#that being said : does anyone know where I can find screencaps of IN THE DARK??? Casey is such a nick vibe in that project

[raayllum]

PAWN-OF-AARAVOS DARK-MAGIC-SCARRED CALLUM WITH LITERAL BLOOD ON HIS HANDS IN THE TRAILER

HOW DOES THAT VINDICATION FEEL?

I love that Claudia gets the white hair and he gets the facial scarring, just like you speculated about! They’re two sides of the same coin!

Also ICARUS CALLUM? HE FLIES TOO HIGH AND HIS WINGS FALL APART? THEY’RE JUST GIVING US EVERYTHING

Listen we Knew ever since he got that cube he'd be a pawn and worried about it (+ increased Claudia and Viren parallels to boot), the blood on his hands even in a dream was a lovely wish come true already, and white streak Callum will always be famous but I gotta say I am loving the corrupted face variant, showing the initial inklings of corruption

I already talked about it in my trailer breakdown post and it's like that singular screencap is Crazy, it's Nuts like the implications no matter which way you play it? Because it's clearly a nightmare or scary vision sequence and like

If it's Rayla's nightmare (the way Runaan is), that means she knows what he did on Finnegrin's boat and that she's scared of what Callum's becoming—Rayla, who's had more faith than arguably anyone that Callum is special ("No, Callum's different!") and amazing with or without his magic ("Humans could take their fates and change them" / "He's noble, and true") and so confident that his destiny was a book he could write himself she refused to even consider the possibility of her needing to be his (and the world's) safety net, because Callum has regularly done the impossible. If her confidence in him is shaken, his must be abysmal

However, if it's Callum's nightmare or vision or whatever (and that's what I'm leaning towards) it does show a shift of sorts. I'm gonna copy and paste what I've said earlier about it and then go into more detail if well, there's detail to go into:

We know from 6x01 details that he has a nightmare regarding Aaravos, and we also know from people at cons that this screencap was not there. Looking at the scene itself, the deep purple lighting highlights that it’s not quite 'real’, nor is it necessarily possible due to the background being Finnegrin’s office on the Sea Legs, where Callum last did dark magic. I could very easily see this being a dream where Callum is having horrifying visions of himself outside his body, and this is one. I do find it interesting that, rather than black dark magic slug goop like I first thought on his hand, it’s actually blood on his hand, and the changes this indicates of Callum’s psyche / fears. Normally when Callum breaks things (primal stone, moon opal necklace, the green slug) it’s with his other hand, for starters. But more importantly, I think it’s interesting that this nightmare isn’t Just about being flat out possessed, but of being more of a dark mage: the eyes, the corruption, the blood, etc. and how that may lead to Aaravos’ will being further enforced over him. It speaks to a recognition of his own agency as well as growing fears of being not just controlled, but corrupted along the way.

One of Callum's greatest assets has always been his self awareness. He's intelligent, attentive, growing in confidence in his own capabilities for more than just magic. This is one of his biggest differences from both Viren and Claudia. However, this awareness of what he could do—what Aaravos could get him to do, possession or otherwise—may make him more stressed, worried, fearful, and paranoid.

Additionally acknowledged is that like in S4 and even in 6x01 Callum seemed mostly concerned with being possessed, as stated. Obviously S4 still had indications it was going to grow into More than just "what if my agency is stripped away" to "what if my agency is stripped away (and it's 'my' fault / because of my previous choices)" from Callum himself ("What if I'm on a path of darkness" is no longer a flimsily founded worry) and even from other characters like Soren ("I know you love magic, Callum, but I hope you're careful, 'cause it can change people").

Which makes sense! Possession is a loss of agency and that's accordingly terrifying, esp to a character like Callum who is the thematic embodiment of Freedom in the series and who cares about agency and being able to Do things 110%. Just having your agency stripped away from you wholesale, though, doesn't give much of a character arc — even if Callum only makes decisions out of paranoia next season > love, he's still making decisions — so like... He can and should be worried about his choices and what they may lead to, honestly. Not only is there set up, it's a much more standard TDP storyline (when is anyone ever let off the hook?) and it's more interesting. Callum is also very good at keeping his fears logically grounded (i.e. not worrying about Viren after 3x09, but stressed about not being a mage in s2) so that's another point in the "yeah this is Setup" column alongside 5x08 and... all of s4 and s5 honestly. So this screencap is very exciting cause it seems Callum is having increased fear and self awareness about his previous dark magic use and the possibility of using it or doing something else he considers awful in the future and I can't wait!

Icarus chose to fly too close to the sun after all

[headstrongblake]

small mobile announcement : nicklas william’s faceclaim is officially being changed to CASEY DEIDRICK.

[technicolor--dreams]

The object of her affection: chapter 1

Plot summary: Summer 1937. Flighty heiress Susan (Merle Oberon) has been in love for years with her father’s business partner Joseph (Fredric March), and will stop at nothing to get the obejct of her affection, even if it means involving a wise cracking cab driver named Connor (Joel Mccrea) who has little patience for her silly antics.

p.s. i put the actors name and screencaps because that’s how i write, picturing a movie with actors. i hope it’s alright. also if there’s some spelling mistakes english is not my first language so bear with it.

If you had asked Susan Holbrook if she was a sore loser, she would've denied it vehemently, but that was only, of course, because she did not contemplate losing as an option altogether. Since she was born eighteen years before, life had bestowed every blessing upon her. The only daughter of Russ Holbrook, heir to the famed railway dynasty which settled in the United States a century before, she acquired money from her father, beauty from her mother, and her intelligence from both. Since she was an infant, she had been spoiled and pampered, not only by her parents, but also from nannies, servants, and family acquaintances who never failed to stop by the Holbrooks bearing gifts for the littlest one. Her life had been an easy one for most part, as anything she wanted was at her disposal, be it a toy or a pet, or a new shiny pair of shoe handcrafted in Paris. That was, until a fateful spring day on her fifteenth year of life, where she fell upon the only thing her parents couldn’t buy her – love.

She'd first met Joseph about  two years prior at her father's annual company picnic. As the boss' daughter, she was required to attend, but in all frankness, she didn't care much for the event. Everyone in attendance was either too young or too old to keep her company, as most of her peers had been sent to boarding school abroad by their parents once they became of age. Those who had once been her childhood friends were now across the ocean, while she had been left behind to be home schooled, her parents far too sentimental to send the only daughter a continent away.

That year's picnic hadn't seemed remarkable in any way. The weather had been considerably favorable, and the park adjacent to Susan's family's country estate provided the perfect scenery for relaxing and playing around. Conversation with her parents had been pleasurable, as much as it can be for any sixteen year-old girl, that is, and she indulged their friends in small chit-chat whenever they stopped by their table. Food and drinks had been good and plenty, and by the time two p.m. rolled round, she was ready to settle on a blanket with a book and doze off in the sun for a couple of hours.

It was during a particularly enthralling passage of Wuthering Heights, that a handsome stranger approaching her father caught her attention by standing in her light. When she put her book down and turned around he was already gone, immersed in chatter with her father a few feet away from her. From where she was standing she could only see his back, but she admired his tall, slender figure and his broad shoulders. She noted that his left finger was bare, not to mention he had a whole head full of hair, which was not something to underestimate in her limited opinion. How many times had she met perfectly handsome men who from the front sported luxurious locks, only to find out when she turned around that God had not been as generous in the back!

The man appeared beside her, after ending his conversation with Mr. Holbrook. "Do you mind If I sit here?" 

"Not at all." she replied, scooting aside to make room for him.

"I don't think we've met. I'm Joseph Westley." he extended his hand, "I just started working for your father a month ago."

"I'm Susan." she shook his hand in turn, "But you probably already knew that."

"Firm grip." he observed.

"Father says it's the mark of a great man."

"But you're not a man."

"Who says a woman can't be as great as any man?"

"True. Say, how old are you? Fifteen?"

"I'll be sixteen next month."

"Hm." Joseph picked a grape from a nearby container and popped it into his mouth. "You got moxy for your age. I like that. I bet you could convince someone you were a tree if you talked to them long enough."

"Perhaps. I've never tried. How old are you?"

"Thirty last month." He replied, looking far away pensively. "You know, it's nice to talk to someone young for a change. Everyone here's either five or fifty."

"Tell me about. I had to go to these things since I was a baby. You know, you should bring someone to keep you company at this sort of boring engagements ... “ Susan said coyly, trying to suss things out. “a girlfriend, or a wife."

"I don’t have any. Maybe someday. What about you? No one to keep you company?"

"Oh, no. I'm just there to play good little daughter and be the belle of the ball."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"Why should it? I'm not one in a position to complain. Besides, once I'm eighteeen, everything's gonna change. I'll do what I want."

"Now, you sound exactly your age." Joseph laughed.

As they continued talking, Susan's fascination with Joseph only grew stronger. It was so different from any other male she'd met. He actually listened to her when she talked, never breaking eye contact and keeping her engaged with questions born out of genuine curiosity rather than mere duty. He treated her like a peer instead of fragile china doll, or a puppy that you pat on the head condescendingly after giving them a little treat.  

Susan hadn't been the only person impressed with Joseph, though, as Susan's father himself had nothing but praise for the young man. His arrival to the company had improved business tremendously, and he found him to be a shrewd businessman, not to mention a trustworthy employee. He saw a great future for him in their company, and soon he was a staple in their household, coming to dinner twice a month, much to Susan's delight. In a matter of months, he had become not only a close associate, but a close friend of the family and everyone could only say that the day they had met Joseph Westley had been a blessed one.

* * *

Months flew by, and they soon became years. Susan’s eighteenth birthday rolled around, and with that, her certainty that Joseph would finally reciprocate her love.  

"Happy birthday to youuu, Happy birthday to youuu. Happy Birthday, dear Susan, Happy birthday to youuuuuuu."  

The crowd surrounding Susan concluded their off-key rendition, clapping and cheering as the maid hauled a white sheet cake with an emblazoned gold eighteen on the table.

"Come on, darling, make a wish." Mrs. Holbrook urged her, patting her shoulder with her lacquered hand.

Susan leaned down on the table and rested her index on her chin, pretending to think it over. In truth, she knew all too well what she wanted, or rather who. In fact, she had been trying to get the object of her affection for years, to no avail. Her eyes glanced across the room where Joseph stood, his dark hair peeking over in the middle of the crowd, and before darting back on the cake she could’ve sworn she was him winking in her direction. She smiled, then blew on the burning candles with all her might. She was gonna get her wish this year, she swore to herself, If that was the last thing she'd do.

* * *

Susan walked towards the balcony, where Joseph leaned over the railing, smoking a cigarette.

"Here," she said, putting a slice of cake on the marble in front of him. "I saved you a corner piece. Those are the best ones."

"Thanks" he replied, putting out the cigarette on a nearby ashtray. "There was so many people trying to get a piece, I figured I'd never get close anyway."

"Consider this one the perks of being close friends with the birthday girl."

"So, how does eighteen feel?" He asked, digging with his fork into the white frosting.

"Don't you remember?"

"It's been a while," he chuckled, "You're gonna have to refresh my memory."

"Exactly the same, and completely different at the same time. There is so much I couldn't do yesterday that I could do now. For example, getting married ... I could just run off to Vegas with anyone and be done in a few hours. I'd be set for life, and no one could object." she said casually, hoping Joseph would catch the hint.

"Except voting, or drinking." he quipped.

"Oh, well. What's three years, anyway?"

"Three years is a lot of time at your age. Anything could change."

Susan waved her hand dismissively. "Why must you always be so practical?"

"Occupational hazard." he polished off the last bit of cake left on the plate, leaving a light smearing of frosting over his upper lip. “Listen, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you a-”

Susan giggled, unable to contain herself at the sight of Joseph’s serious frown next to his sugary moustache.

"What's so funny?"  

"You got a bit of -" she giggled some more, coming closer to reach for his face, then ran her thumb over his mouth.

"Susan." he said firmly, but not without a hint of fondness in his voice, retracting as gently as possible.

“All gone.” She reclined back on the railing, and licked the frosting from her fingers. "You know, I think a moustache would suit you. Look at Clark Gable. Before he had one he was nobody, then boom, he won an academy award. You should think about it."

"Maybe. That's a big change in a man's life." he said, averting her gaze and picking up his empty plate. "I think we'd better go back inside, it's getting chilly out here. Everyone is probably wondering where you are."

* * *

If there wasn’t one thing Susan couldn’t resist, it was a good piece of gossip. Mind you, she was not one to engage directly in the activity, but in her opinion, there was no harm done in being a passive listener. If wasn’t her fault if other people couldn’t keep their tongues tied, after all, and if she happened to be in earshot, she certainly couldn’t help what she ended up hearing.

So, of course, that monday, when she ran into some of her mother’s friends sitting poolside at the Country club after her weekly tennis practice, and found them immersed in deep hushed chatter, she couldn’t help but stopping by - not because she wanted to eavesdrop, of course. It would have just been quite impolite not to say hello, that was all. Etiquette and whatnot.  

“Good morning, ladies.”

The small group immediately stopped their chatter, turning their attention to Susan.

“Susan! Come, come sit, darling. You must be parched.” Mrs. Vance, one of her mother’s fellow member of the daughters of the American revolution said, before pouring her her a glass of iced tea.

Susan thanked her and sipped on her drink, as the woman kept talking.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t come to your birthday party last week. It’s my Benjamin. The flu, you see. He’s always been sensitive to temperatures, but now I’m afraid age is catching up with him. He’s all bones and his skin, all wrinkles.”  

“Poor thing.” Susan said, sympathetically. “Send him my regards, and tell him I wish him a quick recovery.”

Mrs. Vance furrowed her brows, uncertain what to say. “I will, If he can understand what I’m saying.”

Susan put a hand on her heart. “Oh, gosh, I didn’t know his health that bad.”  

Mrs. Hoover, a little octogenarian with fiery red hair sitting on Susan’s right side, leaned into her. ”Benjamin is her sphinx cat.” she whispered.

“Oh.”  

“Anyway,” Mrs. Vance continued, “We’ll have occasion to see each other soon. Your family is coming to Martha’s Vineyard this fourth of July, right?”

“Oh, yeah, we wouldn’t miss it for anything in the world.”

Every year during the days leading to the fourth of July, Susan and her parents flew to their Martha’s Vineyard property, alongside some of their close friends who also happened to have properties in the same area. It was a full on extravaganza filled with music, food, and games, leading up to the big party the night of the fourth, which the families took turns in hosting.

“You better not.” Mrs. Vance replied, “I heard this year it’s gonna be quite the event.”  

Her dark eyes closed into slits, her mouth thinning into an enigmatic smile, giving her the appearance of an elder Mona Lisa.

“Really?” Susan asked, perking up.

“Yes, but I shan’t say more.” the woman mimed zipping her mouth.

Mrs. Hanson, a plump blonde woman around her mother's age,  jumped in from her seat across the table. “An engagement is gonna be announced on the fourth, or so they say.”

“Oh, how fascinating!” Susan sighed, dreamily. “Whose?”

“Phyllis, I said no talking!” Mrs. Vance objected.

“No, dear, you said you would say nothing. I’ll talk as much as I please!” Mrs. Hanson replied, before turning back to Susan.  

“So, I was at the hairdresser yesterday, and who I run into if not Louella.”

Louise Carson, neè Wilson, was known to her family members by her birth name. But to everyone else who mattered she was known as “Louella”, due to her more than average-sized mouth.

“Her sister-in law lives right next door to the brother of the widow of the younger Wilson. You know, the short one, not the tall one.”

“And?” Susan pressed on.

“She says the daughter of the other Wilson brother is announcing her engagement at the party.”

“Which Wilson? the short one?”

“The middle one.”

“Age or height?”

“Both.” Mrs. Hanson replied, before turning to Mrs. Hoover. “Martha, what’s his daughter’s name?”  

“Helen.” her friend supplied.

“Yes!” Mrs. Hanson exclaimed. “She’s the one getting engaged. Do you know her, Susan?”

“Not really. We only met a few times. Wasn’t she studying in London?”

“She graduated a couple of months ago and came back home.”

“You left out the most important part, Phyllis!” Mrs. Hoover urged her friend. “The boy!”

“Oh, right. Who is she marrying?”

Mrs. Hoover smiled wickedly through her wrinkles, eager to share such a juicy piece of information.  

“You know him. It’s that nice young fellow who works for your father,” she thought it over for a second, ”Joseph.”

All color drained out of Susan’s face as the grip around the cold glass in her hand tightened, her heart beating a hundred miles an hour under her white tennis outfit. She didn’t dare move a muscle, or reply for that matter, fearing her feelings could have transpired in her reaction. If her shock was evident, she couldn’t tell either way, since the ladies around her seemed much more concerned with the sound of their own voices than anyone else's, buzzing like bees.

“Now, you have to promise to keep this hush-hush. It’s supposed to a surprise.” Mrs. Vance said.

“Hmm-hmm.” Susan agreed, nodding, before gulping down the remaining of her tea, her mind barely registering what was happening around her.

The ladies continued talking, engaging Susan in polite chatter, but the whole ordeal had clearly lost all of its appeal to her. What was the fun of gossip when you were at the offending end, albeit indirectly?  

So, she got up on unsteady feet and excused herself, leaving Mrs. Vance with the promise of coming over soon with her mother to visit Benjamin and share a cup of tea.

She checked her wristwatch on the way to the wooden building housing the changing rooms. It was only eleven in the morning, but she already couldn't wait for the day to be over.  

[hairphones]

Why Libra is my favorite FE character

(if anyone knows the artist here it’d be appreciated to mention it)

Fire Emblem has plenty of characters people give a shit about. Most of the time it’s going to the lords or any of the really popular “waifu” characters, but in recent time I’ve found people who love all kinds of people in the franchise. The best thing about FE’s characters is there’s bound to be at least 1 person in here that you’ll consider cool. Despite there a lot of reoccurring archetypes I’m willing to say FE is still able to make something that feels unique in each game, even if not necessarily good. Anyways, for me one character who’s stuck out is of course the guy in the title, Libra. I’m always kind of weirded out this guy isn’t anymore popular than he actually is. Awakening is one of the most successful games that had a cast full of characters that ended up being way too popular for their own good. And yet, Libra is one of the few Awakening characters that doesn’t exactly get to enjoy the limelight like the other part of the cast back then. With that being said though I’ve found him to be one of the most interesting in the game and as you can read in the title he’s just flat out my favorite. I guess the best way for me to start is him as a unit.

Libra comes in as one of the more unique classes in the series, war monk. As a prepromote most people probably skipped over what’s given to you here despite what honestly is a pretty solid no investment unit. I say this from his C staff rank and his fairly balanced stats that lets him handle himself quite well for the first few battles he can fight in. Of course I gotta be realistic, Libra is no way a character who’s going to stay good at defending himself. Awakening’s real emphasis of making your units snowball means that ignoring to train Libra will only really leave him as nothing more than a staffbot, and even with training a glaring flaw is that Libra is too balanced for his own good to really specialize in anything unlike the other units. Another flaw comes from his rather limited class pool that leads to Sage and Dark Knight taking up spots in multiple class trees. This does give him access to helpful skills such as vengence or lifetaker, but unless you plan to grind only Libra I wouldn’t call it optimized to constantly reclass and train him. I’m in no way a hardcore FE fan that takes into account how units play in the challenge runs such as LTCs/Ironmans/Low recruitment, but I think it’s safe to assume that Libra’s overall performance will come in as primarily a support unit. But of course, judging him on his numbers isn’t my focus here.

I want to start off talking about Libra’s character with what you can already see from his design. It’s no surprise that most fans make the connection to Libra and other designs such as Lucius from FE7, another favorite of mine. In-game there’s a gag involving him looking female to other characters. However while his face is feminine, he’s actually rather tall and with a masculine frame. As one of the tamer Awakening designs I actually quite like his outfit as it perfectly fits with war monk ( I know crazy). Though you can chalk that up to being biased.

Hell on first appearances you’re most likely ready to assume this character is going to be a born again christian character with the only joke being he’s actually a male judging from the recruit conversation. The fact Awakening has it’s share of running jokes among party members definitely could lead to you assuming there’s nothing interesting about this guy. Yet, shouldn’t the fact he wields a weapon (as opposed to the usual magic tomes these sort of characters use) surprise you? and an axe at that? Lemme emphasis that, why an axe?

Sure FE has this tradition of the 3 main weapon types, but has it ever been used to add character? Not exactly, but it has been part of character archetypes for quite a while.

Think about what kind of character uses swords: The lords, the brave mercenary leader, the heroes, the flashy edgelords that become swordmasters. Swords almost always play a role as the legendary weapon made to save the day in FE games (as well as any jrpg). The sword will always be a symbol of courage in just about any video game.

(this screencap is low quality to stay consistent with the speaker)

How about lances: As far as FE goes the lance is primarily the weapon held by the jaigen archetype and the main weapon for the more chivalrous units such as cavaliers, knights, and soldiers. The kind of characters associated with these are often the diligent or experienced members of the army. You also have the usual flying trio of characters that range from happy go lucky to those that take the situation seriously.

Now what about axes? These weapons are more often than not held by the lower class characters. Hired fighters, bandits, pirates. These characters aren’t ever bad, but they’re not exactly fighting out of heroism or for their nation. In fact these characters are the most down to earth in the grand scheme of an army full of anime characters. Maybe not sooo much in Awakening’s case with Vaike, but every single one of these weapon types have their exceptions. Also wanna mention that one of the most (in)famous weapons in the series is called the fucking Devil Axe.

Going back to Libra, why would a character like him hold onto an axe when it’s pretty apparent he’s more of a gentle character? Why the weapon type that’s the most violent looking of the triangle? Obvious reason is purely gameplay reasons involving the odd design the war monk class is, but looking at it from a literary perspective only makes it look off (especially with the female clerics). This is also something to wonder if you take into consideration his C ranking, implying he’s at least somewhat experienced. Not to mention his high stats for that point in the game.

For better or worse this kind of mystery isn’t exactly answered in the base game of Awakening. However there’s some interesting conversations that’s found in the Summer Scramble DLC that gives an idea. Specifically the one with Lon’qu.

Lon’qu catching onto the dissonance of Libra’s appearance to his skill. The first conversation is only Libra claiming there’s no reasoning behind any of it. however the second conversation has Libra open up to talk about himself more.

As you see there’s no explicit answer to what kind of “darkness” Libra has ever committed before the events of FE:A, but given Lon’qu is the one to take notice of Libra’s supposed bloodlust the implication isn’t going to be anything peaceful. In fact, it’s that violent nature that gets questioned in another conversation in this same DLC.

Again, this conversation feels more important to take note of given what character is talking to Libra. In this case it’s the hyperviolent character who takes comfort in bloodshed (at least in the western release, perhaps Henry is different in Japan?). Either way, this conversation goes hand and hand with the Lon’qu one in a pretty easily. That is to conclude that Libra himself has had a pretty rough past filled with who knows what, and that past version of himself was most likely not justifying any murders as if justification was even something to consider. The Libra you meet in-game is of course still capable of killing, but it’s extremely obvious he has a concept of remorse.

There’s no reason given anywhere as to what changes this man to become the benevolent priest. Though really I think it’s better that Libra keeps it consistent with revealing almost none of the causes in his life and instead only showing the effects. Filling in the blank is not a new thing for FE characters, in fact fans of older games in the franchise seem to really enjoy that aspect quite a lot.

Still, even the current Libra understands himself to not be a person devoid of guilt or sin. A few supports touch upon this aspect such as the one with Sully.

Libra’s doubt that he’s anywhere close to being considered a good man in the fact of the gods adds something that I absolutely love: having skepticism to one’s own morality. There’s something important to follow up this with how Libra views morality in battles in one of the supports with Gaius.

Even as a supposed man of faith he refuses to deny that living a fight against the different nations in Awakening is just a matter of being on the side that’s doing more killing. Take away all the politics of any war and you’ll find people who are simply fighting for the right to keep on living. It’s what considered “just human”. I also find this conversation to be a little more profound given that is the same franchise where one of the biggest features is permadeath. These characters put their faith in their gods to escape death another day while the average player is the one avoiding death altogether.

Finally, a support with Tharja concludes mostly everything learned so far. Where she explores Libra’s memories only to find there was no peaceful childhood.

A newfound devotion to a religion isn’t treated as a fix to a life full of cruelty. To be a good person to many doesn’t absolve you of the terrible things you’ve done to others.. I’m sure this kind of topic has been explored in FE games before or after and in countless other video games/movies/books/pieces of media as well, taking away the religion part of course. Nonetheless the introduction to this kind of thinking to a 13 year old version of me had me really second guessing back then, and it still comes up to me from time to time. Sure I’ve done what’s considered “good” but will it ever outweigh any terrible things I’ve also done? Even today I can’t pretend I have an answer to that, and that’s just only thinking of what I’ve gone through personally.

To wrap it up though, there’s his ending card.

For such a simple ending it really brings out the fanboy in me. The entire game is filled with Libra having his doubts of being a good person according to himself and to the gods he worships. To end his story with him being believed to be a reincarnation of Naga due to his reformed nature just feels so sweet to me.

As much as I wish more characters could have a similar air to them in newer games, I get it’s just not really everyone’s preference. Fire Emblem is always going to be a series of good guys vs bad guys also dragons and with that comes making new characters for fans to get attached to. Still though, I really appreciate the attempt done with Libra. Once again the best thing about this franchise is everybody can find at least 1 character they love, they don’t even need to be playable.

I understand not everyone is going to grind supports to see everything a character has to say (especially not in newer FE games), but as you can see nearly all the nuance of this character was hidden away in dialogue. In a game full of joke characters and tropes, it is refreshing to see a character who acknowledges their own flaws and isn’t played for laughs. I didn’t write all of this to try to convince anyone in some clickbait manner like “THE DEEPEST FE CHARACTER INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS HID FROM YOU” or anything. Nah, I’m sure I sound like I’ve repeated myself many times here. But all of this was to attempt to put into words why I’ll stay with my opinion that Libra is my favorite FE character for being a reformed character done right. And for the fact that uncovering the secrets of this guy affected me personally all the way back from when I was a lot younger. And honestly a large part of it really stems from how Libra is in no way a major character, yet he clearly had a lot of thought put into him.

For anyone that bothered to read all of this I wanna thank you. Whether you liked it or not is up to you, no hard feelings. I know all this is the definition of “reading too much into it”, but I consider speculation on writing to be fun. Anyways hope I didn’t take too much of your time and have a nice day

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 35 Review: In Which Matt Calls Out Jean Paul

{ Not available on YouTube }

{ Synopses: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

{ Screencaps }

Welcome back to Maljardin, the beautiful tropical “paradise” that is, in reality, a deadly prison for the guests of Jean Paul Desmond and his demonic lookalike ancestor Jacques Eloi des Mondes. Tensions mount as more and more characters realize that the island’s multimillionaire owner god refuses to let them escape and pushes for a séance in order to contact his late wife. One, Reverend Matthew Dawson, ex-minister and current stalker of one Holly Marshall, has reached the breaking point and now dares challenge Jean Paul.

Now, I know that I briefly compared and contrasted Matt with Reverend Trask (specifically, the second Reverend Trask) from Dark Shadows in my Episode 10 review last year. There are a handful of similarities--including both running boarding schools of questionable ethics (which I forgot to list in that review)--but they remain characters with fundamentally different personalities at their cores. In spite of this, Matt does share one of the favorite hobbies of the men of the Trask family: YELLING in an exaggerated Mid-Atlantic accent in long and emotional speeches! That’s what happens for a good portion of the episode, and I can’t deny that I find this sort of soap opera shouting match highly entertaining.

We open with Jean Paul descending the Great Hall’s staircase while wearing the Blue Suit of Sexiness, which he will continue to wear for the next few episodes. He sees Matt staring at the portrait of THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES and asks him if he’s “mesmerized by” him. (How could anyone not be, I wonder, before reminding myself that Matt is straight.)

“It seems everyone is, or at least the evil Raxl fears he’s spreading,” is the Reverend’s response.

“And you?”

“There is evil here, Mr. Desmond, but I don't believe in devils. I attribute it more realistically to a live, active human being.”

And then they exchange pissy faces to dramatic music.

I’ve noted before that I didn’t expect a minister like Matt (especially one who believes in other supernatural phenomena) to admit that he doesn’t believe in devils. Still, even if he did, that’s no guarantee that he would make a distinction between Jean Paul and Jacques or think anything of his sudden switches of personality beyond grief and/or mental illness.

The first shot of the glass-top table set up for the séance. Kind of odd that Jean Paul just happens to have a table with astrological symbols on it just lying around.

Just then, Raxl and Quito enter, and the former announces to Jean Paul, “It is foretold that the Conjure Woman one day will find death on Maljardin!” Jean Paul ignores this and tells Vangie (who also conveniently just entered) that she must hold the séance and he must speak to Erica.

Some Jean Paul crazy eyes. Shades of Gérard “Crazy Eyes” Berner, discussed in this entry.

“Master! In the Temple of the Serpent, the Conjure Woman was told that this séance must not take place! The spirits have spoken!” Raxl protests, but he ignores her. Remember, this is a man who announced three episodes ago that he is willing even to perform blood sacrifices to get his Erica back. He is crazy in love--literally. His obsession with Erica makes Matt’s decision to quit his ministry to stalk Holly seem sane.

“On Maljardin, only I speak!” Jean Paul declares, eyes wide and burning like the blue flames on a gas stove. He uses his “on this island, I am God” tone of voice, but sadly Jacques isn’t cheering him on this time. Speaking of Jacques, he immediately storms over to the portrait and shouts, “I must have contact with my darling!” as though he thinks that Jacques will willingly provide that. Oh, Jean Paul, my sweet summer child, if only you knew that he has no intention of resurrecting your dear, sweet Erica.

Alison arrives just in time to overhear him tell Matt that, as an “undesirable element that would ensure its failure,” he shouldn’t take part in the séance. He starts to ask Alison to join him, but then decides he would rather make a passive-aggressive comment about how Matt probably doesn’t believe in souls (WTF?), which triggers the following argument:

Jean Paul: "And the theologian, not because he believes in the soul, but because..."   Matt: "Because he is tolerant, Mr. Desmond!" Jean Paul: "Tolerant of what? My madness, perhaps?" Matt: "I did not say that!" Jean Paul: "Are you prepared to face the dead?"

He tries to get Vangie to let him choose who will participate in the séance, but she refuses because she understands spiritualist matters better than he does. (Also, she can teleport to and from Maljardin, so it’s not like she’s trapped on the island like the other guests. This means that she can stand up to Jean Paul without the risk of him imprisoning her.)

Raxl brings up the missing notes about Erica. Alison demands to know how she knows about them, and she claims that she knows because of how often she and Dan discussed them. Raxl accuses Alison of trying to hide the notes in the cove (but why would she store them so far from the lab?). Matt has a point when he says the following line:

I am accused of pushing Holly Marshall down the stairs, Dan Forrest is accused of tampering with the cryonics capsule, Mrs. Marshall is accused of trying to kill her own daughter, and you are accused of concealing Dr. Menkin’s notes that might bring Erica Desmond to life again!...Now, a séance. Who knows what new accusations we will hear and against whom, and I wonder who will make them?

Raxl, Vangie, and Quito visit the temple to pray for the protection of everyone during the séance. This is probably the point where Tarasca would have appeared and vanished for the first time in the original draft, but we may never know for sure. Meanwhile, Jean Paul brags both to Jacques’ portrait and to my hysterical laughter that he is now in full control of himself. Sure, Jan Jean.

I really like this shot of Jean Paul with his arms outstretched in front of Jacques' portrait. Taken out of context, it looks like he’s trying to hug Jacques. "Caressing" evil, indeed.

Matt approaches the stairway to the crypt, but Jean Paul stops him. Matt then remembers that he threatened to kill anyone who trespassed into the crypt, which shocks Alison. “Does it upset you that I want to protect your sister’s return?” he asks her, and this triggers a second, much longer argument between Jean Paul and Matt. As usual with long conversations on this show, I will only include the highlights and summarize the rest.

It starts out with Matt repeating that everyone on Maljardin is Jean Paul’s prisoner. He accuses him of making them all suspect each other as a deliberate act of divide-and-conquer. I think that, in order for that to be true, it would require Jean Paul to be both omniscient and omnipotent, neither of which he is. (Even his hidden camera system only covers certain rooms.) Matt also accuses Raxl and Vangie of “seeking guidance for further accusations,” whatever the hell that means.

“Do you fear to face your judgment day?” Jean Paul asks him, which momentarily shuts him up. He stares at Jean Paul, stunned at the thinly-veiled threat.

Meanwhile in the temple, Raxl and Vangie decide who should and shouldn’t attend the séance. In short, neither Holly nor Dan should attend, but Quito should.

When Raxl asks if Jean Paul should attend, Vangie faints onto the temple floor!

When Matt recovers, he makes a whole list of over-the-top accusations against Jean Paul: "Hear me! Be a little god on your insane Island, manipulate our lives, play games with our reason! Be both judge and jailer! Yes, raise the dead, walk on water! That will be next. Crucify yourself, but remember, you, too, will be judged!"

Matt trying to look intimidating.

Jean Paul (thinking): “Please. When I said I was God on this island, I didn’t mean it in that way.”

You know, Jean Paul’s behavior this week reminds me of someone--and no, I’m not referring to whom you probably think I’m going to. I’m thinking instead of Jerry Layton, the show’s co-creator, producer, and “so-called production expert” who apparently shared some notable personality traits with early Jean Paul. According to the show’s floor director, Bob Wilson:

To be honest with you I always thought, and I’m not the only one who thought this, that the Jean Paul Desmond character was really Jerry Layton.  Oh yes.  He was mad.  He was crazy.  He would rant and rave about the simplest thing.  And we would all stand around and wait until he did his little thing.  And it was almost like an actor taking his lines and just running amok with them.  I recall that--it was very easy to be intimidated by this character.   I remember [technical producer André “Andy” Moujean] and I coming away from that dinner and saying to each other--What are we getting ourselves into?[1]

According to StrangeParadise.net, Layton insisted on running the show on next to no budget, which earned him the nickname “Mickey Mouse” among the production team. There’s a hilarious photo on there of Colin Fox with a Mickey Mouse pin pinned on one of Jean Paul’s dressing gowns and a mischievous smile on his face. There’s also this one in the website’s archive of the wall where John Pashley, one of the cameramen, wrote the comment “While my prose will not compare with Proust, thank f.....g Christ for Mickey Mouse.”[2] Notable examples of Layton’s mismanagement of the show include the lack of air conditioning in the studio while filming in August (as noted in this quote on Fox’s IMDb page) and the grueling schedule for the cast and crew, which Wilson also mentioned in his interview:

We all put in horrendous hours, not only in the production, but in getting the thing together.  ...  There were an awful lot of people who stayed [in Chelsea, at Crawley studios] overnight.  I was not one of them, but I can remember the sound guys staying overnight, trying to meet deadlines, with their effects.  I can remember the lighting guys staying overnight, trying to get the right look on a particular scene. [...] The bus would deliver, say, 25 people, and at night, maybe 17 would go back, because the other people were staying overnight to try to make deadlines.[3]

Despite these similarities, however, I doubt that Jean Paul is based on Jerry Layton. First, there is no evidence that Ian Martin actually ever visited the set, despite his position as headwriter. In fact, according to Wilson, he never did:

SRS: I was curious whether you ever met Ian Martin--he was the guy who wrote the first seven or eight weeks.

BW: I did not. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t believe--which is an unbelievable statement to make, but I’m pretty sure I’m right in saying this--I do not believe that any of the writers ever attended a production meeting, when we were at the studio. Now if Ian Martin was there, it would have been fleetingly, and he was the initial writer. The reason I’m even bringing this up is it was the bane of the actors’ existence that this didn’t happen. Many times they would say, “How can this guy continue writing [the show]--he hasn’t even been here to see, to get the feel of the set, of the ambience...”

SRS: He was writing it, but you were taping at that point well in advance of the broadcast--I see on this plan [of the set, which BW had] here, there’s a date--”August 11, ’69, programs number 2 and 3”--I’m taking from this that the original production of the actual show began in August of ’69. I don’t believe it began running on Canadian television until October of ’69.

BW: That would be correct.

SRS: So Mr. Martin is happily writing his scripts, but he’s not viewing any of the episodes... So he’s just spinning it off in his little room.

BW: Which was a sin, because we could feel the way it should have gone, we could feel where it could go--we weren’t writers, and when I say “we” I include cast and crew, because we were a family, we were very much a family.  ... Had any one of the writers, Ian Martin or any one of the writers after that come out and even just spent some time, it would have paid so many dividends. As I say, I stand to be corrected, but to the best of my knowledge, that never took place.[4]

Second, such megalomaniacal types tend not to have a sense of humor regarding their own shortcomings. If Layton had even suspected that Jean Paul was supposed to represent him (assuming that he behaved as Wilson claims he did), I think that he would have insisted on changing his characterization earlier on. Most likely, Jean Paul’s characterization derives from the archetype of the Byronic lord of the manor, an extremely popular character trope in Gothic literature. Examples include Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre, Nicholas van Ryn from Dragonwyck, and (eventually) Richard Morgan from Martin’s 1979 novel Shadow Over Seventh Heaven. Despite this, I have to wonder if, when the actors were rehearsing this script, they were thinking of Mickey Mouse and his own so-called production expertise and putting their feelings about him into it.

Some delicious Raxl scenery-chewing in the Not-So-Hidden Temple after Vangie faints. “It is the prophecy,” she recalls in reference to Vangie’s prediction that she will die on Maljardin. “MUST IT BE NOW?”

Returning to our recap, Alison tries to shut Matt up because “Jean Paul is under a strain,” but he won’t have it. He proceeds to criticize Jean Paul to his face, and one has to wonder if some of these lines reminded Dan MacDonald of Mickey Mouse:

Why is it that no one’s feelings are to be considered, only his? There is no one, it seems, in all the world that has ever suffered except Jean Paul Desmond! No one has ever lost a loved one, only Jean Paul Desmond and his unique sorrow for his beloved Erica!

Colin Fox doing some literal backacting.

Jean Paul getting pissy.

We wondered whether we had seen him change into another man, one man one moment, another man the next! Now we are seeing the real man…A man who ignores the suffering of others, who is indifferent to the pain he inflicts upon them, who is willing to imprison them for all their lives for the sake of an impossible experiment in bringing back the dead, in getting what he wants because he suffers, because he is willing to punish the whole world in order to get what he wants out of blind selfishness masquerading as strength, this selfish thing! So great is his love of himself, which he calls love for his dear Erica!

 For the most part, he’s right about Jean Paul, save for the part about him being indifferent to others’ suffering. He’s indifferent to the detained guests’ wishes to escape the island, yes, but not to Alison’s mourning of her sister or Holly’s of her father. He just doesn’t want the tabloid press to find out about the cryonics situation and spread scandalous rumors (or, perhaps, a scandalous truth) about him and Erica. Matt thinks that the whole cryonics experiment is just as blasphemous and ridiculous as Jean Paul’s insistence that he is God on his island.

Jean Paul’s anger is so intense that it’s starting to mess up his shellacked hairdo.

Now it’s Jean Paul’s turn to fling accusations at him: "I did not pursue a young girl in the name of God and good works. I did not beset and harass a mere child out of a sick desire. And I did not strike the girl unseen and secretly fling her down the stairs because she knew, knew what you were!" A reminder: Holly is almost twenty-one, and yet Jean Paul refers to her as not just a child, but a young one. The way the characters keep talking about Holly like she’s seventeen is just baffling. Like I’ve said before, Matt’s attraction to Holly is already creepy enough without those kinds of implications, simply because of the former captor/former captive power dynamics involved.

Just after Jean Paul says that he is responsible for everyone on the island, Quito arrives, carrying Vangie. “Your responsibilities grow,” Matt tells him. “Now you have the soul [line flub for “blood?”] of Evangeline Abbott on your hands.” However, it turns out he spoke too soon, for Vangie soon recovers, albeit with a vision of death!

“Jean Paul, I saw death!” she says upon recovering. “The death I saw was not my own ending. A figure--it wasn’t clear.” And then she points to Jacques’ portrait and shouts, “That man! The Devil!”

This leads Alison to beg Jean Paul to cancel the séance. Jean Paul is surprised that "now the scientist believes in the devil." Jean Paul, being extremely stubborn, insists again on going through with the séance. But what unholy death and destruction will this séance wreak on Maljardin?

Jean Paul sitting down at the séance table during the credits.

Coming up next: The séance and a return to the YouTube episodes. (Am I the only one who’s been missing the ridiculous automatic captions? I hope not.) Shortly after that, the next part of my review of Shadow Over Seventh Heaven, which I would have posted before this one, but I was so much farther along with this one that I decided to post it first.

{<- Previous: Episode 34   ||   Next: Episode 36 ->}

Notes

[1] Bob Wilson, interview with S. R. Shutt, Ottawa, October 15, 2002. Wilson is also the one who called Layton the “so-called production expert,” which reminds me of David Benioff, the “so-called production expert” behind Game of Thrones whose mismanagement of that series is well-documented on the YouTube channel The Dragon Demands. In a sense, Benioff and Weiss wrote it like a soap opera, changing characterizations and “subverting expectations” at will with random plot twists--which is fine until you remember that they were running a high-budget adaptation of an unfinished book series.

[2] Another funny photo of the wall can be found here, On this one, someone dubbed the show “Canada’s own all-American T.V. series!” and used the Mark of Death (from a future storyline--not saying any more about it until later) as an unofficial logo.

[3] Wilson.

[4] Ibid.

[lunawings]

King of Prism SSS Episode 10 (LOUIS)

So I think one of the main reasons a lot of people were confused by this episode (well other than misleading subtitles......) was because a lot of us had our own long-time theories/assumptions about what Louis is or what a Rinne is, and this episode turned out a bit different from what we were all expecting. (I got a lot of messages that were like “But I always thought that...”) I think you have to let your past assumptions go in order to take this episode in. A few of my long-time assumptions were proved wrong by this episode as well.

Although, given this post does still include statements that are my own interpretations, if you think I’m wrong about something please feel free to speak up. (But also please include evidence from Rainbow Live if applicable, etc.) I’m afraid I may have to go back and edit this post several times, especially after whenever the director starts releasing interviews about all this. 

There is a tl;dr at the end, but I really hope most of you guys read all of this. I know it’s long, but the Crunchyroll subs for this episode are just....... so bad...... by far the worst....

I wasn’t really able to keep track of the the scores when I was watching this in theaters, so I actually didn’t realize what a big deal Joji’s score was until this scene at this moment. It’s why I tried to start a dialogue about it earlier. 

Kinda funny how Kokoro, Mondo, Mitsuba, and Tsurugi’s scores are almost exactly the same. It makes them feel all the more like manufactured prism stars.... (not really their fault, it’s how Schwarz Rose does things....) 

I’m going to skip over talking about the scene with Jin and Sanada because I think it’s best saved to discuss in a future episode. Don’t worry, we’ll deal with Jin later.

HE’S SO HAPPY AND CONFIDENT AND EVERYONE BELIEVES IN HIM........................................................................................ 

The translator doesn’t really understand prism sparkle, causing a lot of confusing dialogue in the subs, but I suppose that’s kind of to be expected for anyone that didn’t watch Rainbow Live. 

I’m pretty sure the intended meaning here was: If they can’t fix Rinne then the prism sparkle will disappear, which would mean the end of the prism world, and the prism gods, etc.

Um no, I think they said F-type here. Rinne keeps falling in love with male stars because she’s “F-type”. 

My understanding of the scene is: the Rinnes keep falling in love, which is keeping them from spreading the prism sparkle and leading to destruction of the prism world. But the gods hesitate to make an M-type prism messenger since there is a “dark history” with that. So they just change the basics (like appearance) of Rinne to be male, while keeping the rest of the coding the same, and..... 

....Also restore the memory to hopefully “avoid problems”.

(The subs say “back up” here which isn’t so off, but a bit misleading. I believe the Japanese is ��原 or 復元 = restore and they do say lit: “memory”, not data. I guess the translator was thinking in computery terms.) 

So this explains why Louis is male and has memories of the past, even though they say Rinnes lose their memory in Rainbow Live.  

He’s a Rinne, just a different version. 

And because he has those memories, he immediately begins looking for....

Turned? What do the subs mean by “turned”? 

The word used here was 復活 = to be revived/resurrected. 

I guess the translator thought Shine went to the dark side or something, but he went to the dark side long ago. (Either that or this was supposed to be “returned” and that was a typo.) 

This scene is taking place in the Pride the Hero-ish era and the prism gods are asking Louis WTF he’s doing awakening Shine (by giving Shin the pendant and whatnot). 

So. I read a while back in a director interview in the “Ready Sparking” fanbook that Louis’ mission was “to kill Shin”.

Which didn’t make any sense to me. Rinne in the flashback in Pride the Hero says she’ll find Shine again, so why would she find him just to kill him again? Why would Louis go to all the trouble of giving Shin the pendant and awakening his powers JUST TO KILL HIM? 

But now in this scene it makes sense. Louis’ mission was not to kill Shin(e) to begin with. He was intended to be just a regular prism messenger trying to spread the prism sparkle UNTIL THIS SCENE when his mission changed, because he decided to divert from his mission and awaken Shine without permission.  

So the spoiler I read was technically true, but not in the way it seemed. He did not specifically come like an angel of death to kill Shin(e). (A huge load off my mind.) But in between the ending of the first movie and Crazy Gonna Crazy, things changed. 

Once again, misunderstanding of prism sparkle. The way they subbed this, it sounds like he was told not to expand the brilliance of Shine because what “its” refers to is not clear............ It should have been more like: “Your mission now is the elimination of Shine. There is no need to worry about spreading the prism radiance anymore.”

None of this is readable in the theater ahah... Every time I saw Part 4, I always thought I’d be able to read a bit more of it and I never did. 

But yeah, I’m not sure if we knew before that Hijiri’s mother was deceased....? (Did we?) 

Edit: Lol nevermind we did.  

I heard some people saying that Shin(e) was a Rinne, so I just want to take a second to clarify this. 

Shine is not a Rinne. Shine is a Shine: A now defunct male prism messenger program. He’s a separate program from Rinne, and they were meant to exist together. (Unlike Rinne and June, who were both Rinnes and thus caused an error by existing at the same time in the same world in Rainbow Live.) 

Woah. I’m not sure, but I think they cleared up his face here to make it more obvious how much he looks like Shin...... I think I remember it being too dark to see his eyes well in the theatrical version...? ??

But anyway, the rule for prism messengers not being allowed to perform before an audience (and also the reason why) is something that was previously established in Rainbow Live.  

So I think the subs were absolutely fine for this part. My understanding of it was that after erasing Shine, Rinne gets stuck in a loop where she keeps self destructing because she’s trying to find Shine. 

This makes the prism gods decide to delete her memory. They also task her with guiding male stars as well, since Shine cannot fill that role anymore. This is why the Rinnes in the Rainbow Live era have their memory deleted, and what also unintentionally laid the groundwork for June to fall in love with Hijiri I believe. 

And because the Rinnes kept falling in love like June is why they re-wrote the program to be Louis to try and prevent this and also gave him the memories of the past Rinnes so he will supposedly know what not to do. (But the unintended effect of this is that the memories of the past Rinnes also gave him the memory of Shine, causing Louis to search for Shine again.) 

Which is why I’m confused as to why the very next scene is Louis staring at the pendant looking confused like he doesn’t recognize it or something? Because I thought from the earlier scene where Louis was created, he immediately set off looking for Shine after the Rinne -> Louis update? Am I just misreading his expression here or did I miss something? I don’t know. 

Edit: OMFG IM AN IDIOT. THE SCARF. This scene isn’t taking place right after Louis was created. It’s taking place right after Crazy Gonna Crazy. He’s looking at the pendant which fell from Shin after their show. It’s meant to transition into the events which happen after Louis re-seals Shine I guess. They could have made this a bit more clear. 

If you thought why the F is Kokoro here well WHY YES. YES THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE OTOHA 

but putting that aside

I believe this scene was supposed to establish that Louis knows the Rainbow Live girls. He has the past memory of Rainbow Live era Rinne, but he can’t really do anything about it........... (It’s not like he can just go talk to them as Louis.....)

But his expression is so unreadable it’s hard to tell. 

He gives Shin back his powers to jump geez Crunchyroll.

(But for anyone wondering how mix-ups like this can even occur in the first place, a lot of sentences in Japanese don’t have subjects in them. Therefore, if you don’t know.... the context.............................) 

Maybe the translator chose this wording in the context of prism messengers being forbidden to be seen on stage. But as much as I appreciate that, it’s wrong. In this scene Louis is saying that he physically cannot perform. (He’s a fallen prism messenger now, so the rules don’t matter.)

Okay, I’ll take a moment to explain this just in case, since it is not explained outright:

When Louis broke his connection with the prism world and lost his rainbow feathers in Pride the Hero, he made the same decision June did when she ripped off her wings in Rainbow Live. He chose Shin(e) over his mission. He disobeyed orders and cut himself off from the prism gods in order to do things in his own way.

But whenever a prism messenger makes this decision, their rainbow feathers are replaced by the night dream feathers. The night dream feathers take life away. 

(Screencap from Rainbow Live episode 43.)

In other words, ever since Louis pulled out his earring in Pride the Hero he has slowly began to die.....

Although this is never stated clearly within the main King of Prism series, there are several ways you could have picked up on it before this episode. 

First of all, like I said before we have already been through this with June in Rainbow Live. 

Second, across the Road to SSS events on Prism Rush we have steadily seen Louis getting weaker and weaker. At first he was just tired and fell asleep after the Schwarz Rose opening ceremony in Road to SSS 1, but then his deteriorating condition was made crystal clear in his Queen of Glass PR story from Road to SSS 4, in which Louis plans a date with Shin only to collapse and unwittingly stand him up. 

And then eventually by the time we get to Road to SSS 9, Louis cannot even gather the energy to perform at all unless it’s with Shin. And we got this whole scene with a weakened Louis begging Shin to perform with him.

But even after their performance is a success and they win the Tokyo Kizuna Beat Climax, by the time we get to Road to SSS 10 Louis is so weak they miss the finals. 

Finally, Louis being a fallen prism messenger is directly confirmed in literally the opening scene of King of Prism SSS. 

So if you saw this scene and your reaction was something more like “Oh look it’s Louis... are his wings different?” and not “LOUIS IS DYING” then well.... That’s exactly why I’m always telling you guys to watch Rainbow Live.......................

Although, there was a bit of confusion over these feathers even for people who watched Rainbow Live so don’t feel too bad if that’s you. Some people thought Shin had the night dream feathers in Pride the Hero, or that Rinne had them in the end of Rainbow Live. 

But no. The regular star-type feathers are dark blue too. (Generic, lower level feathers than the rainbow ones.(?))

There are only two characters to have the night dream feathers. And they are: June in Rainbow Live and Louis in SSS. Both fallen prism messengers. 

And buried in the midst of all this Louis drama and deep lore is my probably favorite Joji line of all time. Seriously the Joji in this scene is best Joji and I cannot not laugh no matter how much I’m suffering. 

Okay so. Here is what I do not understand about this episode and would be thrilled if someone could explain it to me. If Yamada-san knew Wataru Hibiki, then Shine could not have been sealed that long ago. I actually searched my fanbooks/magazine collection until I found one which listed Yamada-san’s age as 24. So he’s probably 25 now. So this scene could not have taken place more than 20 years ago (and even that is generous). 

So what the heck was all that 1,000 years thing about? Is that just the amount of time Rinne and Shine knew each other? Or does time just not flow in a straight line for prism messengers when they are skipping in and out of different worlds? 

WOAH

WOAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

SHIN’S PHONE BACKGROUND IS DIFFERENT 

Okay you’re just going to have to believe me on this, BUT I SWEAR Shin’s phone background in the theatrical version is a photo of his hand holding the pendant. Which seems like a weird choice for a background right? But I had a theory on it that I was gonna discuss here. And that theory is that Shin wanted some kind of a background that reminded him of Louis, and that was all he had. (He couldn’t straight up use a picture of Louis because he didn’t want the other boys to question it.)

But TV version Shin, HE JUST WENT FOR IT. NO SHAME. DAMN BOY. 

I can’t help but wonder why Shin still feels like he has to hide his relationship with Louis here, considering if Road to SSS is canon like it seems to be then they all saw Shin and Louis perform together at the Kizuna Beat Climax a few months ago. 

But I guess in between the Prism King Cup and the start of the Prism One tensions rose with Schwarz Rose again, so maybe he’s worried about that?

Or maybe there is a possibility that maybe he would talk about it if it was anyone but Leo asking. What with how Leo is. 

(I know the real reason is probably just because for plot convenience/the casual viewer hasn’t read Road To SSS but shhhhhhhhhhhh.)

I’m sorry but, man I do not like this outfit. And not because it’s basically girls clothing. If Naru wore it I would hate it too. It’s just kinda ugly IMHO. (It’s not an existing Pretty Rhythm coord is it?)

Original brand glasses Shin is cute as heck though. 

I like how he just keeps his same damn clothes he’s been wearing the entire time in SSS and just glasses + hat = done. Pfft. 

Shin and Louis saw a PriPara movie together. 

(Prism Tours is the name of the first PriPara movie, which included different courses of Pretty Rhythm shows/flashbacks shown on different weeks in theaters back in 2015. The “flavor” Over the Rainbow animation seen in the first King of Prism movie was actually reused from Prism Tours, and increased attendance to the prism boys course of that movie including that scene was one of the main reasons King of Prism was greenlit in the first place. So I wonder if this is actually a reference to that.)

This crazy umbrella street is apparently based on a real place in Nagasaki (nowhere near Tokyo).

I just happened to catch a Tweet about it right after Part 4 came out.

So..... I actually wasn’t as excited for Shin and Louis’ date as you would think I’d be. I spent a while thinking about it and I came up with a couple reasons. First of all, even though this is the first date they have had in the main series, in the side materials.... they date all the time. Like seriously! In my mind they have already been dating for years so this was like just another date. 

Second.... honestly...... I don’t really ship Shin and Louis all that much anymore. Or at least not in the way I used to. My feelings about them peaked somewhere in the Pride the Hero era, and have been quietly declining since. And this scene basically sealed it. Their relationship just isn’t what I thought it was. I know in this episode Louis realizes he loves Shin and not Shine, but he took such a long time to reach that conclusion and I’m just so uncomfortable about their relationship being originally based on Rinne’s relationship with Shine. Which was not a healthy relationship. 

Also! It wasn’t 1,000 years since they have seen each other dammit! It was like 20! AT MOST! Right????? Yeah that’s a long time for mortals, but not for a being like Louis that lives for thousands of years. 

Anyway before you send me hate, just know that I’m definitely not saying Shin and Louis shouldn’t be together and I’m certainly not saying that you should agree with me. Both of them deserve happiness, especially Louis. I’m just saying I personally am not as passionate about them the way I used to be. 

But even so....

That didn’t stop me from going to find the location of this scene when I was in Tokyo last week! 

So did Shin pass the smell test or not? Because Louis.... I guess technically........... (nevermind..... not gonna open up that can of worms right now...........)

EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SHOW MAKES ME SO SAD

(Especially thinking about what happens next.) 

 Louis is not at his peak performance condition here. He’s not performing a serious competitive show. Heck, he’s just wearing casual clothing. 

He’s finally realized he loves Shin and not Shine................  All he wants to do is just relive his date with Shin................ THATS ALL.....................

WTF THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THIS ONE 

THIS IS THE MOST BLATANT MISTRANSLATION YET 

He says 君は僕を殺すことができない = You cannot kill me 

Shine tells Rinne (Louis) that she cannot kill him because that would erase Shin’s memories too. He knows Louis cannot stand to lose Shin.

NO

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

HE JUST WANTED TO RECREATE HIS DATE WITH SHIN

HE JUST WANTED TO DO A FUN LITTLE SHOW ABOUT HOW HE LOVES SHIN

THAT’S ALL

WHY

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY 

It took me a long time to appreciate it considering WHAT JUST HAPPENED but this YABEEEEEEEE from Sanada is pretty hilarious. 

This is unfortunately (?) another moment ruined by the new ending music. 

In the theatrical version, this moment is dead silent and it makes it all the more apparent the.... change which has just taken place. It is terrifying. 

But regardless. Now you can probably guess why episode 11 is so painful for me and any fans of Shin..................................

*deep breath*

Okay so. Let’s review. 

Here is my tl;dr of the timeline, from my understanding:

The Rinne/Shine program is created with Rinne for female stars and Shine for male ->  Shine breaks the rules and so Rinne has to erase him -> But Rinne doesn’t erase him completely and promises to find him again -> The Rinne program gets stuck in a loop where she keeps freezing/self destructing because she's trying to find Shine ->  The gods decide to start erasing the memory of the Rinnes -> Rinne keeps falling in love with male stars since she's in charge of male stars now too ->   The events of Rainbow Live happen -> The gods decide to alter the Rinne program to make the body male and restore the memory of the past Rinnes to fix this, creating Louis -> Since Louis has the memory of the past Rinnes he goes to find Shine again -> The events of King of Prism : Louis begins the process of resurrecting Shine in Shin ->  The gods find out and order him to delete Shine again -> Louis still cannot finish the job and cuts himself off from the prism gods, becoming like June -> Louis realizes he loves Shin not Shine but.... -> Louis’ weakened state allows Shine to fully resurrect, and.....

So. There is more to this. But if you would like to come to your own conclusions about what just happened in that final scene and go into the next episode blind, this post is over. Thanks for joining me this far!! 

But if you would like me to explain some more things using spoilers not revealed until the next episode, keep scrolling. 

Obviously you don’t have to!

It’s up to you! 

I just kinda feel like I owe it to you guys. 

(Since I was lucky enough to get my major questions answered right away and not have to wait a week like you guys do.)

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Ready?

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Episode 11 spoilers start here

So I first saw Part 4 on like, 3 hours sleep. So as you can imagine I was having a really hard time taking all this in. And when that last scene happened I was basically plunged into the darkest depths of absolute horror. To think all this time I had been worried about Louis hurting Shin. The opposite had never ever crossed my mind. 

In my first viewing what I thought happened was that Shin had just regained his memories and killed Louis. And for 30 seconds or so, I seriously considered walking out of the theater. Not that I didn’t plan to ever finish watching it, but I just felt I was not ready and needed time to cry and take this all in before continuing to the next episode at the next showing. I was so close and literally the only reason I didn’t leave was because I just didn’t want other people to see me walking out. So I stuck with it and forced myself through the next two episodes. 

And I’m glad I did. Because that’s not what happened. 

The next episode makes it very clear that Shin and Shine are two different people. Shin did not get any memories back in the final scene. Shin is Shin, and Shine is Shine. 

From what I can gather, Shin was born with Shine sealed inside him. He’s like the host. (Whether this technically makes him a reincarnation or not, I’m not sure.) Shin has never had any contact with Shine, but Shine has always been watching life through Shin’s eyes.

The Shin we see walking off at the end of episode 10 is Shine controlling Shin’s body. From the moment he says “Rinne.....” Shine is in control, and Shin as we know him is unconscious. Shin has no memory of the things he does while Shine is controlling him. 

Also, the act of Shine destroying Rinne’s feathers did not kill Louis back there. But as you can imagine, he’s in bad, BAD shape right now.....

[hannah-writes]

The Semiotics of Roswell (aka why Malex is Endgame because the camera says so)

And we’re back with instalment #2 of The Semiotics of Roswell. I’m supposed to be working but eh, who needs to actually have numbers and facts behind what they’re presenting? Losers, that’s who.

Today’s focus is on episode 2 and though I’ve tried to keep my screencaps in order, something wonky happens when I upload it, so I’ll be focusing primarily on individual scenes and the pairings - as before - so plz forgive me if some of the stuff isn’t in chronological order. The Malex stuff definitely will be. 

Also, at some point, I lost the ability to differentiate between the left and the right. #datdyslexiclife

Image heavy, once again! Consider this your friendly neighbourhood warning!

All my semiotic meta can be followed/tracked using the #Semiotics of Roswell tag, and is here on my tumblr. This includes random other semiotic meta that comes at me when I see gif sets.

Part 1 / Reunion Kiss Video Meta / I Never Look Away Video Meta / 

First of all, fuck this show and its lighting. It’s so dark half the time you gotta squint at the screen to see what’s going on. I know CW shows are all about their moody lighting and how it’s meant to help portray dark, gritty realism but the very nature of this show allows them to cover gritty realism without having to swamp our characters in darkness. 

What I do find interesting is in the below screenshot Max is half lit. This seems to come up quite a lot and now we’ve all seen the finale it can be construed as a hint to the duality of their “nature” as aliens, the darkness of the legacy of their race vs the lightness of their nature and love for humanity. (Michael’s general dislike for everything notwithstanding, obviously)

Liz & Max - handprint connecting them - fall into the my-side-your-side framing in this episode. Interestingly, you can see in the shot above that Liz is shot flat, the camera’s at the same level as her and there’s no upward angle. She’s got an even distance mid-shot whereas in direct contrast Max is closer cropped and the angle is slightly up. This is likely an accident, but there’s an insinuation with the camera being tilted up that Max currently is more powerful over Liz. We’d argue that Max would never feel that way; Liz is the hurricane that messes up his mind and his life and he can’t fight her. But his handprint is on her, which means she’s feeling what he’s feeling. This does somewhat blur the lines for her own perception of what she’s feeling and gives Max a modicum of control. This is more obvious as a shooting decision on the basis that they’re both standing and though there’s a height difference between them it can be compensated for by distance. But we always focus on Max’s face when Liz is around, and she dominates far more of his shot (below) than he does of hers (above). 

Conversely, the below two images are our first proper introduction to the Max/Cam dynamic which, ngl, though Echo is my ship, I enjoyed this for the playful dynamic that it was and it helps settle and establish in Max’s character that he is a sucker for strong women who can dominate the heck outta his soft, squishy person. 

Max and Cam show an up-down shot dynamic in this instance purely because he’s sitting and she’s standing, which sets it apart from the one above with Max and Liz since they’re (ostensibly, height difference notwithstanding) on the same level and being shot differently. Cameron and Max here are physically on different levels.

Max is more centrally-right shot, whereas Cameron’s on the right side of the screen; so though she’s framed to be ready to share the screen, Max isn’t which scrubs out the possibility of a true romantic relationship. Max’s position on the left-hand side of the screen - when he is on it - is reserved for Liz (two shots down!).

(Worth pointing out here that Malex is the only ship that is consistently shot with the my-side-your-side, even when they are broken up not together. Liz and Max have their fair share of shots that are on the same side or in the middle, allowing them to bleed into one - I’m thinking of the finale where they’re both lying to each other over the phone, Liz saying she’s fine when she’s been stabbed & Max saying he’s okay when they’re off doing alien things). 

Seriously though fuck the moody lighting of this show. The only mood it’s inducing is frustration and headaches. Stupid show. 

Again here, Echo is displaying the your-side-my-side framing. It’s the reverse of the above scene; they don’t have a set dynamic where there’s one that owns one side of the screen, not like Malex, but that’s actually okay. At this point in time, their relationship is unstable and tumultuous. Here, you can see they’re shot from the same, flat angle and there’s roughly the same zoom ratio used to help keep them in the frame. It’s not close on his face and zoomed out on Liz or vice-versa.

(Seriously, though, we don’t need mood lighting. I’d like to be able to watch the show without squinting)

First Malex scene! 

Which, thankfully, is outside in the day time which has better lighting. My eyes are thankful, episode. Plus, now I get to look at Michael and Alex for a while and spend some time sitting in my happy place.

The first thing that’s apparent here is that Alex and Michael - even though they’re not even in the same place right now - they’re still adhering to the my-side-your-side. Michael comes into the shot from the left and then the camera actually pans with him, tracking to keep him in the left of the shot. He doesn’t drive in and drive out, what we actually see is him driving in, looking to the right side of the frame and then we cut (below). It’s a hark back to the first episode, which is almost a frame-by-frame comparison except at the end Michael knows who’s standing there and the smile on his face feels almost part pleasure and anticipation at seeing Alex and part getting his armour on (sharp smile, sharper wit) because he doesn’t know what’s coming next. After they kissed at the reunion the sort of almost hope on Michael’s face is painful. 

We cut to Alex (on the right-hand side of the screen), sticking up a ‘you have been evicted’ notice. He’s still in his ACUs, which in many senses as a costume choice could be seen as him keeping a distance from Michael. He’s on Official Air Force Business here, so he needs to keep that respectable, responsible distance. The mid-shot here is also a testament to that; he’s being physically distant because of the nature of his job, the nature of how he has changed as a person. The uniform is a barrier as much as it is anything else, similar to the motif of the colour red referencing Liz and Rosa’s armour (Alex wears a red shirt in the pilot, too, and red is a colour that’s quite often seen in Liz’s wardrobe but styling choices are something entirely different and deserves a meta all of its own). We see it quite clearly in episode one, and again here. 

Under the my-side-your-side rules, the (below) shot where is once again telling; Michael’s home is on the right-hand side of this screen (generally where Alex tends to be in their dynamic, on the right, though it was the left hand of Michael’s that was ruined by Jesse Manes the destruction of their relationships started then and has spiralled out of control ever since, the right-hand side of the screen where home is, where Alex is even if neither of them is willing to admit it just yet, moving across to the right is a step forward, away from the pain of the left, in this framing, Alex represents being closer to home than anything else) and Alex has moved into the left-hand side of the frame. They’re not even remotely in the middle, Alex has gone into Michael’s side of the frame.

There’s a physical barrier - a pole - between them and the house in the shot which carves it in two; Malex and home, visually separated by a stark line down the middle. The lights that are in the frame are dim, and intrusive on the shot. It’s also shot at a further distance than we’re used to, items cluttering the right but a huge open space on the left for Malex. The huge open space, however, makes them look small and tight in their togetherness vs the vast open New Mexico landscape. Them against the emptiness of the world, tight and crammed together.

Visual meta aside, there’s no need for Alex to be so physically close to Michael when he moves away from the door of the airstream, he could have taken any direction - any path - to his vehicle but the one he chose was through Michael. Even now he can’t stay away, can’t fight the tug and push and pull that draws him in.

The vast emptiness of the previous shot is directly contrasted then to the sudden and quick cut the two of them, Michael grabbing Alex and pulling him closer, tugging him in and taunting him. It’s almost a reverse of their dance in the pilot; Michael moves in close, uses Alex’s ACUs to tug him in (tugging on his armour). The camera’s close over Alex’s shoulder and though it’s Michael’s face in the shot, Alex still dominates the frame. We aren’t supposed to be looking at anything else, our eyes aren’t meant to be focused on anything other than this moment right here. 

When we move to look at Alex’s point of view (and I don’t know if anyone’s commented on how Alex reaches out for Michael almost instinctively when Michael tugs him in like a reflex but then grips his hand to pull him away because he’s an airman now and he’s not the man he used to be, literally and metaphorically) the frame is further away, but Alex is still dominating the frame, both his side and Michael’s. It gives us a clue as to Michael’s headspace; Alex is still a huge driving force in his life, in his mind. So even though he’s sassing, he wants to be closer. Alex is the one putting distance between them, here. It’s immediately followed by Michael sassing him which is pretty much Michael’s MO as a defence mechanism; Alex said ‘nope, we can’t do that again’ and Michael’s immediate response is to lash out, go on the defensive, play on the town drunk. (More here in the video breakdown)

OKAY. So, I’m aware that wikipedia isn’t the best resource for information due to it being able to be edited by literally anyone, but here is a link to the USAF insignia and those definitely look like Captain bars, to me, which would mean that teenager Alex “screw authority” Manes grew up to become Captain Manes, and outranks his dad. I’m not an expert on the military at all, and so if you want to know more I would 100% suggest you go read this by the awesome @ober-affen-geil who breaks down the military stuff that we see on the show. Also everything else they’ve written. It’s good. I got lost in her meta tag trying to write this.

Having told Michael to move his rig and there’s separate space between them again, Alex and Michael return to opposite sides of the screen. The contrast here is immense; Alex’s bright “yeah, we’re not supposed to build on Santa’s workshop, either” comment is flippant and bright, there are no shadows on his face or covering him at all as he makes a joke that Michael knows is anything but. The darkness on the shadows over Michael’s face (below) are a clever lighting choice which shows conflict and unrest. Not just because Alex is leaving, but because the Air Force are buying up The Crash Site. 

Okay, then some stuff happens and I’ll dip into that during the video meta, but then really, the bit that everyone’s interested in. I’ve only included two shots of Cameron and Max’s sex scene because eh, we all know that it’s a you-scratch-my-back kind of situation but it’s cool to look at the positioning vs Malex in theirs. 

So there’s something deeply impersonal about how this is shot, it’s distant and wide-angled, the two of them are pressed together but there’s nothing there that tells us this is anything more than a quick shag in the kitchen. There’s no use of any of the motifs we come to associate with our key pairings (Echo it’s the sun, Malex it’s colour and hands). We’re watching this from a distance, an observer of the most casual kind. There’s a lot going on (what the hell are all those post-its, is that her fridge? Her counter is kinda cluttered, it’s handy her stove’s in the middle of the room on a bank of its own. That green container’s full of shit, are they all her spoons and spatulas and stuff?) which means that our eye isn’t immediately drawn to the hot shirtless Max and really hot off the shoulder shit action Cameron has going on there. It’s distant and impersonal and we’re not meant to get invested.

It’s deliberately interspersed between Malex because of the contrast; casual fuck vs two people coming together after a long time and a decade (minus a couple of days) of longing all culminating in a passionate and desperate kiss. There’s desperation between Max and Cameron too but it’s different. 

So. The second Malex scene.

One of the things I really like about this first shot is how little everything looks. We never see the exterior of Isobel’s house, but from the way it’s shot when we do see it, it’s busy and cluttered and home. Both Max and Michael’s places are set further out; Max’s house is surrounded by empty, isolated space, representative of how lonely he feels - though he’s got Isobel, she’s married and happy and he lost Michael the night Rosa died. 

Michael, too, this shot of his air-stream with the truck in front of it is so small. Alex’s car (SUV? I’m not good with car makes) is right in the centre of the screen and you can see Alex moving into Michael’s space. There’s so much amazing meta out there about their relationship that I could only distantly dream of creating, however there’s a point here about Alex being the one to consistently reach out, and @chasingshhadows did a piece on how Alex speaks with his body - Michael throws words out but Alex talks with touch, with action - and this is the first we see of it: Alex going to Michael, going into his space physically. It makes Alex and Michael look so small in comparison to the expanse around them (and, because I’m a hopeless shipper, small in comparison to the magnitude of their cosmic fucking love, fight me). 

(I’m definitely gonna find a video and do a video meta like I did with the kiss, because ~reasons. REASONS, I TELL YOU)

We see Alex on the left here, starting out, his vulnerability has already been highlighted by how small and tiny he looks walking towards the trailer in a phenomenally wide shot (above). This whole seventeen again talk just breaks me. Not gonna lie. This might get a bit incoherent.

Michael’s in the middle-left of the frame, his position already defensive. His truck’s at his back and the open landscape is in focus behind him (where it was blurred behind Alex above). There’s a vastness that’s indicative of something greater; the use of space to make the two of them seem closer is such a clever choice. The backdrop of distance gives a sense of closeness and isolation to Michael’s trailer, but also to this conversation and them as two people alone in the wilderness (it definitely gives off that kind of vibe). 

Ugh, just. My heart. This scene. Alex approaching Michael (this is, of course, after Isobel’s pointed “is there really no one you would risk everyone to save?” comment at the Pony - which correct me if I’m wrong but we haven’t even seen M&M interacting yet, so all of these heavy lines, the dialogue cues, everything supports our cosmic love story, right from the getgo.)

They full on invade each other’s framing here; Michael in the middle-left, Alex in the middle-right, the vulnerability of the situation and the backdrop forcing them to share a space that’s intimiate. The camera’s close, but it’s not too close, so we’re more intimate than the (to be spliced but analysed above) scenes of Cameron and Max and these guys have their clothes on. (And Alex isn’t in his ACUs because he’s not on official business but his father seems to wear them all the time which means the dude needs to take a break every now and then but it’s also significant because that is one of Alex’s barriers down; he’s in his own clothes, clothes that are comfortable and not a uniform that he’s hidden behind and squished himself into a box to wear. It’s another step, another concession to being something for Michael)

The invasion of the frame is important; it sets up an inability to stay out of each other’s space, something that’s all part of a cosmic love story - you know, I’m not sure if you heard this but the two of them just connected like something cosmic - how they drift in and out of each other’s space, right from the first time they see each other.

I promised a video breakdown of the scene and here it is: I never look away, not really, A Cinematographic Breakdown - Part of The Semiotics of Roswell Meta. 

I’ll wait. Come back when you’ve watched them make out some. I’ll stick the link at the bottom again, just in case.

So even though they’ve been invading each other’s spaces this entire scene so far, this is the second time Michael watches Alex walk away and the way he surges to grab hold of him, how he takes up the entire frame just by stretching his arm out and rocking his body and the expanse of wilderness behind him is so telling about where his state is. He’s alone in the world and the person who’s making him feel less alone - who is also alone in the world - is moving away. 

When Alex looks back at him, they’ve got their my-side-your-side framing on and Michael’s still a presence felt here, even though Alex is meant to be the focus. Our eyes follow Alex’s gaze, which tracks us over to Michael. In the seconds that follow, as we all know, they go into the trailer to start it rockin’. But the camera never leaves the close, focused attention it bathes Malex in here. We’re meant to look at them both, unlike Cam & Max, there’s nothing else to focus on here but them. No interesting cupboard or fridge displays, no beer bottle and random green thing filled with utensils. Just Michael and Alex.

Before diving into the framing of the kiss, I just want to touch on the circular nature of this scene. We see it starting with this same wide shot, Alex and Michael looking tiny and alone, we end it with the same shot but neither of them are there. This serves as a reminder of how alone they are right now, how separate and distant and isolated which then gives us a real sense of claustrophobia and intimacy and allows us to feel the difference in vibe between outside and inside (as if we don’t already, but you know what I mean).

Here in the two shots above we see Alex looking ready to instigate, moving into Michael’s side of the frame and though we know it’s Michael that crashes into Alex, the implication here is that Alex is the initiator; he turned up at the ranch, he walked into the air stream (I will never get over Michael’s shaking hand), he’s the one that leans forward here to tell Michael yes, this, i want this now please. We follow from a fixed camera position, frozen in anticipation as to what’ll happen next.

The whole rest of the scene is dizzying; they surge together to the middle of the screen and we’re looking up at this kiss, the camera’s tilted upwards so we’re in a lower position, signifying the importance and overbearing nature of this relationship, how it makes the camera move and swing and then we get the close up on their kisses (below) and they dominate the frame so close and tight that there’s literally no room for anything else.

We shift angles a little here; though it’s all pretty quick for something so steamy and epic. We go from a off-centre shot (above) to a centre shot (below) which gives us the full glory of Alex’s fingers sinking and twisting in Michael’s hair as they kiss like it’s the only oxygen in the tiny space. We’re still crowded close and tight, there’s no room to breathe which allows the audience to get truly caught up in the moment. We’re back viewing them from a level angle, too, allowing us to get sucked in.

The snap away from the close up to the mid-shot is purposeful and the centre focus of Michael (below) gives us a moment to breathe without actually allowing us any space from what’s happening. This taps back into the voyeuristic tone of the Malex kisses, though, as the camera bobs as a person would, Alex and Michael’s world rocking the same way ours does at the realisation that they are about to do the sex thing.

Excuse me, Michael Vlamis, how dare you have such a fucking filthy expression on your face (below) and not expect this pairing to have sailed more ship than Helen of Troy? 

The camera swings again, cutting to Michael pushing Alex onto the bed. Over the progression of the scene, it’s been slowly swamped in a sort of 1980s dusky yellow, adding a sense of nostalgia, almost sinking the scene into sepia. It feels like a dance they’ve done before, the force with which Michael pushes Alex back (below) makes Alex look almost like he’s not sure that they’re gonna go through with this - maybe it’s too much, it’s too long (close up angle, can’t breathe, sepia-yellow like tea-stained photographs - too old, is it the past?) but then Michael strips and we all scream into oblivion. 

Up next week, episode 1x03! Until next time, folks!

(tagging by request: @space-malex​, @istilfeelicantrustyou​, @ineverthoughtiwouldneedasideblog​, @lire-casander​, @i-never-look-away​, @stydiaeverafter​, @signoraviolettavalery​, @saadiestuff​, @callieramics​, @ubiestcaelum​, @tasyfa. if you wanna be tagged in future posts, let me know!)

[sabotajuu-a]

                    Out of respect for my fellow roleplayers here, I didn’t want to reblog the original post with all of this so that the images didn’t stretch everyone’s dashboards, and I could put this under a read more.   The posts I’m referring to are @savagedesign‘s HERE, my response HERE, as well as THESE SCREENSHOTS of @discandi‘s post ( since I can’t link the post from the blog itself, nor force it to appear as a dashboard link ).   Apologies for the long post.

                    Regardless, here’s the tea:

                    First and foremost, I want to get the legalities out of the way.   The original poster states that the game’s box rating is M for MATURE, or 17+.   For the sake of posting my own information AS LINKED HERE for collateral’s sake, we can see from GameStop’s official website that the rating is the same where I live, which is in the UNITED STATES.   Other countries have mixed ratings, because other countries have their own laws regarding the proper age group to view said content.   So, while there are countries who say a game is rated 18+, and others state the ratings are 15+, so on and so forth, there are still laws that need to be discussed and taken into account.

                    The problem lies in the complications of differing laws across borders.   Just because you live in a country where the maturity age is considered 15+ to view and participate within certain types of media, doesn’t mean that you aren’t endangering other users across borders by writing the content within said media, where their country’s maturity age is 17+ or 18+.   To put it simply, A 15 YEAR OLD WRITING DEAD BY DAYLIGHT’S CONTENTS WITH SOMEONE IN THE UNITED STATES WHERE THE LAW IS 17+, PUTS THE OLDER INDIVIDUAL IN A POSITION WHERE THEY CAN BE HELD LEGALLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR DISREGARD TO THEIR COUNTRY’S LAWS.   And that, my friends, is called CORRUPTION OF A MINOR, because as far as the United States is concerned, you, as a person under 17 playing this game and partaking in its contents, are still a minor, regardless of the laws in your country.

                    And want to know why that’s a problem?   Because it can completely and utterly ruin that 17 year old’s life.   NSFW content is an umbrella term for all things considered within gore, smut / sexual themes, intense violence, blood, strong language, and things of the like.   Writing ANY NSFW content with a minor, regardless of any legalities determining age of consent for any and all media, is still illegal.   Allow me to source things that are applicable to this situation from my perspective, meaning me as a writer having to abide by the United States’ laws regarding content that is RATED M FOR MATURE.

                    ENTERTAINMENT SOFTWARE RATING BOARD ( ESRB )   :                                         MATURE RATING DEFINITION

Content is generally suitable for ages 17 and up. May contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.

                    CONTENT DESCRIPTIONS   :

INTENSE VIOLENCE: Graphic and realistic-looking depictions of physical conflict. May involve extreme and/or realistic blood, gore, weapons and depictions of human injury and death.

BLOOD AND GORE: Depictions of blood or the mutilation of body parts.

SEXUAL CONTENT: Non-explicit depictions of sexual behavior, possibly including partial nudity.

STRONG LANGUAGE: Explicit and/or frequent use of profanity.

                    These ratings and descriptions are put in place to protect individuals from exposure to darker and more adult themes.   This is why employees are LEGALLY REQUIRED to ask for identification when a person is purchasing age-restricted media, and why employees are further required to seek consent from a legal adult while mapping out the media’s contents when applicable.

                    The content ratings are meant to protect age groups from content that they are deemed too young to view as mapped out by a chosen government.   This is meant to ensure a person is old enough to handle seeing intense violence, blood and gore, while also hearing strong language or viewing implied sexual themes, and knowing that what’s going on in said media is NOT to blur the lines of real life’s morality.   So in Dead by Daylight’s case, the maturity rating is put in place because we have serial killers running around slaughtering survivors, cannibalizing them, snagging them in bear traps, chainsawing them, poisoning them, and then slapping them onto hooks.   Not to mention that Hag literally has one of her nipples out, which is still considered sexual in some definitions of the law.   We need to ensure that people under the given age aren’t going to go around tossing hatchets at pedestrians on the street, or electrocuting people with tasers or live wires, just because they’ve seen it in a video game.

                    While studies show that video games don’t make people violent, it’s very clear that there are situations where others may commit crimes inspired by the media they’ve digested before the recommended age, with or without parental consent or guidance.   Let’s move on to the legalities.

                    CORRUPTION OF MINORS                                         DEFINITION

Although it’s a pretty loose definition, the Pennsylvania Superior Court defines the phrase as “corrupting the morals of a minor” by explaining that it includes actions that would offend the common sense, sense of decency, propriety, and morality.

                    TITLE 18   SECTION 6301 ( a ) ( 1 ) ( i )   :                                         NON-SEXUAL CORRUPTION OF MINORS

Corruption of Minors is graded as a 1st Degree Misdemeanor punishable by up to 5 years in jail and a $10,000 fine. Since the offense is non-sexual in nature, an offense under Subsection (a)(1)(i) does not trigger sexual offender registration requirements under the Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).

A person commits an offense under the subsection if he or she is 18 years of age or older, and commits one of the following acts: - The offender commits an act that corrupts or tends to corrupt the morals of any minor less than 18 years of age; OR ( cutting it here since the first one is all that applies here )

                    This literally maps it out right there.   To simplify it, a person who is 18+ engaging in media that is considered mature with someone who is below that age is committing a crime, whether they know it or not.   Because it isn’t SEXUAL CORRUPTION OF MINORS, the older party isn’t being put on the sexual offenders registry, but they do serve jail time, FIVE YEARS OF IT, which may make it difficult for them to find a job in the future, or assimilate within society when they’re out.   It is still damaging to a person’s life.

                    Now yes, a 2011 ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court found that video games are a constitutionally-protected form of expression, and that laws restricting their SALE OR RENTAL based upon violent content are unconstitutional.   However, this is restricted to just that, the sale or rental of violent video games.   If, say, a parent were to find the content you were writing with another person, and they disagreed with it and contacted authorities, the other person could still be charged if their country’s laws differ from your own, and they could serve some serious jail time while paying serious fines to the government, as well as paying for a lawyer to try and fight these accusations placed upon them from your negligence.

                    Therefore, @discandi, your statement     In fact here is the games rating in MY country     holds no validity to the argument because it doesn’t matter when you’re possibly endangering others.   The fandom is so up in arms about individuals under 18 writing in the community because of the content as advertised, because that potential about endangering another’s life in legal terms is a genuine threat.   We’re not completely saying minors can’t write mature content, we’re just asking minors to respect a writer’s individual boundaries without getting pissy about it.

                    Let’s get into the other portions of the debate, shall we?   @discandi‘s post   ( as linked in the first little introduction )   features some points that I have to disagree with, and that I find appalling.   Firstly, calling the community a bunch of freaks is a big assumption, and pinning the whole ra.pe fetishization argument on the entire community is an even bigger assumption.   Not all Dead by Daylight roleplayers are entirely into writing the super dark content, and in truth the community is EXTREMELY against portraying ra.pe, or writing du.bcon.   Take into account the community’s DISTASTE for the Freddy / Quentin ship.   People shipping killers and survivors together is not ra.pe since both parties are ABLE TO CONSENT considering all survivors are confirmed to be 21+, and all killers are confirmed to be 21+ with the exception of Legion’s members.   Frank and Joey are 18 - 19, while Julie and Susie are still in that unconfirmed area of being under, on, or over 18.

                    And now I just have to map out the tags in @discandi‘s post, as screencapped by me:

                    Your logic of equating people who write darker themes to enjoying and justifying ra.pe fetishization is extremely flawed, because generalizing the fandom into this umbrella assumption without any real solid evidence to back it up is quite unfair to those of us who just want to write out the gore, or the murder, or the potential verses and character dynamics to be explored.   Are there people in the Dead by Daylight community who fetishize ra.pe?   Sure, but you will always find people like that in ANY FANDOM.   MLP, League of Legends, Steven Universe, Supernatural, Soulsborne, Red Dead Redemption, Disney, the list could go on and you’ll still find some no.ncon fetishization in the media as produced.   None of us ever said it was okay or valid of them to do that, and we in fact tend to voice our distaste for it.

                    In my time roleplaying on this site, which has been seven, almost eight years now, I have never seen anyone write out ra.pe or no.ncon or du.bcon in roleplay.   Even in a fandom that features a game as horrid as OUTLAST did I never see someone write out or fetishize these aspects in roleplay, even when you have those featured and implied in the actual game itself.

                    So saying that people who write darker themes and are uncomfortable with minors writing with them in similar media are just ra.pe fetishist freaks is a HUGE STRETCH to make.

                    In addition, bringing up @starlyht‘s reply to me, as screencapped HERE:

                    I never said a minors have never played a mature game, nor did I say minors haven’t engaged in material marked as mature.   Hell, I’m sure everyone’s done it.   What I’m saying is that SOME people, not all, are uncomfortable with minors writing mature content because it puts them at risk.   It opens up the possibility of legal troubles, or just doesn’t sit right with their personal morals because they’re 18+ and just writing with minors is uncomfortable.

                    And just when I thought I was done, here we have @hallowkills with their VERY UNINSIGHTFUL POST which I’m so glad to have seen before hitting post.   You’re going to come on here and get involved in this discussion, when you’ve made one of the most hilariously hypocritical posts that counteracts the comment you’ve made pertaining to the argument at hand.

                    On July 24, 2019, you posted:

ok little psa but if you rp a muse that’s like... from disney or any media that’s primarily directed at children (like cartoons, etc) i’m probably going to block you because this is a slasher blog and michael is not compatible with those sort of muses

                                        (   PROOF HERE   )     (   TAG PROOF   )

                    Okay, that’s respectable and understandable.   Personal preference, I get that, but then one of your tags proceeded to state:

                    Which can essentially be taken as your refusal to write with adults who write characters from children’s cartoons because you don’t trust them.   The same can be said about adults who don’t want to write with minors who write adult characters or adult media.   It makes some of us uncomfortable, and in some ways, it’s illegal.   So why are WE being called gatekeepers, or ra.pe fetishists, or harassers when we could just as easily pin the same thing on minors who write adult characters and media?

                    And then you continued to make a post today shown HERE, screencapped just in case you decide to delete it.   How hypocritical do you have to be?   Imagine being a minor and getting mad about adults writing characters that carry nostalgia from their childhood.   God forbid someone enjoys something when it’s harming nobody.   However, minors writing adult content with certain people CAN harm them, punishable by law, and that’s the tea.

                    Checkmate, thank you.   Hope the free educating helps.   Have a wonderful day / evening, I think I’ve made my point and earned my rest before work.   You’re more than welcome to continue the conversation in IMs, as I won’t be clogging my dash up any more than I already have.

                    And before you ask for sources, I’m a criminal justice major.   I will happily post a picture of my degree on request, with personal information blocked out of course, and post proof of my education completion.   Sources regarding the law are from online, some textbooks, and my own knowledge of how the law works.

[sieben9]

“beauty” impressions

{Quick request to anyone reading: I’m watching OUaT for the first time, and I want to avoid spoilers. So, if you want to discuss something spoilery, I’d be grateful if you could start a new post for that. Thank you!}

Well… That sure happened

Now that I am nothing more than the hollowed-out, broken shell of a person, let me share my feelings with you! But under the cut. (Fair warning: there is a lot of sadness in here. Proceed with caution and maybe a mug of hot chocolate. Also, don’t open this on mobile. I went a bit screencap-happy.)

I loved this episode? So much? I know, I was really subtle about it, and it’s possible to miss amidst all the crying but hoooly crap, this is easily among my Top 3, I think.

Alright, quick rundown of the “side plots”, because while That Thing™ is definitely at the forefront of my mind after watching, the other stuff going on was actually pretty good and important plot developments. Which, really is another point in the episode’s favour. Yes, the Halloween-plot worked well to space out the other stuff, and it provided some much-needed relief of tension, but it was clearly important in its own right, so…

Guh. Henry. You know I love you, but I will also find a way to smack you in the head with a rolled-up newspaper, because you are an idiot. …yes, I get that he feels like he just lost his family all over again, and that’s not something that inclines people to adventurous behaviour, but still. You were so close!

Instead, we get this:

Which, uh… I’m not saying Ivy shouldn’t have good things in life, because lord knows, that was a sad, sad story right there, but this also did not sound like you two will be good for each other. Neither of you really want a safe, “uncomplicated” romantic relationship, you want a family. Ivy, specifically, needs someone to who doesn’t just love her conditionally, and Henry… well, Henry mostly just needs to wake up from the curse, because what he wants will be all over the place until he does.

Still, Ivy’s moment of bravery when saying that she’ll deal with Belfrey and the others should enjoy their Halloween was pretty heart-warming. Did I mention that this lady worries me? I’m worried for her, and I am still worried about her.

In other news: I’m pretty sure I know where Hook’s daughter is, now.

the rook is a metaphor

I mean, I could still be wrong, but that seems like one hell of a red herring to put out. And it opens up so many questions! Did they meet again before the curse, or is this a horrible game of emotional keepaway? Does Rumple know who these two are to each other? What, exactly, is his relationship with Tilly/Alice? I mean, he was so ready to fight Tremaine over her, before and after he woke up, and he went into 107% Concerned Dad Mode when he thought she was hurting, so he clearly feels very protective of her, but when did that happen? How did that happen? Is she actually this “guardian” or is that Henry? Or is this just one big prophecy-screw, after all? Seriously, you’d think after that first disastrous experience, Rumple would have learned to never trust a prophecy. Ever. Why am I the only one here who remembers that??

Ahem. Anyways. Lots of potential there. I can’t wait to see how that one unfolds.

Other highlights included Weaver butting heads with Belfrey. It was glorious. I almost wish Rumple had woken up just a little bit later, because watching these two go up against each other was a pure delight.

Also, this:

presented without comment

…look, I’m only human.

I was also deeply amused by the conversation between Weaver and Rogers. Okay, maybe “amused” isn’t quite the word, because it’s clear that Roger’s cold case is how the curse incorporated his search for his daughter into his memories, so it could keep torturing him with the loss. Which, you know, doesn’t really qualify as amusing. But Weaver is the walking, talking personification of that meme “’I don’t care,’ I say, caringly, as I care way too much.”

Yes, it is immediately obvious that you do not care about anyone. At all. Not even a little.

pictured: a lying liar who lies

Really, the relationship between Weaver and Tilly might just have made it on the top of my list for this season, on the strength of this episode alone. The way this kind of terrible person cared so deeply for young woman, showed concern for her well-being, and directly jeopardised his own advantage and safety to help her just pushed aaaall of my buttons.

And Tilly’s mounting desperation to remind Weaver of who he really is, before she loses herself again was heart-breaking to watch. She knew she wasn’t getting out of this with her mind in once piece, but right until the end she didn’t stop fighting to help her friend.

…look, “help” looks different for different people, alright?

And with that…

Thanks, show! It’s not like I really needed my heart in the first place. Fantastic light, though.

So, I pretty much knew what was coming (in general terms at least), because… well, I had some warning and it didn’t take that much guessing in the first place. And I saw the “how” the moment that montage started because I, too, have seen Up.

I still cried like a hungry baby. My cat was very concerned.

please. your face. I cannot deal with this.

This was such a well-told story. They really gave it their all to show that yes, these two were happy, at the end. The montage, for one, which even for people who haven’t seen Up works as a good visual shorthand. The nostalgic clutter in the house. The fact that these two dorks still dance around the house when they feel like it. All the little gestures between them—the fond looks, the little tuck of a blanket, Rumple matching Belle’s steps perfectly as they walk out into the garden. I just… they were so happy together.

And I’m glad they told the story like this. Nothing bad happened to Belle. Her life wasn’t some inspiring tragedy or anything like that. She spent her life with her True Love. She raised her son and saw him grow up well. She got to fulfil her dream of travelling the world, and did so together with the people she loved most. And she died after a long and happy life, not in some grand, dramatic fashion, but simply because that is what mortals do. We die.

hi, is anyone else absolutely convinced that he carved that with his own two hands rather than use magic? because I am and I want to share my feelings! there’s quite a lot of them…

And just… you know, when that conversation with Gideon happens, and Rumple says ruefully that time might have stood still for this realm, but it didn’t for Belle… you just know he forgot about it. They were together, and they were happy, and he was so determined to spend the rest of his life with her that he didn’t realise what was happening right until she fell off that ladder. It’s clear they’d never talked about him using his magic to rejuvenate her before—that was the first time the topic ever came up, I think. And the last, of course.

(By the way, there’s totally a conversation about fridging to be had here, but I’d prefer that to be another post. I’m really deep in my feelings right now and I’d rather leave putting on the analytical hat for later in the day.)

Obviously, that entire death scene fucked me up. His face. Her face. The way they told each other their own story like it was a fairy tale (because it was!) Rumple’s half-sobbing “I am afraid”, because he sees the rest of his life without Belle looming before him and he doesn’t know how to do it. He never planned to, in the first place. And then she was gone, and he was crying, and I was crying, and the camera cut away, and you could still hear him sobbing in the background god why...

yes, I will be interspersing this with pictures of my OTP being happy and in love, why do you ask?

And while I’m a bit sad that I’ll never find out what Weaver really wanted, this very clearly sets the stage for Rumple’s motivations and goals this season. Because this episode, beautiful as it was (no pun intended), can’t be the last entry of the Rumbelle story. This was the end of act 2, and I insist on a third act. The stage is all set: Rumple needs to get rid of the dagger so he can be reunited with Belle, which, granted, a bit dark. Considering it means he’s going to die (and won’t that be a fun day…) At the same time… he said it himself: he’s seen the generations pass by and he doesn’t even want to be immortal anymore. He was planning to spend the rest of his life with Belle. Just because he wasn’t physically able to doesn’t invalidate the decision he made. He’ll just have to get there the long way around.

And can I just mention how damn impressed with Rumple’s character development I was? He threw away the dagger! Not in a moment of “do or die” crisis, not as part of an “either, or” ultimatum, no, he was just… done with all that. He didn’t want the Dark One anymore, and nobody had to push him into that realisation. So much for “my power means more to me than you”, huh, past!Rumple? (Also, is it just me or did it feel a little like he waited for Belle to be roughly his physical age to do that? Because it did to me, and I have a lot of emotions about that.)

though I might giggle for a while about how Belle went grey the way an Urban Fantasy protagonist would

Other highlights included, but are not limited to:

The neverending stream of loving looks, from soft fondness to full-on bedroom eyes...

Local Dork Caught Staring Lovingly At His Wife

Also, is there a version of that first scene where Gideon doesn’t show up? Asking for a friend.

The Skin Deep parallels!

did I open up Skin Deep to get that first screencap? of course I did.

Just… guh, my heart! And the poor cup got shattered.

Again.

Everything about that last confrontation between Alice (because at that point she could barely remember ever being Tilly) and Weaver messed me up, by the way. Her mounting desperation, because she didn’t have much time left. His frantic pleading, first because he was worried she’d hurt herself and then that she’d do something she wouldn’t be able to come back from.

And, of course, that last scene between Rumple (welcome back, buddy!) and Tremaine. I’d almost feel sorry for the woman, because she probably wasn’t counting on this happening. Though I would disagree with Rumple’s “there’s nothing you can do to hurt me”--you, my friend, just lied your ass off to help Tilly get out of trouble for shooting you. After waking up. Clearly there’s some people you still care about, and I can’t wait to see how that plays out, honestly.

And there’s so much more. I could just post stills of the entire montage here, really, because it was wonderful and I loved it, even as it cracked open my ribcage and held my still-beating heart up to my eyes so I could see the life go out of it.

…ahem. All right. Deep breath.

Like I said at the top, this episode actually had some important developments that seem like they will be catalysts to kicking the plot into gear. …and as soon as my emotional batteries have recharged, I’m sure I will be very excited about that. In the meantime… please send fluff?

Oh, on that note: I want to thank everyone who tagged me in stuff. You are amazing, and I am incredibly grateful! It’ll take a while to go through it all, but I do look at all the little @s in my notifications, and they fill me with joy. (In other news: prepare for some dashboard spam over the next... ::checks drafts:: three months or so.)

[head-and-heart]

The 100 Highlights - “Exit Wounds” (5x06) ... 2.0

Hi guys. So some of you may be reading this title in mild confusion right now because “didn’t she already do a highlight post for 5x06?” 

And you would be right! I did, indeed, create a highlights post for this episode that you can view here. And I would be lying if I said it didn’t bring me some level of satisfaction in posting it, but - alas - it does not really fit the purpose of this series in the first place ... which was to spur positivity within the fandom for whenever we experience another inevitable meltdown.

My initial purpose of starting this series was, ironically enough, exactly for episodes like 5x06 - the episodes that fandom despises. I did a highlight post for 4x04 last year, another episode many people did not enjoy, in an attempt to put a more positive spin on it and lift the moods of people in fandom. My motivation for creating this series was mostly in the attempt to preserve the sanity of myself and the fandom as a whole.

So, forgive my petty crackpost. While I had my fun with it, it was always my intention to do another, more serious list of highlights for the episode when I gathered up the energy to do a rewatch.

So here it is. The new and improved (????) list of my favourite parts of 5x06:

People of Wonkru, hello and welcome to the 100th annual Hunger Games. I have to say, I did appreciate my wife, Charmaine Diyoza’s homage to THG. She grew up in the early 2000′s, she knows what’s up. Dropping a bunch of parachutes from the sky full of rations? Now that’s a power move. A woman after my heart.

“Two missiles and this war would be over.” “And then what? How many of our people are farmers? How many are engineers?”

Seriously CHARMAINE IS SO SMART. She’s not rash, she’s calculating. And she doesn’t fight needless battles. She isn’t here to kill, she’s here to take the valley. But she’s also willing to negotiate peace in order to reach her goals - she isn’t irrational, and she isn’t cruel. Never have I ever rooted for an “antagonist” on this show more. Every episode she just gets more likable and more relatable. She says everything I’m thinking, I swear.

“In war the greatest victory is the one that requires no battle.” I don’t think there has been a person in power on this show who has ever verbalized such a thing. It’s no wonder Kane is siding with Diyoza. Even if Octavia wasn’t such a tyrant, how could he resist teaming up with the one person who actually practices what he’s been preaching for all these years?

“We’re the only thing that can defeat us.” Why does this line feel like foreshadowing? 

Okay, I have to take a moment to scream (again) about how aggressively into Gaia’s look I am. Damn girl. No idea how you bleached your hair down there but good on you. Good. On. You.

“Gina at Mount Weather. Ilian in the conclave. Me, on that damn cliff.”

Listen. I fucking cheered at that line. I cheered. And I don’t think I have ever cheered for Octavia in anything she has ever done, or said, since maybe Season 2. I am not an Octavia fan. I’ve been pretty vocal about that, but this is one of the few moments during the series in which I could actually understand and empathize with her, because in this episode she voiced everything that the audience has been thinking AND. IT. WAS. SO. VINDICATING.

First of all, shout out to my girl, Gina Martin. You were the realest, and you deserved better. RIP. I don’t think it is actually possible that I could ever dislike any line that acknowledges her.

Second of all, Marie SLAYED the delivery of this line. Her voice actually breaks when she references Echo almost killing her in 4x04. I was trying to place what it was about Octavia in this scene that I liked and I realized: she may be swinging a sword, but that is not Blodreina talking. Underneath that armour is Octavia. And, judging by the way she clutches her stomach, she can still feel the wounds inflicted on that day on the cliff. Now, however, it isn’t Echo who is holding the sword: it’s Bellamy. This isn’t Blodreina holding up a facade to maintain her power; this is Octavia expressing real pain. And I may not agree with how she treats her brother, but this is perhaps the one case in which her argument is completely, and totally valid. 

I don’t know if Marie clutching her stomach like that, right where the scar would be, was an acting choice or a directing choice but I really liked that small detail.

“Why are we even doing this? So your sister can go to war? What happened to us being the good guys?” Thank you, my precious Monty, for being the light this world needs. Now go ditch Wonkru and join up with my wife Charmaine. 

Listen, I cannot describe how initially soothed I was when I heard Niylah’s accent. Finally, someone seeking out my girl Clarke! It felt like old times (and this is coming from someone who never used to give two shits about Niylarke, if I’m honest). *sigh* 

“I’m sorry. It’s just, everything’s so different.” God, my heart BROKE for Clarke so many times during this episode. I feel so much for her and it’s just SO easy to connect with her this season. She’s definitely my favourite character after the time jump, thus far, and I’m loving every second that we get of her. 

I already said that I never really cared much for Niylarke but giving her that black panther was CUTE. Sue Me.

“You saved our lives, again. Thank you by the way.” “That wasn’t me; that was Bellamy.” First of all, my girl is getting the acknowledgement she deserves. Second of all, I will take my crumbs - thank you very much.

I’m not going to lie: The 100 can disappoint in many ways, but the soundtrack never does. Tree Adam’s score was slaying the game in this episode, especially in the scene with Niylah and Clarke. That track was beautiful. It had the perfect amount of softness and nostalgia and melancholy and I loved it.

“How do you explain the sun to someone who’s never seen it?” This line was so eery and creepy HOLY shit. But I loved it, even as much as it broke my heart to realize that the one person who sought Clarke out in this episode was only using her for information. 

“I can still tell when you’re lying.” dark!Niylah - I never knew I would be so intrigued.

“Gaia, what are you doing?” “Protecting the last true natblida, as my order has always done.” BA DUM TISS

That plot twist ... I have to admit that I honestly did NOT see that coming. I was sure that Gaia was shoved straight up Octavia’s asshole. I cannot express how much gratification it brings me to know that Gaia was playing her the entire time. As Murphy would say, “that’s a survivor’s move.”

“I’m not the one you should be afraid of.” Seriously, the story potential this twist opens up for Clarke, Gaia, Octavia, and Madi is just OFF the charts. I cannot wait to see where this goes.

The entire interaction between Gaia, Niylah, and Clarke was simply fascinating. Three woman who I didn’t know I needed to interact this much.

“I don’t enjoy seeing you suffer, John.” “Then why’d you leave me.” I’ve never been a diehard Memori stan (just casually enjoyed it) but goddamn this episode was prime angst material for them. I have such a weakness for angst, my friends.

“You didn’t need me anymore. You were always off doing your own thing with Raven.” “SO WHAT?” YOU TELL HIM EMORI

“When we were on the ring, I was part of something bigger than myself. I didn’t know I needed that, but I did. And you punished me for it.” This is my favourite version of Emori, guys. Remember when we all thought that Emori died off-screen before S5 aired because there was no BTS of Luisa? I’m so glad we were wrong. Her story this season has been absolute fire. A prime example of natural character development following a time jump ... *ahem*

“A spy and a murderer ... with a conscience. You’re right Bellamy, she has changed.” I SCREAMED at Marie’s delivery of this line. It was just ... so on point you guys.

That shift transition from ***** *** (I can’t type it out - this is supposed to be a HIGHLIGHT post) to Clarke packing ... with the same music playing. aasqkqisnsksks I ain’t gonna say a word

“Six years is a long time. Octavia is not the girl from the stories I told you.” Madi’s hero worship is mildly cute but indulging it can’t possibly lead to anything good. I really appreciated this line. And I don’t blame Clarke one bit for feeling like she needs to leave.

“If anything happens to me ...” Give me a moment to recover. I’m Triggered.

But seriously that Madi x Clarke scene was just so beautiful and emotional and heartbreaking. Eliza is slaying the game. and why does lola’s face remind me so much of bellamy in THAT scene y’all know the one. the resemblance is real i said what i said

Clarke looking over to ***** ******* like a wounded puppy ... for the second episode in a row. I AIN’T GONNA SAY A WORD

“W h a t?” THE PAIN IN HIS VOICE i’ll take my crumbs

“No, YOU don’t understand.” GO OFF CLARKE !!! Also, WHO’S READY FOR HAKELDAMA 2.0 

BUT CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW HE STILL HELPS HER FIND MADI WITHOUT EITHER OF THEM NEEDING TO SAY A WORD EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE IN THE MIDST OF A FIGHT BECAUSE EVEN WHEN THEY ARE ANGRY THEY ARE STILL EACH OTHER’S PERSON AND GOD HELP ME SIX YEARS CANNOT CHANGE THAT AND I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE 

^^^ THIS SCREENCAP RIGHT HERE OFFICER

“On me.” *sigh* it almost feels like old times

Bellarke kicking down a door = hawt

I stan one (1) power couple

Is anyone gonna talk about the Kara Cooper/Echo parallels? Cause, like, they’re Real fam

I cannot express how much I loved that they showed Madi reacting to having her hand slit open realistically. Like that girl is trying so hard not to show pain but she FEELS it, and she was whimpering. Like, damn, I felt that. Lola did such a good job showing how a child would realistically react to that happening. 

Not to be That Person. But. Bellamy’s hair game marginally improved in his scenes with Clarke. I only know Truth.

THE SLOW-MO OF CLARKE RUNNING TOWARDS MADI AS OCTAVIA’S VOICE ECHOES IN TRIGADESLENG. Y’ALL ARE COMING FOR MY LIFE THAT WAS SO CREEPY AND COOL

“I understand why you lied Clarke. You were just trying to protect her. But Madi no longer needs your protection - she has mine.” I LOVE antagonist Octavia. Seriously. I’m so happy they decided to go the villain origin story route for her, it just makes her so much more interesting. AND SHE’S SO DAMN CREEPY

“I executed traitors. And I made it look like a real defection.” Okay, okay, okay, so was shooting the defectors cold-blooded as shit? Yes. But was it smart? YES. I think Octavia is a bad person but damn girl. Dammmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnn.

Don’t come for my life but I HONEST TO GOD ENJOYED OCTAVIA IN THIS EPISODE. And not because I like her as a person but because she made sense to me with pretty much every move she made. And I’m not used to that feeling with her.

Echo hiding the piece in Karina’s wound. F u c k i n g hell mate. AND WHAT WAS THAT LOOK AT THE END. I dunno but I’m intrigued. 

Sooooooo in case y’all were wondering. I do think 5x06 holds up better on rewatch (as most episodes do). Not all of the episode was bad, as my initial highlight crackpost made it out to be - there were still some good moments. I thought the last ten minutes of the episode were particularly strong, and to be honest all the stuff with Clarke and Memori was A+++. So, definitely not bad all around. And it has a good set-up for the episodes to follow which I am genuinely looking forward to.

Hope you enjoyed this newly revised highlight post! I’ll see ya in a week for 5x07. 

[smilingperformer]

SM087 - Plot, plot, plot ~

Silly title is silly. Anyway, Necrozma Arc has finally started in it’s glory, and the newest episode focuses on building up important lore points about the legend of Alola’s Creation and Alola’s three legendary Pokémon related to said lore. I’ll be focusing on the lore and plot in my thoughts post this time around, so I hope you’ll enjoy it! Without further ado, welcome to the start of the Necrozma Arc in Pocket Monsters Sun & Moon:

A Crisis in Alola! The Darkness That Eats Radiance!

Since the start of the episode is important to the plot, let me recap it the best I can: Necrozma is shown to be breaking free from some Crystal-like formation, and as it sees Lunala and Solgaleo, who we know as Nebby, it screams in a scary, possibly painful way, and charges at them. As this happens, Satoshi wakes up only to face a cursed sight of Kukui having his coat closed up and wearing a shirt! Kukui isn’t the only one affected: Burnet is also being extra sleepy and is skipping out on morning Ocean trip! And that’s not all: as we learn after the opening, it’s all of the adults in Alola! Even Rocket Gang! (We can scratch any false information of Rocket Gang being teenagers now right?)

Now that I’ve managed to somewhat explain one of the main conflicts of the episode, and the arc, let us move on to explaining the lore bits of the arc that will become important during the arc episodes later on. Since Kukui was supposed to explain about the following information, but was too sleepy and slacky to do it, Kaki is doing the explanation instead! (And I’ll slack of by showing it through screencaps. Maybe Necrozma affecting me as well. I am a young adult after all.)

The Manalo Festival

This is something I couldn’t understand without subtitles, but is definitely an important lore bit for the future of the arc. I find it clever that they sneaked in the years Pokeani has been airing into this lore. Very sneaky Pokeani team, very sneaky.  We also learn that Manalo and Alola are from the ancient language, where Manalo means “You and I will live together”, while Alola means pretty much what we’ve learned the main treat of the region to be: “To Share”. The Legendary Pokemon in question of the festival is none other than The Radiant One (Kagayaki-sama).

And this is where the next lore point comes to play as well. This time explained by Lilie, who’s been hearing the story about Alola’s Creation from Lusamine herself, ever since she was a small kid. And apparently, Lusamine’s repeating a family tradition with it. It’s actually a continuation from the myth we learned from Acerola back in SM074!

The Myth of Alola’s Creation

Pretty neat bed-time story isn’t it! The emissaries of light are of course Lunala and Solgaleo, while the ends of the sky is a way of describing an Ultra Hole. When you start thinking about the very start of the episode, this story starts making a lot of sence, as it seems to be occuring right at that moment. This bit of lore has made me believe that the main goal of this Arc is for Lunala and Solgaleo to help Necrozma regain its lost light after awaking from it’s long slumber.

But as myths always are, the stories tend to get trimmed over time and important parts of it will become lost. I believe the bit that has been lost in the myth is how Necrozma without light is in constant pain (the scream it makes both at the beginning and the end of the episode makes me highly believe this is the case. It sounds painful), and will use any means to get its light back. That includes its ability to fuse with Lunala and Solgaleo, which is what makes it become Ultra Necrozma, The Radiant One. No one who knows the myth of The Radiant One in Alola seems to know about this bit thou, which highly makes me believe the people of Alola will be shocked after they learn the truth.

Whatever the case, Bebenom is shown to be very curious about The Radiant One in this episode, as it’s been in previous cases. And it seems to sense that the arrival of Necrozma is incoming, and whatever is happening in Alola as of now (with Mysterious Clouds hanging over Alola Region and all) is related to it. Maybe the situation has it’s wary because of how similar it feels to when its homeworld was sucked out of light?

The Z-moves lacking power

For some reason, I saw people claiming this wasn’t important at all, but let me tell you, this bit is extremely important bit to the plot! As we know from the games, and as it is confirmed by Burnet later on in the episode as well, Z-moves power originates from the Ultra Aura that is surrounding Alola, and this Ultra Aura originates from the Ultra Wormhole. And, we also learn later on (more about it later in this post), the whole reason Adults seem to be affected this way is because of a tiny Ultra Wormhole that is sucking Alola’s Ultra Aura, diminishing the amount of it bit by bit. So the reason Z-moves are acting less powerful is because of the same cause as Adults being tired and acting weird. I’m telling you, do not shrug this plot point off as nothing! It will play a part later on! It’s the story-telling 101. Show a plot point, explain it later, solve it later. This will most likely play a huge role with Ultranecrozium Z as well. Hoo boy am I scared of seeing that.

During this scene Bebenom also gets inspired to draw Ultra Necrozma’s symbol. But more about that later!

The tiny Ultra Wormhole sucking up Alola’s Ultra Aura

Pretty much what I explained briefly before. But this time explained by Burnet and Wicke! Let me fastforward the episode for more information!

Thou before that, let it be known that Rocket Gang has noticed the opening of the tiny Ultra Wormhole as well, and are heading to Alola, lead by none other than Matori! And as we know, they’re coming to get The Radiant One. Anyway, fastforward to when the Ultra Guardians and Aether Foundation team gather at the Altar of the Sunne:

(Looks like a full day passed since the episode started, meaning the Solar Eclipse is happening in just one day!)

To anyone believing the Adults only being affected by this won’t be explained, please listen to this dialogue! Because they are acknowledging it, I’m very certain we’ll learn the full reason for this later down the road of the arc. Again, story-telling 101: introduce plot point, explore it, find the explanation.

That hole being the tiny one they found out about earlier in the episode (they also explained it to the Ultra Guardians here). When the new member of the Ultra Guardians team, Gladio, asks about an UB possibly coming out of it, Lusamine tells that if the hole grows larger, there’s def a chance for it. To which Burnet continues.

After small comic relief of Wicke being harsh on Sauboh (unintentionally, because of being tired), Sauboh continues from this:

See? The Clouds itself aren’t the cause of the crisis. They are only one of the outcomes of the crisis happening. So, today’s mission is for the Z-users of Ultra Guardians to power up this machine, so that the clouds can be taken out of the way to help locate the tiny Wormhole before anything else happens.

Here’s the bit that explains the Z-Power lore!

So, the Ultra Guardians fire of their Z-moves, and the clouds are taken out of the way.

The Ancient Painting regarding Alola’s Creation Myth

I actually talked about this a week ago after the preview, so I don’t want to go into detail anymore, but what I want to correct is that Solgaleo actually does have it’s face, but it’s drawn in an ancient akward way. Also, as I was being corrected on, there are Trumbeak in this painting.

Bebenom is shown very, very interested in the painting, and definitely knows about the symbol. And this is very well acknowledged by Rotom and Satoshi!

We once again see that curious, lore-loving Lusamine here. Even when she’s tired, she wants to unlock the mysteries of the ancient myth behind Necrozma. And I’m telling you, I’m certain desciphering this painting is part of the arc. Maybe, possibly during the next episode or two, Lusamine will be trying to uncover the mystery of this painting, while the Ultra Guardians will be trying to Protect Lunala. Speaking off which, we have now reached the end of the episode, where the amazing stuff starts!

The Arrival of Necrozma

After Burnet calls the squad to come back up because of the tiny Ultra Wormhole getting bigger, we finally see Lunala in its full glory, arriving from the hole! But what’s more…

(Did I forget to explain why Gladio is here? He’s here because Silvuddy is scared of the presence Necrozma is giving off through the tiny wormhole, and I bet it’ll increase with the arrival of the being! Speaking of which)

Necrozma arrives right behind Lunala, tearing through the Ultra Wormhole, and making that same scream it did at the beginning of the episode.

Everyone’s reactions say a ton about the situation. This is after Necrozma screamed. Lusamine’s reaction somehow feels more curious than worry or scare. I’m sure she’ll realise this is not the time to be curious during next episode. She has learned the lesson back in Aether Arc after all.

And I have to say this right now: this scene right here has by far my favourite track in the whole series of Pokeani now! The Guitar, the atmosphere, the sound, everything about is so god damn glorious and I want the OST of this series so bad now. Sony, you’re the guys licensing the music, pleaaaaase release the OST!

The End of the episode! Honestly, this is a great start for what seems to be growing into an amazing Arc, and I can’t wait to see the next episode! The music in this episode was excellent, the plot reveals and lore explanations were a delight and the return of Gladio and arrival of both Lunala and Necrozma has be extemely hyped! Necrozma Arc, bring it on!

If I forgot to talk about a certain plot point, please point it out. I wrote this as I rewatched the episode, so I should not have missed out on anything, but, I’m a human, and humans make mistakes. (And I was kinda unfocused during this process. God damn.)

Also, Ishizuka was back to narrating this episode, and honestly the death of him is still affecting the way I hear his dialogue in this episode. ;-;

The PokeProblem segment has Mao’s Papa returning from having spend this… whole time (?) at Yareyutan’s bar, to which Yareyutan just… sighs. Oh dear. A good mood lighter after the plot-heavy episode. Not too comical, and not too serious. I like it.

Next week, Matori shows how good of a secretary she is to Sakaki, and the Rocket Gang’s special Unit arrives to Alola to capture Necrozma, who fights with Lunala, as it seems to eventually manage to fuse with it. Looks to be a action-heavy episode, with Bebenom somehow looking scared D: Everyone, protect the poison baby!

SM088 - Lunala VS UB: BLACK! A Battle at Full Moon!!

And as Gozu says at the end of the preview: Watch it, or you’ll suffer That!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you all in the next post!

[ayellowbirds]

Keshet Rewatches All of Scooby-Doo, Pt. 6: "What The Hex Is Going On?"

("Scooby-Doo, Where Are You", Season 1 Episode 6)

AKA "The Gang Is Totally Cool With Dead Bodies"

As the episode opens, a voice repeatedly intones, "come... come!!!", and the view moves from an old mansion, to a nearby graveyard. A bat flies past a mausoleum, and can be heard as an aged man walks through the night, arms outstretched.

The thing is, the guy is drawn with his mouth open in such a way that i thought at first that he was the one chanting the eerie command. And then, without the bat on screen any more, it seems like he’s the one screeching.

Meanwhile, the gang come to visit their friend Sharon Wetherby, who has invited them up to her family estate for the weekend. On their drive up, they catch sight of the old man, and wonder about what he’s up to... but continue on their way.

Now that’s some good Southern New England Wherever-The-Fuck Gothic. Look at that decayed gateway sign with the family name obscured by hanging moss. On their arrival, Sharon and her father mention that “Uncle Stuart” has gone missing, and when they go to investigate the old “Kingston Mansion” where the gang saw him, they find him hidden in the shadows near the entrance, aged at least twenty years.

Stu recalls a “ghostly voice” calling him out in a trance to enter the mansion, where he encounters...

THE GHOST OF ELIAS KINGSTON!

Elias always seemed one of the most iconic Scooby villain designs to me. As he delivers a warning demanding the Wetherby fortune as his right, he transforms Stuart with a mere gesture.

I say “mere”, but it’s one of the most character-laden and dramatic movements in the entire run of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You—completely unlike the fading transition used to age Stuart immediately after it. I think the episode’s entire animation budget went into Elias posing dramatically.

This haint has style. Look at that oilcloth duster, the inhuman blue tones and yellow eyes. The gesturing.

Mr. Wetherby tries to call the sheriff, but finds the phone line dead. The gang suggest he drive out to get the sheriff in-person while they take turns standing guard, boasting Scooby’s “keen sense of hearing”. Scooby’s having none of it, and pretends to need an ear trumpet.

Zoinks, don’t put that in your ear, Scoob! You don’t know where it’s been!

As the gang slack off on guarding Uncle Stuart, the voice of Elias Kingston calls to him again. Scooby awakens from a nap to alert the others, and they realize  that both Stuart and Sharon are missing.

In a bit of cowardly foresight that also saves a little on the animation budget lovingly devoted to Elias, Shaggy joins the others not in walking through the abandoned Kingston mansion, but rolling on skates. It proves his undoing when Elias sneaks up on him and sends him careening into a bathroom, resulting in another iconic scene:

This isn’t about scaring anyone, Elias just can’t stand filthy hippies and thought Shaggy needed a shower.  

Meanwhile, Scooby tries to raid the kitchen, where he encounters an angry bulldog that seems to follow Elias’s directions.

The gang identify this as their first clue, reasoning that a ghost wouldn’t need a watchdog. But really, don’t even the dead deserve canine companionship? Of course, like last episode’s infatuated stray, this dog is never seen again in the episode after the sequence in which he first appears. The gang return to the mansion later on, and there’s no sign of him.

All the same, they reckon it’s a good clue, but it doesn’t tell them where Uncle Stuart got to... until Shaggy notices someone dressed like him. A significantly older someone.

Those of you who are coming here after watching the Scoobynatural crossover may recall it being made into a gag that the gang kind of just... shrug off the presence of dead bodies.

It’s not the first time they’ve done that.

Scooby even laughs at Velma’s line in the screencap above, though Elias arrives to issue a warning that he’ll do the same to everyone else in the Wetherby household and properly scares him.

The gang sneak about and catch sight of the “ghost” making his way into the Kingston mausoleum, wondering what he’s doing there. Gee, i dunno. What would a dead person be doing in their own family’s mausoleum? In any case, the gang dust the door for prints, and find them. They figure a real ghost wouldn’t leave fingerprints, and Fred tries to bribe Scooby to investigate further with an offer of a Scooby Snack.

It won’t do the trick, and as Fred ups the ante from one, to two, three, and finally four, there’s a cute little bit of animation cost-cutting where he uses sleight of hand to produce the Snacks... instead of being animated pulling them from a box or pocket.

Sleight of hand, trap-making skills, and a van full of tools for breaking and entering... where exactly did Freddie pick up this skill set? If this was a Dungeons and Dragons party, he’d have levels in Rogue.

While Scooby is willing at this point, Shaggy snatches up the snacks once again, happily gobbling down literal dog food and volunteering himself in Scooby’s place, even uttering a “Scooby-Dooby-Doo!” of his own.

Roo rastard, Scooby seems to think. I rusted roo rike a rother.

Alone in the mausoleum, Shaggy confesses to himself, “there’s times I’ll do anything for a Scooby Snack.” This episode is dark.

Inside the crypt, the gang discovers a book on Crystalomancy, which fantasy nerds might guess is the art of divination by means of—

Wait, no. It’s Crystalomacy, no N. The gang clearly read it as such, and Shaggy mistakes it for a name, “Crystal O’Macy”. The joke only works with the typo, and since Velma identifies it as the use of crystal balls, someone must have looked it up and either drawn on a source full of typos, or else deliberately misspelled these spells.

The crypt door slams shut, and the gang, having recently left a corpse behind without a care, are locked in a dusty old mausoleum. Like i said, this episode is dark. But Fred Jones is not to be thrown by things such as this, and suggests they start tapping on the walls to see if they can find a secret exit.

Sure enough, they find one, and a few seconds of revolving door gags later, they’re free. The scene transitions to them speeding down the street in the Mystery Machine, apparently having forgotten that they were seeking their kidnapped friend Sharon or that Sharon’s dad was on his way back with the police, having entrusted the care of his relatives to them.

Instead, Fred leads the gang to seek an answer at a “Swami place” mentioned on discovery of the book of Crystalospellingerror. Apparently this is a 1960s take on a fortune-teller’s place of operations and a brief glimpse even reveals a lampshade decorated with a zodiac motif.

The place is empty except for the contents of a storage closet that “danger-prone” Daphne spills onto Scooby and Shaggy, when the dog fails to hide properly as a customer enters, the gang decide to have Scooby let on the role of the “swami” as she mistakes the turban and robe that fell onto him for genuine mystical garb.

I will take a moment to point out that this scene involves nothing whatsoever related to the actual meaning of the title Swami, and instead seems to be some more of that old-fashioned racism from last episode. This time, it’s south Asian culture (or more broadly, the exotified whole of Asia) being treated as a place from which strange mysteries of the occult originate.

We’re treated once again to Shaggy’s voice-throwing ventriloquism, and some punnery when the customer demands her “palm read”. Scooby pulls out a bucket of paint to make her “palm red”.

Why was there a bucket of red paint sitting there? Is the “real” swami (implied to be Elias, or whomever is disguised as him) just as big a lover of wordplay, or is Scooby simply showing more of his strange reality-warping powers by conjuring a can of paint and a brush? In any case, the customer is scared out, and the ghost of Elias Kingston appears in the crystal ball to menace the gang once more by causing the table to fly about the building, chasing them...

...until it hits Scooby, and he manages to crash it into the ground, revealing what was making it fly.

An eight-inch-wide fan powered by two D-cells. I’m increasingly convinced gravity works differently in the Scoobyverse.

Along with this, the gang discover several other clues: a professional makeup kit, and a portable camera for television... that somehow connects wirelessly to a TV monitor inside the crystal ball.

This is not technology that was available at the time, but instead of marveling at these wonders of media, the gang hatch a plan to trick the “ghost”.

The ghost of Elias does love him some wordplay, and i actually feel kind of sorry for him as the gang turn the tables on him with his own camera and projector gimmicks to make him think the mansion is really haunted.

Immediately after this scene, Sharon Wetherby appears in frame with the gang. where Daphne been standing in the shot just before it. This doesn’t seem to be an error per se, as Fred addresses her by name, and Sharon mentions the hidden room where Elias had her tied up all this time. Exactly how or when she escaped is left for the viewer to guess at, but the gang apparently had the time to put the skeletal remains of “Uncle Stuart” in the room, spooking the unliving daylights out of Elias. As he flees, the gang—with Daphne back in her place where Sharon had been—drop a net on him from the balcony, and that’s that.

It’s revealed that “Elias” was Uncle Stuart all along, having used his skill in makeup and recordings of ghostly chanting to fool the others. Sharon explains that she was nabbed because she saw his bald-wig “blow off”, forcing him to capture her. The “swami” is explained as the best way “for a swindler to disappear”, but Stuart’s keeping quiet, and when Sharon wonders why he did it, her father simply says it can wait for the sheriff’s arrival.

The sheriff.

Who Mr. Wetherby was supposed to be bringing back with him, all this time.

...and for that matter, isn’t it kind of obvious why Stuart did it? I mean, the money, right?

But that doesn’t matter to the plot, because Mr. Wetherby says it’s time to eat.

Too bad Scooby has already consumed the entire turkey dinner intended for no less than seven people, by himself.

I guess conjuring cans of paint burns a lot of calories?

(like what i’m doing here? It’s not what pays the bills, so i’d really appreciate it if you could send me a bit at my paypal.me or via my ko-fi. Click here to see more entries in this series of posts, or here to go in chronological order)

[kingofthewilderwest]

Which Big Hero 6 character is your favorite? Who do you think you'd be friends with? Which superpower/gadget from the movie would you choose, and if you could make your own, what would it be? Which part made you the saddest/cry the hardest? A lot of people want Tadashi to come back in a sequel, do you? Why or why not? What's your favorite message in the movie? Thoughts on the animation quality? Is Tuffnut Fred's ancestor? You don't have to answer all these unless you want to, but thank you! =D

O.O WHOA BARRAGE OF QUESTIONS WHAT??????

Heehee, I’m going to teasingly slip in this gif, but know I didn’t make the gif with any intention of being mean - I’m just making a joke. ^.^ This is a tidal wave of questions - feel free to send multiple, more manageable asks anytime you like - but it’s also way fun to be able to talk Big Hero 6 with someone. Feels like I haven’t had a good conversation about this wonderful story in ages, and seriously, I’m in THE MOOD to have a conversation about this story. So thanks so much for sending a BH 6 conversation starter!!!

Which Big Hero 6 character is your favorite?

Hiro Hamada, by a long shot. I feel as though Hiro has an endearing, natural charisma to his personality. The young cockiness combined with a lack of forward direction, the powerful intellect juxtaposing his obvious youthfulness, the sincere expression of his emotions jutting against how he attempts to hide his more vulnerable sides. From the very start of his character introduction, I was hooked. There’s so much to enjoy about his character.

On top of that, the writers delve into Hiro deeply. He’s treated with far more nuance and emotional complexity than other characters in the film - given as Big Hero 6 is, first and foremost, a story about how a young boy handles loss. Hiro is the one whose grief is explored. He’s the one where we see how someone can lose motivation, can become listless at grief… who can get wrapped up in anger, can make dark emotional decisions from the pain of his past… who can attach to old relics, find love in his brother’s legacy… who can find hope in overcoming, who can become determined, who can grow past the wounds of mourning and rise to a strong future. Watching Hiro go through all these understandable and powerful emotions, it’s impossible for me not to sympathize with him or relate with him.

I do find it interesting… increasingly less do I identify with teenaged characters. Their personal struggles, their mental stage in life, it’s become increasingly distant from my own mindset and current life challenges. It’s often easier to relate with characters who are at about the same maturity stage as oneself. But despite me being… eleven… years older than Hiro, and me definitely feeling our “age” gap, I connect to him far more than anyone else in Big Hero 6. His story, his emotions… they are the ones that I can relate most to. 

And there is something to be said that the movie’s focus on him makes him skewed to be more dimensional and appealing.

Who do you think you’d be friends with?

Potentially none of the characters from San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, if I’m going to be honest. It’s not that we wouldn’t get along - I don’t think we’d have those issues. But I do think it’d be hard for me to befriend people who are in the world of innovative physical sciences STEM, for as much as I appreciate that branch of science and read up on it for fun, it’s also not my strength, specialty, and expertise. For better or for worse, a lot of friendships in the college world come through sharing disciplines. Again, not always, and I did make friends from the engineering program when I was at the university, but it does make it more likely if we’re in more adjacent fields. I wouldn’t spend as much time with them, I wouldn’t be able to have classes with them, I wouldn’t relate as much to them, I wouldn’t feel like “part of the group” with them, I might not even have the chance to meet them.

Especially because… let’s be real… I wouldn’t go to San Fransokyo Institute of Technology.

So that, combined with me being with a severe introvert who enjoys making friends but usually doesn’t interact with buoyant socialness, means I probably wouldn’t make friends with that cohesive clique.

I think the person I’d be most likely to befriend would be Fred. Hands down Fred. Someone with his level of enthusiasm is hard for me to say “no” to, and I do appreciate friends like Fred in my life! I’d have a great time with someone dressed up in a mascot costume who adores superheroes and comic books and nerd culture. I’d find his presence quite welcome. We’d have lots to talk about. Should be fun!

Which superpower/gadget from the movie would you choose?

Baymax’s ability to fly. Or the ability to ride on Baymax like Hiro does. ;)

If you could make your own superpower/gadget, what would it be?

Realistically I don’t think I’d be able to make my own gadget. But let’s assume that I could, or that I had people helping me. I’d first and foremost want invisibility. That has an infinite number of uses, not to mention keep me pretty safe in conflict. After that, I’d figure out some cool things to go along with it.

Thoughts on the animation quality?

It’s a pretty movie with some fascinating lighting and color choices in a few scenes. There’s much that’s nice on the eye. 

I think the design of San Fransokyo is my favorite part of the artistic choices - the combination of Eastern and Western architecture, all the tiny little details, the signs and billboards and posters and people, it’s very fun. There’s always more for the eye to appreciate and love there.

Oh, and I own the art book, so methinks that says something about my opinion of the movie’s animation!

Here, let’s post some appreciative screencaps since we’re talking about it:

Ahhhhhh… like seriously? Aren’t these screencaps nice??? Isn’t this barrage of images WONDERFUL?

I like how there’s even a bit of scuffing on Hiro’s mask and armor during his fight with Callahan - as would only happen in the midst of action! 

Also, the more I’m thinking about it and browsing through screencaps, the more I’m seeing some REALLY fascinating potential metaphors with the color red, so. Maybe I’ll need to talk about that sometime in depth. But yeah I’ve got more or less zero major complaints with how BH 6 is animated.

Is Tuffnut Fred’s ancestor?

I prefer to keep characters who are voiced by the same voice actor separate according to the fact they are separate characters. Yes, T. J. Miller has a very distinctive voice and ad-lib style, and there is much to be compared between Fred’s personality and Tuffnut’s, but I don’t like the idea of theorizing characters are related due to some sort of meta detail like VA. Feel free to headcanon as you like! I’m personally going to keep Fred and Tuffnut in the separate, respective realms they are. They’re separate characters and I enjoy them best thinking about them separately.

Which part made you the saddest / cry the hardest?

Big Hero 6 has never made me cry, but it is touching and meaningful. When Tadashi first dies is always raw, so I’ll probably go with that. That’s when you feel him being missing - feel that hole - the “loudest.” But there are other scenes that deserve to be talked about for how they touch the heart regarding loss.

A lot of people want Tadashi to come back in a sequel - do you? Why or why not?

A few flashbacks could be okay, done right and not blatantly repeating the theme of the first movie, but that’s where I’d want it to stop. Tadashi in the past is fine. But Tadashi turning out to be alive would be a disappointment to me in such a hypothetical sequel - which as far as I’m aware, they took away the movie sequel prospects in favor of the current show.

The central message of Big Hero 6 is about loss. It’s about the fact that when someone is gone, they are gone, they aren’t ever coming back, they can’t come back. That’s what’s so emotional, touching, and powerful about Big Hero 6: there’s no magical cop-out whereby Hiro can get that hole in his heart reversed. If Tadashi returns alive, though, that slaughters the truth and importance behind the movie’s message. Suddenly, a story that is about how life can proceed respectfully and healthily forward without someone… is swept over in favor of unrealistic ideal outcomes. For me that would be a complete disrespect to the entire point of the story Big Hero 6 is.

I’m attached to Big Hero 6 because it doesn’t give me the rose-tinted “everything can be mended as before.” It’s still a story of hope and inspiration, but it doesn’t do that by wiping over the legitimate pain and suffering people share. We need to keep the pain and the suffering and the loss of Tadashi Hamada if we want Big Hero 6 to retain its meaning.

What’s your favorite message in the movie?

That’s what I talked about in the first post! XD It’s the message that there’s no way to reverse loss, but there is a way to heal.

There are other wonderful messages in BH 6 - the power of friends, the power of healing, and also one point that I don’t think is talked about enough: how we can react to loss in vengeful bitterness or respectful loving legacy. And I like those messages, too. There is some good content in the heart of this story.

[row-writes]

FE Echoes: My travel into Thabes (Spoilers)

I documented my progress into the Echoes post-game because a few friends were very interested in my reaction and thoughts, so here we go!

The fact that Fire Emblem Echoes turned out to have post-game content made this game in the series even more lovable to me, and a good friend of mine really wanted me to document the journey as I go, hence why I’m writing down my experience for the very first time. So without further ado, let’s head off into the oceans to Archanea and drop off this old lady. I just want to note how AWESOME I think it is that we’re heading to Archanea? In the past I often considered how cool it would be for the people of one continent to visit another, so the idea is very exciting to me especially because it’s one of my favorite FE continents. Combined with the ties to Archanea that some of the characters in Echoes have, I’m glad they decided to go for it. And I’m not even on shore yet, haha. Alright, so I’m a doofus and hardly made any screencaps of the first few battles on sea, but they were pretty straightforward to me. Except for the last one with the Blue Dragons, and the other terrors constantly pouring in as reinforcements. My attacking units were fine, but it was Genny and Tatiana that were often targeted by the reinforcements because there’s so little ‘safe’ spaces on this boat. You’re literally always surrounded in the first few turns.

So after restarting a couple of times, in which I also put the game down for a while to get a fresh view on it- I finally managed to get through. Though I have the help of Mila’s Turnwheel to thank the victory to. With the dragons and terrors now gone from our route, we finally reach the Archanean coast and arrive at the continent in a small village. There we drop off the old lady, who is the reason we’re here in the first place (though my responsibility for accepting, haha) We get our reward, and what do we do next? Well, after forging and upgrading some weapons, we don’t head back to Valentia- we go straight ahead into Archanean territory. Because there’s one last place we haven’t been yet, and that’s the Tabes Labyrinth. While I know something great awaits me there, it doesn’t ease down my excitement to explore just one bit. In fact, just entering the place and reading the content on the gravestone ahead of me multiplies it even more.

So Thabes originally housed an alchemist called Forneus? Praised for his intelligence, but eventually feared by all. Sounds like the classic ‘knowledge leads to power, power leads to corruption’. Fantastic. I spend another moment in the room just looking at my surroundings. The old dragon statues, which probably aren’t there just for decoration but perhaps hint at something? I sure hope so. I descend the stairs, eager for what is to come. The floor is straightforward. Not much to mention aside bandits, maybe some treasure here and there, but then I reach a room where we need to jump down in order to progress. I get brief Silent Hill 2 vibes before I decide to do so, landing in a room where I’m presented with another stone tablet. So there’s more than one? This continues on each new floor? Somehow this fills me with a sense of dread.

Alright. Sounds like he was utterly committed to his work. Which isn’t anything new, but upon remembering what the first tablet said, I don’t get good vibes in the slightest. With thirst for more of Forneus’s story, I progress on until I reach the next tablet. Wake the dead and controlling them as his army? Oh... that’s... not good.

I think we all know what happens when mankind tries to create a perfect creature. Don’t we? Holy shit, I now get a better imagination of the state many floors down below me.

Well... I’m not surprised. The guy’s absolutely obsessed and mad at this point in his research. Probably used them for his experiments, whatever that might contain for those poor messengers. Maybe he controlled the ‘dead’ messengers as his own soldiers to take out the ones the Council sent? Because I doubt a single Alchemist can take on a bunch of soldiers on his own.

I guess if dragging the Alchemist off doesn’t work, they decided to just keep him locked up forever? While I disagree that it’s the best decision, I understand why they did so. I mean, you gotta do something to keep an obvious madman, who has potential to create a disaster- in check, right?

Oh boy... dragons. Something is beyond here, I just know it.

Is that... the Fire Emblem? That dragon was sure doing me a favor by guarding it to try and keep me out. This confuses me, because it seems to be the one from the Archanea series. So imagine if it is, then... Forneus was locked up after the events of the two games? If not, they’d have to snatch the Emblem off this sealed door to use in their wars and allow Forneus to escape. Anyway, no time for speculation just yet, but... I don’t like the idea of taking the ‘seal’ off this door, because I’m sure shit’s gonna hit the fan as soon as I continue on. At this point, I retreat from the dungeon and get some extra training in for some of my units. Also because I didn’t want to get defeated and lose all of the progress I made so far. So after a while of recollecting myself, I went back in until I reached this door once more and take the Fire Emblem, which turns out to be called the Sage’s Shield- a shield that held something in Thabes at Bay. Oh boy.

A little further ahead, I find another tablet. So we’re only heading into the actual workshop of Forneus NOW? Heaven’s sake, what enemies could be awaiting for me there if everyone before that was considered to be just the base of the cake, so to say.

Descending down to the next floor, I realize soon enough that things have indeed changed. The halls are darker, a really eerie and disturbing yet beautiful tune is now playing. The enemies are different too, much tougher, and carry a lot of annoying poison. I try my best to maneuver around them without getting spotted, but I get ambushed really badly three times. Luckily I managed to make it out of the battles quite OK.

Are the Death Masks what the enemies were wearing on this floor? So the actual components of the masks are mere insects that awaken the dead when introduced to a dead body? So practically they are parasites, hosting themselves in a body and living through them. Very... interesting, but very disturbing to say the least.

UHHH. The last thing this mad genius needs is the blood of a divine dragon?? This relates to his pursuit of creating a singular perfect being, I assume?

OK, so I’m a bit confused. Because it doesn’t make sense that the Senate would grant Forneus what he needs for his experiments after going to such lengths to make to get rid of him in any way possible.

Is Forneus instead hinting at the messengers and soldiers the senators sent? Does he consider them the gifts he needed to ‘craft life anew’? Using their bodies to test the thanatophages on? Considering Forneus has lost it pretty badly, I can see this being a possibility? At this point I’m convinced that the first successful members of his ‘undead’ army were indeed the poor messengers and soldiers that never returned. Either way, he succeeded obtaining one of the two matters that consumed him- the undead soldiers. Not good, man. Now he’s halfway of what he wants, and now has the confidence of knowing that he indeed can pull this off, and that’s what a madman like him shouldn’t get.

Wait. WAIT. Did he give his blood to a thanatophage? I’m going to assume he also gave the thing the blood of the divine dragon that he obtained, or did he have an actual divine dragon locked up from which he tapped the blood? Because I don’t see the Senate donating either of those to Forneus, ever. Really, all I can do is speculate right now. I’ll have to discuss this with other friends after I complete post-game for sure.

Well, you did feed it your own blood, which is part of yourself. If it can get access to Forneus’s mind just via his blood, who is to say that he couldn’t obtain other parts of Forneus, such as his intelligence and madness? And the fact that this thing began to grow.... well, crap. The text is cut off, so is this where Forneus succumbs to either his own madness or the ‘thing’s’ influence, or did it even get control over him? I wouldn’t be surprised if Forneus turned himself into one of his undead soldiers either. Unfortunate that the text cuts off, because I’m going to assume this is the last tablet I’ll find judging by that...

Also, it’s QUIET HERE. The unnerving music is somehow already being missed. At this point my heart is racing, and I feel just like I felt when I first made my way through Mt. Silver in Pokemon Silver as a little girl, which is an amazing thrilling feeling I’ve ever hardly felt since then.

WELL. We all know who that symbol belongs to. This is where Grima originated?? Was Grima the matter  that consumed his mind that Forneus ended up creating? GRIMA IS MAN-MADE?? BY ALCHEMY AND BY ONE MAN??? WHAT.

Oh my God. There he is. I can only allow myself to quietly and slowly approach up the stairs, watching every movement of the beast with great and yet fearful intrigue. 

The beast roars an unearthly sound at me, summoning Dead masked summons on the field. But I have no eye for them, the only thing I can see is this dark beast and the very apparent Grimleal brand painted(?) on the floor? (I do doubt that was just paint, just saying)

The first thing I notice on the lower status screen is his title: The Creation. I guess in a sense, that’s all he was before anyone found him and worshiped him as a God. Yet, amusingly enough, the status ‘God’ is already present. This thing was created to be as powerful as a god by Forneus, what else could you possibly call a perfect singular being? But he was already a fell dragon, because he came from the inspiration of a great mastermind who fell as soon as he decided to pursue his insane and uncomprehending ideals. AND THE TRACK USED FOR THIS? It’s Forbidden Sanctuary from New Mystery of the Emblem. I don’t even need to look it up, it’s one of my favorite tracks from the game and I listen to it a LOT while I go for walks and while drawing. I used to go to church a lot back in the day, but the Pipe Organ has always been such an intriguing instrument there to me, hence why I love this track so much. The fight itself was as expected: lots of random summoned units after taking them out one by one. Baiting The Creation into battle made me notice another thing; He’s small, much smaller than we’ve seen him in... future visions, so to say. Now you can argue this is because it’s the battle model, but it makes sense with the lore we’ve been presented. The Creation obviously would continue to grow until it reached godly size. (And did the Creation always have such a bloated belly?)

After much trouble, I allow Kamui to finish the beast off with a lovely critical hit. I mean, he doesn’t like dragons, right? Especially necrodragons. Well, I figured: Kamui, feast your eyes on this beautiful beast.

Joking aside; after the battle there’s a quote; “The horror has passed. Yet still a foul air lingers, filling this place with a sense of dread...” Upon proceeding, I obtain a Rusted Ring. Immediately, I like to imagine this belonged to Forneus. Before me remains the almost glowingly red mark of the Grimleal on the floor. It, together with the quote after beating the creation makes it more than clear that the beast and Forneus’ intentions are not gone. Just into slumber, or waiting once more. I think we all know that.

Further ahead a new glowing mark presents itself; the familiar brand of the Exalt. While I understand the reference and the ties it represent, it confuses me. Why is it here? And I’ve yet to come up with anything to explain it’s presence. Standing on it, it teleports me out of the labyrinth, and away from the horrors and tainted creature I’ve witnessed there. Almost like nothing happened in the rest of the continent while we’ve been exploring down there. Almost unsettling so, because nobody does know of the beast’s existence except for the select group of people who confronted it. I’m sure the Senate expected horrible things to come from this madman, but if only they actually knew what was hiding down here, many and MANY floors underneath the desert sand. Probably growing in silence, growing stronger gradually. And the sheer power of this creature in the far future, judging by the events of Awakening. Or they were more than aware, and then the decision of locking Forneus up in his workplace might’ve not been just for the sake of the man, but rather for whatever the man would spawn in his tainted experiments. That said. Holy. Shit. THIS.... answers questions I’ve had involving Grima ever since Awakening. And holy crap, I did NOT expect this kind of lore to be behind him. To be created by one man and to grow into one of the most feared Dragons in Fire Emblem tales? That’s literally unheard of in FE lore, up until this point. My opinion? I loved the HECK out of this! Many people ask why they even included Grima’s backstory in a game that’s not revolving around the events of Awakening- but I LOVE that they did this, because you didn’t expect this at all? I love that they did postgame content like this to begin with, because I don’t think they did it before like this, ever??? And if you think about it, MORE things about the FE lore could be explained like this. I LOVED Echoes as it is, but I think with this... it might just have to be my favorite Fire Emblem game of all time. As much as PoR and RD will forever be personal favorites, I just have to acknowledge that Echoes is currently my absolute favorite FE game. What a FREAKING journey. Wow! Also, just a personal note that I found incredibly amusing and coincidental: Back in October 2016, I wanted to draw some FE Final dragon bosses for the Inktober challenge. Out of ALL the dragons I had to pick from, and picking a few was rather tough because I wanted to draw them all- I decided to go only with Duma, and Grima. ...Both Duma and Grima are in Echoes. A game I never knew I’d play as I was drawing these dragons, but while drawing Duma I so badly wished there’d be a remake of Gaiden, but realized it probably wasn’t ever going to happen. Yet, here we are. A friend of mine made a joke; “Row, you subconsciously predicted both final bosses of the game.” Not just that: as mentioned earlier, the track Forbidden Sanctuary is one of my all time favorite FE tracks, so I listen to it a lot. I also listened to it whilst drawing Grima back in October, because that’s when I just moved the entire OST to my mp3 and couldn’t wait to listen to it. That’s WHEN I realized how much I loved this track. Seriously though. What are the odds of that? It’s almost... weird. Fire Emblem is great.

[cipherpolfiles]

Follower Appreciation and reply post - Part 2 (16/05/2017 - 31/05/2017)

I want to welcome all new followers, as always. My eternal gratitude goes not only to my followers, but to everyone who has followed this blog or liked and/or reblogged any of its contents, your sweet comments and tags make all the effort well worth it! You’re all AMAZING, people!

Response to the people who left little tag comments on this post:

@spiralnoodleworld Alliance Pain is, indeed, an accurate term for this XD

@wilsonkingofprussia I think Capone Bege will soon get used to it as well. As I always say, I’m now awaiting Kid and Co.’s reactions to their alliance with Luffy XD

Response to the people who left little tag comments on this post:

@nelkk LOL Thank you for your input!

Response to the people who left little tag comments on this post (& its Spanish version):

@mossyseas My train of thought was something like this when I started thinking about the Vinsmoke kids having Devil Fruit DNA mixed into them and I 100% agree that Oda’s answer was completely random back on that SBS. Thanks for your input, it is much appreciated!

@jiofreed I’m definitely reblogging that post and adding your screencapped comments on it, because this is something I intended to actually include and due to some circumstances, I ended up forgetting about it. So thank you so much for reminding me :)

@otakuonthemove You literally have no idea just how gratifying and fulfilling this kind of comment really is for me. Knowing there’s someone who finds what I do interesting, makes me want to churn out even more content. Thank you for your enthusiastic words.

@niyaow Well, he DOES look like a midget after adding Judge... Also, thanks. I’m glad you found it enjoyable :)

@the-noone-me Glad you enjoyed the read!

@zaziecurie ¡Mucha gracias! Muito obrigado/a!

Response to the people who left little tag comments on this post:

@dusty-jester Well, I posted this right after episode 785 had aired and the very next week, on episode 786, they had already corrected the blunder. So I’m afraid it was not because kids watch it, they messed up and then corrected it. You can see both images from 785 and 786 here thanks to @otakuonthemove.

Response to the people who left little tag comments on this post:

@katsunenpiece LOL If this were the case, I highly doubt Usopp would be lying about it. Exaggerating a bit, maybe; but not lying. See, I think his lies are some sort of coping mechanism to him; to fend off his very low self-esteem, he comes up with all these stories (lies) where he’s the brave hero and has all these crazy skills to give himself an emotional boost and keep himself from falling into a possible depression. He’s never lied about any of his friends or their skills, though. At least not as far as I remember. You’re free to correct me if I’m wrong :)

@amigodecuentos and @yukizus Thanks! Glad people find this interesting :)

@damondraco Yes, I know. That ask was referring to this other post of mine where I said Elbaf is fable written backwards. Thanks for the contribution, either way :)

@draceempressa Well, I wouldn’t know since I don’t read/watch Fairy Tail, but I’ll take your word for it. I kind of imagine Usopp becoming some sort of storyteller after he reaches his dream and “retires”; he’s amazing at it.

@ktosiowa Glad you like the theory! :)

@lizzyg-lifesgood and @memesterpink LOL Sorry, but it seems Usopp was destined to go to Elbaf since Oda created him. His entire character revolves around being a fabulist of sorts, so yeah, I’d love for One Piece to end like that. Thanks for the reblog and your input!

Response to the people who left little tag comments on this post:

@acesenpaimissyou Did I just get the OK from a Viking descendant for this? LOL I’m joking (hope I didn’t offend you). I agree with you on that one. It’s just that the Viking/Norman issue just popped up in my mind first, because the non-Elbaf giants we’ve seen so far all work for the WG and directly antagonise the “Elbaf ways”. I mean, every Elbaf giant we’ve seen so far have all been pirates: Mountainbeard and Fallbeard, Dorry and Brogy, Hajrudin (he technically was introduced as a mercenary but he was working under Buggy before he defected and joined the Straw Hat Grand Fleet as a pirate) and Oimo and Kashi, with whom we’ve seen the WG is not beyond making scammy offers to get them to work for them. The situation with Oimo and Kashi especially strikes as really similar to what was expected of the Normans once they settled in their new home (aside from becoming Christians): to keep the other Vikings at bay; in short to guard France against the Norse raids. I guess that’s why I made that connection first. Thanks a lot for your input!

@nicefandom & @katsunenpiece I’m glad you find it plausible. I like knowing if things I say make sense or not, because sometimes I think it makes sense but other people don’t. So it’s good to know I’m not being too imaginative. Thank you both for your inputs :)

Response to the people who left little tag comments on this post:

@zaziecurie & @the-not-so-dark-age Thank you for your inputs and yes, that would explain a lot about Government agents and other Marine recruits.

Response to the people who left little tag comments on this post (1), this one (2), this one (3), this one (4),  this one (5), this one (6) and this one (7):

(1)

@starrynight32 I’ve been considering this possibility ever since Kaido was stated to be immortal. Maybe only Law can take the immortality from him. Something like “what the Ope Ope no Mi gives, only the Ope Ope no Mi can take”.

(2)

@katsunenpiece Well, it has something to do with Blackbeard’s Jolly Roger being the only one featuring three skulls and whatnot. See, most of the other flags represent the captain of a crew in one way or another; they always have one skull because it represents one person, but Blackbeard’s has three to represent one person.

This comment from Marco at the very end of chapter 577 adds to the theory and some people interpret it as Blackbeard having three different DNAs in him, thus he is three people into one and the reason he can have more than one DF power without them clashing and destroying him. It’s all speculation, but it’s an interesting take, especially since it’s true that Teach’s Jolly Roger IS the only one with three skulls, which is really curious unto itself.

Now for your other set of tags.

(3)

I hope for the same. Will Oda explain it though? I just don’t know, but I’d like to know.

(4)

@mapofallblue Yay! More Hajrudin fans. I’m actually surprised I’m not the only one who liked him, since there’s barely any fanart or meta posts of him. I’ve always loved the giants ever since Dorry and Brogy. Then again I’m really biased because I just love ancient Norse culture, it’s fascinating.

(5)

@kartellthings That’s exactly what I mean. Apart from that, I also heard that his editors announced that this arc was going to end by the end of May or the end of June; there are literally four chapters left (if he doesn’t take any breaks) for this arc to end according to that deadline. I don’t really think he’ll be able to properly finish the arc in four chapters and it’ll be a bit longer than that, but if he were to be trying to meet that deadline, the story might suffer. I may be wrong, though. Maybe he’ll manage to pull off something like that, but for the time being, I highly doubt it. Thanks a bunch for your input!

(6)

@hawk-in-a-tree I absolutely agree with you. You said it all, nothing else to add :)

(7)

@the-not-so-dark-age I feel you! I suddenly NEED this to be Bonney’s backstory. As I said in the post: Oda, make it happen! ... Pretty please? Thanks for adding your opinion!

And last, but not least:

@chance4choice No problem. Even if you had still disagreed with me, it would have been fine as well. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I’m not here to fight with anyone, so yeah, no hard feelings on my part :)

@hawk-in-a-tree LOL I’m glad I have my net back, too. I was going crazy because I could literally do nothing: no OP episode, unable to answer asks or work on meta/raffle prizes, unable to communicate with three of my closest friends... ‘Twas Hell, I’m telling you! HELL!

@mssarahkathryn Oh, don’t worry, your first comment was clear enough. The thing is, I’d seen quite a few posts claiming that people who are against Pudding’s recent development did not want complex characters and the like, so I kind of took the opportunity to make that clear while answering to your comment seeing as it was about that same subject. Sorry for the confusion ^^; That said, I must say that I’m happy about Big Mom’s flashback not having that “pity factor” I mentioned. Then again, she’s not one of the beautiful/cute female villains either... Nevertheless, I appreaciate the fact that Oda is letting her be one of the bad guys.

As usual, if I forgot anyone, it’s more than likely because I didn’t get a notification about it. Big thanks to all of you!

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 24 Review: Top 5 Reasons Why the Holly Portrait Subplot Doesn’t Work

Welcome back to Maljardin, where the melodramatic master Jean Paul Desmond is God and the Devil is a snarky talking portrait.

Speaking of portraits, today we will be looking at the subplot about Tim’s portrait of “Erica” (or, rather, of Holly) and the main things that are wrong with it. This subplot is, in my opinion, the worst in the Maljardin arc and I’ve been holding off on writing a detailed explanation of why I feel that way until my review of this episode, which mostly centers around the damned Holly portrait.

The portrait, circa Episode 18. There aren’t any good shots of it from Episode 24, so I had to settle for this one.

To recap: After the death of Erica Desmond, her husband Jean Paul hired Tim Stanton, a young artist in debt to the mob, to paint a portrait of her. Erica being both dead and encased in a cryonics capsule which both Jean Paul and THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES refuse to open, Tim must instead use young heiress Holly Marshall as his model until Erica comes back to life as Jacques promised that she would.

Sound like a reasonable plan? No? I didn’t think so, either, and now I shall explain why. Here are the top five reasons why I think this subplot is stupid:

#5: Holly neither looks like Erica, nor knows what Erica looked like.

This screencap is actually from Episode 13, but I’m including it because it’s relevant.

I sometimes wonder if this criticism is unfair, because the only viewers up to this point in the show’s broadcast history who would have seen Erica were the viewers of Episodes 1, 2 (where Tim shows Alison his sketch of her), and 4. In the first scene of Episode 4, the Cryonics Society froze her corpse in the cryonics capsule, meaning that anyone who started watching after that scene would not have seen her face before Tim got his assignment from Jean Paul. Even so, neither Erica resembled Holly, which makes it absurd for her to sit for it. Why not have Alison pose instead when she’s not working? After all, they are sisters and they share a strong family resemblance according to the original pilot script. Holly barely resembles either Erica beyond being pretty.

Tim’s sketch of Erica from Episode 2, with a screencap of Alison from Episode 17 for comparison. With its upturned nose and full lips, the sketch is clearly intended to resemble Dawn Greenhalgh (Alison) and not Sylvia Feigel (Holly).

Because Holly hardly looks a thing like her, Tim complains in Episode 13 that he “can’t use her for anything but position and play of light.” In spite of this, later episodes including Episode 24 show that he has painted a sort of semi-abstraction of Holly’s face, with features about halfway between those of Holly and those of Erica. This means that he’s only making more work for himself for when Jacques brings Erica back to life--if he brings her back to life--because he will need to paint over the semi-abstraction with Erica’s face. In short, he’s wasting his time.

Besides, it’s unclear why Holly doesn’t know what Erica looked like if Erica was a very famous actress and she and her husband were stalked by the paparazzi until they escaped to Maljardin (as previous episodes have indicated). Surely she would have seen a photo of Erica in the newspaper at some point, or her face on the poster for one of her plays, or something. I realize that’s not the same as seeing someone in real life, but it’s just odd that she doesn’t know.

  #4: Tim doesn’t have even a photo of Erica with him and so has to rely mostly on memory.

He even says so in Episode 13: “I have to depend on my memory of your wife and that sketch I made of her at the café,” he tells Jean Paul (or, rather, Jacques while he is possessing him). As we saw in that episode, opening the cryonics capsule and posing Erica’s thawed-out corpse for Tim is too devilish even for Jacques, so the starving artist is left with a dilemma. Jean Paul, being a fancy rich guy of noble descent, naturally assumes that any criticisms of his assignment is just a case of beggars trying to be choosers and ignores them; in his mind, he did him a favor by paying his debts and taking him to his island, so Tim should obey his every whim without question. But the truth is that Jean Paul has no understanding of how artists work, nor why Tim needs the real Erica to complete the painting, and he may not even understand the creative process behind painting a portrait.

This could make for interesting social commentary if the writers had had Tim take a good hard look at the situation and realize that Jean Paul is not just imprisoning him on the island but flat-out exploiting him. They could have made his subplot about class conflict, the establishment’s lack of empathy towards creative types, or both. However, they choose not to use the subplot for such commentary, instead going in a much more conventional direction.

#3: The Holly portrait is mostly used to drive a clichéd romantic subplot.

Two people meet and hate each other at first sight--or at least pretend to--although they are clearly attracted to each other. They argue, bicker, treat each other indifferently at best and abuse each other at worst, until one day they realize that they have fallen in love. When was the first time you read or saw this story? Do you even remember the first time? Most likely you don’t, because the exact same plot has been used and reused so many times since Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing premiered that Western media is saturated with it. It’s not a bad plot in and of itself, but it’s been overused so much that you can usually see it coming from a mile away. When Tim and Holly first bickered over her being too young to order booze, I predicted that they were setting up a romance between them. There are many signs: Tim confesses to Vangie that he feels sorry for Holly, Elizabeth suspects that he’s hitting on her, and, while she claims to dislike them both, Holly seems slightly less irritated by Tim than by her former captor, Matt Dawson. Ian Martin was clearly setting up a romance between the heiress and the artist, who are gradually bickering less and less: a telling sign that they are getting closer to falling in love.

As creepy as it is and as much as I don’t want them to get together, I actually find the Matt/Holly subplot more interesting to watch than Tim/Holly. Danny Horn of Dark Shadows Every Day may have written about how “groovy priest attracted to the beautiful young girl that he wants to take care of” is an old soap cliché, but I’ve seen it done far less often, which I suspect has something to do with all the church scandals in the past twenty years. The Belligerent Sexual Tension plot, on the other hand, is still very popular, so it feels less fresh to me than Matt and Holly’s subplot. (That doesn’t mean that I don’t still think he should leave her alone. Personally, I ship Reverend Dawson with his right hand and I think they ought to stay together.)

#2: The use of the Holly portrait on the show doesn’t connect to the show’s use of portraits for symbolism.

This one is really nitpicky and based mostly on my personal interpretation, but bear with me. Although far more complex than the Dark Shadows ripoff that many critics reduce it to, Strange Paradise nevertheless relied on many of the same tropes and themes, including the way its writers used portraits. On Dark Shadows, the writers often used a trope that Cousin Barnabas of the Collinsport Historical Society blog calls the “Portrait as Id,” meaning the use of paintings to symbolize and illustrate the truth about whatever character they represented. We see this in Strange Paradise as well with the portrait of Jacques, who tells Jean Paul that he is “the man you are, the man you might have been,” implying that the ostensibly good Jean Paul is not so different from his evil ancestor. Later on after Robert Costello becomes producer and the show becomes more like Dark Shadows, we’ll meet another character whose portrait does not turn out as intended because of the evil in said character’s heart, which also connects to this idea of portraits reflecting hidden reality. Although the conjure doll also resembles and represents Jacques, he does not generally use it to communicate with Jean Paul the way he does with the portrait. This makes sense, given that the doll and silver pin ended his life, while the portrait was painted at some point while he was alive.

In contrast to the portraits mentioned above, Holly’s portrait does not convey any additional information about either her or Erica. Because it represents the late Mrs. Desmond in name only, the Holly portrait says nothing about Erica’s id, her personality, or the state of her soul. It doesn’t even say very much about Holly. Instead, it’s mostly just used as an excuse to force Holly and Tim to interact with each other and bicker until they can finally admit that they’re in love.

#1: It goes (almost) nowhere.

And when it does finally go somewhere, it’s only relevant for a few episodes before it’s forgotten about. Holly’s participation in the portrait sittings soon becomes completely irrelevant, much like so many of the show’s early subplots which Late Maljardin’s headwriter Cornelius Crane chose to ignore. I suspect that the Holly portrait would have eventually became more significant in the main plot had Martin not been fired around Week 9. We may never know how it would have become so, nor how significant it would have become in his original outline. Who knows? Perhaps Martin would have crafted a shocking plot twist involving Holly that justified its existence. Perhaps he would have connected the portrait and its eventual fate somehow to the nightmare she had about Tarasca, having it reveal some terrifying truth about Maljardin’s past. At the very least, he might have used it to cement the romance between Tim and Holly. But instead the subplot ends with little payoff.

Tim on his subplot.

Still, despite the focus on the Holly portrait, this episode isn’t entirely a waste. Raxl saves it with her pleas to the Serpent and her attempt to contact the Conjure Woman, in all her scenery-chewing, melodramatic glory. There’s also a scene where Holly pressures her to read the two Tarot cards--the King of Swords (whom Matt identifies as Jean Paul) and the Queen of Cups (whom he interprets as Holly)--that she dropped on the floor earlier in the scene “just for kicks,” and she refuses, shouting “No!” repeatedly. If you love Raxl like I do, you’ll enjoy her scenes. They’re not Best of Raxl material, but they’re fun.

So long until my next review, which will cover Episode 25, followed by Week 5′s long overdue Bad Subtitle Special. I know that this is a change of pace from my usual recap-style reviews, but I really wanted to go into more detail about why I don’t like Tim’s subplot. I hope you enjoyed this post and I’ll see you again soon.

Coming up next: Elizabeth continues her attempted seduction of Jean Paul as we explore inter-generational conflict on Maljardin.

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