#i think the second one has much more interesting visual storytelling

[heydragonfly]

alright i know lots of folks don’t love the chaos redesign and some folks are saying they look like meg which like i get, esp with the singular wing but to me? they look like Nyx. they look like they molded their new appearance in the image of their daughter, who they’ve recently reconnected with after aeons of separation. like they have not just emotionally become more the parent of Nyx, but physically mirrored this parenthood, this embodied connection, by choice

(this relationship which they’ve now lost, leaving them alone, again)

(until a certain princess of the dead arrives)

[saintofdaggers]

movie recs for Saw fans

Saw is a really unique franchise, for better or for worse, so finding movies with a similar aesthetic, theme or storytelling style is hard unless you're willing to dig into the really cheap ripoffs. well, I've been collecting movies that kind of helped the Saw craving, and here's my totally subjective rec list you can use as a reference point if you want to

The Collector and The Collection by Marcus Dunstan: these were written and directed by the guys who wrote Saw IV and beyond, so you're in good (?) hands here. the visuals and traps are distinctly Saw, and the second movie is giving Saw 3D if that movie drank a bunch of Red Bulls. make of that sentence what you will

Hard by John Huckert: an obscure thriller where a closeted detective has a cat and mouse pursuit with a serial killer targeting young gay men. very grimy, unflinchingly bleak and nihilistic. WARNING: this movie goes to some extremely unpleasant and upsetting places, so watch at your own risk

Pig by Rozz Williams: an art house short film where a guy in a pig mask tortures a young man in a desert. and that's it. this is pretty dreamlike and surreal and doesn't have much narrative substance, but I find it interesting to contemplate and it made me flinch more than a few times

Mindhunters: a bunch of FBI profilers in training get trapped on an empty island with a serial killer. this movie is completely ridiculous, but it gets pretty fun once the hilariously elaborate cartoon deaths start happening

X-Cross: Japanese action horror that's basically Fatal Frame doing Saw. weird editing, nonlinear storytelling, cool women, very ugly color grading. also a leg-cutting murder cult. hell yeah

Se7en by David Fincher: investigation, obsession, a dark urban environment, a serial killer with a weird method. it's considered a classic for a reason

the Broken short film by Nine Inch Nails: this is a music video that feels like a snuff film. it's disgusting, brutal, made me feel gross, and I gave it 5 stars on Letterboxd

Cure by Kiyoshi Kurosawa: think Se7en, but even colder and more mysterious.

Haze by Shinya Tsukamoto: this is one of the most claustrophobic things ever put to film. has some completely unbearable sound effects, but it's Shinya Tsukamoto, so that's kind of a given

Like Minds: an unhinged weird thriller about a psychologist trying to untangle the mystery of a high school boy's murder. very homoerotic, very weirdly structured and not exactly well-written, but the unreliable narrator gives a lot of food for thought

The Vanishing (Spoorloos): a man gets obsessed with finding his girlfriend, who disappeared mysteriously on a trip. this is one of the most chilling movies I've ever seen, with a genuinely terrifying character and an ending that took me days to get over

Cube: a bunch of strangers get mysteriously stuck in a labyrinthine structure full of lethal traps. it really gives Saw II but with a nice little sci-fi twist

Hostel and Hostel Part II: as an Eastern European, I fucking loathe Hostel and think it's very ignorant and xenophobic. however, the comparisons to Saw are pretty much inevitable, so watch it if you want and form your own conclusions (I haven't seen the second one, but I've heard it's quite good if you're into this vibe)

feel free to add your own recs to this post!

[graysoncritic]

A (Negative) Review of Tom Taylor's Nightwing Run - Conclusion

Introduction Who is Dick Grayson? What Went Wrong? Dick's Characterization What Went Wrong? Barbara Gordon What Went Wrong? Bludhaven (Part 1, Part 2) What Went Wrong? Melinda Lin Grayson What Went Wrong? Bea Bennett What Went Wrong? Villains Conclusion Bibliography

Though it may not appear so given the length of this essay, I did try to be fair to Taylor and Redondo. I focused my criticism on Taylor because my knowledge of written storytelling far exceeds my knowledge of visual storytelling, especially when it comes to sequential art. As such, I did not think it was my place to criticize something that I did not feel entirely comfortable addressing.

As I implied in the introduction, this essay was both an intellectual exercise and a cathartic one. Much of the information in it were reworded discussions I had with other Dick Grayson fans throughout the past couple of years. I must also thank them for allowing me to quote them when appropriate, as none of this would have been possible without their contribution. The essay itself was written in the time span of months, and sometimes I went weeks without even opening the document, only doing so again when a new issue came out and I wanted to vent.

As I worked on this, I was able to articulate a frustration that has been building up inside of me and, I know, many Dick Grayson fans for years. These frustrations are not exclusive to Taylor's writing. Rather, Taylor’s writing is but the most obvious and prominent example of said problem, with new and old symptoms drawing glaring attention to themselves on a monthly basis. The real problem behind all of these grievances and, quite frankly, the hurt Dick Grayson fans feel at the moment is rooted in the fact that DC Comics as a whole seems determined to undermine, if not completely erase, the importance of this amazing character.

There are other ways in which this can be observed. One of the Dick Grayson fans I know has been collecting examples of this erasure that span decades. I, myself, have thoughts on the motivations behind these actions and how they are reflective of a societal dislike for those who are othered, and especially those who challenge patriarchal ideals, the gender binary, and heteronormative culture. 

Perhaps one day I will address those subjects. Or perhaps not. As cathartic as writing this was, I do want to write more about the things I love rather than the things I hate. But I also believe it is important to express dissatisfaction when experienced, to vent when required, and to critique when necessary.

If you stuck around this far, then I do not believe that this needs stating, but just in case, I must assert that I reject any claims that comics should not be analyzed in this much depth. I do not, for a second, believe that comics are above serious criticism simply due to their format or their content. Comics, like every form of storytelling, are worthy of being examined and dissected. They are a part of our culture. They are literature and as such, they deserve to be studied. 

This essay explored Taylor’s current, ongoing run of Nightwing. I believe it proved not only its failure as a good story, but also as a good Nightwing story. Taylor’s superficial characterization, weak plot, and simplistic morality that undermines the story’s stated themes, demonstrate that Taylor does not care about Dick Grayson. He does not see Dick as a character worthy of his care and attention. At the very best Taylor lacks the knowledge to understand Dick. At the very best, Taylor has no interest in getting to know him, nor any respect for his predecessors to learn how they handled Dick and incorporating their work into his continuity. At worst, he despises the character so much that he wishes to re-invent him into something different, tossing away everything that was special to his fans in order to bring in a new crowd that never cared about Dick Grayson before he was made palatable to them. 

And that attitude is not isolated to Taylor. It is, I believe, observable throughout much of DC. Not all current writers, editors, and artists are like this, of course, but for years — decades, actually — there have been attempts to erase Dick’s importance to certain characters, to replace him, to downplay his achievements and his uniqueness in order to prop up others, and to water him down until he becomes but a shadow of who he was. Sometimes, it feels like DC is trying to kill Dick Grayson, remove his parts and give to other characters. This character gets his unique relationship with Bruce. This character gets to keep Dick’s relevance to Robin. These characters can have Bludhaven. For how long, I must wonder, do Dick Grayson fans have to put up with this silently? Must we just quietly watch this continue until Dick is all hollowed out and is only a memory living in the hearts of those who love him? 

Because we do love him. We love him for all the special characteristics that made him different, that did not make him into a blank canvas, an every-man hero. I do not hate Taylor personally, but I believe that his clear disinterest in Nightwing is not an isolated case, and that DC, at this moment in time, is unwilling to engage with Dick’s character and his fans. They want a brand new and palatable hero to step into his place, not the long standing bastion who has been around longer than most of DC’s characters. They don’t want Dick Grayson. They do not respect or care for him. And as such, I believe Dick’s fans have a right to be angry and to feel like DC does not care or respect them. 

I do not know how long these attempts at erasing Dick will last. I do not know how long-lasting the effects of Taylor’s run will be. But trends come and go, and Dick has been around for nearly a century. He’s a strong enough character to survive this long, and I believe, despite previous and current attempts, that he will survive this as well.

And as he does, I will be there, cheering him on. 

[mysticdragon3md3]

Maybe this was in the online digital Nimona artbook before it went offline, but I didn't pay attention to the costume design rules for all the people in the Kingdom, until this video "Visual Storytelling: The Production Design of 'Nimona'" by Gnomon (from which I screencapped all these pics).

It's interesting to consider how these clothing design rules symbolized Ballister's and Ambrosius's positions in society, but also might have reflected bits of their personalities.

"So we first approached it by a very anthropological approach, where we sat down and said, "if this world was to actually evolve in a closed setting, behind these walls, from the medieval, in this kind of fear-based world, how would society evolve from the medieval rules? And how would that work?" So we researched the medieval rules and found that there was the distinction between, you know, nobility and citizenry, and then non-citizens. And so that was a good place to start for us, to say of "How do we organize this massive pool and system of crowd characters? but in a---in a getable way, that also relates to our story and expresses this world that we're doing?""

The Institute:

Nobility:

"So we broke we broke it down into contemporary, um, a contemporary ideology, where our main---our nobility was much more based on, um you know, haute couture rules, where we were---they were simple. They were bold. They were evolution of the kind of royal colors and sumptuary laws that the medieval had, but in a modern, in a modern take."

Citizens:

"Same with the citizens, where we leaned more into broader scope, where we needed to have the ability to have business wear, and athleisure, and, um you know, the color palettes that would be associated. …The range of body types that you would need, and…the range of races and ethnicities."

The Magicals:

Interesting thing about The Magicals, is this note "NO blue or neutral grey (due to the Institute's persecution, magicals have refused to wear Institute colors)."

Ballister's regular clothes seem to be the same color palette as The Magicals. Given the order of these slides, The Magicals seem to be the lowest rank in the Kingdom's society. Previous concept art showed that the Nimona 2023 movie originally would have portrayed a secret society of people with magical powers like Nimona. I assume these costume design rules were for them, though they got cut from the final movie. It seems appropriate that though Ballister has no magical powers, he is dressed in the colors of the Kingdom's lowest societal rank. But as anyone who has drawn him has noticed, the pendant on his shirt is blue. The one color which The Magicals do not wear, because it is the color of The Institute. Ballister is a commoner trying to become a Knight of the Institute, so it makes sense for him. And though Ballister's clothes could maybe be considered shades of gray (as per The Institute), they have the same dark values of The Magicals and are actually more of the "earthy" tones, noted in The Magicals' palettes. Ballister does not wear the light, almost silver, grays of The Institute. But he does wear a blue pendant. And though his pants have a thin golden stripe running down the sides, which is another color emblematic of The Institute, on second look, it is less gold, and more of a light tan, another earthy color. Almost makes me think that after the end of the movie, maybe he should change his blue pendant to purple, since these design instructions for The Magicals also note "One subtle purple item on each magical as a symbol of resistance and solidarity". (It explains the shade of purple in Nimona's skirt.)

Interesting to look at Ambrosius's outfit, while considering these design instructions. Ambrosius does not wear the "bold" colors or high amount of patterns prescribed for Nobility. Instead, he wears white and a dark shade of blue, with mostly solid, non-patterned clothes, as prescribed for The Institute. He is their symbol, through and through. Except for one point: his hoodie's secondary color of tan. Not only is tan an earthy tone, like The Magicals, the lowest societal rank in the Kingdom, but is takes up a noticeable amount of space in his outfit. It is almost like his one little piece of rebellion against his birth position and the expectations of society for him to represent The Institute and Nobility. It may be his one expression of who he is as a person, rather than the expectations placed onto him. It's kind of interesting that they let him get away with that. Maybe he had to fight for it. Maybe it makes him feel closer to Bal. Maybe he likes the distance it puts between him and the Institute. Maybe he didn't get brave enough to start wearing such colors until after he met Bal. (Now I'm getting into headcanon territory.)

Medievals:

This was explained as the costume design instructions for the flashback characters from 1,000 years ago.

[seraphjewel]

Star Trek Prodigy Season 2 thoughts

This show is everything I love about Star Trek. It may be produced by Nickelodeon, but it doesn't dumb anything down just because it's "for kids." I love how none of the main characters are humans, which not only takes advantage of being animated to give us cool alien designs, but also acts as a great visual for Starfleet's ideals. It's visually stunning and the writing is superb. It gives a season-spanning story while also making time for those wacky space shenanigans we expect from the franchise. It's funny, it's creative, it's heartfelt, it's emotionally powerful. The season finales for both the first and second season had me in tears.

Aside from adding to the chorus begging people to watch season 2, I'm just going to share some thoughts on this season. I tried so hard to watch it slowly but it's easy to binge. I'm now watching through it a second time. Cut for spoilers.

As a fan of the older Trek shows, I love how much the show clearly loves older Trek. We saw it a lot in season one, but since season 2 has the legacy characters in more prominent focus, it's more obvious. They are written with such loving care, every part of who they are is nailed down perfectly. There are so many callbacks and references and small touches that are scattered in the dialogue and visuals. Amazing Easter Eggs for Trek enthusiasts-- and another reason to go back and watch, to find ones you didn't notice!

This season made me much more interested in Chakotay and Wesley as characters. I was pretty ambivalent toward them both when watching their respective shows. I didn't find Wesley annoying, I just didn't care for him one way or the other. So having him return as this slightly unhinged Time Lord made him so much more appealing to me as a character. The fact that he was willing to go to some extreme lengths in order to get the timeline just right was some fun gray morality. I also liked that he seemed like he wasn't always sure when he was in the timeline. It reminded me of Mantis in the Guardians of the Galaxy game. And that made perfect sense coming from someone who could jump through multiple timelines just through thought. Wesley was complex, intriguing, and I'm so glad for him and his actor. He deserved it.

In a similar vein, Chakotay was one of the least interesting Voyager crew members to me. This isn't necessarily his fault. He was going up against some pretty big personalities, like the Doctor, Tom, B'Elanna, Seven, and Janeway. I also don't think the writers really knew what to do with his character. But again Prodigy wrote in some depth and complexity. They actually identified what tribe he was from. Watching the episode where the Protostar crew finds him made me want to write fanfic about Chakotay. That's how good they were at making this guy interesting for me! I loved seeing his slow descent into isolation and bitterness; I loved how almost insecure he was at times; I loved how he took command and led the crew. I'm a fan now and I want to go back to watch Voyager for him.

The season also made me a Janeway/Chakotay shipper. I saw the episodes in Voyager where they were feeling things, but personally I'm glad that they never crossed that line. There are way too many stories with female leads that act like they have an obligation to give her a romance, when the same would not be true if the lead was a male. In my opinion, it was better there was no definite love story for Janeway on Voyager since that was going against expectations. As Prodigy season two told its story, I was definitely picking up on strong love vibes between Chakotay and Janeway. I was convinced they were separated lovers, and when they were together they couldn't keep their eyes or hands off each other. It was excellent visual storytelling. I wanted them to be together at the end. For someone who didn't ship them before (I was more into Tom/B'Elanna), I'd say that's a big achievement for the show.

To sum up, I love this show so much! My only request is they try to incorporate Deep Space Nine somehow. #SetCoordinatesforSeason3

[tatasoom]

I'm here today for a special preview analysis in TWO PARTS.

Here in the first part we will talk about the most speculative theory mostly based on nothing lol

In the second part you will discover that P'Aof loves an airport scene so much that gonna give us TWO OF THEM.

Enjoy!

A CRAZY THEORY BASED ON THE PREVIEW (OR NOTHING)

Yeah, I don't think predictions makes much sense now, but some viewers in the comments on YouTube (and also I) noticed a really strange thing in the preview for the last episode. Let's take a look.

Mhok is in the airport and see Day, probably two or three years later (I took this time information from a "novel" and it seems logical due to Day's graduation we see in the preview).

The last shot is already one of my favourite, Jimmy's acting (shock - hope - pain) and the angle, ugh!.. Well, let's talk about Day in this scene.

We see him on an escalator with a bag only and then walking freely... I believe he's a talented boy, but do you believe blind person can walk like this without a stick or a dog?.. I see sometimes visually impaired people in the metro and they're really good at navigating without any help, but they always have the stick! Actually Day also has one!

And that's how we're coming to the first part of the theory:

In this upcoming scene Day is not blind anymore.

Okay, we assume he can see and then the question is why he shows no interest in Mhok.

When I suddenly met my ex three years later after an extremely dramatic relationships and devastating break up, he stopped in the center of the metro station crowd and trust me we both looked more like Mhok, than like Day!

Some viewers think that Day just can't recognize Mhok, because they met each other after Day's vision had lowered to 20%. However we not only saw him looking at Mhok from that one palm distance, but also having photos of Mhok! Don't you think after a successful surgery Day must want to check out what a person he loved so much looks like?..

And that's how we're coming to the second part of the theory:

Day recognized Mhok, but pretends he didn't.

Yeah, I told you this theory is crazy! But listen... all previews, especially for the second part of the show, was playing with our emotions. And as we already know the episode 11 preview just showed us some moments from idk maybe the first ten minutes of the episode. I couldn't even imagine how much fluff and pain this episode actually brought us.

So no wonder this airport scene can be another moment of Day playing on Mhok's nerves (remember that beach scene with the book?) and P'Aof playing with our hearts.

That would be so f***ed up that I'm even ready to forgive them for giving Day his vision back haha

I've also read the novel ending and the series is definitely not gonna be the same, but will have some similarities. Maybe we'll see not only Day's graduation, but also his small bookstore and working process.

The most important part for me is not the circumstances of Day and Mhok's reunion, but the words about Day all that years looking for the kind of love Mhok gave him. I'm not ugly sobbing, you are.

P. S. Still processing episode 11 with a whole mountain of real life stories in my head. Trust me P'Aof is more realistic in storytelling than it seems. If you need a long post about different people I know going to the US for different reasons, also with breaking up with their lovers, just ask me haha

Thank you for reading and don't forget to check the second part!

[themattress]

So, I love the Makai Tree arc from the Sailor Moon R anime.

I love the voices for Ail (Alan) and En (Ann) in the old DiC dub.

But dear God, do I absolutely HATE how the old DiC dub butchered their conclusion.

The arc was being fairly well translated, all things considered, until we hit the last three episodes. In Episode 11, the dub script does not appear to be caught up with the visual storytelling. The episode keeps on cutting to this shot of the Makai Tree as things go wrong:

This is meant to signify that the Makai Tree, which is a tree that takes in energy and then gives it back to its children (Ail and En in this case), has been getting the wrong energy from its children and as such is giving the wrong energy back. Energy that is forcibly taken from others out of selfishness will convert into negative energy that only heightens Ail and En's bad qualities. That is why Ail and En are suddenly contemplating murdering Mamoru and Usagi respectively out of jealousy even when they hadn't ever done so in the past, and why Cardians under their control are going crazy and lashing out indiscriminately. But in the dub:

Ann: That's weird. Every time someone's nice to me, I feel so much better; I keep seeing the Doom Tree, growing strong and healthy.

OK, first off, that's not the Doom Tree. In case you didn't notice, there is a tortoise and a hare at the bottom of the screen. This whole scene is meant to be Usagi offering to help Natsumi with her schoolwork because she thinks she's ahead in their wager and she may as well be kind to her losing rival, with Natsumi thinking this is like the Earth story of the Tortoise and the Hare where the hare loses a race because of its overconfidence in beating the tortoise.

So that's the first of three problems with this scene's translation. The second problem is that Serena says that she's willing to try and get along with Ann because Alan turned out to be such a cool guy so she wants to give his sister a chance, and....huh? Serena's interactions with Alan (as are Usagi's with Seijuro) have consisted him always weirding her out with his pretentious flirtations, him being a rival to her love interest, and one of her friends losing her crush on him when she learns about his messed up views on love. So there has been nothing about him to make her think he's "such a cool guy". In the original, Usagi is willing to get along with Natsumi for the same reason she's willing to get along with Seijuro: she's kind to a fault and wants to see the best in everyone even if she quarrels with them or finds them irritating. Her entire romance with Mamoru and her friendship with Rei hinges on this quality!

Third and most importantly, turning this scene into a touchy-feely bonding moment between Serena and Ann implies Ann is improving, that she's starting to learn the error of her ways, when as I stated before it's literally the opposite: she's supposed to be getting worse. She literally attempts to kill Usagi right after this conversation, and then again in the subsequent two-part finale. So this creates a huge whiplash effect and renders things incoherent. Is the dub suggesting Alan and Ann would improve if they only stopped intaking energy at all, even when they would literally die if they did that? A point they beat into our heads repeatedly?

And then there's the finale. Beyond more mention of "the Negaverse" since DiC wants to fool people into thinking these clearly unconnected villain groups are part of a single whole, we get perhaps the most insulting, totally-missing-the-point alteration of dialogue in the series.

Here's the accurately translated Viz version.

Ail: Why did you risk your life like that? Usagi: I'm willing to risk my life…to protect anyone I truly love. (Ail is shocked). En: My, how noble of you. (En pushes Usagi backward with another blast.) En: C'mon, time to beg for help, you weak little human. Usagi: I don't care what happens to me. Just please spare Mamoru's life. En: What a stupid request to make! But if you think your own life's not precious; oh well, then. (En keeps blasting only for Mamoru to shield Usagi each time.) Ail: ….Beautiful….so very beautiful….Is this what it means to love? En: Ail? Ail: En, I see now. Love can not be forced. En: Huh? Ail: Don't you get it? Love is something that is built together….by caring for each other. En: You don't know what you're saying! Makoto: He's right! When you truly love someone, the strength of that love gives you the courage to overcome anything. (En is about to lash out again when the Moonlight Knight appears.) Moonlight Knight: All the creatures of the universe are friends. Instead of fighting against them, open up your heart to them. (En is visibly on the verge of tears). En: That's easy to say! But you could never understand all the pain that we've been through! Our pain comes from us wandering the entire universe for so long with no-one ever caring about us! Ail: En… En: We had to take whatever we could! And if we hadn't done that, we never would've survived! Moonlight Knight: Nothing good comes out of stealing. It only brings shame, heartache and hate. En: YOU SHUT UP! (En blasts the Moonlight Knight into the Makai Tree, which absorbs him and goes haywire.)

The purpose here is not only to show Ail learning the true meaning of love through introspection and showcasing how En can't do the same because she's consumed by her negative emotions built up over a long time, which is why she ends up learning through the emotional impulse of protecting Ail than from harm instead, but also to show that Ail and En are not evil. It's a point En's voice actress even made: they are misguided but not malicious at heart. They are turned evil through the bad energy from the Makai Tree, but that makes them no more culpable than Mamoru/Endymion before them or Chibiusa/Black Lady after them. That's why Usagi, Makoto and the Moonlight Knight are trying to talk sense into them.

And now here's the DiC dub.

Alan: She's even braver than I thought. Serena: You don't know what bravery is! Or friendship! All you know is EVIL! (Alan is shocked.) Ann: That's right! So glad you finally noticed! (Ann pushes Serena backward with another blast.) Ann: Renounce your love for Darien and I might spare you. Serena: No! I'll never renounce my feelings! True love can't be taken away by anyone! Ann: You're a sentimental fool but I can make you change your mind in a flash, Romeo! (Ann keeps blasting only for Darien to shield Serena each time.) Alan: I've never see anyone…so sad! Maybe…maybe this is wrong. Ann: What is? Alan: This destroying love. It's such a beautiful thing. Can't you see how they love each other? Even if she is our enemy, it'd be wrong to destroy them. Ann: You're just weak, Alan! Lita: No, you're the one who's weak! You don't have any real friends! And the only emotions you know are hatred and vengeance and jealousy! Ann: Can it! (The Moonlight Knight appears.) Moonlight Knight (asshole tone): It's a bad scene, Sailor Scouts, but nothing we can't handle! These poor misfits can be beat! (Ann is visibly on the verge of tears). Ann: Misfits!? You have no idea who you're talking to, Turban Boy! Listen! It takes more than some stupid little rose to beat the power of the Negaverse! You'll see what this misfit can do! Moonlight Knight (asshole tone): Your jealousy has blinded you, Ann! You just can't bear that Darien's dumped you! Ann: He has noooooot! (Ann blasts the Moonlight Knight into the Doom Tree, which absorbs him and goes haywire.)

WOW. So not only are Alan and Ann made out to look worse than their original counterparts with Alan's shock now coming from called nothing but evil then being half-assed with saying "maybe" what they're doing is wrong and Ann behaving nothing but evil (complete with "Negaverse" dialogue) with her sad rant about the pain and loneliness she's suffered being removed (even Ail's "En..." is just cut altogether), but Serena, Lita and the Moonlight Knight all just insult them rather than try to reach out to them. "No bravery or friendship, nothing but evil", "weak with no real friends and only knowing hatred, vengeance and jealousy", "poor misfits angry at being 'dumped' that have to be 'beat' instead of healed"....it's horrendously out-of-character for all involved and against the message of the arc and arguably the whole anime metaseries. It's like DiC took Sailor Moon's "I'll punish you!" catchphrase to the most literal extreme and made her a hero who punishes evildoers indiscriminately instead of a hero who tries to reach out and help evildoers she knows have good in them and/or are in pain like Ail/Alan and En/Ann. And much like the scene in detention, it also creates a huge whiplash when Alan and Ann end up being redeemed. The heroes tell us they're evil and weak cowards who can't feel anything positive, then they proceed to prove them spectacularly wrong and there's just no commentary on it and seemingly no awareness on how bad it makes them look. Geez, I didn't care for the Moonlight Knight to start with; now I hate him!

So thanks a lot, DiC, you fumbled the ball in the very last inning.

Buuuuut maybe I can forgive you just for this:

[duhragonball]

Dang I had a completely different experience with the last two episodes of NGE. I liked how instead of trotting out a bunch of stuff to explain things, it zeroed in on what I saw as the core of the show, which is the emotional disconnect and desire for connection the characters hold and how this has all torn them apart. I much prefer that we got a finale focused on Shinji trying to reconcile his self hatred and fear of connection and his desperate desire for acceptance and love, all of which was made more confusing and intense by his age and circumstances. Resolving that was way more important to me than explaining a bunch of hard details

I totally get what you're saying, and I will concede that EoTV 25 and 26 were more effective at getting to the bottom of Shinji's problems. EoE 25' and 26' tried to go the other direction with the story, except Shinji's still got the same problem to resolve whether it gets addressed or not. I guess that cat photo must have done the trick.

"Well, Shinji, I think the most therapeutic thing you could be doing is putting more cat food in my bowl."

The problem is that the show may be centered around Shinji, but it isn't just about Shinji. It's about his father, it's about the other Eva pilots, it's about Misato and the ultimate fate of humanity.

Like, Asuka wandered off and turned up lying naked in a bathtub in Episode 24. She's in really bad shape, and EoTV just skips right past that to deal with Shinji's damage. Really? Because I think Asuka was in a much worse place than he was at that point. At least Shinji was still walking and talking. I get that he's the main character, but you can't introduce a supporting character like Asuka and put her in that position and then drop it like it never mattered.

The thing I can't get past is that this franchise had two separate chances to put a bow on the story and it whiffed it both times. The first time was supposedly due to limited time and budget cuts, and the second time was apparently because someone broke into the studio and replace a lot of footage with film of people in a movie theater.

"We're a plot point, apparently!"

And it's treated like this is some sort of zero-sum game, like NGE could either focus on Shinji's mental health issues or wrap up the plot threads from the series, but not both at once. The thing is, most storytellers know how to pull off this kind of trick. Most of the time, the events of the story are the therapy that the character needs. Locking Shinji inside his own head seems pointless. If that's what he needed then the show could have just been about him alone in his room, processing his issues by his lonesome.

What boggles my mind is that from the very beginning of the story, it's made clear that this is all about Shinji having it out with his absent father, and yet neither of the two endings bothers to include a scene of Shinji having it out with his father. There's your low-budget, satisfying finale to the TV series right there. Two episodes of Shinji just sitting in a room with his dad. He needs Shinji to pilot the Eva one last time to execute his Third Impact Plan, but Shinji won't cooperate, and he has no choice but to talk it out with him.

It'd just be two characters sitting in a room together talking it out, maybe with some flashback clips to keep the visuals interesting. And while they hash out their issues, they can provide exposition on Asuka's condition, and what Rei was supposed to be, and so on. Again, this is a way to focus on the core conflict of the show, while still addressing plotlines involving the supporting characters. And when it's over, Shinji leaves the room, feeling a lot better about himself than he did before. He's still got some things to sort out, but at least he's settled things with his dad, which was what he came to Tokyo-3 to do.

Or, just put in this photo of a soup can on a public bench, I guess.

[sabrinatvband]

Notes on Comic Art #3: Dynamicism [again]

I've recently been devouring Tim Eldred's writings. Eldred is not a very famous artist, but you're almost certainly familiar with his work. He's been a storyboard artist and / or director on Extreme Ghostbusters, Avengers EMH, Teen Titans (2003), and every Spider-Man show beginning with TNAS, as well as many, many other shows.

But before primarily becoming a board artist, Eldred worked in the comics industry. He did a lot of work on anime/manga-inspired comics, and was a staff artist at Malibu Comics for a few years.

One of the many odd-jobs he did in his career was create art for a few of those Christopher Hart "how to draw X" books you've probably seen. Don't worry, Eldred has credibility; he thinks the books are shit and he only accepted the work to make ends meet. But he thinks an example of good comicbook storytelling that he did for one of Hart's books mostly holds up, if you ignore the writing Hart added around his examples.

I recommend you read Eldred's post about this first, and then come back around here to read my own commentary.

An entire book drawn like this first example would eventually start to feel like those comics laid out by Jim Shooter. Shooter's comics are a many notches above this, but the effect of having few dynamics would basically be the same.

Eldred says he constantly saw direct downshots in pages from beginners during portfolio reviews. I don't think Eldred is lying, but the weird thing is that I can't recall ever seeing a direct downshot in a comic. I guess it's because none of those beginners ever got published. Either way, I do agree that it's an awkward, mechanical angle. There might be an occasion where it's the correct choice, but I can't imagine when that might be.

Anyways, Eldred was trying to make a point by having these pages use six panel grids; he's implying they're boring. I think Hamm's rebuttal to this POV is the best one I've ever read:

Varying the size and shape of panels or their points-of-view doesn't "add drama," it adds visual interest. And narrative is more important than visual interest. Some of the most gripping comics have mostly same-sized panels: Watchmen, V, Toth's work, much of Los Bros Hernandez, not to mention most comic strips.

You can also throw in Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, and many other gold / silver age artists. The Dark Knight Returns is built using a sixteen panel grid.

There are many other things that can be said about this "worst" example, but my final comment is that the first, fourth, and sixth panels of the first page, and the first panel of the second page, are all completely fine. I'd even argue that there's nothing really wrong with the third panel of the second page. The big problem with most of these panels is that they lazily flatten objects that could've had depth, mostly cars, and I don't really see that problem in the ones I mentioned [aside from 1-4, but that's appropriate].

Here's what Eldred calls the "intermediate" example. Something we start to see here is figures breaking out of panels. Once again, Jesse Hamm has something to say:

Panel borders are a symbol that helps the story move swiftly and clearly. Like punctuation. Each time you break them, letting figures or objects jut out of them, you slightly erode their effectiveness. You can break them occasionally to good effect…but broken often, they lose power, and it looks gimmicky. Be judicious!

I think all of the panel breaks across these two pages are not only completely superflous, but they're also actively detrimental to the artwork. Especially the one in the second panel, which makes the left side of that panel feel more tangent-y than it would otherwise.

I have a lot of problems with the following quote from Eldred:

The big panel in the center is what I later learned to call a “three-quarter downshot.” I learned the term once I made the jump into TV animation and found out that (like the direct downshot) it was a common default angle for storyboards. Everyone used it without understanding what a cliche it was. You almost never see it live-action filmmaking, for example. Once it was beaten out of us, we all learned how to find better alternatives. But until you get that training, you just think of it as a helpful way to convey geography.

Once again, I don't doubt that some people in the storyboarding world think that the "three-quarter downshot" is bad. But it's perfectly fine for comics. There are two reasons you don't often see this kind of shot in live action filmmaking:

-It requires either a crane or a cameraman moving onto a building. One of those things is expensive, and both of them eat up a lot of time, which is always in short supply in filmmaking.

-Because live action filmmaking is live action, our eyes are always being bombarded with a lot of information. It takes too much time for a viewer to spot the relevant figure in a three-quarter downshot composition, and so it's mostly useless in live action.

In comics, budget is not a problem, and time works differently so a reader can have a second to discover where the relevant figure is standing. There are some comics, like RoboCop vs The Terminator, that would've been served quite well by a few three-quarter downshots, because they don't do enough to convey geography.

It's worth mentioning that the first example uses 12 panels to convey what the second example conveys in 9. I haven't said it outright yet, but aside from the panel breaking stuff, I do think the second example is better than the first.

Anyways, here's the "advanced" example:

Whenever I see a book dominated by compositions like this, I always make the same mental note: I'm not reading this. The actual mental note is more of a This artist lacks discernment and this is visually incoherent, but the end result is that I'm still not going to read it. My eyes immediately glaze over; it's too much work to parse the tilted panels and constant panel breaks. Everything is cranked up to 11 and I have no time for any of it.

Canted angles work just fine when the composition is canted while the panel borders are normal; that's easy to understand. But I don't enjoy this Gene Colan-type stuff. This is why I've never read Spawn, or a lot of newer manga.

While I was reading Eldred's post, I kept expecting him to say something to the effect of "You should mix and match stuff from these different levels, because the loud 'advanced' example is not always appropriate", but he never says that. Maybe he just didn't think it needed to be said?

What are the lessons here? Sometimes good artists give bad advice, and sometimes people can try so hard to be cutting-edge and smart that they get in their own way.

Let's look at one last thing, a similar demonstration from How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. There are a lot of things that can be said about how much of the advice in How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way is destructive, but let's just ignore that larger discussion for now.

Obviously the left page is the boring, non-Marvel page, and the right page is the Marvel page. Notice how much more dynamic the Marvel page is without changing the panel grid, or breaking any borders. Dynamics, in many cases, really does come down to using high or low angles and creative blocking / composition. And, once again, there are instances where some of the panels on the left page might be more desirable than compositions on the Marvel one; context is key.

Varying the size and shape of panels or their points-of-view doesn't "add drama," it adds visual interest. And narrative is more important than visual interest.

[panicked-herb]

Critique of Fionna and Cake’s Season Finale

It’s been a good couple months since the Fionna and Cake series finale came out. At first it felt lackluster to me, then it felt extremely disappointing, then gradually I felt more and more meh about it. I could see what they were trying to do, but it kept bothering me how bad the finale was in comparison to the earlier episodes.

Now I finally have time to write out my thoughts about it and make it everyone else's problem.

Important note before I start: All of this is just my opinions on a TV-14 show. If you disagree, that’s great and I’d be interested to hear why. Just please be respectful. 

What I Liked

The animation and visual storytelling was great. I liked that at the bus stop, they initially had Simon place Betty on the step below him, but later had him place her next to him. Too bad the writing doesn’t back this up (more on that later). 

The voice acting was good. This isn’t my forte, so no comments besides that. 

Most of the jokes landed for me. Especially Pawn Swan. He was easily the best part of Cheers for me. 

I loved the Lich speech to Glob

Blue Shift is such a feel good song it almost made me like the ending.

What I Didn't Like

Catharsis

My second biggest issue with these episodes is how little catharsis there was. We got to see Fionna get upset and cry, but that was mostly because the Scarab was kicking everybody's ass. I wished we got to see Cake get upset about how people don’t see her for who she is. Or potentially exploring her fears of going back to being a normal cat. 

I especially wished we got to see Simon ugly cry. This man has been through an apocalypse, lost his sanity, lost the love of his life, been depressed for years, and is now trying to curse himself. Dude literally said he missed being the Ice King because he was so out of it most of the time he didn’t realize how messed up his life was. He felt like almost everybody preferred him when he was cursed. Then he finally sees GolBetty after years of searching for a way to cure her, only to fail. There should have been some waterworks going on. 

Pacing

Generally, the pacing felt too slow for me. It made the episodes feel more like a second or third draft vs a finale result. The biggest offender to me was all the fights against the Scarab. Each individual battle was fine, but there were too many of them. We know the Scarab isn’t going to destroy their world in the end, so all the fights don’t do much besides look cool. Which would be fine, if they weren’t trying to make it emotionally impactful. 

This is relatively minor, but it bothers me that Casper and Nova are mostly in the episode Cheers when in basically all of the other episodes, the titular character(s) are the main focus for that episode. I think this could have been fixed, if they just cut back on the number of times they fight the Scarab. 

Pay Off

There were a lot of Chekov’s guns that either didn’t get fired or turned out to have only blanks (basically you could remove them from the story and it wouldn’t affect the plot much).

No Pay Off

Simon and Marceline’s phone call/ relationship: I know I wasn’t the only one hoping to see these two reunite after Simon tried to curse himself again. 

Dirt beet guys manuscript: This is minor, but I just feel like it would have been easy to fix. 

The time core: This is a classic case of Adventure Time world building, where they introduce a cool concept, but don’t do much with it. I don’t know what I wished they did with it. But I would have liked for them to do something.

Disappointing Pay Off

Cosmic entities that the Scarab imprisoned: Cake lets them go and they fight the Scarab. But that fight lasts for like a minute. We also see Kheirosiphon in the ending credits. But besides that, we don’t see much else. 

Everything in You song: The song is only used as a segway into the final flash back of Simon’s and Betty’s relationship. I’ll give it credit, the song is good and the scene is cute. However, you could remove it and there would be almost no effect. Considering Glob’s weakness is harmony (music), I really thought they were going to do something with it. 

Fionna’s top fantasy: Throughout the series, Fionna makes references to her dream fantasies (EX: castle made out of candy). We learn what her top fantasy is after their universe already becomes canon and they’re in their final (unnecessary) fight against the Scarab. Her top fantasy turns out to be turning into a giant woman. Ignoring the Totally Spies vibes that scene gives me, I think they really missed an opportunity to make this really sweet. In the final scene, instead of Fionna saying “Just a normal world.” She could have said something along the lines of, “This is my top fantasy”

Fionna and Cake turning things normal in other universes: Ignoring the Winter King, this plot point does almost nothing. Sure, Cake accidentally turns BMO into an alarm clock, but BMO was already dead. There’s also the Scarab’s speech, “All the worlds you've visited, all the people you've infected. Your little trip must have shown you the truth. It would be better for everyone if you were just gone.” But they themselves don’t ruin that many worlds. The only reason for them seriously thinking that is the Winter King. But he was a grade A asshole and removing his magic freed Princess Bubblegum from the madness he imposed on her. 

Casper and Nova

Before I start this section, there are two important things for me to mention

I should note that I've had over ten years to theorize about Simon and Betty. Naturally, I’ve probably forgotten some of my head cannons and character interpretations aren’t actually canon. Especially since we never really got much screen time for the two before Fionna and Cake. It also doesn’t help that Simon/ Ice King’s character arc hits close to home for personal reasons I’m not sharing in a tumblr post. But, it does mean that I’ve probably projected some of my feelings onto those characters at some point. 

I’ve never particularly liked how Betty’s been written. I wished she got more screen time in the original show and I STRONGLY dislike that they introduced the fact that she didn’t go on an expectation she was really excited about for a man she’s known for one day in one of the final episodes of the show. To me, it turned her character from an impulsive, headstrong woman who for all intents and purposes is stuck on an alien planet and the only person she knows who is still alive has magical dementia to a fucking manic pixie dream girl. She doesn’t need to have always been completely obsessed with Simon to explain why she’s going to desperate measures to save him. Once again, he’s the only person she knows in Ooo, but as the Ice King he’s basically a stranger. She also convinced him to give up his only chance to die as himself with the hope that she could save him. Finally, she loves him and doesn’t want him to suffer. 

Casper and Nova are pretty explicitly supposed to be narrative parallels to Simon and Betty and help show Simon the issues in their relationship. A lot of defense I’ve seen against criticism about this part of the story comes from a place of assuming the fandom is owo-ing the male character and doesn’t want to admit he has flaws. To be fair, it is a reasonable knee jerk reaction to have. Fandom has a LONG history of doing shit like this and villainizing women. But, at least in my case, this isn’t what's happening. 

Casper and Nova aren’t on equal footing because Nova keeps making unseen sacrifices for Casper and they always do things Caspers way. The moral that Simon is supposed to take from them is that he/ Casper should have realized how much Betty/ Nova was sacrificing for him all the time, stopped, and supported her. However, this isn’t the main issue Simon and Betty have. 

There are a total of two times where Simon does kind of stand to the side while Betty sacrifices herself:

The first trip planned to study petroglyphs in Australia: Simon jokingly offers Betty to go on his expedition with him. She accepts, which surprises him, and mentions offhandedly that she had another trip planned. Maybe he could have told her she could always go on another trip with him sometime else. But he could have just as easily assumed she wasn’t really interested in her original plan and if he asked if she was sure, it could come off as him telling her not to go.

The second trip planned to study petroglyphs in Australia: Simon stops Betty before she leaves for the bus and in the heat of the moment he says he always wants her by his side always. Betty still could have easily just given him his number and still go on her trip or they just agree to meet up later. Also, the show makes a point that Simon should have gone on the trip with her. I would like to note that Betty was planning to leave the day Simon realizes she has feelings for him. I don’t know how archeological expeditions exactly work, but joining so last second seems really rude to me. Also, he would have either needed to pack really quickly or bring nothing with him for a six month long trip. To add on, he won’t know what type of funding that trip was. For all he knew, it only had funds to send Betty over.

More often than not, we actually see Simon recognizing the sacrifices Betty is making and actively trying to stop her:

Betty time traveling into the future and away from basically everything she knows: Simon originally time travel calls her to apologize and tell her that he forgives her for leaving him as a way to allow her to move on. Betty chooses to jump through the portal. 

Dedicating herself to save him: Simon literally begged Betty to let him die rather than turning back into the Ice King. He only changes his mind after she begs him to give her a chance to save him. Everything she does afterwards, he’s either basically passed out or is cursed.

Merging with Glob: Simon begged Betty to forget the crown and escape Golb with him and Finn. Betty pushed him out of there and merged with Golb. Simon spent years trying to find a way to unfuse her with Golb. 

Not getting any acknowledgement for helping to find the Enchiridion: Simon wanted both of them to get credit. Betty told him that she wanted him to get all the credit. He awkwardly, but professionally, told her that she deserves the credit just as much as he does. She still turns down any acknowledgement. (I really don’t like this story beat because it could have been such a good chance to comment on how academia often discredits or ignores women)

We also have moments where they do things Betty’s way (or at the very least Betty does things her way) on their expedition together.

When crossing the river: Simon carefully walks across the rocks. Betty takes her shoes off and just walks through the river. Simon follows suit then slips and falls. I would just like to add that crossing a river without shoes on isn’t safe. It decreases trackson and increases your risk of cutting yourself in an open body of water. They should have just either dealt with the wet socks, brought a spare pair, or use water proof shoes.

When crossing an area full of snakes: Simon advises Betty to stick with the tried and true method for dealing with snakes. Betty decides to do the trick her mom taught her and runs through the area screaming. Simon doesn’t stop her. Instead once he sees that it’s working, he smiles.

As we see, with the exception of two instances (which could easily be changed without impacting the plot too much), Simon doesn’t need to learn the lesson that he should have supported Betty more and stopped her from sacrificing herself so much.

I think the bigger issue in Simon and Betty’s relationship is just how obsessed they are with each other. When the crown drives Simon insane and takes all his memories, the last thing Simon can remember is that he wants to marry his Princess. This leads him to literally kidnapping princesses. Betty time traveled 1000 years into the future after hearing Simon say he never saw her again after wearing the crown. In the process of trying to save him, she went mad herself. They’ve both spent years trying to save the other from and were willing to sacrifice themselves to do so (I’m fully convinced Simon didn’t have a plan for how to leave Golb’s dimension. I think the dude was just going to apologize to Betty then die).

Not Part of the Finale, But Still Bothers Me

Having Prismo be the one to actually write Fionna and Cake removes depth from Simon/ Ice King’s character. I liked how surprisingly good Fionna and Cake was and interpreted that as parts of Simon shining through. But they needed to have Fionna and Cake actually be real for the show, so they had Prismo make them. Instead of Prismo making them out of boredom, I think it would have been cool if he made them as a way to grieve Jake. Maybe after Jake died, Prismo turned to reading Fionna and Cake since his favorite person liked it and Cake’s basically a genderbent Jake. But, after reading everything the Ice King wrote he wanted more. Since he lives in the TIME ROOM, I don’t think it would be a stretch to allow him to interact with the timeline in weird ways (in fact I think we already saw this in the episode Is That You?). So, as a temporary solution Prismo made Fionna and Cake real and stores their universe in the Ice King’s head so he could get more stories out of them. Prismo meant to delete their world before the Ice King turned back into Simon, but he didn’t have the heart to. Also, they could have totally had Simon keep writing Fionna and Cake fanfiction like how he sometimes dresses up as Ice King. Except, this time, he writes them in his own modern day AU as a way to cope with how out of place he feels. 

Not part of this spin off, but it’s always irked me that Simon got to time travel to the past, but Betty didn’t. I get that Betty wanted to intentionally create a time paradox. But it still feels really hypocritical. Honestly, I think they should have just made Simon accidentally freeze her when he first puts on the crown. After Frost and Fire, when the Ice Kingdom got melted, have her thaw out and start researching ways to cure Simon. Then, during the episode she’s supposed to debut in, have her be the cause of Bella Noche. 

Conclusion

The finale had cool concepts, but it doesn't fully match up with everything that came before it.

[wowbright]

I'm about halfway through La La Land. Really wanted to like it. I mean, it's a musical. I like musicals. But I didn't know much about it other than that.

Review/liveblog below the cut.

Started suspecting in the opening number that I might not like it, since the opening hinted that it would be an ode to the LA film scene. (Ooh, LA film people talking about how great LA film is--I'm not an actor, I'm not a filmmaker, hopefully this movie will have something more interesting to hook me in.)

Oh, good! It's also going to be about jazz!

Huh. Neither Emma Stone nor Ryan Gosling are very good singers. They are okay at dancing. Now, I hear that these days it's important that anybody in a musical be an actor first and the other things second. But if music and dancing are part of the storytelling, it's important that they be as strong as the acting IMO.

Okay. Now we're back to jazz. He's going to explain to her why jazz is so awesome. He takes her to a club.. Except ... Hmmm. This is uncomfortable. Why are we seeing jazz exclusively through the eyes of this white dude? We see black musicians, but they are just in the background. He plays at a club. Again, black people are furnishings. John Legend gets a line. Then he gets some more lines.

Around now this review of the first half of the movie turns into a live blog of the second half of the movie.

Yay John Legend sings. Alas it's on a stage and not part of the storytelling, but background to the storytelling. Idk I can't really watch this scene too closely because of the strobing lights.

(Aside: Where has she been getting the money to pay for the dresses, the high heels, and now the one woman show? There's a limit to how much you can put on a credit card, isn't there?)

The dialogue in this movie often feels stilted. Is this a stylistic choice?

Now they're arguing. He doesn't like the music he's been playing with John Legend, which is interesting, because it seems like he was enjoying it and she was the one who wasn't enjoying it. Is any of this real or they just like super enmeshed and codependent?

Eh I've completely divested myself emotionally from this movie. I'm going to start fast forwarding to see what happens. It's not like there's musical numbers anyway.

Photo shoot. More strobing lights.

Why do we see him perform, but we don't see her perform?

Oh look they're fighting again. Do I give a fuck? No.

I don't get it. Is it supposed to be a fun musical or A Star is Born?

We have gone half an hour without a genuine musical number.

Emma Stone is singing. This is a musical again! Too bad this song, like the others, is just so-so. (Idk maybe it was Kristin Chenoweth they would sound amazing?) I feel like this song is supposed to be the big emotional payoff for a strong storyline, but unfortunately the storyline hasn't been that strong. (I mean to be fair I have fast forwarded through like the last 20 minutes but that was because the story was already meandering and sucking.)

They break up. Unfortunately, I never bought their love story beyond the initial crush, so I don't care. (I'm not saying I don't believe that these people *could* love each other deeply. I'm saying that the story skipped over the part after the first kiss where they got to truly know each other and fall in love, so I'm not convinced of it.)

What the fuck? in the alternative "what if their lives have been perfect" montage, Ryan Gosling just waves off Keith like he's some kind of subordinate? Like, arguably one of the most talented musicians we have seen in this whole movie? Gross.

Then in the part that is an explicit visual ode to the golden age of movie musicals, when they are on that colorful soundstage resembling a cartoonish LA, I actually lose track of where Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are mixed in with all the other dancers. That should not be possible if the correct cinematographic choices were made.

Also I think it should be illegal to market movies as romances when the characters don't end up together in the end.

So yeah I guess this movie got all the accolades because the people who give the accolades and awards see themselves in this story.

But seriously what the fuck now that I've seen this movie I feel like I've been lied to for the past six years.

[mio-nika]

I promised @turquoisewaves07 podcast recommendations

So let's get going. I will not obviously include every podcast I ever listened, only the ones that I really like and sometimes relisten.

1. Knifepoint horror.

Possibly my favourite podcast ever. It's the series of stories written and narrated by a guy called Soren Narnia. They are not usually connected and would sound similar to oneshots of MAG (almost every story starts as "my name is..." just like the "statement of..."). They usually very weird in nature, and it's really hard to explain why I like them so much. I usually recommend starting from "school".

2. Limetown.

Oh, the classic story about "every living person disappeared from this small unassuming town in the middle of the night".

It's like. One of the most famous ones in my list? They even had show adaption?? I never saw it, even tho every time I listen to it I think " fuck, it was really made with visuals in mind". Especially the last scenes.

3. The White Vault.

If it still snowing where you are it's a great one. Small expedition goes to a remote arctic station to fix things. Bad things happen. Interesting that almost the entire crew (both characters and actors) are bilingual and it plays big part in the story. Well, except one character. The Canadian-russian guy played by Peter Lewis. But I like him so I'm not even THAT mad.

4. Mabel.

Hi, so do you like LESBIANS? Mabel is really hard to recommend, because it made almost like a theatrical play where characters are talking in verses. It's a story about fae, lesbians, haunted buildings and women emancipation? It's extremely good. You will want to write lines over all of your walls, on your hands, on your heart.

5. The Big Loop.

It's the second podcast in the list, that is basically one guy writing not connected stories. He's name is Paul Bae and he more famous as one of the authors of "The Black Tapes". He left after the first season and he's probably the ONLY reason why first season is good. I highly recommend starting from "The Surrogate" if you like horror and "F.M.L." if you into hopefull dark comedy.

6. Alice isn't Dead

Do you remember how good were early podcasts writtend by a WTNV staff? I think we starting to forget. It's another "do you like lesbians" story, but its actually so much more. I cried real fuckin tears in a bus after the last episode, not from sadness, but from overwhelming hope for humans.

7. Death by Dying.

I've already recommended it in another post. But if you liked WTNV you need to listen to Death by Dying. It's a series of obituaries from a small weird town written by a guy who are very very VERY weird. He talks to a Angel of Death, he adopts cannibalistic cats and writes his abituaties more like personal stories of stupidity.

8. Small Town Horror.

This one usually gets overlooked, probably because of the very generic name, but for me it's really a hidden gem. Traumatized guy are trying to put together things that happened to him in his childhood and why he's so fucked up. If you really want to read story written by an unreliable narrator, this one is for you.

9. Within the Wires.

I already sang my praises about how good was the early podcasts written by a WTNV, but I will repeat it here. THEY WERE REALLY GOOD. It has a very different styles of storytelling from season to season. The first one is told through a series of mindfullness recordings. The second one is an art lections. Every season happens in the same universe and expands the over-arching story.

10. Spines.

I was thinking that to put as a last one and mostly torn beetween Spines and Girl in Space, but I'm a horror visual girl, so I choose Spines. Our heroine wakes up with no memory in the bath full of blood with a cultist-looking people and a probably other cult victims around her. Slowly she learns that she really is and in that horrying reality she was born.

[gorebrain]

Nightfall

Candlemass - 1987 - doom metal

Gothic Stone: N/A

The Well of Souls: 9

Codex Gigas: 8

At The Gallows End: 8

Samarithan: 8

Marche Funebre: 7

Dark Are The Veils of Death: 8

Mourners Lament: 8

Bewitched: 9

Black candles: 8

8.1 / 10

It’s unsurprising how another Swedish band has caught my interest. This is an album I enjoy returning to, and I think this band is a staple piece in the genre, especially since they’ve been around since ‘86.

This album has many, many instrumental segments, so I feel as though they aren’t worth mentioning every time. Do I like them though? Yes, absolutely! I haven’t heard one that I disliked or felt the song would’ve been better without. Honestly, there are times when they carry the song entirely. Something I have to give credit to is this band's knack for storytelling which incites this dark fantasy visual that I love. I feel as though this could provide a lot of inspiration and motivation if you're working on something with a similar setting, with an atmosphere being created that you want to see and feel.

I feel as though my rating for Marche Funebrer does rare the album as a whole a little lower than I'd like, I just cannot rate it as highly as the other songs due to it being an instrumental.

Let me know what you think about this album.

But don't be mean about it.

Personal thoughts of each song below the cut:

Gothic Stone: I love the sound of this, but rating it wouldn’t be fair, it’s not even a minute long, but I think it transitions to the next song nicely.

The Well of Souls: I think this is a wonderful (second?)introduction to this album and this band as a whole. The beginning, operatic moment with heavy guitar following, the vocals that perfectly fit with the topic of the song, I couldn’t ask for more.

Codex Gigas: An instrumental piece that I enjoyed. Not much to say here though!

At The Gallows End: Again, I feel myself appreciating the storytelling that Candlemass presents. It makes me want visuals for this song. I like that random little sparkly sound effect in the end, it sounds like a Disney fairy fluttering away.

Samarithan: Starting a song with ‘one day’ like you’re telling a fairy tale could have the risk of coming off poorly, but the vocals and delivery make me engaged in it immediately. The story is clear and simple. The protagonist helped an old man and was repaid for his deed when he died, turning him into an angel. It’s told simply and in a concise way, which I find impressive.

Marche Funebre: This song felt like a slight tonal shift, but with it being an instrumental track, I lacked things to say. I can’t rate it too highly.

Dark Are The Veils of Death: While I liked the beginning instruments, I disliked the general rhythm of the presented lyrics, but as it went on, it changed, and I began to really like what I was hearing. I wasn’t sure how to rate this. Yes, I didn't like it in the beginning, but rating it lower than an eight didn't feel right to me, and I’m not the kind to slap a .5 on something.

Mourners Lament: Adore the overall theme of this one. It’s a song about grief, but it still feels so powerful. I love the delivery of the lyrics, and the guitar moment is definitely worth mentioning.

Bewitched: Something about this song just feels like Candlemass, if this makes sense. This is what Candlemass is to me. A classic song from them.

Black Candles - A good and solid exit, but I have nothing interesting to say about this one, it's short and fades off at the end, letting you know that this album is over. Despite my quiet praises, I do really like this one.

[glitchyvoice]

WHAT A COINCIDENCE

I TOO WANT TO INTERACT MORE

tell me about your ocs or something 👁👁

ye :3 i love chatting with moots its sm fun

ocs hmmm

well ive talked about ray as much as im willing to talk about her rn and u talked about the game u wanted to create sooo ig its only fair i chat about the game me and a friend have been working on!! (keep in mind this is all concept currently, ive been working on it when i can since im the creative ideas guy but. i havent had that much time over the years. i plan to work on it more when life settles down a bit)

so ye, ive been super interested in game development for several years now. i love storytelling, and while i love love love writing, video games are the medium ive always wanted to tell my stories through!!

ive known this friend for a while now, and were both into game development. so we came together and decided wed work on a game together!! we didnt really have any specific idea in mind, so we just came up with a quick theme and i ran with it.

(the word we chose was lo-fi. which wont make any sense when i start explaining this but. stay with me.)

the idea for the game is that its a metroidvania (if u dk what that means think hollow knight. if u dk what hk is its my fav game ever u should play it) that takes place on an abandoned and run down earth. the only creatures left on it are robots and freaky mutated. things.

humans evacuated earth when it became inhospitable and have their own base somewhere else in the universe. theyre still taking resources from earth though, and the company that collects them has developed robots designed and programmed to do this specifically.

you are one of these robots.

the little pod theyre in on the second image is my concept for the save station

this is h1ro!! theyre such a goober i love them h1ro is on the newest team of robots that are sent to go collect resources. but as the ship is flying to their drop point, something goes wrong, and they fall into a landfill while the ship carries on without them.

they travel through the world trying to follow their programming and gather what they need but somewhere along the way they break that programming and end up siding with the other robots that still live on earth against the company with u as an insider on technically both sides.

the lo-fi themeing comes in moreso in the environments i want to make. (aka aesthetics) i also wanna make some stuff music based in how u interact with those environments but ill have to figure that out when i get more concepts down

for now heres a little concept sketch for one of the areas i wanna make. not much but i think its kind of cute

the line in the back isnt mountains its like a sound visualizer idk if thats what u call it but ye

theres a lot of cool tidbits i have in mind but im incapable of being specific unless im asked specific questions so for now this is an overview

:3

[mario8th]

A Second Cat Person Has Entered The Show

Wow, the Chimera Ant Arc Is Not Pulling Its Punches, Is It. I uh… Wow. (HxH 83-85)

There was a lot of good visual storytelling in this group of episodes. The camera and color grading would alter during Kite's inner monologues. There were some fun match-cuts, like when New Cat™ was first introduced. In fact the entire scene when New Cat™ interacted with Bunny guy had some really good things going on. With the instant turn to meagerness on Bunny's face, the metaphorical size of New Cat™'s hand. The absolutely Brutal scene where New Cat™ was Digging Around With The Antennas!?

And speaking of great Match Cuts. Y'know. The one where Gon is literally too bright for Killua to look at (Killua Down Bad for Gon). To New Cat™… y'know…

During the earlier arcs, I was much more cavalier with how I wanted to write my thoughts afterwards. I was fine describing the culmination of the Hunter Exam or York New arcs because, despite this show being a much more interesting take on the genre, it is still Shonen.

Despite Gon still being the prototypical Shonen protagonist, the show itself has altered. It was subtle at first. They did it with minor characters. People designed for this, with the most obvious flags in existence. Then they did it with side characters. People we'd recognize, but would ultimately get over. Both were intertwined with a tonal shift in the musical choices, cinematography, and color grading. Everything's a tad darker. The music more ominous. More scenes were at night. Then it's raining. Then there's another bad roll.

(tbh though, whatever team animates the next HxH anime, after the mange ultimately concludes. Maybe introduce Kite at the beginning of the show as the manga did. HUGE fumble on their part. These episodes would've worked so much better if both we and Gon knew him throughout the entire run.)

Which is all to say, I have no idea where this show is going. I never in the slightest imagined something happening to Kurapika during his fight against Uvo. I knew Leorio was going to get his hunter license one way or another. I do not think they'd have plot armor in the Chimera Ant Arc. I'm not sure anyone outside of Gon has that anymore.

Also, a friend mentioned that New Cat™ was generally gendered with they/them (cool!), but the sub I'm watching uses he/him (a little jarring, tbh). I cannot look up anything on this matter.

I'm also very much looking forward to the Nen stuff. Seems bad!

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[dropoff99]

Wheel of Time S2 Episode 5 - “Damane” is an achievement in adaptation that should be recognized

I’m not an active reviewer of this show or any other. It’s not something I am very interested in. However I think it’s important to note when a piece of art begins to transform into something greater than the sum of its parts, especially with an adaptation of this magnitude which has so many things to juggle it can make your head spin.

This series has been a part of my life for over 25 years. It’s as difficult for me to remove my bias as it is for anyone, especially when beloved moments from the series are changed. Any fantasy fan who has spent time around the genre has experienced this. However I feel that the fandom really needs to recognize what is happening currently on Amazon Prime’s Wheel of Time.

Robert Jordan’s Wheel of time is possibly the most ambitious fantasy series ever created. A magic system with as much depth as you will find in fantasy, hundreds of named characters, 14 large books, a prequel novella, a couple encyclopedic volumes, and now a major streaming series on Amazon Prime.

Up until this point half-way through the second season the show has been admirable in some of its attempts at adapting Jordan’s beloved series but I don’t think any fan (of either the show or the books) could really say it is has been a total success in terms of quality. S2 E5 on the other hand is simultaneously a great adaptation of the series and a great episode of television that could be the turning point from a capable fantasy show to an excellent one. Before we get into that let’s revisit where we’ve been.

Season 1

S1 had 2 really good episodes, a couple outright bad ones (finale), but mostly could be described as average storytelling hidden by some great performances by Rosamund Pike and Daniel Henney and set in a beautiful and interesting universe. For all intents and purposes it was a success in terms of attracting viewers, introducing new audiences to RJ’s series and being a decent show.

There have been some great casting choices and the majority of the cast has worked with a couple exceptions (recasting of Mat). The characters are firmly recognizable from Jordan’s work with of course some big changes as well that vary in terms of popularity with the fandom. However, the challenge of making the wheel of time universe really sing (ie the fantasy/lore concepts) was hit or miss for me in S1 (in many ways a miss). I’m not speaking of book accuracy, simply how interesting and cool they were.

Emonds Field 5 - not perfect but definitely a success

Myrddraal and Trollocs - success

Channeling - 50/50

White Tower - success

Thom/gleeman - failure

Ta’veren - TBD

Loial/Ogier - meh (admittedly high degree of difficulty)

Eye of the World - failure and was not interesting at all

Aes Sedai and Warders - biggest achievement of S1, huge success

Fal Dara - meh

Traveling people - meh

The ways - decent

Two Rivers - 50/50

Logain/male channelers - success

Darkfriends - success

Whitecloaks - decent

Shadar Logoth - decent

Overall an admirable effort, especially considering how much they adapted but IMO they had some big misses that brought down the season.

Season 2

So far the second season has seen a huge jump over the first season in terms of production quality, visual style, performances, and dialogue. Many of the actors on the show have found their footing, particularly Josha Stradowski who plays Rand. Every new major character they have introduced has not only been written well but their performances have been off the charts which I will touch on more when I discuss E5.

However the first 4 episodes were much like the first season. The pacing was hit or miss, some of the changes have landed (Nynaeve in the arches) and a few have not (namely Lan’s arc). Mat is still MIA but we will see how they land things with him later. Either way season 1 caliber storytelling combined with the other upgrades in acting, visual style, and overall polish makes for a pretty damn good product.

Episode 5 - “Damane” (full spoilers)

It’s difficult for me to fully explain why E5 was so satisfying. It is less about any one individual factor and more about how smoothly it weaved (no pun intended) many well executed components together.

The first thing I will start with is visual style. S2 has been an upgrade in general from S1 in many of its choices but Episode 5 is on a different level.

The initial location (near falme) Liandrin takes the girls is absolutely stunning. I took my own little photo above to demonstrate just how sumptuous this looked in 4K in my living room. The show has always been pretty but I will admit the variety of locales in S2 as well as the cinematography has been a significant upgrade. What I especially liked about this scene is that it did not lean on a slick establishing shot of a CG city or even a giant fortress/village made specifically for the show, two things WoT is very good at. Instead this is a simple scene in terms of CG. It’s just a waygate and the effects used for channeling all look great and are not too over the top. As far as set design it’s just the stone pillars for the waygate and the large throne that Suroth rides around on (and Seanchan costumes). Otherwise it’s a beautiful natural location that grounds the action and fantasy elements organically while pulling in the viewer to this world.

But that’s just a taste.

Story locations in this episode: Falme, Cairhien, Toman Head, The White Tower, Tel’aranrhiod, The Ways. And that’s not counting different areas within those places.

Each of the above have a strong visual language to communicate the various cultures and landscapes of Jordan’s universe and I don’t think it skips a single beat going back and forth between them. Forests, deserts, marshland, night scenes, day scenes, cities, villages, fortresses, and fantasy creations like the ways and the dream world. The show was in its bag in terms of something interesting to draw the eye the entire episode.

The performances were no different in terms of their variety and quality. Fares Fares (Ishamael) and Natasha O’Keefe (Lanfear) were probably the best on screen fantasy villains I’ve seen since vintage Game of Thrones seasons. They were engaging, scary, and villainous in a relatable but unapologetic manner, delivering line after line that could easily be viewed as cheesy if not for perfect execution in direction and tone. And frankly what I liked most is that the show didn’t fall in to the modern temptation to make them less evil. Sure they have their justifications/motivations but they are also unambiguous baddies from the viewer’s perspective which is true to Jordan.

Moving on to Rosamund Pike who we’re really running out of things to say in terms of her acting which has never dipped for a second for the entirety of the show. What was more impressive is how the show’s writers have demonstrated their commitment to showing a ruthlessly efficient character who will do whatever it takes to save the world. This episode highlighted her commitment to her cause as well as her intelligence in dealing with a character who is immensely powerful.

Ayoola Smart as Aviendha provided the best action sequence and an excellent dialogue scene with Perrin that efficiently introduced ji’e’toh and Aiel culture. I am really looking forward to seeing more from her as Aviendha is one of my favorite characters. On a similar note Meera Syal really got to flex her abilities as Verin in a much more recognizable manner to book readers than what we saw earlier in the show. It was thrilling to watch her pick apart Liandrin’s plot.

The last thing that I was really impressed by and primarily why I wrote this post to begin with is how committed the show seems to be to genuinely introducing some of the most difficult elements of the Wheel of Time universe which is honestly not what I expected given the first 4 episodes. Let’s take some inventory of what we got from E5 as well as S2 so far straight from the books/universe.

Aviendha/Aiel/ji’e’toh - success

Falme - as a location it’s a success

Seanchan - success (with a very high degree of difficulty)

Collaring - success

Lanfear/Selene - huge success

Ishamael - huge success

Novice training /arches - success

Cairhien - success

Horn - TBD

Elyas - success

Wolfbrother abilities - controversial but a success IMO

Tel’aranrhiod - success

Verin/Browns - success

Channeling - success

Mat’s abilities - TBD but this might be a big L

Min’s Visions - TBD but so far an L for me

Elayne - success

Do I think this show is going to be this good every episode from now on? Probably not. And yes there is still plenty to dislike from S2. Mat/Min are borderline non existent so far, the Lan/Moiraine arc was miserable until they separated, and Siuan hasn’t even shown up yet (despite having some badass scenes in the second book that are very memorable).

However I will say this is the first time where I’ve felt real confidence in where the story is headed both short and long term. If they do this for the remaining three episodes then Wheel of Time will hold the belt for best fantasy show currently running.