#my point was better before i remembered that zi-o existed :') | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fantasyinvader · 3 years

Text

Kamen Rider Saber: Finale and Series Review

Okay, before I start disemboweling this series I want to give the finale two points of props.

It was nice to see the main trio fight the big bad together rather than it just being the lead Rider.

The ending really feels nostalgic for me. It's like one of those old games or anime that tried to do something like Evangelion, mostly Star Ocean 3 comes to mind.

I was going to add another point: how the ending didn't have to rely on a cosmic retcon to turn things into a happy ending like Build or Zi-o did, leaving those who died dead and having some level of maturity. I was going to give the show that point, even if it felt like it was leading into Touma essentially becoming God, but then the show did it and...I'm going to be honest here, I was saying fuck you at the screen. Multiple times, kinda like when Doctor Who's 50th anniversary where it turns out Gallifrey wasn't destroyed, the Doctor sealed it away and just couldn't remember it. Like, that is the level of bullshit I was calling out, and with Doctor Who I only said it as an “oh fuck you” rather than just “fuck you fuck you fuck you” until I noticed I was doing this and stopped myself.

Got it? Good. Now let's put Kamen Rider Saber on the examination table, rip it open, and see what went wrong with it.

Oh my god, where to begin with this series?

You ever see a show or movie that tries to do too much for it's runtime? Maybe a book that has some ultimately good ideas, but it never fleshed them out properly? That's my biggest feeling with Saber. Individual parts of the story, some arcs and characters are good on paper. Not to mention, Touma has two incredibly sexy upgrades (the Ryuki-inspired Draconic Knight and the berserker Primitive Dragon). But there is just so much in here that, given the proper focus could have carried the show if properly developed. It's a case of quantity over quality.

But the main problem comes to it's central McGufffin, the Omniscient Tome. This book is supposed to have all knowledge and later on all stories contained within it. It's what powers Wonderworld and the Wonder Ridebooks that are the main collectable trinket of the season. But when you stop and think about it, Saber is a world where there is no free will and the antagonists are all rebelling against this in their own way. Kento's dad (former Kamen Rider Calibur) went rogue in the backstory because he was given a vision of the future through his sword, and it led to the former Saber taking up the role of Calibur and going rogue in order to learn the truth. When the other riders are turned against Touma, the argument is over how he's destined to become more powerful, making Touma seem like he's seeking power and could be a future threat. When Kento returns from the dead, he's haunted by visions of the world ending in multiple variations, leading to him trying to seal the Sacred Blades in order to stop it. But then Master Logos is revealed to be buttfucking insane, wanting to rebel against his position in the world. Then it turns out the monster faction's leader, was a former poet who lost hope when he learned that all his creations were already in the Omniscient Tome, so he decided he would end the world his way rather than the predetermined ending. And even then, the world still ended the way it was always fated to end, even with Touma disappearing to nu-Wonderworld if only for a year.

The world wasn't saved, it was destroyed and then rebuilt because Mei wrote an online post that encouraged people to share their stories, which they did in oblivion even though these guys shouldn't have seen the post at all and instead just heard her voice.

Like, maybe the nu-World has free will. I'd buy that. But when applied to the 47 episodes I've spent the last year watching (alongside the Zenkaiger crossover episode), it felt pointless because it ended the way it was foretold in the Omniscient Tome. It didn't matter that Storious was defeated, fate was not averted. It's like, the complaints people have about the MCU post-Loki. It doesn't matter that Tony decided to sacrifice himself, because he didn't have free will. He was always going to sacrifice himself. Thanos was always going to snap away half the universe, and it would always be undone because choices didn't matter before Loki's ending.

And that's not even going into how they final arc reveals that Touma can somehow create stories not present in the Omniscient Tome. That he can somehow, because the personification of Wonderworld choose him as a child, that for some reason he's the only writer in history that can do this. His catchphrase is about how he'll be the one who'll decide how the story ends, but with the idea that everything was set into stone? It's laughable.

Like, my problem with Zero One's ending was the last scene. Aruto had learned a lot about the Humagears and was an advocate for them finding their own dreams as they became self-aware AI. So him trying to treat a new humagear as just an amnesiac Is and try to help her “remember”? That felt like a betrayal of the character and what he stood for. But the post-series movie revealed that Is left a copy of herself in the Zero Two driver, and merged with the non-self aware nu-Is who the movie kept reminding us wasn't the Is we knew. Aruto even had a sobbing scene about what he was doing, lowkey acknowledging what he was doing but without overtly calling him out. It fixed Zero One for me after that last scene left me with a bad taste in my mouth that overshadowed an otherwise excellent show.

You can't fix Saber with a single movie, that's what I'm getting at here.

So, with that out of the way let's go into my thoughts on each character.

Touma: Is one of the blandest main riders in the franchise. His sense of style is probably one of the worst I've ever seen though. Like I know they like to try and give the main riders their own look rather than having them dress like normal people, like Aruto wearing a hoodie under his suit jacket alongside with his very bright shoes, but this wasn't a W or even something like Ghost (where honestly I really liked Takeru's robe-like shirts). What they eventually settled on with Touma was a stupid hat, really baggy pants, and shirts that look like they came out of a stern librarian's closest. You know, the type with her hair in a bun and their horned-framed glasses on a chain.

Rintaro:Is one of those cases where he's meant to be the secondary Rider of the series, but is overshadowed because the writer likes to use someone else more. The idea of him having to turn against the organization that raised him (like a child soldier) could have worked really well if the series had a more free will-direction. But alas.

Kento: Kento's the one character I found I could really like. His arc was more interesting during the first quarter, his return as Calibur, but then he returned to being Espada and, as much as I love that suit, he just became Touma's main cheerleader. Really, I felt like towards the end it was a waste of him, especially since he doesn't get any power ups like Rintaro did to solidify him as one of the main three. He definitely feels like a victim of rewrites or just the writer not knowing what he was doing.

Mei: The female lead. Honestly, I just found her annoying most of the time. A womanchild to match Touma's more manchild moments, with a potential romance with Rintaro thrown in to only be confirmed in a future movie. Really, she should have taken over as Espada after Kento disappeared early on (especially since she's one of the three in the Ending dance while Kento isn't).

Daishinji: I'd say best boy, but he became a background character pretty quick.

Ogami: An older Kamen Rider who is also a father to a young child? Cool, and could even have worked in contrast to Rintaro's raising as essentially a child soldier. But alas, it was not to be.

Ren: OMG. A somewhat psycho younger Rider, idolizing Kento, and his social Darwinist beliefs on strength leading to conflict as Touma gets more powerful, leading to him abandoning the team to train with an enemy monster? HOW DO YOU MAKE THAT NOT WORK! I swear, Ren should have been the secondary Rider of the series, with his changes in beliefs being used more effectively.

Yuri: One of the most competantly written characters in the entire show. One of the original swordsman who became his sword, returning after 2000 years and not only feeling the culture clash of then and now but even how the idea of what makes a hero has changed? Good boy. Also loved him using a shadow body early on during fights.

Sophia: Why are you even here?

Reika: Oh boy, the swordswoman who leads the rest to distrust Touma under the orders of Master Logos, and doesn't sway from this until he's proven to be batshit insane? And even then, reluctant to join the others? Could have been better, especially if her relationship with her brother didn't come across as incesty. Though, could we please return her to Magine in Zenkaiger? Reika hugging her was really cute, in a socially awkward type of way.

Ryoga: Reika's brother. With his powers being something out of Jojo, time manipulation powers which are a bit hard to explain. He starts them and to his opponents things seem like the fight is continuing as normal, but he really exists outside of that and then can attack from a blindspot? Could have been really good with if the series had gone Team Free Will is all I'm saying.

Master Logos: What I mentioned above, but his Rider suit is one I'm in lust with. Just laughs like a madman and you're wondering why Reika and Ryoga don't rebel against him earlier.

The Megid: Two are a waste who I never bothered to learn their names. Fall out of focus for a bit and only return to be beaten, with the sad fact that they were once human. Storious is the exception, but even then I felt he was a little too late to save the series.

Tassel: Bon Lecture! I still hate you you weirdo, even if your death scene made me feel a little sad. The fact that you treated the early parts of the show as a story you were reading? Have you seen my other complaints?

As for the message of what the show tried to say? I don't really mind it. It's encouraging people to love stories, even if they are copies (considering the controversy of Time Paradox Ghostwriter and Cheat Slayer within recent memory, I'm trying not to make jokes about Saber encouraging plagiarism). And I don't think that's a bad thing in itself. Hell, how many stories take stuff from older stories and just tweak elements to make them their own? I love the Elric saga, but that was based on old legends and meant to subvert the likes of Conan the Barbarian, and some other stories I've liked have borrowed elements from it as well. The idea that stories can be used to pass on our hopes, thoughts and dreams to others is pretty nice as well, rather than writing being a form of masturbation on the author's part.

But in the shadow of the Omniscient Tome and it's implications, I really feel the story should have taken another route.

A lot of Riders start of weak, having to introduce the plot as well as the main release of whatever trinket they want kids to gorge themselves on this year. But they usually start getting better towards the end of the first quarter, while maybe stalling a bit towards the end of the second/third. Saber was a series that I felt never really found it's legs. Too many bareboned plot threads on the go, dropping some for a while only to pick them up again after they've been forgotten about. This is not a good series, to be honest I think Zi-O and even Ghost were better, and really feel it would have been better handled in the hands of someone who could actually write.

Not to mention, this gave me flashbacks of Power Rangers Megaforce over how much this series relied on fight scenes. Throw in greenscreen everywhere, lack of civilians...oh god, it is Kamen Rider Megaforce. And it felt like Saber was trying to have a story, unlike Megaforce, but it has the same “it’s a kid’s show, we don’t have to try that hard” energy.

1 note · View note

gay-country-fangames · 4 years

Text

please lets not be shitty

tws for talk of racism, eugen/cs, n*zis, slavery, genocide, etc. read at your own risk but please be aware this message is important. so this isnt specifically related to hetagames but its related to hetalia and i think its important that everyone hear it again just to be sure. im going to shelve my rabid persona for a minute because this is super important and a super serious thing.

making hetalia OCs or 2ps or personifying characters based off of problematic time periods from their history is not okay.

some examples include: -n*zi germany this is so wrong for so many obvious reasons everyone should know by now but for the sake of the post im gonna go into detail a lilbit. so many people were killed and both physically and mentally tortured during this time period, a large group being jewish people. during this time period german schools taught eugen/cs to their children which was a h i g l y racist concept. n*zis basically hated everyone that wasnt a blonde blue eyed ‘pure blood’ german. everyone else deserved to die according to them, and thats just.... not something that you make an anime boy about? like no. please. -civil war era america/the confederacy/the confederate states of america this one some people seem to think is okay for??? some goddamn reason??? no??? okay i know a lot of non-americans might not understand what exactly the civil war was so here we go heres a very watered down explanation. once upon a time there was slavery in america. we all know that. but at one point the public opinion shifted to thinking ‘hmm, maybe slavery is actually really fukin gross and bad? hey lets pass a law to ban slavery.’ and the southern states went ‘wait no we like slavery.’ and they went and said ‘this law would violate our constitutional right to states rights. we should be able to choose whether or not each state has laws against slavery!’ which is bs by the way they just wanted to keep owning slaves but they called it a violation of states rights so they could start a war over this shit. so then the south decided to form the confederacy and then they declared war on the north to try and break away n have their ‘right’ to own slaves. by the way this wasnt just a buncha racists fighting for their right to own people a lot of them also made their slaves fight in the war. so black people were being forced to fight for their own enslavement. lovely. spoiler alert they lost hella bad and the emancipation proclamation was signed which helped pave the way for black people to be free. the confederacy through its entire short life stood for nothing but slavery and racism and that is n o t something that its okay to make an anime boy out of okay please stop this.

-Communist Russia okay look. look. stop what youre going to say and read this. okay? okay. yes i know himaruya kind of wrote about this already. no that does not make it okay. hes human just like anyone else and hes realized his problems and faults and doesnt write that shit anymore. and even if he hadnt thats no excuse. even if he had kept making it that wouldnt make it okay. creators arent perfect and everything they do isnt automatically moral. popular people do stupid insensitive shit all the time and they have to be held accountable for it. anyway if you really need to be told why communist russia isnt good ‘uwu anime boy’ fodder then you really need to read a history book. but in short; genocide. mass starvation of their own people. imperialism. etc. bad shit. lets not.

-Mafia AU Romano okay this isnt really a time period perse but it felt like it belonged on the list so i put it on. its my list i can add what i want. so anyway ive seen southern italian people express blatant discomfort with this before, and from what i remember it stems from both racism and classism to a certain extend and thats just.... uncomfy. i get the appeal of a mafia au ok some people find crime hot but if its blatantly making people uncomfortable then id suggest you stop. other peoples comfort is more important than your fanfic. just make some generic crime lord au or summ instead idk it dont have to be the mafia all the time an it dont have to be romano all the time. if anyone who has a better feel for this wants to expand on it be my guest.

anyway im sure theres many more but these are the things i see the most. feel free to rb and add your own “please dont”s to the list. an before anyone gets on me about “why is this stuff bad but things like ancient rome arent” look ancient rome did about as much bad shit as england did but we dont all cancel mister arthur monster brows do we? the difference is these examples are narrowing a character down to one specific problematic period of their history (or in the case of the mafia thing one single small problematic part of the countrys history) and ancient rome represents the entirety of the countrys existance which did more than just imperialism and murder and shit. ok mun lei out now.

#hetalia #hetagame #hetalia fangames #Hetagames #hws hetalia #aph hetalia #aph #hws

19 notes · View notes

dangerouscommiesubversive · 4 years

Note

I’d kinda like to see more of that Tsukasa and Daiki being like weird dad/older brother/mentor types to the post-reset Zi-O kids, maybe with U and/or C?

Oh, absolutely.

U is for unknown, uncanny, or underworld

Tsukuyomi walks to Kujigoji Hall in a reverie, going over the details of her last biology lab, until an unexpected voice next to her says, “Afternoon.”

She looks up with a start. “Mr--Daiki! Hi! I didn’t know you were visiting today.”

He grins at her. “Neither did I, but we were in the area, Tsukasa thought maybe it’d be nice to stop in. Well, and Natsumi’s watch stopped working the other day, and he keeps telling her he’ll get it fixed and then forgetting. He’s already over there, I needed some air.” He falls into stride next to her as they continue walking towards Sougo’s home. “Here, I brought you another present.”

Blinking, Tsukuyomi takes the card he passes her and reads the name quickly before it transforms into a Ride Watch in her hand. “Larc?”

“That’s the name.” An expression flickers over Daiki’s face that she can’t quite identify. “She was a friend of mine once, a long time ago. Or at least, one version of her was a friend of my brother’s.”

Tsukuyomi tucks the Watch into her bag. “Thank you very much, that’s very kind of you.” Kujigoji Hall comes into view as they turn a corner. “If you don’t mind my asking, though...why do you keep giving me these?”

Daiki’s got a faraway look in his eyes. “There haven’t been many women who were Riders, you know? Few and far between, and a lot of them...don’t end well. Natsumi’s been lucky that way, but plenty of them weren’t. So maybe I’m trying to invest in a better future.”

She’s not entirely sure what to say to that. He doesn’t seem to expect her to respond, which helps a little, but after a moment she still reaches out and pats his arm, and he flashes her a sort of sideways smile. They walk the rest of the way in silence.

At Kujigoji Hall, Junichiro is hmm’ing and aah’ing over a tiny white enamel wristwatch with a purple ceramic band, its back open and small pieces laid on velvet on his work table. He greets Tsukuyomi when she and Daiki come in, but he’s clearly preoccupied; after the initial hello he just waves vaguely towards the dining room. “Sougo and his friend are over there, my dear, Woz is making some tea.”

Sougo and Tsukasa are, in fact, arguing. Inasmuch as he’s capable of it, Sougo actually looks annoyed. “I did take the exam, I’m waiting on results right now. Why are you so big on this?”

“Because it matters.” Tsukasa pinches the bridge of his nose, scowling. “If you just needed to know about the history of every Kamen Rider, I’d tell you to ask your boyfriend, he’d read his book at you for a couple of hours, and that’d have most of it covered. But you want to be king, and the way things look, eventually you might be. Somehow. Who fucking knows how. The multiverse makes no goddamn sense. Point is, I’d feel better about that if you read some philosophy and studied more world history. Oh, good, Daiki’s back. And Tsukuyomi, hi--baby, you gave her that thing, didn’t you?”

“Still enjoying hearing you call me that. Of course I did.” Daiki pulls out a chair for Tsukuyomi, bowing teasingly, and then sits down next to her. “So did you tell Sougo about Great Leader yet, or are we still tiptoeing around that?”

Sougo frowns. “Great Leader?”

Tsukasa buries his face in his hands. “I was working up to that, thank you, Daiki.”

Daiki grins, starts to reply, and is fortunately interrupted when Woz comes in with tea, and for a few minutes everyone is distracted as drinks are served. Woz’s own drink is served last, and only at Sougo’s insistence, despite his protestations of, “I should be minding the counter--”

“Uncle won’t mind, sit with me.”

After a moment, Woz sits down on Sougo’s other side, eyeing Tsukasa nervously as he does. “As you wish.”

“You know, I like you a lot better now that you’re not rejoicing all over the place.” Tsukasa takes a sip of his tea as everyone politely ignores Woz’s incipient blush. “Your book’s still solid on history, right? It’s just the future part that’s off now?”

“That’s, ah. That’s correct. The future-history matrix is permanently keyed to a timeline that no longer exists, but the information on previous Riders is accurate back to 1971.”

“1971? Ok, now I’m actually impressed.”

Woz turns bright red and hides in his scarf, and Sougo and Tsukuyomi both immediately reach over to pat him on the hand as Daiki visibly stifles laughter. “Don’t tease him, Tsukasa.”

Tsukasa blinks. “I wasn’t.”

There’s a clattering sound from the storefront and the sound of a muffled greeting from Junichiro before Geiz walks into the dining room, gear bag over his shoulder, and stops dead. “I feel like I missed something here. Did we have stuff planned today? Why is Woz blushing?”

Daiki raises his teacup in a toast. “Those are both good questions. No, we didn’t, and you’ll have to ask him about that. Tea?”

“Uh...ok.” Geiz sits down next to Tsukuyomi and then immediately blushes when she kisses him on the cheek. “Um.”

“Hm. I thought you said she wasn’t your girlfriend.”

“I...also thought that, but lately I’m not so sure.”

Tsukuyomi says nothing, but she makes eye contact with Sougo across the table and they both look very pleased with themselves. Daiki glances at them both before saying, to Tsukasa, “I’m starting to worry that they have more in common with us than we’d realized.”

Geiz accepts a full cup of tea from Woz and mumbles, “Tsukasa, Mr. Tokiwa told me to tell you he might need to order a part for your friend’s watch,” before taking a sip.”

Tsukasa sighs. “Thank you, Geiz.” And then, to Daiki, “Fortunately, if I was ever as young as they are, I don’t remember it.”

#tokiwa sougo #myoukouin geiz #tsukuyomi #woz #kadoya tsukasa #kaitou daiki #fanfiction #flaim-ita

15 notes · View notes

askmyboys · 3 years

Text

Xovarkzis

Here’s the last god/goddess I made so far! More to come im sure lmao

| Name: Xovarkzis (pronunciation: Zo-Vark-Zis) God of Time (also has some power over life and death)

| Nicknames: Xo (again pronounced as Zo) or Vark/Ark

| Gender: He/Him, They/Them, She/Her, and It/It’s, gender doesn’t STRICTLY matter for them, you can call them a god or a goddess either one

| Age: It’s speculated that perhaps Xovarkzis has been around since the beginning of time, their specific age is unknown BUT it’s clear that he is over countless centuries old

| Height: 500ft (when they come down to visit Earth they shift down to about 6’3”)

| Species/Race: Well its obvious but still, just to reiterate- God/Goddess

| Hair Color: The left side of his hair is White and the right side of his hair is Black (his hair is a quiff style)

| Eye Color: Left eye is pure white and the right eye is pure black (they have a third eye on their forehead that is mixed between black n white, it isn’t two eyes, its just one eye with split colors, the left side of the eye is pure white and of course the right side is pure black)

| Skin Color/Body Type: The left side of his body is black and the right side is white (ayo a bit of a reversal there lmao) and he’s pretty lanky tbh

| Appearance: She’s got a few outfits BUT the main one is a white toga with a long black silk piece that’s draped over his shoulder (it’s got some white wording sewn into it but the language seems to be unknown, Xo’s language has been lost for centuries, you’d be lucky to find ANYONE aside from the goddess themself that speaks it or can even translate it, if you REALLY wanna know I’ll tell you, it’s basically going to translate into a blessing) it wears black and white victorian style boots (you know the boot got them h e e l s) for some reason he seems to have antlers, b i g ones- likewise the left side is a white antler and the right side is a black antler, he has necklaces hanging from those antlers full of Turritella Agate stones(it is believed to help in times of change, dispelling negative thoughts and reliving conditions of fatigue) and Snowflake Obsidian stones (it’s a 'stone of purity' bringing balance to the body, mind, and spirit. Said to be beneficial for the skin and veins) and she has a necklace she wears on her neck that is a Sodalite Stone (it helps to calm and clear the mind, bring joy and relieve a heavy heart. Said to aid the metabolism and lymphatic system)

He wears a white glove on his left hand and then a black one on the right (they cut the tips out of them so their black and white claws can peep through BUT ONLY for the claws, I’ll explain the gloves being a VERY crucial detail in side facts)

They have razor sharp teeth (they also have a circle beard btw, it being the colors of each part of the respective skin color ya know), their ears are pointed and they also wear black n white gauges and other earrings of that color in their ears as well, that’s all for the jewelry however- they can also grow black and white wings (v feathery n fluffy wings), they also have a black based tail and then white fluff at the end (p much a dragon-esque looking tail), they seem to have a few scars here and there but nothing TOO major, it just appears to be from a few fights that must’ve ensued sometime in her life.

| Personality: Xovarkzis is an… Interesting being, it usually spends time by itself, tending to her own world and keeping everything in order, he’s usually VERY calm and collected in every situation possible since he’s seen it all pretty much, they’ve seen most outcomes when it comes to life, all the questions, the answers, etc- Xovarkzis is essentially almost an all knowing being, when it comes to fighting Xo has never been one to choose a side, they always stay out of matters that don’t concern them, it’s just… What happens a f t e r a fight, especially if it gets… Messy… They do warn of the consequences of every action, every choice has it’s consequences and if someone thinks they are ABOVE consequences? They are a fool, even Xovarkzis to be as powerful and high ranking being as she is, even he’ll admit he is not free from consequence and he never will be...

Xovarkzis finds mortals to be such… Interesting beings, Xo loved to study them whenever they could, always watching and observing from afar whatever it may be, whether their making decisions and choices or simply going about their life… Life ...Another subject as well as death, that Xo knows very well, Xo’s seen such much death in her centuries, at first she had questioned why death had to really exist, why did people have to be taken, taken away from their loved ones, taken away from the living, and so… Easily too... Ark had even gone as far to see if it could even s t o p death but hah, when they look back at that, such a f o o l i s h desire, death, albeit a tragedy by most… Can be beautiful in many ways, a lot fear death, Ark cannot blame them nor would she ever BUT, people tend to forget, there IS still beauty in death just as there is beauty in life.

Xovarkzis always tries to show any mortals that wind up before them that fact, it’s not a way to ease them into death, there is no such way to ease into death unfortunately, but there’s still the beauty, at the VERY least Xo can show them that before leading them to their final destination, Xo might be the god/goddess of life and death (as well as time which I’ll get to in a moment) but they cannot bring a person back from the dead, that would go against EVERYTHING they believe in and it’s impossible anyways, death is permanent, and even if there were a way, if they brought them back, that person would NEVER be the same… Well in THAT regard anyways BUT there is a… “Special Rule” If a person is taken before their time is up? ...There CAN be a pardon but it depends on the person really and the situation, and it still goes against what Xo believes in, in, well a way but… Sometimes an exception needs to be made, if their time was not up and it happened to be an… “Unfortunate” circumstance then they must continue on their journey.

Xo will even admit “Despite my beliefs… Your time has n o t run out… There is still so much you must do, so much to accomplish… So, just this once, I will send you back… But remember, life isn’t something you should take for granted, so many loved ones, whether it be a friend, family, or partner… You have someone who truly cares about you out there, so try and live life to the fullest every day possible… Remember, you w o n ‘ t get another chance like this, next time, it will be permanent I’m afraid…” now as for time, Xo holds time with a fondness… Time can be a blessing and a… Curse to some… Xo used to see time as a curse but they learned quickly, you must do what you can and will with the time you are given, never be afraid to get out there and do whatever it is you desire, time may seem so short… It may even feel as though time is plotting and working against you, but that is simply not true… It’s all about working with the time you are given, there is no such thing as more or less with time, and you had better make the most of the time you ARE given, for one day, your clock, as will everyone else’s, will run out.

Xo keeps the time in order (kinda like father time in a way), she CAN control it in a way, meaning it can stop and start time BUT there could only be one reason for stopping, starting, and speeding up time- And if that reason EVER comes to pass ...Whatever god/goddess/being you worship, you had better p r a y to them, pray as hard as you can… (Xo cannot reverse time however technically speaking, unless you wish to count them bringing a person back via unfortunate circumstances then I suppose in a way she can do that but still) Xo’s always been fascinated with how time worked to be honest, it’s interesting all the things time can make happen… Mortals, plants, etc- those grow up, worlds they age and sometimes become more progressive than others, and mostly people change with time, some anyways- Everything changes with time marching ahead, and that, to Xo is a wonderful thing…

That’s honestly the best I can sum them up?? There’s obvs gonna be more to them but for now this is good for personality basis (Xo despite being so blunt with things, Xo is a sweetheart who just wants the best for everyone, just wants peace, equality, and for people to live life to their fullest potential, Xo wants to see them succeed, failure? ...Failure is natural and should not be something to fear, you can always learn from the mistakes you make and next time you try something, then you’ll know what to avoid next time around, failure in a way should be treated as growth, as growing and learning because it is)

| Side Facts: Xo isn’t one for weapons BUT it does wield a black handled scythe that has a white blade attached to it (if you REALLY want, Xo can be technically called a Reaper even if he is much more than that, but if you wish to classify her as that then so be it), Ark’s world is also made up of black and white (literally if you look at the world, it’s split down the middle, black and white, nothing more nothing less, it’s world is actually considered a “Void” given that there isn’t anything really there, the only thing there in the split is Xo’s “throne” of course because it’s literally right in the center of the world it’s black and white as well, they have decorated it with various stones (like the Turritella, Snowflake, and Sodalite stones) there are a few others that are p much otherworldly, those stones can only be found in Xo’s world (I’ll leave those up to interpretation lmao), there ARE shelves lining the “room” however full of hourglasses, all of various types, various names are labelled on them.

Even Xo’s own, for even Xo, despite being a god/goddess n such, does have a due date himself, all the gods/goddesses do, one day their time will be up just like everyone else’s, granted… They D O live a LOT longer than mortals, animals, etc… Hence why their hourglasses are so big and almost infinite, but Xo knows, deep down, despite their infinite size, the sand will reach the bottom one day and then that will be it… Xo isn’t scared of death anymore, they haven’t been for MANY centuries now (they used to be afraid, they used to not understand why they had to even deal with the things they did, why they were the god/goddess they were, but one day, it finally understood… And that was that)

(If Xo and Thanatos (side note, i do realize that’s an actual god name but this one in particular i made is… woo b o y, just- yikes), but Xo and Thanatos would honestly be at each other’s throats, Xo has never liked picking a side in a fight, has never been one for fighting anyway- but Thanatos would disrupt EVERYTHING… That sick disgusting excuse for a god doesn’t even deserve his status, he treats death like a game for his entertainment, he’ll LITERALLY go out of his own way to make everyone suffer in any way he can, and Xo will not have any mockery and slander toward life nor death in this way so those two would c l a s h)

You would think Xo would live forever given their status and being the god they are BUT, it’s definitely not true! They can even be killed even though ...That’s LITERALLY near impossible, not ABSOLUTELY impossible but still, someone would have to get a REALLY lucky and fatal shot in, however even if they were to fade (if Xo dies, imma say this right now, there’ll be a spotlight on them and they’ll start fading away into little specs and drifting into the wind) the balance of life, death, and time will not implode, there are many other gods/goddesses that will be ready to take Ark’s place even if it may be sooner than expected, there’s always a chance after all…

Also fine, yeah- Unus Annus inspired me p heavily here BUT not ENTIRELY?? I just wanted to make another god/goddess for the world, Osmundus has never met Xo despite Xo sometimes visiting other worlds/Earth, and literally meeting his husband- speaking of… Arvish? ...Xo will forever remember what he did to everyone, to all the mortals, his own people even, everyone he hurt and killed- However, Xo holds no grudges, Xo will not haunt him, besides Vark knows deep down Arvish is tormented constantly by his own head, it’s a wonder the old beast hasn’t driven himself insane with all that guilt, Xo has told him before however “You cannot change the past, what’s done is done… However… ...You can make anew for yourself, it all depends on the choices you make in the remainder of your life, so if I were you, I would make the right choices as best I could” Arvish… Took Xo’s words to heart especially, and told Xo he’d try his best.

Also one thing they have to question now… ...Why is it that the mortals want them to say “Memento Mori” so much? Granted, they DO know what it means and even the words “Unus Annus” I mean she knows what BOTH words mean but it seems to hold such value and significance to the mortals...

#Xovarkzis #my oc #original character #god of time oc #god of life and death oc

2 notes · View notes

sailor-cresselia · 5 years

Text

Zi-O 45: “THIS WENT FROM COOL TO HOLY SHIT REAL FAST.”

Last time: Swartz became Another Decade, and summoned a whole bunch of Dark Movie Riders, who proceeded to start kicking Sougo and Geiz’s butts.

Then G4 pulled out a missile launcher.

This time? Who knows, it’s Zi-O.

(Please enjoy my 10-page liveblog, with heavy Drive and Double fangirling, and my love of continuity nods.)

––––

So, yeah, G4 firing missiles at the boys! Fortunately, Woz has decided to skip the time freeze part of his recap, and says… basically what I just said, before grabbing Sougo and Geiz with his scarf and teleporting the three of them out of there.

Then we go into the Recap Vault, where he reminds us about Miharu showing up, and his intention to bring Geiz and Tsukuyomi back.

Woz comments that ‘it’s almost time for them to say goodbye.’

We go DIRECTLY into the credits from there, not even a minute into the episode.

––––

Oof. The episode proper starts with the four lads – Sougo, Geiz, Woz, and Heure (who I’d forgotten was Also There) walking along the river/drainage basin. Sougo comments that he can’t believe that Swartz’s – no, Another Decade’s – power is to bring in other Riders.

Geiz snaps, practically slamming Heure into the railing, saying that he’d tricked them – Hora was Another Drive, so Heure must have been lying the entire time.

Heure’s panicking as soon as Geiz turns on him – he didn’t know, he really didn’t – but Geiz, being Geiz, doesn’t listen. He tells Heure to get out of there before he really snaps and beats him up – so Heure all but runs off, plainly scared and confused.

Sougo calls Geiz out. Heure didn’t know, he’s changed since Swartz turned on him, after all, and they were starting to work together.

Geiz, being Geiz, says that people don’t change so easily, pointing out that Heure’s usual MO is manipulating people. He does have a point, but he slips up when he says that an enemy is always an enemy.

Sougo doesn’t look hurt by this. Just disappointed. What did Geiz come back here for, anyway?

To defeat Oma Zi-O before he could become Oma Zi-O.

Here’s where Sougo gets angry. Really, truly angry. If people never change, there’s no way they can make a better future.

Geiz points out, growing increasingly furious, that it’s Sougo who destroyed the future, that it’s his fault in the first place.

I don’t like the look on Sougo’s face right now. He says that’s the future him, that since it’s the future, they can still change it in the now. I’m… not sure I want to know what Sougo’s thinking of for ‘changing the future,’ because he looks frustratedly depressed.

Geiz questions what the hell Sougo could know, he has no idea what it’s like for people in that future.

Sougo gets quiet, saying that Geiz is right, he doesn’t know, and walks off.

Woz has watched both of these exchanges from the side, and sighs as he watches Sougo walk off.

Geiz just looks down.

––––

We come to Heure, hiding by an abandoned building, when Hora approaches. Startled, Heure yells for her to stay away. She’s an Another Rider, isn’t she?

Hora doesn’t seem to have any idea what he’s talking about.

Starting to freak out, Heure thinks. Maybe – maybe the Another Rider was just using her as a disguise, to throw him off balance. She tries to come over to him, presumably to calm him down, but he fully flips, saying that she still might be that Another Rider, and runs off, uncharacteristically clumsily.

Hora just looks confused, and maybe a little sad. It’s hard to say with her – she’s always kept her emotions pretty hidden, and does have a history of manipulating people, even more so than Heure. INCLUDING Heure, actually, given her actions during the second part of the Kikai arc.

––––

Sougo’s walking down those stairs we see so often, when a former classmate shows up, saying it’s been a long time. I think we’re supposed to know him, his name’s Owada, and he’s actually excited to see Sougo. He’s a pro gamer, and is participating in a tournament that will let him represent Japan…

Oh, hang on, is this the classmate from the Ex-Aid arc?

Yes, yes he is! Nice continuity nod, there!

Anyway, after briefly asking why Sougo’s so beat up – which Sougo brushes off, saying he’s fine – he asks Sougo to come watch him play, completely disregarding Sougo’s protests of it not being a good time for that.

––––

Heure’s running, finding himself at one of those abandoned factories, when Hora appears from inside one. She’s got some bad news. This is where he’s going to die. Pulling out the Another Drive watch, she transforms.

I appreciate the touch with the transformation including the wheel images from above and below coming to form the armor, and including Shinnosuke’s little post-transformation side-lean.

Running, Heure tries to use his time stop, but Another Drive’s faster, and beats him to the punch by activating Slowdown. She starts wailing on him, punches to the gut, backhanding him in the face, and then throwing him bodily towards a stack of barrels and crates, cancelling the slowdown just in time for him to impact at full speed.

Hora calls Heure’s name, running up to them. She sounds worried for him! Yay! But also there’s still an Another Drive, saying that ‘we finally meet… me.’

Hora tries to use her time powers – tries, clenching her fist and grimacing as she throws her hand out. Nothing happens.

She’s clearly been trying to do this for a while, too. There are numerous indents on her palm, where her nails have dug in over and over. Too many to just have been from this one time.

Another Drive zooms over, and hoists Hora by the neck, lifting her from the ground.

Hora asks – struggling – what they are.

The answer… they’re the Paradox Roidmude.

To which I, a Drive fan, have a general reaction of NOPE NO NUH-UH I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS!!

For those who didn’t watch Drive, or didn’t watch it’s movies, Paradox, or Roidmude 108, was the villain of “Kamen Rider Drive: Surprise Future”, Drive’s summer movie, who basically wanted to stop the world. Forever. A permanent Global Freeze, and he tried to do it by… what was it again? OH RIGHT. By coming back in time from 2035! SO, YAY! MORE TIME TRAVEL SHENANIGANS!

Listen, Surprise Future is a great movie, and I highly recommend it. Also, its ending theme, “re-ray”, is amazing.

Anyway, Drive!Paradox transforms back into Hora’s appearance, notably using the original Roidmude transformation effects, instead of the Another Rider ones. They have wonderful news. Hora’s going to disappear, and they’ll become the real one. Hora’s lost her powers, so it’s not like she needs to exist.

I really appreciate both of these nods, actually. The fact that a Roidmude is using a combination of their own native abilities and the Another Rider ones, and the acknowledgment that they copy people – right down to their character tics and habits. Medic kept her human’s ballet, Brain held onto that handkerchief for the majority of the season, just out of habit, and Paradox… this time around, they’ve picked up Hora’s old ‘catchphrase.’ Remember, when Hora made Another Riders, she did offer a choice, saying that she had bad news, but also good news.

So yeah, nice continuity nods they’ve got going there.

Oh, right, the show.

Anyway, Hora’s being lifted by her neck, struggling to breath. Paradox changes back to Another Drive – this time with the Another Rider effects – and starts laughing. Heure is terrified, and probably feels really bad about suspecting Hora now. Not that I can blame him on either front, but still.

A green-and-purple fist punches Another Drive away from Hora.

Kamen Rider Woz, in Ginga form.

––––

Over at 9-to-5, I realize that the logo isn’t just a pendulum clock, but the hands also looks a bit like a pair of glasses.

Geiz walks in to a darkened shop, Tsukuyomi sitting there, stoic. He comments that she’s back.

So, she has been gone since the end of the last arc, then? For the last month? Because we do get confirmation that it’s been a month – that giant gear-clock on the back wall also has a calendar function, which says it’s July 23. Thus, we know two things. First, there has been a time skip since the Another Den-O and Zi-O II arcs. Second, that the previous episode probably took place over the course of a few days, since July 23 is a Tuesday. Most episodes take place around Sunday or so, depending on if the show involves school or not, which does throw a bit of a wrench in that.

Anyway, I got distracted. Tsukuyomi tells Geiz that she met Miharu, and that if they stay here in 2019, they’ll never make the future that they wanted.

Geiz agrees. They shouldn’t have come here in the first place, all they did was run away from their own issues.

This scene has no background music at all, just the pair of them talking, and the ticking of clocks in the background, growing louder as the scene goes on, and ending with one decisive ‘tick’ as Geiz turns to the camera, lit from behind by the window, saying they should go back to their own era.

––––

Turns out Owada’s game tournament is Tekken. Again. Seriously, can they not get Namco to let them use at least one of the other properties, or is this the only one they want to get the rights for? Ah well, it’s more appropriate for this guy than it was for Tsutomu back in Hibiki arc, since Owada was from Ex-Aid’s arc, and Tekken played a role in the backstory there.

Unfortunately, he lost. Really badly.

Sougo tries to talk to him as they head out, but Owada’s not having it, telling Sougo to shut up and shoving him away before running.

Before running headlong into Swartz, that is. Who says something about making Owada’s own world.

He then proceeds to summon what look like tendrils of that ripple texture, which come out of the ground, latching onto Owada before surrounding him in an orb, which then shrinks down into a small ball. We can see an image of him gaming in it, before Sougo runs up, asking what Swartz did.

Swartz, being Swartz, doesn’t answer, simply saying that he has an interesting game for Sougo. The ball spins into a dimensional wall, which passes backward…

And leaves someone else in it’s wake.

Someone who seems upset at being brought here, saying that he’d thought he’d met a proper death, while implying that it’s not the first time this has happened.

Katsumi Daido. Kamen Rider Eternal.

He’s going to give Sougo a taste of hell.

To which I, a Double fan, have a general reaction of NOPE NO NUH-UH I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS!!

For those who didn’t watch Double, or didn’t watch it’s movies, Daidou was the villain of “Kamen Rider W Forever: A to Z/The Gaia Memories of Fate”, Double’s summer movie, who was basically The Worst and tried to turn everyone in the city of Fuuto into ‘Necro-overs.’ Basically, he died, and his mother brought him back to life as… technically not a zombie, but he’s basically undead, and can’t be re-killed by normal means. He came back a little crazy. (Also, no, I don’t mean undead in the Blade sense, I mean the resurrected dead person sense.)

Also, his actor, Mitsuru Matsuoka, did the ending song for that movie, “W”… which is not nearly as good as the five songs he did for Drive, its movies, and specials, including the earlier mentioned “re-ray.”

Fun times!

Eternal is a great suit, with the exception of that stupid trash-bag cape, which I hope he gets rid of at some point in this episode.

…Sougo why are you in BASE FORM?! This guy was summoned here by Swartz, and your track record against other Kamen Riders as base Zi-O is not good, to put it lightly.

Like, literally the only Rider he’s come out on top against as original flavor Zi-O is Geiz.

Ohh, but I do love that they used the old Gaia Memory sound effects, driver and all. And there’s the movie-and-special variant of the transformations! I mean, transformations in W are always a treat, but in bigger-budget productions, they have this effect where during the standby, the icon for the Gaia Memory in use stays visible, and circles of energy in the Memories respective color radiate outward from the driver. It’s always a treat to see. Also, kudos for how whenever Eternal lands a direct hit, there’s those blue flames coming from where he connects.

––––

At 9-to-5, still in the dark, Geiz takes Tsukuyomi’s arm, saying that they’re going home together. He’s rushing, as if he’s well aware that waiting will kill off his resolve. Again.

But Miharu shows up, telling them that together isn’t an option. They’re from different timelines, after all. They’re going to different places.

Geiz sounds dejected as he remembers that. They didn’t know that until a month ago, after all, so it stands to reason that he’d forget. He takes off.

When he’s gone, Tsukuyomi says that… yes, Miharu’s right, but could she have just a little more time? They’d only gotten hope once they met Sougo, so-

Miharu stops her. That hope is for Sougo and the others. Miharu’s not wrong – Tsukuyomi is from a different branch, while Geiz is from Sougo’s. But here’s the thing. All of Tsukuyomi’s memories? They’re all from that same timeline as Geiz. She doesn’t remember her original home at all; the person she is now is entirely from the timeline where Oma Zi-O took over. She only found any of this out a month ago. There’s no way she could be used to it.

Miharu, awkwardly, says that they should probably go get her powers back from Swartz, and that he’ll help her with that.

––––

Back to the Woz Versus Another Drive fight!

Wherein Another Drive activates Slowdown – again – but Woz cancels it out on his own. How? Ginga Finaly is based on space, and things are weightless there – the gravity intensifying effect of slowdown can’t do jack to him. Also, he cancels it out for the rest of the area.

Another Drive is only slightly impressed, and proceeds to knock him off his feet by doing a sliding kick right into his legs. You know. Because car.

As they get up, that slowed down version of the Tridoron horn plays, and I get sad all over again.

Oh, uh, at this point, I should probably say why I’m using ‘they’ to refer to Another Drive/Paradox. See, Roidmudes technically don’t have genders. They normally use the pronouns of whoever they’ve copied. Right now, for Paradox, that’s Hora. However, the last time we saw Paradox, they were copying Tomari Eiji, aka Shinnosuke’s future son. So… it’s a tricky subject for me, so I’m erring on the side of caution and going gender-neutral with regards to Paradox. (Last episode, I had caught spoilers that Another Drive was ‘Hora’, so I tried to stay neutral through the liveblog because A; the Another Rider never spoke, so any mention of gender would be a spoiler in and of itself, and B; I wasn’t supposed to know that ‘Hora’ was the one behind the Watch, so I didn’t want to spoil that.)

Okay, fight time. As Another Drive is getting up, we hear an announcement. TYPHOON

Enter Geiz, in a nice mini fight sequence where both he and Paradox are moving fast enough that they leave afterimages. I mean, it’s pretty poorly green-screened in, but it’s a nice idea. With riders like Kabuto and Faiz around, it’s not hard to forget that one of Drive’s gimmicks is his speed. He doesn’t get to show it off that much on his own, so the fact they’re utilizing it here, even as an Another Rider copy, is cool. So was having the three of them team up in HeiGen Forever.

Heure’s surprised that Geiz is helping them – he’d just threatened Heure’s life, at most a few hours ago.

Geiz’s reply? He’s not fond of being rescued, or maybe just not fond of owing.

You know. The same thing Heure said last episode when he came in for the save when Geiz and Sougo were fighting Another Drive.

Geiz switches into Fury, and starts fighting again.

––––

Switching back over to Sougo Versus Eternal!

OH LOOK ETERNAL STILL HAS HIS KNIFE.

Sougo’s more worried about that wall behind them, which still shows Owada gaming, as Swartz watches on, smirking. However, someone else is watching. Namely, one Kadoya Tsukasa.

“Oh, so that’s what you’re doing with my power?”

Swartz doesn��t lose his signature smugness. He’s already got Tsukasa’s power, so there’s no way that he can interfere.

Unfortunately for Swartz, Decade-the-season never actually established what powers are Decade’s and what powers are Tsukasa’s. See… Tsukasa’s power? Is the fact he exists.

After all, those walls? He’s not the only one who’s been able to use them. In fact, he didn’t use them back in his season! He traveled through them on accident a few times, and never without pain when he was an adult. His younger sister could open them, and so could Narutaki, but Tsukasa? Nope. Not until his post-season appearances, same as Daiki.

So these? They aren’t tied to his being Decade at all.

(Same as Takeru’s psychic force-powers – those are inherited. That runs in his family, which handily explains how he was able to use them in Zi-O, whether he was in the camp that forgot being a rider or remembered. It was super unclear, after all. Those were not the ‘I know, right’ comments of someone who had no idea what it was like being a ghost.)

Anyway, Tsukasa takes the wall that Swartz was controlling, and moves it over himself and the Zi-O Versus Eternal grappling match, taking Sougo away with him.

––––

Tsukasa and Sougo are in the tournament room, where Owada just won the game, against an opponent with his face nearly blanked out.

Wait, won? Sougo’s so confused – he lost the match, why is he saying he won? He tries to talk sense into his friend, but then-

Time reverses, like a frames of film being played backward just a little too fast, the screen glitching slightly, as though it can’t keep up.

Sougo finds himself back next to Tsukasa, where Owada just won the game.

Tsukasa’s figured out what’s going on. Swartz has made little pocket ‘Another Worlds’ to put people in, reliving moments of ‘lost possibilities’ over and over again. Why? To be able to summon Dark Riders, like the one Sougo was just fighting.

In the reuglar world, he was defeated by Double. But in this world, he must have won.

––––

As Tsukasa is saying that this version of Eternal defeated Double, we cut back to the main universe, where Eternal looks… a bit confused as to where Sougo went. If not confused, exactly, then at least frustrated. Curious, maybe. Miharu steps into frame, clutching a brightly colored pair of boxers.

(Eiji, I know you were well meaning, but I think he took your advice a little too much to heart.)

There’s a medal-flip sound effect as Miharu reminds himself that he promised to protect everyone’s tomorrows. He transforms into Aqua, and goes on the offense.

––––

In Owada’s World, Tsukasa says it’s time to go, because their goal isn’t here. Sougo wants to save Owada, but apparently he can’t. So long as this world, on an infinite one-minute loop, exists, there’s no way to get him out.

––––

Back at the warehouse, Paradox makes me almost choke on my damned Twizzler when they stick out an arm and a FREAKING ANOTHER TRIDORON SHOWS UP.

Oh MAN, this thing is all pipes and clawed front and OH MAN YOU JUST BROUGHT A CAR TO A PERSON FIGHT.

Also, we see why they’re in one of the wide-open warehouses, because that gives enough space for the Another Tridon (again, WTF) to do drifts and turns and knock Woz and Geiz every which way.

We cut from the fight to Heure and Hora, her picking herself back up… with a lot more ease than should be possible from someone who was almost choked to death. Especially since Heure didn’t have that happen, and can barely support himself enough to sit up. She asks if he’s okay, to which he replies that the whole thing was a little too close for comfort.

“Oh. I’ll make this easy, then.” She takes him by the shoulder-

A dimensional wall opens, dropping Sougo off. His eyes widen in shock.

At the top of the stairs from earlier, Swartz grins.

Hora is kneeling next to Heure…

With a blade of red energy, longer than her torso, coming from her hand.

It’s jabbed through Heure’s chest.

THIS WENT FROM COOL TO HOLY SHIT REAL FAST.

As Hora pulls back, Heure can’t understand why she did this.

With that usual detached manner, she puts it simply. It’s nothing personal. It’s that they can’t live and escape from Swartz. Pulling his little hair decoration off – with a chunk of hair, presumably, because I’m pretty sure it was just beads and feathers on a string of hair – she says that the one to survive will be her. She walks off, letting Heure fall to the ground, struggling to breath and clutching his chest.

His very blood-stained chest.

Sougo shouts his name, running over, and holds Heure in his arms.

A brief moment later, Heure stops moving.

As Sougo screams for Heure, Paradox starts laughing madly, shoving Geiz and Woz away, saying that this is what they expect from them, from a better them.

Sougo is enraged. What the hell is so funny, why the hell are they laughing?!

(Okay, he doesn’t actually swear, but I’m pretty sure he would if he could get away with it.)

He enters Grand as he runs, and starts beating Another Drive.

––––

Eternal and Aqua are at the docks now. Good location choice for a water-based rider – although, apparently Eternal’s god-awful cape is actually useful for something, because he uses it to block the majority of the force behind the water attacks.

The self-proclaimed Grim Reaper says it’s party time – because Daido came back super crazy, okay? He’s not all there in his usual canon, much less here. Actually, he’s worse normally.

Thing is? Miharu’s not actually here to fight him, and proceeds to shoot an attack at Swartz, gripping him in… a fist and series of belts made of water.

OUR GOOD FUTURE BOY IS A WATER BENDER! I’M SO PROUD!

Here comes Tsukuyomi, to take her powers back. Swartz actually seems to have been caught off guard! That’s not like him.

That’s not like him at all.

Oh, RIGHT, Miharu, you’re still technically stuck fighting Katsumi, so, here ya go, one undead murder-man coming at you. Eternal actually says that the ‘party is getting watered down’, that’s not even a translation thing, he says ‘party’ in English, and I distinctly hear ‘mizu’, so he’s actually saying this, I can’t believe they went with that joke.

I also can’t believe that he’s dumb enough to throw himself and aqua into the water. You know. Aqua. A WATER-POWERED KAMEN RIDER.

And Miharu has a good line for him, too, after zipping around and punching him as Eternal tries to dodge. “I’m from the future, you’re just a ghost of the past!”

The rebuttal? “In the end, even the future becomes the past.”

WOW, these are some good lines here!

He proceeds to create a water vortex, because the Eternal skillset is undefined and overpowered, and throws the both of them back on land.

Swartz throws off his water-shackles and Tsukuyomi’s draining by transforming into Another Decade, knocking her down.

She struggles to get up as he approaches, chuckling menacingly, and Miharu calls her name. (Well, her former name. Her name is Tsukuyomi, please use it!)

––––

In the warehouse, Geiz and Woz are standing at a distance from the Grand Zi-O Versus Another Drive brawl. They. Uh. Well, they probably just don’t want to get in the way, right? They were just getting their butts handed to them on a platter, and Sougo’s really pissed off right now. So, it’s probably better to stay out of the way, right? Right.

Sougo summons Drive out of 2014, by slamming his fist onto the figure on his thigh. They proceed to wail on Another Drive some more, and…

Geiz leaves, with what seems to be a sigh before he turns and walks out.

Finish Time! Grand Zi-O!

SO WOW.

The finisher this time?

Summons the Tridoron, which circles around everyone, smashing the Another Tridoron to bits, before the finisher properly activates. The belt may be saying “All Twenty! Time Break!” but this? This is the Full Throttle: Speed finisher!

THIS is both Drive and Zi-O ricocheting off of the circling Tridoron, faster than can be followed, slamming into Another Drive over and over, before they merge together (!) for Zi-O to perform a one-man Rider Kick.

Another Drive starts to give off blue arcs of electricity, and the blocky lights of a Roidmude exploding, before reverting to Hora’s appearance, and then to Paradox’s evolved form, before their body goes up in an explosion. Two Roidmude cores emerge from that explosion, before going up themselves. 108… and 108.

Paradox only gained an evolved form after the version from 2035 literally merged with the version from 2015.

So, of course there were technically two Paradoxes for Swartz to bring in.

––––

Still in the warehouse, it’s later. Much later – the sun is going down, as judged by the fading light through the dirty windows. It was bright before.

Sougo drops to his knees next to Heure’s body, barely saying his name, his voice trembling.

A distance away, Woz – still transformed – watches.

––––

At the docks – also approaching sunset. Wow, that sure came on fast, didn’t it? Seeing as they’re right where they left off with the four-person fight.

Swartz – as Another Decade – basically hurls Tsukuyomi to the ground, with her rolling into a… partition? Mini-wall? What do you call the barrier between a green-space and a sidewalk? IDK, the curb section. Aqua can’t get to her, because Eternal’s keeping him busy. You know. With his KNIFE.

Swartz advances on Tsukuyomi, hand raised, but he’s knocked aside by Geiz, now in Revive Typhoon again.

“So, you came after all. I thought you would. Let’s make a world just for you.”

Swartz. Swartz, no. Don’t flick your hand like that. Don’t summon those dimension tendrils. You let Geiz out of that bubble right now, old man.

Don’t you spin that thing into forming a wall. Cut that out.

Don’t pull a familiar laughing figure through.

With a beret and some god-awful neon sunglasses.

Put that Hat Woz back where he came from or so help me-

SO HELP ME!

––––

The closing screen is… Huh. The Drive watch is front and center, with Revive Typhoon in the right corner… and the Eternal Gaia Memory in the lower left.

––––

Preveiw time says…

We’re getting a Woz Versus Woz fight, and it ought to be a bit less one-sided, now that they’ve both got drivers.

Eternal’s losing the cape for his party time – except it’s for the worse, because that’s a whole lot of Gaia Memories up in there. If I had to guess, I’d say… 26? One for each letter of the alphabet. Enough to set off his full power Maximum Drive – the “Never Ending Hell” Maximum Drive.

Yeah. Dude’s got issues.

There’s a sound clip of Geiz… shouting that he wants to make a new future with someone. Doesn’t say who, of course, because that would be even more spoilery than a preview usually is. Could be Tsukuyomi, could be Sougo, could be both.

The last sound clip is Sougo, saying that ‘it’s the king who makes the world a better place, it’s that kind of power!’

It’s played over shots of him down on the ground, in the rain, with Swartz standing over him. Sougo looks badly beaten up… and furious.

#kamen rider zi o #kamen rider decade #kamen rider drive #kamen rider w #kamen rider double #kamen rider ooo #sailorcressy says

15 notes · View notes

des-shinta · 5 years

Note

I been wondering, since I don't honestly know much about what happened to Hibiki. I know of the writer changes, but not much else. How deep does this rabbit hole go? Since the only thing I know was that a lot of character assassin happened and the plot changing massively. And I was looking forward to your review, but I understand the issues of Toei and other problems.

thanks for understanding on that. Hell, I’m still failing to get the *Old* episodes back up without Toei’s abuse of Copyright claims rearing its head. It’s…well…yeah… The rewrites aren’t just obvious in the infamously-scrapped-and-rewritten final episode. I covered a lot of it in the originally intended review, but…it’s basically everything and every scene. It’s so heavily NOT Hibiki, that the Hibiki AR world in Decade has more in common with first-half hibiki than post-staff-change Hibiki does. To many fans, Post-staff change Hibki IS the AR-world, and the series ends at the ‘seven senki’ movie as it Actually DOES tie into hibiki’s canon and the continuity problems in that movie are explained by it being Asumu’s acted-out imaginary fantasy depiction of recorded historical events he spends the film reading about.

Basically every two-part arc had that feeling of the second half being forcibly changed and thus screwing over the potential of the first half…and usually by it being Kiriya’s inclusion in things fucking it all over. Asumu suddenly has a complex about his absentee father, is a completely spineless loser and is all his own fault for being so (as opposed to being comparable to My Hero Academia’s Izuku Midoriya in intended storyarc (I am not kidding)), and any progress on improving himself is lost–thus further delaying him actually BEGINNING his oni training until it’s the final 8 episodes because the show failed to start that When they Should have (I.E: episode 16-24). Akira abandons everything she’s done and trained for over the course of years and ignored Ibuki in the name of quick powerups and a desire for power now because of Kiriya and a woman Oni that comes out of nowhere only to be killed in a moment of complete idiocy as she loved Zanki’s dead mentor. Hibiki outs himself as a Coward and that being why he trains so hard, instead of a desire for self-improvement and a clear-minded sense of self to selflessly help people which an Oni was shown to need…all so it can make how Kiriya was portrayed more reflect the ‘truth’ of Hibiki. A Truth which, incidentally, is that of A Hypocrite, as why he drops Asumu as a disciple in the first place BEFORE the finale’s timeskip was because Asumu decided to help a friend out–KEEPING with Hibiki’s previous teachings about there being a need for ‘balance in all things’ and to not abandon your normal life to be an Oni as those connections are what support you in tough times– and Hibiki condemns him and considers him worthless for it while they’re in the midst of a situation where the barely-trained apprentices being involved would result in them straight-out being killed. So Asumu staying out of it would’ve been a GOOD THING as then he wouldn’t be pointlessly throwing his life away in a battle he could do nothing to affect.(I Honestly think it’s this scene in specific that led to Shigeki Hosokawa exposing how badly the show and it’s cast had been treated.)And Todoroki and Ibuki…become complete oblivious Idiots. With no explanation.Hell, the ‘training’ the Oni do becomes far more half-assed. instead of the thorough, intense workouts and regiments the Oni previously needed to stay in shape and grow in power…their workouts consist of basic fitness training you’d do in Gym Class, while their improvements take the form of sudden powerups.And to make that last one Worse? KIRIYA COULDN’T EVEN DO THOSE BASIC EXERCISES! By the time He and Asumu were finally accepted to train for the job he’d shown himself as completely incapable at any physical activity, and we were supposed to then feel bad when he had to cheat at them to keep up with Asumu who was giving his all, and got caught doing so. Then, again to show how badly Asumu was screwed over, after the timeskip in the final episode? Kiriya’s still slacking at his training but can now transform without a problem a year after training (IIRC the normal time range is in the span of about 5 years. Akira before she suddenly out of nowhere decided to just Fucking give up at it did it in about 3 or 4), while suddenly Asumu can’t even climb a slightly inclined hill that *I* could walk up the side of with no problem, even while helping out a injured kid as Asumu was showcased in said scene…and he had to call kiriya to help him do that. All the more galling, as in a previous episode, in the EARLIEST days of their Oni training before they did any of the strenuous stuff, Asumu had climbed a steep graveled incline in a quarry without fail, which had far less of a foothold or ability to climb than a moderately wet grassy hill. That one was ALSO made worse, as an even earlier episode had Asumu assisting Hibki in a task, only to slip down a sleek, slippery muddy hill and need to be rescued from injury, so him climbing up the rocky incline also worked as contrast to how Asumu had supposedly grown on his own as a person from his own experiences without explicit need for supervision…and then by the series end he’s worse off than when he started. And we’re supposed to believe it’s a good thing.No-one that was actually paying attention bought it.Hell, that’s in turn why people then got so mad when the details got out about the show’s last episode being rewritten, and simultaneously why The recent news of the Hibiki tribute arc of Zi-O got people pissed off again. Turns out, first draft? Asumu became an Oni and Hibiki’s successor, Kiriya was to drop out due to him not having the character to succeed at this. Later rewrites? Asumu’s still the successor, but Kiriya now becomes an Oni as well. It was ONLY the version that Producer Shirakura rewrote himself that excluded Asumu from what the entire series had been building towards, all so they could cannibalize the suit made for Asumu to make *Kiriya*’s better. yes, the one they made special order because it wasn’t originally mean to exist had to be improved, by destroying the one which was always meant to be there at the end. Kiriya, literally and figuratively, stole Asumu’s story, relationship with Hibiki and earned reward.It’s just…It really is that nearly every damn episode after the staff change that nor only makes the show more repulsive and unappealing,but retroactively makes all the GOOD things about the first half turn bad by proximity or how they’re ‘recontextualized’ in the newer content. Nothing and no-One escapes. Hell, not even the villains. Turns out, we weren’t even actually following the major antagonists at any point in the series, but clones. What was their big deal? No Idea, they literally didn’t care at that point. Which personally was a big tip off that the post-staff-change writers weren’t to blame on this, as both HAVE Written a litany of good antagonists even in their less well-received works.Cumulatively, It’s why, while I have criticised them a lot in the past for their bad content, I don’t really blame Toshiki Inoue or Shoji Yonemura for how bad it is (and in the latter’s case try to remind yugioh fans that ‘hey, a few really bad writers are on Vrains, that’s a big part of why it sucks so don’t go attacking Shin Yoshida for it ‘cause he’s repeatedly been shown to not be the cause when he was accused of such in the past’), for they clearly were not in control nor had the leeway that’s usually afforded to Writers on series like this to develop their stories how they like within reason. I forget where, but I remember reading something about them apologizing for their part in this and stating they had no control, Decade’s Tribute episodes being reflective of that apology, and that arc being more in line with what they would have done had they had…well, any other producer.I really, really cannot understate how bad it is. I feel this brief is once more only scratching the surface on how bad it goes.

10 notes · View notes

firebirdsdaughter · 5 years

Text

Alright...

... A wee bit more rested, and w/ a better quality video, we are back at it! XD

In no order:

Okay... Seems the Wozes aren’t switching off... Which is vaguely disappointing. I wanted to some day see them fight over the recap.

THAT WAS ABSOLUTELY A FAMILY MOMENT. Sworz is scolding Heure, and he even straight up is like ‘Are you listening to me?’ like a frustrated dad, oh my god. XD

So... What did Mirror¡Shinji just hang out in there mirror world and didn’t get effected by the time alteration, or... What. Not complaining, just curious,

Ah. So this, too, is Decade’s fault.

That look Sworz gave his son there was somewhere between proud and suspicious.

Oooo, infinite mirror trick!

Really? We’re really just gonna... Skip Geiz coming home? Really? *cries in exasperated, friendship-obsessed language*

Well, the boys are still working together well--even if this fight isn’t going great.

I love the parts of these three hanging out discussing things. I just live the Zi-Ot3, okay?

They’re having a sit down to discuss all the multiple timelines and goals of everyone involved, using chess pieces. This is adorable.

Awww. Sougo’s asking what future they want. I think he’s been playing it down, but is genuinely kinda bothered by the ‘Geiz is still gonna kill you’ thing. Partially bc he really wants to think that he can not become Puma Zi-O, rather than the only option being to kill him.

Oh my god, that cute little smile.

Geiz.exe has stopped working. God, Sougo, I get why you’re asking, but you know Geiz is bad at feelings! You’re gonna break him!

I think that also just showed very well that whatever Shiro Woz has said, Geiz is still just getting more conflicted. That was the face of someone who has no idea what they want anymore.

Tsukuyomi to the rescue! She’s well-acquainted w/ Geiz’s problems w/ interpersonal relations.

Aw, look at the babies investigating!

Oooo, editor man looks good!

This is so ‘amateur investigators’ and I LOVE IT.

Geiz ensuring the other two cover their mouths and noses before coming in (also him just using the collar XD). Even if it’s tiny, I love protective Geiz.

Yay! Shinji lives! It’s okay, dude. It’ll be okay. Having watched the ep once I get why you’re upset, but I promise it’s okay.

Also, Ren, come get Shinji. He’s gonna get himself killed again. Does he still owe you money in this timeline?

So here’s my question. Was Shinji actually trying to kill himself bc he thought it might stop his mirror self, or did it just look like that bc he was trying to cover up all reflective surfaces and accidentally trapped himself?

They’re all sitting here. I love this. I love the Zi-Ot3. I LOVE THEM.

Geiz is one of those people where, if punching it doesn’t work, he just punches harder.

I feel like this is a perfect example of his personality and fighting style though. Just, like. Go for it. Just tank right on. Like, oh, this guy reflects attacks? Simplest way to deal with that is just sacrifice myself.

Sougo is like ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea’ and thinking it’s theoretical, but Tsukuyomi literally standing w/ this face like ‘no, Sougo, you don’t understand just yet, he absolutely will do this.’

Sougo’s goofy geometry pyjamas. That is all.

Junichiro does the only acceptable movement for describing Woz’s appearance w/ hand motions.

Why is Sougo shocked by this thing? HE SAW IT LAST EPISODE!

I get that Sougo’s distracted, but does have to walk in the middle of the path and where is everyone?

Sougo can’t think and talk to Kuro Woz at the same time. I will admit, dealing w/ Kuro Woz is a bit much, so...

I LOVE THIS SCENE. Kuro Woz is being Kuro Woz, and Sougo just walks away. YES. Force the asshole to walk after you! Do it!

Also pretty sure he’s bullying Kuro Woz again, and I love it.

My first guess is that the reason the Zi-O II Watch wouldn’t activate was that Sougo was doubting himself? Or something like that?

If you are a Woz, you have no sense of personal space.

Elbow him in the stomach, Sougo!

Kuro Woz is... Really not getting it that Sougo’s not interested in that, is he?

Tsukuyomi expressing concern, very valid concern.

Okay, here’s the thing. Even if he’s not saying ‘only I can do it’ exactly, he’s still very much not suggesting Sougo do it. Like, at all. When he actually tries it, he does it. He knows perfectly well he could die doing it. And if he dies, then Tsukuyomi’s on her own trying to prevent Puma Zi-O (Shiro Woz does not count). And besides, if Sougo dies doing it, that’d be sure to prevent Puma Zi-O, right? But even if it’s not explicitly stated, he’s making an active decision to risk his own life rather than Sougo’s. Have I mentioned I love protective Geiz, even lowkey protective Geiz? Bc I DO.

This is like, another reason why I see him as the ‘protector’ sort of point of the triangle that is the Zi-Ot3. That’s just who he is. He’s the tank, the guardian. Even if he’s not quite noticing it right now, he’s absolutely shifting into being willing to die to protect the other two.

Also, it’s kinda another show that, no matter what else happened, he doesn’t really want Shiro Woz’s future, either. Bc he can’t be the ‘saviour’ or anything if he’s dead from this, ya know?

Tsukuyomi’s like ‘I knew it, you bloody idiot!’ and also pointing out that Sougo was against the idea which causes Geiz to have feelings for a moment bc he’s actually touched Sougo doesn’t want him to die, but also CONFLICTED. XD

I love how both Geiz and Sougo have come to the conclusion that if either one of them stand still in one place for a certain amount of time, either Shiro or Kuro Woz respectively will be somewhere in the vicinity and they can just yell. ^^

Also, I love how he seems to almost always have Tsukuyomi w/ him when he talks to him. It’s like he’s decided he needs a chaperone or something. Reasons vary from funny to sad.

So I guess Geiz is asking what Shiro Woz’s future is like. Apparently... It’s the same? So... No new inventions or anything? I dunno, I find this answer suspicious.

Okay. ‘It’s as if time has stopped.’ This line ratchets the suspicious factor up. It seems simple and sensical enough for the online translator to be right about it, so I’m just gonna take this as what the line basically means for now. But... Remember how a lot of the symbolism in this series has been about ‘restarting clocks’ and stuff like that? In the Build arc, Junichiro had that speech bout how you can only restart your own clock, which Sougo reiterated when meeting Heure. Just this past arc, Hiromu’s father’s watch started moving again at the end. Therefore, I hypothesis that ‘time has stopped’ is not actually a good thing and there is something else going on here.

WHO IS GOOGLES? Seriously, was he Geiz’s brother, his friend... Is that even a guy, I can’t really tell, I shouldn’t be assuming... It’s nice to see their dead body again, I guess, but I need more information here, Toei!

That was not the face of a person I trust. Admittedly, at this point, anyone w/ Woz’s face doesn’t have the face of a person I trust.

Okay, not you in real life, Keisuke, you’re a sweetheart.

See, this makes me think we’re not meant to trust Shiro Woz even more. Geiz only seriously tried to kill Sougo when he knew only about the crimes Sougo committed as Puma Zi-O and nothing about him in the present, when he perceived Sougo as moving toward that path, and when he thought he had no choice (Kasshin showing I think made hims start to wonder if it was even possible, but he got some hope again when Sougo was willing to actually give up and had to be pushed back into it etc.). Shinji, however, is not, whether now or in the future, an active or willing participant in these incidents. It’s like a Yummy, twisting innate wishes out of shape. He’s terrified and upset, and may even have been trying to kill himself to make it stop (not sure though bc this is a kids’ show). When Geiz actually considered things, saw Sougo as the person he was at that moment rather than just as Puma Zi-O, he balked at going through with it. Shiro Woz knows perfectly well this guy is innocent. But he doesn’t hesitate at all. Big red flag. Did any of that make sense? I don’t think that made sense.

Also get away from Shinji you bastard. Ren!

I literally spent this whole episode yelling for Ren to come help Shinji.

No, wait. I’m sorry. Ron.

I mean, I guess Geiz, who looks kinda like how I’d imagine a baby Ron might look, is protecting him, so there’s that.

Ron! Come help Shinji! Ron? RON!

Okay, so... Ryuga was an actual thing in Ryuki? I’m so sorry, it’s been so long since I watched Ryuki.

Heure is absolutely getting revenge on Shiro Woz for the car incident and you know what.... Valid.

Honestly... It’s nice to see someone beat Shiro Woz up a bit for once.

Rider Kick interruptus. All the little hiragana digitise out of existence when Sougo pulls him out of it, that’s a nice effect.

Also I feel like that was slowed down, but I dunno. How fast do you move in a Rider Kick?

Dramatic friendship moments in suit for you viewing experience! XD

I love this, though. These two, I feel like are gonna have a sort of dynamic ‘don’t you dare die on me I’m the only one allowed to kill you’ on Geiz’s side and ‘I’m the king and I didn’t give you leave to die’ on Sougo’s side. XD Like, not necessarily exactly that, I’m being silly w/ the wording, but you get the point. I hope.

Anyway, Sougo is upset that Geiz was risking his life like that, which results in more feelings.

I feel like it might be an important distinction that he uses the Zi-O II Ride Watch not purely in order to gain power and become king or whatever, but in order to save people--most specifically, at the particular moment, a rather self-destructive warrior-type friend. Though the preview does indicate it comes a little late... DX

Geiz is embarrassed. I mean, like I said earlier, there’s a level of this that’s basically him making a choice to risk his own life rather than Sougo's... Or even Shiro Woz (I woulda made Shiro Woz do it).

Sougo is like ‘nope, nope, nope, that’s enough of that.’

So Geiz recognises the Watch? Maybe. He wasn’t there when Kuro Woz dropped it off. Tsukuyomi was, though. Did she not know it? Hm.

I managed to pause it when it looks like Geiz is looking at the camera like he’s on the Office bc Sougo’s power up isn’t working. XD

Also, oh my god. Sougo gets pulled into the mirror world, and Geiz’s immediate response is to rush over and try to follow him/pull him out while yelling (well, yelling ‘Zi-O’ we’re not quite to regular name status yet) worriedly. I LOVE THEM.

I’m assuming everything is backwards, but I couldn’t read kanji in the first place so...

Did Okuno drop his voice an octave for Mirror¡Sougo?

Sougo is initially surprised to see another version of himself, then worries that it’s him from three days in the future again.

Mirror¡Sougo is doing this weird head tilt and it’s so hilarious I just... Can’t.

Sougo makes the unfortunate discovery that not all other versions of you that appear are your friend. I’m sorry, sweetie.

Wow, Mirror¡Sougo just straight punched him.

Okay, I know we all saw it in the preview, but... Mirror¡Sougo does this, like... Really weird walk/motion, and... It just. Has to be seen. I’m serious. HE’S FREAKING WINKING.

Sougo is confused.

Okay, I know this is serious, but it literally looks like he pulled the mirror Ride Watch out of his hair.

Mirror Driver has very weird, distorted voice.

Also WHY IS HE HUNCHING LIKE THAT NO SWEETIE THAT’S BAD FOR YOUR SHOULDERS!

Preview: I saw a translation that said ‘I’ll cut the future’ but the online thing here says ‘create’? Personally, I’d prefer create, but it’s probably ‘cut.’ In other news... If they make a mention that defeating Another Ryuga might be the way to get Sougo out of the mirror world, that would raise Geiz’s ‘sacrifice myself to defeat it’ thing to also being sacrificing himself to save Sougo. And. I love it. ^^ XD <3

Anyway, that’s all for now. Digital macaroons for anyone who read all that. And if you don’t like macaroons... Caramels! Digital caramels.

I’m slightly worried about the little ‘what’s your future like’ convo bc it might indicate Shiro Woz is getting his claw sin between my kids, but pretty much everything else was great. Geiz doesn’t seem to even consider suggesting Sougo try the plan, and Sougo’s genuinely upset when Geiz tries to do it, and at the end, Geiz is upset when Sougo disappears into the mirror world. Tsukuyomi tries to mediate, and do so quite well, is the one who clearly is well-aware that Geiz will absolutely go through w/ the sacrificing himself plan and that he needs dissuading. Looks like she’s unable to stop him next eek, though... And, finally the Zi-Ot3 are investigating together again, and frankly, I just LOVE IT.

How about I subject everyone to my new favourite picture again? (It’s not technically spoilers now, there was a version in the preview for next week)

If you could all the ‘XD’s in this post... You get another hardy handshake.

#Kamen Rider Zi-O #hi I'm a monster #have I mentioned I love Geiz?#my precious tsundere son #I'M SO EXCITED #AND I JUST CAN'T HIDE IT #can't wait for next week again #got another late shift next Saturday #so thank goodness I'll be able to look forward to this #XD #Zi-O Spoilers #Timey Wimey Rider

4 notes · View notes

yeonchi · 4 years

Text

Doctor Who: The Hiatusbreaker Update

In other fandoms, people have always talked about how their favourite show has been ruined by something. I never thought I’d see myself at the eye of the storm until The Timeless Children. I’ve let a lot of other things go up to that point, but this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The main reason why I wanted to make this update was to address my thoughts on the Series 12 finale, share some post-review reflections on previous episodes and talk about how I intend to deal with this series going forward. This post also coincides with a special watchalong of The Timeless Children (not part of Doctor Who: Lockdown) as part of the Doctor Who Day celebrations for 2020.

At the moment, I don’t have any Doctor Who-related things planned between Revolution of the Daleks and Series 13. I wrote a post back in May talking about some of the Doctor Who-related things released during lockdown, but I don’t have anything else at the moment. I have considered reviewing some old episodes in a special series, but I don’t know if there would be any point in it. I have been covering my personal project in the Kisekae Insights series, which is heavily influenced from Doctor Who (and tokusatsu), so feel free to check it out.

Going back to The Timeless Children

I usually write my reviews without having read other reviews in order to minimise bias. As such, there have been cases where I’ve had to address things I’ve missed in the review of the next episode, mostly because I’ve read other reviews addressing them. After mulling over my thoughts for the past 6-7 months, I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to write a follow-up about the Series 12 finale, and here it is.

One thing I would like to reiterate from my review of that episode is how Chibnall managed to diversify and whitewash the Doctor at the same time. If we’re supposed to believe, from the Master’s words, that the Doctor is the Timeless Child, then it means two things; the Doctor has been diversified thanks to Ruth and the Timeless Child’s incarnations, while the Timeless Child was whitewashed thanks to the previous known incarnations of the Doctor, who were all played by white actors. The only thing left is for the series to confirm the connection between the Doctor, Ruth and the Timeless Child, which is basically the only reason why I’m still watching this series at this point. Even if Chibnall decides to reverse the heavy retcons caused by the episode (which I think is highly unlikely), I’m still not going to forgive him for this.

That being said, I feel that the Timeless Child arc can go either one of two ways, given the information we already have. A good outcome would be to say that Ruth is the Timeless Child and the Doctor is merely a clone of her, which is why they have the same body, but not the same memories of each other, except maybe a link (which was how the Doctor managed to use the Timeless Child’s memories to get out of the Matrix). The bad outcome, which is what I think we’re heading for, is that the Doctor is the Timeless Child and that her previously known incarnations came after Ruth. This is just a quick and simple breakdown I thought up; the arc could go in a different way that we weren’t expecting, which could potentially be better or worse than what we’ve seen already.

Why did I pinpoint Ruth as the “final” incarnation of the Timeless Child, so to speak? I think that the older Brendan getting his memories removed in the visions of Ireland in the Matrix is actually Ruth after she was turned in to the Division. Ruth wanted to leave the Division and they were willing to grant her wish, but they had to capture her first so they could remove her memories, which is how Fugitive of the Judoon happened. As such, the “Morbius Doctors” could be placed between the Timeless Child’s incarnations and Ruth, if we’re playing by their logic.

There was something else that I missed from that episode. Some reviewers stated that when Tecteun was experimenting on the Timeless Child in order to uncover the secret of regeneration, she was essentially killing them multiple times, which is more horrifying given the fact that they are a child and the incarnations shown are played by children. I can understand why these reviewers would think that, given that the regeneration of a Time Lord means the death of an incarnation and the birth of a new one, but honestly, the thought never crossed my mind when I first watched the episode. It didn’t have any bearing on my opinions when I wrote the review and even if it did, they wouldn’t change much.

I honestly can’t believe how the episode tried to pull an Ultraman Orb and have the Doctor essentially telling herself that she isn’t limited by who she was after giving us a 45-minute canon-breaking exposition dump. It’s almost like Chibnall thought we would forget about this arc because it either didn’t matter or because there were more pressing things happening at the time, but luckily for him, a lot of people managed to see through that. In pretty much every Ultraman series since Orb in 2016, there’s always an arc that shows the main character having an identity crisis, then gaining a new power after overcoming it.

Putting that into perspective, Doctor Who has previously explored the Doctor’s dark side and other aspects that he either forgot or never thought he had in the first place. At the same time, it has also explored how the Doctor serves as a hero, a healer, or just a doctor. The “forgotten past” thing was already explored previously with the War Doctor; the Timeless Child arc only served to give the Doctor excessive mystery and elevate the Doctor to an even godlier status beyond the Time Lords, who were already godly enough as they were.

And let’s not forget how this arc irreparably broke canon in a way nobody else would have dared to do. I don’t understand how some people felt this was groundbreaking when it only served to complicate the story even more. Anyone who unironically thinks this probably doesn’t care as much about canon integrity than I do. Kamen Rider Zi-O has been criticised by fans for breaking canon integrity, but I don’t have much of a problem with it since everything was returned to normal in the end (or at least it had to). Producer Shinichiro Shirakura is another source of ire for fans in regards to canon integrity (among other things), but I digress. I’ve compared Chibnall to Shirakura before, but if I had a choice, I’d probably pick the latter over the former.

It goes without saying that the Timeless Child arc would have been less problematic if it were done earlier, say in place of the Steven Moffat era. The Moffat era cemented the twelve regeneration limit and established that the Eleventh Doctor was the final incarnation in the Doctor’s first regeneration cycle; before Series 7, the Timeless Child arc as it is would have fit perfectly well with or without the regeneration cycle question.

Moffat era hindsight aside, it also goes without saying that that arc would have been less problematic if the Timeless Child wasn’t the Doctor. As I said in that episode, they could have been some unknown kid that Tecteun and the Time Lords were exploiting for their powers of regeneration. From there, we could still explore the Timeless Child’s origin and confirm their link to the Doctor by saying that the Doctor (as we know him) was actually a clone of the Timeless Child (like I theorised for the arc’s good outcome).

Some people believe that the arc would have been better if the Master was actually the Timeless Child, but personally, I don’t think it would work that way. The Master’s past is just as complicated as the Doctor’s and let’s not forget that there is still the question of Ruth’s existence to be answered. Like I said, I would rather have the Timeless Child be an entirely original character altogether instead of shoehorning it into an established character’s history, particularly in a show with 57 years of history behind it. I wouldn’t even wish this arc on my worst enemy, to be honest.

With or without this arc, I think that destroying Gallifrey for a second time, after it was anticlimactically restored in Hell Bent, is just unnecessary. That episode aside, how has nobody managed to think up of a story arc for the Valeyard in the years since the revival of the series? We’ve gone past the window for the Valeyard’s creation and all we got out of it was some allusions in the Moffat era.

Remember that we only have the Master’s words and redacted Matrix information as evidence for the Doctor being the Timeless Child; we still don’t have any solid proof on how that came to be. We don’t even fully know how Ruth fits in to all this. I look forward to seeing a resolution to this in Series 13.

Loose thoughts on previous episodes

Continuing with the pattern from the above segment, I’m going to give some post-review follow-ups for some important things in the rest of Series 12 and some episodes in Series 11.

Racism - Looking back at Rosa, I compared the instances of racism shown in that episode to some examples of left-wing racism I’ve heard from right-wing YouTubers and I’ve noticed that the left aren’t as blatant about it or they dress it up so that it doesn’t look like they’re being racist. In contrast, according to the left, right-wing racism seems more obvious even when disguised (particularly in the past when discrimination was accepted as a way of life), though I guess it only seems that way because news spreads fast in mainstream media and social media, sometimes putting comments out of context.

Jack Robertson - Remember that Donald Trump expy from Arachnids in the UK? I’m honestly wondering if Doctor Who unintentionally predicted Joe Biden while trying to satirise Trump because it was mentioned in that episode that Robertson was only running for president in 2020 because he hated Trump for decades. That being said, I still think it’s unlikely that Robertson would have run as a Republican presidential candidate. Also, I can’t believe I missed the opportunity to use “Yaz’s Mum” as a running gag in the review for that episode given how it was used in the episode itself.

LGBT representation - In the review for Resolution, I mentioned that Richard (the security guard at MDZ) being gay doesn’t feel shoehorned compared to Frankie in Arachnids in the UK. I’ll own up to missing the mark on that one because I’m straight and I didn’t realise that Richard being killed 25 seconds after his debut made him just as shoehorned as Frankie (who was also killed in the episode). In contrast, LGBT characters who weren’t as shoehorned in Series 11 were Angstrom in The Ghost Monument (whose wife was killed by the Stenza, onore Tim Shaw) and James I in The Witchhunters (based in historical belief). I still think that they did it better in Praxeus with Jake and Adam. Also, let’s not forget that LGBT representation has been a thing in Doctor Who since the 90′s, with the debut of Jack Harkness in 2005 and the retconnings of past companions’ sexual orientations (like saying “oh, they were gay all along” which I’m a bit iffy on).

The Master - Since O’s debut in the series premiere, I’ve been struggling to fit that incarnation into the rest of the Master’s timeline. This was because in the Series 10 finale, Harold Saxon’s incarnation killed Missy with the full blast from his laser screwdriver, preventing her from regenerating.

Later on, two works were released that essentially confirm O as Missy’s future incarnation. In the Big Finish audio story The Lumiat, Missy used an Elysian field to break herself down and rebuild herself, giving her a new regeneration cycle in the process. The resulting incarnation called herself the Lumiat and had an adventure with a past Missy, only to be shot by her and left on another planet to regenerate.

In the 2021 edition of the Doctor Who Annual, there is a short story detailing a conversation between the Thirteenth Doctor and O. O briefly reminisces about being Missy and how she spent too long in the Doctor’s company. Therefore, we can confirm that O’s incarnation comes after Missy instead of between Saxon and Missy as some people thought.

With this, my theory that Saxon didn’t give Missy the full blast has been debunked, but my theory that the Master wouldn’t want to rob his future selves of chances to spite the Doctor still stands, even if it was unintentionally caused by the Master turning good for a while. I guess the Master’s ability to escape from predicaments is remarkable, yet unquestionable.

Police brutality - At the end of my review on Orphan 55, I expressed my disgust on climate protesters complaining about police brutality because the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong have suffered more police brutality since 2014. After hearing about the police brutality in the various protests that have risen up this year, particularly in regards to the coronavirus and Black Lives Matter, my stance regarding the police has changed and I’m an ACAB person now. I’ll talk more about it in my end-of-year review post.

Chameleon Arch - In Fugitive of the Judoon, Lee Clayton served as Ruth’s “husband”, or protector, while she was hiding from the Time Lords on Earth. If Lee isn’t human, then what is he and how did he manage to disguise as a human? I had thought that Lee was not a Gallifreyan, but his interaction with Gat seemed to imply that he was. But if he was able to disguise himself as a human like Ruth while still being aware of her true nature, then it is possible that Lee also used a Chameleon Arch, just not on the full setting that would transform a Time Lord into a human and give them new memories. In the comic The Forgotten, the Eighth Doctor recalled to Chantir how he convinced the Master that he was half-human through the use of a broken Chameleon Arch, so it is possible that a fully working Chameleon Arch would also be able to do something like that. This is assuming that “bio-shield” is another name for said tool.

“I’m still quite socially awkward” - Yes, this is about that bit at the end of Can You Hear Me? when the Doctor was apparently being dismissive of Graham’s concern about his cancer coming back. I still stand by what I said about the Doctor being socially awkward, but I’ve softened my stance recently and I now believe that the Doctor’s reaction could have been a little different. It could have gone something like this: “I should say a reassuring thing now, shouldn’t I? I’m still quite socially awkward, but I just want you to know that you’ve got me, Ryan and Yaz in the TARDIS, and we’ll be there for you if anything happens, just as you have been there for us.”

I must give credit to this episode for helping me to open up about some of the (girl) friends I’ve lost during my years in high school and to reach out to an old fan of mine who was there when I started my English dub rants. In regards to the former, I’ve recently decided to fully open up about the one crush I had during high school and the storylines I made in my personal project with characters based around me and her. You can find it in Parts 15 and 16 of Kisekae Insights, but be warned - to put it simply, it’s pretty cringe and all over the place. If you decide to read it, then prepare to have your expectations subverted.

Regarding DWexit

Doctor Who Series 13 is currently in production and is projected to premiere in late-2021, with eight episodes instead of ten or eleven (if we’re counting festive specials). In the Series 12 epilogue, I mentioned that there may come a time where I feel that it is time for me to move on from the series, since it hasn’t been as good as it was before, the gaps between series just seem to be getting longer and longer with fewer episodes being made each series and the premiere schedule for each series hasn’t been regular for some time now.

While the main reason for these delays and episode cuts this time around is due to new regulations and protocols implemented as a result of the coronavirus, I think there could be another factor behind it, which is that the executive producers, Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens, might not want to stress out the production team or themselves because they are inexperienced or because they know how stressful producing 13 episodes and a Christmas special can be (not counting spinoffs). I’ve been as grateful as I can be for being able to have new episodes to watch, but given everything that’s happened, I’m starting to recognise that even my gratefulness has its limits.

To be honest, I’ve never really had that much of a problem with the SJW stuff, which is why I may seem a bit lenient on that front, but I am wary of the criticisms that certain people have made in that regard. The bigger problem for me, in fact, is the possibility of the BBC pandering to China. In 2017, BBC Worldwide signed a deal with Shanghai Media Group for all the existing revival series episodes and spinoffs along with the first right of refusal for all future series up to Series 15 (this means that SMG will always be the first to be offered the rights for the series before the BBC can pass it on if they refuse). I had believed that the series was banned there because science fiction and time travel were its main themes, but I guess that may have just been a rumour.

SJWs somehow being low-key pro-China or whatever aside, there doesn’t seem to be any indication that Doctor Who is beginning to fall in that direction, at least not at this point in time. They’ve mostly stuck to the West in terms of political references, which I’m fine with, but the moment they talk shit about the Hong Kong protesters, that’s going to be a strike in my book.

Speaking of strikes for the series, I only have one for the Timeless Child; the one I gave for casting Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor is one I’m probably going to forgive. I could care less about the Thirteenth Doctor being a woman or an expy of the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors given how the Timeless Child arc turned out so far or is going to turn out in Series 13. The prospect of a second female Doctor (straight after the Thirteenth) doesn’t even seem that much of a problem to me despite me initially framing it that way.

As I said, the only reason why I haven’t given up on this series yet is mostly because I want to know how the Timeless Child arc plays out. Aside from that, I’ve been struggling to decide whether I want to give this series up and if so, when, because Doctor Who and tokusatsu are the only things I have left after giving up (following new) anime and video games years ago (along with Koei Tecmo and their fanbase). As for this review series, I’m planning to end it at the end of the Thirteenth Doctor’s run, because my intention was to review Jodie Whittaker’s episodes of Doctor Who. Barring the possibility of a third strike, I’ll probably remain a casual fan of the series after Whittaker leaves. I’m honestly hoping that Chibnall doesn’t give me a reason to give this series up, but regardless of this, I’ll always remember the Ninth to Twelfth Doctors as my golden era for Doctor Who.

Addressing rumours

I’m not one to talk about rumours like this, but when you’ve got a long time to wait before new episodes, there’s only so much you can do with what you have. Also, after watching The Timeless Children, I heard from Nerdrotic (my other alternative to Bowlestrek besides The Oldest Nerd) that the reveal was actually rumoured in November 2019 and that he predicted that the Doctor would be revealed as originally being female.

Given my thoughts on Series 12, I became sceptical at other rumours I’ve heard about Series 13 and considered whether they would end up being the case. I’m going to address a few rumours that I’ve heard and discuss the probability of them coming true. Coincidentally, they come from Noel of The TARDIS Zone YouTube channel, but I’ll link to this article that has used one of his videos.

TARDIS exterior changing - Apparently, due to the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, the exterior of the TARDIS might be changed due to how the police are seen by the public. I would probably like it if the chameleon circuit was fixed; like Evolto, the TARDIS could still keep its current exterior as a preferred form, choose a new exterior as a preferred form or adapt to its surroundings. I wouldn’t really like it if the chameleon circuit was fixed only to have it break again in a different form and use Black Lives Matter as a means of justifying it. Aside from this, if people had a problem with the police box design of the TARDIS, why hasn’t there been any major outcry about it before?

Thirteenth Doctor being bisexual - Honestly, given the Yaz favouritism I’ve seen in the series, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up shipping her with the Doctor. Even then, has the Doctor’s sexuality ever come into question or been a question that needs to be answered? We’ve seen Captain Jack kiss the Ninth Doctor in The Parting of the Ways and in the past, the Doctor has never necessarily cared about his sexuality most of the time (particularly in the Classic Series).

Planet of same-sex couples - Didn’t they already do this in The Tsuranga Conundrum? Oh wait, I might have gotten the wrong idea...

Davros is a puppet for a female Kaled warlord (1:21 in video) - “haha Hitler was whipped lol” - I’m sorry, I just had to make that joke given that the Daleks have been compared to the Nazis. I don’t think that would happen because there’s no evidence that some woman was manipulating Hitler behind the scenes. Plus, there’s the problem of Terry Nation’s estate to get past, because people apparently need permission to use other people’s things. I don’t think they would approve.

Thirteen to apologise for past mistakes (1:36 in video) - I don’t see why this needs to be a thing if it ends up happening. There’s a reason why people say things like “don’t dwell on the past, but learn from your mistakes”. It doesn’t mean going back and correcting them because sometimes, there are things that just can’t be helped.

In April 2020, during the first run of Doctor Who: Lockdown, Paul Cornell released a story named The Shadow in the Mirror which showed the Thirteenth Doctor freeing Daughter of Mine from the mirror (every mirror) that the Tenth Doctor trapped her in at the end of Human Nature/The Family of Blood. As I said in the post about Doctor Who: Lockdown, I wouldn’t have seen the need to free Daughter of Mine, let alone the Family of Blood. Remember why the Doctor gave them their punishments in the first place? What’s stopping Daughter of Mine from freeing the rest of her family so they can go back to seeking immortality again?

I think it was pretty short-sighted of Paul Cornell to write that story, plus it was an excuse for him to use the free pass given by The Timeless Children to make the Thirteenth Doctor a Mary Sue. Also, who’s to say that he probably wrote it on a whim once he heard that they were going to do tweetalongs of those episodes?

Chibnall recasting Second, Third and Fourth Doctors as women (from different video) - The rumour says that Ruth would be the replacement for the Second Doctor. I know Chibnall was being stupid with the Timeless Child arc, but surely he isn’t that stupid, because all this will do is complicate canon even more. Therefore, I don’t think it will end up happening, but I wouldn’t really put it past Chibnall to do it; for the record, if I learned about the Timeless Child rumour last year, I would have had the same reaction as well.

Series 13 to be Chibnall and Whittaker’s final season (different source) - Remember “chaos in Cardiff” back in August last year? The state of Doctor Who nowadays must be pretty bad if these rumours are making people hope that they’ll leave sooner rather than later. Usually, revived series showrunners usually work for two Doctors and Doctors usually do three series (as a tradition started by Patrick Troughton in order to prevent being typecast). Jodie Whittaker leaving after Series 13 would be likely since it will be her third series, but Chris Chibnall leaving with her would be strange to see. Honestly, I’m not bothered about when they’ll leave; I’m just here to enjoy the ride.

Christmas Special things

Signs are pointing to Revolution of the Daleks being a Christmas special, so I’m going to presume that that will be the case. Let’s take a look at a couple of things that I’ve heard in preparation for it.

First of all, I’m glad I waited until this point to post this, because at the time of writing this, I just saw confirmation that John Barrowman will be returning as Captain Jack Harkness. As if we didn’t work it out already when he returned in Fugitive of the Judoon. Frankly, I would have been surprised if he didn’t return, given how he didn’t return for The Timeless Children.

Secondly, it’s been reported that this special will mark the departure of Graham and Ryan, but the prospect of them returning in Series 13 hasn’t been ruled out. Tosin Cole has been cast in the AMC drama 61st Street, but given the impact of the coronavirus in the US, production of the series has been scheduled to begin in 2021 (in this article from August), so it wouldn’t be surprising if Ryan had some cameos in Series 13 alongside Graham as well. Such a shame that not a lot of focus was put on Ryan’s dyspraxia.

Look forward to the review when it comes out after Christmas Day or New Year’s Day (if my predictions are wrong).

UPDATE - 30 November 2020: So the trailer for the special has been released and it’s going to be released on New Year’s Day. I probably should have expected this; either the BBC doesn’t think Christmas is politically correct or they would rather put better shows on Christmas Day. Either way, it’ll be a hiatusbreaker episode, just like this post.

I’ve also learnt that Chris Noth is reprising his role as Jack Robertson, which is something I didn’t expect to see. It’ll be interesting to see whether he ends up being president in this episode, though from the looks of the trailer, I wouldn’t think so. His promotion of the Daleks in the trailer (“These machines are going to change the world!”) harkens back to Winston Churchill in Victory of the Daleks, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that episode ends up getting ripped off.

One thing I forgot to mention - what happened to the remaining humans who came back to the 21st century, namely Ravio, Yedlarmi and Ethan? I hope they make an appearance in the special, because it would be a waste of they weren’t.

Before I finish up, there is one more thing I want to mention: why the hell can’t I get into the Doctor /who/ General forums now? Those guys used to be on 4chan, then they moved to 8chan, then they moved to a separate forum when that got shut down and they didn’t bother to go back when it was revived as 8kun. Since the end of Series 12, you need a password to go in now and I’ve been unable to find out why that is the case.

Anyway, that’s it for the hiatusbreaker update. Stay safe and I’ll see you all again at Christmas time.

#doctor who #thirteenth doctor #thirteenth doctor review

0 notes

nightblink · 7 years

Text

Blink Reads Oathbringer - Chapters 55-57, Interludes 4-6

Chapter Fifty-Five – Alone Together

I'm calling it, it's Sazed. Balancing Preservation and Ruin ain't easy. SAAAAAAZE~

RLAIN. RLAIN RLAIN RLAIN OH FUCKYEAH WE'RE GETTING A RLAIN CHAPTER BLESS U BRANDOSANDO

It'd be really cool if that became a thing, if humans (Rosharan- variant 'humans' at the very least) could somehow learn to hear the Rhythms and get a better understanding of the Listeners/Singers/Parshendi. A step towards peace.

[winces] Yeaaaah, I noted back in Rock's chapter how watching the humans 'invade' and build in Narak must be really, really difficult for him.

The last. Oh, Rlain.

He still feels heavily ostracized. Even with him being Bridge Four, he's still set apart from them in ways they'll never be able to truly understand.

(okay, but an archer squire Windrunner. that could be really cool and useful.)

Please take Rock's advice. Bounce some stones off of their skulls when they deserve it.

Sando please let Rlain fly with the others.

Yeah. They were so afraid of becoming those things once again that they assassinated Gavilar and brought the wrath of warlike Alethkar down upon their heads.

Can we get more Renarin+Rlain scenes and friendship can we please-

Okay but with Rlain attuning to Rhythms and now with Rock's family around (we at least know that Rock can pick up on them ever so faintly) I'll bet one of them starts humming along with him, even if they don't realize what they're doing.

!!!! Skin patterns have/had an importance or maybe even function among the Parshendi? Can they change, with or without changing forms, or are they genetic?

Oh come on, guys, you're getting worked up over Renarin maybe learning to read? Kaladin, please talk some sense into them.

EXTRA MANLY. LOPEN I'M WH E E ZI NG

(though tbh that's actually a great way to put it)

Thank you Kaladin for putting things into words that they can all understand and mull over on their own. Hopefully they'll even start internalizing it.

Rock is the unofficial psychiatrist of Bridge Four, apparently. Ahhh, but they're all a big support group for eac other in the end (yes, Teft, this is a feelings-sharing party, now join the club). Alone together indeed.

[winces] Save for the one even more alone. You can't blame Rlain for his frustration.

At least Kaladin's willing to admit that he doesn't know, but it willing to try anyway.

Chapter Fifty-Six – Always With You

Ooo, this is the first time Hoid's chatted with Harmony? No interaction before this letter. Not that Hoid would have reason to do so, but you never know…

“How do you know so much about Adonalsium” HE WAS KINDA THERE, SAZE

oh shit oh shit oh shit Dalinar's going back to the Feverstone Keep vision, Jasnah and Navani with him. We're gonna find out something important, this chapter, this is a Recreance vision-!

He's getting a lot better at the vision-transfer, but I don't think it's technically part of his Surges? That's a complete unknown, though, since it was Honor himself that left the visions.

Timeline note for the Recreance – maybe 2,000 years ago.

(side note, but listening to the Journey OST during this part is jiving really well. it's shiver-inducing.)

False Desolation. What. Jasnah, plz continue your elaboration.

Mmm, that makes sense, especially with what we know of the Parshendi so far and their efforts to fight off the Voidspren. Of course Vorin teachings would deny there were any survivors. But how the Recreance, then….

Oh, hey! Gawx! You've gotten a lot snarkier over time in these visions, at least from that fist quip.

I wonder if Honor included the dying screams of the spren into this vision, and he's feeling it at the very edge of his senses.

Speaking of which, this must mean that Honor was Shattered at some point after the Recreance.

Gawx honestly does have it hard, and now he's pulled at in different directions by the people who want to see their homeland safe and the Blackthorn who wants to save Roshar. It's not an easy place he's in.

Shivers there, Dalinar. Good speech.

Technically, Gawx, Dalinar owns up to what he's done – or at least what he can remember? He doesn't deny the Blackthorn, but he is trying to be a different man than he once was.

….what's happening. The vision's not ending. And this man in white and gold….?

ODIUM

FUCK FUCK FUUUUUUCK

AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'VE “ALWAYS BEEN WITH [DALINAR]”

ARE YOU SPECIFICALLY THE REASON THE BLACKTHORN IS AS HE WAS. NOT ONE OF THE UNMADE, BUT YOU YOURSELF

FUCKING HELL

Chapter Fifty-Seven – Passion

Oh good it's another Dalinar chapter, because if it had changed POVs I would have rioted

Oooo, calling Hoid back to Scadrial, Sazed? To speak with the kandra?

YEP BACK THE FUCK AWAY DALINAR, HE IS BEYOND YOU RIGHT NOW

g o d the Stormfather is whimpering and if that doesn't tell you how much you need to fear…

Dalinar looks like he's gonna drop on the spot of a panic attack and tbh I already would be

Don't you dare call Dalinar 'son'.

And there's Odium himself confirming that this Stormfather-bonding is different than all the others before it; I was right.

What shackles you, Odium. What is it specifically.

SHIT, DALINAR, WATCH YOUR WORDS

'Intent' is capitalized and obviously means just that but does it also mean that it has something to do with the broader spectrum of power

Consequences aka probably ridding himself of Roshar a la Alderaan

Oooo, not only are you bound by the Shards themselves, but even the Splinters here somehow have power wrapped up with you.

Now see, here's where we come to Odium Blatantly Fucking Lying, because if the embodiment of Honor cared only for bonds and oaths themselves, then you wouldn't see any difference between Honorspren and Highspren. Not to mention the Passion thing (likely subtly sliding in a tie to the Thaylen Passions there as well). You, care? Love? HAH.

[squints @ Odium] While I can believe you had something to do with the Recreance, it's definitely not as you're explaining it.

Ohhhh, is that confirmation that the Nightwatcher is Cultivation – or at least an avatar of hers?

Oh shit, oh shit, a vision of sorts, touching the power of the Odium-shard itself-

...what's there. Something Not Of The Vision. Oh man is it Lift. Please let it be Lift. Let her flip off Odium himself.

It IS.

But. Odium couldn't sense her? Not entirely? Cultivation DID give her something special

“What was that thing, tight-butt?” Lift you are the pride of Roshar and the gem of all worlds

oh my god please make the first thing you do in Urithiru stealing Dalinar's lunch

That's… definitely a way to end Part Two with a bang.

Interlude Four – Kaza

Oooo, we're back out on the ocean!

!!!! Someone else with visions? I don't think this is another Bondsmith, but maybe another Truthwatcher…?

'hirelings out of Steen' Steen, Steen, where's that map… ah! South of Shinovar, east of Aimia, and probably the closest country to Aimia, save that island chain stretching out from Tukar

Ahhh, she's an older lady, too! Good, we need all the older ladies we can get.

Soulcaster? But does she have one or is he calling her that as a title?

So, they were braving the slower Everstorm winds, huh – or… not the Everstorm, but a strange, strong storm that has nothing to do with either? Either way, they're aiming for Aimia. Now there's a land that we need to know more of.

Ahhh, so she's a Soulcaster (but probably not an ardent because Not Vorin) and looking to reverse the whole turning-to-stone bit. ….understandable, but you think Aimia holds the answers? Maybe? Why? Is it because it's the last place you have to look, or do they have some sort of rumoured super-medicine there?

Well, there's a rumour of some kind, at least.

…..not stone, smoke.

Oh that is interesting. The transformation with Soulcaster use must be dependent on certain variables – what kind of transfigurations they most commonly do, perhaps – considering that all of those we saw at the Shattered Plains were turning to stone, not smoke, and most of their job would be to make buildings and food.

Ooof, a prisoner of her own family, kept for their use. Even without the whole 'dying' issue, it's no wonder she fled. (Assuming she wasn't just making up the story to scare off the sailor.)

Huh. I wonder if extended soulcasting starts to connect one to Shadesmar each time they use it, or if it's only when the person starts getting closer and closer to death-by-soulcasting.

“Each would have required several Soulcasters in concert.” Or maybe just one Elsecaller or Lightweaver with a fuckton of Stormlight.

Again with 'something larger' that's attached(?) to spren that normal people can't see.

That is a powerful call that she's almost losing herself to, and quite possibly a spren that's interested in her backing the Soulcasting. Hmmm.

So, the Soulcaster devices came out of Aimia and Akinah in particular. Huuuuh. Were the Soulcasters an attempt to mimic Radiant powers, if so, and were there any Aimian Radiants? Or were they an attempt at balancing power?

Wait, what. Everyone's starting to go unconscious? And Kaza feels like she's being pulled to Shadesmar? Is there an overlap here of the Physical/Cognitive realms…? Also the shadow stretching in the wrong direction like all the Aimians have – does that mean that whole people have/had some kind of presence in Shadesmar that can be seen in the Physical realm?

The sailors are all dead? ...well, shit.

Wait, and the sailors were right about greatshells coming here to die? That wasn't just a pirate-treasure sort of legend? (not that it matters, as none of them are left to even see it)

The cook? (Always, the cooks are so important in these books…) Ahhhhh, another cremling-person, fffffftttt- We need more information on these people, stat.

“The cost would be the ends of worlds.” Plural. Something exists in Aimia that could affect the greater Cosmere. Well then.

Interlude Five – Taravangian

FUCK OFF YOU OLD MURDER-MAN

“Today, Taravangian was a storming genius.” I can't help but laugh at the phrasing, even as a corner of my mind just goes fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-

He is not wasting time here on pleasantries of any sort, but just powering ahead and being a complete ass as he does.

Well, that answers my question of 'does Malata know bout Taravangian and his plans' though I did not expect that she'd already been a member of the Diagram before she'd become a Radiant. I am somewhat pleased at knowing 'the Dustbringers would be the Radiants most likely to accept their cause', not because it gives me any pleasure to know that goddamn storming Taravangian is getting any Radiants on his side, but because it's another step closer to confirming my suspicion that the Dustbringers are the I Will Do What Must Be Done order, closest of the Radiants to the-ends-justify-the-means.

GIVE US MORE DUSTBRINGER INFO, SANDERSON, I DEMAND IT

H e r alds but smart!Taravangian is an insufferable ass, both to other people and in his own head

“That day, he'd been God. Today, he could be God's prophet.” I'd start to wonder if you were Odium-influenced too, but this seems different – too detached even in your moments of grandest self-glorying – to be Odium's touch

And here we have the complete opposite of Jasnah, who's a beautiful example of atheism done right; this is the kind of atheism that glorifies ~~science~~ and spits on others' beliefs while holding itself above all else – its' own manner of extremist fundamentalism

'the Dalinar paradigm' sounds foreboding

Wildcard Renarin! Oooo, is he a blindspot in more than just Taravangian's Diagram, I wonder?

Well, that's just unnecessary. Storming hell, Taravangian.

Reference note – Vargo. Probably Taravangian's given name.

Okay but indoor farming would indeed explain a good part of Urithiru's self-sufficiency – which it had to be – and is probably related to the existence of the uber-fabrial that extends through the whole city.

“the part of the world that mattered” aaahahahahahahah fuck you Taravangian

“Then we force him to step down, so that I can take his place at the head of the monarchs.” AAAAHAHAHAHAHAH WELL GUESS WHAT YOU'RE GONNA GET HIGHKING KHOLIN SOONER OR LATER SO EVEN IF YOU DO IT'S NOT GONNA FUCKIN' MATTER

To be fair, pushing Dalinar until he collapses isn't a bad plan, considering the pressure the world is exerting and the weight he places on himself, but he's still the Tank, come on.

[rolls over laughing at the thought of Taravangian thinking he has any bargaining power against Odium]

Fuck off, you senile psychopath.

Interlude Six – This One Is Mine

Another Venli chapter, and thins time she's going to open herself for a Form of Power. And yet, with that title as well as the spren that followed you last time… I don't think this will you the way you think it will. Just a hunch.

….do the Parshendi actually have gemhearts. I mean, I would make sense considering their change of forms, but… still.

No rainwater from this storm. Just ash. (But didn't the Everstorm bring rain when we saw it in Edgedancer?)

[hums] Have we seen Demid's new Fused-form yet? The ridges under the carapace sounds like a form we might have seen in one of Kaladin or Moash's chapters, but perhaps it's different.

Mmm. Though Venli's form changed, indicating a new kind of bonded spren, she retained her mind. Not a Voidspren, then. Handful of sapphires says that the little comet-spren had something to do with it.

“grand of the Fused”? Ooooo, you're important, you have a title

...or maybe you just have a tendency to crush anything that doesn't pay obeisance. That works too.

[winces] What an awakening for Venli, and what a truly horrible way for it to happen.

Well, even if you didn't bond with the little spren, it's there. Not 'one of the same' spren you saw near Eshonai, but the very one, there's no way it isn't.

And you protected it.

#blink reads oathbringer #oathbringer spoilers #//holy fuuuuuuuuck #[ROLLSROLLSROLLS]

4 notes · View notes

sailor-cresselia · 5 years

Text

Zi-O 22: WHOOPS I WAS BUSY!

...Okay, so I wasn’t busy per se, but I did keep putting this off.

(carryover curiosity from episode 21: How long, subjective time, did Uhr spend breaking that mirror over and over?)

Oh, GOODY, the mirror aesthetic carried over into BlackWoz’s Storytime Vault!

I… can’t tell, what’s that watch on Mirror!Zi-O’s right arm? It’s with the bike, but I don’t recognize it. It looks gold-ish, and they’ve both got the W and OOO watches, but I can’t make that one out.

Bah, onto the OP, and… they’ve already included a shot of Zi-O II. Huh. Thought they’d wait until after the form actually appears, but okay.

I don’t even know why I like seeing which version of the pre-show sponsor segment we get, but I do. Today’s was the jets-of-fire variant.

Hm… Tsukuyomi and Geiz never even considered the ‘and then what?’ of when they managed to defeat Oma Zi-O. I figured they hadn’t, based on Quiz and episode 21, but it’s nice to hear them confirm it themselves.

Geiz doesn’t… oh. Honey. He doesn’t think he deserves to think of a future, because he considered for a moment about sacrificing Shinji to take down Mirror!Shinji.

Sweetie, you are so much better than you give yourself credit for. You were disgusted with WhiteWoz. You wanted to work with Quiz, because his issues ran alongside yours.

Geiz. It’s like the OP says. Use those bonds that the three of you are building to move forward!

Just why is Mirror!Shinji attacking people who read Ore Journal?! I don’t get it!

Geiz’s face as Uncle Tokiwa (whose name I will someday bother to remember) rambles is precious. Theres a slight eye twitch, assorted types of resignation to ‘Well, this is my life now. This is fine.’ and ‘Okay, yeah, you should… just go do those errands yourself. Fine. This is fine.’

Meanwhile, Tsukuyomi is just dumbfounded. ‘This is a new level of absurd we’ve found ourselves in. How have we kept all of this from him so far again?’

(You haven’t. I’m still convinced he knows far more than he’s letting on. There is zero way he’s not dealing with time travel shenanigans himself.)

They’re acknowledging that Geiz and Sougo’s finishers are different! Huh! I didn’t think that ‘a small lag’ is what was going on with Another Build, but sure. It’s interesting to think about, though.

And here we hit one of the many key points of Geiz’s many problems: why he’s willing to sacrifice himself right now.

It’s because Sougo wouldn’t hesitate. Geiz and Tsukuyomi both trust him, they trust him to be a good person so, so much.

But Sougo’s expression while she’s telling him this. While she’s telling him that she really, truly believes he’ll never become Oma Zi-O.

He’s not so sure anymore.

(note that I paused for those last few paragraphs as soon as Tsukuyomi walked out, knowing full well there was more to come in the clock shop.)

I know that Mirror!Sougo is, in a way, his own character. But his base is still Sougo. And that lets him hone in on all those little niggling fears Sougo’s been having since he met Oma Zi-O. That he’s not as good a person as he wants to be. I re-watched the second half or so of 21 before I started up 22, so… yeah. Sougo seems to be falling into a depression funk. He took on more of Geiz’s usual role during Quiz, when Geiz took his role up first.

The others trust him to be a good person.

But Sougo isn’t sure they’re right to do that anymore, and Mirror!Sougo is honing right in on that.

Also, the way that Mirror!Sougo appears brilliant. Not because he’s using mirrored surfaces, although that’s the mechanic which allows him to.

But because he doesn’t appear in a window, or in any other type of surface.

He’s in the glass front of a display case full of watches, with the opposite wall reflecting in there with him.

And then in nearly a dozen clock faces.

Time itself is the weapon and the enemy in this season, after all.

So Okuno’s acting has gotten really good in the past… it’s only been five months? Wow. He is killing it with both of these performances in this scene.

Great going, kiddo.

(Heeey. I never noticed that the blue clock in there has writing on it. I’ll be coming back to that when I finish the episode. I might just have to make a post collecting all of these instances of English, actually, since most of it’s been pretty good. This ones just single words, but it’s been well done overall.)

WhiteWoz is incredibly scary. “He’s a troublesome foe, isn’t he? I’m starting to think you might be as well, my savior.”

Shinji blames himself for his mirror world counterparts actions. Which, isn’t wholly inaccurate, but the mirror selves as interpreted by Zi-O seem to be the dark doubts and fears that you would never actually act upon. I’m fairly certain that there was nothing, or at least very little, of that sort in Ryuki proper.

It definitely helps adapt out the Rider War, since the current season makes sure the Riders never existed, though. And it lets them work with the “who you choose to be” aspect that’s been cropping up throughout Zi-O.

That’s not just for Sougo, either. He’s the only one with Mirror issues right now, but it’s been hitting Geiz and Tsukuyomi, as well. More Geiz than her, seeing how Tsukuyomi hasn’t been given nearly enough time to shine…

Although, since this is Kamen Rider, if she gets too much time, there’s a very good chance of very bad things happening to her.

“If I don’t finish this, I won’t even have a reflection of myself. I’ll just be empty inside.”

...You mean like how Sougo’s probably been feeling every time he thinks about Oma Zi-O?

Clearly WhiteWoz wasn’t actually paying attention to any of the previous fights against Another Ryuga, since he doesn’t seem to have known just how impenetrable that reflection is. Case in point, a duplication attack from his Shinobi form? Just gets six attacks reflected right back at him.

Geiz: Guess we’re doing this then.

WhiteWoz and Tsukuyomi: Wait, no, stop!

Cut to commercial (presumably), and then to Sougo… who’s standing in front of the door that he was pulled into the Mirror world from.

… huh.

The other half of the Zi-O II watch… was with Mirror!Sougo. The ‘I think you can make good use of this’ speech, that comes with a Former(?) Rider entrusting their powers to him.

Technically, he just gave the speech to himself.

Because that is one of the only ways to move forward, when you’re confronted with your inner thoughts. You can stop, and just quit moving forward.

Or you can take those, and use both the good and bad, and balance them out. Be both sides of yourself, and keep going.

Sougo. It’s like the OP says. Set your sights forward, jump in, and believe in yourself.

(Guys, you have no idea how glad I am to be able to repeat that ‘like the OP says’ line.)

Yoooooooooo.

That scene? Geiz delivering and receiving the finisher?

THAT’S ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL.

Taking his own attack – quite literally, not just the energy from it being reflected, but taking his kick.

I am dead certain that Sougo and Geiz are not meant to fight Kamen Riders.

Case in point - the Geiz watch broke. Before Geiz went down.

Before he died. Yeah, there’s no way he’s not dead right there, except-

Except Sougo Says No. Sougo’s not having this, and apparently is able to manipulate the flow of time, at least on a small scale.

“Darkness and light, good and bad. Past and future. These watches rule over both.”

Sougo Tokiwa. You are absolutely terrifying when you get down to it.

The transformation call is disturbing. There’s at least three different belt voices in there. And one of them is his.

There’s a decent amount of gold detailing in that armor. And the watch bands that trail down? Those are awfully similar to Oma Zi-O’s clock-hand ‘cape.’

That fight was both beautiful and terrifying. When Sougo means business… he isn’t going to back down. For anything.

I’m not sure that’s always going to be a good thing.

Previewing the opponents future is really… it’s overpowered, but it seems to be a limited span of time, so at least there’s that to balance it out. That doesn’t stop it from looking absurd when he triggers it, though.

This? This was a curbstomp battle.

And his insert song was playing throughout. And it was pretty audible, too. There wasn’t much talking during it this time, not like back in 16.

Okay, opening credits, sure, fine, don’t tell us when the insert songs are coming. FINE. It’s not as though you’re probably legally supposed to or anything.

I’m really hyped for when we finally get these songs released, because “Zi-O Toki no Ouja” is REALLY good, and we can’t even hear all of it yet.

I really hope So goes onto some great things after this, because he’s getting some skills here. There’s his pre-existing ballet training, he’s getting really good at acting by now, and apparently he can sing, too!

So… Ryuki has, what, six endings now? Possibly seven, with that “Rider Time” spin-off special?

But that final scene.

Tsukuyomi and Geiz, discussing their plan.

Tsukuyomi is stunned – she hadn’t wanted to think Sougo could become Oma Zi-O, she didn’t think he could, and she said as much earlier this episode. That she wasn’t afraid of the Day of Oma.

And now she’s the one who wants to stop him.

But Geiz?

He blames himself for Sougo accepting that watch.

And I don’t think he’s ready to take Sougo out. Not nearly as ready as he used to be. Not nearly as willing as Tsukuyomi is right now.

“It pains me to say it, but our choice is obvious right now...”

Geiz doesn’t respond.

Her expression is resigned and determined.

He’s conflicted.

I think they’ve switched roles. All three of them. I think…

I think that Geiz is the hopeful one out of the three, now.

And isn’t that just terrifying?

#kamen rider zi o #kamen rider ryuki #sailorcressy says

9 notes · View notes

sailor-cresselia · 5 years

Text

Zi-O Episode 33: featuring the Power of Music

So, RiderTime Fansubs picked up Zi-O starting with the Agito arc. They’ve already got their release of ep 33 out, so I’m using their version this time around.

Now then! Onward!

Tekken 7 returns! And it’s being played by the latest Hibiki’s pupil! … Or, his FORMER pupil. Looks like he dropped out of Oni training. So, Heure ‘offers’ him the chance to A; help lure Hibiki out into the open, and B; become an Oni.

Of course, said method of becoming an Oni is a bit… unconventional.

Oh WOW, I really like Another Hibiki’s look. He gets to go all in on the traditional Oni theme!

((WHOOPS ALMOST FORGOT TO PUT THE READ MORE IN MY BAD))

Sightings of harness-less Geiz: Two? Two. He apparently takes it off to sleep, and to work out… in the middle of the shop. (Oh, sweetie…) Also, clearly under the harness, jacket, and poorly-fitting pants, Geiz is ripped.

See, this is why you don’t work out in the middle of the path. A distracted Woz will walk right into you! And incidentally make your lack of harness a REVEAL.

Also Geiz’s first reaction to being nearly stepped on is to assume there’s an Another Rider. I mean, there IS, but that’s not it.

WAIT NO DRAT he’s still wearing the stupid harness. Drat. It just blended in better than it usually does. ...My point about his choice of location still stands.

Woz. Woz? You okay there? Why do you not want to let Sougo remember it’s his birthday? Why are you so dead set on that, that you stop his uncle from saying it?

The boys have one brain cell, and it looks like it’s not Woz’s turn to have it today.

For SOME reason, Junichiro decided that he’s going to bring out Sougo’s elementary school yearbook. Since he has this one, I’d assume it’s from the 2009-2010 school year, so Sougo would have been 9. That would make it… 3rd grade, since he turned 9 that April. And looks like he had a classmate that even Sougo thinks was odd, but they still cheered each other on. But really, Sougo thought that Tsutomu was odder than him. That. That says something.

(As Junichiro goes to reheat breakfast, him and Woz share A Moment of ‘We’re Totally Not Conspiring Or Anything.’)

Also, Tsutomu said that ‘his master was Hibiki, a great Oni’. That’s actually really cute.

The thing is… Asumu was, like, 14 when he met Hibiki in 2005, and Hibiki was a bit reluctant to take HIM on. So… Tsutomu was WAY too young to be studying for that type of thing.

And the Zi-O trend of ‘finding the next Rider by Coincidence’ continues. Sougo and Geiz come to the same conclusion immediately – “Hey, maybe we can find Kamen Rider Hibiki and his Watch!”

Sougo knowing about Hibiki actually works, too, according to past events in Zi-O. Decade used Hibiki against him back during the first episode of the Ghost arc, so Sougo has, technically speaking, seen said rider before. And, as has been previously established by arcs such as Wizard, Tsukuyomi may have the tablet and the fact-finding, but Geiz knows what Riders ‘used to’ exist. Which is now clearly ‘which Riders came before them,’ as opposed to ‘which ones happened once upon a timeline.’

Woz. Woz, the camera’s over here. You’re going the wrong direction. … Oh, wait, no, he’s going upstairs… and immediately dashing all hopes of us seeing a set for even a hallway, as he warps straight into his Storytime Vault. And we’re not getting Hibiki Hibiki, of course. No, we’re getting Kyosuke Kiriya, who… I GUESS has taken over as Hibiki. Or is carrying his watch?

I haven’t watched Hibiki, I don’t really know how the mentor system there works, aside from the fact that it’s a thing.

No I totally didn’t start singing the theme song with my parents around. What are you talking about? That’d be silly.

… I totally sang along by instinct.

… I know they think I’m odd for this already. I don’t even know HOW to explain that I’m liveblogging a show. At least they’re used to my being a fan of kids shows at this point.

(Over Quartzer is TOO DAMN CATCHY)

Geiz: “So there’s no doubt that the next Rider we’re looking for is Hibiki?” And he’s immediately proven right by Another Hibiki taking a flying leap at them.

… Hang on, there was a sound effect right before Sougo and Geiz turned around. Did they hear that? Or something like it? Some sort of acquired ‘time has gone wrong’ sense?

Seriously, the choices for the Another Riders are usually really good. Ever since Another OOO, they’ve been incredible. ...Well, except for Another Quiz, but that’s my preferring to not have brain motifs in character designs.

(Yes, I’m calling out Brain himself with that comment, too. That’s the worst part of his new bike.)

Aw, Woz made Sougo a fruit tart! It’s not nearly large enough for the candles and decorations, but it’s a nice thought!

And he wants to make celebrating his Demon Kings birthday AS EXTRA AS POSSIBLE, to the point that it looks like he’s starting to Blue Screen at not being Extra enough.

His usual IWAEs will not suffice.

(Also I like how the cuckoo clock sound effect trails off despondently as the cake cover rolls on it’s axis.)

CIVILIAN FIGHTS!!! Sougo and Woz are actually doing pretty decently, too. Still not great, but again. Civilian fight against a monster, so it’s in no way a fight on equal grounds.

Geiz is right, that we’d need Zi-O II to beat Another Hibiki without the watch. However, as Sougo points out, Another Hibiki came after them, not the other way around, so they can’t defeat him quite yet. Geiz lands on the same page right after.

I’m so glad these boys are working together. They’re so much better off as a team. And even more so with team transformations!

Ooo, Another Hibiki had only been using hand-to-hand techniques while they were civilians, but once the armor goes on, the drumsticks come out, and Fire Powers are fair game.

“Alright, old power for old techniques!”

“What?! No! You’ve got to use magic against an oni!”

:GASP: SOUGO PULLED OUT THE KUUGA WATCH!

WE’RE GETTING TO SEE THE KUUGA ARMOR!

FINALLY!

ARMOR TIME! KUUGA~!

I like the touch of how Kuuga Armor doesn’t have a ‘catch phrase’ when it finishes going on – the newer riders do, like with Wizard’s “Please”. But Riders didn’t have belt and weapon sound effects until Ryuki, so Kuuga and Agito wouldn’t have anything to work with for their Ride Armors.

Yoooo Another Hibiki has more fire powers than just from his drumsticks! He can breath fire, too!

And here comes one of the Oni, keeping the peace from other Oni. With the kanji for thunder and a SWORD GUITAR.

… OH FOR FUCKS SAKE. IT’S AN ELECTRIC GUITAR.

After some blows are exchanged, Oni-who’s-name-I-don’t-know gets a fire blast tossed at him from yet another direction, knocking both him and Another Hibiki down, and after yelling at whoever just attacked them, he goes off in pursuit of the fleeing Another Hibiki.

Sougo and Geiz have absolutely no idea what’s going on at this point. This is even more confusing for them than how the Quiz Arc started off, isn’t it?

Haha, Tsukuyomi finally makes it down to the (now former) battle field, and all three of them assume that the Oni was Hibiki. Heure, clearly knowing that he wasn’t Hibiki, is about to sulk off...

But then here comes Kyosuke, being all “Nope, that’s Todoroki. I’m Hibiki.” (How dare he cop the salute!)

Ahaha, Sougo’s grin is about to split his face. That is the face of someone who knows that that coincidence and fate have shone upon him once again, and will continue to do so.

(I was talking with @miyukomatsuda recently, and we’ve agreed that if he were a DnD character, Sougo’s player would consistently get great rolls on Insight and Charisma… except where said checks relate to the character himself.)

Cut back to Woz, who is… keeping the main door to the dining room shut, holding the dish cover and cover cloth. Although, it’s nice to see that there IS, in fact, a second door to the area – I can see that the one Sougo usually comes through is shuttered.

...Actually, why does that dining room even have two entries, anyway? There’s only the small wall dividing the storefront from the stairs to the bedrooms, and literally nothing else separating the two, so why is the side door even necessary?

Correction, Woz is hiding in the dining room, attempting to hide the tart, while the Rider Debrief is going on at that small table in the shop.

Ah. Right. Even if we aren’t showing the ‘give a blank watch to the Rider when they’re active’ task anymore, that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t doing it. (I still need to watch Rider Time Ryuki.) But Kyosuke wasn’t Hibiki in 2005 – he was Hibiki’s pupil. The Zi-O team hasn’t had mentorships and titles being passed down before. It’s not usually a thing with Kamen Rider.

(Usually. I still haven’t seen Kiva or Den-O, either, and I think there was something similar in those? And also there’s how Ghost and Specter have several people using variants of the name, with Daigo having gone by “Zero Specter”, and Ayumu apparently taking up Takeru’s mantle as Ghost in the future. Please note that I’m still flat out ignoring the majority of the Ghost Novel, because of all the uncomfortable implications of several things in there. The STAGE SHOWS, however, are fair game so far.)

Okay, that digression aside.

Kyosuke isn’t wrong in asking them to prove themselves worthy of the Hibiki watch, even if he’s being a dick about it. That is a thing for Oni – they train to get where they are, and have to earn the powers and name.

Of course, his “we provide a blessing to the earth” line draws the attention of a very frazzled Woz, who is trying to figure out the best way to bless his overlords 19th birthday. He’s so desperate to make this the most extra birthday ever, that now he’s trying to call himself the “oni of blessings”. Kysouke is confused by this. Sougo and Geiz think it’s hilarious – Geiz is only making a token effort to hide his laughter, and Sougo isn’t even trying. (Is this what the harness is for? Hiding his emotions?) Tsukuyomi is so done with everything right now. She’s just gonna head out and look for Todoroki. Maybe she’ll find some sane people there. She’d like that, that’d be nice.

By the time they reach the Taiko drums, Woz has snapped, even knocking the other two boys out of the way to get to the center drum, because ‘this is perfect!’

Woz has lost visitation rights for the trinity’s brain cell this week.

Sougo’s worried about him. Geiz is just resigned. “He’ll stay out of our hair this way.”

!! Oh!! Kyosuke and Tsutomu trained together? Or… Hm, Hibiki took place in 2005, with the epilogue in 2006… so Kyosuke could have taken over as Hibiki by 2009/2010, and trained Tsutomu. But again, Tsutomu was, at most, 10.

… Trying to work out this particular timeline is confusing.

Meanwhile, with the one rational person on this team, Tsukuyomi only has to follow the sound of the Electric Guitar.

Oh! Todoroki knows full well that that’s Tsutomu under the Another Hibiki transformation! … I suppose, since Oni are technically alternate appearances… somehow… since they’re both using the Oni abilities, he could see right through it.

Also. Turns out? Kyosuke’s not Hibiki. Todoroki actually seems a bit insulted that he called himself that. (VALID)

So, Sougo might be made of iron defense-wise, but less so weight-lifting wise. Also of note: Geiz has taken off both his harness AND his jacket, leaving him bench pressing… a good amount of weight.

Heeeey, Sougo, did someone convince you to wear pants that fit? Who was it? Where can I find them to give them my gratitude? Your overshirt is still super baggy, but your regular shirt fits pretty normally.

And can whoever got you the fitting outfit go talk to Geiz about his pants?

Ohhh, Kyosuke, telling Sougo to ditch his dream has never once worked.

Wait, okay, it did work. ONCE. Literally one time. And it was technically him telling him that, but as a taunt/dare, so I don’t think it really counts.

Hmm.. But Kyosuke’s saying to stop going after an unobtainable dream, and that you’ll only be met with despair when you can’t achieve it.

He studied under Hibiki.

Todoroki, during their shows run, turned down his masters name – Zanki – instead preferring to use a name of his own choosing as an Oni.

Oni discard their human names upon becoming Oni.

Kyosuke introduced himself with his human name.

Sounds like somebody else flunked out, too.

Tsukuyomi tells the boys to head after Another Hibiki… and is going to have to drag Woz with her. He’s still drumming.

After Heure redirects Todoroki’s attack right back to him, Sougo and Geiz show up. Heure thinks that Hibiki ought to be with them. Pity Hibiki’s not here today, regardless.

GEIZ. Either tell us if using Revive is still dangerous, or stop using Revive. I have to wonder about Sougo’s choice of Ex-Aid, though. Hammers versus drumming, maybe?

Heure’s all but pouting that Hibiki’s not here as he takes his leave. Oh, kid, if you weren’t a bad guy, I’d be able to like you so much better. (get away from swartz)

I thought for a moment that was the original HIT! effect, but nope. It’s still Sougo’s version. To be fair to Sougo, though, I don’t think I’m quite as worried about what it might mean if he gets things right, anymore.

But only not quite as worried. I’m still a little worried.

Cut to Woz, still furiously drumming. Tsukuyomi has to throw a rock at him to get his attention… and he still won’t leave. “He’s got Geiz with him, right? They’re good at working together, they’ll be fine.”

I like that both Woz and Geiz have finally come around to this whole ‘working as a team’ thing. (insert growth.gif here)

Woz: “Anyway! I have to make this celebration perfect!”

Tsukuyomi: “You are literally the only person who likes your speeches. You have no idea how to celebrate people.”

This kills the Woz.

… Woz no. It’s definitely not that you’re not ‘rejoicing’ enough. It’s literally the opposite of that.

A nice Ex-aid armor / Revive Fury team fight… and to finish it, they swap into Zi-O II and Revive Typhoon. Well, Revive Gale, right now, since I’m using the Rider Time subs.

I love that the Zi-O II fight music is the instrumental version of King of Time, because it makes for such a dramatic backing track.

The drama is only intensified by Another Hibiki’s drumsticks growing spikes, lengthening to ABSURD lengths, and catching COMPLETELY on fire.

Ohhh that’s a NICE group finish!

Sougo, even 9 years later, can still recognize one of the only people who he was close to as a kid. (This lonely little dweeb keeps breaking my heart.) He wants to listen to Tsutomu, to see how he can help, to see what led to him becoming Another Hibiki.

Heure is having none of that, still wants actual Hibiki to show up, and re-monsterizes Tsutomu.

… You know, he might have gone after Sougo for a reason. He still recognizes him too, after all. The only problem with that is, Another Hibiki is more monstrous than most Another Riders are. He’s more on the ‘Another Build’ level of losing sight of himself. Worse, possibly, because at least Another Build still had language. But neither of them ever turn back on their own, and even the other… ‘feral’ Another Riders could still do that, like Another Ryuga.

So, Another Hibiki goes after Geiz, Sougo’s down on the ground.

And Kyosuke comes up to stop them from attacking Tsutomu.

He pulls out a tuning fork, and transforms.

Into a white Oni.

One who’s decidedly not Hibiki, and Sougo can tell. See again, Tsukasa used Hibiki against him back during Ghost.

Here comes Todoroki, confirming for us.

Kysouke wasn’t able to become Hibiki, or an Oni of his own. He doesn’t even have a proper Oni name. He’s just an Oni.

Hibiki is a name to be earned.

And Kyosuke didn’t earn it.

Makes it all the harsher that he tried to get the boys to prove themselves to him, when he couldn’t prove himself.

Oh, what’s this? Heure thought that he was Hibiki, too? Interesting.

Even more interesting… Another Hibiki just attacked Oni!Kyosuke, with one of his more powerful attacks.

Preview time:

“I couldn’t be like my master Hibiki.” – That’s Kyosuke.

There’s a shot of Kyosuke and someone who is presumably a 10-year-old Tsutomu.

… Woz, I’m pretty sure even Kougami would think that cake is a bit… much. And he’s KOUGAMI.

Just who… who is Sougo talking to in that last line?

“You were Hibiki.”

Who? WHO was Hibiki?

So, I jumped back to the very beginning, after seeing that shot of Kyosuke and babby!Tsutomu. Heure says that he was “Hibiki’s pupil.”

But Tsutomu doesn’t use the name ‘Hibiki’ when he says that he’s ‘not his pupil anymore.’

Kyosuke. Did you tell Tsutomu you were Hibiki? That’s a dirty lie, bucko.

#kamen rider zi o #sailorcressy says

3 notes · View notes

sailor-cresselia · 6 years

Text

How clever IS Sougo, anyway?

(keeping in mind that I initally wrote this on Oct 26, and Ep 9 hadn’t come out yet. I still haven’t seen it anyway, because I don’t speak Japanese so I’m waiting on subs.)

Okay, so Sougo's definitely Not Good At Socializing, not with normal people. We can TELL that - he doesn't seem to have friends at school. This isn't just from the Fourze arc - there's pretty much nobody interacting with him at all during the first part of Ex-Aid’s arc, to the point where the nerd he winds up with in the gym closet is surprised to see him. One of our first introductions to Sougo is him getting judo flipped to knock some sense into him about the whole "I'mma be a king" thing - and he compliments the guys technique and offers him a job when he makes it.

So he's not good at direct interactions with people, at least average, baseline humans.

But what about indirect interactions?

But he covered for the gamer in Ex-Aid part 1 - Sougo blocked the teachers view of inside the closet, so only he got caught trying to have a private lunch. The gamer classmate wasn't caught. (I mean, there's the Another Ex-Aid problem, but that's a whole different issue. And since Sougo was there, he was able to get help right away.)

He's definitely book-dumb, at least so far as we've heard with academics. Tuskuyomi says as much - his only good subject is history. He was able to tell they were in the Edo period pretty much right away. I dunno if this is a Japanese thing that 'yup, time travel means we're definitely going to be in the Edo period because that's just how it happens', but it might be that he recognized it right off.

And in Edo, when the guys were getting into a fight, what was his go-to method? Asking them politely to stop fighting. (What was Tsukuyomi's aim in shoving him forward, anyway? That's been bugging me - how could she have used that to see if the kid who hadn’t realized he was holding a ridewatch was the evil overlord she assumes he is?) But asking them to stop doesn't work - technically. But they work together to toss him in the river, and walk away laughing, as friends. Like Sougo basically said, "They're not fighting anymore, are they?"

He broke so many rules of time travel at the end of the Wizard arc - ‘don't meet yourself’ being key among them - but he took the simple approach to finding out if the guy was Another Wizard - he asked. And since, if i remember correctly, the year was hidden under Another Wizard’s cape, he asked the woman when it was that things changed.

In Fourze'n'Faiz, wasn't he the one to point out the fact that the Another RIders have their years on them? He noticed Fourze's year before Geiz did, I think. Sougo's good at making sure Geiz goes along with the plans, too, however loose the definition of 'plan' may be. "Well, if you want to make sure I don't turn evil, you should probably come with me to this magic show, ya know, just in case."

It's not like he anticipated Another Wizard, but Geiz wound up being the one to remember that Wizard existed to begin with, as opposed to Tsukuyomi, who is the one carrying the data-pad. Convincing Geiz to come along to the hospital is how they got into Another Ex-Aids Game World - Geiz knows German, and there's no way Sougo could have anticipated either that or that Emu wrote a note in German in the first place. (Emu stop with the codes man I get it you're clever but oh god at least this one was in pencil)

We might not be looking at Emu or Eiji levels of 'better to be underestimated' and 'beware the kind ones' here, at least, not completely or not yet.

We might be dealing with a variant of Jinno's "You wind up feeling really guilty about deceiving him so you try to live up to what he thinks you could be."

(( An addition from original draft, since I’ve seen the W V-Cinemas now: That might be more apt a comparison than I first thought, actually. Jinno did really well in the fight in that warehouse in the Accel special - the only real hit he took from the mooks was at the end, when one basically sucker-punched him. He was beating them down with the power of slapstick. “Crouching moron, hidden badass” indeed - what brought him down was a GUN, he didn’t really stand a chance there, but unarmed combat? For a guy we never really saw in a fight in the series, he put up a good fight.

And again with the guy from Ep 1, Sougo was thrown onto his back, on cement - and didn’t seem more than a little winded. The Drivers seem to instill a basic sense of fighting competency to anyone who wears them - Jonouchi from Gaim, anyone? Emu and Nico? Takeru? But Sougo hadn’t put one on yet - didn’t even have the blank RideWatch, IIRC. Noodle-arms McGee probably shouldn’t have taken that as well as he did. ))

He doesn’t seem to have goals in half of his actions, but Sougo IS still coming up with plans when he needs to. Some of them seem to involve a fair amount of "LucasArts Point-and-click Adventure Game" logic, but they ARE plans.

He got Geiz and Woz to listen to him at the same time - and they had been literally fighting the episode before, and clearly dislike each other.

“You’re from the future, so you have one of those phones, right?” (Wait. How did Sougo know what number to call. Did. Did Woz have Geiz programmed in? They were friends, or at least allies, once upon a future. Was Geiz in Woz’s speed dial?)

(My concern that Woz is going to go the Alain/Parad variant of Yandere still stands - maybe without the literal possession stunts that they both pulled, but he definitely seems to be heading down that route.)

In ep 5, Sougo tosses himself down the stairs, so that Tsukuyomi and Geiz can get into the nurses office - and he doesn't tell them that it means they'll have access to the computer, so they don't have to hack one, but they figure it out as soon as the nurse leaves.

Ep 4: "I know your son is unwell, but this guy works at the same hospital as this one genius surgeon and can probably help you out with that." This is combined with what is technically foreknowledge, with what Hiiro had said in 2018, but Sougo is currently in 2016 - and Emu has known Hiiro for like three days, four max. Geiz arrived literally DURING episode 2. Clever, clever Emu, who just met both Hiiro AND this strange, skinny boy, and doesn't know the circumstances of the distraught father who had become Another Ex-Aid, catches on quickly.

The question really is, how much of Sougo's plans working is all chance, how much is him reading people, and how much is things all going according to keikaku? (And who is the one with the keikaku in the first place?)

Because this is pretty clearly a genuinely good kid we’re dealing with, and he doesn't seem to have a mean bone in his body. (oh, look, another Emu and Eiji parallel...) But his recent encounters with Woz indicate that he's getting pretty genre savvy - if he wasn’t already - he's just USED to Woz appearing out of nowhere at this point, and is only surprised by it when the guy shows up directly behind him. He’s not surprised because Woz appeared, but because of the location. (Woz, how did you get upstairs? When did you get upstairs? WHY did you get upstairs? Please stop teleporting sir, my yandere concerns only grow when you keep doing that.)

“If you’re on my side, then let me do this my way.” Sougo says this to the man that keeps appearing out of nowhere, presented his driver on a velvet pillow (wtf), and heralds his every action as Zi-O. He says this to a man who he has seen stop a punch from Another Fourze because he was going to interrupt Sougo’s transformation - and Sougo is sassing him and using the drive that Woz has to support his overlord against him.

How many steps ahead is Sougo thinking? No one in show seems to know. We certainly can’t tell.

It’s bad enough I don’t trust your great-uncle, kid. Don’t make me not trust you, too.

#sailorcressy says #there's an essay on how time travel ACTUALLY functions in the works #it may or may not take the OOO'n'Genm arc into account #that depends on when I get the time to work on it #there seems to be a lot of contradictory stuff in both characterization and time travel methodology going on around here #kamen rider zi o

16 notes · View notes