#idk I think it’s weird how people treat Vil like an adult

[hey-haven]

Hot take, not a serious one but still. I see Vil as more like a stubborn yet caring older sibling to Epel than any kind of parental figure. Idk how to describe it other than Lilo and Nani. Like similar dynamic, different fonts. Some sense of caregiving is there but ultimately it’s more like a sibling dynamic.

[aquaburst3]

I’m gonna unleash a bit of salt in order to get this out of my system. Now that the excitement has died down a bit, to be quite honest, I feel like the Pomefiore arc was rather underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong. The first half of this arc until Deuce and Epel go out is great. (Even if I have issues with it, for reasons I’ll get into in a bit.) Just this update makes me feel mixed.

More undercut because of spoilers.

Issues I had with it

Why didn’t Jack play a bigger role in this arc? The flashbacks flat out stated that the two are close friends since they were little kids. You think that Jack would step in and help out a lot more if they have that close of a bond.

The climax seemed underwhelming storywise. It just seemed like Vil just shrugged and decided to randomly poison Neige out of nowhere. Then Rook stops Vil and he gets pissed, and then overblot. That just just seems rather basic to me. I thought that there would be a lot more to it like someone getting poisoned and the team curing them before confronting Vil or something more than just that. 

Someone on Discord said that he was disappointed since the rhythmic battle with Vil was super easy to beat compared to Jamil and some of the other dorm leaders. I don’t play the game, so I can’t back that up. But there’s that, I guess.

Is it just me or did it take very little for Vil to overblot? He only used his powers only twice this arc, and then overblot. Hell, Leona used his powers more often than Vil before he overblotted! Like what happened with Leona, that doesn’t make sense or fit the established lore, seeming like a giant plothole. Idk, the story could have done a better job at building up to him overblotting and had him use his powers far more.

I’m kinda disappointed that Neige and Vil aren’t stepbrothers. I feel like something like that would’ve added more meat to their conflict. For one, it would parallel Snow White with Vil being jealous of a family member. It would’ve made the conflict much more personal on both ends, giving more meaning to the rivalry between them.

Neige and Vil hardly interacted, despite their spat being the centre point of that whole arc. I would’ve liked them interacted at least a lot at the end. (Yes, I know Leona hardly interacted with Malleus in his arc, but the latter doesn’t get out all that much and Leona was a lot more crafty with his plan, so there’s at least an explanation why.)

Someone posted a theory on here before this part came out about how Grant and some of the other dwarves getting jealous of Vil's team's skill, so Grant decides to go behind Neige's back to "cancel" Vil, saying his dirty laundry. This makes Vil extra pissed, thinking, "Fuck it. If I can't get my way playing fair, then I'll take him out of the competition."  After the battle, they apologize for how they treated him and undo the damage. I would've loved to see that play out, considering that would make the conflict more nuanced, and, for a lack of a better term, adult. If this was the case, Neige's teammates would be like Janice from Mean Girls in the sense that they were equally in the wrong and ruthless. Sure, poisoning people is wrong, obviously, but so is what they did.

What’s with the poisoned apple in the opening credits? And Kalim’s story that seemed like foreshadowing? And Jamil/Kalim’s skills about knowing how to deal with those who are poisoned?  Or Deuce falling behind the rest of the team? What about Vil pressuring Epel like he forced him into the competition for some dark reason? (Yes, I know he used Epel’s juice at the end, but there seemed to be more to it than that, because Vil could’ve poisoned any food or drink item and got the same result.) Those plot points sure lead to fucking nowhere.

Vil’s backstory seemed underwhelming and the least justified out of any of the dorm leaders so far. What’s his dark and “tragic” backstory? He just hated being typecast as a villain in roles and when he was very small some people were scared of him because they thought he was the same character that he played in a movie before they outgrew it for obvious reasons. Seriously, that’s it?! That’s his only motivation for steeping so low as to poison someone?! I get why he would be upset about about being typecast, but after seeing what others like Jamil went through during their pasts, it just seems like nothing. All actors are typecast in some way real life! I mean, people typecasted Robert Patterson after his role as Edward Cullen, but you didn’t see him snap like that after people doubted that he could play Batman. At least Azul was constantly bullied and fat shamed throughout his childhood, so his actions make far more sense. Vil just comes across as very melodramatic and his attempt to poison Neige just seems extremely unjustified. All it took was for a casting director say that “he wasn’t chosen for the role because they wanted a more ‘bland’ looking man in the main role” one time and Neige is his archenemy for life. It reminds me a lot of how Lance named Keith as his rival in Voltron, despite not knowing him. That seems rather OOC to me. Before it seemed like he was like Miranda from Devil Wears Prada where he was a strict and took things too far, but was professional and above else logical. Him declaring Neige as his rival just over that seems rather petty and isn’t something that a logical person like him would do. I wish his backstory was more inline with Jamil and Riddle’s where it alluded to some serious issues with the entertainment industry, just so that way his actions make more sense. (Seriously, you have no idea how fucked up entertainment industry can get. There’s a reason why former child stars are often so messed up in the head as adults.)

On a similar note, I kinda wish that the something happened on the team or in his personal life that pushed him over the edge like someone being injured on the team, putting the VDC in jeopardy, so he got desperate enough to do something that stupid and against his morals. Again, just so his actions made more sense and him trying to poison Neige came less out of nowhere.

Am I the only one that hates Vil’s overblot design? I’m a graphic designer. It looks far too busy, uses a lot of weird textures, there’s no visual hierarchy, it has nipples on it...for some reason, and he looks too much like those Virgin Mary paintings instead of a queen that he’s supposed to be. It just doesn’t suit his character at all. (Personally, if I designed the outfit, I would put him in a purple gown with a light purple cape, a high collar and crown on his head.) Then again, this is coming from the same person who hates Jamil’s overblot design, so take that with a mountain of salt.

Over all, I thought this arc would be epic, but it just felt meh when everything's said and done. I wouldn't be surprised it failed to deliver because of the hiatus making me build up false expectations for it in my head. Covid 19 probably messed up a lot of aspects of this arc. Understandable, but it still sucks, since I was looking forward to it.

Though, I swear if Vil loses the competition, because of “the villain must be punished in any Disney universe” bs, I’ll flip a table. (Because that’s not how things work in real life. This isn’t an underdog sports movie where a team can half ass their way to a victory. Neige’s team was super sloppy with their routine and Vil’s was just better on all accounts, so he should obviously win. Vil deserves that after all the hard work he put into this. Having Neige randomly win would go against what the game set up so far with it subverting a lot of anime tropes.)

Having said that, I love a lot of things about this arc. Everything until just this update is pretty solid storywise. Just I wish the story took its time more with this section to have it come together more properly. Though, I would’ve still liked Jack to play a larger role and for Vil to use his magic more often, since those were issues even before the update.

Eh, either way, I’ll just follow my original outline and make the changes I suggested in this rambling to my own take of the Pomefiore arc in my fic...once I get to that point, that is. It’s canon divergent anyways and I already said that arc would be different, so I don’t care if breaks away from the canon.