#they didn’t create a whole character give her a backstory and have a main character fall for her and interact with her warlord mother

[literaryspinster]

Whether you enjoy the relationship or not…

Jayce being in love with Mel doesn’t seem like something the creators did just to squash people’s mlm fantasies. They’ve been set up as so integral to each other’s stories, especially with a Noxus arc coming up, that wanting to forget they ever happened and put them with other people feels beside the point to me.

[chevaliersnumberoneguy]

I just finished Ward and was inspired by a friend to make a review about it here so uh here is my semi-non formal review of Ward.

So to provide a bit of context I became a Parahumans fan back in 2019 and read alongside it with a veteran Worm fan and it easily became one of my favorite pieces of fiction. After a decent break I began reading Ward on and off again for a little bit (not because of the quality I’m just weird when I dedicate time for reading) and after about 3 years of reading it over work breaks and doing a last hail mary sprint for the final couple arcs I feel as though Ward is an amazing follow up to Worm. I know that may be a hot take since I have heard from a friend that general sentiment on Ward isn’t all that positive, but I found myself enjoying it quite a lot.

Wildbow in my eyes managed to expand upon a lot of things I like about Worm and answered a lot of questions I didn’t think would be answered.

Let’s start with a big thing first. I think overall Victoria was a fantastic pick for the protagonist to follow along for this adventure. Not just because she is overall very well written, but out of all the existing characters Wildbow could’ve picked, Vicky was probably the best one for orchestrating the main message of overcoming trauma and learning to love yourself in Ward. It was very fun and satisfying the overall arc she had in Ward.

Breakthrough as a whole was also full of extremely well written characters with all of them enamouring me with their backstories and character arcs in their own way. I didn’t come to think Chris of all people would become such an interesting “minor” antagonist until the Simurgh reveal.

Overall Wildbow has has gone forth and continued to have shown his great ability to present mysteries or seemingly random moments/information and manage to paint it in a completely different light with a massive reveal later on in the story. Chris is a pretty big example of this with all of his behaviors and relationship to his tinker power being weird at best to making a lot of it make sense in retrospect with the reveal that he was more or less created by the Simurgh to help her out in her grand plan. Another example of this is all of the hype and build up to the reveal of Shardspace and the Cracking as a whole.

Now I’m willing to admit it isn’t perfect with all of the Wildbow moments and pacing at certain parts of the story, but I can really appreciate it for what it is at the end.

The parts that got me loving it the most is the expansion of powers as a whole. I’ve always been a nut for eldritch content and Ward managed to satisfy me with that in dividends when it showed us Shardspace, the Titans, the Agents, the conclusion of Entity cycles and actually giving us a full description for the Entities appearance as well. 

All of the cluster stuff was thoroughly enjoyable as well. I loved every second of Rain and his story that was in the spotlight. Easily provided some of my favorite arcs in all of Ward. It was just so fun to watch him develop as a person as well as watch the dynamic he has with his cluster. Cradle in my opinion stole the show being the antagonist of the group. Everything he did was appalling and I loved it. Whether it was him chopping up people with whips or manipulating people in the dream room it was all great to watch play out.

Also god all of the Titan stuff was amazing as well. From the early preview of it from Dauntless becoming one, to all of the build up to this massive event in the Teacher arcs and finally the beginning of the end when Fume Hood second triggered and started the Cracking off as a whole it was all amazing. Then we get into all of the fun combat with the Titans just showing off how formidable of a threat they are, the reveal that if they win everything is over and that this event may never be over, to all of the exploration of Shardspace it was all so well done and great to watch play out.

Another thing I loved was the Teacher stuff as well. I always knew he was going to play a massive part in Ward ever since his epilouge arc in Worm and boy I wasn’t disappointed (mostly). From the disinformation campaign to the assault on his complex it was all fantastic. The arc as a whole did a great job at planting seeds for what would happen in the future. My only real disappointment about him is how he really didn’t play much of a part during all the Titan stuff, but eh it’s whatever.

I thought the ending as a whole was a satisfying conclusion to the story and tied up a good amount of loose ends while still clearly leaving the door at least ajar for Parahumans 3.

Overall, while not perfect I think Ward as a whole was an amazing follow up to Worm and I look forward to reading Wildbow’s other works.

Anyways thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

[ladyhawke]

we should have gotten a show about two factions of the same family lead by two ambitious women fighting for the throne but instead we got a reductive good vs. evil game of thrones prequelTM that still doesn’t know how to write interesting female characters

detailed under the cut if anyone’s interested i just need to vent

aging down alicent and creating a relationship between her and rhaenyra was the show’s best decision, it added depth and emotional charge to the story but what’s the point of creating a wonderful backstory if you never get to the actual story? they refuse to allow the two of them to actually break apart and have something rotten sprout of what once was love and friendship and that compromised the whole show. the fact that they clearly wanted to keep the two of them interacting resulted in two of worst scenes of the show (especially the first one cause god that was unbelievably cringe)

i liked that they made alys rivers a weird witch instead of the obvious hot seductress

i love mysaria possibly being a agent for the smallfolk, it’s one the book’s most important themes “when the lords play their game of thrones it is the common people who lose” and if she understood that and is just using her position the help them would be amazing but i’m not very optimistic about that

helaena being a dreamer was also nice and i liked that they gave her neuroatypical traits but hated the distance they put between her and her dragon, her being neurodivergent should make her even more attached to dreamfyre if anything. i understand her not wanting to fight in a war and kill people but she doesn’t even ride? bullshit

mostly i hate how they refused to let their main female characters be bad, rhaenyra is a perfect saint and not a bit spiteful or rancorous and alicent was just a dumb bitch with no agency and permanent downturned lips. having aegon as king was a misunderstanding and she wasn’t even aware of the green council until it began, they should have allowed her to be ambitious especially because it would fit the young alicent so well!!! the girl who always followed the rules and did everything right didn’t get rewarded in the end while rhaenyra who was always being transgressive never faced the consequences, remember “Where is duty? Where is sacrifice? It’s trampled under your pretty foot again.” it would have been incredible to see her going “well i’m gona do whatever i want now cause apparently that’s how it works” and them drive herself into a tragedy, but at least a tragedy *she* chose, doomed by herself

blood and cheese was terribly written and shot, seriously what the fuck was that?

nettles is the doubt over whether or not targaryens are the only ones who can ride a dragon but since the show made the velaryons of all people black i don’t think she would have had the same effect. i still think they did it to soften the connotation that would come with super pale white people obsessed with blood purity btw

i tried not to give into the “targ stan” argument because i quite dislike the targaryens so i know i’m biased but now seeing that even people who are team black are complaining that the show killed all nuance by making it greens = bad and blacks = good i have to agree

this is truly a show for daenery’s widows (the last episode shamelessly confirms it) they were constantly forcing this rhaenyra and daenerys connection and that really annoyed me (syrax being the mom of dany’s dragons confirmed by a director or producer is so ????)

actually all the connections to game of thrones annoy me deeply THAT FUCKING DAGGER!!!!!! the prophecy thing is so boring and simplistic (and when you consider the travesty that was the long night in the series i really don’t understand why they want to remind the audiences of that) i really dislike all the cheap fan service scenes

it’s still the same issue they had with got, this epic-ness complex, they didn’t have to tie this so directly to daenerys and the long night. all they had to do was tell the story of the dance, with good consistent characters and themes and good writing and of course cool action and dragon scenes but i guess that’s not interesting enough for them

also what’s with the rhythm of this show? season 1 ended on a cliffhanger that went nowhere since we didn’t see angry rhaenyra seeking vengeance at all and now the we spend several minutes of fun and laughter at essos with tyland in a season finale? that once again ends with the promise of conflict? and what conflict is that if alicent just gave away everything?

[colesstar]

What if all the ninja were the Green Ninja not just Lloyd?

Imagine if instead of it being Lloyd Garmadon, descendant of the first spinjitzu master and the ninja being his protectors there was a twist and it was all of the ninja. Sadly, this wouldn’t include Nya unless Master Wu tells her that she's the water Elemental at the beginning of the show and she trains with the others. I’m leaving Nya out of the green ninja 5 for this though since there are only 4 golden weapons (I swear i love Nya tho she’s one of my favourite characters i have plans for her )

Now onto how it would work. What if master Wu purposefully planted the scroll with the ninja because he knew they would compete to be the green ninja thus reaching their full potential quicker. Which then brings Morro up, why would Wu train him and give him the false hope of being the green ninja when Wu knew it was multiple people, in this AU master Wu wouldn’t have figured that out until it was too late (Morro died). I think Wu felt very guilty for leading Morro on like that he went searching day and night for the answer on who the green ninja was. The day that Morro died was the day Wu sat outside the monastery the entire day because he’d finally figured out that it wasn’t just one individual and “ninja” is both singular and plural. Obviously Morro perished in the cave thing so Wu never got to tell him.

After figuring out that the “ninja” in “The green ninja” was plural he later realised that the four golden weapons were four for a reason, there were four green ninja, one for each, and the four won’t react to one sole ninja as he previously believed. Thus he went searching for our four main characters, the elemental masters of Earth, fire, ice, and lightning (a strange combination but it works).

As it happened in canon, Master Wu sought out Jay, Kai, Cole and Zane. He got them to retrieve the golden weapons and then planted the scroll. The ninja were then fully motivated and ready to reach their full potential, and then did, however the green ninja wasn’t chosen.

Now remember how earlier I said “ the four golden weapons were four for a reason, there were four green ninja, one for each, and the four won’t react to one sole ninja as he previously believed.“ but even earlier i mentioned five green ninja? That's where Lloyd comes in. Lloyd didn’t need the golden weapons to use his power like the ninja did before season 2 and Lloyd split his golden power and in this AU he still doesn’t, which is why there isn’t a golden weapon specifically for him (ignoring the mega weapon). In the episode where Lloyd was revealed to be the green ninja it wasn’t only Lloyd who had the sparkly floating weapons around him it was all of the ninja (Minus Nya but i have plans for her).

Okay so that’s the backstory done now we need to discuss how it would work in the present.

As in canon the ninja weren’t really well known in the first few episodes so they wouldn’t have much publicity and they would have to keep a low profile throughout the seasons. The whole thing with Dareth and having them shoot advertisements would also have to be taken out but not completely as its the ninas popularity that causes season 6 to happen

Once the green ninja have been revealed, rather than all fighting in green they use their respective elements as not to put any ninja in danger because the know how dangerous it would be and the ninja would be bigger targets than they already are. However Lloyd being younger accidentally revealed himself so he started being known as “The green ninja” (singular). (Which also led to his 50 shades of trauma but uh we move on)

Now for Nya! She still does create Samurai X, but when Kai finds out it’s all the ninja that find out, not just Kai. Nya still works as samurai X throughout the series until Wu reveals her as the water elemental (which is quite dumb because they had to strain Nya to learn how to control her element in S5 when it could have been prevented but that's not the point of this). The ninja seeing how Nya could use her knowledge to make her voice sound different they realised it could be the perfect way to keep Lloyd slightly safer, Nya could dress as the green ninja but use a voice changer which would include her in this Green ninja force (I can't leave her out).

It also means that the ninja can confuse villains if they all can secretly use the green power while being hidden as long as they made sure no two ninja were caught at the same time using it making it the perfect way to keep the power of the green ninja safe. Using the voice changing technology that Nya made, the only difference between the ninja and Lloyd would be their heights. So in the highly inevitable situation that Lloyd gets kidnapped (again) whoever did so wouldn’t have the full power they needed. Except when the overlord tried to take Lloyd's golden power because when Lloyd is the golden ninja he has the power of all the green ninja together.

When tournament of the elements happens the ninja use their respective power (Kai fire, Cole earth etc.)( this works because lloyd could use their elements in season 1 so the other ninja can too but they’ve assigned themselves elements) (Lloyd is the main one though and uses green power because the other ninja already had their GI but like in canon if something happens to Lloyd all of their powers stop working). They aren’t found out until KAI tries to impress Skylor (love her we’re actually bffs) but only Chen, Clouse and Skylor know about it.

When day of the departed happens and the villains are revived Chen does spill the beans which makes their secret green ninja identities not secret anymore. Morro hears this and feels kinda guilty because he spent an entire season breaking Lloyd when he wasn’t actually the only green ninja so he went to Wu.

In the Oni trilogy, Lloyd tells Harumi about their secret (this is why Lloyds name has two L’s in it and also why he’s Kai’s brother they both gave away their secret for a girl they liked) and then Garmadon later confirms it when he’s resurrected.

That’s as far as I can go because i haven’t watched past S10 😔

please hear me out on this i am actually very invested with this AU and i am open to hearing additions and friendly criticism but not open to anything negative. Im hoping to draw this and maybe write it.

[robinsroom]

You can develop your OCs as you go.

...

S- So, like uh, will you, will you, OCs- Uh

🥺🤲

okay so like, i have like a handful of ocs but they were all from when I was younger and the make me cringe so I've only taken one or two with me into my """adulthood""".

~~

Heaven

Ofc one of them is my main OC Heaven who ofc is bascially kind of a self insert but better because who doesn't have one. Shes like part wizard, 10% human or something. I would write about how she would go to school specifcally made for other kids w supernatural powers to hone them and ofc this gave me an established excuse for her to meet characters from large franchies or created by people (on dA or tumblr) who I adored at the time.

Her powers specifically would change from time to time based off of characters I thought were neat like shape shifting, being a siren, telekinesis, rumoring people into doing shit she wanted (props to u if u know where that’s from).

For her personailty, she would go from being a brat to a badass bitch to being the biggest submissive goon you've ever met. It really depended on how I was feeling that day LMAO

Now a-days, since she’s out of school and I’m a bit more mellow (lying) on her whole personality being centered around impressing people, she’s a chill entrepreneur who wants an excuse to stay around in the (this is gonna sound so cringe but here goes) “fandom specific worlds/universes” and make her mark you know?

Right now, in the year of our lord, 2023, since DOL is my obsession, Heaven is apart of the OC group that I’m slowly building for Rape City lmao. I’m not sure how yet though beyond her wanting to take control from Bailey. Maybe??? Mayhaps????? Someday??????

Speaking of Rape City, I have two OCs so far.

Winnie & Skylar and maybe another one who might be coming when I take a break w Sky's play through.

~~

Winnie

Winnie was a coke abusing goof ball who catfishes people for funsies. There's not alot to her backstory right now but basically, she wanted to get out of her home and took a trip to the UK. She ended up getting stuck there after giving some sob story to Bailey about how her parents died in a freak BDSM accident.

I like to think any other persona who might be stupid enough to get themselves in a situation like this, are smart enough to, you know, get tf out of it but Winnie is too much of a goof ball to really care. She has free room and board. She can do pretty much whatever she wants and all she has to do is pay 4k to this guy who is mean but attractive. You can get away w anything if ur good looking, right? Better than being stuck at home with her brothers I guess lmao.

Anyway, she uses her knowledge of catfishing to trick creeps into giving her compromising photos, info, etc. which she then posts publicly be it at school or online. She of course has access to, can’t live without it. Bailey took her shit yeah but he didn’t find her phone which she uses to keep in touch with her mother who assumes that her daughter is having an amazing time!

~~

Skylar

Skylar isss...well no one knows who Skylar is. They just randomly showed up one day, even Winnie swears the room they are in was empty literally the hour before they were there. Anyway, Winnie loves paranormal shit and Sky seems pretty paranormal themselves so they automatically became besties. Although it wasn’t easy at first considering Sky was shy and would rarely leave their room after seeing what the other orphans had to go through.

It was school then straight home.

However, Winnie showed Skylar that they have nothing to fear. Most people who decide to mess with them can be subdued with the 7 cans of pepper spray they have shoved up their ass at one time thanks to their close relationship with Kylar. Eventually, they took to crossdressing and since their naturally androgynous appearance, they can pass as a boy or girl without issue.

Eventually this escalated into them branching out and working at Darryl’s strip club on random nights. In fact, they quite enjoy it especially with how friendly Darryl is. They almost look up to them as some sort of silly goose family member.  Eventually they began skipping school but still visit to see Kylar for longer than a few hours in the park. Despite their delinquent behavior, they maintain good marks (unlike Winnie >.>) and an amicable relationship with their teachers inside and outside of school. But Leighton is a dick and they avoid them at all costs.

Speaking of good relationships, if it wasn’t obvious, they’re deeply infatuated with Kylar who gladly returns the sentiment. Even after being kidnapped by him, they were happy to simply spend the evening with them even if they were a hot mess by the time Kylar came to his sense and let them go.

Sadly, this is all I have for them at the moment, the more I play, the more I’ll come up with eventually.

[heart-of-the-morningstar]

SPOILER REVIEW FOR ACROSS THE SPIDER VERSE BELOW THE CUT

1000000/10, best movie, go see it immediately, Spider-Man my beloved 💖💖💖

- The Visuals

• Holy shit guys, this might be THE best animated movie ever created. They took the visuals and art styles from the first movie and cranked it up to 10,000!!

• Seeing all the Spider people in different art forms had my eyes glued to the movie, there were so many Easter eggs and nods to other popular Spiders, I know I didn’t see them all!

• The backgrounds were absolutely gorgeous! My personal favorite being the ones from Gwen’s universe, almost every shot had different colors in the background and it was just mesmerizing!

• They did a fantastic job distinguishing each universe from one other by using different color schemes and art styles, even when some of them looked similar, you could tell there was something different!

- The Characters

• They definitely go all in on character development in this film, they wanted to give everyone more character and personality and backstory. We’re missing a few of our Spider friends from the first film but they’re replaced with some new faces!

• Miles, the absolute GOAT, was such a great protagonist in this film. We spend a lot more time with his family this time around and they didn’t shy away from the slow and heavy moments. His mom even gets more of a role in this movie and she was great! He’s only 15 y/o in this movie and absolutely outsmarted every single other Spider at one point which was great to watch! There’s a plot point in the movie concerning Miles that will absolutely break your heart 😭

• Gwen gets a lot more screen time than in ITSV, she’s a stand out character in this movie! We get to see the relationship she has with her dad and get to go more in depth about how she lost her Peter! And I’m happy they didn’t rely too heavily on the romantic aspects between Gwen and Miles, but they touched on it and it was incredibly sweet!

• Miguel O’Hara my beloved!!! (I’m an Oscar Isaac stan, Moon Knight was the best Marvel tv show, fight me on it, lmao) I wouldn’t consider Spider-Man 2099 a villain, but he made a very good antagonist to Miles, he was very threatening! He didn’t get a very in-depth back story but you were given just enough information to sympathize with his pain. Something seemed fishy about his story, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I’m hopeful they dive into it more in the sequel!

• SPIDER-PUNK, HOBIE BROWN OMG, what a fantastic new addition, he’s such a fucking anarchist and it’s great! He speaks in a thick cockney accent and I love his rebellious nature, he don’t give two shits about what anybody thinks! His character’s look might be the most impressive in the film, apparently it took animators 3 years to make him look the way he did!!

• Pavitr Prabhakar, baby boy, sunshine!! He’s a little cocky but in a cute way! His home of Mumbattan was SO GOD DAMN COLORFUL! I honestly wished he had more screen time because he was super funny and HIS HAIR, SO FLUFFY AND SOFT!!!

• Everyone’s favorite Peter B Parker makes a return! I can say he didn’t have as big of a role in the film as ITSV but he was still great regardless! And now he has a baby girl named Mayday!! And he kept trying to show everyone pictures of her like an actual new parent would lol.

• Jessica Drew is also a new character! She was super badass with her Spider Cycle! AND she was pregnant the whole movie which is even more badass! (Also, side note, when Gwen asked about her pregnancy, I really appreciated that Jess said that they she didn’t know the sex of the baby instead of saying gender, it was small but I liked that little detail!)

• Spot, the main villain of this movie (and the next) was interesting! If I had any real complaints about this movie, it would be that Spot was not in this movie as much as I hoped. I understand why because this is the first part of a 2-part movie, but by the end of the movie, he shows up and I was like “Oh yeah, Spot, where the hell has he been??” But he technically is a character we’ve seen before (I don’t wanna say who because it’s actually funny who he turns out to be!) He starts out being kind of goofy but he gets very threatening!

• There are bunch of other minor characters that I won’t go too deep into but my favorite minor character had to be Ben Riley, he was made to be super over dramatic and stated really obvious things while he was on patrol, got a few laughs out of me!

- The Plot

• Babes, the story is so good in this. I don’t want to give EVERYTHING away cuz I want y’all to see it for yourselves but I will say that this is a 2-parter! There is a “to be continued” at the end of the movie just so you’re prepared!

• The basic premise is that the Spiders have to take down Spot because he’s hopping to different dimensions, making himself more powerful. Spot has a personal grudge against Miles and wants to take away everything from him. You can tell from the trailers that Miles is trying to defy Miguel and what he’s doing, which ends up going in a very suspenseful direction! Again, not going to spoil everything, but it’s just such a great story!

• Like I said, they focus more heavily on family dynamics in the sequel which I loved! More time with Jeff and Rio which was nice to see, Rio has a great talk with Miles during the movie and it was so heartfelt! Gwen and her dad have a few scenes together too, it’s a really great relationship to watch unfold. Gwen and Miles have some great character moments together, but of course it’s not all positive!

• The dynamic between the different Spiders is a blast as well! I was never bored with this movie, it kept me engaged even during the non-action sequences because they did a great job making you care about these characters!

• This movie clocks in at almost 2 1/2 hours but I promise you, you’re not gonna feel that time. I did not want this movie to end! They throw so much at you but at the same time, you’re gonna leave wanting more!

• Where this movie ends is…wow!! I can say I definitely didn’t see it coming until a few seconds before they revealed what was going on, and I sat there and just went “oh…oh no…” for the last 10-15 minutes lol. And apparently the sequel will be out next year! And thank God cuz I could not wait another 3 years!

• A heads up! There aren’t any end credit scenes so you don’t have to stay for those! The only thing that happens after the initial credits is text appearing saying “Miles Morales will return in…” and it gives you the next movie title (won’t say what it is!)

- Miscellaneous (mostly Easter eggs and cameos)

• There were so many GOD DAMN Easter eggs in this film, it’s insane! I know I’ll have to watch it a few more times if I want to catch everything the put in here! There is def one cameo that stands out above everything else (I won’t say who, but you’ll know when you see him 😏)

• They actually showed very brief scenes from Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s movies which caught me completely by surprise, but I sure as shit was happy about it!!

• They don’t show any scenes from Tom Holland’s Spider-Man (which I understand cuz Marvel 🙄) BUT they make two references to it, one with a line from Miguel and with the cameo I mentioned previously!

• The Spectacular Spider-Man had a fucking voice line and I almost passed out, like I watched the shit out of that show, I was so happy he was included! They also showed the PS4/PS5 version of Spider-Man which I thought was pretty funny!

- Final Thoughts

• Peak cinema! The story, the characters, the visuals…all incredible! Go watch it right now immediately!!

[princecharmingtobe]

Just got back from the D&D movie!

Spoilers ahead, obviously

It was good! imo

I had fun, which was the main goal. There were a lot of moments that really felt like a D&D game. You had the obvious cool, overpowered NPC guide who leaves the party before the main event because “This is your quest.” 

I loved the varying levels of backstory and buy-in you had. You have Edgin, who dumps his whole backstory right at the beginning (in the form of a distraction to buy time for a plan as well as let the audience know what was going on) and has the most personal stakes in everything and is that guy who took everything the DM gave him about the campaign and ran with it. You have the barbarian who’s backstory slightly ties into his, that was like “Yeah, I got kicked out of my tribe and met him and helped him with his daughter cause he’s such a fuck-up and now we’re partners and bffs” You have the druid who’s like “Their enemy is also my enemy cause he’s destroying my home, so I shall help defeat him!” And then the sorcerer who’s only really there cause his friends asked him and they promised he’d get paid, aka the guy who paid no attention to what the DM told them and just wanted to be a spellcaster. 

I liked that the trailers really don’t tell you what the movie is actually about. The quest was actually very personal for most of them and wasn’t just “We stole a bad thing and now we’re trying to fix it.” it was very personal and only really became heroic right at the end. 

It was fun being able to point out creatures and spells by name. 

The fucking puzzle that the party immediately fucks up before the DMPC even finishes explaining what it is.

There was a moment where the party basically overwhelmed the BBEG by attacking one after another without giving her time to do anything and I was like “Action economy, baybeee!”

Now, it wasn’t perfect either, and I do have some minor complaints.

The main one is as much lore as they tried to pack into it, I still feel like they wasted some of it where it really counted: The main characters.

The tiefling druid was a big one. The only druid thing she ever did was wildshape. Which is cool, it’s the druid’s main gimmick for the most part... but they’re also spellcasters, and I don’t think she ever cast a single spell. She ONLY wildshaped. I get they probably didn’t want her to overshadow the sorcerer, but they could have used the divide between the types of magic, only have her do naturey stuff like talking to plants and animals, controlling plants, etc. Fuck, at least have her offer them some goodberries on the road. Could have even used that to help them bond more, since they seemed to be going for a budding romance between them. Have them bond over their different types of magic. Her being a tiefling also seemed like an afterthought, just thrown in at the last second because they’re so popular. She was basically a human with horns and a tail, which was only relevant in her backstory and one scene where not having them wouldn’t have really changed anything. Come on guys, show off her fire resistance, hellish rebuke, thaumaturgy, SOMETHING! 

I feel the sorcerer was also wasted. We got ONE instance of wild magic I think? And a lot of his role as a sorcerer was knowing how to use magic items, and whinging about what he can’t do. Like come on, if you’re gonna introduce wild magic, at least lean into it! Have him try to do magic at times and have it backfire in ways that maybe solve the problem unexpectedly while creating other problems (as wild magic is wont to do).I feel like they could have done that without taking away for the other characters’ strengths, and still maintained his character arc. And if you don’t want him flinging around too much magic, lean into spell slots! The idea that it takes a lot of energy to do magic and so he had to limit himself for that reason, on TOP of it often going wild and messing with his self esteem. 

Speaking of lack of magic, was Edgin a bard or not??? It seemed like they wanted him to be, but he never did any bard stuff beyond playing a lute and singing a few times. He seemed to me more like say, a mastermind rogue with the entertainer background, than an actual bard. 

According to an article I found on google it seems they wanted to limit the characters’ magical abilities because “Magic is so powerful it could solve everything and then you wouldn’t have a story.” So you’re bad writers in that regard is what I’m hearing. Probably would be the type of DMs who won’t let you use certain (official) classes or spells because they “break the game”. They don’t. You’re just not creative enough to work with them so you remove them altogether.

TLDR: The writers were too scared/lazy/uncreative to really lean into the magical abilities of the party, when I could think of many ways to use them without breaking the plot. Only real complaint, even though I used a lot of words to say it. Movie was otherwise very enjoyable and really felt like D&D.

[buckevantommy]

oh wow. so the christmas special was a lot of fun! my main thoughts..

Ruby feels like a mashup of rose and clara with a dash of amy— idk if that was intentional, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing bc i think anyone who likes Ruby and hasn’t seen previous series can go back and watch those previous companions for the first time and find familiarity in them— but i really didn't like clara’s personality (or the actor), and i think ruby comes across as more of an algorithm designed character than a person which isn’t great in this war against ai. i like her backstory, her family and friends and being a muso are all great, but i need a few more eps to guage how i feel about her bc i don't love who they cast and she's trying too hard and the chemistry with ncuti just isn't there (maybe they'll become mates irl and that rapport will soon filter into their dynamic)—but it's early days, so we'll see how i feel about her and them by the end of the first season.

i love Ncuti! it's very early days so i'm curious to see how his vibe develops and how his dynamic settles with Ruby. he reminds me so much of eric from Sex Education—not a bad thing at all! i love that energy and that swagger and that vivacious youth! however: that intro club scene where he's dancing (even though it was fun af) was giving zero Doctor Who vibes (i especially didn't like the song choice, personal preference) but that might just be normal? how it usually goes with every new doctor this millenium? they all feel so different from the previous doctor's era vibes, which makes sense bc they're meant to be carving their own style etc. and keeping with the times..

ncuti is the youngest doctor yet, his companion is the youngest since the vintage days, and various character details from both of them point towards this series being geared at GenZ and GenA, trying to bring the joy and wonder to younger viewers— and i love that! it feels fresh! it’s modern! but as someone in their early 30s who can no longer bear watching teen dramedies (even if they are the best chance of seeing queer rep) bc the writing can be terrible but moreover i've just aged out of relating to people in their teens (especially GenZ/A) i just hope the writing of DW doesn't take on that same teen mindset so much that it puts off older viewers. i also worry he’s not believable as a doctor on earth bc he looks so young, but *handwavey*.

singing goblins? fun. singing doctor? well, it's ncuti so it was awesome. but knowing ruby is in a band, and this doctor can sing.. look, i just don't want to see more random musical numbers pop up in future eps— but i'm not a fan of musical eps in anything, so again, personal preference. it's a very american thing to do, inserting musical numbers into non-musical shows, so maybe it'll pull more american viewers?

the goblins look cool and the cgi works without looking fake and they use prosthetics for the goblin king which works well. it’s monstery fun doctor who! magic as science! language of ropes! conicidence! i think we’ll see a lot more fantasy over scifi this series, as was started with the whole salt spilling at the edge of the universe, and as a lover of supernatural and scifi i’m excited for the melding of the two! there’s a lot of fun and mystery to be found in that genre mashup. but one baby for all those goblins? or just the king? i have notes.

Fifteen being a foundling like Ruby hints at the arc of the series? will we find out who the doctor's parents are? was he created in a stardust labratory? is he really a human being from 20th/21st century earth? (would explain his returning to that era so often his whole life and seeking companions from then and there) IS RUBY THE DOCTOR? i love this setup, this mystery, and the theory that the one who left Ruby is Thirteen.

the best christmas song choices imho. the music and set design was festive and warm and such a treat, although i wish more scenes were set at night so we could get more christmas lights and lighting magic - the apartment and the church lighting were so beautiful and vibrant! the daytime setting just didn’t pop, it was bland.

shoutout to the crack in Ruby’s apartment swallowing her up in time— who else screamed Amelia Pond! the crack in my wall! and pointed manically at the screen? i feel you.

all in all: fun, smiles, thrills, almost tears. not a lot of feels even when they were prompted, but that might be on me not loving Ruby atm and not the writing lacking anything— i think this series is gonna deliver on the feels front, no question about it.

i think people who enjoyed the 21st century doctors, as well as those who are new to the show, will enjoy this ep and Ncuti’s portrayal (especially those who are fans of Sex Education). very curious to see how existing fans react to Ruby’s casting and characterisation and whether i’m in the minority of not liking her. but this was a fun little adventure! i’m looking forward to the series bc ncuti is a powerhouse and with RTD back at the helm and fantasy-scifi angle, i think we're in for some good storytelling. 

ruby's actor is my main hangup, but we'll see. we shall see..

[apollos-boyfriend]

I’m now curious on your thoughts on omori

okay so. this requires some background. directly before i played omori (like, literally the days before) i played through ANOTHER indie horror rpg, called end roll. end roll is, to this day, one of my favorite horror rpgs for a lot of reasons, but one of them is for its world-building, for lack of a better term.

end roll deals with a very similar concept to omori’s headspace, with the entire game taking place inside of the main character’s (russel) dreams/mind. and that is where my core issue lies. in end roll, EVERYTHING you encounter has some deeper meaning that reveals something about russel’s real life and the world he lived in. there is not a single detail that isn’t some metaphor or symbolism. every inch, every nook and cranny is PACKED with hints to russel’s upbringing and what led him to that point. i could write dozens and dozens of essays on the sheer amount of things packed into it and still not cover everything. the optional areas? all unlock more backstory. the side quests? all tie in somehow. it’s EXTREMELY well-done, and while some things are very in-your-face, some are harder to piece together. i could not praise end roll enough.

and when i went into omori, when i realized what headspace was, i was ecstatic. there was so much i could analyze!! what did the snake giving omori money represent? why did he see his source of income as a child as a snake? did he distrust them? it was clear that certain things in headspace WERE meant to represent the real world, because of the kids in the playground largely having real-world counterparts.

that is when i realized omori is very much trying to play both sides. it wants to be the symbolic dreamscape as much as it wants to be the nonsensical one. it wants to be just realistic enough to tie-in to the real world, but also play by “fuck it, anything can happen, it’s a dream” logic. and in-universe, it makes sense. omori/sunny uses the headscape as an escape from his real life and what he’s done. he’s a dreamer. of course it’s gonna be nonsensical. but as a storytelling perspective? it’s a cop out. it’s lazy. if something doesn’t make sense, or a piece of story/symbolism contradicts itself, it’s easily written off. “oh, it’s a dream, it’s not meant to make sense lol.” but at the same time, it clearly IS!!!

i also have an issue of how it tackles symbolism as a whole, as it’s. extremely on the nose and barely allows the audience to pause and think about it, as it’s just outright stated instead. there’s a scene in the beginning that perfectly sums up my thoughts on it, the one where they’re going through basil’s garden and he’s explaining how each flower connects to each kid. for each and every one, basil goes, “oh this is this plant, these are its attributes, attributes it just so happens one of you has, and that’s why i connect them to you!”

which. first of all. is very lazy storytelling. you are telling, not showing. we already knew hero was caring and the big brother figure. we knew kel was energetic and optimistic. we knew omori was stoic. we knew aubrey was hot-headed and spoke her mind. you didn’t need to TELL us that, because if you didn’t think we already picked that up from the interactions we’d had with the characters, that’s a testament to you not being a good storyteller.

but also. it’s just not a good way to have symbolism. or interact with the audience. it would’ve been a MUCH better scene if basil had described each flower without connecting it to anyone else, and the AUDIENCE was left to make that connection. i can’t remember the flowers and descriptions exactly so i’m just gonna make something up but. here’s the difference. one is “roses are charming, popular, and beloved by all! they remind me of hero for those reasons.” vs “roses are charming, popular, and beloved by all! i always feel loved when i’m around them.” <- very shitty writing but the point remains. it creates a lot more dynamic storytelling and gives the audience a lot more to play with if it’s not outright stated what character relates to what flower.

and i will admit. i am not into omori theorizing or really the fandom. so some of my criticism may come from me only having played one route/not being fully In with the meta. but i just. did not enjoy it as much as i was told i would. and every time i see someone play it i notice more issues (i only realized the flowers thing when watching sneeg’s playthrough) so at this point i’m fully convinced it’s just Not the game for me

[trulyinspiringmovies]

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is extremely impressive with how it dealt with the impossible situation they were given, even if the movie isn’t perfect.

After the death of T’Challa, Shuri is left to grieve while thinking she failed to save her brother. A year later, Wakanda is threatened by the world for its valuable Vibranium. An outside ship attempts to locate Vibranium outside of Wakanda, underneath the seafloor, using a new Vibranium-detecting machine. This causes the kingdom of Talokan to retaliate and destroy the ship as it’s their Vibranium. Wakanda is blamed for the incident, while Namor, king of Talokan, wants to kill the inventor of the Vibranium-detecting machine.

Before I start my review, I want to talk about my thoughts going into this film. I do not envy Ryan Coogler. He was tasked to do the impossible by making a sequel to a cultural juggernaut while having to address the tragic passing of its main lead. I was one of those people who wanted T’Challa to be recast since I felt that there were more stories to tell with him. I understood that recasting T’Challa would’ve created comparisons and might have even sent a message that Chadwick Boseman was replaceable. However, I still felt that in the long run, recasting the character would’ve been beneficial to the MCU as a whole. With that in mind, I hope whoever is reading this has a better idea of the thoughts I had before going into the movie. Although I wanted the character to be recast, Marvel Studios made the hard choice to make T’Challa’s death cannon. That means I’m going to fairly review this movie for what it is rather than what I wanted it to be. This movie is a tribute to Chadwick Boseman and T’Challa. I feel like the funeral scene was touching. It felt just right and was the proper send-off for the character. I will say though, it felt like some choices in the movie went against honoring the character. For starters, at the end of the first “Black Panther” movie, T’Challa sees the errors of not helping the rest of the world with their advanced technology and tries to take a step forward by extending an olive branch. In this movie, it’s shown that the Wakandans didn’t honor T’Challa’s wishes to be a more open nation and still kept the Vibranium all for themselves. It retroactively diluted the impact of his decision in the first movie. I thought Namor was handled pretty well and I actually really like this interpretation of the character. The inclusion of Mesoamerican history in Namor’s backstory is really fitting and makes the character so much more interesting to me. However, his motivations seemed a little off. In some scenes, he wants his people to stay hidden from the world. In other scenes, he basically wanted to take over the world. I feel like they were trying to give Shuri a villain much like T’Challa’s Killmonger, but didn’t quite hit the mark. The rest of the movie felt overstuffed and made the runtime drag a lot for me. I didn’t know going into the movie that it was 2 hours and 41 minutes long. I started to feel the runtime at the halfway point and genuinely thought the final battle was when Namor attacks Wakanda for the first time. I thought Shuri was going to whip up a new Black Panther suit and Riri Williams would whip up a new Ironheart suit and they would both join the final fight. Instead, Namor arbitrarily gives them another week to decide if they’re going to join or fight them. Riri Williams was also a problem for me. She felt like she was needlessly tacked on to promote her upcoming show and that was definitely not needed in a movie like this. She sticks out like a sore thumb and could’ve easily been replaced with a Wakandan scientist. Then it would’ve made more sense that Shuri wanted to protect them. I do have some big praise for the movie. I love how scenes with Chadwick Boseman were silent. They didn’t need emotional music to fan the emotions in the room. They were already there. The silence from the audience that Chadwick Boseman’s presence demanded was genuinely moving. I will also say that Marvel definitely didn’t skimp on the budget this time around. The CGI looked fantastic throughout the whole movie. There was also a fight scene on a bridge that was extremely tense and had me worried for Okoye. Even with all the problems I had with the film, it’s hard to deny that a lot of thought went into this. The post-credit scene also allows fans who wanted a recast to have a happy compromise. All in all, this movie has its heart in the right place. It has a few missteps here and there and it should’ve just focused on a self-contained story. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s damn impressive what they were able to do with the impossible hand they were dealt.

★★★★

Watched on November 15th, 2022

[jesron]

New year, new Sonic OC! Let me all introduce you all to Split the Hedgehog! And I actually want to focus on her being a hedgehog first It’s no secret that “[Insert name] the Hedgehog” is a common joke when it comes to Sonic OCs. When talking about the Sonic Fandom as a whole, it’s almost impossible to someone not mentioning Hedgehog OCs as a joke. Thay may even point to a ceratain... example

(My inner 12-year old will always love you Coldsteel) Heck, part of the reason why I haven’t done a hedgehog OC before Split was because I just didn’t want to bother with people potentially coming around to beat that dead horse- or I guess, hedgehog would be more fitting in this case, into the ground I suppose I didn’t want to be called “cringe” as it were Which is a pretty silly way to think all things considered Like, who cares if some random internet stranger says my Sonic OC is cringe? At the end of the day, I wanted to focus on characters that’d fun to create. That’d have backstories you could play around with in a story. Maybe even a character that could slide into a main character role? Because, man, it’s just fun to think up and create this stuff! On to that main character thing though, another reason why I hadn’t thought of making a Hedgehog OC was because... well, hedgehogs are often times the “Main Character Animal” Sonic is the obvious example (because duh), but other characters like Shadow, Silver, and even the relatively new character Surge have an immense and direct influence on the story they are apart of. Even Amy and Metal Sonic have some really pivotal roles in either the games, shows, comics etc

(Everyone here except Surge was drawn by the ever talented Yuji Uekawa. Whilst Surge was drawn by the awesome Mauro Fonseca, who has contributed a lot to the IDW series and he even has a tumblr! Go check him out here! Also, fun fact, he even co-designed Surge with Evan Stanley, the current author of the IDW series. Have their link too because... eh, they’re awesome that’s why xD) That’s not even mentioning Scourge, Sonia, or Manic and their whole deal! (There are of course examples of hedgehogs not being main characters/given too much focus, especially in media outside of the games, but they are few and far between) Another factor is power. Pretty much ALL the hedgehogs in the series are considered powerhouses, easily being able to handle things on their own in a fight. Heck, besides Knuckles and Blaze, it’s the hedgehogs that get the Super transformations

Even Metal Sonic got a Super transformation!

(Sadly, there’s no Super Amy... yet) But yes, going back to Split, this was something that I kept in mind when thinking up her character. I wanted to make her a character who could have an entire game about her. Someone with a unique look,a powerset that’d set her apart from the rest of the hedegehogs, and a decent story hook which could lead towards interesting stories So, here’s what I had in mind for Split 1. Giving her a unique quil/hairstyle was essential and something I thought long about. Each of the hedgehogs shown above (even Metal Sonic to some degree) has hair done in a very distinct way and I wanted to avoid copying them. Trying to give a good silhouette that’d be easy to tell apart in comparisson to the others AKA, I didn’t want to make something like Sonic’s parents in the Archie series. Who are for the most part just Sonic with minor differences

2. For Split’s powers, I imagined a power for her would be to... well, “split” in two. Creating a double for herself that’d be able to do everything the “original” could as well. I imagine, in terms of the games, this could lead to a more puzzle-like playstyle, which isn’t that too common in the franchise Also, this power is essentially why Split’s design is so “assymetrical” as it is now. When thinking of this power, I thought it’d be fun show this ability visually off by mirroring the inital design. To show which one is the “original” (Random thing, I thought it’d be a fun idea for a her Super transformation to have her “original” and “double” combine design-wise. I think it’d be fun idea ^^) Looking something like this:

(Except for the name but let’s ignore that alright xD)

However, that’s not all For you see, the clawed glove she has also has a set of powers. Though, that’ll be more discussed in.. 3. The idea I had for Split’s story can be boiled down to me being partially inspired by Silver’s. Silver explores the concept of a bad future. A timeline were something went wrong in the past and Silver uses some method of time travel to get to the problem and fix it. I thought for Split’s story it could have a similar story purpose, just a bit more... large in scope Namely, the Multiverse! Essentially, I thought that Split’s thing could be her being a sort “Cosmic Runaway”, trying her best to escape from something by universe hopping. That’s what the glove is for, it let’s her travel between universe quite easily. The downside being is that it’s had a rather negative effect on her body (that’s what those black lines on her body is, damage from using the glove too much) Going back to the Silver example, while he’s the type of character that goes headfirst towards the problem concerning his future, in an almost reckless way, Split is very much not that. She not only runs away from the problem, she bolts. Going from from universe to universe, trying desperatively to find some peace. While the glove is slowly destroying her because of it This is due to many things. From seeing the thing she’s escaping tear through other universes (maybe even other Sonic’s) like nothing, to her feeling she’s become a sign of doom for a universe if she stays too long, to maybe even feeling like she deserves to be destroyed by the glove These are all things I’d imagine would be weigh on her before coming to the “cannon” universe. Which I imagine were the story would start for her. A very despondent, alone, and tired hedgehog who just wants to be free of this nightmare... Lucky for her, A Knight of the Wind will meet up with her soon... And that’s all I got for Split the Hedgehog! I was not expecting this post talking about a Sonic OC to be so long bet here we are xD It was fun to get all of my thoughts out though, so one might expect more long posts about Sonic in the future. We’ll see! Til then, thanks for reading all of my rambling thoughts and I’ll hopefully see you again ^^

[writingwithfolklore]

Character is Plot

Character is plot. I mean that as, your main character’s arc is (literally) the main plot. Every story revolves around a character (or several)--the point is their journey, how the conflicts they overcome will change them and their world, and their growth as a person.

This also means if your characters aren’t working, the whole thing is going to fall apart. So here's how we learned to create solid characters in screenwriting that also give you an arc (and thus, a plot):

There’s five critical things that go into character building: Goal, Objective, Unconscious Need, Disrupting Characteristic, and a Formative Event.

Objective:

What your character is physically doing throughout the story. Frodo taking the ring to Mordor is his Objective, Rapunzel going to see the lanterns in Tangled. Mulan protecting her dad by taking his place. Essentially, objective is what we’ve thought of as plot.

Goal:

The intention behind the objective. Why is your character doing this? This is usually the emotional core of the story, where we tuck away arc and characterization.

Rapunzel wants to see the lanterns to finally get out and start her life. Mulan wants to prove she’s worthy. Your character wants to make someone proud, or hurt someone who’s hurt them, or feel loved. This is the emotion behind their objective and cannot on its own be turned into an arc. One cannot ‘prove themselves worthy’ out of a void, that’s the goal, you also need an objective, ‘prove themselves worthy through taking their father’s place in the war’.

Unconscious need:

Unconscious meaning your character doesn’t realize it, couldn’t put it into words, and Definitely doesn’t say it out loud. Need, is the start of how to answer this blank space. Your character needs to realize something they haven’t been aware of to achieve their goal. Or they need to realize a flaw in their goal.

For example, a woman wants to run for president (objective) to make her mother proud (goal), but she needs to realize all her mother wants is to spend more time with her, and by using all her time to campaign for president, she’s actually splitting them further apart. Mulan needs to internalize that she doesn't have to be bigger than life to make her parents proud of her and bring them honor.

Your need is character specific, which means no one else should need the same thing. If your need can apply to multiple people, you probably didn’t get specific enough. Everyone needs to be loved, everyone needs to feel cared for. However, not everyone closed themselves off from relationships and needs to open up to people if they want to foster a connection. See the difference?

Disrupting Characteristic

This step is adding a flaw to your character, specifically, it’s the flaw that’s holding them back from meeting their need. If there was nothing holding them back, wouldn’t they be satisfied already?

If they need to see their father as he truly is, maybe their disrupting characteristic is that they’re optimistic to a fault. This characteristic could be a thing the character does (idolizes their father, acts fiercely independent, etc.) or a belief they have about themselves or the world (self conscious, believes humans are inherently cruel, etc.)

The disrupting characteristic is the internal arc your character goes through, they are working and being challenged throughout the story to overcome this characteristic.

Formative Event

This is essentially your beginnings of backstory. The formative event Is the (usually) singular event in a character’s past that made them to be who they are today—importantly, that developed their need and disrupting characteristic.

So, their arc is to overcome their disrupting characteristic in order to realize their need through the conflict they face from their objective. This challenges their overall goal, which was created by their formative event.

Make sense?

[inu-jiru]

Damn Jazz Back At It Again With The Helluva Boss Rambles

Back on my bullshit again with another post now that I’ve mellowed out from the shock of how shit that episode was lol

I wish mobile made it easier to add the “Keep Reading” tab but it’s fine 

I’ve seen so many people go around being like “o it’s ok if Stella’s generic and not given more personality like everyone else because women can be bad didn’t you know that something something Amber Herd” and apparently anyone who thinks otherwise is just a Vivziepop hater who thinks she’s a misogynist (love the strawman shit mmm so juicy). And while evil for evil’s sake can be fun and cool in something like Sleeping Beauty (aka an adaptation of a fairy tale that’s already a story of “good vs evil”), why would you expect me to be chill with that in a show where the demons are, for the most part, more than just evil demons? If Stella was some minor, one-off character like that asshole imp guy at Loo Loo Land, that’d be one thing, but she’s not. She’s one of the main antagonists. This isn’t a “good vs. evil” story where you don’t need to worry about that kind of thing, Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel are supposed to be more than that. I’d be just as confused if Valentino or Vox, for every second of screentime they had, were doing nothing but going “haha rape haha prostitution haha tv is so cool” for 25 minutes and that’s it. But I digress.

I’m writing this because I was suddenly reminded of a character that’s basically what Stella could’ve been: Flowey. Flowey is just as volatile and agressive as Stella is, attacking you, killing you, and possibly having done countless genocide runs in the past with his own ability to RESET. Then, we get his backstory and find out who he used to be and why he’s the way he is. He’s an unfeeling sociopathic child. He was created with absolutely no way of feeling empathy because he has no SOUL. The child that he used to be is angry, longing for his past and his old friend, and was put into this situation for reasons that weren’t even his fault. Flowey is also a victim, but that doesn’t mean he can’t also be evil or do hurtful things. Whether or not you choose to show him pity or mercy is up to the player, but the fact that he’s that complex enough to warrant that choice is just part of Undertale’s writing. Hell, even Toriel is a better Stella than what Stella is in “canon”. I personally don’t like Toriel, but she does have depth to her (until the end where she just waltzes in and takes over the situation and no one does a thing to stop her because it’s Toriel and I guess everyone’s just chill with the traitorous queen coming in and acting like she’s in charge). Toriel comes in acting all sweet and nice, but is very clingy and definitely has issues with guilt and a black-and-white morality to justify her own actions. She’s not simply “ah, my child have some pie and we’ll be a family my child” 24/7. She’s a spiteful bitch, a hypocrite, and runs away from her problems. Again, this is because Undertale’s writing is (for the most part) consistent with giving it’s characters more depth underneath the memes and quotable dialogue.

Now, why am I writing all this about Undertale? Because it and HB/HH are on similar levels of writing. They both try to show more than just what’s at face value. Charlie is nice and sweet but will throw hands and has self-doubts, Alastor is everyone’s nightmare, but according to the comics, he does crave genuine interaction and is much nicer towards women (aside from Vaggie but my theory is that it’s because she’s not as feminine as Charlie or the Sheep Woman and far less easy to charm). So if Alastor, a mass murderer and cannibal who is more than likely going to do everything he can to mess with the Hotel’s success for his own entertainment, can have elements of good in him, then why the fuck can’t Stella? Oh, I know why, because Alastor isn’t interfering with the “romance”. I already didn’t like Stolitz before but Season 2 has nuked any chance of making me change my mind. This whole “romance” is being pushed so hard that it’s tainting the writing with retcons and things that just make no sense. Why would Octavia say “you ruined it” to Stolas in episode 2 if Stella was apparently just mean and nasty the whole time and Stolas was just soooo innocent? Why does the Ozzie’s song frame it like Stella and Octavia are victims of Stolas fucking up if Stella was always secretly the evil one and not Stolas? Why is Stolas ashamed if he was so proudly yelling about his divorce in front of her friends? Why is Goetia divorce a thing if the Goetia family looks down on it and sets up arranged marriages? Why the fuck is Stella just around and eating at the dinner table like they’re married if she can’t stand Stolas? Why is she ranting about Stolas being a cheater on the phone, if they’re separated and if she just doesn’t care about anything but money? And why the dickshit would Stella, someone who everyone is so fucking sure is only in it for her image, just blabbing about how shit her marriage is if that would just make her look like a loser who’s settling for trash? It makes no fucking sense unless it’s all just some poorly done retcon of earlier events. Hell, the pilot is supposedly non-canon, and yet a scene of it pops up in the new episode, so I can’t even be sure what’s true or not.

Sigh, but I guess at the end of the day, I saw this coming. They’re trying so hard to push Stolitz that the writing has to suffer for it. I’m not even sure I want to continue the series, if it’s just gonna become some genetic telenovela where everyone is so evil unless they wanna help Stolas in some way because he’s “such a victim”. I never wanted to have to write something like this and I sure as shit never foresaw myself reblogging critical content, but it is the way it is, I guess. But, that’s what rewrites and AUs are for, and I’ll be working on mine.

Anyway, that’s it for now unless I find something else to ramble about. Later.

[greysfall]

My 4444-word review of NEO TWEWY (with personal illustration + heavy spoilers)

My overall critical score for the game is 7.5/10, while my personal enjoyment score is 8.5/10. This review is posted as I have 80% completed the game, got the secret ending and achieved the Angel psychic rank. I’ll first start with the main pros and cons as follows.

PROS:

-        Enjoyable as a whole, still upholding the first game’s spirit in world building and sharing the same backbone - which was mostly revealed in the Secret Reports, it’s impossible to grasp the story without reading them.

-        The new cast and new game is charming in their own way

-        The old cast’s return is one of the biggest highlights for sure, it was fun and impactful. Everyone stays true to themselves and also had their own stories wrapped up nicely.

-        Boss designs are cool, new pins are fun to use and collect

-        The connection between the old and new cast is well written and executed, including but are not limited to the tension between the old and new protagonist, the weird but fun interaction between the 2 Composers, the new friendships revealed and formed

-        Sho being in the main cast is something so uniquely TWEWY and uniquely Sho

-        Still good music

-        Still many fun side quests, some of them really uphold the same quirky spirit of the old game and some are surprisingly touching

-        Many new nice stores and yummy looking foods to explore

-        The map is really easy to memorize for me, it’s fun to travel around the “current” Shibuya to see all the differences compared to the past

-        The social network is crazy and interesting to read through

-        Has an anti-frustration system to help 100% complete the game more easily and earn money faster, so post-game is relatively managable.

-        Overall, I really feel the efforts the team poured into making this as their passion project, not just during the development process but for all the last 14 years. They showed the vision of what they wanted to make, at the same time giving something to both the old as well as new fans.

CONS:

-        The biggest problem with the game is scenario writing. The story is so heavily back-loaded. The director himself thought it would be better to balance out the tension flow by adding more at the beginning but gave in to the scenario writer in the end, probably due to time pressure. This results in an underwhelming execution of characterization and lots of wasted potentials for the first half of the game.  

-        I struggle to view it as a stand-alone game, since the backstory and the old cast both play such an important role in the core of the game. If someone plays this game without having played the OG, they can only enjoy it on surface value at best.

-        The new cast is nice but most of them aren’t quite as intriguing as the old cast, maybe it’s cuz they’re all too nice deep down that they lack a little bit of an edge, of that batshit craziness that everyone in the OG used to have? I think some characters (Fret, Nagi) ended up weaker in terms of characterization because the writer is too afraid of making them unlikeable – which kind of backlashed cuz they only became likable in the most expectable way to cater for a specific group of fans. I would have wished for the other team leaders to be more crazy too, had they not suffered 30+ loops of the Game…

-        The CAMERAWORK IS HELL.

-        Gameplay does get tedious at certain points with all the time travels.

-        Shiba is so badly written as a villain, some Shinjuku characters should be given more screentime cutting into Shiba’s– like Hishima or Kaie or even, Hazuki (though his limited presence also solidified his importance).

-        Some of the main character designs, for example Beat’s hairstyle and his food reactions are hilariously bad. What’s the point of covering up most of his unique facial features?

-        Some of the minor/side characters’ design are too cool for them to have such a small role (eg: Ayano, Eiru). Ryoji did get much screentime but is nowhere as fun as Makoto was.

-        Overall the scope of this game is made a little too big for the team to handle as perfectly as the last game that was very compact, it felt somewhat rushed in development too so the missing pieces are clearly there in the final picture

The entry fee versus paying for it all in the end

An important difference between the Neo game and the original Shibuya game was that the Shibuya rule asked for an entry fee that is the Player’s most important asset, stated as a chance the Composer gives them to reexamine themselves. Meanwhile, the Shinjuku rule neither encourages nor allows personal growth and ultimately aims to erase as many Players as possible. It’s a pity we were never introduced to the full Shinjuku rulebook, as it seems like the system there focuses more on building up power and a grand government to compare with the individuality-driven system of Shibuya.

When you have to compare the new game and the original game (OG), this is an important factor to consider. Also, the OG has a serious storyline running through and through, locked with a different partner/GM creating unique atmosphere for each week and you don’t get to see your old partners again until the end. NEO’s team system does not allow such deep insight and communication between the Players. All of your teammates are always there throughout, the dynamic does change with each new addition but it is not as prominent as a partner change.

Another important factor is how the OG was built from scratch for a new platform as “something no one has ever seen before”, while Neo recycled a lot of old unused ideas from the previous development (check out this interview for more details). The development team for NEO lacks 2 key members and had a change of writer so the final product is not as strongly bound together as the last game.

The new cast is definitely inspired by today’s teenagers (from the view of creators), compared to the old cast they’re more sociable and always seem to take whatever works for them despite feeling unstable inside. They are all innocent and genuinely nice kids, avoiding to hurt each other to a degree that they end up keeping some sort of distance. They’re also unable to communicate at deeper levels, always stagnant at this half-baked stage of equilibrium without any motivation to get to the core of things. That is the cost of entering the game without an entry fee, without even dying or having a reason to be there/to fight seriously. These kids were stolen from the RG into a Game that was decidedly the worst environment for them to change or develop, just wandering around cluelessly to find a way “out” until tragedies started to unfold one by one and they ended up being charged the total sum of the price for their actions – ultimately losing everything in the end.

That is, I believe, a story arc which can resonate more to the youth of today rather than of my generation. If the message of the old game was to “listen”, enjoy life to the fullest and accept to trust others, the message of the new game is to “speak up” from the inside, trying to understand yourself and take actions instead of just going with the flow and finally, to take responsibility for such actions.

If Neku was handpicked by the Composer for being the special one with an all-dense soul to ensure victory of the game then Rindo was just a normal kid chosen out of random by Kubo to be his back-up plan, who just happened to have a high enough imagination to awaken the incredible power from his pin. Rindo was then officially chosen by the Composer as Josh picked up and handed the pin to him again, this time not as Josh’s personal Proxy – but as the Proxy to represent the normal people of Shibuya and via whom he could gamble if humans can fight for their own fate.

The underworld heroine and the hero with little of his own

Shoka is for me a refreshing and layered heroine. She’s the kind of character that took at least 3 trials of creators to form as a complete individual – that included Nomura who gave her the base design and Reaper background, Gen who gave a more cunning touch and the writers who made her English dialogues more punchy. Dishonesty equals “tsundere” is such a cliché, so the English writers tried really hard to avoid that trope in my opinion, while still letting her good intention come through.

She serves as the character who is informed of everything the players should have known, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Almost. Until she met Rindo.

They were drawn to each other by sharing a state of “not having anything of their own”. They both started out with not being able to truly know themselves, Shoka even hated her RG life but also managed to mature from that stage before Rindo. She must have vibed with Shiki’s love and passion in the Gatto Nero threads, initiating her connection with Shibuya and understanding herself more. With Shoka as Swallow, they were able to open up to each other and offer mental support… but was still not getting to the centre of their problems because for all this time, Shoka could not tell Rindo the most important things about herself.

How did Shoka feel when she met Rindo at the UG? She probably didn’t want to hope that he would live the day until she witnessed the Twisters’ potentials. From the very beginning, they were both incredibly conscious of each other and also constantly frustrated that the person they happened to “notice” was such a condescending bitch/a clueless loser. The Shinjuku Reapers are overall quite drunk in power and uncompassionate to Players, Shoka included. She is also a master of dissociation, which results in her constant boredom, tone swings, haughtiness and subconsciously distancing herself from the friend – the boy she cares about – from false hope, as she judged from facts that it was a hopeless situation where nothing could ever be. Maybe she is naturally a bit of a chameleon just like her name suggests (Shoka 紫陽花 = hydrangea, the color-changing flower), so putting on an act and always dissociating herself from what’s important was easy, while hiding her contradiction was impossible. It was the ex-Reaper Beat who broke it out to her, that she should decide whether she really cared and wanted to do something for a change. He knew how it felt like to cross that line, and knew she wanted to too.  

Shoka is endeared by many of the Shinjuku Reapers and has shown independent acts of kindness (the Shinjuku ghost), proving that her kind and truthful side is as real as her harsh and dishonest side – which makes her a nice mirror to the previous heroine Shiki, who also embraced a dichotomy of self-complex and self-love within her character. In the end, she was the first of the new cast to ultimately accept all that is important to her and independently made the decision to help save Shibuya despite all costs.

She was jealous at Rindo’s interaction with Tsugumi and Kanon but remained silent cuz she wasn’t at a place to have any say about it. She also didn’t reveal about Swallow because that would only add an awkward irrelevance to their current situation, as she was too ready to face erasure at the end of the Game. She only wished to “play a game” with him, be it FanGo or the Reapers’ Game. The tension that the team could only feel at the end, she’s felt it the entire time. The song “DIVIDE” is applicable to not just one bond in the game, but it always makes me think of theirs. There is always a “divide” between her and Rindo throughout the course of their journey, as the living and the dead, as a Player and Reaper, as someone who has a place to return to and someone who doesn’t, someone who knows little but wields too much power and someone who knows a lot despite not being able to do much.

“If only I had the chance to connect with you on the other side

But time goes on, and without us realizing it

The battle is getting heated

Time goes on, and without us realiazing it

Divided again”

To be honest, maybe I didn’t grow any affection for the new main cast from Rindo’s perspective but from Shoka’s. Since I started to sympathize with Shoka, I started to see the boy in a more “real” way. The real Rindo, behind his peaceful façade with others, would lash out on Shoka for her unfairly harsh attitude while none of the others cared. He could also subtly feel that mantle of unspoken secrets from her, her own contradictions, the unresolved chemistry between themselves – and not knowing what to do with it rather than to feel angry with all the unfairness he could not process. (As a Libra too, he’s triggered the most by unfairness!)

It is actually a positive development as he’s at least “reacting” to something strongly now rather than to keep evading his problems. During my replay, I clearly saw the difficult situation Shoka was in, her remaining harshness after the Motoi incident was due to her internal struggle with a mission to save her own life, versus a chance to really be with the team. Her decision was to do both at the risk of losing favour from both sides. Rindo started to accept her layer by layer, as the person who resonated the most to her contradicting nature from the start and knew that via learning her resolve, he has learnt his too.

Later into the game, she even got too much of his attention. Maybe even without knowing she’s Swallow, he’s familiar with her thinking direction and Swallow had always been closer to him than any other friend. It was only after she had to betray her important ones twice that she could start being truly honest. The scene when she died a 2nd time left a strong impression in me, the little reveal let Rindo know that he is also losing Swallow as he’s losing Shoka – and that only death could drive the last secret out of her. Her final “Later, loser” echoed through Rindo as it was the final truth, with only him remaining to hear it: they had actually, already lost everything.

Rindo was the boy who never dared to face all that matters to him until he lost it all, fighting an unfair battle in the faith that they would somehow still win. Shoka was the girl who always knew what was dear to her, but never dared to think she could be together with them ever after and still threw her all into a battle she knew was losing. I think they stir each other on naturally to fill out their gaps, similar to what the Shibuya game partner systerm would have aimed for. The end reward was a little divine intervention to help close up the divide between them once and for all.  

During the game there was not enough space to process anything personal so at the ending when they officially became “friends”, it was an important affirmation of their bond. Some people complained it was friendzoning but it’s not, they just have arrived at the perfect place to start something more. “From now on, we will truly be together” – I read it as that kind of message.  

The heroine from a lost battle, with her story taken away

After reading the secret reports and playing the game to be surprised of how small a role Tsugumi had in the main game despite being the “Hype-chan” thought to be a major character of the next TWEWY installment, many fans would feel sad at a missed opportunity to see the Shinjuku arc in full depiction.

It was shown clearly that, a Shinjuku arc was very carefully planned out and is a vital part of the whole story, yet it could not be made due to various circumstances behind the development scene. I would assume, that the team were not able to make a TWEWY game that ended on a despairing note, but it already happened in their mind, thus becoming a mental burden that forced them to break away from it and started the game anew with NEO. A significant part of NEO became the healing arc for the Shinjuku characters, especially for Tsugumi though I really wished more emphasis should have been placed on her rather than Shiba. We didn’t even get to see her brother – Shinjuku’s Conductor who had a vital role and instead was given the clueless Shiba, who had absolutely no idea what’s going on all the way until the last day in NEO. It’s as if Tsugumi has had her story stolen away from her, because her own battle ended with a saddening loss.

I think every time the game creators look at Tsugumi, they would feel that sadness too. Maybe to them, she is a bigger character than what is seen by the fans, as despite their failed effort to depict her story, she’s lived in their mind for all these years through periods of destruction, healing and rebuild.  Though it is a pity we could not get to experience the full scope of the Shinjuku story, the creators was clear about the place they wished for it to arrive at.    

Individuality, connection and the social network

The team system adapted from Shinjuku rulebook does not allow much room for personal development, as the team dynamic is closer to a work relationship forced to bear results, than a spiritual bond to max out all corners of understanding as found in the partnership system. The old Shibuya system allowed only 1 winner and 1 week limit per game, while the new rule declares for a 1 winning team and only the team at last place will be erased – the other teams will enter another loop. Furthermore, whichever team to challenge the unwinnable Ruinbringers will face the risk of ending up dead last followed by erasure. As a result, the longest-standing teams are most likely not the strongest ever recorded, but the ones who have figured out a strategy to simply survive until something changes, enjoying their newly found social constructs while they are at it. Basically, it is a system to hypnotise players into the illusion that they are still “living”.

Therefore, we as players would not get to the core of each Player individually as fast and directly as we did in the last game. The Twisters were able to stand out not because they’re powerful, they only started to have a real chance after growing enough to each form a meaningful and personal connection to another teammate. It did not come as a team, nor did it intiate from the existing friendship between Rindo and Fret. In fact, I did not find much solidity or anything truly note-worthy about the main team and new characters within themselves until they started clashing with other team members, Reapers and new recruits from week 2 onwards. Rindo found his personal development with Shoka (via a clash with Motoi and pretty much a mini dating sim between them), then via the confrontation of his role with Neku; Fret found his with Kanon then Nagi, the team learned about the real Neku via Beat, Neku entered the UG via Coco’s wish to save Tsugumi… it was not the team but their personal links that empowered them to fight and solve each of their problems.

The other team leaders may have failed because they did not form such personal links, after 30+ hopeless loops Fuya’s team all fell apart to pursue their own interest even at the cost of erasure, Motoi quit his KOL façade to work like a dog for the Reapers (probably to save just his own ass not his team), while Kanon dropped her tricks to find changes via honest cooperation in acceptance of a fair loss. The despairing note in that is huge without making much of a scene because their failure didn’t happen at their best effort to “win”, but in their last attempt to find a way “out”. Even Shiba got his way “out” in the end thanked to his personal friendship with Hishima and Tsugumi.

Something has shifted in the mindset of the game creators in the last 14 years, as both games are about “connection vs individuality” but the last game focuses more on connection between just individuals and this one on the overall network that is formed out of those individual connections.

The introduction of Beat into the main cast was truly the bridge between old and new, they helped each other out in several turns before officially recruiting him. Beat is a character whom a lot of fans including myself have felt somewhat concerned about after Neku disappeared from the RG, so when the new kids welcomed Beat with warm and organic interaction and Beat seemed happy, I started to feel like I wanted to help them out too! I think the overall team chemistry is enjoyable enough for new players, but I could warm up to the new kids more from the pov of a returning character – whom I’m glad to be Beat, as the older brother figure who is genuinely kind, fun, serious and upbeat at the same time; who is needed and needs the kids in return.

The social network is a fun and refreshing feature. You can read all of the crazy tidbits about Shibuya and the links each character have formed with the town people, it’s also fun to visualize how the characters act off screen. Characters’ profiles provide extra insight into their background too, like how it reveals Tsugumi has been friend with Coco during her time in the RG. During the game when not all characters have showed up, you can sometimes guess which empty spot will belong to whom. For example there is a 1 character linking to Neky that is not linked to anyone else, so I could guess that was Joshua, and that another character linking only to Joshua was probably Hazuki, hinting that the 2 Composers are related before either of them even showed up.

Hazuki only showed up for 5 minutes, but his presence is so vital and true to the game that I think he is the most memorable out of the new cast. The two Composers have such an intriguing bond, with their yin/yang or phoenix/dragon themes, opposite color design, the sempai/kouhai tone and the way they keep some sort of distance/work relationship as if it’s mandatory between Higher beings, yet at the same time they can talk so casually because they are truly equal – and different from one another. I have written a separate meta on them here.

Some people pointed out, that all Shinjuku characters’ names and themes are based off Hanafuda cards and the Phoenix in Hanafuda belongs to the Paulownia suit – which is Joshua’s name flower. This is so interesting because it feels like the creators somehow saw it as a sign to interweave the Shibuya and Shinjuku storylines together. Though it doesn’t come out much on the surface, it’s fascinating nonetheless considering both Josh and Haz had at some point interfered with the other town’s affairs.

“Shibuya tour with Haz” was such a special scene, as it happened between 2 characters who do not/no longer have a reason to care about Shibuya, on the subject of what is worth saving about Shibuya. Hazuki carried out the purification of Shinjuku and stepped in to restore Shibuya just as part of his job and unlike Hanekoma or Joshua who both possess profound understanding of humanity, he really didn’t know humans at all. Rindo’s irrational wish invoked in him a sense of curiosity, to try gambling on something irrationally and learning a bit of what his senior have experienced. With all the pieces put together, it provides an overview on Higher beings as a whole, and that Joshua and Hanekoma are really the odd ones out with Hazuki being somewhere in between them and the rest.        

The old friends

It’s easy to have returning characters overshadow the new cast as they have already matured out of their personal story arc and stayed in our hearts for all this time. In the end, I have managed to enjoy both the old and new cast separately and altogether, and they will both find their own place in our memory of this game for the long term.

Sho is truly as crazy as ever, the game wouldn’t be the same if Sho is any less of what he is. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like Neky or Beat is younger than Nagi at all, with moments when it seems like Neky has aged 14 years instead of 3 years. His friendship with Coco surprised me pleasantly, and their interaction together with Beat was fun to watch. Rhyme’s found a new dream and her friendship with Kaie is precious too, especially considering that she can still talk to him online after the game ended. Josh and Neku’s interaction suggested that they have resolved the past and are on equal terms now, they even parted ways in good spirit and I don’t feel any worry about them like I did before.

Neku and Shiki’s reunion scene was beautiful, theirs is such a special bond that it has grown and supported them even without being able to see each other. I am so happy to see them all again and that they stay true to who they are, albeit looking more grown up, cooler and happier than ever before.  

Overall, NEO can’t become a classic on par with the OG, but is definitely a good sequel and a good game in its own rights. I’m happy with whether or not there will be a 3rd game to complete the 3 monkeys theme, but if there will be – I hope the creators can really find the time to learn from the last 2 games and start over with a fresh mindset and strong core.  

[kudouusagi]

Febri Sk8 director - Utsumi Hiroko interview part 1

After making such big hits as Banana fish, Director Utsumi Hiroko is taking on the much talked about SK8 as her first original anime.  The skateboarding themed show where young boys compete in hot battles has been receiving a lot of feedback. So we asked Director Utsumi about how the show and characters were created and some backstory on the show.

―SK8 is the first original work you've worked on, Director Utsumi, so how did the planning for it start?

Utsumi: When it was first brought up, it was right when I first started working on my last work, Banana Fish. The producer Uryu (Kyoko) who worked on that and this said to me, "Let's make something you want to make next Utsumi-san" but I remember being shocked I was just starting making that series and was really surprised that we were already talking about the next one (lol).

―So you've been working on this for quite a while then. I assume you finished working on Banana Fish and then started seriously thinking about this one, so where did you start from?

Utsumi: I already wanted to try making an original anime. So when Uryu-san asked me "What do you want to make?" I told her I wanted to make a show about skateboarding.

―You were interested in skateboarding before this.

Utsumi: Yes, I've done it as a hobby for a while. Though having said that, it's not like I'm really that good (lol). To go a little further back, before I got into skating I was into snowboarding. However, snowboarding is a lot of work. It takes a while to get to the ski slopes, and to get good snow you have to go out further than just Kansai. And once you get there, if you're there for one day you're just getting used to it when you have to stop. So you really have to take a few days off for it...... and so with this type of job there's a lot of hurdles in the way of doing it as a hobby. Even though I bought a board and all the gear I didn't end up being able to go even once......

―That's kind of sad, isn't it?

Utsumi: And so then my friend recommended skateboarding to me. Skateboarding you can do easily any time you have some time. It's really "whenever and wherever". The scene in the show where Reki tells Langa the appeal of skateboarding is really a scene showing the appeal I myself felt for skateboarding.

―And so this is a work based on your own personal experiences, isn't it?

Utsumi: Of course it's something I like myself, if you don't feel an appeal for something then you can't accurately convey the appeal of it to the viewers of the show. So inevitably there's a lot of things that I used as the source for the work. Also, even though skating has been around for a long time, it's never been the main subject of an anime before so I wanted to do it. Writing about skateboards is difficult, but in itself the details are pretty simple and everyone knows about them so I felt like it was a good subject to make an anime about.

―And so because of that, while it's a skateboarding anime, that the main characters mostly compete in a fictional race called the "S", right?

Utsumi: It was never my plan to have them compete seriously so I figured I wanted to create a series where they compete in a new type of racing battle. I wanted to create a racing series but if the races aren't connected to the story it doesn't give you that natural feeling of excitement so we had to figure out a way to use that. In reality, there are downhill skateboarding races so I wanted to base it on that but it's also different as we made them a racing battle where you can experience the infinite possibilities of skateboarding. We aimed for running right against that reality line where it's like "can they do this or not?!"

―I see.

Utsumi: Also in racing stories I always picture them riding in cars or on bikes, so if that's the case you can't see the characters because of the bodies of the car or the helmets. So in that case, if they're skateboarding you can show the character's whole body, and coupled with the character's own appeal, I think you can make appealing images.

―Speaking of the character's appeal, this time, you made all the plans for the characters yourself didn't you, Director Utsumi?

Utsumi: The one thing I wanted to write about when I made an original anime was "friendship". And so rather than only having one protagonist, 2 is good. So when you're writing drama between them I think it's best for the screenplay if they're different types of characters. So one of them is really main protagonist like, he's a hard worker but he's not really that talented and the other is the naturally talented type. Like the type of a shounen manga.

―So they're the perfect pair aren't they(lol).

Utsumi: And after that you need someone who can stand in their way, that became ADAM, but you need that type of character. So that's why we came up with those 3 characters first and then we created the rest of the characters as we created the story.

―You also made proposals for how the characters would look yourself, didn't you Director Utsumi?

Utsumi: Yes, since it's an original story I really wanted to try to design them myself.  Also Uryu-san said to me, "if you can picture them inside your head, Director Utsumi, then you draw them". So when I tried drawing them...... I decided I really do like distinct works.

―Could you please elaborate on that a little?

Utsumi: I really love animeish anime. Like for example Langa's hair color. It's not a color that exists in real life, so in a live action story it would feel out of place, but in anime you can just naturally accept it. I wanted to do the utmost to make design choices and give them expressions that you can only do because it's anime. That's why rather than just trying to make everyone good looking, I felt like it was fine if they weren't that good looking but you could tell their character anyway. I wanted to make SK8 a series that would stand out when compared against the other series just from their looks.

―You really can tell all of the main character's personalities from just a glance.

Utsumi: I wanted to create as many characters with different personalities as I could. I especially like when they physically stand out against each other when they're in a line up, like if there's someone with a huge body like Nanjou then it's also good to have someone with a small body like MIYA. I think it's nice to look at when designs have that sort of roughness to them so I took that into consideration when designing them.

―So I guess to me that means that they're showy in a way you can only do in anime, but having said that it makes me think of ADAM. You made him in the image of a matador, so where did that idea come from?

Utsumi: ADAM's design came from.... Well that's kind of difficult to say. As we wrote the screenplay ADAM's character became more clearly formed but... well... he's a weird person, isn't he(lol)? So we decided to make him wear something that normal people wouldn't wear.  At that point, breaking away from thoughts of what was normal was difficult......(lol) But then the anime producer Suzuki (Mari)-san said "I want to see a masked character" and we figured, if there's anyone in this who would wear a mask it would be ADAM (lol). So since his theme was love we decided to design him as a passionate Spanish matador.

―I see. So it was from his theme in the work that that design was decided then? 

Utsumi: However, if ADAM was the only one with that sort of design he would have stood out, so we changed how the other characters were as well...... so he was a hard character to keep a balance with (lol). Also, while I think his image is good overall, ADAM is a character with a lot of parts, so it's easy to leave parts out or miss-color them. For animation it's good to design characters with as few parts as possible, but when the character designer Chiba (Michinori)-san gave us the finished designs he still had so many parts(lol). I said "you couldn't have reduced the number of parts more than this?!" but Chiba-san was determined with his design...... I thought the animators were going to die (lol).

[sweetcloverheart]

My thoughts on Zoe Lee...

I’ll be honest - I don’t necessarily hate Zoe. Despite the reasons the creators (claimed not to) have for creating her, I didn’t really see any reason to justifiable revile her entire existence like a majority of the fandom, because it was less her fault as a character that said reasons ended up being so deeply tied to her coming about than it was her creators for letting them eclipse any need for her to create a base outside of them

That being said, I couldn’t really come to like her either (or at least do so outside of fanfic) not because, again, of her reasons for being made, but because I just don’t like the lack of effort the writers put into her, because when you actually look at her character and despite her role being specifically tailored to take Chloe’s place as the new Bee holder, she’s basically a generic akuma victim given main character status with no work put in to develop her past that previous stage.

Allow me to explain - Our intro episode of Zoe reads very much like a standard “Akuma Of The Day” plot when applied to characters not in the main cast or subcast: Akuma victim shows up and is briefly introduced, immediately befriends Marinette/Adrien or interacts with them and the cast in some way, and we get a short synopsis of their backstory with some minor life stuff sprinkled in while the A-plot goes on in the foreground as their akumatization trigger is set up. The inciting incident happen, Gab get Akumatizing, then Ladybug and Chat Noir (and a temp hero if needed) show up, deevilize them, and they give a mini-exposition dump of why they turned “evil” before Ladybug reassures them and solves their problem for them as Marinette (or it resolves itself), then next we see they’re living a happier and better life and we never see them again unless the show needs to reuse an Akuma model.

Does that sound like Zoe’s intro? Because that’s basically what it was minus the “never seeing again” part. Despite it supposing to be her debut episode, the entire thing is extremely lackluster and basically more reminiscent of one of the more regular generic akuma episodes; We get told all about how Zoe is so “nice” and how she hates being “mean” and that she used to lie - stuff that, were she a main cast character, would (and should) have been spread throughout several episodes via b-plot shenanigans and backstory-lore drops to get us acclimated to her before going ahead and giving her a miraculous, but is instead squished into two episodes and explained so bluntly that they might as well of just screenshotted her character wiki. Zoe is clearly meant to be an “Ascended Extra”, but she unfortunately lacks the substance to be one. All the pieces are there, yes, but they aren’t constructed in a coherent way to actually give a proper and interesting view of her as a character; She isn’t brought in and slowly built up to become one of the gang, or occasionally popping up in the background until we’re finally given a name and slowly given her backstory - instead, she just shows up, becomes everyone’s new bestie, is immediately handed a miraculous, and we call it a day.

And before you say “But wait, the temp heroes are the exact same way!”, let’s not forget that despite their lack of character development and growth, we at least got to know (whatever little we do) of the temp holders for over four seasons. Even Kagami, who too went from random Akuma victim to main cast member, was given time to grow and develop alongside everyone else before getting handed the Dragon Miraculous (and then pigeon-holed into Adrien’s bitter ex and Lovesquare supporter because we just can’t have nice things, can we Thomas?). Zoe legit just got off the bus, but story acts like you’re supposed to treat and view her as if she’s been there the whole time; No time is given to adjust to her presence, she’s immediately loved and revered by the cast like she’s the third coming of Ladybug despite only knowing them for like a day (like, when you have the normally caustic and jerky Plagg blowing sunshine up this girl’s skirt and Andre “fired the chief of police because he wouldn’t do a false arrest for my daughter” Bourgeois out of nowhere being 100% willing to bend over backwards to protect her from Chloe’s wrath, that tells me something - and none of it is good), and doesn’t even get a few breather episodes to establish dynamics with the rest of the cast (The girl’s an aspiring actress, right? How come she’s not hanging out with Nino or Mylene more? Why doesn’t she try befriending Sabrina since she’s obviously “so miserable” being Chloe’s apparent slave and could use a real friend? What are her thoughts on Felix seeing as how he’s clearly familiar with the Bourgeois and would have been introduced to her after she arrived? What about the kids in the other classes? The people in the city in general? How come we almost never see her hanging out with anyone in the class outside of the girl squad scheme in “Gabriel Agreste” and those two minor cutaway scenes in “Optigami” and “Strikeback” that have her with her apparently evil half-sister who no one should like, least of all herself). The girl was given two episodes to get what should have been at least a season or two’s worth of settling and character development, and then the writers just dusted their hands off and walked away because, well, Zoe’s done her job - which is to supplant the Ally!Chloe role. No need to further her character or explore the backstory hints we set around her or even give her any more focus when all she has to do now is play keep away with the Bee Miraculous from Chloe’s grabby hands until it’s time to roll the credits.

Which leads to the other issue - the character has no form of standing power on her own. As stated, Zoe’s existence is, whether we like to acknowledge it or not, staunchly tied around her 1)Not being Chloe and 2)Filling out the role Chloe would IF she wasn’t an antagonist. While these might seem like silly things to take issue with, the problem becomes prominent when you realize that if you remove Chloe from the formula (or any scene with Zoe as a focus), Zoe herself...has little to no individuality. Her entire existence is heavily reliant on Chloe being the worst and everyone else saying so. If I take those things away, she barely counts as a character anymore, let alone a main cast member. Even the extras in the show’s background have more individuality than she does right now.

Look at her intro - we had to be told by other characters that Zoe was “nice”, and are only “shown” via Chloe acting worse than usual when around her while telling her how to be mean that Zoe isn’t anything like her sister. If we remove that latter part, then what do we have to actually show that she’s a nice person? We aren’t shown her being nice to people (in fact, the episode has her explicitly being rude and cruel to people. Even if she was “faking” it, that doesn’t indicate her being nice), we aren’t shown her doing things like helping someone across the street, or feeding a stray animal, or volunteering. The closest we get to seeing “nice” expressed from her is that scene in “Sole Crusher” where she shares the snacks she bought from the bakery with her cabby, but there’s no real set up for it (Like, we don’t see her and the cabby really establishing a friendship/strong enough rapport to prompt the sharing - in fact, the driver isn’t even shown throughout the entire exchange to add the entire humanizing factor the act’s supposed to have), and the tailend of “Queen Banana” with her declaring to Chloe that she’ll always love her no matter how much she hates her - which was nice character moment, admittedly, but it’s also super telegraphed and fake-feeling since she’s using lines from her character in the class film, and we really don’t see any follow up with this (Note that the “Optigami” scene has Chloe throwing Zoe in front of an Akuma to save herself and “Strikeback” is just them standing together worriedly over Hawkmoth’s announcement. We don’t ever see stuff like Zoe defending Chloe from her classmates making fun of her bullying or reassuring her or even just dropping by with a gift and a hello. And you’d think the part in “Queen Banana” where everyone wants to film behind Chloe back would have her protesting against it or going to apologize to Chloe for her feeling cut out if that’s how she really feels). Basically, all of her “niceness” comes from the fact that everyone is saying she is rather than actual showing it.

Compare this to other scenes in the show used to establish a character as “nice” -  Marinette has shown us she’s nice by constantly taking on responsibilities and tasks for her friends or volunteering to design for events, helping out at her parents’s bakery, and the stuff she does as Ladybug. Rose, the residential nice girl, shows us she’s nice through her constant positivity even during the show’s more darker moments and often being the shoulder to lean on for the very shy and reserved Juleka. Even Chloe, despite herself, has shown moments of kindness that show that she’s more than just a spoiled self-centered brat, like in “Felix” when she left Adrien that heartfelt message because she knew he was hurting and wanted to comfort him. Zoe, on the other hand, does absolutely nothing in either her intro or hero debut episode (or even after) to inform us as the audience that she’s “nice” outside everyone else saying so, and the stuff she does do (the sharing her food, wanting to reason with Chloe as an Akuma, sacrificing herself for Ladybug to get the last blow in, ect) is...very bare minimum stuff that everyone in the show does, “nice” or not, and the show just expects you to just nod along as they try to claim that these acts alone make Zoe basically an angel without wings and how blessed the story is to have her without really doing much to back it up. The same can be applied to her backstory of having “lied” about who she’s really is to get people to like her back home and then getting bullied once exposed (hmm, sounds strangely similar to another young female antagonist on the show explicitly created to be hated and evil whom the writers “have no plans on redeeming” either hmm funny that) - we aren’t told what exactly the “lie” was or what kind of person she pretended to be, what her “fake friends” were like, what her original family sans Audrey was like to prompt the lying, what the moment where she “couldn’t do it anymore” was about, why people at her school were that upset over the lie/reveal to start bullying and isolating her over it in the first place, or the intensity of the bullying (we’re told they put cockroaches in her locker and called her “a loser”, which is pretty bad, but not how long it had been happening to get to that point). It’s enough to be sad and sympathize over, but not enough to inform us on what kind of person Zoe was prior to her being introduced or how it effected her current self (or if it effects her at all) , and says nothing about her other than “You should feel bad for Zoe because we said so”. She’s got nothing to really shape her as a member of the cast or a temp hero outside of us being told that she’s a “nice” person who everyone wants to be friends with despite their first intro of her being her being a (fake) jerk to them to earn brownie points with Chloe.

And that’s a problem, because none of what we were told or shown informs on anything about Zoe as a character as herself or outside of what we’re told by the other characters, leaving her in a very precarious and flimsy position when the cheerleaders are gone and she has to express these informed traits on her own. Characters in big casts like Miraculous need to be shown to have self-sustaining power, that they can exist by themselves when the camera’s not on them and they’re away from the rest of the group so when they do get focus, we get to not only learn more about them as people, but also see other things outside the main story. Basically, if I put your character (main, side, or otherwise) alone in a room with an orange ball for an hour, I should be able to at least write a three part screenplay and a sequel spinoff about that hour no problem. With Zoe, I can barely fill even a minute’s worth of a paragraph if I try to talk about anything about her that isn’t related to her being Chloe’s anti-clone, and anything I could write might come off as OOC because I don’t even have a clear enough pin on her character to know what’s actually “canon” to her and what’s just my brain desperately trying to fill in the blanks - Something that I can’t say about the other characters, even if they’re also less developed. Heck even Felix, who serves a similar niche in being the Anti-Adrien, is able to and has more going on outside of that than Zoe does - and that’s in spite of Thomas and co trying so hard to make it seem like he doesn’t.

Like, it’s just frustrating how Zoe clearly has the parts to be a good, interesting character, but Thomas and Co. put zero effort into utilizing them for her, and instead relied on the fandom revilement of Chloe to allow her to coast by on. The show tried so hard to hype her up as “better than Chloe”, that she would prove to audience that they didn’t need a hero!Chloe, that they were right to go through with her condemnation arc but don’t be sad because Zoe’s here!! Zoe is everything Chloe will never be, so stop clinging to a character you should be hating and love Zoe instead! Look, everyone else in the cast loves Zoe, so you should too! I mean, who wouldn’t love her? She’s just so loveable and loving and love love love! Did we mention you should love her? Because you should love her! PLEASE LOVE HER!!! And then someone asks the inevitable “Okay, but why?”, and when the time comes to actually show it and prove their point, they realize they have nothing, because they didn’t go through the process of actually making a reason Zoe should be loved and instead just scrapped together a hodgepodge of basic "nice” character traits with an “implied” sadder than most backstory, and then put the onus on the audience to figure it out. Most reviews/analysis I’ve seen often compare her to a Y/N character, and while she does have the traits of one, I don’t think it’s an appropriate comparison. Instead, I see Zoe as an undercooked cake - You get told how delicious and wonderful it’s going to be, better than any other cake that exists, and it is pretty yummy looking at first glance once brought out, so you believe them - but then you cut a slice and see all that uncooked batter start to leak out, and when you ask why it’s so undercooked and why they didn’t even try to make sure it was finished baking before they went ahead and decorated it to put out on the floor, you instead just keep hearing about how the other cake they made before was so awful and terrible, and how this cake will make everyone forget all about that “icky one” they don’t like, making it clear they clearly don’t care enough about the cake to put the proper effort in cooking it if that was their reason.

And again, that’s terrible, because they should have cared. Because Zoe should be able to stand by herself as a character! She should be able to form dynamics with other characters! She should be able to have episodes without Chloe needing to be in them/as the central focus! She shouldn’t need other characters saying she’s nice and wonderful! She shouldn’t need everyone in the cast wanting to be her friend! She shouldn’t have her role be consigned to “New Bee holder” and “Not Chloe”! I shouldn’t be able to cut Chloe out of Zoe’s intro episodes and have the whole thing fall apart because now Zoe has no means or motivation to do what she did in them. I shouldn’t be able to cut Zoe out of her own intro episodes and have nothing change in them (or be able to paste another character in and still have them play out as they had). I shouldn’t be able to cut Zoe out of the series, and have zero effect or consequence for doing so!

Of course, even as I say all this, we still do have another season coming up. Perhaps they’ll use this time to better expand on Zoe as a character and integrate her into the cast better. I can only hope that she be given a chance to actually stand out on her own as a character once the potential (and likely inevitable) Chloe VS Zoe grunge match for the stolen Bee Miraculous is out of the way.

But in all honestly, the writers really should have given everyone enough time to adjust to Zoe. Just plopping her into the story didn’t allow people to digest her character (or soften the blow for people who were still hung up over Chloe’s arc as a hero getting so seemingly abruptly derailed) and immediately rushing to give her the Bee Miraculous right after didn’t help the issue either, making it and all the cast’s immediate adoration of her feel unearned. If they had brought her in before season 4 (Actually, why didn’t they just cameo her in the Newyork special? That would have given the perfect setup for her to be introduced later and would semi-excuse only having two episodes of focus) or put off her becoming the new Bee holder for a little longer, I think she might have gotten a better welcome than she received, or at least more begrudgingly accepted. We can only hope that season 5 remedies the issue (and if not - well, we still have fanfic)