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princesscolumbia · 3 months

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About that [VARIANT] HRT thing...

If you're not deep in the thick of all things trans on Tumblr then you'll have seen the [animal] HRT that was spawned by the Dragon HRT series by aveydoesthings, then I feel sorry for you.

Seriously, go give her a follow and start from the beginning. There's TONS of inspired work that came from this, you probably won't ever find them all, but trying is worth the attempt.

If Dragon HRT were possible, I'd absolutely be mainlining that shit. I've felt draconic for so long I remember, just like when I realized I was a woman, learning that according to the oriental zodiac I was a dragon and feeling like that just fit.

No wonder I was so obsessed with the Dragonriders of Pern when I was a kid.

Naturally, since we're a system, I need to be taken into account here, so dragon-lady there wouldn't go full scaley unless there was a way for me to still be me. We're already crazy tall and gaijin, being a goddamn dragon might be a step too far for me.

...I wouldn't say no to having a cat's ears and tail, and the ability to purr...oh, and the fangs and claws!

Okay, therian...

In any case, a few months ago (about 2-3 weeks before we split into a system, as a matter of fact) I read a fic on Scribble Hub called "A Date with Faet," and...well...okay, some spoilers below the link. I'm not going to cut, because I want the whole post showing up, but if you like TG TF fics that dip into the hard weird, keep reading. Otherwise, skip the next section until the AO3 link:

In this fic, the protag discovers that she's a changeling, as in non-human. They're fae, and, in fact, turn out to be a fairy princess. Now, this is actually rather common as TG/TF fics go, and at first it appeared to be fairly standard for its type...right up until it wasn't.

Turns out the protag's adoptive father was also trans and the character that could have been a Mary Sue winds up with Herculean problems; they've got plenty of power, but will it actually be able to fix anything? Will this make things better or worse? What are the consequences of their actions?

This book/series takes a hard turn into the "𝕕𝕖𝕖𝕡 𝕡𝕙𝕚𝕝𝕠𝕤𝕠𝕡𝕙𝕚𝕔𝕒𝕝 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕦𝕞𝕤" when, decades after being turned into a woman who's no longer actually protag's parent, dad-turned-mom-turned-cousin is once again asking to be changed, and this time she becomes protags daughter.

This particular bit in particular has stuck in my mind ever since. It's what works for the story, it's a completely natural outgrowth of the events that happened before, and what's more it allows the author to naturally insert someone who's a system into the fic. (You would not believe the number of fics I "stumbled on to" when I was incubating as the system we are now.)

The protag and their father/mom/cousin/daughter start out perfectly ordinary humans. In fact, they are, at first, rather desperate to cling to that humanity. But over the course of the story they, step by step, wind up being almost completely non human and, in the fae princess' case, periodically wielding power enough to transform reality to her whims.

And, of course, if you know me at all, the fact that this made things as emotionally/ethically/plot-wise/morally complicated as fuck just made me love it harder.

A few months ago I started penning "Like a Cat in Heat," which was a direct response to a smutfic that had a promising description but absolutely fell down on the execution that presented the question of, "What if a person had a distinctly inhuman trait? What if it was more like an animal trait?" I said, "Okay, how about that but if it was actually good? And what if it were funny?"

It turned out to be a fun little bit of flash fiction that I hadn't, at first, intended to be more than what it was. But then one of the readers dropped a comment and coupled with the last, closing lines that were intended to be just a silly little joke wound up spinning out "Dragon's Lair," which proposed the question, "What if 'the normal character' turned out to be a monsterfucker? What if that monster was as fragile as spun glass and the human was the real monster all along with the power to crush the 'monster' if they so chose? What if making the 'wrong' choices by 'society's' standards was actually the best thing for these characters and was the (morally/ethically/narratively)Good Ending™?"

Then I finished that up with "Smokin' Hot" which said, "...fuck it, full eldritch abomination! Fuse that main character with a kami! Main characters LOVE being fused with kami!"

I even have a scene where the MC is being burned alive to nothing and must trust that she'll be reborn from the ashes...

...so imagine my surprise when I found Eldritch HRT and the artist did basically the same thing in their comic, including the cocoon analogy:

( @dawning-mars - PHENOMENAL work so far, please keep it up, this series is wonderful and I can't wait to see where you take it! ...oh, and drink some water and make sure you're getting enough sleep. Burnout is the creative's worst enemy. Don't worry, the inspiration and the zone will be waiting for you on the other side. 😉)

And all this has reminded me, from reading "Date with Faet" to my own work to Dragon HRT and Fish HRT and Mouse HRT and Eldritch HRT...all of these are about people becoming their best self when they no longer conform to "normal" "humanity."

This is not a new revelation, of course. People have been identifying this phenomenon for decades, possibly longer. When the people we now call "queer" are targeted by fascists for killing, and when "normal" people can't be bothered to lift a finger in our defense, and when the "bad" guys in movies and TV shows are queer coded so heavily some of them are actually shown as being gay and in loving relationships...well, it's not hard for us to take a look at the options (do I conform and deny my basic nature and be miserable for decades, or do I commit to the bit and live a happy, if short, life?) and choose to become the monster.

And for those who wind up on this path, it doesn't feel like we're "less" human than the "normal" people. If anything, we're retaining what it is that, to us, makes us human, our sense of self, our agency, our individuality and identity in a vast, uncaring cosmos on a burning world filled with uncaring people. And once we've embraced that part of ourselves, the parts that we're told growing up make us monstrous and evil and inhuman, we look back at the humanity we left behind and see nothing but a faceless mass of conforming nightmares that wish us death.

We may be the monsters, but they are the Borg in its most pure, TNG-era form; uncarring, unfeeling, all consuming, faceless, mindless but the hivemind, and destroys everything it touches.

We embody IDIC, in our weirdness and our multitude and our refusal to conform. Resistance isn't futile, it's mandatory.

The collective sees anything that's different and seeks to force it to conform or erase its existence.

We bronies and furries and scalies and therians and transwomen and transmen and gays and bisexuals and systems and catgirls and dogboys and catboys and doggirls and eldritch abominations are the chaos of life. When someone says, "I'm...new, there hasn't been anything like me before," we say, "WELCOME BROTHER!" ("I'm a non-gender robot, actually..." "WELCOME SIBLING!")

Do you have a place to stay? About five people in the community have couches you can crash on...oh, you're good there? Are your bills paid? "Capitalism," amirite? How about medication? Can't get you your brain pills without a scrip, but we can hook you up with DIY HRT...oh, you're not planning on medically transitioning but you want top surgery? We can find you a list of places and the right people to talk to to make it happen. How about food? Here's a food bank near you...is your job treating you okay? No job? Let's get you resources to keep you housed while you're looking. Oh, that's your first art piece? Gorgeous! Magnificent! You've got a future...GAI'S, COME LOOK AT THIS ART THE NEWBIE DID!

Who's the monster here?

tl;dr - Maybe the real humanity is the eldritch abominations we made along the way?

#thoughts #feelings #random #eldritch hrt #dragon hrt #animal hrt #trans #therian hrt #therian #alterhumanity #nonhuman #otherkin

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sepyana · 1 year

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Jjba Stone Ocean Ep 1 - 12 Thoughts

The main characters in part 6 have great designs. I think they might be my favourite. I like how much green, blue and gray is used. The core cast also has accents of yellow and orange, to give it a warm twist.

(This is a tangent but one thing I don't get is why does eveyone have their shoes connected with their pants. I guess since they are inmates they wouldn't need to take them off all that much but what about Jotaro? Does he walk in his house with the shoes he used outside? Do Americans do that? I checked and apparently some of them do. I don't understand at all. You are just making more work for yourself.)

The side characters I am a bit more mixed on. They don't hit the spot for me personally. They aren't all that memorable. Except for Gwess maybe.

The animation is worse that vento aureo imo but it has the issue of being overly detailed like it. I've always loved hatching but this just feels like extra workload. I don't understand why DP is so adamant about following the manga as closely as possible. I still like the animation but I've been thinking this for a while.

The Main Cast

Jolyne: I like her. She is like if Joseph wasn't a piece of shit. She is kind but not a pushover. She is suppose to be older than most of the other protags but she acts similarly to them. She can be very reckless sometimes but she doesn't really experience the consequences of that, not yet anyway. I am not saying these to insult her at all. She is the JoJo whi gave the bedt first impression to me. I also find it funny that the moonlight is enough to turn her on. My girl is an artist, a poet even.

The daddy issues are pretty obvious. She tries to catch his attention by commiting crimes. This need for attention shows a bit in her relationship with Romeo also.

Stone Free is 👌🏻👌🏻. My one complaint about her design would be that she doesn't have much interesting going on below the chest. The dotted pattern is cool but it doesn't give an interesting siluette. It's powers are the best part. She is close range like Star Platinum but she can unravel her arm to get range like Sticky Fingers. Stone Free is like if Hierophant was op. It's is faster, has more attacking power, seems more durable also, it allows Jolyne to unravel herself as well. My main issue is that it seems to pull shit out of its ass sometimes with just how much its strings can do.

Ermes: She is the more experienced one as she has been to prison before. She is the angry to Jolyne's cool. Thus she has the most warm colors in her design! Jolyne was always a delinquient but Ermes definitely one ups her in that regard. She is a lot more blunt and less trusting. She is also suppose to be masculine in the way she talks. She still has a feminine design though. I wouldn't really call her butch.

I don't like her stand though. I got a bit used to it but even still. It just looks ugly. I'm not too keen on its powers either. It damaging the copy when it merges hinders it more than it helps most of the time.

F.F. : I didn't imagine they would end up being so goofy. Their first appearance made them seem uninterested in connecting with humans but that couldn't be further from the truth. They are more than happy to talk once you get to know them. They are really excited about everything and I just find that lovely to be honest. I got a lil emotional when Jolyne saved them. Maybe shed a tear or two. Perhaps. I also love their design. The hat (?) is adorable. They contrast with the rest of the gang pretty well. They are my favourite so far :)

Emporio: Emporio is one of those characters that is hard to hate. I can't really find much to say about him yet. He is more of a plot device at this point. There is a lot you could do with him. He has literary grown up inside a prison. He has a lot of potential.

Weather Report: He seems like a nice person. I like his design a lot like the others. Especially the hair-hat. His memories were stolen by Pucci. It makes you think. Why is he in prison in the first place? I read somewhere that him and Pucci are brothers. That would explain some things.

Jotaro: Divorcecore Jotaro is here with his most insane fit yet. I have a lot to say I also have nothing to say. Just look at him. I'm not really surprised Jotaro "I am going to put myself in prison because I am afraid I will hurt my close ones" Kujo would separate himself from his family to protect them. Stands attract other stands, sure, but Jolyne would have been targeted by Dio's servants regardless since she is a Joestar. What if something like that happened while Jotaro was away? She got into prison before she got a stand and she would have gotten killed there. I don't really know what to think of Jotaro at this point. I remember when people were talking about this a few years ago. Almost all my mutuals are into jojo for some reason so I saw Stone Ocean in my dash a lot.

In the eye catches there was some text under the development potential of Star Platinum but I didn't wanna bother translating it.

Pucci: Imagine Dio being your best friend in 40 years of being on this Earth. I find hit hard to think Dio having a connection with anyone let alone a 16 year old who he spent a year with max. He says he met him in 1988, Sdc took place that year also I think.

Pucci saying Dio has a century worth of wisdom is pretty funny cuz while he is that old, he slept thru most of that so he is still pretty young.

Also, I just think it's silly that Pucci's entire plan relies on Jotaro still remembering the contents of a book he read more than 20 years ago at this point. Not to mention the few pages he read just happening to be the ones Pucci wants. That makes Pucci seem like a moron but it is funny so I'll give it pass.

#sepya watches jjba #↪ posts

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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A weird defence I've seen of RWBY's conflicts has been that it's good writing simply by the virtue that people can disagree on what's the right thing to do in said conflict. Which doesn't work when one decision is being presented as the only valid choice while every other option is either not addressed or demonized. This isn't a story leaving a nuanced set of stances to explore, it's a guy on stage signalling the crowd to boo whenever someone goes against the Protag's decision.

Real quick, I want to talk about RWBY by not talking about RWBY. I’ve seen this argument a lot too and the tl;dr is that just because your audience debates the right action in a conflict — something that is inevitable given how subjective media is — doesn’t mean the story encouraged that reflection in any way. As you say, RWBY pretends that those disagreements don’t exist and that This Is The One (1) Right Answer... which entirely defeats the purpose of a morally nuanced situation in the first place. That lack is bad writing because it demonstrates the author’s inability to provide an accurate picture of the conflict while still ensuring we come out of it liking the parties involved. The conflict was too complex for them to manage alongside equally complex characterization, so they just pretended it was far simpler than it actually was. That’s not something to praise.

But to get to the not RWBY part. I’ve mentioned this a couple times before, but one of the scenes that I think manages these sorts of conflicts really well is the funeral fight in The Haunting of Hill House, episodes 6, “Two Storms.” So warning from here on out for spoilers. Sometimes, the best way to see what’s not working well in one show is to look at another show that does (basically) the same thing successfully and compare the two.

Normally I’d include screenshots, but Netflix doesn’t allow that :/ So I’m forced to rely on bullet points.

The basic premise is that the Crain family has assembled in daughter Shirley’s funeral home, the night before they bury their sister, Nell. A lot of secrets are about to come to light.

The scene kicks off when their father, Hugh, relays the call he got from the housekeeper the night of Nell’s death. She had committed suicide in the family’s childhood home.

Though everyone knew how she’d died, son Steven is distraught at hearing the details and reveals that a few weeks prior Nell crashed a book signing of his. This shocks the others given that this was very unusual behavior for Nell.

Shirley likewise reveals that she got a call from Nell who’d been worried about their brother, Luke, but hadn’t spoken to her the night of her death. The implication is that no one did. They’ll never know what was going through her head the night she died.

Hugh reveals that she did call him. “I talked to her.”

Stunned by this news, his children demand to know what was discussed and Hugh is clearly reluctant to continue. However, he eventually says that Nell wasn’t just worried about Luke, but also the “Bent Neck Lady,” a specter from her childhood.

The viewer knows that ghosts are real in this show. The kids don’t. Or rather, they all experienced supernatural occurrences in their childhood, are still experiencing them now, but only some of them are willing to admit they’re real. Steven is the diehard skeptic of the bunch and starts yelling at his father, accusing him of aiding Nell’s delusions and ignoring a family history of mental illness. In particular, he declares that this “makes you culpable [in her death].”

Steven continues to accuse Hugh of “holding back information” about Nell and Hugh shoots back that “If I held back anything it was to protect you kids.” The viewer understands Hugh’s dilemma: the only reason he keeps things to himself is because Steven and the others refuse to believe the truth, with an added dose of this supernatural stuff being very dangerous. Steven asks, “Why do I need protection from the truth?”

Before their fight can go any further, Shirley tells Steven, “You might want to check yourself before you start talking about the truth.” He published an autobiographical book about their childhood trauma and notably capitalized on a supernatural angle he doesn’t believe in. Shirley calls it “blood money.”

As the argument about the ethics of his book rages, Shirley defends herself primarily with how everyone else thinks this is “blood money” too. No one took a cut when Steven offered one, proving how despicable they all think it is.

Meanwhile, sister Theo has been getting heat for being drunk (a coping mechanism for her own supernatural troubles) and Shirley eventually pushes her far enough that she admits she did take Steven’s money and used it to get her degree. “It’s good, fucking money.” Suddenly, Steven has someone in his corner and Shirley’s main defense has crumbled.

Shirley is furious that Theo had this secret income but was still living with her and her husband. Theo reminds her that she offered to pay rent, but Shirley isn’t interested in hearing that. She demands that Theo move out immediately and uses this betrayal as the new way to protect herself. She’s the victim here.

Steven, sensing another secret in the works, cautions Shirley to “get off your high horse before you fall off.”

Shirley maintains her position until her husband blurts that they also took Steven’s money. Shirley hasn’t been running the funeral home well and they would have sunk without it.

Despite being the punching bag for the second half of this fight, Shirley is offered both reassurance and dignity. Her husband emphasizes that the only reason they’re struggling is because Shirley is a good person. She does too much work pro bono. Shirley also delivers the line, “Do you have any idea how much you’ve humiliated me?” calling into question the husband’s choice to admit this now, purely as a way to prove her wrong.

Shirley leaves to get some distance and discovers that someone — something — has put buttons over Nell’s eyes. The shock of this keeps the fight from continuing and, as plot intervenes, gives the characters the space needed to eventually start healing and forgiving one another, notably by sitting with the various truths they all now have to grapple with.

Phew! A long summary, but I’ve put this much detail in to highlight the nuance of the scene. Obviously RWBY would differ in many ways — less cursing, for one — but the core elements of any morally complex scene should be the same. The important takeaways here are that no one in the Crain family are “pure” or “evil” and everyone gets their chance to be both right and wrong. Hugh is right that Steven won’t listen to him and wrong in that he didn’t do enough to help his kids. We get Steven and Hugh’s frustration, their understanding of the world at odds with one another. Steven is wrong to put everything on his father and justified in starting his writing career with their story. We watch the scene move from “Steven is Wrong and everyone agrees” to “Oh shit nm, more and more of the family are revealing that they benefited from his money, complicating how “wrong” he actually is.” Shirley is right to point out that Theo is getting drunk during their sister’s funeral and Theo is right to point out that being drunk doesn’t erase having a good point. Theo is allowed to scream at the group and then immediately be offered help when she falls. Shirley pretends she’s better than all of them and is slowly, horrifyingly proven wrong, but is then still extended compassion and is allowed to point out how horribly they’ve just treated her. The husband is right about the money, wrong about keeping it a secret/revealing it the way he did, right in how he tries to diffuse the other fights, and VERY wrong by getting caught kissing Theo down in the storeroom!

The scene twists and turns in a way that highlights everyone’s points and their flaws, the moments when their perspective should be upheld and questioned. The end result is a scene that has space for the audience to debate everyone’s choices without imposing the single view of This Person Is Obviously Wrong/Right and If You Think Otherwise You’re Not Watching The Show Correctly. The show itself acknowledges the complexity and nuance of these problems. It asks, “Hugh should have tried harder, but what more can he do when his kids literally don’t believe this stuff exists? Was Steven really justified in writing a book about their collective experiences? What does it mean that something his family sees as capitalizing on their trauma also helped them keep businesses and schooling afloat? Was it okay for Shirley’s husband to keep that money a secret, even if it helped them? How might he have told her in a less cruel manner? What about Shirley’s life has led to her intense need to be on that ‘high horse’?”

And of course: “Who is really responsible for Nell’s death?” By this point the viewer already knows that there is no “really” here. This is too complicated a tragedy to lay the blame at any one person’s feet. Everyone in this room has moments of justified accusations and moments of chastisement because they’re well written, well rounded characters who are neither saints nor devils. The length of the scene (done in a single shot!) emphasizes that if you just wait long enough, even the most perfect looking person will eventually have a skeleton pulled from their closet. No one is above mistakes.

RWBY has NONE of that. Zip. Nada. Nothing. RWBY gave us a scenario with many of the same, core themes — secret keeping, secrets unwillingly revealed, blaming others for your mistakes, hurtful actions with helpful consequences, questioning who is responsible for a tragic death — and instead of even attempting to give us some of the above nuance, RWBY said only that Ruby was right, Ozpin was wrong, and demanding that the audience ignore the nuance they could already see in order to accept the canon.

RWBY’s scene asks the audience to play dumb and look at the world as a Black and White place, despite the show simultaneously insisting that “the world isn’t a fairy tale” and is, in fact, filled with shades of gray.

Just not any shades of gray that mess with that dichotomy that now drives the story.

That’s not good writing. It’s oblivious and contradictory writing that makes the audience frustrated. Not satisfied, surprised, contemplative, or curious. Just frustrated.

#rwby #the haunting of hill house #mymetas #Anonymous

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amethystpath-writes · 4 years

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Hi so heads up I did give this prompt to @yourheartonfire (who responded) and previously other blogs (that haven’t) and I thought it would be cool to see your twist on it too since you enjoy writing medieval and stuff.

This one is long and complicated though so buckle up. But basically it’s a Sleeping Beauty retelling but the protag is Aurora’s ace younger sister and it takes place after the fairytale. Aurora’s sister was raised to be the perfect and pragmatic queen but then Aurora (who is very sweet just doesn’t have a royal education) returns and starts accidentally creating court and political problems since she doesn’t know court etiquette and war strategy and stuff. So then Aurora’s sister has to find solutions but subtly as to not create drama.

Also I’d be rlly happy if you somehow include a scene mentioning the sister’s asexuality. I recognize this is medieval era vibes and therefore a little more difficult to talk about “modern” ideas so you can leave it out especially if doesn’t fit the scene lol

I just like seeing different writing styles and interpretations of prompts. Also I’m so sorry that this is long and specific and complicated. Feel free to change the prompt to fit your vision!

I love that you asked multiple writeblrs this; that’s so cool! Glad I could be a part of it! I did mention asexuality a small bit, but I wanted to add really quickly that asexuality is different for all aces. There’s a spectrum of us actually. I just wanted to clarify because I could only represent one, of course, and it’s the one that I understand most closely as it’s the one I experience myself. Alright, on with it! (Also, Lumen means ‘the light’ in Latin!)

******

Lumen ran a hand through her knotted hair as she watched herself in her vanity mirror. A comb might have untangled it more easily, and it would have been encouraged by just about anyone in the palace, but it wasn’t the knots that mattered at all. Lumen was stressed, and stress led to clenched fists in ratty hair.

It was exciting to get the older princess, Aurora, back. Even when she became Queen, Lumen didn’t mind at all. The kingdom held a glorious coronation with many delicate desserts, beautiful curtains which hadn’t seen daylight in ages, and patterns that were temporarily painted along the ballroom walls and floors to tell the very story of Aurora. It was beautiful, and Lumen felt a swell of pride in her older sister for going through such hardships and still being willing to put her name and face out there for all to know and see.

But the pride Lumen felt was dwindling. Aurora was still incredible- still beautiful, kind, gracious, and all the like…but she was a poor queen. She was overly kind, overly giving, overly positive. Lumen hated to think that way, but it was true. Aurora acted without thought of consequence.

A door opened as Lumen continued to look herself in the mirror. There were pockets forming under her eyes. Not only this, they were becoming dark.

With a sigh, Lumen pulled her hand out of her hair, letting it thunk on the desk in front of her. She looked to her right where the door was and saw her husband standing there in the doorway with raised brows.

“You let your hair down,” he noted. “And you are in your nightgown.”

“I’m tired,” Lumen returned simply.

Her husband stepped into the room, easing the door shut behind him before walking to the princess. He laid his arms on her either shoulder and hugged her while she titled her head back to rest against his chest. “If you are tired, you should sleep. You haven’t allowed yourself real rest since your sister came home.” He kissed the top of her head and backed away into the centre of their chambers.

“I slept well the first night.”

Peeling his shirt off, the previous king said, “You know that is not enough.” He tossed his shirt to the side of the bed and moved on to his pants before grabbing a pair of bed shorts. “I know you are worried, but your sister has advisors. I’m sure they can straighten things out.” Even he didn’t sound like he believed it was a solution.

Lumen stood from her vanity and walked to the bed post near her husband as he finished pulling up his shorts. “Nicholas, they only advise her. They cannot stop her ruling, and everything she has ruled so far is just going to drive this kingdom into the ground.” She plopped on the edge of the bed, putting her head in her hands, elbows on her knees. It wasn’t very lady-like, but she didn’t care. She didn’t think Nicholas did either, thankfully.

“Have you ever tried talking to her?” He sat next to her, a hand on her back.

“Not right now,” Lumen said first and shifted until his hand fell away. As her stress was building up, she just wanted to be left to her own. Not emotionally- she needed to dump that part out- but bodily. Comforting touches weren’t all that comforting. Holding hands, sure. A kiss on the head, sure. But beyond that, specifically…delicate touches…Lumen just…didn’t really want it. Not at any point, but especially when she was aggravated.

When Nicholas hugged the princess earlier, she only allowed it because she could tell it’s what he wanted. Even after two years together, he was still adjusting to Lumen’s wants and needs. Maybe she should have corrected it then- he would have retreated- but if it made Nicholas comfortable, Lumen didn’t mind it occasionally. She just wasn’t one for physical affection. Verbal affirmations were nice; she liked those. She liked encouragement. She didn’t find any amount of comfort in touching. It didn’t take any problems away and it wasn’t entirely necessary. It wasn’t completely appalling, but it also wasn’t actively sought after.

“I spoke to her today, about how her order against the lords was a bad idea.” Lumen scooted herself back onto the bed, and then until her back met the headboard of hers and Nicholas’ bed. “I agree that the lords have too much. Some of them are greedy and have way more than they, or their children, will ever need. I have more money and food than what I could ever need. I have voluntarily given those masses away to those who needed it, but not all the lords will. And you cannot force them to! That is how you get uprisings. That is how you get underground alliances between angry lords and other dastardly kingdoms. That is how surprise attacks happen and”- she sniffed- “and I explained all of this to her, Nicholas. She doesn’t get it. I love her, and I want to support her, but she is going about all of this so wrong.”

“You could try drawing her a picture.”

Lumen gave a small laugh, but then said quietly, “That was a rude comment to make, Your Majesty.”

He smiled at her, slid himself on the bed beside her. “Not ‘Majesty’ anymore, my sweet.”

“Maybe not in this kingdom, but I’m allowed to call you my king.”

The conversation turned serious again as Nicholas asked, “What are you going to do about the turmoil which is your sister?”

Lumen thought with eyes closed and her head against the headboard of their bed. She began shaking the latter. “I don’t know. It is not in my place to make demands of her and simply suggesting things to her doesn’t work. I have no idea what could ever fix what she is doing. I just…I wish she would have waited to become Queen. I think it’s great that she is one; she deserves it, but…”

“But she was not ready for it.”

She nodded, opening her eyes again. Sniffled once more. “The only thing I could do is undermine her orders, but I don’t know how to do that, and I”- Lumen sighed- “I will feel so awfully about it.”

“You will feel awfully about saving the kingdom?”

“Well when you say it like that, it makes it sound perfectly okay, but Nicholas, Aurora is my sister. I can’t just- just sneak about her kingdom and-”

“But it is your kingdom, too, love. It is everyone who lives here’s kingdom. By making the decisions she is making, she is putting all of us at risk. Some of the orders she has declared for the armies and cavalry are ridiculous. It’s jeopardizing us all.” Nicholas continued. “If she is not listening to anyone, I wouldn’t blame a single person for intervening. If you do not do it, someone else will, just as you said, and I’m sure it will be less pleasant than if you did.”

Lumen gave a soft sigh, “I know. I want to try talking to her again tomorrow, though, and if that doesn’t work, then I will take more- um- discreet action.”

“Good. I think that will be good. Just do me a favour, my queen?”

She looked to him, waiting.

“Remember you are doing this for her, too. You shouldn’t feel bad for going behind her back when it is only to help her. I have brothers and sisters. I have an idea of how you feel, but you are not harming her, okay?”

Lumen nodded. “Okay.”

“Aurora?”

“Hm?” The queen turned her head over her shoulder, but quickly turned back to make sure the water didn’t boil over. “Oh! Your hair looks lovely today. I didn’t get a look at the dress, but I am sure you are beautiful in it, too. I am making food for the servants. They have been working so hard to clean the ballroom and have hardly had a break. I thought it might be nice to-”

“Aurora!” Lumen shouted. She felt bad about interrupting her sister, but she also knew this was the only way to make her stop talking. Aurora was just so excited and passionate about everything she talked about. It was a nice trait to have sometimes, but Lumen needed to talk to her right now. “I know you think that what you are doing is great- and it is! But, Aurora, I was raised to be a queen and in that, I was taught the innerworkings of the courts. You are a very kind-hearted person, and it isn’t awful that you are that way, but you can’t…Aurora, are you listening?”

The queen was bobbing her head back and forth, humming some sort of tune. Every now and then, she’d mutter a few words. “I know you,” she’d sing, “I walked with you- hm hm hmmm hm hmm.”

Lumen grunted in annoyance. “I really need you to listen to me, Aurora.” Nothing. No response.

That’s it. Lumen shook her head, and without saying another word, walked out of the kitchens, leaving her sister to hum and sing whatever song it was. The queen became distracted easily. Everything reminded her of something else somehow, and it often happened at the most inconvenient of times. Like right now. This was Aurora’s last chance before Lumen would take things into her own hands, and now she was.

Lumen started by taking Nicholas’ valuable possessions- rings and jewels and the sort- without him noticing. She was caught the first few times. It was a quick realization that stealing was easier when the victim wasn’t present. But Lumen worked on just about every case scenario so that she could better her newly discovered skills.

She would become a thief for now; a quiet and stealthy thief who stole from the poor and gave to the overly wealthy if only to appease them and stop a secret war that would undoubtfully endow if Lumen didn’t do this. Since Aurora wouldn’t revoke the new orders she made, this was the only choice- to become an inverse Robin Hood.

Later, the former queen would travel to other kingdoms- disguised, of course- and hire people to smuggle in weapons for her kingdom’s army since Aurora was on a crazy, kind-minded rampage that involved getting rid of all the armies’ weapons, therefore making the kingdom defenseless. While she was gone, Nicholas would cover for Lumen, saying both she and he were sick and that servants should have very limited contact with either of them. It would keep Aurora from realizing her sister was gone.

The kingdom needed great maintaining. Aurora was a lovely person, and Lumen still felt guilty for doing any of this behind her sister’s back, but it was necessary. The queen was ruining the kingdom with kindness- something that shouldn’t have been possible, however it very much was- and now Lumen had to fix it. Maybe she wasn’t queen anymore, but that didn’t mean she would cease her pursuit in taking care of her people.

Death was always terrible, but it was worse when it came with destruction and cries of mercy in war than in poor families and smelly streets.

#request fill #prompt fill #medieval #medieval writing #royalty #political conflict #fairtytale #fairytale retelling #this was such a cool idea and I loved it!

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gamer2002 · 3 years

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Danganronpa - Review2002

Danganronpa is a mystery VN, where 15 high schoolers are trapped in a murder school, and in order to get out one has to kill another and frame somebody else for it. Observed and manipulated by the headmaster of the school, a sadistic robot-bear called Monokuma, our main character, Makoto, has to survive and not lose his hope. Because there is a lot of despair. And hope. Despair. Hope. Despair. Light. Darkness. Kingdom Hearts.

But we’ll talk about that later.

Despite all the murder thingy, the game is just an edgy shonen and is very animu. It’s not a bad thing, because it’s entertaining, and that’s what matters the most. Characters are mostly simplistic, often stereotypical, but are distinguish and memorable (aside from meh protag). What is good about the cast is how the group dynamics changes with each case. Thanks to that, the characters seem more alive, and the surrounding drama seems more impactful. And sometimes the drama is really good, though it’s dragged down by the meme writing. But about that later.

The trials, where we try to figure out the killer’s identities, are good gameplay-wise. Aside from the rhythm minigame. I get the creators wanted to demonstrate losing arguments by lack of confidence, but, until half of the game, that minigame had nothing to do with logic or deduction. Every other minigame was good or ok, though.

Comparing to Ace Attorney, the trials were more dynamic, with constant new arguments and questions. It helps that the equivalent of AA’s testimonies is briefer (as it’s on a time limit). Not to mention, the filled with moving camera direction really made non-animated and non-moving characters feel alive. The music was ok – it serves its purpose, but it isn’t memorable.

The gameplay between trials was ok. Investigations didn’t drag too long. The free time did sometimes, but that’s because I was collecting more coins than it was necessary. The coins are spent for presents, which we can give to other characters, in return for learning more about them and gaining upgrades for the trials. But, to be frank, some upgrades were “turn off the setting we put to make the gameplay purposefully shittier”.

It’s an entertaining game with some good ideas, which earns 7/10 in my book. But there are reasons why this game doesn’t earn any higher, which I’m going to elaborate on. The subject is Kingdom Hearts Meme Writing, Monokuma being a letdown villain, the big revelation being a lot of nothing, and how the writers could’ve made the Hope vs Despair nonsense actually work. The last two are impossible to write about without spoilers, but I can explain the first two without them.

Despair. Despair. Despair. Despair. Do you get it? I hope.

I know this is a shonen, regardless how edgy it is, and the writers were pretty self-aware of this. But the despair/hope meme drags down the writing. Monokuma goes on and on about how he will turn all the hope into despair, and this is just as ridiculous as a talking cartoon bear that kills a man by literally blasting him into space can be. It’s a meme writing. A ham-fisted, forced meme writing.

Other examples of meme writing is Kingdom Hearts, with its light and darkness, or Ace Attorney, with its truth. We all roll our eyes over that. Characters are bringing up some concept in a melodramatic way, repeatably, with a ridiculous zeal that doesn’t just seem alien, but straight out autistic. But it’s okay, all those titles, including Ronpa, are still shonens. Kingdom Hearts is a battle shonen where you fight against forces of evil alongside Donald Duck. You can turn your brain off and enjoy yourself, no biggie. But turning your brain off is a bit harder in, you know, a murder mystery.

Yeah, Ace Attorney is murder mystery as well, and yet I give it a pass. That’s because “truth” is just an ideal of idealistic characters. Phoenix, Edgeworth, and the rest, are melodramatically motivating themselves by simplistically expressing their ideal. And melodrama is part of a wrestling, and logic wrestling is what Ace Attorney boils down to. So, why this isn’t the same in this logic wrestling game?

The problem with hope/despair is that those are not just some concepts or ideals, but those are emotions. Emotions that the writing does attempt to make you feel, sometimes pretty successfully. Case 4 is an example of a beautifully set up tragedy, it’s the game’s emotional peak. The reveal is shocking and sad, and the dramatic confession is filled with genuine emotion. And then the confession has the word “despair” in it, and my brain is immediately going back to Monokuma and his antics. Good thing that the official translation team has realized that they would have killed the mood sooner, if they had included that word in an earlier appearing evidence. Same thing happens whenever the word “hope” appears – it just makes us recall the memes.

In my AI: Somnium Files I’ve explained to you the need of being explicit about what is supposed to make the player feel emotions. But you can’t be ham-fisted about what the player is supposed to feel. Turning hope and despair into KH’s equivalent of light and darkness is turning them into a material for jokes. It is a repeatable telling us what to feel, and that simply can’t work. If the game didn’t do that, a lot of good moments wouldn’t be dragged down by being a reference to something we joke about.

Monokuma is just the biggest kid tier villain

There are spoiler reasons why Monokuma fails at being a villain, but I’ll mention them in spoiler section about improving the whole hope vs despair conflict. But the basic problem with Monokuma is spoiler-free, because it all boils down to the game’s initial setup.

Generally, Monokuma is a recurring type of villain that mixes nihilism, cartoonish silliness and cruel sadism into one, disturbing package. Other examples of such villains is the Joker, or Killer the Butcher from Zambot 3. When you look at Monokuma alone, he is (aside from spoiler reasons) a good example of such a villain. He is over the top, entertaining, scheming, memorable, gets all the attention in every scene he is in, and is constantly disturbing. All his bases are covered, so all is good, right? But only when you look at Monokuma alone.

Character in a story isn’t just some element you can look at alone, it’s an element you see among all the others. Great villain needs a great hero. Great hero needs a great villain. If one is unimpressive, the other can’t impress us with their triumphs.

The reason why the Joker is a great villain is because he is a challenge for the goddamn Batman, creating a clash of an unstoppable force against an unmovable object. Killer the Butcher’s enemies are kids piloting alien giant robot with superior firepower. What makes the Bucher a good villain is that, regardless of his lost battles, he still succeeds at causing significant collateral damage, which constantly contributes to his stated goal of slowly killing all humans. And Butcher doesn’t just rely on his show reaching logical conclusions about consequences of battles between giant robots, the entire arc before heroes directly attacking his HQ is about him using a weapon they can’t fight with a giant robot – kidnapped people turned into living human bombs. The amount of sacrifices, losses and traumas that kids from a 70s (!) super robot show have to go through is why Killer the Butcher is an impressive villain you love to hate.

But Monokuma isn’t an unstoppable force going against an unmovable object. Neither he is battling heroes that are capable of beating him in a direct confrontation, forcing him to rely on different forms of accomplishing his goals. He targets fifteen uninformed kids, with like three giving him a reason to worry, and puts them in a situation where they can’t initially defy him at all. It’s not a spoiler to say that the kids initially can’t find any clues that would’ve allowed them to free themselves from Monokuma. Their exploration of the school is limited, and next areas are unlocked only after class trials. Meaning, Monokuma limits kids’ ability to gather information required to beat him, until the next killing occurs. If the kids don’t kill anybody, they can only hope to (hah) apathetically accept their imprisonment by Monokuma.

To sum it up, all that Monokuma accomplishes is making some confused kids kill one another, when they are in a situation where it’s their only option to free themselves. Wow, what an impressive villain, doing whatever he wants with helpless children and driving them to murder.

It doesn’t help that the actual conclusion of the conflict with Monokuma is underwhelming, and all his actions only make us respect him less as a villain. But more about that later, in the spoiler section. But not immediately, because first we need to focus on the game’s disappointing big revelation.

Who cares that the world is over?

All attempts to escape the murder school were pointless – the world has already ended! Play the laugh track.

To give the writers credit, Genocide Jill’s explanation of that was funny and played out as a dark joke. And that’s the only way this revelation could be played out.

When it comes for the twist being a twist, it’s okeyish. The twist itself isn’t hard to guess, by the end of the first trial, and it’s almost given away by the third one. On the other side, there are photos of kids that died in previous chapters, and you could wonder if they aren’t going to reveal that everybody lives and this all was a simulation, or something. It can be easily guessed, but there is room for speculation, and you may not know which route the writers will go. Even if those routes are “predictable” and “a disappointing backpedal”.

But even if you end up being surprised… it’s an emotional bunch of nothing. Makoto gets his answer to what could’ve happened to his family, and he still doesn’t even realize it. That’s how the writing poorly handled one way it could’ve made us care about end of the world – through Makoto’s reaction to it.

Makoto is such an uninteresting, purposefully average, and ultimately unimpressive main character. We know he has family, parents, and a younger sister, but one picture of them is all we got. We don’t know the dynamics of their relationship, and we don’t know why Makoto loves them. Just saying “they are his family” isn’t enough. When Superman and his family are written well, we know why Clark Kent cares deeply about them – Ma Kent is such a great mother, Pa Kent is such a great father, and each scene with them demonstrates it.

Through the game, Makoto could’ve flashbacks to his family, as an ongoing C plot. That way we would’ve been shown why Makoto cares about them, why he wants to make sure they are safe, why he could feel tempted about escaping via murder (leading to him rejecting that idea because his family wouldn’t want it that way). And then boom – yes, the world has ended, and they are probably dead.

But Makoto never ever connects the state of the world to the state of his family. And that’s a big mistake, because that was a way to spice up the ultimate clash between Hope and Despair.

How to argue that Despair can be better than Hope

Before I focus on the topic, let me first expand on the topic of Monokuma being a disappointing villain, by telling you why Junko is a disappointing villain.

Junko just pulls everything out of her ass. Ok, she happens to have a super soldier sister, who was capable of killing Academy’s entire adult staff, letting her to take over the school. This part is acceptable by shonen standards. It was the Acadamy that was responsible for sealing the building and setting its defense, ok. But then everything else is an unexplained bullshit. Endless Monokumas? She has them because the writer says so. Ability to take away memories? She has them because the writer says so. Hijacking all TV channels? Performing ridiculously complex executions? Securing supplies to the Academy in a post-apo setting? She can because the writers says so.

She simply isn’t a formidable villain. She is nothing more than a bored girl, that could’ve been successful as a normal person, but the entire universe decided to grant her everything to let her play a supervillain. She doesn’t accomplish any impressive feat by herself. Even taking over of the Academy was solely thanks to her sister. With her granted unfair total advantage over the cast, there was no other way for her to lose than keeping screwing herself. She can’t even gain respect as a formidable opponent from sticking to her rules, because she not only purposefully handicaps the most competent person in the cast, but also keeps breaking her own rules.

The second aspect of a good villain is understandability. And Junko is a stupid incomprehensible mess. She always feels despair, and that somehow makes her constantly bored. But she wants to prove that’s better than hope. For some reason, she is a sadist. She is also happy about facing ultimate despair in form of her own death, but she didn’t yearn to that enough to off herself before all her plans. Nothing adds up, and she just does whatever crazy shit the writers needs her to do at the current moment. This is the aspect where she just sucks as a Joker-type villain. Such villains, when done well, aren’t just twisted, wrong, crazy edgemasters. When done well, they are also, despite everything, still somehow understandable. That’s what makes them actually shocking. It isn’t just shocking that they do horrible things, it is shocking that they can argue that everything they do serves a purpose and is consistent with a coherent belief.

Joker (when written well) and Killer the Butcher do have nihilistic philosophy that is wrong and twisted, but does have some shocking points. Joker believes that normal life is pointless, because one bad day can drive you mad, so it’s better to embrace awfulness of the world as your entertainment. And this philosophy is consistent with him wanting to commit macabre crimes. Killer the Butcher believes that humans are ungrateful bastards and will even treat their saviors like crap. And this philosophy is consistent with him wanting to kill all humans. Even if you don’t agree with their believes (I hope), you understand why somebody with such believes would be doing what they are doing. This understandability is what elevates banal conflict against a bad guy that does a bad thing that has to be stopped, into a conflict against a personified idea. Batman doesn’t just fight the Joker, he fights a nihilistic view of a pointless mad world. Zambot 3 kids don’t just fight Killer the Butcher, they fight view of humans as unworthy of living and being saved. That is why those conflicts aren’t banal.

Meanwhile, Junko makes a big promise for a Hope vs Despair conflict, arguing that the latter is better than former, but...

What is “despair” anyway? Is it to give up from stuff like escaping the school, and accepting whatever you end up having, however shitty it is? But what does it have with Junko’s boredom and embracing her own death? What is the point of the over-the-top executions? Junko is gleefully sadistic, what about despair makes you sadistic? Did she want the cast and her viewers to embrace sadism as well? How’s that better than hope? It’s incomprehensible, and fails to make any point. The blame lies pretty much on the out-of-place sadism that exists just to make Junko an edgelady.

Danganronpa is a murder mystery. And despite being an over-the-top shonen, it does focus, decently, on motives for committing murders. Every single killer in this game is understandable. Their actions were wrong, but you understand why they did everything they did. There is just a sole exception to this rule – the games’ main villain.

During the final confrontation, Junko was arguing that futile hopes of previous murderers drove them to committing murder. That alone does make a good point. Then she offered everyone safe peaceful life, if they acknowledged her belief and abandoned all hope. Ok, that’s a good dilemma. Surprising that with such a good prepared dilemma Junko bothered to handicap and eliminate Kyoko, when she could just guide the cast towards Junko and this dilemma faster. Still, Junko does make a point about despair being better than hope, and does make the cast face a dilemma, in a way that is consistent with her belief. But then she adds she wants to punish someone for lulz, and that person has to be our bland player character.

And how killing Makoto proves that despair is better than hope? It was a yet another act of Junko’s pointless sadism, which only made it more difficult for other characters to agree with her. Anyway, Junko is ultimately unimpressive, because she loses to Makoto just saying “let’s have some hope, guys”. All that buildup of understandable motives of past killers lead to a rather banal final conflict with a completely banal resolution.

Things would be different, if Junko didn’t forget about Makoto’s family and did bring them up during the final argument. I still think that trying to kill Makoto was counterproductive, but I understand the need of putting MC’s life at stake. But Junko could single out Makoto for execution because he was pushing for the idea of everyone leaving the school, despite the revelation about state of the world, and she could accuse him for selfishly risking lives of others, just for a hope of reunion with his own family. Imagine that being the payoff of flashbacks to Makoto’s family and his wish to reunite with them. Sure, here, Makoto has proved he wouldn’t directly murder anybody over it, but would he willingly disregard safety of others? He can’t really refute that, without giving up on leaving the school.

And that’s how Junko could undermine Makoto and make her point. Living trapped in the school and abandoning all hope for the outside world was bad, but it could be worse. At least it was safe, peaceful, and they had food plus entertainment. Looking for anything better outside was risky. Hoping for anything better was risky. Hope was bad. The state of despair, where you no longer hope for anything better than what you have, was good. Unable to accept this Makoto was spreading ideas that were dangerous for the well-being of others. How Makoto, willing to selfishly drag everyone else into a dangerous hell-word and risk their lives, was that much different from every other killer? Sure, they killed others directly, but at least none of their victims had a slow and painful death. Makoto was willing to potentially doom others to that. And this is why he had to be put down, like all the other killers had to be, regardless of their understandable motives. In the current state of the world, any reckless hope is a dangerous thought crime.

Here, the final debate could be more complex. Makoto could’ve pointed out that, even if he could be accused for having a selfish hope, it was the same with others. Everyone else wanted their situation to improve, and giving that up for hollow safety wouldn’t do. Hope is better than despair, freedom is better than safety. The future of post-apo is libertarian, and if we can’t live with the freedom to pursue our hopes, then we won’t live at all. No more lockdowns!

You don’t have to agree with such a statement, but at least it is some statement. Here, we have a clash of hope that accepts the risk against despair that is unwilling to accept any risks. Unlike what we got, where despair is somehow tied to sadism, and hope simply rides on the power of friendship.

#danganronpa #video games #video game review #story review #review #visual novel #vn #murder mystery #story #writing tips #writing #review2002

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princeasimdiya12 · 4 years

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That anon is an asshole. Why do you hate Shuichi? I think he fits the theme of truth and lies, but his character development is a complete joke as he has zero struggles after his waifu dead. He never once second guess his actions in class trials and doesn’t even think of major consequences (killing the de facto prime minister and not noticing a serial killer is amoung them). His stans over analyze his actions and try to justify everything he does.

They were quite a jerkhole. I can imagine that most stans would be protective of their favorite characters if anyone were to express disapproval.

And thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my personal feelings on the matter anon. And those are some interesting reasons to dislike him but I have some other reasons.

My answers will be hidden under the “Read More” because they’re long answers. But these are my thoughts and reasons for why I hate Shuichi Saihara.

Reason 1: The Protagonist Switch was Lackluster

Right off the bat, I personally dislike that we were promised a unique and compelling protagonist like Kaede only to switch her with a generic insecure protagonist like Saihara. The use of the protag switch isn’t a bad plot twist and it can be clever, it’s just that the result of switching Kaede for someone like Saihara left a bad taste in my mouth.

I loved Kaede because she was unique as a DR protagonist. Along with having a colorful design and talent, she was assertive, confident and willing to take charge. She was actively involved in the story by stepping up as the group’s de facto leader and trying to motivate them. She was also flawed in the sense that she was quick to butt heads with others and she didn’t completely trust others or practice her own beliefs of trusting in friends. And personally, I’m not even upset that she tried to kill someone. It’s still considered something different for a DR protagonist to do, especially if it was for the greater good.

But when we get Saihara, he continues the trend of being a generic sad boy who feels insecure about his talents and wants to be stronger. Most of his screentime is spent moping about his problems and how he doesn’t feel good enough. He doesn’t have the same presence as Kaede and just stays in the background while the rest of the cast move the story as much as they can.

In all honesty, if they had introduced Saihara as the new protagonist, or at least make it so that his predecessor wasn’t as compelling as Kaede, then I wouldn’t have been too upset. At the very least I wouldn’t have gotten my hopes up for a protagonist who was actually different compared to the past protags.

Reason 2: Waifus In Refrigerators

For those that don’t know, fridging is the concept of (brutally) killing off a fictional female character in order to create an emotional impact for her male love interest and his character development.

Kaede’s death and how it impacted Saihara is textbook fridging.

I strongly detest fridging since it robs a female character of her agency and role in the story. It treats her as a tool meant to motivate her male love interest to either avenge her death or grow as a person. Kaede’s death along with her final wish is what pushes Saihara to try and beat the killing game. And from then on, Saihara will take the moment to reflect on Kaede’s tragic end and how he inspired him with her kindness. Kaede loses her identity as a complex leader who was willing to commit murder for a greater good. Everyone just remembers her as Saihara’s innocent dead love interest who inspired him to keep on fighting. It’s also worse in the 6th case when it’s revealed that Tsumugi took advantage of Kaede’s trap to kill Amami which further pushes Kaede into the image of an innocent angel that did no wrong.

And it’s also frustrating since this isn’t the only time that the Danganronpa series has killed off its female characters in order to develop their male love interests.

In SDR2, Peko dies trying to save Fuyuhiko which in turn motivates him to stop acting like a jerkhole and be more cooperative with the group.

In DR3 Future Side, Chisa is the first victim of the killing game which pushes her boyfriend Munakata to become a more direct antagonist towards Naegi for protecting the Remnants.

In the same series, Kyoko allows herself to be poisoned in order to protect Naegi. It’s through her death that Naegi decides to confront Munakata in a final showdown. And while Kyoko does get brought back to life at the end of the show, it should be noted that she was only brought back just to be part of Naegi’s happy ending package. She loses her agency and is brought back just to be his newly revived girlfriend.

In DR3 Despair Side, Chiaki is brutally killed in order for her classmates to become Remnants of Despair. But it’s her final heartwrenching moments with Izuru that inspire emotion inside of him aswell as deciding to turn against Junko.

So Kaede being killed for Saihara’s development is the fifth fridging example in this series and it sucks that Kodaka and his crew rely on this trope throughout Danganronpa.

Reason 3: The Narrative Forces You To Like Him

Another issue that I found irritating about Saihara is how everyone began praising him.

Just after the first case, everyone constantly praises and coddles Saihara for being such a great detective and for growing so much. For me, that praise feels undeserving since he barely did anything to earn it. Thinking back to each of the past protagonists, they didn’t have everyone’s respect in the beginning. They each had to work had and face adversity throughout their stories in order to earn their praise and respect. Even Kaede, who despite being a confident leader, had to deal with people frequently judging her leadership and actions. So I find it questionable that Saihara already earned everyone’s respect after solving only one case.

By having all the characters praise Saihara, the narrative pushes you to accept him as the new protagonist and recognize how awesome it is to have him. But for me, it just makes me dislike him even more. I refuse to like something just because everyone else does and it won’t take away my admiration/love for Kaede.

It’s also jarring since anytime a character has the spotlight, it somehow has to involve Saihara.

“Wow Himiko! You’re much more expressive now than before. Just like you Saihara!”

“Man, it sounds like you had a harsh life growing up Harumaki. Just like you and your detective work, eh Shuichi?”

The narrative can’t help but force Saihara to be around and praised by the people around him despite the spotlight not being on him in that given moment.

Reason 4: He’s Not a Good Detective

While Saihara’s role as a detective may fit the theme of Truth and Lies, that doesn’t mean he was good at the job. My issue being that he was unproductive and biased for the role.

While he did set up that trap in Chapter 1 to catch the mastermind, he doesn’t do anything as proactive in the later chapters. He spent most if not all of his time going to training with Kaito and moping about his problems. It goes on like this for 4 chapters and it takes Kiibo threatening to blow up the school before he actually gets to work on solving the mystery of the killing game. As a detective, you’d think he would put more effort into actually solving the mysteries of the killing game or try to put some thought on who the mastermind could be.

The biased part comes with how he interacts with others and how he’s more critical of people based on how they treat him. Saihar has a tendency to be very judgmental towards the students and doesn’t look at the entire picture.

He writes off Ouma as the embodiment of lies and doesn’t bother trying to learn more about him or his true motivations.

And on the opposite side, he openly praises his friends while blatantly ignoring the problematic things they’d done throughout the story.

He considers Kaede to be an inspirational role model despite how she betrayed him and wanted to commit murder behind his back.

He worships Kaito and treats him as a perfect hero despite never noticing his ongoing illness or the fact that Kaito didn’t trust his friends enough to reveal his own insecurities.

He deems Maki a reliable friend despite the fact that she went behind his and everyone’s back in order to kill Ouma and was willing to gamble everyone else’s lives if it meant taking revenge on the supreme leader.

Shouldn’t a detective be more persistent when presented with a mystery while also acknowledging all the sides (both good and bad) of a given person? If his personal bias was treated as a flaw by the narrative, then that would actually give his character significant depth. Especially if he worked on managing his biases and learning to acknowledge all the sides. But it isn’t treated as a bad problem.

For me, the fact that he’s supposed to be a detective who “grows stronger” and is so good at his job despite all of this really rubs me the wrong way. If anything, it shows me that he’s really bad at the job.

Also, I would like to bring up that I don’t count him investigating the murder cases as being a good detective. Why? Because Hajime and his class in SDR2 were able to solve their class trials without a detective figure. Being a detective, or having one, doesn’t make solving the class trials any easier.

Reason 5: An Unnecessary Cliche

Personally, I really see no reason for why Saihara’s character needed to be the generic insecure protagonist for this particular installment of Danganronpa. It’s the same cliche storyline featured in a grand majority of anime and light novels. It’s repetitive and irritating knowing that so many stories focus primarily on a sad generic boy who doesn’t feel good enough and wants to be stronger.

It’s also worth mentioning that in comparison, the past protagonists at least had narrative reasons for why they were generic and insecure in the first place.

For Naegi, he was the first protagonist of the installment and his normalcy was meant to contrast the extremely talented and radically different students he’d be involved with. As the game progresses, he uses his normalness to bond with the students and rally them together in the name of hope.

For Hajime, he’s treated as a deconstruction of the generic insecure protagonist. It’s because his feelings of inferiority and longing to be special that he decides to accept Hope’s Peak’s experimentation and become Izuru Kamakura: an incredibly talented super-being who lost his humanity.

For Komaru, she was regarded as an ordinary girl that had the potential to lead others which is recognized by the adult resistance and Monaca. So throughout the game, both sides were pushing her into becoming either the next symbol of Hope like Naegi or next symbol of despair like Junko. But she ultimately decides to be neither of them and wants to be her own person.

There were reasons for why each of these protagonists were considered generic and insecure as it contributed to the narratives. But for Saihara, there’s really no solid reason for why he’s the only normal one of the V3 cast. And everyone is more than happy to praise him as the best one out of the cast despite doing so little to earn it. At most, Tsumugi reveals that Saihara being an insecure boy who grew stronger thanks to his friends was for the sake of a fictional storyline. Obviously it was meant to mentally break him but it honestly feels like a weak reason to keep the trend of a generic insecure sad boy. Not to mention there are other reasons for why I believe this doesn’t work.

The setup for the “Danganronpa is a fictional TV show” twist didn’t have enough buildup so it doesn’t make the cliche that strong.

Saihara still continues the role of the insecure boy who grows strong and saves the day. While Tsumugi states that his role was written for him, Saihara still continues the tropes of his archetype by saving the day. It’s ultimately because of him that he’s able to convince his friends and the viewing audience to give up on Danganronpa. It was the writer’s way of having their cake and eating it.

If the reveal was meant to be a shot at how it’s become a cliche, then why not live up to it? If they wanted to show how Danganronpa was running for too long or how it��s cliches were getting old, then why not commit to those ideas? Instead of having everyone praise and worship Saihara, make them question if they’re really going to depend on a generic guy to save them. Instead of being just a cute quirk, actually show the negative sides of Saihara’s anxiety and depression and how they would hinder him from participating in trial discussions. Maybe even have Kaito lose his temper at Saihara because of how much he mopes around.

There’s so many ways they could have gone with deconstructing Saihara’s stereotype or showcasing how it’s become old and stale. So it feels disappointing that they never went that far.

And another reason for why I dislike his characterization is because it brings to mind Ryota Mitarai from the DR3 anime. Just like Saihara, Mitarai is a main character who’s described as generic, insecure and spends most of his time whining about how useless he is. Despite this, he manages to survive the killing game since the other more unique characters are killed or move the events of the story. I personally found Mitarai to be a frustrating character. I detest characters who constantly whine about how useless or miserable they are as a means of getting sympathy from the audience. So having to deal with Saihara who more or less shares multiple characteristics with Mitarai felt very exhausting.

Conclusion

So those would be my reasons for why I hate/strongly dislike Saihara. I can admit that alot of these reasons weren’t so much because of Saihara or his actions but how he was written throughout the story. He still did alot of things I didn’t like don’t get me wrong, but alot of fault can be traced to the writers and how they decided to write him and Kaede’s characters. I still find his archetype as a generic insecure boy who mopes around to be an unappealing archetype but I’m sure most of his fans would suggest otherwise.

If you’ve managed to read everything here, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to do so. I can’t imagine many people would want to read a critical post targeted towards one of the most beloved characters in Danganronpa. So thank you for doing so.

And as always, if you agree or disagree with anything I’ve written, you’re more than welcome to reblog this with your comments. I’m always up for friendly discussions.

#dangan ronpa #danganronpa #ndrv3 #new danganronpa v3 #dr critical #anon #analysis

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elite-guard-hardygal · 5 years

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Please, consider: Akiren's angst (P5 protag) This guy surely has PSTD (the arrest night, the interrogation room, heck, even the jail time with Solitary confinement too) also, the bullying at Shujin, the mistreats of Sojiro at the beggining, the threathings, the weight of being the leader of the PT and more. Heck, Joker is way to healthy for all the shit he went through. I refuse to believe that he doesn't have anxiety or depression.

I agree with this

Morgana has said it, and I agree with him as well, that the protagonist has been through a lot...

Heck, on top of everything you just listed, I even think that even all that time he spent pretending to be dead got rather old after awhile - it’s not like he couldn’t go out of course, he did that all the time, but I was oddly surprised at the RELIEF and excitement I felt being allowed to go back to school after Shido was dealt with. It had been so long since I had seen the inside of Shujin and it was a routine that I didn’t realize I missed. Now, I could be projecting, but I’d imagine even the protagonist kinda missed being able to go to school like a normal ass kid, as opposed to lurking around Tokyo in a hoodie and hoping nobody would recognize him.

ALL of this crap that Akira/Ren went though made the victory against Yaldaboth feel very... earned. Which thus meant that when Sae asked that he turn himself in, I actually started to cry.

The UNFAIRNESS of it really hit me hard - this kid, who’s been wrongfully arrested, wrongfully shunned by his peers, faced all the pressures of being the leader, arrested AGAIN, tortured, and forced to live the life of a dead man, FINALLY overcame all the ruin that had been hanging over him, on Christmas Eve no less...! He’s planning to celebrate both Christmas and this final victory with his friends the next day, but what does he receive instead?

A request to turn himself in, to be arrested a third time, and face solitary confinement with little hope of freedom.

I UNDERSTOOD Sae’s request. It was for the sake of everyone else in the Phantom Thieves group. It was for their safety. But it still struck me as so, so, so unfair. And when she granted Akira/Ren’s request to wait until Christmas morning before he turned himself in, I just started crying even more because his friends have NO IDEA the sacrifice he is about to make. They’re going to come in expecting to celebrate a victory and Christmas and find that their leader has been arrested again.

I can’t say this enough, but the unfairness of it all CRUSHED me.

Really, I do have to give them props for doing this. It works well with all the themes in the game I think, not to mention it shows the absolute selflessness of the protagonist. And it gives an opportunity for the rest of the Phantom Thieves to help their leader for once, and gives an opportunity for the adults in his life to step up and do what adults ought to do - look after and protect a kid who isn’t even in his graduating year of high school.

All that said, the writers still did gloss over the fact that yes, the protagonist has been through more than anyone (especially a high-schooler) should go through, and there is little sign of the consequences all this stuff should have inflicted on his psyche.

The November incident probably frustrates me the most because Sae and Makoto BOTH mention that he shouldn’t be all right (emotionally) after all that...! And yet it’s never really mentioned again. Like, okay, I can buy that Akira/Ren will have pushed down/suppressed all his feelings about being friggin tortured at least until after the pressing issue with Shido had been dealt with - his quiet, reckless ass would probably do something like that. But that doesn’t excuse him being in perfect physical condition the day after being rescued, and that doesn’t excuse the fact that besides those few comments by Makoto and Sae, the emotional impact this must have had on him is never mentioned again.

A similar thing happens after he’s released from prison at the end of the game, and someone mentions he looks like he’s lost some weight - that alone, combined with the fact that he was just released from solitary confinement, carries some implications, but again, it’s never mentioned again.

Akira/Ren didn’t just help his friends with external troubles, but internal troubles as well. It thus would have been super interesting if his friends not only helped him with his external troubles (him stuck in prison), but also the INTERNAL troubles he must undoubtedly have. It would have really brought the whole idea that it’s his friends helping him this time to its zenith.

I do love this game overall, don’t think I’m complaining about this whole game. It’s just little story moments like this - where we could have further explored the character of the protagonist (who DOES HAVE a distinct personality even if we don’t hear him speak much), or at least acknowledged the very real emotional consequences being tortured or locked in solitary confinement would have inflicted on a teenager, and yet don’t get either of those - that kinda frustrate me.

Do I think that Akira/Ren is coolheaded and good at remaining calm and stoic? Yes. Do I think that the happy ending he finally gets and the closure with which the game ends is pretty much earned? Also yes. Do I ALSO think he’s been messed up by everything that’s happened to him and that we should have had at least a little time for him to at least acknowledge it and for his friends to at least show their support or something? OH. YES.

Okay, now I’m getting a call from the insurance company of the guy who hit my car in the parking lot and have to deal with that. Hope you enjoyed this hour’s worth of ranting 😅

#persona 5 #persona #persona 5 protagonist #akira kurusu #ren amamiya #hardygal rambles #joker persona 5 #persona 5 rant #ask #anonymous

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ozcarpin · 5 years

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If the kids and Qrow turn on and alienate everyone that Oz had managed to pull together, they're never going to defeat Salem or her group. They're going to need help or advice and everyone they've screwed over is gonna nope right out of it. And they would deserve it. At this point I kinda hope Salem does kick the hard in the ass and win, because they have literally done nothing to help in the fight to win except divide and betray. Ozpin and James deserve better than what they got.

While I’ll be the first, second, third and last to agree that Ozpin and James definitely deserve better than the lot they got, I think having Salem just come in and win would be going much too far.

That said, I do want there to be consequences for our main cast, and really, I think it’d be a really interesting turn if the people they had taken for-granted were made to, in some manner deny them their help, whether it be by means of neglecting to offer counsel (ie. in a similar way to how their treatment of Ozpin lead to him leaving them to figure out the rest of the journey themselves) or even in a more palpable manner (like James revoking their clearance for instance).

I’d like for these instances to actually bear weight on the group, to actually give them pause to really think about what they’ve done. When Ozpin left, they were lucky to have Maria step up and take over as the ‘resident adult’, they were lucky that Jaune’s sister happened to live in Argus and was willing to provide them shelter and aide (to the point of Terra risking her job by helping them disable the communications tower), they were lucky that due to ‘last-episode-in-the-season’ reasons Cordovin had an about-face turn of heart and let them go to Atlas.

These contrivances, along with their warm reception from James and Winter, eliminated any real consequences to losing Ozpin’s help. It didn’t matter that his absence meant they made the wrong decisions and launched a terror-attack on an ally, they got to Atlas and rather than being reprimanded on how they did it, they were rewarded with their huntsmen licences. They were never forced to sit down and think about the harm they’d done, and none of the adults around them ever brought up the negative consequences of their actions or ever held them accountable.

Our main cast is constantly being praised and rewarded for doing objectively terrible things, and even outside of the pure hypocrisy (ignoring that I do believe what they did was far worse than anything Ozpin had) of this volume being brushed off as if the big ‘secret’ had been Ironwood having a big ‘Kick me’ sign on his back the whole time, its getting harder to blame all these horrible things on the children when they’re never given any reason not to do them.

Sure, there’s loads of ‘good-hearted’ reasons for them to give pause when seeing the clear effect they’re having on James as he toils about with his last-ditch plan, encouraging him and berating him in turn even while knowing full-well his efforts are doomed to fail. There are a great many ‘compassionate’ reasons why seeing a man in a child’s body crying in the snow because they’d just forced him to relive all his trauma should have maybe made them stop and reconsider their heat-of-the-moment fury, but when you think about it, other than in those direct moments, the children aren’t even given moral consequences for their actions.

Ozpin leaves, and sure, Oscar isn’t exactly a bundle of rainbows, but he leaves them be and they’re allowed to go off into their preferred pairs and be happy elsewhere. Oscar’s whole ‘running away’ doesn’t even stick and they return home to him smiling and offering them food and platitudes. They clearly don’t stick around much after they’ve given James his daily slam-dunking of ‘you’re not doing good enough’ and after they do finally come clean (much too late) James just ultimately brushes off that they were lying to him and withholding information that entire time.

Why would the group feel bad about anything when nobody ever takes them to task for their actions? Other than the obvious reasons of course.

So yes, I do want there to be consequences for the main cast, all of them. I want these consequences to have weight and to really make them realize the damage they’ve done to both the people and the world around them. I want this arrogance of theirs to be checked, and for this little bubble of ‘protagonism’ to be popped and for them to need to reconcile for and to those they have hurt.

And then, I want them to be forgiven. I don’t want their actions to be held over their heads forever. I don’t want the world to blow up. I want them to recognize their faults, do their best to make amends, and I want them and everyone else to come out of this stronger and more unified than ever before. That’s the story I want to see. That’s the story I’m still hanging around for, hoping to find. Its okay that our main protags aren’t perfect, it’d be boring if they were. But if the show wants to truly portray them growing, it needs to give them consequences or they’ll never be given a reason to change. This doesn’t mean it has to become this uber gritty experience where suddenly everyone hates them and Salem wins, it just means that they and their world have to recognize their flaws and allow them to have genuine emotional growth, not just giving them another semblance upgrade.

I don’t think allowing consequences would hurt the show in any way. After all, RWBY, in its essence is a show about hope. And there is nothing more hopeful than rising after a fall. RT just needs to be brave enough to let their pedestals crumble.

#mun #meta #rwby #Haven't done one of these in a while #but I've been sitting on this feeling for a bit now #so #here #have this #Anonymous #rwby volume 7 #rwby spoiler #volume 7 spoiler #rwby volume 7 spoiler

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stilitana · 4 years

Text

so i listened to this embarassingly quickly but let’s chalk that up to the self-isolation/working from home and leave it at that

wolf 359 reactions under the cut (spoilers):

firstly, that soundtrack was so good and i’ll be listening to those piano pieces forever

this show demonstrated the eternal power of the agatha christie principle: gather a ragtag cast of characters who’ve all got beef with each other, and trap them in a small space together. cue the instant tension and inevitable weighty revelations.

i adore that amid all the drama/action, there were so many moments when the writers let the narrative breathe a little and just allowed the characters to talk to each other, and play games with one another. the word games were delicious. these were often moments of levity and good character building, but they also all moved relationships forward or revealed something new, so don’t ever let anybody say that having chill little funny moments is useless narrative fluff. these were the best moments.

empty man cometh might be my favorite. am i alone now? and memoria were also just...so good. a lot of the mini-episodes were excellent as well, especially all the character ones. variations on a theme might be my favorite of the shorts.

normally i’m impatient and skip anything i perceive as extraneous to the central narrative, and come back to it later--im so glad i didn’t, the live episode was hilarious. ashamed that i even tried to skip change of mind because i was so impatient to see what was happening, but i felt too bad so not even five minutes into the next ep, i went back and listened to it, and that was the right move...it was so good.

every single character was fantastic. every single one. they were all complex--even the less central characters had at least a moment or two where they struck a different note, showed another side of themselves. kepler was the stand out on this front for me. i didn’t care at all about the si-5 crew when they first came in--i was actually annoyed and expected to hate them all, which is a risk you run when you introduce a bunch of new, influential characters so late in a story. they made it work so well. first i came around to maxwell, then jacobi, and finally (tbh it was his swan song) i was like, okay, kepler was a great character. they made him sympathetic without trying to retcon anything to force me to pity him or think he’d been good all along or anything. cutter and pryce were less human, so their redeeming qualities came more from being interesting. i think the voice acting plays a lot into this--cutter just on paper wouldn’t be half as fun

really impressed with how this same thing played out with lovelace--she went from this sort of mythic, predeceased character, to an antagonist, and finally to being such a central character to the crew that you could hardly imagine them without her. poor writing could have easily made her kind of character unlikable. i think characters like her often get short-changed and written as one-note action hero types who crash in and upend the narrative just to give the plot steam and provide friction. instead, she’s as fully fleshed out as the main characters, and seamlessly becomes one of them.

rip plant monster...i loved you :,(

so, the antagonists were multifaceted, and so were the protags. this could have also easily been sloppy. with eiffel especially, lazy writing would have made the reveal of his backstory super cheap, out of left field, and made you feel like you never knew him at all and leave you unable to reconnect. instead of going the route where the writer for some reason thinks they have to make their plucky protag gritty, the reveal of eiffel’s backstory doesn’t change him at all--and why should it? it’s his backstory--it already happened. instead, it only forces him and minkowski to have conversations they probably needed to have anyway, and fleshes out the reason he’s even there in the first place. on this note, it’s not ultimately his backstory that eiffel has to confront within the story as a major flaw--the backstory was a mistake in the past he’s been dealing with for years by the time we meet him. i love what they chose to do instead so much more: what he had to deal with was his current, present day behavior--how he effortlessly disrespects and belittles the people closest to him without even trying. the key there is, without trying--he has to make a decision to start. (”that’s the thing about you, eiffel--you try. you try really, really hard, and then--you stop trying” that was such a good interaction...god.) i could go on and on about how this was such a satisfying tack to take but i’m trying to cut it down. glib bastards like eiffel are so often a sort of male wish-fulfillment character where they get to say whatever the fuck they want without consequence, be lazy, be careless, and still come out on top, and still seem lovable, because hey, he’s funny. eiffel doesn’t get off that easily, and he’s a much better character for it, and so are all the others, for actually demanding better for themselves, because they know they deserve it, and because they all actually care about each other, so when they confront him, he doesn’t just shrug it off--he tries. (it takes him a minute. but he tries.)

hera broke my heart a million times i love her so much. she had so many complex inner conflicts that weren’t just boiled down to some dumbass bs like “boo hoo am i human.” her personhood is a given for the sorts of conflicts she has, as far as feeling inadequate, feeling unappreciated, like an imposter or a less-valued member of the crew. her and minkowski arguing was excellent and allowed them both a chance to be childish because hey, eiffel shouldn’t have the monopoly on that.

death was a serious thing. human life was highly valued, and its loss was never made light of. not even for antagonists (kepler, hilbert) or, in the most extreme case, pryce, who eiffel chose to make a sacrifice to defeat rather than just kill her, the one principle aside from doing as little work as possible he stood his ground on the entire story. team what’s wrong with handcuffs indeed...i just really loved that the main lead was a pacifist and that this line of thinking held sway in the narrative. it was really refreshing (i don’t think it should be--there’s just a lot of bad writing out there especially when things edge into the action genre) to see this stance on nonviolent conflict resolution wherever possible, because yeah, most people have a really hard time ending another person’s life...no shit. minkowski makes that call and deals with the fallout for the rest of the show--she’s not done dealing with it by the end, it’s going to be something she takes with her. sometimes eiffel’s passivity was depicted as a weakness, but he ultimately did diffuse a lot of situations and gave other characters the space to consider their options. i do think that sometimes the narrative’s insistence on eiffel’s dual pacifism/incompetence shifted the burden of action onto minkowski and lovelace and i’m not sure how i feel about that. i think where i’d have to look is comparing how pryce and cutter are dealt with--yeah, im willing to buy that minkowski wasn’t willing to trade all of her memories so that she wouldn’t have to kill cutter. but was she the one who had to have a body count as a conscious narrative choice, or were we just determined to maintain eiffel’s status as the sort of goofy, “innocent” one? or was that something minkowski was determined to preserve--because that’d be really sad and complicated and say way more about her than it would about him.

dear listeners. i loved everything about the dear listeners. it was everything i ever wanted from aliens trope-wise.

didn’t really get the total significance of surrogates or decima virus. those were the only two things that felt sort of hasty because the stakes suddenly went from “the lives on this space station” to “life on earth as we know it.” but apocalypse averted so whatever, the aliens just want music

i am conflicted about the fucking. amnesia. memory was SO important throughout, and questions of identity and personhood, and this is the only reason that amnesia ending didn’t enrage me. if i think about it more i’m sure there will be a lot to unpack with what’s being implied here

this has gotten REALLY long so im going to stop now and finish mindlessly entering data into excel. in short: i loved it

#wolf 359

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thesaltyoceanwaves · 5 years

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You know Jack Ryder? The reporter in the game Batman: Arkham Knight? He reminds me of the type of reporter/person Alya is slowing turning into. Especially in your story. You get a good taste of his character by watching a playthrough of the side quest Most Wanted: Lamb to the Slaughter

With Alya’s interlude in “Paper Sky” and the first chapter of “All the Laughs” out, I think now is the time to give some commentary on Alya.

I have mixed feelings on canon!Alya. On the one hand, I think we’ve all had to sit through some toxic relationships or rough patches in our friendships in our life. I, for example, was not a good friend in elementary school. I would actually go up to my friends and tell them “I don’t want to be friends this week” only to go up to them three days later and ask to be friends again. Of course, as I got older, I stopped doing stuff like that.

And I’ve been on the other side of the fence too. I can think of three friendships that really messed with me at different points in my life (one in middle school, one in high school, and the third in college, which I alluded to in another post), as well as someone I would have been friends with if things were different (as in better, but that’s another story).

With how Alya has been acting this season, and her growing friendship with Lila, I thought it would have been an interesting plotline to have Marinette and Alya have an actual fight. Marinette isn’t allowed to disagree with anyone, not without either being wrong or suffering for it. But her and Alya have legitimate sources of conflict that ought to be addressed - I stand by my opinion that The Puppeteer 2 would have been a great place to address this.

And in general, I haven’t been a big fan of how Alya’s been acting this season - with the dismissiveness in Chameleon, the pawning off of babysitting duties in Christmaster and Timetagger, and the pushiness in Puppeteer 2, and no consequences to be dealt in sight, it’s a wonder she hadn’t become my least favorite character in the entire show. I don’t blame anyone who does feel this way.

But on the other hand, I definitely get where the backlash to the backlash is coming from. Alya is one of the few dark-skinned WoC characters on this show, and black women in media tend to get the worst treatment from writers of their own shows (mostly referring to shows where these women aren’t the protagonist, or are co-protags with another character, likely white) and fandom.

By contrast, fandom tolerance for white dudes and their antics tends to be a lot higher, even if they make the same bad decisions like Alya has. So when you see enough salt fics going the direction of “Alya is a bad friend” and sometimes take it even further than that (”Alya is the absolute worst!”), it can feel particularly hateful and even racist, even if the writer isn’t intending to be.

I’m a white woman, so I was anxious when trying to respond to this. How far is too far? While it seems most people tend to like how Alya has been handled so far and the trajectory of her arc, it wouldn’t be fair of me to just write off anyone who feels like that’s not true.

I want to note however, that I don’t think fic writers should just stop critiquing Alya in their writing or feel like they have to have Marinette and Alya makeup just because of this anxiety. Different writers have different ideas for how they want to handle the scenarios presented to them, and depending on execution, that’s not an inherently bad thing. Fiction is the space meant to explore possibilities, after all. I just think, in this specific case, it’s a hard rope to walk, mostly if you’re white. If there were other prominent dark-skinned girls in the main cast, or if the story didn’t always focus on the rich, white kids (coughChloeandAdriencough), this probably wouldn’t be as much of an issue.

I don’t want all writers to feel like they have to go this route if they don’t want to. I chose to give Alya another chance because I like the redemption arc that was set up for her in Nice Guy Adrien and wanted to do something similar for TOtMiS. I wanted Marinette and Alya to work things out in the end, regardless if they remain BFFs or teammates. And at the end of the day, every character on this show deserved better writing (yes, including my least fave Lila and Hawkmoth).

TL;DR: Alya hasn’t been a good friend to Marinette in canon and should answer for it, but I don’t think she’s The Worst™ and should be crucified.

Anyway, I actually really liked writing commentary on my own story, so I might do something like this again in the future - maybe with Chloe or Adrien when we get further along.

#ml salt #ml salt fic #salty answers #ml s3 au #alya cesaire #the one to make it stay #totmis commentary #ml s3 salt #ml writing salt

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sireneia · 4 years

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♔, ♦, ♡ !

( get to know the rper )

these are long so i’m putting my answers under the cut LMAO

Send me a ♔ for me to describe a favorite rp character of mine.

i was gonna describe pelleas but then remembered you’re not done fe10 so i will refrain MAMRKGMRGMGR

instead, i’ll talk about rowan! while i have pretty mixed feelings about warriors itself, i think its protagonists are legitimately interesting. it’s a shame that an extra layer to them is hidden behind support conversations though and support conversations are a pain to get in this game but... i mean... i guess you can say that about every character in games right? i think i only really point it out here because of how crucial some of these details are in the scope of the main plot’s themes, yet they don’t come up in the main plot at all unfortunately ):

rowan and lianna both don’t want the throne, having very different desires for their paths from one another yet being united in their attempt to force that inheritance onto the other twin. rowan’s comes from his disdain towards his father, seeing the previous king become bedridden and seeming utterly useless in such a state to a young boy. this leads rowan to grow up believing that kings by their nature are weak. he believes that kings, since they have a military to protect them, cannot do anything themselves and rowan hates that powerlessness when he knows the people look to their king to protect them. rowan can’t see the value behind kingship, refuses to, and thinks it’s not a position that would be fulfilling for him. he understands that it’s a position that requires thinking and governing, but he doesn’t see it as important as military might, leading to his evasiveness.

i like the fact that he’s clearly in the wrong with how he looks upon the position and his late father both, and i like the fact that his motivation for trying to escape his inheritance is rooted in good intentions but ignorance tainting it. more than that though, i like how it contrasts lianna’s motivations yet shows they share the same heart. lianna sees the power in the throne that rowan refuses to completely admit to, and she sees her own flaw of overthinking things and being too hesitant as cause for concern — that such a queen wouldn’t be able to make the necessary decisions in a time of crisis and would cause tragedy upon the subjects who rely on her, and that a proper ruler should have both confidence and presence in order to be effective. she wants her country to have a ruler they can rely upon to be able to save them.

both want to protect their people, but they don’t have the maturity to accept responsibility. they fear or dislike a part of it, and so they run away from it. meeting people from all different worlds thus gives them the perspective they need to understand what ruling is like and in the end, they rule together. they have finished their arc and both accept their duty, and although the other twin accepting the throne means they theoretically could back down like they’ve always wanted, they don’t. they know a ruler must be able to act but also must think carefully, and they desire to use one another’s strengths to create a better aytolis. their coronation ceremony as a result is such a great scene to me and i forever love it, and i’m glad the whole ‘warriors from different realms’ plot helps them not only in a physical way (i.e. using their might to win the conflict) but also a mental way (i.e. helping the twins mature).

warriors’ plot is an absolute mess but thematically it’s great, and it really makes good use of its multiple protagonists in my opinion. i haven’t felt this good about multiple protags in fe as i have with gaiden, and i’m glad they exist even if not really many people care all too much for them. both twins are compelling and i just write rowan because :P it’s natural for me to choose the male muse but also stan lianna

Send me a ♦ for me to describe a plot that I’ve been wanting to do.

i think i’d like to explore edward’s arc in fe10 at some point! i find it captivating that the guy that’s clearly supposed to be the “recklessly jumps into the fray as his calm friend tries to reel him in” archetype is actually the one who most wants to stop fighting. honestly, i imagine this would’ve been a theme explored in his support convos if they had actually given him them smh

he loves fighting. he’s over the moon to be given a daein national treasure. he clearly has strong feelings about fighting to protect the weak. and yet... he gets a conversation about wanting to inspire the army to just abandon the war. he’s thinking about peace, and he’s tired of nonsense wars. he’s staying only for micaiah at this point. i think this really captures a part of radiant dawn’s plot well: about the flaws of micaiah’s nationalism and how she can go too far for her goals, and how the war has its negative consequences on the people in it. what are they even fighting for is always a strong theme to go off on.

i also think it ends up getting wrapped pretty well in edward’s character ending, signalling what true happiness means to him and his choice to pursue it, and idk man. i just want to write edward LOL

Send me a ♡ for me to describe a character that I haven’t had a chance to rp but would like to.

ah, yes, the Classic Multimuse Question.

i can’t say ronan because i’ve already written him before :thonking: but i think at the moment, i’ve got my eyes set on either sothe or m!byleth!

with sothe, i just find his frustrations but him trying to work around them and being forced to figure out his priorities in life during fe10 an interesting read! he’s also a fun character: he’s gruff and blunt and could really learn to speak better, and at times he’s a surprising voice of reason despite being pretty young still, but he’s got his cute moments too like how he banters with tormod! sothe has morphed into this type of person to be able to protect micaiah however he can and prove to her he CAN stay by her side and support her, but he’s still, at his root, just a silly teen boy if you let him get his guard down. i think it’s nice. i also support male supporting characters to female leads tbh and anyone who says fe10 should’ve had sothe as the lord is saying a take i can’t agree with smh

as for m!byleth... i think i’m just fascinated by characters who allow me to explore identity and the struggles that come with it. byleth goes through a lot of heavy things in regards to it, from their lack of emotions at first to being forced into this role as teacher to eventually letting it become them to then becoming a god themself and then the falling out of that depending on the route?? Spicie.

i think i just... am unfortunately not invested in three houses enough to justify that though, as much as i think byleth could be a cool character to write, and while i lean towards m!byleth due to my own masculinity and the fact that there’s less of him than f!byleth in the community clearly, i still think any incarnation of byleth is well taken care of in the rpc without me also taking a swing at it. i also think writing my units is just... harder for me for some reason? i always view it as some kind of guilty pleasure really and byleth is no exception. i feel like if i write byleth, it’ll basically be me going through all the complicated feelings i went through when i rp’d m!corrin and idk if that’s worth it.

#// the true answer to the third question is runan from trs Clearly #// actually trs has a lot of characters who slap ngl #fatedcomrades #+. / inbox.#+. / ooc.#long post ---

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tfw-no-tennis · 4 years

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hxh RESUME

back at it again w/the hxh, heres my recap of the last few eps

ok so i totally forgot to recap that one ep at the end of the hunter exam arc lets see what i remember from like 3 wks ago lollll

i thiiiiink i left off in the middle of ep 21 lol. i really dont remember much tbh so im gonna skim the ep to refresh

exposition time! its so wild that if you lose ur hunter card That It like u cant get another or retake the exam hgabjdfuhasjf Ls

also the fact that you can sell it is rlly interesting

leorio & kurapika backing up gon as he confronts illumi again :’) good lil family

illumi u fool. gon is a shounen protag. he can do anything he sets his mind to

the fact that gon thanks illumi for telling him where killua is....hes literally THAT polite like...what a perfect boy

hisoka just fuckgin stepping out of the shadows....ok bitch

the fact that gon fucked up illumis arm that bad with one hand....boi is STRONK

AUGH AUGH AUGHHHH HISOKA IS SO CREEPY AUGHHH I HATE THIS BIIIITCH

ok but like is illumi implying that hisoka is a fr p*do bc uhhhhh thats so nasty oh lord. pls stay away from gon, and killua, and like everyone as a matter of fact

EWWWWWWWWWW I HATE HISOKA HES SO NASTY. PLS STOP MAKING P*RNO FACES IN RELATION TO 12 YR OLD BOYS.

no but rlly what IS hisoka gonna do now. im assuming he’ll show up p soon (tho probs not in the zoldyc arc like i thought bc its shorter than i thought)

ok the fact that they have the internet is hilariously wild to me for some reason....it just seems like this would be one of those fantasy shounen worlds with very little tech (a la one piece) but lol nope we can just google shit hvbhjdhjdfks

gon: it was fun when you beat me up for 3 hours and broke my arm! seeya dude!

i love gon he is so chill and doesnt seem to hold grudges except when it really matters (like hisoka and illumi)

hanzo has.....ninja business cards....thats amazing hvbhsdjkujfnd

dont worry pokkle, leorio was basically carried thru the hunter exam by various people and also won by default. he still deserves his license tho

an exotic game hunter sounds pretty cool! i wonder if we’ll see pokkle again. kinda doubt it? that sounds pretty firmly non-combat based, and therefore probably pretty far from any plot lol

so gons dad is a bigshot huh.....whatever hed be a bigger deal if he didnt abandon his son tbh

gon swinging his feet on the bench....sooo cute

so ging could restore a bunch of ruins but he couldnt raise his son...ok

im just gonna be bitter at this guy for abandoning the most perfect boy vhbhjfbsjhdhbfsk sorry dude but being a good hunter doesnt make up for being a shit father

gon is so precious ;_;

WHAT WAS SATOTZ GONNA SAY TO GON???

why does it look like theyre googling things on MS paint

ah yes, padokea, on the continent of Africa But Sideways

idk if i talked abt it before but the world map is WILD lmao i love how its all the continents/landmasses scrambled around.....im super curious abt that weird island in the top center of the map, thats the only thing that immediately sticks out as not having a real life equivalent

the music in this show is so charming :’) i love the main theme sm

gon is sooo precious i literally cant get over it. and his hurry to rescue killua is so sweet....and i love how naturally charming/charismatic gon is....pretty much everyone he meets likes him, especially leorio and kurapika, who basically adopted him after knowing him for like a day, and continue to be completely taken by him

ok wtf is satotz & co talking abt......do they know something abt ging that they arent allowed to tell gon???? shouldnt gon have access to the same info now that hes a hunter? i need ANSWERS

i bet this whole thing abt the hunter exam not rlly being over is a metaphor abt the hunter exam NEVER truly ending bc youre always being tested, or st

ok the ED continues to be So Much like especially the last shot where the 4 main characters look like theyre posing for a JC Penny catalog while the singer goes FULL metal-screamo

ok ruth and i just rewatched the next two eps woohoo

i love that there are tourist busses that take people to the front gates so they can like pose for pics and stuff vhbhjafdsfkj and its like ‘ah yes here are where the local assassins live!’ thats so funny yet it makes so much sense

i love that leorio passed tf out during the bus ride. big big mood

gon is so cute...hes like ok yes i understand that we’re not supposed to go in but i think they can make an exception for me bc im very polite.

those 2 dudes r so ugly and so dead god bless

that bigass buster sword....sir please

ruth and i rlly thot that the old guard guy was gonna turn out to be grandpa zoldyk or st lol

the fact that the dog managed to eat All their flesh but left some clothes....skill

also the dog is named mike but it sounds like the guy is calling him miku hvbjdfssk

this cant be the first time some morons have been killed here likeeee

i cant believe nobody has visited the zoldyk estate in 20 years damn they all rlly b havin no friends. depressing

the whole gates thing is wild. also that part where gon gets the math wrong on the weight.....BIG mood kiddo

ok the part where gons on the phone w/the butler is soooo good oh man. i love how gon just calmly dials the phone again after hes hung up on the first time and then YELLS....and leorio and kurapikas faces r so good

also the butler guy unfortunately has a point, it isnt foolproof that gon is here Legit....but he IS let him see his tiny bf :(

as ruth pointed out, the butler guy is reminiscent of kuro from one piece. same vibes

maybe if leorio was jacked like he is in the manga/1999 anime he couldve opened the gate that first time around....Ls

god i love this shows approach to Everything so far,....as ruth put it, half the time its like ‘oh wow they should do [x]/i wish theyd do [x] but ofc they wont cause its a shounen’ but then they DO do [x] and its like damn thats dope

anyways i love how gon is increasingly approaching situations with his Plucky Shounen Protag Attitude in full swing, and he pretty much gets shot down every time. BUT his general determination to see killua bc killuas his FRIEND and hes gonna RESCUE HIM is still a good and pure motivating force

like here, when hes climbing over the wall and hes like whatever i dont wanna have to deal w/being tested thats bullshit, i wanna see killua, my intentions are pure, im gonna try my luck with the dog....i was like ok yeah he’ll get over and like tame or defeat the dog and the guard will be suitably impressed bc nobodys ever done That before, and then gon will continue on to get killua

but NOPE instead the guard calls him down and explains that gon Will Die if he tries that, and then the guard will die too for letting that happen. and gon is like oh shit my actions have consequences for people other than me, wow.

and THEN the guard takes them in to meet the dog. and hot DAMN that is a scary creature. not even really a dog tbh. they did an excellent job making the dog Legit Scary and not just like, big and flashy looking....those eyes are so soulless, and the proportions are freaky

and the guard says exactly what i was thinking - that gon would use his Country Boy Woodland Creature Skills to workaround the dog....but then the subversion - this creature is NOTHING like the woodland critters gon is probably used to dealing with. theres no way gon stood a chance here. the guard just saved him from a really unfortunate death

i love all the Super Heavy Stuff in the servant house that seems so inconvenient vbhjdkfasjfld. also forgot to mention earlier but the guard guy being Absolutely Ripped was wild and kinda funny

training montage! gon continues to be so cute. and i love so much how leorio and kurapika are like no, you rest, we’ll take care of this. good parents!!!!

and then!!!! they sync up and use the power of gay love to almost open the gate. but then gon uses the power of Improbable Shounen Protag Healing Speed to toss that arm sling off and help out

i feel like leorio was side-eyeing gon like w8 a sec u broke that arm like a few days ago that aint right.....

oh man i almost forgot abt that scene with the zoldyks torturing killua :( :( this poor kid he doesnt deserve that

also mom zoldyck seems truly awful but i must say her aesthetic does fuck. the victorian-lookin outfit paired with the futuristic cyclops visor thing....excellent. also im betting this face bandages are from killua cutting her face

this family is so fucked up hvbsjdhjfbakdfn

killua telling his mom that gon is definitely gonna make it there :’) hes got such unshakable faith in his bf thats so good.....

back w/the gang, and immediately they run into more trouble in the form of the young girl butler, whose name i dont know, but i love her....her design is SO good oh man. a non-caricature black person? who also isnt sexualized? in MY anime??????

i love how gons approach to conflict is currently ‘let more powerful person beat me up for hours straight in hopes that they get tired or something idk bro’ like....i love him lol, is it in an effort to show how determined he is? he doesnt even try to dodge her blows or get around her....id be tryin to hop that fence lol

oh shit the tiny zoldyk kid from earlier is spying on them....she was w/the mom so im sure thats not good

when he punches the rock part and it breaks....strong boiiii

oh man that little flashback from when killua first came back and told her that he made a friend ;_; bruh

i love butler girl :( she wants to let gon but knows it isnt allowed....and as soon as she starts to waver BAM here comes mom zoldyck JFC that was so sudden and jarring....im assuming butler girl isnt dead cause that would be lame and anticlimactic

also IS THAT NEN??? NEN>>>??? NEN??? HM? NEN?????????

im so annoying abt nen i need to make one of those ‘is this a pigeon?’ memes w/’is this nen?’ bc thats me anytime anything remotely weird happens lmao

i do think its rlly nen this time tho

anyways shit is wild, cant wait to meet the full zoldyck family

PREDICTION CORNER:

as i said above i doubt hisoka will show up now bc this arc is a lot shorter than i anticipated. also im doubting that illumis even gonna show up honestly

i think we’re gonna have this OP for a while, as the part just at the end shows gon and hisoka fighting in what looks to be an arena, and ik the next arc is the heavens arena arc, which im assuming is the tournament arc....

also i have no idea what that weird building in the OP is but my guess is that its the building w/the heavens arena in it bc its tall and,,,,heaven

i predict there wont be much fighting in this little arc bc how tf else is it so short. at this point i rlly think gon is just gonna grab killua and go lmao. im super curious abt how thats gonna go down, considering that killua is currently strung up just bc he wont apologize...so i cant imagine his family would just let him leave w/gon. i wonder if killua will fight them, or if gons determination will impress them and then theyll let killua go (doubt it)

thats basically it....we’ll see abt the next few eps holla

#lj watches hxh #hxh #woohoo continuation

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pekorosu · 5 years

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no.6 novels thinky thoughts

--------

so… i ended up finishing all 9 vols in about a week haha.

my overall impression? it was… alright, i guess.

not that i didn’t enjoy it, in fact, the first half was great! by the time i reached the end though, i had mixed feelings. sat on it for a week or so but a lot of it remains a vague hhhmmmmmblah blob that i’m not done figuring out.

i still wanna make a post as a form of closure for myself though, so i’m just gonna dump whatever comes to mind here. don’t mind me.

so... the ending. i guess it was supposed to be open-ended in a hopeful way, but it just came across as unsettling to me. the ~chosen one~ thing rubbed me the wrong way, because shion was entrusted with an enormous responsibility that no 16 year old should even be shouldering in the first place. (i mean yea okay he did willingly accept it, but still. why only him? why aren’t they all collectively responsible?)

meanwhile the actual perpetrators get to escape all the consequences by just… dying. just like that. and the rest of them, especially the adults… they’re pretty much useless? even the ones that wanted to do something by staging a revolt ended up being unreliable either bc 1. they were drunk on revenge or 2. all that power was getting to their head. ironically, rou was like “it’s all on us, the adults” but in the end even he decided to just spend the rest of his life chilling out underground -_-

on top of that, shion had to let go of nezumi. idk about y’all but that ending, that “promise to meet again” kiss was like… i couldn’t help but wonder if nezumi only did that because shion was all “a world without you is meaningless” and he had to give him something to cling onto. followed by shion’s devoted “i’ll keep waiting” which… idk, something about it felt utterly depressing. to be fair, nezumi always keeps his promises and the epilogue was vaguely hopeful i guess, but it still didn’t give me the sense of closure that i needed.

to clarify, i’m not saying it’s a bad ending. it’s realistic and the implication that there’s still a lot of work to be done is very much in line with the story’s themes. just that something about it didn’t work for me personally, plus the lead up to it felt rushed, so it left me feeling :/ when i was done.

the plot… well, it started out exciting but turned out to be rather anticlimactic? the shift from science to supernatural had a proper build up, but still felt like a letdown for some reason…

i think... maybe it’s bc dystopian stories tend to culminate in a huge battle and stuff like that, while this one just… didn’t. there was no final showdown with the Big Bad. there was chaos, but it hadn’t descended into total devastation yet, with the ultimate message that maintaining peace is always more preferable in order to prevent any more senseless deaths. and i guess that threw me off a little? not in a bad way, it was just unexpected bc i’m so used to the whole “final boss” format.

speaking of which, the antagonists were very one-dimensional, and for dictators they were surprisingly… weak. i mean, i get that hubris was precisely the reason for their carelessness and subsequent destruction, but it felt too convenient, too simple.

and i was sorta expecting something more gruesome when they got to the top floor of the correctional facility. idk, i guess brains floating in tubes just couldn’t compare with that scene of them climbing a mountain of corpses+half-alive people, which i had the misfortune of reading right before dinner. that was straight up horror.

and for all its depiction of the horrors of a police state, of poverty, famine, genocide… i felt like it stopped short of something. this isn’t meant to be a proper critique ofc, just that i remember feeling like the writing came across as wishy-washy or superficial at times, even though i knew the author’s intention wasn’t to hand out answers, but to get the readers to think. something about the way it was handled left me feeling unsatisfied i guess.

that said, there were stuff that i did like! eg. i liked how the story dealt with the “we’re all human beings” statement from shion. it started out as a simple, idealistic “all lives matter” kind of thing, only to be turned on its head when he comes face-to-face with the kind of atrocities no.6 has committed. then it becomes less about that and more “our shared humanity means that we too have the capability to become cruel and apathetic.” or at least, that was my takeaway.

hmm… in hindsight, i think it does what it set out to do well enough. that is, to convey a certain message to a certain group of people (teenagers i guess. this is YA after all). to inspire them to think for themselves, to realise that apathy is dangerous and to take responsibility for their own learning, but also to know that doing the “right” thing is not just about good intentions; it is constant hard work but still important work... among others. all of which are solid themes and messages. god knows when i was younger and learning about all this for the first time, even the simplest things would leave me mindblown for days. if i’d read this back then i imagine it would’ve left a bigger impression too.

the main highlight for me though, was probably the character scenes. i was surprised to find out how introspective the story was, with the majority of it dedicated to the characters’ internal thoughts and conflicts.

sadly though, the side charas’ POVs (like inukashi’s and karan’s) ended up becoming tediously repetitive and draggy despite starting out strong. and safu… poor safu, she pretty much got the shortest end of the shit stick being the Plot Device Damsel In Distress Who Is Eventually Fridged. i had higher hopes for her ):

as for the rest… i don’t really care about rikiga… and who else… oh right! small nezumi team! hamlet, cravat and tsukiyo. 10/10 love them, would never get tired of their cute little squeaks.

and the protags… shion started out kinda bland but ended up being the easiest to relate to haha. eg. his constant struggle to reconcile his personal ideals with practical reality. and it was interesting to see how he confronted and came to terms with some harsh truths. he always tries so hard. sometimes it hurt to read, but it made me want to root for him and in a way, it gave me strength too.

also his apparent “lack of interest” in sex/women/etc... i know it’s generally played for laughs or to highlight his ~naivete~ or ~immaturity~, but whatever lol it’s something i can relate to it v strongly.

nezumi took a while for me to warm up to even when i understood why he is the way he is. the callousness, hostility, volatility… they’re all defense mechanisms rooted in his trauma, but still, knowing that didn’t make him any less irritating lol. he could be deeply hypocritical at times and his tendency to randomly explode at shion was grating. on the plus side, it’s always very satisfying whenever we do get a glimpse of his more vulnerable side.

them as a pair though… i’m not a huge fan of the “fate brought us together” trope so i was skeptical at first. nezumi being so prickly and moody at first didn’t help either, but shion. oh shion, he tried so hard to worm himself into nezumi’s heart, to prove himself worthy, that i couldn’t help but be charmed. to me, they started out more like “snarky senpai and curious kouhai” as opposed to “friends” or even “potential enemies” as nezumi liked to insist they were, which made for an amusing dynamic.

and while they did grow on me over time, they don’t make me feel that INTENSE CHEST STABBING feeling that i get with other ships. idk why, i mean, their sarcastic exchanges were amusing, their brutally honest arguments were compelling, and the pining (which is my #1 weakness) was through the fucking roof with shion. but still, something was missing.

sidenote on something the author mentioned in the guidebook interview (my own rough t/l):

I like writing about relationships between people of the same sex, not just boys. When it comes to the opposite sex, the end result of being attracted to each other is always romantic love, or getting married…… To a certain extent, the “template” for that is already fixed, isn’t it? But when it comes to the same sex, there can exist a connection that can’t be expressed in the usual cliched words like friendship, camaraderie, love, hatred… I think there’s meaning in writing about relationships that can’t be clearly defined. What’s between Shion and Nezumi is a “one-of-a-kind connection” that’s born out of a certain situation, out of certain experiences that only they have gone through. I wanted to find out what exactly that connection is, which was why I wanted to try writing it. Of course, that “one-of-a-kind connection” would probably exist between people of the opposite sex as well. After all, the feelings that emerge from a chance meeting of two human beings can never be something that’s mass-produced. But still, I think the one thing that I really enjoy writing about has got to be the unique emotions that develop between people of the same sex.

i know she doesn’t mean anything negative here, but idk… it kinda reminds me of the way yoshida akimi discussed ash and eiji’s relationship in banana fish, and the way she discussed what she found so special about same-sex relationships that is lacking in m/f relationships. and something about it bugs me so much. i don’t even know why or how to explain it…

it sounds like to them, there’s something fundamentally “different” about same-sex relationships. "different” doesn’t necessarily mean “bad” and in fact, it even sounds positive in this context because the implication is that that “difference” allows for more freedom and variety in relationship dynamics. but i guess, the closest thing that i can come up with is that it sounds… othering? i don’t know….......

speaking of which, i suppose shion/safu is a subversion of that typical m/f relationship. shion can never love her the way she wants him to, which is heartbreaking, but also refreshing in a way.

and you know what… it just occurred to me that maybe, maybe… it’s the same with shion and nezumi. and maybe that’s why something about them feels off to me. i mean, obviously the strength of their feelings for each other is indisputable, but idk if the essence of it is the same.

shrugs. anyway, yeah.

the honest truth is that, while i enjoyed their interactions immensely, they just don’t ignite the same fire in me as all my other otps. that said, i still do have a lot of thoughts on them! maybe that’s a post for another day.

some other stray thoughts:

- was it ever explained how nezumi built his robo rats? or where tf he managed to gather so many gold coins? was this something the story just handwaved or did i just forget?

- nezumi wanting to leave on a journey at the end baffled me. even though him eventually leaving was foreshadowed a couple times, he never really struck me as a wanderer to begin with. but now that i think about it… i wonder if he’s leaving bc he wants to, or rather, needs to look out for any other remaining forests and natural environments. that’s what his people did, didn’t they? protect the forests. i wonder if he’s going to go look for others like himself. after all, he’s the only surviving indigenous person left in the area surrounding no.6, isn’t he? hmmm.

language-wise... this is my first proper japanese (light) novel so i’m feeling kinda accomplished rn! lol. it was surprisingly not as tough as i had expected. i think the most difficult part was actually reading the quotes at the beginning of each chapter bc it’s in a font that’s so hard to make out.

oh, and again, some parts felt really redundant. i kept wondering if it was a language thing or an author thing. either way, i felt like there were quite a few unnecessary rehashes that could’ve been omitted to improve the pacing.

sequels, other adaptations...

i’ve not read “beyond” yet, which apparently has sequel-ish bits? i’ve ordered it, it’s on its way, but i have a feeling my impression won’t change that much even after i’ve read it. heck, it might get worse judging by all these lukewarm reviews. i’m definitely gonna see this through to the end, but i’m feeling kinda scared now lol.

i might check out the anime? based on the summaries on wiki, it sounds like quite a lot has been altered, but i’m still curious about the visuals. dunno if i’d wanna check out the manga. if it’s exactly the same as the novels or the anime then maybe not…

oh yeah, their anime/manga versions look quite different to how i imagined them! mine’s closer to the novel covers i guess. especially nezumi. i imagined him with short hair. maybe not all super saiyan like the one below, but yea.

lastly, i just had a good look at all the vol covers and i actually think they look pretty cool! i’m really glad i chose to get this version instead of the bunkobon. i mean, i don’t know if i will ever reread this again, but at least the covers are nice to look at haha.

#sotong txt #no.6 #long rambly post sorry #now im gonna go to sleep for 100 years...

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recentanimenews · 5 years

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The GREAT CRUNCHYROLL Re:ZERO REWATCH Kicks Off With Episodes 1-5

Welcome to the GREAT CRUNCHYROLL Re:ZERO REWATCH! I'm Jared Clemons, and I'll be your host this week as we make our way through Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-. Last week, we answered our initial questions about the series, and this week we began episodes 1-5.

Going into Re:ZERO, for the most part blind, made for some surprising moments in just these first five episodes alone. I wasn’t expecting Subaru to just switch worlds with seemingly nothing happening to him in his original world. Nor did I think constantly redoing periods of time would be a thing. Somehow, that aspect of the show completely passed me by when it was airing a few years ago. I’m not completely bought into Subaru as a hero quite yet. There’s something about him that just feels fake or off to me. Maybe that’s the point though. I’m sure I'll figure that out along with everyone else over the course of the next four weeks. Regardless, I’m interested to see where this whole thing goes and why this has the reputation it does. Gotta figure out who made Subaru turn into mush at the end of episode 5, which I have some theories about.

Before we discuss these episodes, let's check out some questions and comments you had from our last installment!

Acapo asks: “so how are these rewatch things decided? Do we vote somewhere? Or...”

We came to a consensus together as the Features team. While taking suggestions from you guys wouldn’t be a bad idea, we have tentatively booked ourselves for the next two Rewatches, so it’ll be awhile before we could ask for ideas.

MachaiArcanum asks: “So how exactly does this rewatch thing work exactly? This is the first time I’ve heard of it and I’m not sure what exactly is going on.”

So, we are going to watch five episodes each week and you'll get to read the Features team's thoughts and opinions on that set of episodes. We welcome all of you to watch along with us and you can ask questions or give your comments about these episodes similarly to what we're doing. Plus, you can be featured in this segment of the Rewatch as well!

Deatherz007 says: “Time for Subaru to suffer once more”

Only a little bit.

Now, let's see what the Crunchyroll Features team thought of this week's episodes!

We kick things off with, depending on the version you’re watching, two episode ones or a longer episode one. Did this longer episode do a good job of introducing you to the world of Re:ZERO? Would you have liked it to have been shorter or cut down in specific spots?

David: The only thing I would change is the cut in the middle being completely abrupt. You can imagine a commercial break there or something but having no transition at all makes it feel very odd.

Austin: I wouldn’t say it introduces the world of Re:ZERO well so much as it introduces the slums and the characters well while making the capital feel as huge as it is. That said, I really like longer first episodes of anime since they’re great for setting the tone and almost always make me want to watch more right away.

René: I’m with Austin on this. Longer episodes really give you that opportunity to establish a proper mood and mindset for a show that is way harder to accomplish with only 20 minutes. Whenever an anime serves me a double-length episode, it immediately piques my interest since it’s obviously something special if it gets this kind of production treatment.

Kevin: It’s a bit hard for my to say, since this is my third or fourth time watching the show, so I already know a lot more about the world than I should. I’ll say that I like some of the worldbuilding that they hint at, like mentioning Satella and the Jealous Witch early on. As for stuff that could be cut down, I’ve always felt like while a bunch of stuff is repeated due to the time loope mechanic, very little is actually wasted, and speeding much of it up would make things fly by too quickly.

Carolyn: I thought the point of it was not so much to introduce the world but to set up the storytelling device of semi-time travel and constantly dying, which it did very well.

Paul: I watched the Japanese version with English subtitles, and while I was initially lukewarm on the premise, I must admit that the first two episodes hooked me. From what I've seen, I think Re:ZERO works best when it's structured like a horror movie or a murder mystery, and these early episodes demonstrate a lot of that.

Joshua: I think for the story Re:ZERO is trying to tell, and the emotional depth it’s trying to tell it with, a standard 25-ish minute introduction would have been nowhere near as effective. We had to learn not only of Return by Death, but the impact it has on Subaru, and there’s really only one way to do that (over and over again!). This hefty run-time even came without an explanation for Subaru being isekai’d! While Truck-kun won’t be getting a paycheck this time, and there was no other crazy reason like other shows in the genre, I actually respect how Re:ZERO skipped a convoluted set-up in favor of what actually matters right now. I felt that the double episode gave me a firm anchor on the characters and their feelings, which is a useful connection to make early on.

Noelle: I think the setup was effective enough. I haven’t seen this show before, and I don’t know anything about it, but the first few episodes delivered enough information to get me interested, but not enough to give me all the answers, and that’s fine. I don’t think the world as a whole has been introduced, because it’s still filtered through our protag’s eyes, but we don’t need an opening history lesson in this case.

Danni: I thought it worked really well as a two-parter. It was a long, but effective, introduction to the world and Subaru’s predicament as a whole. It also managed to do so without any big exposition dumps, which I really appreciated.

Kara: Nothing felt wasted or overly long in that first episode. As others have said, there was a lot to set up, and going for the standard 22-minute runtime wouldn’t necessarily have allowed for enough room to lay things out adequately. I wasn’t checking the time at all, which is always my high sign for what feels decently paced.

Subaru quickly learns that he is reliving time after getting killed. Since you may have known about this already, what did you think about how it was executed in these episodes? Was anime Groundhog Day what you were expecting and do you think it’s been explained well thus far?

David: It takes him a few times in to figure it out, I was actually kind of surprised to realize how many times he went through it before he understood he was going through the same day over and over again. That said, I think it’s well explained because of how natural it comes to Subaru. The show literally starts with him realizing he has been isekai’d, but it takes him a while to realize he is reliving scenarios.

Austin: “Quickly”, he says… Sarcasm aside, I think it was done well since it adds a kind of unique weight to everything. Sure, Subaru can die with relatively low risk, but I tense up every time he gets in a fight or near anything sharp and pointy since I really don’t want to see the poor guy have to suffer both another death and having to redo a section of time but this time figure out what he did wrong.

René: The gruesomeness of his deaths are what really sells the memetic “suffering” part of this show. Yes, it may be of little consequence for him to die but the way his deaths are depicted just really shows you how painful it actually is and moves it away from just being a videogame-y element as in many other isekai shows.

Kevin: Once Subaru finally realized his power, I looked down into the episode comments and saw “out of everything that has happened it’s the chips that make him realize what’s going on,” and that pretty much sums up Re:ZERO. The time loops make sense, and they keep happening in part because the main character is either too stupid or stubborn to stop dying. As for what I was expecting when I first watched the show, I remember quite appreciating how much Subaru tries to learn each time he dies, using past loops to influence how he acts in the current loop. He’s genre savvy enough to know that if he does things the exact same, then the same outcome will happen, but human enough that he can’t repeat things exactly, which then leads to different outcomes. The actual ability hasn’t really been explained yet, but it’s easy enough to get a grasp of how it works.

Carolyn: I was trying to figure out if he actually died on what we would consider Earth? That seems pretty clear but it’s not totally cut and dry, I guess. If so, is he in Heaven/Purgatory/whathaveyou? I’m still kind of stuck on that.

Paul: The mechanics of Subaru's “Return by Death” ability haven't been explained at all, although I have an inkling of how it works as a result of encountering some spoilers years ago. I think the series works best when it leans heavily on the dramatic irony, to the point where neither the audience nor the main character knows exactly what is going on. It's satisfying when something unexpected happens.

Joshua: I really liked how Subaru didn’t twig it the first time, so we could join in his confusion as he tried to figure out exactly what was happening to him. It does make a little sad that some neat conversations are lost to everyone but Subaru though; like his chat with Old Man Rom. So I hope the series is able to counterbalance that loss of character development as it moves forward.

René made a great point about the impacts of Subaru’s many deaths though. In fact, my Mum walked in on me watching one of them and called it “horrific”! It’d be easy for a show like this to lose all sense of any stakes if viewers become too comfortable with Subaru simply waking up at the last “save point”, but seeing the physical and emotional pain each death causes him, really makes me want to see him break the loops!

Noelle: I wouldn’t call him keying in quick by any means, but then again, it takes people some time to process information, especially if it’s been after a traumatic experience. I don’t think the deaths themselves are that gruesome all things considering (I do watch a lot of horror), but they do a great job at showing Subaru’s terror. When you’re a kid with no combat experience, going up against very experienced enemies, that’s only inevitable…

Danni: This is my first time watching it, but I actually didn’t realize it was a Groundhog Day situation until we started planning out this rewatch in the group chat. I think it worked about how you’d expect with him taking a few runs to really understand what was happening. Honestly the only thing in the premise I took issue with was how quickly he was on board with suddenly being summoned to a parallel world and a tiny bit put off by how self-aware he was of isekai tropes.

Kara: I literally had no idea. Time loops are one of my favorite narrative devices to see played with. If I’d known this was a major part of the concept of Re:ZERO I probably would have come to it of my own volition much sooner.

Since we’re now 20% (yes, that does sound weird) of the way through Re:ZERO, give me your thoughts on Subaru as a protagonist so far. What do you like or dislike about him? Is his heroism heartfelt or insincere?

David: So this is actually my favorite part about this show—Subaru’s “heroism” isn’t “heroic” as much as it is “altruistic”. He doesn’t do things because he expects rewards, but because his actions will help make the world around him better in some way. Emilia is the same, and their conversation on the bridge in the first episode highlights this.

Austin: I really like Subaru at this point, and I think these early episodes do a good job of painting him as a sympathetic character. He’s seemingly selfless to a fault and just wants to make Emilia happy since in turn that’ll make him happy.

René: These first few episodes do a great job divorcing Subaru from your run-of-the-mill isekai protagonist. Not only is there seemingly no actual reason for him to be isekai’d as he just randomly pops up, it also undermines every heroic deed he tries to accomplish almost immediately. It really drives home the fact that he is just your regular guy who doesn’t get to be The Chosen One simply because he came to this world.

Kevin: Oh boy are we going to have a lot to talk about in a few weeks. For now, Subaru is goofy and driven and as a result is generally likable. At the same time, he clearly has no idea what to do to move forward, so is just fumbling around until something catches his eye. He’s basically like a lost puppy, so that helps to endear the audience and characters to him. His heroism is heartful, just misguided. He wants to help Emilia, but he has no actual reason to.

Carolyn: I immediately saw him as the Deadpool of Isekai. Deadpool knows he’s in a comic and all the tropes that come with it, Subaru knows all the tropes that come with this strange new land he’s in. I found that to be entertaining. As for his intentions, I think he’s been very straightforward about that. He’s sincere, but his motivations aren’t entirely noble. He will help others but does intend to get something out of it. He’s just honest about that.

Paul: I like Subaru more than I expected to, although I don't know whether that's because he's well-written or because of the pathos evoked by his Job-like suffering. His biggest flaw seems to be that he keeps treating the world like a video game, and he doesn't realize that he is not the protagonist. Subaru also doesn't realize that his affection for Emilia is one-sided. He mistakes her basic empathy for romantic interest, and as someone who made the same mistake as a dumb teenager, I can only see that ending poorly.

Joshua: I’m honestly not sure how to read Subaru. Puck keeps on saying he has no ill-intent, yet he’s usually the first to make some off-handed weird comments. He’s definitely complex, and I wouldn’t mind this becoming a recurring question each week! For now, I’d say he’s earnest but his constant self-deprecation will make others see him in a worse light. He can also be a bit too cocky at times, like his meeting with Roswaal. So I’d like to see him gain a bit more respect for others not called Emilia, and himself.

Noelle: I’m on the fence. Subaru is by no means a bad kid, he’s nice and he sticks his neck out for other people, and he is kind deep down. At the same time, there’s a profound sense of entitlement to him, for he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s dealing with people with lives of their own, not characters. He also expects the world to revolve around him because he’s supposed to be special, and that’s pretty yikes.

Danni: I like him more than I thought I would, but not as much as I probably should. The fact he knows what isekai is and essentially that he’s the protagonist of an isekai anime is pretty grating. I like him more when he’s being himself than when he’s trying to be a protagonist.

Kara: I kind of agree with, like, literally everyone in the show that Subaru is not terribly ambitious, and I’m kind of wondering what the hell he’s been through. His “skeevy” comments don’t seem skeevy to me so much as an attempt to assume a role he thinks he’s accepted to fill. Also, he hasn’t once displayed any sort of concern about going home or missing anyone or anything from the “real” world. More than anything, I’m curious what he’s been through to the point that he’s downplaying himself so much and basically pretends his previous life doesn’t exist.

The last two episodes of this initial set sees Subaru taken to the Roswaal mansion and beginning work there. Here, we learn a bit more about the state of the world Subaru has been summoned to and meet Rem, Ram, Beatrice, and Roswaal along with Emilia. What were your initial impressions of this cast of characters and Subaru’s interactions with them?

David: Roswaal is the teacher in Isekai Quartet, and I forgot he was even a character in this show, so I keep hearing him and associating it more with Isekai Quartet than this show. Beatrice is great.

Austin: When I first watched this show I saw every character sans for Emilia as kind of distant and suspicious. Now that I’m rewatching it, I realise that they all have a very good reason for being this way; one thing I really like that I noticed now that I’m rewatching is that Beatrice seems much more aware of Subaru’s situation and current death loop than he is. Also, Emilia is still as wonderful as I remember her being.

René: The Roswaal mansion arc is what really lays the groundwork for what the show is all about for me: This isn’t a world that revolves around the protagonist but one in which he must find his place and the distant and mysterious nature of the mansion inhabitants really drives that fact home. Since we are almost exclusively kept within Subaru’s POV, it really is up to the viewer to piece together the mystery of why he is dying again. We don’t yet understand the new characters and there isn’t an obvious threat like Elsa. It’s basically a murder mystery in which the victim is also the detective.

Also, I have to second Austin’s sentiment: Emilia truly is wonderful!

Kevin: Pretty much what Subaru said. Oh, it’s Emilia, the twin maids, red one and blue one, and a drill loli that clearly isn’t human. Also, Roswaal, but I got that before Subaru. As for his interactions, I really like that Rem and Ram are differentiated, even this early on, and that everyone is going about their own schedules, since they actually have lives outside of tending to Subaru. Roswaal is the only one that doesn’t really get much development, and even he finds a scene or two to talk with Subaru and generally show that there is more going on than we know about.

Carolyn: At first I didn’t like them at all. They are all very odd with a bizarre manner of speaking and behaving and I couldn’t figure it out. But after the reveals that not everything is exactly what it seems in the castle it started to make more sense and now I’m very interested in finding out what they are actually up to.

Paul: It's fine as far as world-building goes. I appreciate that they don't dwell too much on the lore, because often those are the least interesting elements of the early set-up of an isekai story, and here we get the impression that the world is much bigger and more conflicted than Subaru fully comprehends.

Joshua: Roswaal is just fabulous. I’ve been watching the series in Japanese, and Koyasu Takehito’s voice alone is a scene stealer. This being my first rewatch of the show in years, I was actually taken aback by how cold Rem was here, and I really appreciated Ram’s dry humor a lot more (like that sly comment about Subaru’s “sorry thing”). I can see the twins talking in unison getting very annoying very fast though, so luckily that was kept to a minimum!

Thinking about it, Subaru and Emilia are a bit alike, aren’t they? Both have selfless qualities that they try and cover with more selfish pretenses, so I can definitely see why they’ve developed chemistry. While she can seem warm and inviting, that occasional cold glare of Emilia’s is genuinely unsettling though. It makes me wonder what kind of person she really is. Beatrice is precious though. I’d like her to guard my manga collection with that baby cactus attitude of hers!

Noelle: I think the mansion gives us a little slice of the world at large, but isn’t enough to be overwhelming. We really don’t need to know everything after all, just enough to situate us in the situation that Subaru is currently in. I think it’s a little too early for me to gauge the mansion characters, but they’re all a pretty interesting cast. Roswaal especially.

Danni: None of the girls so far seem to match up to how I thought they’d be, or how they come across in all the art of them I’ve seen. I kind of expected a bunch of meek pushovers—particularly Rem and Emilia—but they all have some endearing bite to them. I especially like the antagonistic rapport between Beatrice and Subaru with both of them getting the better of each other. It’s a lot of fun watching this cast interact.

Kara: I’m so glad to have some good old-fashioned Koyasu madness back in my anime with Roswaal. Emilia is lovely, but Ram is still my favorite of the girls so far despite everything she seems spring-loaded to do over the course of the show. I can, uh, absolutely see why Rem is such a fave and it doesn’t do much for me. If that makes sense.

We wrap things up with the gore factor getting ramped up and poor Subaru having to give up an arm and an eye amongst other parts to figure out why he’s going to barf city. Since this was a cliffhanger for our first group of episodes, what’s your initial theory on who this mysterious attacker could have been? (For those of you that aren’t new, if you can remember, tell me what you initially thought of this or just give me your wildest theory possible.)

David: My first thought was Roswaal. Seems suspicious.

Austin: I’m in a troublesome spot right now since I remember why he died the first loop and who killed him the second loop, but I don’t remember exactly why they did and it’s bothering me… The first time I watched it I thought Elsa had hired someone to go kill Subaru; not sure if I would have liked it more if that was the case or if what’s really going on remained in place.

René: The first time watching it to this point, I actually suspected Puck. Since Knox’s 1st Commandment forbids introducing the culprit later on and I couldn’t yet deduct any possible motive for the mansion residents, Puck seemed the most likely. His fondness for and protectiveness of Emilia had already been established and jealousy would’ve made for a possible motive since Subaru started getting closer and closer to Emilia, forcing himself into her life to the point of becoming her servant.

Kevin: It’s Beatrice. She has the power to connect the library to any door in the mansion, and so can get around without any issues; and clearly has at least enough power to throw someone out of a room without any effort, so more lethal attacks are almost certainly possible. Subaru was also acting very strange in the second mansion loop, as we saw in a couple of cutaways. Since we already know that Roswaal was wondering if he was a spy, that could be enough for him to enlist Beatrice to kill Subaru in his sleep. The first time, Subaru didn’t know to resist, while the second time he fought her magic, so she either used a more lethal attack or enlisted the other mansion staff to assist her. She attacked during the first loop, when Roswaal knew that Subaru was unlikely to be a spy, because of how much he annoyed her. The only way to progress the loop is for Subaru to tell everyone about his power, which calls Beatrice off because she knows at that point that it would be useless to attack him.

Carolyn: The first time he died in his sleep he was poisoned, but he was asleep so he didn’t vomit. Whoever did that (I suspect Ram, she claims to be a bad cook but is skilled with the knife so she isn’t that bad and that could be cover for her poisoning his food) poisoned him again the second loop but because he wouldn’t let himself sleep he felt more of the effects of it and vomited. He could also have built up a little bit of a resistance to it the second time around. Either way, I think the results of those two things are the same. I do not think whoever poisoned him killed/dismembered him in the second loop. That was someone different who saw an opportunity and took it.

Paul: Unfortunately, this is a detail that was spoiled for me long ago, so although I know who the culprit is, I don't know why they are behaving in such a brutal and murderous manner.

Joshua: Having already watched the series, I know who, but I genuinely had no idea on my first viewing. Rather than thinking too much about it, back then I just went along with the ride.

As I can't offer a serious guess though, I’ll just make a joke about whether Rem’s really as good a cook as she claims, and it was just a really bad reaction to off-chicken or something. Feeling really cold, vomiting… sounds like bad food poisoning to me.

Noelle: I admit, I’m really not sure. It has to be one of the characters introduced so far, it can’t be a random stranger we haven’t seen. The problem is that I can’t quite figure out the killer’s motive. Subaru is seen as suspicious, and it’s been made clear that he hasn’t earned trust just yet, but that doesn’t seem to be a reason to kill him (at the moment). There’s a who but also a why.

Danni: It’s definitely Ram. I have no idea if it actually is or why I think so, but it’s definitely Ram.

Kara: I haven’t got the first clue, but I want it to be Rem just so there can be something about her that interests me.

Let’s continue our final question tradition with the Rewatch. Give me your highs and lows for episodes 1-5.

David: High is the conversation between Subaru and Emilia on the bridge. That’s the thesis of the whole show I think. Low point is when Subaru almost died on the last go around of the initial day. I thought he might die and absolutely didn’t want to have to sit through that same day again.

Austin: One of my favourite scenes in the whole show is when Subaru asks Emilia her name after the fight with Elsa. Something about the delivery of Subaru’s lines and Emilia’s little laugh before her answer makes me feel so bubbly inside. Seeing exactly why Felt gets taken away by Reinhard was also a nice connecting of dots in my head. As for lows, I don’t think I’ve really hit anything notable yet; these first episodes are really strong in my opinion.

René: My high in these first few episodes is definitely the set-up around the mystery of Emilia posing as Satella in the first loop and the first meet-up between the Subaru with her in the second one. I just adore the shots with them being reflected in each other’s eyes and how it calls into question their perception of each other (I would heavily recommend this interview with the show’s director on this scene—do beware of SPOILERS for later episodes, though).

And since I can’t think of a low point, I’ll just sneak in a second highlight: Takehito Koyasu’s performance as Roswaal is just deliciously exaggerated. He’s already legendary for voicing Dio Brando but the way he sings every line is just pure joy to listen to.

Kevin: High - Subaru thinking about how he was going to die the second time, and then realizing that he was going to fight anyway. Myself and many other people joked during the series that Subaru was going to start carrying a bomb or something so that every time he messed anything up, he could just Return by Death to redo any mistake. This is a great moment though, because it both gives a reason why he won’t do that and is also extremely relatable. Even if you knew that you would come back to life, dying isn’t fun, so you’d want to avoid it if at all possible, which is exactly the conclusion that Subaru comes to.

Low - Elsa’s final attack. Subaru is clearly moving around, standing up straight, and generally doing a lot of things that use at least a few core muscles, and nothing happens. But when it’s convenient, it turns out that the attack went straight through the club, his clothes, and his stomach, when the club previous stopped all of her attacks and there was nothing supporting Subaru’s track suit or shirt.

Carolyn: High points, just the mystery and twists that have been unfolding so far. I like all the suspense around the people at the mansion. Also the line about not knowing what Subaru is talking about but that it’s stupid and that’s disappointing. That was pretty great. Low point, I’m not sure I have one but I could definitely do with more of the cat.

Paul: My high point was Subaru awakening, noticing the lack of scars on his hands, and realizing he'd somehow died in his sleep and reset the time-line. That was a chef's kiss perfect cliffhanger to end an episode upon. My low point is that it takes Subaru a few lives too many to realize he's resetting from a save point. Anyone who brags about playing video games all day like Subaru does should have picked up on that detail by the third life, tops.

Joshua: Subaru and Emilia doing aerobics in the garden is a definite high point, that makes me think back to the equally adorable scene with Ema in Shirobako. I also really appreciated how the series even humanises characters like Rom, instead of taking the easy route and making him a one-note shady dealer. Despite his hulking appearance, he genuinely seems like a decent guy who just got the wrong stick (or club) in life. The music is also great—that kind of eerie ringing when disturbing shenanigans are afoot is so effective at capturing the mood, and won’t leave my head.

As for low points, how many times did we need to see that initial mugging attempt? I liked how the show always found a new absurd comment of Subaru’s for the trio to react to, but I hope the series balances just how many times certain scenarios are reset. Subaru’s exaggerated statements can also be a bit awkward, so I’m glad the rest of the cast react like I do.

Noelle: High point: the mystery! I want to know why the time loop is happening, what’s the driving force for all of this, why Subaru in particular. We don’t really have any clear answers, and it’s the main point of the story. Tell me the answers! Low point is that Subaru takes a really long time to realize that he’s in a time loop. Isn’t he supposed to be really familiar with games? It makes sense realistically speaking but for a story, it drags a little.

Danni: Hard to think of a singular high point because I loved the heck out of this batch of episodes. I guess I gotta go with any time Beatrice is on screen. I love her so much. Low point is tough as well, but I have to give it to Subaru’s immediate acceptance of his new isekai life.

Kara: Gotta agree, the high point was Subaru waking up without the scars. That was so well played, and I loved seeing that the audience was being trusted to let the revelation hit us as it hit him. Good visual storytelling, would watch again. Honorable mention to Roswaal’s crazy voice. I thought they were playing it up in Isekai Quartet but no, that’s just how he is. Low point is I’m pretty sure Subaru and Emilia are never gonna go on this date and that makes me sad.

COUNTERS:

Ram calling Subaru “Barusu”: 10

Subaru death count: 5

Different ways Subaru has died: Disembowelment, Disembowelment, Stabbing, Unknown, Combination (Unknown+Dismemberment)

And that's everything for this week! Remember that you're always welcome to join us for this rewatch, especially if you haven't watched Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- yet!

Here's our upcoming schedule!

-Next week, on September 27th, Kara continues the Rewatch with episodes 6-10

-Then, on October 4th, Carolyn takes us past the halfway mark with episodes 11-15

Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Re:ZERO Rewatch! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next time!

CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH:

Re:ZERO Introduction Questions

Have anything to say about our thoughts on the episodes watched? Let us know in the comments! Don't forget, we're also accepting questions and comments for next week, so don't be shy and feel free to ask away!

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Jared Clemons is a writer and podcaster for Seasonal Anime Checkup where he can be found always wanting to talk about Love Live! Sunshine!! or whatever else he's into at the moment. He can be found on Twitter @ragbag.

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