the 40s right?) does that mean that there’s another Steve still stuck in the ice? I would say there can only be one Steve at a time but that was proven wrong in the very same movie. There’s gonna be something to do with multiverse in the next Spider-Man which will of course just make everything all the more confusing but still... I guess if I don’t think about it too much it’s not such a big deal -it was also very fitting that there weren’t any after credits scenes. It reminded me of the end of TAZ Balance with the announcer (Junior) not announcing the final episode since he said in 68 that we’d have to see what happens in the last one together. Idk but I liked that -and I liked the signatures of all the OG avengers! That was like them signing off on this huge thing they did, which is really what happened! This huge friggin 12 year thing! -wait was that what the 12 meant all along?? The 12%, the 12 minuets? We may never know -but anyway back to the most important part to me -my boy Vision

-I was so naive  

-like I’ve been told there’s gonna be a tv show or something but like -come on -you could have given me Something -I feel like Griffin in the Fallout 4 Monster Factory after Roachie despawned “nothing?!? You leave me nothing!?!” -so like all in all it was a good movie a Really Good movie I liked it a lot -that Time Heist- I love time travel plots. I already had some of my next DND campaign planned with time travel being a big part- I hope my players don’t think I’m stealing lol -it was very enjoyable and so so good to wrap up this huge thing and put a bow on this story arc. Which I guess can open the door for experimentation now? Which would be kinda cool -Scarlet Witch movie maybe and my dreams can come true??? I can be happy??? Please -I just- one little scene could have left me less disappointed and given me just a little hope but anyone who’s not in the ScarletVision boat will not be disappointed by this movie (cuz the deaths [Tony and Nat] are heroic and satisfying to me, so I’m not not satisfied by that) -it wasn’t Their movie but still. Let me complain -It really was really good though -And I guess I only get motivated to write fanfic like once a year (or whenever new ScarletVision content is in a movie though um the Vision part of that was uh nonexistent) so like my Complements fanfic is in the process of growing a fourth part so look out for that I guess -and if you’re still here reader, I hope you enjoyed my long long ramblings

-and in conclusion:

[fullmetalirin]

Fullmetal Alchemist OG vs. Brotherhood: Return to Resembool (OG 17, BH 06)

Resembool breather episode.

Fullmetal Alchemist Episode 17: "House of the Waiting Family"

The Elrics and Armstrong all return to Resembool, meeting up with Pinako, who agrees to repair Ed in three days time. While the Elrics recuperate, Armstrong assists Winry and Pinako in work. The Elrics later reminisce about their childhood while at their mother's tombstone. Al seems to worry about having fading memories, but Armstrong breaks the tension. A few days later, receiving his replacement arm and leg, Ed uses his alchemy to rebuild Al's armored body from the shattered remains. Afterwards, the brothers and Armstrong head back to Central to find Marcoh's research.

We open with Pinako staring into the sky.

Ed says he hasn't been back to Resembool since he left. How'd he get new limbs, then? He's clearly grown since he was 12, and his automail leg is longer since the flashback. Did Winry keep hopping over to Central to make him new limbs?

Winry is not wearing goggles while she works.

Pinako calls Ed short, and we have the same insult-fu scene from BH 02. Way more appropriate here.

Armstrong is hilarious.

Winry throws a wrench at Ed, similarly to the scene where he transmutes his automail in BH 02.

Al gets cartoon face when being admonished by Winry.

There's a flashback to 03 when Ed visits the grave, but his line about bringing Trisha back is different. I hate when shows do that.

Trisha's epitaph is illegible.

Winry nerds out over Ed's watch. When he refuses to give it to her, she tries flirting with Armstrong, who immediately runs away. LOL.

Armstrong breaks the door when he barges in.

Ed calls Winry an automail nerd, and she calls him a transmutation nerd as payback.

Ed has to be sat down on a bed to ride out the pain of the reattachment.

Winry brings up the possibility of the automail stunting Ed's growth, and says she made the new ones lighter to help.

Armstrong's bishie sparkles fall down when Ed isn't impressed by him. LOL.

Al says it "feels great" when the armor is fixed. I thought he couldn't feel anything?

Ed and Al spar again once they're fixed. Winry realizes the Ed left his watch inside. Hohoho.

When Winry opens the watch, she sees the inscription. I think this is the first time we've seen it in OG.

FMA Brotherhood Episode 6: "Road of Hope"

While Armstrong escorts Edward and Alphonse back to Resembool by train, he spots a man named Tim Marcoh, the "Crystal Alchemist", at a nearby stop. He explains that Marcoh was a state alchemist and doctor during the Ishval civil war, and conducted research on biological alchemy before disappearing at the end of the war. They talk to Marcoh and learn that he was researching the philosopher's stone but only succeeded in creating an incomplete version. At first refusing to share his knowledge with Edward, Marcoh eventually provides a clue to the location of his research data. After they reach Resembool, Winry Rockbell and her grandmother Pinako Rockbell start working on Edward's automail. After receiving his replacement arm and leg, Edward uses his alchemy to rebuild Alphonse's suit of armor from the shattered remains. Afterwards, the Elric brothers, along with Armstrong, head back to Central to look for Marcoh's research.

We open with Hughes seeing them off on the train. We cover why Armstrong is escorting them as protection, but nothing else from OG 16 – no bit with Scar finding out where they're going, no mention that they think Scar was Nina's killer, no "excuse the left-hand salute" line; and while we get the same bit with Ed taking offense at being called a child, we don't get Al saying he appreciates it. Ed also behaves much more normally, with no indication that he's depressed or affected by what he learned last episode.

Armstrong shouts out Marcoh's name in a public train station for everyone to hear, because he's an idiot.

We learn more explicitly that Marcoh was studying healing alchemy. Boy, he sure must feel like an idiot in this continuity where their next-door neighbors already had that figured out for centuries.

Armstrong doesn't seem to know what happened to Marcoh after the war. So Mustang didn't tell him?

Ed only wants to find him because he thinks he could know a way to restore their bodies.

Oh my god Armstrong is showing sketches of Marcoh to everyone in the city. Because it's not like there's a terrifying military dictatorship after him or anything.

The scene where they meet Marcoh plays out similarly, but it's played for comedy, with Marcoh actually firing but Ed dodging out of the way with a cartoony expression. Wow. Wow. A traumatized enabler of war crimes is so terrified of the idea the fascist finally found him he's desperate enough to shoot children? What a barrel of laughs!

And Armstrong convinces him to stand down by crushing him with a suit of armor, which is of course framed for comedy. What is tone.

Maybe it's just a translation difference, but Marcoh doesn't mention wanting to take his own life, just that "I could give my whole life and still not atone". That's a lot weaker.

Armstrong doesn't know what Marcoh was researching? WTF?

Marcoh shows them the Stone instead of Ed having to find it.

Ed pokes it, and we see that it's gel-like.

Marcoh says it's awful that Ed's a State Alchemist knowing what they did in the Ishbalan war. Ed says he knows but he has to do it anyway. He makes a really fancy metaphor.

Marcoh is impressed Ed transmuted Al's soul. So I guess that's a thing in the manga as well.

Marcoh just gives them an ominous warning about the research and throws them out. We get a similar thing where Ed says he knows he could have taken it, but he wants to do the right thing and not deprive the town of Marcoh's help. I dunno, this just feels token to me here. I liked how Ed admitted his younger self definitely would have taken the Stone in OG, and the fact that we directly see Marcoh helping the people makes Ed's decision feel more real. Show, don't tell.

Marcoh gives them directions to his library outright, and says he hopes not only that they'll figure out the truth but that they'll get their bodies back. Uh, so he hopes they'll use his research to kill a ton of people. Why. I also don't see why he can't just tell Ed everything now, when he's not under duress. This is like the worst of all possible worlds for this – not only does he have no reason to fear his research will be either destroyed or exploited and therefore no reason to tell anyone, he also has no reason to not spill all the beans if that's what he really wants.

Lust is waiting for Marcoh when he comes back. So I guess the torture's going to happen to him here too. How did she find him, though? I guess she was spying on Ed? Not like they were making a secret of it, so it wouldn't be hard.

Pinako calls Ed a "regular customer", so Ed probably did visit in this continuity.

There's a funny bit where Pinako says Ed's grown smaller. It's actually pretty good, I'm sad we didn't get it in OG.

Same bit with Winry hitting him with the wrench.

They show Winry the smashed automail and she freaks out. Slapstick where she punches Ed for wrecking it. She kicks Al too.

They explicitly show him attaching the spare, and there's a bit where he initially has trouble finding his balance. Nice detail.

No scene where Al convinces Ed to visit the grave, we just cut to him doing it.

The townspeople don't talk to Ed, just wave.

Pinako explains more about her relationship to the Elrics. Hoenheim was her drinking buddy, apparently.

Pinako tells Armstrong about Winry's parents' deaths and they commiserate over the evils of war.

This is where we learn the Elrics burned down their house. Pinako explains their reasoning, which I think is weaker than hearing it from their own mouths.

We get more shots of Winry working on the automail. Ed keeps harassing her and asking when it will be done.

Reattachment is only momentarily painful, and played for laughs.

Similar bit where Winry explains the new automail is weaker, but it's cut off. She just says she added more chrome to prevent rusting, nothing about the growth-stunting and all that.

Al's repair is a lot choppier.

They reuse the animation of Pinako blowing smoke a lot.

The brothers don't spar with Armstrong.

Winry reflects on how awful it is someone as young as Ed will be a weapon in the military.

Nothing about the watch.

Conclusion

I actually like the second half of the Brotherhood episode! The pacing feels fine, for once. Spending a whole episode on the Rockbell interlude maybe was a bit too much. OG could have easily merged 16 and 17 and probably come out the better for it. We miss out on a few things, but we gain a few other things too, and Brotherhood's additional comedy and lightheartedness is, for once, totally at home with this breather sequence. I feel like they're both viable alternatives with their own strengths, rather than any one being definitively better.

But the Marcoh side of things is absolutely awful. OG actually engaged with the horror implied by Marcoh being so desperate not to return. Marcoh was fully integrated into the narrative, not just a convenient plot device to be stumbled across. It took its own premise seriously. Brotherhood did not.

What I take away from this is that Brotherhood is perfectly capable of making a good breather episode when it wants to, and is maybe even better at it than OG, but it doesn’t understand how to do serious plots at all. It's really a shame it doesn't seem to understand where its strengths lie, and keeps rushing through the breather sections to spend more time on action. It's honestly kind of sad, like it doesn't trust its audience to stick with it through slow bits. Although, given that's the most common complaint about OG, perhaps it's justified.

[criimsonsun-a]

godverse masterpost.

Time to consolidate all that pesky information.

Where is the old world?

Destroyed. The matter was taken and reformed into a replica. Since he made it, Cyrus controls everything on it. It took a while to find the exact composition of the atmosphere, of weather patterns and the like, but it is now nearly identical to the old Earth.

The regions all exist as they did.

Do beings feel pain in his new world?

Suffering and strife are non-existent, so no, there is no pain there. It’s very bleak since not much feeling of anything is going on. But in that, there is also perfection, for there is peace.

What goes on in the places of worship?

They’re a quiet place, full of an air of holiness and solitude. One main temple exists in each ‘city’ and they are all pretty uniform.

For most, they step in, spend a few minutes in thought with Cyrus, and exit to continue their day. I’d suppose songs and music and the like are performed as well, but not very loudly. It’s tranquil. Any questions asked of him must be done there, as it is a direct link to his mind and the easiest way for him to hear them.

Offerings can be left as well! I’m sure there’s an altar of sorts for him, and he visits daily to observe his gifts and bless as necessary. He has no distinct favorite ‘offerings’ as he is more fond of the praise and attention that comes with the job. Though, he does not mind if the results of hard work are left in his temples. As one who sacrificed many things to achieve his ambition, he looks fondly on things that people give up for him. It is his right after all. 

Who’s in the new world pantheon? Are the rest of his pantheon known of and/or worshipped too?

For one, most definitely the COMMANDERS. Whether they are recreated or brought over is another thing, but some semblance of them is present in the new world. They perform various tasks as Cyrus asks, and exist outside the time bubble with him. This can be verse specific, as several muns and I have discussed having their muses brought into the pantheon as well. It takes heavy plotting.

Anyone else he establishes in an elevated position is worshipped to a lesser degree. The people know they are not above him, yet that they see over different aspects of his world. They are left to their own devices in terms of favorite worship and such, so long as it follows the rules of his world.

So is Cyrus at that level of power where Paradoxes occur (google the epicurean paradox), how are those reconciled?

Cyrus definitely has power, but not to the point where he creates his own paradox. To take that example, he cannot create a rock he cannot lift because he certainly cannot do everything. The only thing really separating him from the creation is that he has a spirit. Take the Christian God– he is separated from mankind because he is Holy and has no sin. Cyrus has a distinction in him similar, but his is being that he has a spirit that he can control. The world responds to him because he made it, and he can shape it and play with it as he will, but he cannot outdo himself.

Cyrus also exists in an area outside of ‘time’ so that he remains essentially immortal. Time exists on the Earth as it has before, and his creation lives inside of it. It’s like a bubble, and he views it but is not affected by it. He is not all present but lives with the people day by day without being affected. Almost as if the clock stopped for him alone, and he still goes through day/night, seasons, so on and so forth.

What about the people? Do the people of Cyrus' world still hold occupations to continue the illusion of normalcy? Are there any that are essentially obsolete? If not, what does the average citizen spend time doing?

—The new world runs very much like the old. People are born, grow, work, go to school, die, and so on. Jobs such as law enforcement, running prisons, judicial/legislative occupations, and the like exist but serve no purpose, only to make the world function in some semblance of old normalcy. Any ‘dispute’ is brought to his temple, and he solves it himself. This consists of anytime something in the world ‘glitches’ and requires a fix.

Therefore, the citizen lives just as they always have! They do not realize they are just playing pieces on the board now.

Only a few tweaks are made to their function. Born without spirit. This is to imply they have no willpower, emotion, or ‘knowledge’ (of their bleak existence). As Arceus made the lake trio to embody those integral parts of the human ‘spirit’ they are all removed from Cyrus’ world. The people do not know emotion, which is hard to describe. They…react to things because they are made to do so. Example: something ‘good’ happens, they smile. Not because they’re happy, but because that’s how the reaction would be in Cyrus’ eyes.

So what about the Pokemon?

Pokemon very much exist! They are separated from mankind and exist in the wild, not interacting much outside of farms and the like. The only exception to this is Cyrus, as he has since released his Pokemon, but since they are from the old world they dwell with him. Their breeds are considered holy in the world and are revered by the people. All Pokemon do not have spirit either but do behave as is due to their natural order. They all respect and understand Cyrus as their creator.

The legendary Pokemon no longer have their status, though Cyrus draws on their power and makes it his own as he keeps them under his control. This is why he can create life (via Xerneas power) or change seasons. 

If Cyrus is in control of everything, how much free will is there? Would he have to oversee all the choices, actions, etc of the people? Who is out, who is in? 

There is, essentially, no free will. The people do not know this. The entire world is run like a program. Now, say we have a person. She has a LOT of built-in commands, and also a randomizer option. Cyrus knows every possible combination it can make but allows it to run on its own. One day, the program says ‘wake up, eat, work, sleep.’ The next, she does not sleep, offers a sacrifice, has work off, and watches TV. They think they make their own decisions, but Cyrus in fact still controls it all. Does that make sense?

Nothing can occur outside of the limits he set. Any situation where an outsider gets tossed in ESSENTIALLY makes them just as much of a god as he because they also have free will since they are not of his creation.

There is no ‘afterlife’ or making it right with him since they all operate to his standard of perfection already. After death, their matter is utilized as stars, and the same matter is reused in birth. They are all complete, and Cyrus is satisfied with them.

Wherein lies his weakness?

Cyrus could potentially lose control if the Red Chains were destroyed. This is nigh impossible in the new world, but if it were to occur, he’d no longer have the power he secured over time and space. Everything would collapse. Another possibility is a newcomer rewriting the world so that he had no power. 

[qqueenofhades]

What's been your favorite moment of Outlander this season? Are you enjoying the portrayals of the new characters? What are you most looking forward to? (I've read the books, so don't worry about anything spoiling me)

Ack okay. SO MUCH. SO MUCH.

I can’t even decide on a favorite moment, because as ever, it’s just so good. I had to watch the premiere twice, though, because of how much it was to take in and my Emotions over it. They’re so good at these little emotional daggers, like in 3x03 (I think?) where Claire comes to bed and says good night to Frank, and then with the pan out you see they’re sleeping separately… ooof. I was like, well, that was very effective. The way they made me feel so bad for Claire and Frank and half-wanting them to work out and having empathy for both of them (which I did to some degree in the books, but he definitely comes off more jerkish there and I like that they humanized him a bit more in the show). I think the trick is to keep the audience invested (even knowing a reunion is coming) with your main couple apart for the first third of the season, and they pulled off the “separate lives” section really well, imho. They got in just enough from the book without overloading on it, and hitting the important notes. We really get a sense of those twenty years apart for both Jamie and Claire (and I’m an angst whore, so…) Also I just love the switch between the 1960s and the 1740s-50s-60s, each time period has its own feeling and design and the way they cut back and forth in it and discuss history and how it’s made and that as a whole background and so forth deeply appeals to my little historinerd heart.

Brianna is still a little hit or miss for me; she has moments where she works, and moments where she doesn’t. I’m not sure if it’s the writing or the actress (I think probably the latter). I’m coming around on her, and I like that they’ve devoted all this extra time to establishing Claire’s conflicted feelings over leaving her and the gravity of that situation. But yeah, she’s occasionally the weak link. Not noticeably, and she and Roger are cute (I awww’ed over the Christmas Carol scene), but also we’re probably moving away from them for the time being if we’re mostly following Voyager canon.

John Grey, I have many feelings about, as was to be expected (me: slightly disappointed they cut the Jamie/John kiss, but maybe we get it when they see each other again in the Indies). I also like how they dealt with the Helwater plot. I love the books, but Gabaldon is preeeeettty fond of rape as a plot device (among other things) and the Jamie/Geneva scene is a little squicky there, so I don’t blame them for changing the dynamic around (obviously she blackmails him into it both times, which is its own thing, but yeah – anyway, nobody watches this show expecting it to be Unproblematic). I like how both Geneva and Isobel got their own moments/sympathetic lines and we were able to empathize with both of them, and they weren’t just cardboard-cutout female characters to appear and disappear in Jamie’s plotline. And the Jamie/Willie scenes gave me more feelings, as was also to be expected.

I also think they are setting up Murtagh to take over as Duncan/marry Jocasta, since obviously he was supposed to die at Culloden in the book. Which makes sense to me, so hey, more Murtagh.

I’m so excited for things to really kick into gear though. I am Excite for adult Fergus and Marsali, Young Ian, and the sailing to the Indies (since as noted by my current long fic projects, the 18th century Caribbean is my Jam right now and it will all just be aesthetic as fuck; plus I think they reused the ships from Black Sails, since it’s also a Starz production, and this likewise give me feelings). I am also curious how they will handle the whole Laoghaire thing, and if they are going to bring Roger and Bree back into this before season 4 somehow. 

Overall, I just really appreciate how it’s by and large a very faithful adaptation of the book, while condensing/changing things just enough to make it not quite a carbon copy, doing more with the TV show medium/characters in places, and being aware of some of the issues with the source material (speaking of which, let’s cross our fingers for how they handle Brianna’s future plotline, if you know what I mean) and tweaking those accordingly. The production design is great and it all just feels so lavish and carefully thought through, as well as being the anti-GOT in its female-gazeness for the sex scenes. I just really appreciate that.

In short, this is me after every episode:

[countlessstorieswithoutend]

So, I’m going to disclaim that there is no Kingdom Hearts game I don’t like, I’m not trying to make fun of people for liking any of the games, but you have to admit that Kingdom Hearts is hardly the most difficult thing to poke fun at.

...Especially given I heard that Nomura came up with the idea for Coded while he was drunk, and after hearing that I really couldn't resist, and one thing lead to another, and...

Well, here’s my idea of drunk Nomura.

Nomura: Dude, dude. It's about Sora.

Exec: ok, I expected that.

Nomura: ...Only not Sora.

Exec: Huh? You mean like Roxas?

Nomura: No, no, he looks the same, and acts mostly the same.

Exec: So how is he any different?

Nomura: ...He doesn't have Sora's memories.

Exec: *Braces himself for another convoluted plot device* You mean amnesia?

Nomura: No, but like if he were inside a computer.

Exec: ...Didn't we do that in Kingdom Hearts 2?

Nomura: No man, it'll be different, because he is like a...Data Sora.

Exec: Data?

Nomura: Yeah, like he's a program.

Exec: Um...why?

Nomura: It'd be so cool man! Like one of those video games!

Exec: *Losing hope*...you mean like all the other games?

Nomura: Yeah, but even MORE like that!

Exec:...

Nomura: And he goes through a bunch of worlds!

Exec: *Rallying* Yes, of course. Did you have a couple new worlds planned?

Nomura: They're all new!

Exec: What!? Sir, that's not going to be a simple task-

Nomura: Don't worry about it! because we can still use the assets from the older worlds.

Exec:...How?

Nomura: Well you see, they'll all look the same as the worlds from the first two games. And they'll hit a lot of the same story beats too. And have the same characters, and the same music-

Exec: Sir, how is that any different? We've already gotten some heat for using Agrabah three times-

Nomura: No, no! This time it'll be different!

Exec:...How?

Nomura: Because they'll be data worlds!

Exec: *Facepalms*

Nomura: Just wait till you see it, it'll be great, I have it all planned out-

Exec: Sir...what distinguishes the data worlds from the normal ones?

Nomura: None of our worlds are normal, man. They've got a big blue genie, and a talking rabbit in fancy clothes, and-

Exec: Yes, I know! *Tries to recompose himself* But...what is unique about the data worlds?

Nomura: Well, since it's a computer it can get bugged.

Exec: Bugged?

Nomura: Yeah, like start malfunctioning all over the place. Big hassle. Man, I remember when we were trying to program in the Bahamut summon, and there were so many details to render, and we had to program in how every part of the model would interact with the environment, and it kept clipping into the walls...it was a disaster. Had to cut it in the end.

Exec: You're going to give the fans a game with glitches in it?

Nomura: Not like, actual glitches, man! In-universe glitches!

Exec: *Considers*

...well, that could actually be pretty interesting, like if we created enemies that could cause Sora-

Nomura: Data Sora.

Exec: DATA Sora to experience different kinds of glitches. Like the screen could get varying degrees of messed up, or the controls could be altered at points, or the models start to alter...at some points we could maybe even do really weird stuff, like have him glitch through the floor and fall into a different area-

Nomura: Whoa, slow down, that's not what I meant at all.

Exec: Oh? What did you mean?

Nomura: I mean we're gonna put in blocks.

Exec: Blocks?

Nomura: Yeah. Bug blocks.

Exec: And what are these supposed to be?

Nomura: Blocks that are physical manifestations of the bugs in the computer.

Exec:...Anything else?

Nomura: Nah. Just blocks.

Exec:...just...blocks.

Nomura: Now you're getting it!

Exec:...but there are so many possibilities here, we could do a lot of different and interesting things with this concept-

Nomura: Look, man, are you trying to work the programmers to death? There's only so much they can fit on a cell phone.

Exec: A cell phone?!

Nomura: Yeah, cell phone game. Haven't done one of those yet, seemed like a good time. Oh, I'm so excited to play around with another system-

Exec: This is 2007! We can't possibly put a full Kingdom Hearts game on a cell phone!

Nomura: Oy. That's why I said we'd reuse the old worlds. Makes it easier.

Exec: Oh...I suppose that does make some level of sense.

Nomura: I have this all planned out man. I don't see why you're doubting me.

Exec: But...still, the fans might not be satisfied if there isn't even one world that's different from the ones in the previous games. Do you think somehow, we could...

Nomura: Oh, it's ok, I have ways of spicing this thing up.

Exec:...go on.

Nomura: There will also be a Data Riku!

Exec:...

Nomura: And a Data Roxas, and Maleficent and Pete are gonna get involved, and Sora's heartless is gonna come back and be a big enemy, and in the end the whole thing will have been planned out by Data Namine in order to prepare Sora for future events, which will lead right into the NEXT game, where-

Exec: OK, OK, stop. I think I understand now, I'll just approve your plan, and let you get to work.

Nomura: Thanks, man!

Exec: *Muttering* Why do I put up with this...

Nomura: Because you love me. Everyone does.

[blademaster-banryu]

Thoughts on Shadows of Valentia so far

If anyone cares! (spoilers under the cut just in case, everything else SHOULD be safe)

Gameplay is fun, but battles get a bit repetitive after a while since the mechanics are pretty simplified and straightforward.

On the flipside, dungeons are pretty fun to explore and haven’t found them to be too annoying with enemy encounters and such. I really like the 3D exploration aspect of this and hope they do something like that for villages and such in future FE games (something like that would have been really neat in Fates’ My Castle IMO). Speaking of villages...

FINALLY, GOOD WORLDBUILDING. Seriously, this was something I was SORELY missing in Fates and Awakening, and the village exploration aspect of this game does an excellent job of making the world feel real and alive, and the hardships befalling the land to feel impactful and palpable. Just having village NPCs who tell you about the world and react to current events makes a huge difference IMO and I hope this is something they reuse in other games whenever possible. 

The mystery of ‘WTF happened to Mila’ is a great point of mystery and plot tension if you haven’t played Gaiden (as was the case with me)-- made all the more real by all the people who you can see being affected by it, and it made me really interested in pursuing Celica’s story further as a result. I WANTED to know what was the deal with Mila and spent a lot more time on Celica’s route so far as a result. Alm’s story isn’t bad at all either, but it’s hard to get as invested in it as I was with Celica, despite being pretty indifferent to the character herself.

A lot of people are probably sad about the much more limited supports, but if it lets them focus on the story on the worldbuilding, I’m okay with this change of pace. Some games should have the focus be on the story, and I think it’s impossible to deny that so much time dedicated to writing supports negatively impacts the story by extension. 

The voice acting is really good, okay. Like... so far no one is annoying or terrible by virtue of their voice, and most of them are quite well-acted! Full voice for everything was a really good idea IMO. When I heard the voices in Awakening, I said they should go all the way with it or not bother, and I’m glad they’ve decided to go this route.

Alm might be kinda standard as far as protags go, but I like him! His VA work and occasional sarcasm helps, I think. His army on the whole isn’t that interesting to me, although I like the dynamic with him and the villagers (except Faye who I still don’t like lol)

Clair and Luthier: They are great. I really like them hehe. Def favorites on Alm’s side and possibly in the whole game so far (incidentally after discovering I liked Clair, we’ve pulled 3 of them in FE Heroes lmao)

Celica’s army is the reverse situation of Alm’s: I like pretty much all of them, but Celica herself is a little boring and standard to me. Having so many mages all hanging out is fun, though!

Sonya feels like a more successful example of what Camilla should have been: being a sexy character (without going overboard) whose primary defining characteristic isn’t just being sexy.

OVERALL, I REALLY LIKE IT SO FAR. HOPE THEY MIX IN SOME OF THESE IDEAS WITH TRADITIONAL STUFF IN FUTRE FE GAMES! 

And now spoilers below: 

It’s always distracting when you have children who are written like tiny adults, with emotional understanding and ability to think of things that no child their age has any right to be doing lol. 

The drama between Alm and Celica when they reunite for the first time feels pretty... manufactured. Like... basically, Celica is yelling at Alm for doing exactly the same thing that SHE’S been doing-- putting herself at risk to stick up for the little people-- with the only difference being that Alm is doing it on a larger scale. Instead, it makes Celica’s sudden pacifistic attitude seem really hypocritical, since her actions in the plot and gameplay don’t line up with it (and later we even find out that Alm was in the right and Celica needs to fight against the empire too, since they’re responsible for the reason she set out). I guess you could say something about her being a teenager and being worried and emotional/irrational when it comes to Alm’s safety, but mostly it just feels like a forced plot device to keep the two armies from joining up with each other just yet. Only real problem I’ve had with the story so far.

Having to choose between Deen and Sonya sucks T3T THEY’RE BOTH COOL I WANT THEM BOTH, WHY YOU GOTTA MAKE ME KILL DEEN UGH I’M MAD