#if you write about a fictional character becoming omnipotent

[shwoop]

check the tags

Woah… Pinkie Pie… is REAL.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Mystical Items & Objects

A Quick Guide to Creating Fictional Items

STEP 1: Give Your Item Purpose 

Crafting memorable items and artifacts demands purpose and intention.

And luckily for writers, there are countless routes you can take.

Symbolism: Embed deeper meaning with an item that represents your story’s themes, like a shattered mirror in a narrative about fractured realities or identities.

MacGuffin: Introduce items that ignite the central conflict or quest, becoming the catalyst for your story’s unfolding events.

Enhancement or Protection: Equip characters with items that empower their abilities or shield them from peril, exemplified by a cloak granting invisibility in dire situations.

Foreshadowing: Introduce an item early on that will play a crucial role later, subtly hinting at its significance without giving everything away.

Progression: Propel the plot or character development with items that carry them from one stage to the next, such as a mystical map revealing hidden worlds.

Misleading (Red Herring): Employ an item to divert attention, creating suspense and keeping readers on their toes with false leads or assumptions.

By carefully considering these categories, you can ensure that your item serves a meaningful role in your narrative.

STEP 2: Give Your Item a Backstory

Delving into the past of your fictional item adds layers to its meaning and significance, creating a story of its own that complements the main plot.

Consider the creator: was it forged by ancient beings, crafted in a moment of desperation, or is its origin shrouded in mystery?

Reflect on its journey: has it been a catalyst in significant historical events, or perhaps changed hands through various intriguing characters?

Ponder its mythology: what tales and legends has it spawned, and how do they influence those who encounter it?

By carving out a detailed history, your fictional item evolves from a mere object to a vital and captivating component of your narrative.

STEP 3: Describe Your Item

The ability to create a clear and compelling mental image of your fictional item in the minds of your readers is paramount. Examples:

The Lament Configuration from Hellraiser boasts an ornate gold filigree, clearly harboring dark magic.

In contrast, the Alethiometer from His Dark Materials seems simple enough, yet hides its ability to unveil cosmic truths.

Meanwhile, the black monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey stands as a minimalist enigma, prompting viewers to question its purpose.

A memorable item can create a lasting impact, ensuring your story resonates with the audience long after they've turned the final page or the credits have rolled.

STEP 4: Consider Its Powers and Limitations

Navigating the balance of power and limitation is crucial when conceptualizing a fictional item.

Explore its strength and scope: What phenomenal feats can it perform, and where does its influence wane?

Understand its accessibility: Who is deemed worthy or capable of wielding such power, and what proficiency or awareness is necessary?

Acknowledge the stakes: Are there perils or repercussions tied to its usage?

By defining these aspects clearly, your item becomes a well-integrated, credible element of your world.

NOTE: Steer clear of making your item omnipotent to maintain narrative tension, and adhere to established rules (i.e. limitations) to prevent inconsistencies.

STEP 5: Give It a Name

The final touch in bringing your fictional item to life is bestowing upon it a fitting name.

Opt for the classic and straightforward: think “The Amulet of Fate,” aligning directly with its purpose or powers.

If you’re feeling whimsical, embrace the quirky—think of the real-world “whatchamacallit” candy bar or the playful “thingamajig”.

Or, simply state it as it is, calling a sword a sword (especially for mundane magical items where you may not want to reveal their powers).

Should you choose a particularly unique name, ensure you provide enough context for readers to grasp its significance.

ADVANCED TECHNIQUES

Now that you've laid the foundational work, elevate your item from intriguing to unforgettable by considering the following:

Mix and Match Types. By intertwining the ordinary with the extraordinary, your item takes on a life of its own and sets itself apart with ease.

Build Lore Around It. Trace your item’s journey to acknowledge how time has warped perceptions or fostered myths and misconceptions.

Use History and Mythology as Inspiration. Enrich your story by pulling from history and mythology, tapping into a wellspring of real-world intrigue.

Ultimately, do what best works for you as the writer. You may rearrange some of these steps, and tweak them to suit your writing process and style.

Source ⚜ Writing Notes & References More: On Mystical Items & Objects

[pluralthey]

is there a good place to start if we want to learn about idletry? im very interested in the story and all the bits and pieces revealed so far but i dont know if youve like, stated the basics both about the characters-in-story and how you’re releasing the comic

hi there. unfortunately, idletry became a passion project very abruptly and many details were added very quickly without regard for how long the project would take. once i did realize how large the project was, i decided that i would not even kid myself on the idea of holding in spoilers for the next 5 years, and those two factors combined make the information available very chaotic and slapdash -- somewhat intentionally.

i don't even have the comics tagged separately for easier access among the idletry content -- although, i could go back and give them a separate tag.

i can summarize the story and say that it's about a funny little talking honey badger/tasmanian devil named jessie gaylord who has for the last 10 years of her life been on heavy psychiatric medication in an attempt to mitigate a pervasive delusion that the world is a fictional story. she also has a notorious aggressive streak. these medications work primarily by leaving her so tired that she sleeps most of the time.

the story begins when her medical team has run out of typical medications to try, and they must order an older, more aggressive type of drug which is not commonly used anymore, and has a lengthier process to manufacturing and approving the drug. during this time, she is not on any medication, and she becomes more urgently fixated on convincing people that the delusion is true.

she ends up attempting to contact the writer, who is referred to as God, and she receives a response. she immediately attempts to write the story herself, and she's granted the ability to do anything within the story so long as she can write it out. (the intricacies and limitations of this power have been elaborated upon in a bunch of fragmentary posts, so i won't try to condense it here)

at the end of the first act, she kills the first writer and becomes the new God of her world. the rest of the story is about what she does after acquiring omnipotence, and it heavily features a character named fate -- or shiloh, as jessie calls her -- with whom she enters an intimate relationship.

she has a happy loving family composed of a father named adam, a mother named evelyn, and an older sister named emily. there is a later minor subplot about a cult following who worships her after she becomes God, and this cult is initially organized by an ant called samanthuel -- or samwich, as jessie calls them. these are usually the other characters i mention and i am too lazy to link them right now

the comic itself is currently being written. the script stands at around 51,000 words at the time of writing this as i work on the second act. after it's written, i will let it simmer for a few months and then write a second draft to start to relieve the story of its bloat. depending on its length at that point, i will either need to write a third draft, or i will start drawing the comic.

chances are, during the second draft, i will start to thumbnail or sketch scenes which receive little to no editing, as i know they will likely remain relatively unchanged even through multiple drafts.

the sketch strips are to tide me and an eager audience over in the meantime, but they've sort of dried up as i focus all of my attention on finishing the first draft and taking care of a puppy that was kind of just forced onto me.

i've made a couple of full-length comics before and they have taken years. it is, unfortunately, just the nature of the process. for idletry, i plan to self-publish the comic. i've never published something in print before, so that is the most daunting part for me.

the plan at the moment is to crowdfund this, but, to be frank with you, i no longer pay rent, and i care very much about having this comic as a printed book. i have no issue with paying the cost of printing out of my own pocket by the time it's done and am even anticipating that outcome ahead of time, despite having a pretty reliable audience by now.

i'm on the fence about releasing a digital book version, as i very much want to retain digital color versions of the pages that are more vibrant, but due to the explicit adult content of the story, i don't want it to be free-access.

tl;dr: it's about a lesbian incel with anger issues who's given omnipotence.

i'm still working on the story because i want it to be good.

i'm planning on printing it as a physical comic book once it's done.

[sodachalice]

Hey Neighbor,

I feel like you might've expanded on this in the past, but your phrasing of "larping d/cbt with facets of themselves" resonated with me. I've personally always felt something that sounds like that, and when I've discussed it with others it seems to be incredibly foreign to them. But I was wondering if you could talk more about your perspective?

yeah sure, but i don't know how helpful mine will be. it feels very basic to me, despite like what you're saying, people tend to be very confused at the idea. to be honest, i was in cbt/dbt through most of my teenhood, as well as regular therapy and psychiatric care. ive spent a good amount of my childhood in the psyche system so i tend to be a bit more familiar with the practices of it than other people, especially due to the fact that the type of therapy i was getting was court mandated and required, not just like. me exhibiting signs and my parents getting me help. there was a very specific idea of "getting me better" before i became an adult.

this caused me to develop a lot of immediate gut reactions to things im doing or immediate responses to my own bodily reactions or emotions, and has frankly made me very scared of my own emotions. i feel like im constantly playing therapist with myself. no you cant do xyz itll cause you to zyx in a few days. no you cant relapse. no that person does not hate you. lets walk through dbt sheets that tell you this person doesnt want you dead until you calm down. etc etc etc. that said though this process is really stressful for me, and it was a lot worse when i was younger.

growing up the way i coped with that is i would split my idea of myself in two, the one that was "bad" and the one that was "good" and would then spend days imagining them together or writing fanfics about the "Good" one healing the "bad" one in which ever way the bad one needed healing. i imagine these were like childhood hurt/comfort fantasies, they often latched onto fictional characters and was connected to my idea of kinning. for example: i would imagine myself as psii on dualscars ship after everything with the HIC, and i would write about and imagine how dualscar could save him and rescue him from brain washing and severe physical trauma and isolation. dualscar was the prime candidate because he was rich and politically powerful, which meant i could imagine him caring for Psii in literally any way possible, and see what would actually work for Psii and help him recover. Psiis trauma just happened to be very metaphorical for my own trauma, so making metaphorical parallels was very easy, especially with my very self indulgent aus.

this then eventually hit a break when i was in my late teens when i stopped believing in kinning and realized that it was all a fantasy that i had created myself. but the problem is my brain is still formed like that, that is still how i know how to actively process my emotions. i don't know how to do it any other way. so a lot of my young adulthood along with recovery has been me trying to find another creative outlet i can latch onto for a similar effect- it was really helpful! i just wish i could figure out how to be that creative and willing to dream as much as i did, without it directly impacting my functional reality. because frankly, my functional reality is worse than it was when i had those coping mechanisms, even if im not in a bad situation anymore.

over years ive realized this has essentially become a giant process where i use my own characters to process my emotions, either in pairs or with multiple characters at once. sometimes i do it on purpose. if im struggling really badly with an issue in real life, ill find one of my ocs who is struggling with the same issue (or make a new one if i havent got one) and then imagine myself or one of their friends, or therapist, or an omnipotent talkshow host essentially doing impromptu DBT/CBT sessions with the character, speaking to them in ways i know they would be responsive to (because i made them) to see how the character responds and reacts to the stimuli. this is connected to the fact that I have DID, as this process is extremely similar to making alters/alter communication. maybe thats all that it is. i dont know, the line between ocs and kins and DID is very blurry, especially for me. anyways. i don't know if this is exactly what you were expecting but its a breakdown of why i do the thing i do and what purpose it serves

jury is my favorite one right now because he's my "problem child" oc. im someone who experiences a lot of pride and security in my identity as a disabled person, but as i get older and the reality sets in that this is forever, i find myself getting more and more scared about how disabled i really am. jury is sort of like that, jury was blinded as a child in a way that gave him intense chronic pain and due to his upbringing has developed into a very very bitter angry volatile person. while i dont relate to his personality, i do relate to his anger towards the world for abandoning him and his understandings due to his disability, and his issues with lack of autonomy and the ability to live for yourself. i spend a lot of time "playing" with him and "talking" to him where i essentially try to come up with solutions to make him happy without erasing his disability. sometimes the things i write about him surprise me, because while i hadnt felt it conciously, sometimes ill write him to have a speech that rexsonates with me in ways i wasnt expecting. i do this with most of my ocs

[cainightfics]

Do u have any favourite books? And do u hv any preference for a specific genre?

ooo this question is so hard lol. as some of u may know i was in grad school for literature, but my focus of study wasnt really on literature particularly. my actual "field" ig u would say was rhetoric and critical theory. i have read a ton of literary fiction, but i honestly prefer nonfiction, lol.

im guessing you mean fiction, tho, so ill answer with that in mind. my fave genre is probably metafiction and ergodic literature. the thing about those tho is you usually need to have read a bunch of other stuff to know wtf theyre referencing. like if youve ever read ts eliot's the waste land, it (purposefully) sounds like gibberish unless you have read the vast swathes of other authors it's collapsing into one another (dante, shakespeare, milton, baudelaire, etc). "these fragments i have shored against my ruins" is one of my fave poetic lines of all time for that reason lol—i love to be met with a broken thing, a puzzle, and then piece it back together. you can probably see why i like mr robot so much.

the other thing i like about meta/ergodic fiction, paradoxically, is that it's aware of how pretentious and demanding it is, and harps on this internal irony all the time. pale fire by nabokov and rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead are both great for this. same with basically anything by pynchon—the crying of lot 49 is the typical example, but i actually prefer gravity's rainbow.

another example that goes extremely hard on its critique of academia is hesse's the glass bead game, which is basically about a group of academics high in an ivory tower playing a game where the goal is to make as many connections between subjects—math, history, physics, literature—as possible, and requires years of "training" in the form of studying and reading. all of this is occurring while outside the ivory tower, the world is going to ruin. its all about how useless academics are outside of masturbatory exercises in proving knowledge.

another example, and one i really, really love, is danielewski's house of leaves. like imagine a horror story about a house that measures larger on the inside than the outside, but communicated to the reader through a bunch of random people typing on a google doc to the point where the cacophony literally becomes a mess to work through in order to pick out the story. i liveeee for this shit

and all that being said, my favourite fanfic of all time is detective pony. don't even get me started on this because i won't stop.

in terms of less demanding and pretentious stuff i like, i have always had a soft spot for cormac mccarthy. terrible guy, interesting books. he writes novels in a latinate syntax and people loveeee to argue about whether its grammatically correct or not, which i think is so stupid but whatever. like even just at the level of sentence-prose his writing is very fun to read. for example, from blood meridian:

The flames sawed in the wind and the embers paled and deepened and paled and deepened like the bloodbeat of some living thing eviscerate upon the ground before them and they watched the fire which does contain within it something of men themselves inasmuch as they are less without it and are divided from their origins and are exiles. For each fire is all fires, and the first fire and the last ever to be.

compare it to something with overt latinate syntax like milton's paradise lost:

Him the Almighty Power Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie With hideous ruine and combustion down To bottomless perdition, there to dwell In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire, Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms. Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night To mortal men, he with his horrid crew Lay vanquisht

idk i just think its fun to use this epic poetic form a) in prose and b) while writing novels that are anti-epic, in that his main characters tend to die horrible meaningless deaths in universes where evil always wins. even just the epilogue about the construction of the cross-american railway at the end of blood meridian and its relation to colonial violence is something i could talk at length about. but i won't, because i'm already being annoying.

another writer i like is dostoevsky, but this is not exactly a rare opinion lol. i think dostoevsky gets very close to reaching an agreement with me on a lot of things. i'm reading the brother's karamazov right now and there are a lot of things in it that resonate with me. but our difference is that he turns from the hellish question of life's suffering towards christianity, and i honestly despise religion. like i can see why it exists and why it's important to many people, but it's much more complicated than that.

and ON THAT NOTE... thomas ligotti. i like his fiction, which is lovecraftian in a way that imo improves on lovecraft's very tropey form (not to mention the very obviously racist fears of miscegenation running through all lovecraft's work, lol) and also comes from a lets say more philosophical bend. i think teatro grottesco is a good place to start with him, if you ever feel the urge. its a very mundane sort of horror, one that some people find boring, but it scratches my brain the right way. i think his nonfiction philosophy book the conspiracy against the human race expands on what makes his fiction great by laying bare, and in great detail, his conceptualization of horror as a fundamentally regular and boring thing. like dostoevsky, he's concerned with the inherent suffering of life; unlike dostoevsky (and like me) he thinks turning to religion to deal with it is a lazy cope. i also think ligotti is extremely funny lol which not a lot of critics really clock because they're so busy calling him relentlessly depressing and pessimistic. like i have so many personal memes i say to myself constantly that i got from conspiracy, especially MALIGNANTLY USELESS!!!! and HUNKS OF SPOILING FLESH ON DISINTEGRATING BONES!!

while im back on the topic of nonfiction, even though i said in the beginning of this very long answer that i doubted that was what you were hoping for, i think its no secret to anyone who somehow cares enough about what i think in order to read this blog that i like marx. i dont agree with everything he says, but you cant deny the man is a good thinker. if you've already read stuff like capital, the grundrisse, etc i would recommend the 18th brumaire of louis bonaparte. it's essentially a very long essay that sketches out his concept of historical materialism as applied to actual historical events. i also think it speaks a lot to our current moment, where nostalgia is the prime operating mode of the rise of fascism. make america great again, but what is that again? its a signifier with no concrete referent. first it was the post-ww2 period, now its becoming the becoming the gilded age. as hamlet (and derrida, later) would say, in political rhetoric, time is out of joint. the opening to the 18th brumaire is particularly great:

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language.

other random nonfiction books i think are really great include bevins' the jakarta method, schull's addiction by design, and tu's experiments in skin. all of them take what we might think of as small or mundane instances—usa involvement in cambodia during the cold war, the design of gambling slot machines, and the invention of retinol—and apply them to wider patterns of world history and individual consumption.

okay i'm gonna stop now lol. I COULD GO ON... but i won't. i read a lot; i used to have a reading tracker that told me i read about 60k words a day, on average. and i'm also currently invigilating ap exams so i have like 5 hrs a day of nothing during which to answer tumblr asks. so im going on and on.

but thanks for the ask and i hope this was in some way interesting for you, lol

[astrophelsbargain]

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✧New and improved master-post + updated demo✧

Demo link all the way down below! Into the rabbit hole!

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Hello everyone, this is a new master post as the last one is quite outdated, I would like to first and foremost thank you, in every way- you, personally. I had often thought about making an Interactive Fiction, but circumstances would often distract me and make me unable to do continuously work on it. Though there has not been a day in which I haven’t thought of the stories I want to present to you. Quite a lot has changed- I had rewritten most of the book “Astrophel Bargain” which I had previously presented to you, the noticeable changes become apparent after the first bit of the book. Though it is still a work in progress, I hope to be able to update you more consistently. If you have any questions, suggestions or constructive criticism I’ll accept it gladly- as I am writing it on my own, with no help like proofreaders and I am by no means a native English speaker. Once again I thank you for sticking with me, or if you are a newcomer- for being interested in my work.

May stars bless your journey

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Times have changed since the rise of and reign of magicians, as long forgotten victims and villains of history, they remain hidden- only spoken about as the world marches to a new era of technology and science. Though as magicians grew impatient- forever chained to the earth as their souls dwell on its lands with either goals achieved, long ago-as they quietly live amongst the mortals, peacefully enjoying the bliss of omnipotence and immortality. there are still those whose wishes remain a friction of hope- and they just might risk everything to make up for which they’ve lost.

Rumors spread around as magicians become unlawful, immoral and most of all- feared, causing most to either hide further into the shadows or resist their fate with the power granted to them. As the same rumors pass your shop everyday, a new piece of information reveals that perhaps you and your shop might have a bigger role to play in the schemes of fate.

Your shop is no ordinary store, it holds secrets of centuries old vessels, ornaments books and more, all which will eventually leave the safety of your shop and repurpose themselves at the new world. Though a costumer may never visit twice, for each vessel has its own unique fate and purpose if must serve in solidarity. Being the guardian keeper of the shop is peaceful by itself as you mostly pass your time by exchanging information with far travelers who had happened upon your shop, yet when an old friend visits, your days of peace come to a quick end with a dangerous bargain from an infamous magician.

As you make your way to bid your end of the bargain, you just might discover the world outside your shop holds many wonders- and secrets centuries old, unveiled.

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✧ play as a female, male or non-binary character.

✧ define your characters traits ranging from intelligence, charm, brawn and many more all which have different sections respectively throughout the game, making each play through vary depending on your choices.

✧ Design your character as you’d like, ranging from height, hair color, scars, eye color and more.

✧ decide the fate of major characters

✧ discover secrets and unveil them- if you wish to.

✧ get cursed

✧ develop platonic or romantic relationships with 7 gender selectable characters ( A major part of the game is romance, so it is recommended you experience that aspect of the game as you play )

*warning, the game includes triggering concepts such as death, trauma, betrayal, manipulation, gore and more… it is recommended you read with caution. ⚠️‼️

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Dain/Diana astrophel

✧ The flightless Crow, Enemies to lovers

A magician lost in time, rid of their most treasureable possesion as they seek the key to retrieving what was once their own. Upon finding you, the threads of fate twist and knot when they recruit you to do their bidding. ✮ character Masterlinks : TBA

Alen Alfhelia

✧ The wilting Apatura Iris, belated love epiphany

An old friend who had lost a prestigious position at the Bureu of magic due to untimely rise in magicians retiliation against the crown and Atia, a newfound yet prominent religion. Upon discovering your situation they set out to accompany you on journey to the north. ✮ character Masterlinks : TBA

Sol/Soliel Ekhart

✧ The Blinded Sun, Tragic lovers

A talented minor magician living in isolation from world. As their quiet everyday life becomes a-mess due to your interference, they might come to realize mortals hold greater power then they originally acknowledged. ✮ character Masterlinks : TBA

Nil/Nian Vicifer

✧ The Other Story, Unlikely lovers

A young mystery, who insists on joining you in your travels. As they journey with you, it is revealed that behind their incompatibility with most, might lie another story to unfold. Perhaps the pages will reveal a newfound plot for you to discover? ✮ character Masterlinks : TBA

Caelum/Caelan Alphonse

✧ The wondering scarecrow, Strange lovers

A young traveler who seems to have strange ties to Astrophel, their search for the same magician leads them to you, upon realizing you have a connection to Astrophel they decide to team up with you in hopes of you being the bridge that connects the two of them. ✮ character Masterlinks : TBA

Eliseo/Elisa Valens

✧ The cursed Heron, Love at first sight

A mysterious mortal who seems to hold more secrets then they let on- a guest of Ekhart, as you live together they come to learn that the both of you might have more in common then they assumed. ✮ character Masterlinks : TBA

Lilias/Lilia Letifer

�� The artificial guardsman, forced proximity

Your assigned escort while residing in Ekhart’s residence, amused that there is finally something to look forward to- they keep a watchful eye. you soon finds that your mission might be more challenging then you had originally thought. ✮ character Masterlinks : TBA

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✧ Demo Link ( last update- 26 dec)

✧ Patreon link - coming soon!

✧ Feedback Form

[ultraericthered]

Unpopular Opinion Re: When They Cry

I feel like this franchise, post-Umineko, has gone downhill largely because of Ryukishi07 pushing the Umineko witch lore onto the established framework of Higurashi in a ham-fisted attempt to connect two standalone narratives of two works in an anthology franchise together. The problem there is that he doesn’t seem to know how to do it without violating the canon of his earlier work and undermining the very core of Higurashi’s narrative - that Rika’s humanity, willpower, and friendships defied and overcame the odds of fate because all along, there was no higher power at play. 

Think about it: everything in the village that seemed to be transpiring supernaturally and carried out as the will of a malicious deity known as Oyashiro-Sama? It was actually all explainable as the actions of human beings involved in a secret scientific, medical, political, military and government conspiracy who were willing to kill in order to advance their own power bids. Characters getting “possessed” by Oyashiro or driven to derangement and villainy by the hereditary, dormant demon blood allegedly coursing through them? Actually the symptomatic effects of a swamp virus. A wrathful Oyashiro who curses all those linked to the dam project or all who displease him in any way? Doesn’t actually exist: Oyashiro is actually the ghost of an innocenct priestess and medical worker from the Furude family who currently takes the form of a young horned girl and is as far from what the legends describe as it gets. The three great families answering directly to Oyashiro and being charged with deciding the course of Oyashiro’s Curse? The curse isn’t real and they don’t actually have that power despite how they might make it appear. Keiichi, after committing murder, believes he’s gained the power to wish people’s lives away? Nope! Rena becomes convinced there are aliens involved in Oyashiro’s Curse and the virus that threatens Hinamizawa? Nope! Even the nebulous higher power of destiny and “an inescapable fate” that reigns over all the world fragments that Rika loops through end up not holding so firm, and it’s in fact Rika’s and later Hanyuu’s hesitation to believe such a thing can be defied and conquered that keeps the mystery from being solved, tragedy from being avoided, and a Good End from being reached. Every factor at play in this narrative was thoroughly well thought out and implemented with care so it can all be explained without the existence of magic or god-like entities. So when Battler was insistent upon viewing the mystery of Umineko through a similar lens, he was meant to be Wrong Genre-Savvy, as what flew in Higurashi wouldn’t be exactly replicated in Umineko - they’re two very different beasts.

Yet by making the invisible, nigh omnipotent, reality-warping and controlling witches a factor in Higurashi, Ryukishi07 is introducing something completely alien to his own earlier work into the setting and lore of that work, upending its foundations, defiling its core, and changing its rules entirely. Which, if following Umineko standards, you could even get really Meta about and draw parallel to the witch “gamemasters” and how they cheat with the stories they play out on their gameboards, and yeah that’s clever and all, clever Meta commentary on storytelling should not take precedence over actual good storytelling, and while I like Umineko (not the anime version, though!) and love the witch characters like Beato, Lambda, and Bernkastel to death, its reliance on Meta commentary on the art of constructing, writing, and executing fictional narratives (particularly for the game medium), and engaging with its readers through convoluted twists and turns all rooted in this same Meta-ness to “challenge them” and “subvert their expectations” set a terrible precedent that only hurt the franchise going forward from there.

The part that sucks the most about this is that there was a way it could have worked, and it’s how Ryukishi07 seemed to originally present it when he wrote Umineko. The Hinamizawa Disaster, like the Rokkenjima Mass Murders Incident, was a real event that the Majestic Witch of Theatergoing, Drama, and Spectating latched onto as a way to mine it for good endless game scenario material, so she made that setting in that time period into a gameboard and set the girl who got butchered in the incident (Rika) as her game piece while the Witch of Certainty set the girl’s would-be butcher (Takano) as her own opposing game piece, which accounts for why those two keep looping through the scenarios and retain memories of previous worlds’ events they lived through. Eventually the Majestic Witch grew bored and wished to retire, so she abandoned the Hinamizawa gameboard, leaving a proxy with Rika instead (Hanyuu) so that the Witch of Certainty and Takano still had opposition to play against. But eventually Rika and her friends did the unthinkable by incarnating Hanyuu into one final world, adding the “missing card” into their hand so that they thwarted Takano’s plans and prevented anything from occurring just before the Cotton Drifting Festival hit, in doing so creating a miracle that re-wrote reality itself so that the Hinamizawa Disaster never happened, and if the disaster never happened then the witches never had any reason to even look in Hinamizawa’s direction, thus they never touched it and made a gameboard of it; it’s a “world without losers” because it’s a world where such a cosmic game was never played. This narrative confirms the existence of unseen forces of higher power in the story’s universe while also regulating it to side info and keeping with the theme that Rika and her friends screwed destiny, beating the forces that sought to keep them down and taking the future into their own hands. The one downside is that reality got fractured again, the Dice Killing Chapter occurred, and Bernkastel, the Witch of Miracles, was born. Otherwise the setting of Higurashi could go on existing apart from Umineko. The witches and their domain were in the background of one and in the foreground of the other. That would’ve been perfectly acceptable.

So I don’t know what Ryukishi07 thinks he’s doing with the currently running Higurashi Gou anime trying to smoosh together Higurashi, Umineko, and even Ciconia as one big, over-inflated, franchise-wide mega lore, but I do know that it’s not working for a lot of people.

[mdccanon]

The task has fallen on me to make this post.

It is okay to disagree with T'Challa.

It's okay to feel his positive attitude was taken too far when he suggested Nebula and Thanos have a salvageable relationship and should seek therapy.

It's okay to notice that T'Challa didn't know that he was a kidnapping victim when he said that to Nebula. (It's not okay to act like there is a difference between what Yondu did and what Thanos did just because you like like Yondu more. It's okay to forgive one but not the other, but it's not okay to not have the self-awareness to understand why.)

It's okay to disagree with T'Challa forgiving Yondu. It is okay to acknowledge that if a version of him is raised under Yondu, his understanding of right and wrong are going to be skewed towards whatever keeps him mentally having a positive opinion of his captain -- that's how Stockholm Syndrome works -- which is why Star-Lord T'Challa has a much more forgiving attitude towards common criminals than Prince T'Challa.

It's okay to disagree with the overall thematic narrative of the Guardians part of the MCU which is that life is always going to be terrible towards you, so you might as well roll with the punches and find happiness where you can. You're allowed to insist that YOU don't have to find ways to get along with people who have been cruel to you or you don't have to become proud of the things that used to hurt you. But if you are going to disagree that much, be uncomfortable that much, then you might want to walk away from the one part of the MCU narrative that is literally about criminals and morally black-gray characters and go back to a part of the MCU that has a more morally black/white dichotomy.

And if someone calls you a hypocrite for it, using some logic along the lines of "Well, Luke saw good in Darth Vader and that series is a masterpiece and you said that you like Star Wars come, so what is your big deal about not forgiving an alternate universe Thanos?" You can calmly point out to them that The Return of the Jedi did not come out during the formative years of your life, but the movie where Thanos regularly abused Nebula did. You do not have to forgive Thanos or what to see Nebula forgive Thanos when you've seen the abuse firsthand and it emotionally impacted you.

You can also add that Lucas conveniently cuts the story short through Redemption Equals Death and has never attempted to write a "reconciled relationship" between a Galactic enforcer and his rebel children. Imagine a conversation between Darth Vader and Leia where she's supposed to work towards forgiving the man who was part of the group that blew up her planet?

It's okay to disagree with T'Challa and feel that his "all loving hero" schtick goes too far. In fact it's often a common weakness for the all-loving hero to not fully appreciate the situations he's being santimonious about.

T'Challa is not omnipresent nor omnipotent.

It's okay to point out that in his story The Avengers, Thor, Hela, and all of Asgard were destroyed.

It's okay to respect that the MCU gives its characters distinctive perspectives outside of the usual Superman / Batman dichotomy of all loving hero and brooding antihero, but also being annoyed that the MCU likes their stories overall upbeat and conveniently tied up in a happy ending bow. They want complex characters but they don't actually want complex Game of Thrones endings, well, outside of Civil War and Infinity War. They want to express Thor's depression but they still want it to be funny. They want to right about racism, sexism, and the fight for equality, but they still wanted to end on a Awww Moment like "Isaiah is happy that he got a statue!" They want to write about the abuse and trauma of Bucky Barnes losing his sense of self... But they still want him to be called The Winter Soldier.

It's okay to sometimes want these stories to be more than action-packed modern pulp fiction. It's okay to be grateful for the characters that they create but not want them to end on a happy note.

And, as always, remember: It's okay to disagree with T'Challa.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

I posted 2,082 times in 2021

80 posts created (4%)

2002 posts reblogged (96%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 25.0 posts.

I added 1,723 tags in 2021

#love me that's all i ask of queue - 1470 posts

#personal - 77 posts

#leverage - 38 posts

#someone get that man a dom - 25 posts

#history - 22 posts

#anonymous - 20 posts

#cackling - 19 posts

#leverage: redemption - 18 posts

#bb is a lawyer - 17 posts

#star trek tos - 17 posts

Longest Tag: 136 characters

#i had four teeth removed solely for aesthetic reasons when i was like twelve and no one was handwringing over my irreversible mutilation

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

on the flip side of “characters are not real people and so shouldn’t be held to the same standards we hold for actual humans,” real people aren’t characters whose traits are chosen by an omnipotent author. real people are people who are a unique constellation of traits, each of which is shared with millions of people.

the usual problem with a fictional character falling into a stereotype is that it’s their only characterization. the important thing about the damsel love interest is that she’s in danger and she’s in love with the protagonist, so we don’t need to know about her passion for stamp collecting if it isn’t plot-relevant; there’s no scene where we watch the evil terrorist check out the devil wears prada from his local library immediately before trying to murder the hero with ten other terrorists. and, typically, they are the only character of their kind: the only gay guy is the villainess’s sycophantic sidekick; the only black woman exists only for the heroine to have a best friend.

but humans, by dint of being human, are always three-dimensional, multi-faceted beings, and are always one out of millions of other people. having the only female character in your cast have no personality other than “liking pink” is trite and overdone; an actual human woman who likes pink is always going to be more complex than that.

if your complaints about someone’s actions, experiences, or inherent traits read like an editor complaining about overdone tropes or stereotypes, you aren’t actually making a valid critique, you are demonstrating a fundamental inability to discern truth from fiction. 

1973 notes • Posted 2021-11-15 04:57:05 GMT

#4

~hot take~ about a book that came out ten years ago but one of the biggest reasons 50 Shades of Grey fails as a fanfiction - not as a piece of writing, but as fanfiction specifically - is because it fundamentally misunderstands the central conflict throughout the Twilight novels and as a result makes Anastasia and Christian’s relationship even more incomprehensible and unhealthy than Bella and Edward’s. that conflict NOT being the Volturi or anything to do with other vampires, but the fact that Bella wants to be a vampire and Edward doesn’t want her to be a vampire. 

like, Bella doesn’t want to grow old, she’s been parentified by her parents, and she feels boring and ordinary, so eternal youth + superpowers seems pretty fucking cool to her. meanwhile Edward hates being a vampire and sees it as a burden, especially since part of being a vampire is the constant threat of accidentally injuring or killing his girlfriend. the tension is the push and pull between what Bella wants and what Edward wants, and it’s only resolved when she does actually become a vampire.

so if we assume that BDSM is the vampirism metaphor in the 50 Shades fics (namely, something dangerous but also sexy and alluring), then Anastasia should be completely gung-ho about the kinky shit and Christian should be wracked with guilt every time he even considers spanking someone. finding out Christian is kinky should make Ana realize that whatever feelings she’s had before has a NAME and OTHER PEOPLE and is NORMAL and that her secret kinky fantasies are validated, while Christian should be crying into his pillow at the idea that he’s corrupted poor innocent Ana with his perverted ways. 

what I’m saying here is that it not only makes the storyline way creepier, because BDSM - and a relationship with Christian, since the story explicitly says you can’t have one without the other - is something that Ana is afraid of instead of excited about, but also makes it WAY more boring. oh ho hum, “a sexy millionaire overcame my protests and had his sexy sexy way with me!” said every fucking Harlequin novel ever. groundbreaking.

tl;dr: the plot of 50 Shades should be “Ana discovers Fetlife on bing.com and they go back and forth on their kinky needs v. Christian’s guilt at potentially hurting his love until they split the difference and have Ana top”

2895 notes • Posted 2021-11-03 21:42:21 GMT

#3

one of these days I’m gonna get an expensive mic and Final Cut Pro and I’m going to do an extended Youtube series called “You Don’t Know How To Write Fanfiction” and it’s going to just be me tearing apart big-name writers and directors for having shit characterization and no idea how to write creative plots for existing franchises because they’ve never had to write a crossover or AU in their lives

3338 notes • Posted 2021-01-15 02:52:18 GMT

#2

the thing that bugs me the most about the censoring of the internet to please advertisers is like... tv shows aren’t having less sex and violence in them. movies aren’t having less sex and violence in them. HBO can do eight seasons of graphic murder and nudity and it’s the cultural phenomenon of the decade, but I can’t show a nipple on tumblr or talk about death on tiktok. it’s not that the internet is becoming “safer,” it’s just making these topics a privilege only for very rich people, and putting it behind a paywall for everyone else.

16355 notes • Posted 2021-11-28 15:57:39 GMT

#1

disney looked at the success of maleficent and thought audiences really wanted shot-for-shot live-action retellings of existing disney movies and/or villains with tragic backstories, when the success of maleficent really was down to two things:

a well-crafted version of sleeping beauty that was still recognizable as sleeping beauty, but with enough deviations that it felt like a new story, complete with worldbuilding/lore and a very sweet and realistic mother/daughter relationship between maleficent and aurora, and

sexy bird man

20851 notes • Posted 2021-05-28 04:50:15 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[lightns881]

why do george's eyes glow white? it was a little quirk in his powers that i noticed and i thought it was interesting. ngl it kinda reminds me of scarlet witch also is that the only part of him that glows when he uses his powers? bc for some reason i imagined him turning into a human glowstick lmao

i noticed that a lot of people were asking about powers and such, but their power levels don't seem that prevalent to the plot so far, it's mainly focused on the discrimination. so what i'm wondering is: are there going to be any scenes/fights that showcase the full extent of their powers? bc i can't really see that happening (since obviously their main 'villain' is some regular politician), but that'd be pretty cool imo. also if it were to happen, who would the scene/fight include?

i'm sure you're tired of all the superpower questions (talking abt superpowers is fun, also your world is so well-developed it's impossible to not be curious), but which class/type is the weakest? i'm assuming it's bio-e, but i could be wrong.

are you going to provide more insight on the way their society behaves around EMs? bc so far it's mostly just been mentioned and i'd love to have a scene where we get to see the civilian standpoint.

do you have any personal little headcanons for each character? if so, what are they?

you said you were heavily inspired by x-men comics, so i gotta know, which mutant is george most similar to in terms of personality and/or powers and abilities? personally, i think it's scarlet witch for personality and professor x for powers, but i'd like to know your opinion.

who's your favorite fictional superhero?

where did EMs come from?

hypothetically, if george had the most stable mind in existance, would his powers be technically limitless? bc you said the only thing holding him back was his faulty mind. so theoretically, if he went to a shit ton of therapy, then he could potentially warp reality and become omnipotent (according to the superpower wiki). i just have a special love for OP characters *cough* jean grey *cough*, even if they kinda ruin the plot sometimes lmao

LMAOOO the turning into a human glowstick would've looked kind of cool ngl, the founder of AGE, Wendy, actually kind of had the ability to do that as a really powerful Photomental :]

It doesn't surprise me to see most interest in the powers aspect and I definitely don't find it annoying since they're pretty fun to depict! I do focus a lot more on the social justice aspect because it's the most interesting to me though haha, powers are like just the cherry at the top. And yes--kind of, at least. Idk if it'll be the "full extent" of their powers, but it'll be them using their powers at a really big scale. I'm actually super excited for that scene omg never written anything like it! I can't reveal who will be there, but let's just say the like last 25% of the story just RAMPS UP with the power depiction of almost everyone.

I agree with that assumption, I would also say Bio-E's are the weaker EMs, and it's interesting because that's why they're most accepted by the overall population--for example, I think I remember writing it, but Dream's parents wanted him to pretend to be a civie since Bio-E's can pass off as not being EMs much easier. It was a similar situation with Techno's parents. Theres definitely a huge privilege in EMs who can "pass off" as normal people. The less you are able to do that, the less tolerated you are in society. I think I've made small references, but for example, there's a homeless father and daughter that George sees sleeping in the streets when Wilbur is walking with him and the detail about her little rabbit ears was meant to allude to the fact hybrids are so discriminated against in this society that they're often the ones who take the fall first. While Psychics are very much feared for their abilities, hybrids aren't as feared in terms of power-level but because they have qualities that obviously separate them from the general society, they're the most publicly mistreated and have a hard time acquiring basic needs like jobs, shelters, etc. because of how they look. When I came up with the scene, I envisioned the father as a a civie but his daughter born a hybrid and while he had the chance to abandon her to avoid struggling like a lot of parents do, he chose to stay and they're now struggling to meet their basic needs. If I remember correctly, there's going to be more allusions to that in Elysium too.

There won't be more civie perspectives/interactions than what there was in AL, imo. There are small references and moments and such when they're relevant to the plot, but if anything, Elysium is actually much more focused on the relationship between regular EMs and Metas. There are now civie characters with bigger roles in the story that I can remember.

Someone on Twitter made fan art for Elysium and in one of the sketches, there was this theory that there was Quackity feathers in George's hair and it is now fully canon in my heart!

Ooooh I love this question! I agree with the Scarlett Witch comparison, I also just realized I took a lot of her whole powers-mind conflict (from the X-men Evolution series at least) and subconsciously projected onto George haha. Seeing as I most thought of Jean when I was brainstorming his powers, I'd say her, but Professor X is a good contender too!

Raven is hands down my all-time favorite superhero. George has DEFINITELY gotten a lot of qualities that were inspired by her. Beast Boy is my second! (now that I think about it the dnf dynamic is sorta similar to how I used to write my bbrae fics lmaooo, I definitely have a type for ships)

Oh man OP characters are bomb, but I most love them when they're most batshit insane with no morals and stuff--like chaotic evil is my favorite vibe for OP characters. Theoretically? Probably. Therapy has its limits lmao so I can't say it would happen with therapy, but if there was a human in the world who's mind was so stable it could essentially be compared to a robot in that they make the logically "perfect" decisions from the get-go, have enough control over their emotions they don't "take over" (no getting super excited or sad or angry or anything, just default settings with emotions ig), and had other attributes that would push them further away from what we consider human (intuition, creativity and, ironically, that includes empathy, etc.), then yes, I think an omnipotent Psychic with such abilities would be possible, but at that point, do we still consider them just an EM or are they just a god?

[razieltwelve]

I'm surprised people actually finished 13. I got to the shiva fight and just never went further. I have regretted it ever since, especially since Fang has gone on to become one of my favorite FF characters ever. Due almost single handedly to your writing, you glorious omnipotent koala you.

I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my stories! I think FF XIII had a lot of flaws, but there was some good stuff going on under the hood, so to speak. Like most FF games, it’s a bit all over the place, and you kind of have to live with inconsistency. At least it didn’t go through the same level of development purgatory as FF XV. 

P. S. I still find it hilarious that the first FF XIII story I ever read (this was before I’d even tried the game) was a Serah x Lightning story., Since I didn’t know who Serah and Lightning were and the story didn’t use their surname, I didn’t really think too much about it. Once I tried the game, I was like... o_O... wait... that story is... huh? That’s probably where the sister fixation jokes started.

P. P. S. I’ve mentioned this before, but fan fiction exists in the Final Rose universe. As in, you know how people write fan fiction of actual people on AO3? Yeah. Famous huntsmen and huntresses have to deal with that. You can probably guess at some of the weird stuff they’ve encountered. Diana, though, thinks it’s hilarious, and she is one of the main contributors to the Strangles fandom since the world needs more stories about awesome snakes. 

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Serial Experiments Lain, Episodes 9-10

In which we finally meet God, Lain loses her last haven, and an apotheosis rocks the heavens.

Who Is God?

The concept of God has been floating around Serial Experiments Lain for quite some time. Characters speak in reverent whispers of his existence, while Lain herself seems to have conversations in her head with the being who describes himself as such. Now, at last, we’ve met the man face to face, and he is... weird. Even just his design, with long flowing black hair and flamboyant clothes, is so anime-exaggeration that it instantly feels out of place in Lain’s fairly grounded world. And the build-up to his arrival at the end of episode 9 is flat-out bizarre. There’s a stream of consciousness flowing all throughout the episode in the form of a freewheeling history lesson that’s part true, part fictional, and overall feels like someone surfing between Wikipedia articles by clicking on random linked pages. There’s no hint at what this explanation is leading to, so you just have to wait as it follows its odd train of thought to the conclusion, and only then do you realize you’ve just been slapped in the face with an elaborate backstory to justify the presence of one Masami Eiri, God of the Wired. God not because he is omnipotent or all-powerful, but because he is worshiped as one by the Knights we’ve heard so much about. These Knights believe in his “truth,” and that truth has power because to them, it’s true. And as long as that truth is true, Eiri’s godhood is assured. I think.

I’m gonna be honest, I think a lot of the stuff with Eiri went over my head. Putting his bizarre half-historical backstory aside, it’s a little confusing what his role is in relation to Lain and how he fits into the bigger metanarrative. Not to mention the scene where he explains everything involves his jumping back and forth between bodies with Lain, which makes it confusing who exactly is saying what. My best guess is that he represents who Lain could become, weaponizing the power of the Wired to make himself an immortal ghost in the machine... as long as he’s lifted up by the user base. His power comes from leaving his physical form behind and becoming a wholly digital being, casting off the skin of one world to wholly live in another. He’s here to pressure Lain into giving up her own body, to embrace her digital existence and leave the real world behind for good. After all, she’s been severing more and more of the physical ties that make Lain Iwakura exist separate of Lain of the Wire. Even her desk has been erased at school; the fabric of reality is writing her out of itself. Why not abandon her useless body and transcend to metaphorical divinity? Leave this cruel world behind for the sake of a better one? All she has to do is follow Chisa’s lead and leap.

Nothing Remains

And however much Lain insists he’s lying, the desire to give up her physical life is only growing stronger and stronger the more secluded she becomes. If you thought she was lonely before, that’s nothing compared to how despondent and reclusive she’s become now. She’s so desperate for connection she tries to take that snot-nosed kid from way back up on his offer for a date, and all that leaves her with is a kiss and a confrontation with a Knight in training. And just when things look like they couldn’t possibly get any worse, her family officially packs up and leaves. The family she was unwittingly thrust into, who never accepted her as one of their own... now that she’s re-discovered who she is, they have no reason to stay around. They’ve fulfilled their mission, and so they leave her life as unceremoniously as they entered it. Leaving nothing behind but a messy, empty house, a last goodbye from her false father, and a million unfulfilled pains Lain will never get over. And just like that, despite her desperate pleas and aching sorrow (”I’m real. I’m alive. I’m here.” fucking hell Kaori stop breaking my heart), Lain is really and truly alone. Not a shred of her old life remains. All she has left is the embrace of the Wired, the one place left where there are people to welcome her. And all her physical body can do in response to attach itself deeper and deeper to the computers that give her access to it, until she literally has machinery going into her body to connect as deeply as possible. Nothing but a hollow shell using the last of its energy to cross the threshold where it will no longer be needed.

And god help the poor fools who forced her to take that step.

Blackout Spark

Because even as she’s sinking inescapably deep, even as her physical being loses all hope and all happiness, the being known as Lain of the Wired is ascending in the opposite direction. As Iwakura’s strength crumbles, the concept of Lain herself is only burning hotter and hotter. Under the swirling lights of club Cyberia, eyes blazing with determination, intimidating a Knight spy with nothing but her voice shifting into attack mode, Lain’s other half is taking all the strength her physical half is leaving behind and weaponizing it. If she’s crossing to the other side, she’s not crossing peacefully; she’s going to cross kicking and screaming and dragging everyone in her way down with her. And thanks to all the incredible power she’s consolidating as a direct result of fully embracing the digital world, there is nothing that can stop her from meting out justice. She hacks the mainframe of reality itself and leaks the names of the Knights to the press, exposing every last one of them to the searing light of the ubiquitous information flow. She faces down Eiri and blows this so-called God away, his last remaining follower rejecting him and grinding him to dust under her foot. And in a last furious blast of power, the telephone wires overhead- a symbol this show has returned to time and time again- finally come crashing down, sparking and flailing and impotent. There’s no better representation for the fabric of the world itself coming undone. Lain has torn her chains apart, and there is nothing left to stop her.

You wanted a new god, Eiri? You got a new god. And God help us all when she finally claims her throne.

Odds and Ends

-OKAY BUT I DIDN’T EXPECT FREDDY KRUGER TO ACTUALLY SHOW UP AND WHY IS HE AN ALIEN

-”Hold up, lemme put my ass-kicking music on first.” -Lain, probably.

-”So while we still can...” Cripes, now I wanna know what the parents’ deal is. How did they end up chaperoning a god? How genuine was their love, either for each other or her?

-”Now communicating.” What the hell even are you lady

-”The Knights aren’t just some ordinary crackers.” ...I feel like there’s a white person joke in there somewhere.

-...no one was talking in the opening scene. WHY WAS NOBODY TALKING IN THE OPENING SCENE.

-Okay, that spilled coffee looks way too much like a pool of blood for that to be a coincidence.

-Also, shit, guess all the minor characters we’ve met were Knights, huh? No wonder they all shared that emblem.

Holy hell, this final stretch of episodes is gonna be insane. See you next time for what’s likely gonna be the finale of Serial Experiments Lain!

[oosteven-universe]

Bang#1

Bang! #1 Dark Horse Comics 2020 Written by Matt Kindt Illustrated by Wilfredo Torres Coloured by Nayoung Kim Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot     A best-of-the-best secret agent with memories he couldn't possibly possess, a mystery writer in her 60s who spends her retirement solving crimes, a man of action with mysterious drugs that keep him ahead of a constant string of targeted disasters, a seemingly omnipotent terrorist organization that might be behind it all . . . And they're all connected to one man: a science-fiction author with more information than seems possible, whose books may hold the key to either saving reality or destroying it. A mind-bending story that ties in with past Kindt works (Revolver). Action, mystery, and altered reality!     This is utterly fantastic! Forget about it tying into Matt's past works at least for now because this, this is bloody amazing! The opening is stupendous and I love how we see this whole James Bond style action adventure bit and then how the storyline shifts. There is a uniqueness and a familiarity to the story and the dichotomy of it and how well it's presented showcases why Matt remains one of the most interesting and intriguing writers of our generation. He is able to draw us in, capture our attention and our imagination as we become engaged in the story.     The way that this is being told really is brilliant. The story & plot development we see through the sequence of events unfolding and how the reader learns information is presented beautifully. I love the way the transition from the opening into the next part occurs leaving the reader wondering about what is going on. It engages the readers' mind and takes you off-script using what you know or what you think you know to fill in the blanks. It is kind of fun and thrilling and that Matt utilises this so well and so quickly is no surprise. The man has this knack, skill and talent when it comes to writing that it is nigh on impossible to not lose yourself in the story. The character development is amazing and all the word play and the actions and reactions due to circumstances and situations just helps give us a better picture of them. The pacing is sensational and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way helps to create one hell of a great ebb & flow to the book.     I really like Wilfredo's interiors here. The linework is extremely nice to see and the way that the varying weights are utilised to bring us some really good solid attention to detail. I am the guy who will always say this, this needs backgrounds. When we do see them they are beautifully utilised to show depth perception, scale and the overall sense of size and scope of the story I just wish that there weren't blanks in between two panels that have them. That is a pet peeve of mine. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is nicely rendered as well. The colour blocking is effectively utilised with the shades and tones within the colours for the shading, highlights and shadow work. ​     The layering we see in the story is brilliantly done and there are some moments that comes out as pure genius. I can't spoil what those are but they wonderfully delightful. I may be right and may be crazy and it just might be a lunatic Cord is looking for. Either way the whole idea here is really something and it doesn't become crystallised in your mind until the last few pages and then your curiosity becomes piqued even more if that's even possible, and yes it is. Matt has built a multiverse at Dark Horse and it is quite possibly one that has existed in his mind since his first book at Dark Horse.

[blueinkedfrost]

I miss the days when the fandom bullies pretended intelligence was the standard, rather than the days when the fandom bullies pretend morality is the standard.

Both ways, it's about making yourself feel better through a favourable social comparison to other people. Or about finding a socially acceptable reason to dislike a person you already dislike.

"They write overpowered, boring, spotlight-stealing authors' darlings who deserved to be drowned at birth, and they have a very poor grasp of spelling and grammar."(*)

"I write canon characters reasonably in character and have strong opinions about semicolons."

"They write immoral fiction that not only depicts but endorses every act presented therein, and the authors deserve to be publicly condemned as if they committed everything they wrote about."(**)

"I write wholesome stories about wholesome and family friendly subjects, such as murder, and avoid all that icky sex stuff like the plague."

When the made-up standard for the bullies was intelligence, at least there was some chance - however slight - of the realisation 'Oh, even though we disagree it turns out they have as many as or even more brain cells than I do'.

When the made-up standard for the bullies is morality, then there is little chance for that realisation. Your enemies might be intelligent and they might seem charming, but what they are doing is morally wrong and harmful, and must be stopped for everyone's own good.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C.S. Lewis

On the other hand, the glasses of the past are generally rose coloured. Bullying behaviour is horrid no matter what cause the bullies pretend it's about. I get the impression that a lot of the moral concern about problematic fanfic comes from a social justice background. I love social justice; I'm just not enamoured of overly broad 'fictional depiction is always synonymous with endorsement' arguments. It's overall a good thing that social justice is popular in fandom. Is *any* good cause that becomes popular likely to attract a certain percentage of bullies to its flag? I'm not sure. Either way, we all have the choice every day to be rude or be kind.

(*) At the moment, I'm writing about an eye-catchingly beautiful protagonist. She has a genius level intellect, immense specialist knowledge in a relevant subject in the story, a natural talent for magic despite not knowing more than basic cantrips, five people fight to the death over her, and she comes from wealth and privilege. Is she well written and interesting? Readers decide!

(**) The raciest fic I've tried to write - so far - is some Victorian lesbian erotica pastiche for Yuletide. I like to try to write things that don't come naturally to me. I also love messed-up relationships that are written as messed-up relationships, such as John Ford's Carolinian drama 'Tis Pity.

[alarawriting]

I think I have figured out which of my various universes and story ideas I will be exploring with my ficlets. (Why, yes, if you hadn’t figured it out I am totally cheating; instead of coming up with a ficlet based on the prompt, I am matching the prompt to existing universes and story ideas to see what fits best.)

So far, in 7 ficlets, I’ve covered:

#arcana: The arcana are psychic/energy vampire mages, whose magic draws from life force taken from consenting clients (though not always well-informed consenting clients.) First came up with this idea when I was 16 and I actually wrote a lot of stories based on it, only one of which doesn’t suck, because I was 16. (You modern 16 year olds, with your Internet and your instant feedback and your ability to grow as authors faster than we did back in the day!... you’re awesome, keep it up. But when I was 16? I sucked.)

“zombie humans spreading spam”: Hey, I could really go for some Five Guys.

#child impersonators: I mentioned this in the ficlet -- this idea is based on P. J. Plauger’s “Child of All Ages” (but isn’t fanfic because I’ve done something drastically different with the concept). The “child impersonators” are adults who have been taking medication that suppresses their aging, entirely, since before puberty. They do not go into puberty, they do not grow and they do not age. “Grownups” refers solely to traditional adults, as “child impersonators” have all the legal rights of adults but are not grown-up.

#diane duane #young wizards #faro and ilya: I think someday I will come back to these two, but they are the only story idea I literally didn’t come up with until I saw the prompts. I’d wanted to explore the concept of a dog wizard, mostly because, as much as I love cats, they are overdone in SF and fantasy. But the only idea I’d had about dog wizards was that they probably work with human wizards, rather than in packs with other dog wizards, because unlike cats, who can come and go as they like without humans being alarmed, dogs can’t freely travel around without human supervision. A wizard can get around this, but expending extra power when you don’t need to is against their code. It became a husky and her Russian partner protecting the Arctic because the prompts were “freeze” and “husky”.

#kai diwar universe: I really love this universe and plan to explore it in detail one of these days. I got sick of “humans are special”, “humans have a quality of growth”, “humans are the only one who make alliances with other species”, etc, and decided to create a universe where the thing that’s unique about humans is that we like beer and kitty cats. No, seriously. We made friends with the galaxy’s greatest engineers because they thought they were the only ones with a love of fermented grain until we showed up, and they traded technology for novel microbrews; we made friends with the galaxy’s deadliest and most frightening warriors, the felinoid Kai, because catlike beings exist on most planets with sapient life, but Earth is the only one where they’re small enough to make pets of, so we were the only ones who saw giant cats and instead of terrifying “tigers and lions and panthers, oh my!”, we were able to think “Ooh, kitty!” instead and befriend them.

#not even past: So imagine what if Harry Potter, or a story like it, had taken place in America. And imagine that all of the teens fighting the great evil had died except the Hermione character and the Draco character. And imagine that as a result, the Hermione character had quit the world of magic entirely, gotten married to a non-magical man, had kids, and uses magic only to protect and care for her family. Imagine that she has serious PTSD about the magical world and nightmares about the deaths of her friends, which are getting worse because her own kids are getting to be the age when she went off to magic school herself. Now imagine that the bad guys are back and targeting her. That’s the plot of “Not Even Past.”

Other story ideas I plan to do ficlets on:

#nodrama: No Drama. I did a WIP promo on this. Snarky omnipotent alien is on Earth without most of his powers, investigating whether God is actually a corrupt politician of his people. Check the tag for more related ficlets.

#coldlight: The Cold At The Heart Of The Light. Did this one too. Supervillain must protect the baby of her nemeses’ mentor against her nemeses, a superhero team, because a time traveller has demonstrated that the baby will destroy the world if allowed to grow up, but the supervillain thinks she can change things. Check the tag for more related ficlets.

#proxima: Set in the same universe as Cold Light, but with different characters. The Proximas, like Marvel mutants, are people born with the capacity for superpowers, which come in during adolescence typically.

#libertyangel: Superman expy where the Clark Kent character was female. 

#demange: The demanges -- part demon, part angel -- are entities that do not belong on Earth, and generally prey on humans. Mark discovered years ago that he was half demange, and that this obligates him to do something, so he travels the world solving problems caused by demanges. If this sounds to you like the plot of Vampire Princess Miyu, congratulations, except you missed the part where I crossed it over with Hellblazer and Dresden Files.

Mad Max the librarian: This needs more fleshing out, but basically, in a post-apocalyptic world, a badass dude on a motorcycle rescues books and computer equipment and brings them home to an oasis of knowledge and (barely) working technology called The Library.

#theclos #greenworld: In a universe where Earth has a twin planet that is more like early science fiction’s take on Venus -- hot and jungle-like -- an explorer from our world who is trying to be ethical runs afoul of a member of a godawfully powerful humanoid race who are worshiped as gods on that world. Conflicts over non-interference, the human value of trade and cultural exchange vs. colonialism, and so forth, develop. Also, the human explorer and the Theclos representative fall in love. (Yes, based on Picard/Q, though in this version the Q character is female. If you want to see one that maintains the m/m dynamics keep reading.)

#mikelondon: Bears some slight resemblance to my story “Eyes That Can’t Be Mesmerized” (posted here on tumblr!), but came first. Mike London is an IT guy, and an albino, with rhythmatic nystagmus. It turns out that this protects him from vampiric mesmerism, and that makes him a target of the vampires, so he becomes a vampire slayer.

#doctorultraviolet: I posted the first bit of the first chapter of this here, years ago. Dr. Ultraviolet is The World’s Greatest Evil Genius. After surviving the superheroes’ destruction of her base and her finances, she has to take refuge with her sister... a single mother with 5 kids who lives in the suburbs and works as a real estate agent.

#sifralef: A ship captain in an era much like the Age of Sail, but with magic, is taunted by a Daemon, a mysterious entity with near-godlike power over the world. It turns out the world is a simulation, Daemons are AIs who run the simulation and maintain it, and this particular Daemon wants humanity to wake up, leave the simulation and achieve the destiny that was planned for them when the simulation was first created... for reasons of his own, and he’s chosen this ship captain as the human to awaken. Yes, it’s based on Picard/Q. Yes, this time they’re both dudes.

Plus, story ideas that I’ve posted incomplete bits of or the concept of here on Tumblr, such as the Pale Bro, Lair of Cat and Dragon, Hole in the World, or two lesbians drive across a future America in an ancient car held together by spray-can aluminum. And some other stuff I’m not going into in detail. And there may be ideas from @writing-prompt-s or concepts people posted on Tumblr in a “I wish someone would write this” or explicitly story prompt fashion.

[avisalaencantadia]

If you’ve followed me from the very start, you guys would notice that I’ve never published my own reviews or opinions over the show (except for some asks). This is because I prefer giving my opinions when a show is over. This gives my review some sense of finality.

But yeah... Anyway, just in case you want to read my rambles and opinions, feel free to click the “Keep reading” link below :) and yes the comic sans is intended

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I’ll be dividing my feedback on certain aspects and then I’ll say what the Enca team did good and bad there. Brace yourselves, this is a very long post :))

Story/Plot

The Good

Modernizing the existing Encantadia plot - If you’ve watched Encantadia since 2005, you would know most of the 2016′s version plot derives from the original. But what I really liked with Encantadia 2016′s plot is how it was adjusted to reflect current day sensibilities and moralities like with how Amihan still loved and treated Mira as her own daughter after learning the truth, not making Mila/Lira into an archetypal abused maid, Lira and Mira being best friends and literally #cousin goals instead of love rivals, Ybramihan with their realistic and slow burn romance, Alena breaking out of the “first love never dies” trope, and so much more.

Book 1 - Book 1 (Episode 1 - 148) is the best part of Encantadia 2016. To be very honest, I really wished that the requel just ended with Book 1. Book 1 is, for the most part, well written. I like how little backstories were added from the start, the story was pretty much cohesive, most of the plot deviations from the original were logical (the fall of Amihan and the banishment of Pirena were superb), and the mortal world was less shown than from the original. Speaking of the mortal world, please see below :)

Involvement of the mortal world - Perhaps one of the best things I really liked from the plot of the requel is how the setting of the mortal world was used more logically. What I really didn’t like about the original is how around 50% of the scenes (until Lira returns to Encantadia) was divided into Encantadia scenes and then mortal world scenes and I was like, “this is a show about Encantadia right??” In this version, Mila/Lira’s growth in the mortal realm was not extended (they really did great in doing away with the maid-and-master-romance plot for Lira), Danaya and Alena’s exiles to the human world are sensible, Encantados - like Enuo, Mira, Lilasari and Hitano - choosing to live in the mortal realm was interesting, and the concept of “taong ligaw” as well. Seriously, if you know your migration and trade theories well, it’s very very logical that some Encantados would choose to live away from their motherland because y’know, it ain’t exactly peaceful in Encantadia. Or like the Bandidos who choose to go to the mortal realm to dabble in some trade... although of course human slave trade is definitely not right.

The Bad

The plot being obviously dragged out - All popular Philippine dramas are victims of extension due to public demand and it isn’t a secret that Encantadia was extended until Mulawin vs Ravena was ready. While I totally understand that GMA wanted to capitalize on the ratings success of Encantadia, unfortunately, the plot really suffered and Book 2 (together with the “Finding Lira” arc) looked like it wasn’t thought of very well. 

Plot handling - *ehem* You mean Book 2? *ehem* Ok, on paper, the premise of Encantadia is great. The problem is, most of the plot devices they introduced became too big for them to handle and the prime example was how they handled Book 2. Actually, Book 2 started well in showing what happened after Amihan’s death: 3 kingdoms flourishing, the threat of Etheria, the introduction of the 6 guardians-in-training, etc. But unfortunately, it fell apart: Lireo is great but why did it look that Ybrahim and Pirena were spending more time meddling with Lirean affairs than with Sapiro and Hathoria respectively? We all know that Etheria was a great kingdom but why didn’t they explore its history well and why did they make it fall again just to give way to Hagorn’s return? Oh and the 6 guardians in training? You know what? I really really loved it at first because it showed that not only royalty can become guardians but also normal Encantados (or a mortal like Pao Pao) as well. But after the massacre at Cassiopea’s island, all the remaining guardians-in-training became useless character scene fillers. Marami silang sinayang tbh...

Amihan-centric plot - For a show that used to highlight the four sisters, Book 1 revolved and highlighted mainly Amihan. From episode 1 until her death, we were made aware of Amihan’s significance due to Cassiopea’s prophecy and Hagorn’s obsession to kill her. If you watched the original series, you will see each Sang’gre was given enough air time and importance in the story. But since Amihan was given so much importance in the requel, this led to major plot issues when Kylie left the show. This was partially fixed in Book 2 where we see the three remaining Sang’gres united against Avria, Hagorn and Ether. However, it makes me wish they had an opportunity to do this with Amihan still alive. Which leads to...

Plot handling for actors who leave the show - For the requel we saw 2 major plot changes due to actors leaving the show: Kylie’s and Sunshine’s. Naturally, Kylie’s departure left a bigger hole in the plot and in our hearts than Sunshine’s. Of course I understand that the actors’ departures come from valid reasons (Kylie’s pregnancy and Sunshine’s schedule due to Ika-Anim na Utos) but I wish their character’s deaths and aftermaths were handled better, especially for Adhara. I had huge hopes for Adhara’s character only for her to die a very meh second death. No huge build up whatsoever nor any major revelations about her character. I’d really love to know the story they originally intended for Adhara. Was it taken over by Lilasari’s character? As for Amihan’s death, yes, it was handled very beautifully and logically but it’s the aftermath I had huge issues with. You can obviously see it in Book 2 :)

Worldbuilding and Lore

The good

Expansion of the existing Encantadia world and lore - In this requel, we were given a more solid Encantadia in terms geography: there’s a nice map and cultural distinctions between the different kingdoms were more apparent (I love the sigils and the aesthetic differences between the kingdoms). What I really love as well was the Nchan and Hathorka writing developed and explained to us. It gave us an excuse to write our names and words using these wonderful fictional but working scripts.

Limitations of the Sang’gres’ powers - Ok, some fans had issues with this but I really liked it when it was shown that the four Sang’gres only obtained special elemental powers when they have the gems in their possession. It was also a nice touch when they showed the Sang’gres not wearing their trademark warrior gears when the gems are not in their possession. This shows the Sang’gres do have weaknesses unlike their previous counterparts who can still manipulate their elements (albeit weaker) even without the gems. Because of this, it further emphasizes the gems’ importance: whoever obtains can become extremely powerful.

The deities backstories - In this requel, we get to find out there are actually 5 deities (bathala/bathaluman) instead of 3. It also showed that these deities are not all powerful and have weaknesses almost just like an average encantado. Instead of acting all-omnipotent (except Emre during Book 1), these deities acted a lot like the fickle and full-of-human-emotions Greek/Roman gods.

The bad

The fifth gem - I know a lot of people were asking about adding a new element but I did not like how they handled it. I mean, seriously, how can Cassiopea not know about its existence until the fall of Amihan? Was it because the one who obtained it was not an encantado but a batang ligaw? Speaking of batang ligaw, I did find it cute that the one who will first wield this gem is not an encantado but a little human boy. Paopao’s innocence highlights the fifth gem’s power, quintessence. However, what I highly disliked about the fifth gem is how it just became an accessory after Hagorn forced Paopao to give it to him. An extra gem to grab with no major significance unlike the four elemental gems and an alternative to the Earth gem for healing, that’s what it became. If only they let the grownup Paopao wield it again, then perhaps this gem could’ve become as significant as the others.

The deity involvement - While I first raved about adding the expansion of the deities and their backstories, I will rant about their incessant meddling (or the lack of it). For the first parts of Book 1, I liked how they maintained Emre is the Christian God-like deity, Arde is the guardian of Balaak (or hell) and Ether is the all-around mischievous meddler. I also found it cool at first that Arde and Ether both chose their champions (Adhara and Hagorn respectively) in their bid to regain power over Encantadia. However, I found it really annoying when their meddling became too much or when the encantados (*ehem* Avria *cough* Hagorn and to some extent, Lira) cannot do anything anymore except rely on their godly powers. Deus ex machina much? On the other hand, I generally thought the addition of Keros and Haliya was ok. I liked how Keros’ treachery brought about Emre’s downfall. Too bad he was killed even before he could have a total change of heart. I think it could’ve been cool if he aided Emre and gained followers after that. While Haliya was pretty useless, at least she still had some involvement in Emre and Cassiopea’s sidequest and to explain the origin of the double moon and Lilasari’s curse. It would’ve been cool if she did more. Anyway, long story short: I wish the deities meddled less and just maintained a certain distance from the encantados. Let the encantados do the work with some very occasional sprinkling of their divine blessings.

Adamya - Ok, so why was Adamya demoted from a kingdom to a protectorate territory of Lireo in the requel? I don’t get it why they made Adamya weaker than it is. Adamya had more relevance in the original series where the Diwatas usually seek refuge and get really sound advice from Imaw and his staff. However, in the requel, Imaw and the humanoid Adamyans (except the Gunikars and Nymfas) just stay with the Diwatas all the time. Is there really no desire in Imaw to return to his own homeland, see it flourish on its own and without the Sang’gres’ (especially Alena’s) help? It seems not because this is the vision of Memfes, the leader of the Gunikar tribe. While I had huge problems with him pursuing Alena, I just wished that his vision of a strong Adamya was shared by Imaw and its traditional denizens. I also wished that it was made clearer that the Gunikars and the Nymfas are technically Adamyans.

Characters and Relationships

Since Encantadia had a lot of characters, I will not be commenting on them all.

The good

Lira and Mira - Without any doubt, the Lira-Mira tandem proved to be one of the best things that happened to this requel. Like I’ve mentioned, I’m so glad they did away the love rivalry between the two cousins from the original series. It was utterly refreshing to see these two being close and doing their own adventures and shenanigans. One minor critique though, I just wished they had more character growth especially in Book 2 where they were promoted to Sang’gres.

Ybramihan - Ah, the pairing that launched a thousand ships in the requel. While I wasn’t a huge shipper myself, I really appreciated the slow burn romance between Amihan and Ybrahim. These are two leaders who are dealing with their own political and emotional issues yet still found themselves falling for each other. This mature and bittersweet kind of romance is a breath of fresh air in the sea of “pabebe” romances. I wonder if the Ybramihan endgame would still push through if Kylie did not leave the show.

Alena - Alena’s character started out as being really problematic. Lovestruck, pabebe, immature, shallow, weak - these are words I read from frustrated viewers on how they described Alena. I will also admit that I was really frustrated with Alena’s character because they made her so much weaker than her counterpart from the original series. However, thank Emre, the Encantadia crew seemed to our heard our prayers and wrote a strong and beautiful Alena in Book 2. Alena shows that despite all the hardships she suffered and endured, she learned from them and emerged a woman with the voice of reason and wisdom. I also think it was awesome that she didn’t rekindle her relationship with Ybrahim despite still having feelings for him. We really need to show less of this “first love as true love” trope and more of this “never wanted the crown but ended up as a deserving and independent queen” narrative. Alena’s character growth was one of the few things right in Book 2.

Hagorn -  Hagorn is proof you can write multi-dimensional villains. Coupled with John Arcilla’s excellent acting, I think Hagorn was beautifully portrayed. Here, we saw a king who became consumed by his rage over the injustices he experienced: Mine-a breaking his heart, his father whom he idolized being killed and falsely believing Raquim (a friend turned enemy) to have done the deed, the once mighty Hathoria being cursed, Lilasari breaking his heart and Deshna hidden from him. While yes, all of his actions can be called evil but in its essence is Hagorn’s desire to be respected and loved. Pirena is indeed very similar to her father but the difference is Hagorn let anger harden his heart completely. Although one major critique I can give of him is... why must he be so damn overpowered?? I get it that antagonists need to be more powerful than the protagonists at first but as the series progress, why must Hagorn be always gaining powers all the time??

The bad

The Etherians - I was first excited about the news they were going to bring back the Etherians in the requel since I loved the Etheria arc from the original series. However, this excitement turned into frustration when we saw flat villains on our screen again. So we know Avria and the gang are power-thirsty encantados whom Ether revived because Hagorn was presumed to be dead. However, what was their story? What really happened in the Great Etherian War? Unlike in the original series’ Etheria, we find out the reason they antagonized the Diwatas was because of a prophecy that predicts their downfall. However, for the requel, nothing was explained except their desire for vengeance against the races that brought their first downfall. And that’s it. Added to the fact our beloved Sang’gres know nothing about their history which added to my eye-rolling moments.

Aquil - You may know me as an avid Danquil shipper but I highly disliked how they handled Aquil’s character for the requel. Gone was the Lirean mashna whose loyalty and dedication was at par with Danaya’s but was replaced by a lovestruck man whose character was mainly hinged on the stubborn Sang’gre. While we did see glimpses of Aquil’s loyalty to the Lirean crown but it was really lacking compared to the original. If Muros and the soldiers did not call Aquil “mashna”, I would think of him as a normal soldier who happens to be in love with Danaya. While yes, as a Danquil shipper I am satisfied with their scenes, but as a character he fell flat. And sorry Aquil, Muros made a better mashna. PS: I have no issues with Rocco’s acting. He did well. It’s the characterization I have issues with.

Ariana - Oh Ariana... So much has been said about Ariana but I’ll say this. On paper, the sarkosi/reincarnation concept was nice but it was the execution that fell flat. I will not touch upon Arra’s acting but there were so many plot holes that came along with Amihan’s reincarnation as Ariana. So when Ariana died and Amihan’s ivtre came in, why were Ariana’s memories retained? Where did Ariana’s ivtre go? It was answered in the finale since Ariana’s ivtre came along in the Devas bunch. But I thought the memories and consciousness of an encantado lie in their ivtre/spirit? I guess not. Also, the Ariana we saw is already the Sarkosi!Amihan version. Who is the real Ariana? Would the real Ariana still be chosen by the Air Gem as its next guardian? Will she still have feelings for Ybrahim without Amihan’s ivtre in her? So many questions about this tbh. I would’ve really preferred if they went with the typical reincarnation route where a newborn encantada will grow up discovering she was Amihan in her past life.

Production

The good

Special effects - While it still has room for improvement, I must say it has HUGELY improved since the original series! The transformation sequence, ivictus scenes and even the gem wielding scenes were very smooth. Just a bit more refinement especially in the rendering of creatures (ex. Arde’s dragon form, Ether’s snake form, etc.) and I truly believe we can be at par with other fantasy series. 

Fight scenes - This is what I really loved in this requel. The fight scenes are quicker and smoother compared to the original. Kylie’s martial arts skills were in full display and were duly appreciated by the fans in return. Even Sanya’s arnis skills did not go unnoticed. I also appreciated the fact that even the actors who didn’t necessarily have martial arts skills refrained from using stunt doubles (for most part I guess). At least you can see their dedication in really embodying their characters.

Costumes for Book 1 - I may be one of the few people who’ll say this but I loved the warrior gear for this version. Yes, it may looked less detailed or bongga than the original but I think it suited this requel’s modern fantasy feel. It also enabled the actors to move more freely (thus better fight scenes). I also appreciated the fact the Sang’gres were not shown in highly sexualized scenes despite their costumes being revealing (thank you Direk Mark for not doing what male Western fantasy directors usually do). As for the gowns, I was in love with the Francis Libiran gowns. I just wish that kind of costume aesthetic was maintained throughout the whole series... (more on that later). 

Kingdom throne room set design - I liked how unique each kingdom’s throne rooms looked like. From the airy Lirean throne room to the dark and ominous Hathorian throne room, it added to the emphasis of culture differences between each kingdoms. 

Soundtrack - Who here is getting goosebumps when you hear the remixed Tadhana at the start of each episode? Or the ethnic chanting during burial scenes? I think the Encantadia crew did a good job in composing unique music to use for the requel. I’m also glad they didn’t seem to reuse music from existing teleseryes. 

The bad

Too much studio filming - While I understand logistical constraints in shooting outside the studio but it contributed to the “fake” feel of the scenes. There were many scenes that could’ve been better if they were shot outdoors. There are times when the studio sets looked obviously fake. 

Costumes for Book 2 - In Book 2, we saw a time skip and naturally, we saw costume changes. However, a lot of them looked awkwardly stitched or ill-fitting to the actors. The general aesthetic also changed and sometimes out of place. I understand not all costumes can be “Francis Libiran level” but I wish the costume aesthetic was given more attention by the production crew. We also saw costume recycling within the actors especially with Sanya wearing Marian’s Mine-a gown (not a new occurrence though since Diana also wore Dawn’s Mine-a gown).

Overall

While there are many things to left to be said, overall, the Encantadia requel still proved to be a general success. Not only did it manage to rekindle childhood fantasy emotions from the fans of the original series but had also brought in a new generation of fans. 

Encantadia reinforced the notion of girl power and has once again showed us kickass and multi-dimensional women on TV. Encantadia also proved we can produce a successful fantasy series of our own aside from the ones Americans, Europeans or Koreans produce.

Do I want a Season 2? Of course but only if it can be better than the previous season with better commitment to the plot, character and actor handling :)

Avisala eshma to the whole Encantadia crew and to fellow fans who made the watching experience more colorful. If you managed to read the whole review, thank you as well. Feel free to leave comments or messages if you wish. I’ll be open to discussion :)