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hollowtones · 1 year

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first yiik impressions?

Hi. Thanks for your message. I've been thinking about this for days. I wrote paragraphs. Here you go!

Everyone talks up how the game is bad, but I've never looked into it much myself, so I went in with an expectation along the lines of "people whose opinions I often agree with think it was an awful mess, I'll likely think something similar". Expectations were low. Even then I wasn't really ready.

"YIIK" is a game of tedium. I don't think it's a game about tedium, that's something different (though it could be, if it was a different video game altogether; "what if the world was made of pudding" etc). To some degree I think the tedium is by design but I'm not really sure what it's in service of.

I don't think tedium in a video game is a bad thing. "Morrowind" and "Breath of the Wild" are two video games I like very much, and some of my favourite memories of those games are of slowly wandering through empty expanses, or having to suddenly deal with equipment degrading or supplies dwindling because I forgot to prepare. Moments like that feel thoughtful! They're interesting moments of reprieve or of tension that feel thoughtfully and intentionally designed! "YIIK" feels like trudging through chest-deep molasses so it can shout "hey did you know you're stuck in my molasses right now? that's weird, why are you stuck in my molasses right now? did you notice?" directly into your ear.

You'll notice this is a pattern.

Combat is turn-based and involves completing little minigames, timing button prompts or hitting targets or some such. It's a cute idea that wears out its welcome when you start realizing how long every single one takes to resolve, especially when you have multiple party members, and sometimes multiple enemies (I'm told this part specifically gets more egregious as the game goes on). I don't think it's awful or unsalvageable but I'm not super into it as of the point we're at.

This is a pattern.

Leveling up is a manual process that you have to unlock, and it involves going to a save point (any save point? we didn't check), to enter the Mind Dungeon, to enter the actual Mind Dungeon, to walk down a set of stairs and enter individual doors one-by-one, so that you can choose how you want to allocate stat increases, so that you can walk down a different set of stairs to commit your choices and spend your banked experience to level up. I think "you can only power up at specific points / times / locations" and the granularity of stat growth are interesting ideas, and the environment they made for it are a charming idea, and I don't think it needed to be a "Hotel Mario" level that you had to slowly walk through. It could have been a menu. They could have used the resources for a nice background or backdrop for a menu that accomplishes the same thing.

This is a pattern.

I haven't really mentioned anything about the story or writing yet. The protagonist's name is Alex and he's a very self-important nerdy misanthropic dickhead white man (a very specific kind of guy that I've definitely met at least once or twice) who is obsessed with a paranormal message board populated by people like him and desperate to find out more about the disappearance of a woman he witnessed. (The woman & her disappearance are based on the real life death of Elisa Lam & aren't handled with a whole lot of tact, IMO, but other people have put this into better words than I can right now. It sucks. It keeps coming up and it makes me bristle every time.) Alex is a bad person. I know he is. You know he is. The game knows he is. I've seen some reviews say a negative point of the game is "the main characters aren't likeable", which I don't really get, because that's the point of the characters, as far as I can tell. The issue, then, is how much time the game takes to exposit at you how bad the characters are. It's exhausting. Every time Alex has a monologue, it feels like it sums up to 10 minutes of "I am a bad person. I am a bad person. Alex is a bad person. This character is a bad person. Do you get it? He's a bad person. Alex is a bad person. Do you understand yet, player? Alex is a bad person. You should know that he's a bad person. Do you get it?"

This is a pattern.

(I don't know how interested I am in bringing up the game's lead writer right now, if at all, but there's a well-known anecdote where he talks about wanting to write a story about a bad person who is forced to grapple with himself and do better, and how the reason why his game wasn't well-received was because people who play video games didn't get it & weren't ready for a story like that. I dunno. I can understand being upset about negative reception to something you poured time and sweat into, and saying something hasty because of it. "Final Fantasy 4" is a beloved RPG classic, though, and "Disco Elysium" came out the same year to overwhelming praise. I haven't played either of these yet, though, so I'll admit maybe I'm off the mark here.)

The characters we've met so far (i.e. the ones that aren't unnamed NPCs) are… well. There's a smarmy younger kid who idolizes(?) Alex & also made the aforementioned paranormal website. So far it seems like he mostly exists to go "hey fuck you Alex, you dickhead" and immediately say something even more insensitive. There's the insensitive based-on-a-real=ass-dead-woman elevator woman, who immediately disappeared from the narrative while still being an essential part of the narrative. There was a dead(?) robot in a bedroom, who had a choir of ominous hooded people monologue about how weird and sad and strange and uncanny the scene is. What the!? There's a woman who works at the arcade and has Powers. Her design's cute. (I feel like, generally, the game's visuals are Fine. The audio, too. That all ranges from Just Fine to Surprisingly Neat. I don't really have much issue with those aspects of the game, but I don't have much to say about them either.) Alex and Kid Whose Name I Didn't Care To Remember are constantly very uncomfortable to her, because she's a woman and because she isn't white, in the 15 or so minutes we've seen her on-screen, and she gets to tell them off, but then immediately kind of goes "well whatever I can smile and put up with this and hang out with you". It feels misogynistic. I know to some degree Alex is misogynistic on purpose, because the game is bludgeoning your skull in and yelling "ALEX IS SHITTY TO WOMEN! AND PEOPLE OF COLOUR! DO YOU GET IT? HE'S SELF ABSORBED IN A SHITTY WAY! DO YOU GET IT, PLAYER? YOU UNDERSTAND THAT ALEX SUCKS ASS YET? MAYBE 10 MORE MINUTES OF THIS WILL MAKE IT CLICK?" But for a woman of colour (the only one we've seen so far who isn't Probably Just Dead) to finally tell him off for being a shithead, only to turn around and go "well it's ok, you're cool now, let's hang out now because it's narratively convenient and you're the protagonist" is pretty damn egregious!

This is a pattern.

Writing in general feels stilted and long-winded. Most of the main characters feel like they don't talk like people do. Alex gets to feel like a person but that's mostly because he gets to talk to himself so damn much. Most of his monologues feel like overly flowery prose, like someone padded it out with identical adjectives to meet a school essay word count. There's an interesting idea or premise or setpiece every now and then. There's a spark. A glint of something compelling. Every single time this has happened so far I find it immediately snuffed out by an over-blown "oh my god!!!!!!! how weird!!!!!!', or a very long plot dump, or a Joss Whedon-ass quip. There can be no small moment of joy. No story element or visual element can stand on its own legs. There can be no room for ideas to breathe. No space for the player to wonder, to dream, to play in the space. The narrative is compelled to suffocate iself on itself, to take up all space, to swallow itself whole in its making. One very minor (so far?) side character has some interesting dialogue in this one dream world, and I think "oh that's neat", and then I learn they're lines taken wholesale from a book (and I think that's fine, reference is fine, but I have a bit of a chuckle over the fact that this character is the reason why the game has a giant REFERENCES option in the main menu). The literal first minute of the game is a bird telling you "oh my god, the title of this game, right? why'd they spell it like that? so fucking dumb, am I right!" It feels insecure. It reads like the writing has no confidence in itself. It has to make a comment about how silly and video-gamey it is, roll its eyes at itself, mock itself for the thing it's doing while continuing to do it without addressing it or discussing it or doing anything with it.

This is a pattern.

There's a specific part of "YIIK", at this early point in the game (we're only around the start[?] of chapter 2), that feels emblematic of the thing as a whole up to this point. Alex is getting phone calls from a stranger. They're confusing and weird and sound a little like something you might hear in a dream. They make references to some shared past, some childhood, some understanding of Alex, or maybe of you, the player. They've come up a few times. Every single time, I'm left thinking about what it could mean, how it fits in with everything we've seen so far & what the game seems to be talking about, with regards to connecting to other people and to yourself. It's a neat little thing. It's a neat idea. I'm charmed by it. As much as my thoughts on this game are largely negative, I still try to look at it fairly, to understand it, to talk about it, to let myself be surprised by it. As soon as I find myself thinking about this, my thoughts are immediately drowned out by Alex telling me how weird the phone call is, how random and uncanny and dumb this is, and how he's rolling his proverbial eyes about it, in spite of all the other paranormal happenings around him, for another period of Just Too Long. And I am sapped of all strength and I crumble to dust.

I'm genuinely transfixed. I'm transfixed! Maybe the fact that I wrote Paragraphs about the 4-or-5 hours I've seen of the game can tell you as much, even if you skip everything I wrote in them.

I can't wait to see more.

This, too, is a pattern.

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synergysilhouette · 2 months

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"Batman: Caped Crusader" review

Binge-watched this show, and I wanted to be one of many people to share my thoughts on this--plus I was spurred on by getting a wish of mine granted from the show. Make sure to check out the show if you can!

The animation is beautiful--I know this is a weird comparison, but soemthing about the animation reminds me of 2010s Scooby Doo animated films, and I kind of adore that.

The voice acting was...fine--I can't tell if it was poor performances or poor direction; Hamish's Bruce Wayne sounds too raspy/rugged some of the time, like he's still playing Batman, and many of the other actors felt like they were just reading lines rather than performing lines, not enough emotion. IDK if they're more used to live-action work, but voice-acting is a different ballgame, since your voice is all you have to convey the character. A lot of performances fell flat for me, but it wasn't 100% unbearable, just underwhelming. I have some people I'd recommend instead (both familiar to the role and otherwise), but I don't wanna start anything.

LOVED Harley (but not her costume)--Jamie Chung had one of the better performances in the group, and I really LOVED the angle they did for Harley; I feel like the media often flanderizes her as the goofy crazy chick, so seeing her actually utilize her psychology skills (like I've been asking for!) is so satisfying. That said, the outfit has GOT TO GO. Gold and black is gorgeous, but it ples in comparison to her black and red look. And a weird nit-pick; when I first saw the stills, I was under the impression she was wearing a carnival-esque mask rather than face paint, and I find that idea a lot creepier. I wish we'd gotten more of Harley's antics--and even seeing her get close to Bruce in the way she did with Barbara and Renee--before revealing her as a big bad to the public. And I appreciate that she isn't 100% evil; she is doing what she believes is a noble cause, just doing it in an illegal and unethical way. I needed a backstory!

Not enough Batman--Maybe it's just me, but it definitely felt like there were some episodes where Bruce and Batman were supporting characters and more focus was on the GCPD. While I don't mind it too much, I enjoy superhero shows for the superheroes, not the heroes; this is why I had a love/hate relationship with "Gotham."

Batman (and Bruce) isn't quite likeable enough--In earlier incarnations, Batman was more kind and caring before becoming more emotionally closed off with time, but here he's that way from the get-go. Not to mention that Bruce Wayne puts on a facade around everyone, even people he trusts (he probably did that anyway; I can't remember), and his session with Harleen really frustrated me because I don't expect his walls to come down immediately, I don't expect them to be this high this early. I wanted him to be a bit warmer and transparent, rather than curt and cold like he's usually seen in the show. I feel like this is an issue often seen in comics, too; people prioritize Batman's "coolness" and thus push his feelings to the wayside.

Using underrated and familiar villains--I'm sure the real experts are gonna chew me out for this one, but as someone who got into comics in the 2010s and didn't catch up on the acclaimed 90s series, it was fun to see villains I loved and villains I didn't know; one of the best things a popular property can do is use underrated characters, since it helps the show feel original and fresh (thus why "Teen Titans" is so enjoyable; the whole franchise is underrated).

Too modern for the 1940s--I can't put my fingers on it exactly, but the vibes feel too modern; I assume the 1940s was for aesthetics, but since everything else feels updated (from the way people talk to Harley and Renee seemingly being open about their feelings for each other), I don't think it was a wise choice to have it both ways. I see no reason not to have it in modern-day, but I suppose you'd have to get more creative with technology.

Barbara and the Robins--First off, I should've gambled with someone that Jason would be a redhead; I'd have made SO MUCH money. Secondly, I'm not crazy about how all four kids are orphans; If I recall correctly, both Carrie and Stephanie's parents were alive when they joined the Batfamily. In any case, I'm confused on why Barbara is significantly older than them when they're all supposed to be within the same age bracket (I think; someone has told me otherwise since posting this, so I could be wrong). Not to mention, a part of me worries that because of the quartet's young ages and Barbara getting so much screentime as a lawyer, we won't get any of them as Robins or Batgirls unless something drastic happens, and/or we get a time jump.

Overall, I think my biggest gripes are the voice acting and how Batman/Bruce Wayne is written. That said, I enjoyed the show overall. IDK why HBO Max dropped it. Hopefully season 2 will introduce Poison Ivy, Catman, Tim Drake, Ghostmaker, and Gardener, since the finale already showed us a certain someone who IS coming to Gotham.

#batman #bruce wayne #batman caped crusader #caped crusader #harley quinn #catwoman #barbara gordon #dick grayson #stephanie brown #jason todd #carrie kelly #two face #dc comics

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samwisethewitch · 10 months

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REVIEW: Backwoods Witchcraft by Jake Richards

I feel like Jake Richards's books are pretty popular with folk witches. If you have any interest in Appalachian folk magic, or even American folk magic more generally, you've probably at least heard of this book. Part of why I put off reviewing it for so long is because I feel like there's already been plenty of attention given to it online, so I'll try to make this brief.

Pros:

Definitely authentic Appalachian folk magic. Jake Richards writes about a lot of things I've seen people do or heard people talk about but never seen written anywhere.

This book is really well researched! I'm very impressed by all the references and footnotes.

I love that Richards uses the correct Tsalagi (Cherokee), Gaelige (Irish), and Gaelic (Scottish) words when talking about the cultures that influence Southern folk magic. I also love that he includes pronunciation guides.

Cons:

I didn't finish this book on my first read. It wasn't until I revisited it recently that I actually read to the end. Something about the writing style and the way the book is organized made it a little hard to follow at times, at least for me.

The research is generally good, but there's definitely more detail given for European and Cherokee cultural influences than for African. When talking about European influences, Richards will usually specify the specific country or culture something comes from, but for African influences he just says "African." While this research is harder to do because the slave trade intentionally cut people off from their cultural traditions, other authors like Luisah Teish and Stephanie Rose Bird have shown that we can often trace these African influences back to a specific culture, or at least a region. I would have liked to see the same level of effort put into researching African practices that went into the European ones.

Other Observations:

Christianity is a big part of the author's practice. This is faithful to traditional Appalachian conjure, but just know that it may be triggering if you've experienced religious trauma in a Christian setting. I found this book harder to read than other books on conjure that incorporate Christian elements, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because it sounded too similar to the Appalachian church where my abuse happened? Just something to be aware of if this is a tricky topic for you.

Overall Rating: 4/5 stars

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maxisanangrywell · 5 months

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Review & Rant Concerning MW3 Reboot

**This has Spoilers for MW3. If you have not played the full game and care about spoilers, please do not read.**

To preface this, hi!! I'm Max is a Well, and I am a writer. I have not published any novels, but I do have one in the works. I have written for plenty of people, including some pretty big fanfiction authors [past tense] (not as impressive as most, but I quite enjoyed it), and I have written my fair share of fan artworks, and then a few half published WIPs are floating around the internet somewhere. I've been writing since I was like, 12 years old. I've done it for the better part of my life now, and I've turned some heads with my writing. If circumstances were better where I could pursue this passion for full-time, I'd probably be really well off by now. All this to say, I'm very much someone who knows a lot about writing, story pacing, emotions dramatics and the whole 9 yards.

I love playing games and immersing myself within what's happening in game, and I got that feeling from MW1 & 2, but 3 was just, a little rough feeling. I can't quite explain it, but it just didn't have the same vibe as the first or second. I enjoyed the narrative although, again really rough story telling. (You're gonna get that in games like this that are essentially propaganda for a certain cause or organization, so I disregard most of it. It's the "look this is cool guys! You wanna do this," kind of thing.)

Then, Price didn't let Soap kill Makarov. Standing from a narrative point of view, we were told this guy 1, is extremely dangerous extremist, and threatening to bring WW3 onto humanity. 2, Brass is worried about this, and if they're worried about it, than we need to be too. (This solidifies that the man is a genuine threat, and that he needs to be treated as such. Often this means, a straight up get rid of this guy.) 3, Price and the 141 have some history with Makarov. Then, to build off this, in the previous game, MW2, we literally were on a to-kill mission for Hassan. So if Makarov is an even bigger threat than Hassan, (and Hassan had MISSILES), then, shouldn't we have killed Makarov when given the chance?

Also to build off this, they are all within the SAS, or have passed SAS selection. They are, narratively speaking, the best of the best within their specific branch. They are more than well trained and specialists when it comes to Counter-Terrorism, which with that would come with knowing things like how to properly debilitate your enemy, knock them out, etc. They would have had done interrogations to get specific information and you can't just bring someone awake to a location to be interrogated. You would have to knock them out or debilitate them prior before moving. Yet, they didn't do any of that. Just, knocked his ass to the ground after a stab to the shoulder.

None of it past a certain point makes any sense narratively, and me as a writer is so fucking pissed. They made Makarov a fucking badass and BBEG for the century, yet they kill off arguably one of the best liked characters? Especially after Neil did so much advertising for the fans and even doing the corny Christmas thing that was all over COD TikTok for a few good weeks afterwards. People were going WILD over the Scot, and Ghost.

One thing you learn pretty quickly when creating content, whether it be games, art, comics, novels, etc... is that you got to feed your fanbase from time to time. You give them an inch, and you'll get a mile. No one needed to die within the third game, especially when it felt so rushed. If they really needed the suspense, then they could have easily injured Soap, and kept us wondering if he was alive, and then revealed him okay within the fourth installment. That would have made people buy the game just to see if their favorite was still around, and who knows, maybe they'd actually enjoy the story and decide to play the rest of the game.

What really pissed me off other than the weird pacing of the stretch of the game is the way they reacted to Soap's death. Now, they didn't have to be horribly torn up at it like Price in the original series, in fact, that would be horribly unrealistic. My mother is a hospice nurse, so she's gotten close to a lot of patients that have passed. Some being really traumatic and saddening ways. She can't cry anymore, but she does grieve, and she grieves hard when it's a patient she's had for a while and gotten close to. You can't look me in the eyes, and tell me these three men who have just spent a year and some change chasing down Hassan, and now Makarov, wouldn't show no emotion when it came to one of their own dying?

Soldiers are friends but more. There's a whole reason there's the saying "brothers in arms" exists. They go through hell and back together, they definitely did in Las Almas, and during Chicago in the second game. So to have barely 2 minutes worth of a cutscene to pay homage to a character that they all bonded so deeply with? I genuinely thought people were seriously joking about it, and then I saw it with my own two eyes and I'm appalled on how they thought that was a good send off both emotionally and narratively. It did nothing. It didn't comfort you, it didn't sound like they were grieving too terribly, it was just, flat. Monotonous. There was hardly any emotion in the lines, and the guys didn't have to be crying, but at least put some emotion in it.

Ghost and Gaz arguably in the reboot are the closest to Soap, so some sort of emotion, like Ghost being just a little choked up on his "Rest in Peace, Johnny" would have been just top tier. You would have been able to gauge so much off of that, and it would have fed the Ghost and Soap fangirls so much. (I know some COD players don't like to hear that, but the fandom shifting is a normal thing to happen, and the new people within the fandom are buying the games to play them just to understand the story and that is absolutely helping the studio and the games preform better. To put it simply, they are now also apart of the integral part of keeping COD alive and well.) Or, Gaz instead of just saying the most generic army farewell thing in the world, instead make a personal promise to bring Makarov to his knees himself. Again, it would gauge so much with his character, how he's feeling, what this death is doing to him, and what his personal goals are moving forwards.

They absolutely, from a narrative position could have done so much better. There are always going to be bugs and glitches in games, especially shooters, but the thing that draws people in and keeps them coming back, is the story and the characters. At the end of the day, this was not only a horrible story decision, but also is probably going to hurt them a lot when concerning the next game release. The newer crowd hardly has a reason to come back to see the new game. If Soap, a beloved character was treated this way, how are they going to treat Price, Gaz or Ghost if they die? I'm incredibly disappointed, they had an amazing story, amazing VA's, amazing graphics and design. The COD fandom was seriously getting a much needed breath of fresh air, new life was coming in, and they just tossed everything out the window.

TL;DR:: As a writer, the decision to kill off Soap was extremely horrible from both a monetary and narrative standpoint. It didn't move the story forwards, create any friction, and he didn't even have a decent send off. This is probably going to kill the new growth the COD fandom was experiencing, which in turn is definitely going to hit the studio's pockets. How much is yet to be seen, but I've seen a lot of new-blood say they weren't satisfied and aren't looking at purchasing the next game. Me included.

#call of duty #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #farah karim #soapghost #maxisawell rambles #cod mw3 #cod modern warfare #modern warfare #mw3 #call of duty mw3 #soap mw3 #mw3 spoilers

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popculturebuffet · 10 months

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Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye Retrospective: Rememberance Day (Issues 12-16) (Patreon review for Brotoman.Exe)

Hello all you happy autobots! And welcome back to my long retrospective of Transformers More than Meets The Eye: The greatest comic about robuts in the known universe.

After a long road, a beetle themed detour and tons of tie ins, one shots and other needed stuff, we're FINALLY almost at the end of Season 1 and to help speed things along, Brotoman gave me some extra money to get through Dark Cybertron. That also means we have a pretty baked in schedule through april so here it is: After this review i'll be covering Remain in Light, the season 1 finale, next week. January is a recap of MTMTE's sister series Robot's in disguise. I volunteered for this one as I felt with Dark Cybertron relying heavily on RiD's history, I should reaquaint myself with it.

We'll then take another break for a Fizzarolli retrospective in Feburary, and then begin dark cybertron in may, with the plan to have it in two or three parts. After that barring any other side trips or what not, it's SEASON 2 BABY, the series best. It also means easing up a bit on the sidetrips: there's still two whole minis to go into and a christmas special but both are shorter and with our two issue schedule the pacing won't be as nettled.

As for the present these two arcs represent MTMTE hitting it's stride: The books always been good and these reviews have been almost two years of gushing. I have ocasional gripes but overal the series is just pure excellence. This is simply the best of the best: all the character and plot setup for the season paying off in the most awesome, heartbreaking and horrifying ways possible. These arcs are great, but I dreaded getting to them as they will rip your heart out of your chest guaranteed.

See while John Roberts built up an impressive cast of characters, almost all from characters' whose history before this could best be described "That one guy over there in the background" or "That transfomer you got at a yard sale that was a bitch to identify", he wasn't afraid to say goodbye to his creations, even the main characters, and got that this story.. needed life and death stakes.

It's how death SHOULD be handled in comic books: not a publicity stunt done half assed and undone in months, not a massacre to "raise stakes", simply when the story calls for someone to die.

So the question to those of you who haven't read it is simple: who dies tonight? Well i'll tell ya'll under the cut.

Before and After

Admitely these first two issues are less an arc and more two more standalones. As usual for MTMTE these are ripe for setup and Before and After feels like an out and out prelude to Reemergence Day, so the bundling fits.

Before and After has a unique structure, flashing both to the Autobots preparing for a strike on a Decepticon fortress on Sensenica. It's the first real Autbots Vs Decepticon battle we've seen: while there was one in Ratchet's arc, it was more a smokescreen for Pharma and Fort Max took them down quickly and messily.

Here it's an actual battle: a bunch of decepticons who shall remain nameless and largely unimportant to the overall scheme of things have been bleeding organic's dry for energy, so our heroes go down to stop it. For the sake of clarity i'm not going ot be covering the issue as structured as it's a lot.

The good news: our heroes are able to take the fortress, free the organics, save the day. The bad.. is there is a lot of injuries in the process, and that's the real intresting part of this issue: while the battle is neat, I often forget it and it really just kinda comes and goes: what's important.. is the after effect: Swerve, Rewind and Cyclonus were all horribly injured and we don't find out why till the tailend of the issue for the latter two.

For swerve.. he shot himself in the face while trying to figure out his gun while Chromedone and SKids fought a giant dinosaur. This guy is snapdragon and yes I looked him up on the grounds he fought two characters while transformed and apparently bathes in the blood of his enemies when he can't find sludge as he has a senstive butt.

So while this goes on it's down to Rewind and Tailgate. Tailgate is, allegedlys, a bomb disposal expert, and thus has to take out a bomb hooked to the organics with Rewind's help. Also of note is that Rewind and Chromedome are fighting.

Rewind is PISSSEEED Chromedome keeps hacking heads, while Chromedome is mad Rewind won't stay out of action. So naturally it's the perfect time for Rewind to go boom as the two little guys simply can't stop it. Rewind stays to mitigate the blast... and Cyclonus tosses Tailgate out taking the blast himself.

The prognosis for both.. isn't good. Rewind is a tiny bot.. and that means it's harder for him to bounce back from this, with Red Alert floating his Spark Jumping idea from his intro arc, a nice call back I honestly forgot about. Of course it'd crop up again and naturally, Chromedome is a spark type match for Rewind.

While Chromedome recovers from it as the process.. isn't exactly plesant. So while he recovers he talks to Tailgate. Chromedome admits when he's told Cyclonus still survivied that it's a shame... though what I like is when Tailgate asks him fi he really meant that.. he admits it.. but also admits he shouldn't of said it to Tailgate and apologizes, admitting thigns are just stressful. Tailgate calls rewind Chromedome's best friend

That flub aside, Chromedome admits that he's not #1 in his boyfriend's heart.. there's someone else, just above him.

So we get Rewind's backstory which as usual is important for later: Rewind was a member of what was called at the time "The disposable class". There aren't many left and it's easy to see why as the disposables were basically slaves, with Chromedome flat out admitting that's what they'd call them now. It makes him one of the oldest and is why he has a memory stick of all alt modes: he was made for just one purpose and that purpose was being a comically large usb drive.

This changed when Rewind met Dominus Ambus, Scientest, Doctor, Author Explorer and that one ex of your partners you can never live up to. Tailgate for his part says he hates the guy. That's a good friend tailgate.

Anyways Ambus used Rewind as a memory drive but treated him kindly, giving him premium energon instead of the cheap stuff and realizing in the process that the disposables were just autbots and just as sentient as any other, and started campaiging for their rights. He seemed to succeed but trying to find a cure for Cybercocis he and Rewind left to find Luna 1, Cybertron's missing moon because like any missing thing of legend, you just gotta assume it has the cure for anything.

They failed, and what's worse they came back to a planet at war. All hell had broken loose and the two underwent the right of the autobrand.

So cut to years later in the war and Chromedome, already not having the best mental health for his years in psi ops and other traumas, has decided to unalive himself. Which is harder than it sounds for a transformer: their bodies are built to be nigh on indestructable and Chromedome can't really try sucicide by comabat as it'd put others in whatever unit he was in at risk. So instead he went to a relinquishment clinic, with what clinics left offering assisted suicide.

This ends up saving Chromedomes life as he hears a scream.. and it turns out to be Rewind who was checking the bodies. And that, dear readers is the main reason Rewind's on the lost light, the reason for the snuff film footage he got earlier: he's been looking for Dominus anywhere there's bodies in hopes of getting closure with Chromedome along for the ride. Dome assumes that's why he goes into battle.. but Tailgate has a more optimstic take: Rewind loves him and simply wants to be there to support him.

Either way things aren't looking good as it turns out chromedome's spark has a low yield. As he stated earlier he was born dry and thus dosen't hae a lot of ennermost energon. Ennermost energon is a brilliant concept: it's the energon closest to a bot's casing, their essence. Being robots, Cybertronians naturally run into a ship of thesus paradox oftne with most of their original parts long gone. The innermost energon is the part of them that's always there, the one part that, along with the spark itself, will always be then

So as a gesture of love when someone is dying, possibly may survivie may likely not, a bot puts a portion by them. Tailgate hearing this.. decides to do the same for Cyclonus. This being Cyclonus he's not only not quite dead, but an asshole about it, saying he dosen't care about tailgate they don't have a bond, etc... but in a touching moment instead of keeping up his abuse of the poor guy after smashing the jar.. he goes to help him pick it up. Despite trying to distance himself, despite trying to push Tailgate away.. they have a bond. And he can't deny that.. I mean he will, it's Cyclonus, he has the emotoinal maturity of a very angry stump, but he's at least TRYING to not be as closed off.

As for Chromedome he's not doin so hot and in his lowest moment a mysterious voice says something VERY prowl like: the decpitcons are still a threat and this proves it and there's something Chromedome can do to help. He wants to show him something in the basement.

Thankfully Rewind's alive, and of all people it was whirl who donated.. and whose uncharcatristically nice. It's almost as if he's hiding something and.. yup as we find out in the final pages turns out he locked the door to attempted murder cyclonus and Rewind got caught in it.

Cybertronian Homesick Blues

CHB is a fun issue, what SEEMS to just be some fun shenanigans and an excuse to make human forms for the cast.

So Mags is wound tighter than usual, having thrown several people, Swereve included in the brig for general nonsense.. which as Rodimus notes is all kinds of fucked up. I mean it'd usually just be two or three kinds, but they have dangerous criminals down there now along with Fort Max, who is dangerous but isn't out to hurt anybody anymore, so he's not exactly going to prison shank anyone.

Rodimus can see a problem coming and decides to help: the Lost Light's approaching Hedonia, a vacation planet ala Risa from Star Trek, but saying the quiet part loud. He asks Swerve to take him to relax, threatning the bar if he dosen't, and Swerve to his credit genuinely tries to bond with Ultra Magnus, bringing most of his close friends to help with the task: Rewind, Rung, Skids, Tailgate and Whirl. Whirl isn't exactly a close friend but you try telling Whirl he can't come and see how many limbs you have left.

Due to anti robot prejudice , our heroes can't enter EVERY section so they set up Holomatter Avatars to go into those sections and drink it up, having disabled Mags DiD chip. Said chip keeps fuel from hitting transformers at full impact, i.e. keeping them from getting plastered unless they WANT to get plastered.

Naturally as you can imagine Mags is going through something and is thus a pretty depressed/angry drunk and has a full on breakdown

It's very obvious that Ultra Magnus.. is having a crisis of faith. His whole point is to be unflinching unchanging and as seen in the Annual the idea of NOT being that is propsterous to him.. and now we see that even with his acceptance in that story.. ti's not easy. Change.. often involves a lot of backsliding first. Personal growth is not easy, take it from me, so naturally the idea of being more than the tight ass he's SUPPOSED to be is tearing the poor bot apart. He also takes it out on swerve saying people like him because he's funny and that he's shirking his responsibliteis iwth the bar plan, not beliving Swerve's half hearted defense of it... causing the little guy to open up.

It's a deeply painful sentence.. and one that's all too damn relatable. I often feel this way wondering if people like me for anlysizing shit and being mildly amusing or for me.

MOst of the rest of the issue is holomatter hyjinks, as our heroes are forced to cary Magnus, who accidently drank something REALLY strong across a human section in their disguises. The disguises.. are really neat, with special note to Tailgate as a baby, Rung's neat hat, Whirl as a murder child and my faviorite, Magnus.. using Verity's likeness. A nice little nod, make sme hope the two do actually meet again.

At any rate our heroes succeed, but we have some important story stuff before we move on to the main event: first I forgot how the story really started.. with Drift busting in to stop Cyclonus from.. singing. Turns out no one was in danger, it was just ancient cybertronian and beautiful, with Rewind recording it.. only to be hastily shouted to get out.

While this seems lke Standard cyclonus.. he was covering. Turns out Tailgate's stories about being in the primal vanguard, being important, all his big puffed up stories are a lie. He wasn't even bomb disposal, he's WASTE disposal, he was just able to bluff himself through the bomb just enough. It's all a lie. Yet it wasn't to feel special or anything.. it's for much more tragic, entirely understandable reasons.

It's a painful moment.. and an understandable one. He should've been found easily.. but got lost for CENTURIES.. and no one cared. No one noticed. It's not hard to see why the little guy didn't want to admit that. While cyclonus is right Tailgate can't keep lying forever.. he sees why he started it and sees that Tailgate might be the ONLY person who understands his pain, the only person who knows what it's like to wake up in a world that just left you behind and dosen't seem to have a place for you. So he teaches Tailgate how to sing cybertronian.

And from that heartwearming moment.. more depression as this issue was Swerve trying to commuincate with Blur.. only it turns out like Tailgate that was a lie. The two never knew each other, swerve only met him once with a plan and the bar is sipmly.. trying to fill the space with something. He also offers Ultra Mags to be roomy.. but Mags coldly shoots him down, saying their not friends. It's a pretty solemn ending to what SEEMED to be a wacky one off... and it's only going to get worse from here.

Rememberance Day:

We begin wtih the story of Overlord's birth. Two hapless minors find his, call it in and their superior calls for someone to come down. That someone is Three of Twelve, one of the functionist council, a loose council that preached functionism, aka alt mode dictates class, the kind of prick Dominus Ambus was rallying against. These guys will be important next season but for now he's just here to point out how important that is, give the guy who called it in an award and tell the miners they have 6 hours to live from the radation.

Overlord is a point one percenter. A point one percenter is a green spark found in the tiniest fraction of the cybertronian population. Said sparks are treasured and their wielders are often the toughest, most nigh unstoppable bots out there. It's why Overlord is such a juggernaught and why it took so much to bring him down on Garrus 9, as well as a retroactive reason why the deceiptcons he had under his boot didn't just revolt. Other phase sixers for scale include Fortress Maximus, Ultra Magnus, Optimus Prime, Megatron, Scorponok, Shockwave, Tarn, Roller and of course, He, Grimlock, with Megatron weaponziing this fact, hence why so much of this list is purple.

We then cut to the finale of Last Stand of the Wreckers, just before overlord went boom.. and find an univitied guest; Chromedome. Turns out he's been going into Overlord's mind looking for something, and makes the fatal mistake of telling him about it, mostly becaues he needs to rummage. Overlord is a Phase Sixer, what Megatron would call in to finish off a planet along with most of those guys mentioned. As a result the only person whose really easlily pummled overlord.. is Megatron himself.

After a few more cups of punch to the face we find what Chromedome's after: the memory of Overlord's true birth. He was put in Megatron's fucked up super solider program, using a very unstable very rare Ununtrium, the same stuff used to make Sixshot. While Rossum, the tech and likely the person responsible for naming Rossum's trinity, pumps him full of goo. Megatron isn't AS suicidal as he sounds doing this sort of supervillian origin story, having had SHockwave throw in a killswitch. Overlord awakens.. and takes after his new dad, smashing Rossum's head as his first act of new life.

This seems to be the end: Rossum warned during the procedure the heat could kill him and the substance itself could kill Megatron: While he's currently assumed dead by the crew, Chromedome is sure he'll come back.. and is right as he returned towards the end of RiD season 1 and plays a key part in both Dark Cybertron and this series from Season 2 onward.

Then.. things take a turn. Overlord remembers where he met Chromedome before: the New Institute. Turns out Chromedome was a brainwasher, with Zeta Prime redubbing the insittute.. but not really changing it and using it for the same brainwashing. Overlord broke in in the early days of the decepticons and stole Trepan, who we met in Shadowplay.

And that theft is WHY Overlord now has taken control of the situation and is going into Chromedome's memories instead: turns out Overlord tried to dabble in mnemosurgery, thinking he could use it against shockwave and undue the killswitches. Megatron isn't stupid though and the second he got wind of what was going on killed Trepan. So while Overlord can't hack int oa mind, he learned enough to take it over, not helped by the fact that Chromedome is scared shitless of the guy , as anyone would be and despite his attempts to hide it, overlord easily picked it up.

So we instead go back to the day of loading.. and a conversation we hadn't seen. In a twist i'd honestly forgot but is entirley brilliant.. Prowl had already MET with Chromedome... and it was about Overlord. As for why he's in tact, Bumblebee has mercy and didn't want to abuse POW's, so he rebuilt the body.

Prowl's intrest is in making their OWN phase sixers: while most Autobots, Chromedome included, assumed they were just freak accidents of nature, Prowl is right about something for once: there's so many that are decipticon, WHY is that. So he wants to find out why, and wnats Chromedome to do it despite being a MASSIVE risk.

Chromedome, as you'd expect tells Prowl to go fuck himself in the poltest manner possible: the war's over, this really isn't necessary, and Rewind really woudlnt' want him doing this. Prowl then enters peak dickhead.. and for once actually suffers for it.

It's a horrible act that has legit consequences over in RID, leaving Prowl free to be brainwashed. Yet.. it's hard to feel too bad as Prowl was trying to blackmail his ex to do something highly shady and ENTIRELY not approved by the rest of Autobot High Command, something that would've likely destroyed Cromedome's relationship anyway. So it's a bad act.. but it's on a deserving victim and seeing Prowl crying no as he's abotu to be brainjacked is just.. so satisfying.

We then finally get the face behind this conspiracy: Drift. The last person you'd expect as he takes Chromedome to talk to Brainstorm. Brainstorm made the cell and is in on it.. but unlike Drift knows what a stupid idea this was, calling it project: total insanity and project :end in tears. Both accurate. The only people who know about this , as far as Drift says, are in this room as Shock and Ore did the loading but as we know both died horribly. Drift is the one who suggested the idea nd brings up the slow cell, Overlord's prison that slows down time for the user.. and that despite his best efforts to stop it, Chromedome's memory shows Overlord how to unlock.

Overlord locks Chromedome in and since, as Overlord figures out, Chromedome did this without anyone else knowing, Overlord now has a lead to go kill people. As he chillingly puts it "Run as fast as you can Chromedome, your already too late".

Under Cold Blue Stars:

Before we get to the tragedy above.. we have to get to the tragedy bellow: Chromedome escapes.. but thanks to the slow field it's been half an hour... and what he finds...

Yeah our heroes.. aren't doing so good. It's something that, despite reading this comic twice before this... had never registered; Overlord.. is strong enough to take on the ENTIRE lost light and WIN. It's taking EVERYONE they have just to hold him BACK. It does make perfect sense: not only is overlord a literal monster, able to tank hits he's spent his career wiping out planets and autobots and his last experince before this was months as the horrifiying dark god of his own planet, most of which was a game of "how many ways can I have my minons creatively murder and torture autobots?". Our heroes, despite their ragtag nature on paper, are GOOD, but their in tight quarters trying not to hit each other while overlord would gladly use one of them to smash through the others omniman style if he had a way to. He wants to kill EVERY , LAST, BOT simply as a warmup. He COULD leave to go find megatron, maybe by killing everyone on cybertron and using the bodies to spell out "HI DAD". But he just can't resisit the torture it'd put chromedome through. He's a sadist... while his main motive may be

He has hobbies.

So you may say to yourself: well, how did we get here, so we go back 30 minutes to the start of this rampage. We see Pipes again, who I honestly forgot existed and whose asking blaster if commuincations are back with Cybertron yet, and since Pipes intended recipient is a friend of Blasters, Blaster goes ahead and forwards it while Whirl, whose naturally there to blow shit up, mocks him.

I didn't think much of this... till Pipes runs into someone.. overlord, who gladly squishes him under his boots with Pipes getting a fairly effective and horrifying death: bleeding out, scrunched to hell.. he uses what little spark he has left for one last push to do the one thing he CAN do to warn everyone else

It makes me tear up.. and again, I FORGOT THIS GUY EXISTED. Roberts is just that good a writer, taking a character whose last major part in things was back in issues 3 and 4 and then NOTHING, and making you feel gutted the poor guy is dead... using what he had left to warn everybody.

So we then rewind again to where everyone was when the emergency alarm went off:

We start naturally with Rewind, whose worried about Chromedome and came to Brainstorm's lab to talk to him. Swerve's just here to accidently activate a meta bomb that gives him forth wall powers. Or make him thinks he has them, like with Deadpool it's left vauge. Rewind is wondering where his boyfriend is and is suspcious of Brainstorm since CHromey keeps saying Brainstorm's name.. though not in a sexy way but in a screaming it as he wakes up way. Brainstorm for his part, while very good at subterfuge to a point. .blabs about a secret project, wtih Swerve distracting them before the alarm goes off.

Rodimus is having Perciptor, the less fun genius aboard look at the map to the knights of cybertron and after having him dumb it down a few shades we get to the point: the thing can't be copied. This setup with the finale is interupted and we go to Rung, whose gone to Visit Fort Max. Max invited him down.. to apologize, planning to give a speech but realizing that was more for him and admitting the shock, waking up after garrus 9, he was in bad shape and genuinely asks if Rung can forgive him. And Rung.. instantly does. Not only has Rung been around for eons.. but he's a therapist. He spent the whole hostage situation trying to talk max down best he could. He can forgive.

Finally we have Skids wondering why Cyclonus is on the warpath.. thankfully JUST a metaphor, otherwise there'd be more than two corpses today, but he's mad Tailgate is hosting movie night at their place.

We end this catchup with Ratchet, whose pissed off Rodimus is being caviler about this, both because these don't go off for some reason.. and he made a joke about Ratchet's hands. Come on rodders.. that's way too easy. You can do better.

Drift is out and about to investigate.. and happens to benearbye as both bots see Overlord. We also get a really nice moment of bonding with the two, showing tha tbeneath their constant bickering.. they care about each other. More over time but we'll get to that. When Drift tries to get Ratchet to barricade himself in.. he refuses. He'll lock down the clinic.. but they fight and if needed die together. Ratchet calls Rodimus to get EVERYONE down there and tells him if he dosen't make it.. tell first aid he's ready and tell all his patients they'll have to make new apointments.

Thankfully one of the best characters in this comic dosen't go down swinging as everyone arrives to throw down. They do their best, but naturally their best bet is the only other .1%er they have... Magnus. And while he SEEMS to do well, pounding Overlord's face in as he heavily regrets not being there on G9 when everything went to shit.. only for that classic reveal that always means your fucked.

IT's a shocking, horrific moment as one of the main cast, one of their leaders and seemingly their best hope.. is down. Magnus hoped to make up for Garrus 9.

It's also why I feel last stand is necessary to read these books after this read througH: while you CAN without it, Overlord's appearnce just dosen't have the same impact till AFTER this.. and just how badly Magnus falls here dosen't. After feeling he was slipping more and more.. he once again fails.. this time in a way he simply can't cope with. And the consequences.. will not be great.

And not suprisingly "Sword through the chest" seems incuriable: his spark is detaached and while First Aid can slow it down.. he can't stop it, and while everyone else is trying their best.. they can't do much. So drift has Swerve give him the com to call for backup.. the one person whose NOT here.

So just as Overlord has Rodimus by the throat he makes the mistake of asking for last words.. as the natural "Till All Are One" you'd expect... sends him panicking .. and leaves him wide open for..

God that felt good. It's not remotely over though as we find out why Fort Max had this opening: turns out Domey , while recklessly charging into a known mass murderer's brain, was still JUST smart enough to leave a trigger in there in case Overlord got out, something that would make him feel he was loosing which , since Overlord is deathly afraid of defeat, would send him spiraling. And in one of the best uses of a gag as a chekov's gun i've seen, only topped by something in next season's finale, he made it till all are one because Rodimus won't stop saying it.

As Rewind lays in shock,w ondering what the helld omey's been up to, Chromedome inacts plan b, asking Fort Max to drag overlord over yonder back to his cell. While Prowl is many things, most of them varations of rat bastard motherfucker, he IS prepared and made Overlord's cell detachable for if, or if your smart like Brainstorm WHEN this stupid plan backfired. Problem is there's a sword jammed in the way of the hatch... someone has to go pull it out.. and rewind is small enoguh, brave enough, and sad enough to pull it off, saying a tearful goodbye to cromedome as the pod detaches. To make matters even worse... Cromedome then has to blow the fucker up as he'd rather not leave the love of his life who was just about to leave him anyway with a sadistic murderer. And all that's left.. is

IT's one of the saddest moment sin the whole comic, and trust me there will be more and one of the best character death's i've seen. A big as screwup as bringing overlord aboard, a bigger one of him getting out.. it needed weight. LIke I said, Roberts knows it's best to kill a character when it's NECESSARy.. and Rewind going out lik ea hero sacrifcing himself so his friends and lover can escape, sadly bidding farewell knowing he's about to go through hell? It's a lot. It's a perfect sendoff to a great character, and a truly painful moment. Also if your wondering about the blood, Rewind took Chromedome's arm along with his heart.

The Gloaming

The gloaming starts with foreshadowing for the next arc: we see a bunch of ops with Ultra Magnus from the war.. but two things are off. The first is that he looks slightly diffrent each time.. and the second is he looks very dead at the end of each one.

This will make sense later but for now we're in the aftermath of overlord's attack: Drift is being repaired, and Ratchet is TRYING to repair mags.. but it dosen't look good. Using a death clock, a device that predicts how long a bot has left, he only has ten days at best and poor Tailgate breaks down over how unfair it all is: one friend is dead, another close to it...

And there aren't easy answers for everyone else either: Chromedome responds a little to Skids but it's very clear he's not remotely okay, while Rodimus has torn up his office. Rung tries to help.. but he's held back by the fact he dosen't know why Rodimus is REALLY upset: Rodimus thinks it's magnus, Rung thinks it's because he lost.. which is a good guess.. but it's not the right one. We'll find out why next time but for now with Rodimus launching an investigation into the incident.. he and Drift need to have a talk.

After that we get the funeral: Rodimus gives a wonderful speech as he's returned to the stars spock style pointing out how EVERYONE he met was better for having known him. Except Prowl, nothing can make that guy better> it's a sweet earnest speech.. which makes it odd that Rewind's actual partner.. can barely say a sentence.

Brainstorm notices.. and goes to confront dome. Not about the speech, most bots would likely chuck that up to bottling up his grief. But it turns out these two go back a ways.. and as a result we find out just WHY Chromedome has so little innermost energon and I really wish I could share the full scene as it's powerful and shows a more emotional side of the usually flippant Brainstorm we haven't seen till now: He knows what Chromedome's abotu to do and to prove it rattles off a bunch of names. All ones Chromedome dosen't recognize.. because they were all former Conjux Endura's. And after they died he wiped his memory of them to not deal with the pain. It's a hard reveal, and a well done one and throughly proves Rewind right about mnemosurgery being an addiction for him: After all grief is hard, loosing someone even harder.. if you had the option to just make that pain temporary it'd be incredibly tempting, near impossible to turn down. You loose the person.. but you also loose the knife in your gut every time you think of them and realize their gone. Sure you could say "Well i'd want to rmemeber them i'd want the pain" and the strongest among us probably could turn that down.. but it's harder when you have that option. It's why i'ts such a comeplling hook here and why the next part hurts so damn much

It fleshes out their friendship and Brainstorm a lot: he's had to watch his friend erase those he loved again, and again and again, tried and failed to talk him out of it time and again. All because he KNOWS what it's like to loose someone.. and that while the pain never goes away, it's better to have them with you. We'll get into how he knows that pain next time. For now the slug is the only reason history may not repeat itself.

So we get two scenes intercut: One is Rodimus before the rest of the crew.. as Drift takes full responsiblity for what happened and is stripped of his autobrand, banished and boo. It's a loss that hit harder this time as i'd gotten more attached to the guy, seen him nearly sacrifice himself, his deep faith, his argument flirting with ratchet.. it's hard to see him go even if he damn well deserves it after all this cost. There's no.. joy in this.. no catharsis. he screwed up, sure.. but it dosen't bring Rewind or Pipes back. It dosen't undue the pain and grief everyone has or fix anything. It's simply assining blame. I'm not saying Drift or a certain someone else we'll get to next time shoudln't be held acountable, but it dosen't make it easy to see him go.. or see Ratchet be the only one to comfort him showing that despite arguging constantly.. they ultimately were close as anyone could be. With this... Rodimus is alone, his command staff gone and it's not going to be easier to wear the crown going into the finale.

The other is a touching moment I can't really share in full here, two page spread and all, btu Rewind pieced together a message for Chromedome, knowing what he'd do if he was gone. He begs his partner to go on without him, that injecting will kill him.. and that he deserves to be happy. The New Institute isn't him anymore. And as one last note because he dosen't say it enough

It's a scene that's now become one of my faviorite: while it's hard to follow because of the various footage, when you put it all together.. it's a message of courage. Despite the guilt, despite the pain, despite al lthey went through.. rewind loved chromedome, as he was, for who he was.. and wants him to stay that way. To keep him with him. And so .. Chromedome , for the first time, sheethes his claws.. and chooses to live with the pain.

We then end on a cliffhanger: Ultra Magnus.. is missing. Someone stole him, he's just gone.. and if that wasn't enough.. Tailgate goes under the death clock light.. and dosen't have much time left.

If it wasn't obvious by now I love these issues: their heartbreaking, well done and read even better this time around: It's a tragic loss that's expertly crafted, and used entirely to push the characters forward, to really push them with one forced to leave, one seemingly kidnapped and one facing his own crippling issues.. .and finding the courage to live

Next Time: We finish season 1! If you thoguht things coudln't get worse for the lost light.. your wrong as they face an attempted genocide , a character we've seen named a lot but not actually met till now, an old foe and a cool as hell new one. Until then thanks for reading

#transformers #transformers more than meets the eye #comics #idw #james roberts #rewind #chromedome #rewind x chromedome #overlord #rodimus prime #ultra magnus #swerve

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yume-x-hanabi · 3 months

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Currently watching: Miss Night and Day

I decided to review a few of the dramas I'm currently (re)watching, starting with a new find: Miss Night and Day

This one is currently airing (new ep every Sat.-Sun. on Netflix) and has just reached its halfway point, so I think it's a good time to write down my thoughts.

The basic plot

(Genres: Romcom, Mystery, Fantasy)

The main character, Lee Mi-Jin, is a 28-year-old who keeps trying and failing to get a job as a public servant, and even falls for a scam out of her desperation to find a proper job. One day, she helps a magical (?) cat, who grants her a blessing/curse (depending on how you see it lol) as a result: during the day, her appearance ages to what she would look like in her 50's, while she comes back to her young self during the night. Cue her scrambling to juggle those two identities while keeping it hidden from everyone.

Ironically, she manages to find a job quite easily as her old self through a senior employment program, and through hijinks ends up as secretary to prosecutor Gye Ji-Ung, whom she met as her young self when she got scammed, then later as a witness to a murder case.

Impressions so far

Story: One thing you need to know about me is that I'm a sucker for crime/mystery/legal dramas, especially when there's an interesting twist in the setting. So right off the bat this one's premise drew me in. I also tend to not really enjoy romance/romcom dramas on their own, but sprinkle in some crime/mystery, plus some supernatural element on top, and I'm innnnn.

So far it's delivered on both fronts. The serious underlying investigation plotline is less prominent than the comedy hijinks, but that's good for where we're at, I like the balance between the two. There's a lot of subplots going on, and they keep things moving and interesting; it's worked well in terms of pacing. There's one plotline I would have preferred done a bit differently, but I'm reserving judgment on that until I've seen where it leads. Otherwise I've enjoyed the way it's going.

Characters:

Main girl: She's a very fun lead. She's generally a peppy heroine, but she's also a woman nearing her 30's whose life has not turned out how she wanted, so she's also got that Tired Adult™️ vibe that's quite relatable. She may not be the smartest (she sometimes has a tendency to rush in without thinking at first), but she's also perceptive and resourceful, so while she does need saving from time to time, she also often can find a way to get out of some situations she put herself in (often when it pertains to keeping her identity switch secret lol). Both actresses are doing a great job with the role--you really feel they're playing the same character, so much that you sometimes almost forget they're two different people.

Main guy: I'm really, really loving this take on the "stoic/assholish male lead (who will be softened by the love interest)" archetype. Yes, he is a stoic workaholic and a bit of a jerk... when he's at work. But in his day to day life, he's quite openly sweet and empathetic. And I really like that this is the side that Mi-Jin got to see first. So it's not really that he has a hidden soft side that she needs to discover, but more that she gets confused by the contrast with his work persona. She eventually calls him out on his bad attitude toward her (old self) in the office, and he improves on that front too. (Honestly tho apart from his scheme to get her to quit being his secretary at the beginning, I don't think what earns him his reputation as a jerk in the office is even that bad? he's just mostly blunt and doesn't tolerate slackers; like in a lot of cases it's warranted imo). Anyway I really like his character, and there's a lot of little scenes I absolutely adore (and definitely makes me ship them :p) Only thing I find weird is that he hasn't taken note of the similarities between young Mi-Jin and her old self (for example, her bright pink backpack she takes everywhere should be a giveaway; also the fact she tends to pop up in the same places he last saw her old version at lol). Dude is supposed to be a smart prosecutor, I'm surprised his observation skills are failing him there (especially since there's been a few close calls).

Second male lead: I'm gonna be honest, I don't care much for him. He's obviously gonna be important considering the recent plot development, and I guess I'm glad Mi-jin has someone at work who knows her secret and wants to help her, but I still don't have much of an opinion of him. He's just there lol. I do hope they're not going to drag in an unrequited love subplot or something like that.

Supporting cast: I initially found Mi-Jin's overbearing parents annoying, but it's clear they love her and want the best for her, so they've become quite endearing. I absolutely love her best friend (she's a beauty youtuber lmao), she's so cute and such a sweetheart. Other supporting characters are okay so far; potential suspect is creepy enough, tho he's so obvious I'm wondering whether he's a red herring. We'll see I guess...

Music/Directing/etc: The music's appropriate to the scenes, which is what matters most, but nothing particularly stands out aside from the main theme. The directing is good, again nothing particularly stands out imo (maybe a small negative point is a bit too much repetition at times), but nothing bad either.

All in all, it's a pretty fun show and I'm quite enjoying it so far. Waiting for new episodes is hard lol

#yume in dramaland #watching: miss night and day #idk if i managed to explain properly #i tried to keep it as unspoilery as i could #anyway #can it be saturday yet lol #miss night and day #kdrama

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literaticat · 7 months

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I have a question about career building.

I see a lot of places that it is very rare for an author to earn out their advance. So for debut authors, if they get - say 50k for book one, but they don't get that in sales, what happens? Are they able to sell a book two? If so, is it just a series of diminishing returns until they manage to get a following?

A lot of the things I see online about sophomore novels is that they are far harder to write, but I'm curious also about how the rest of that takes shape. Like, does there come a point where no publisher will ever pick them up again because their last book didn't sell well?

How does an author manage that?

Let's see if I can unpack this a little and reassure you!

First, while it's true that lots of books don't earn out their advances -- I don't know if I'd say MOST. Many DO earn out eventually, or at least come relatively close. More importantly, though: the publisher makes their investment back before the advance earns out, so a book doesn't actually need to earn out the advance to be profitable to the publisher.

Publishers know this, of course, and they also know that it often takes a bit of time for an author to find and grow their audience. So if a publisher wants to keep working with an author, they think the author has great ideas and talent, etc -- they will often offer for more books even if the first book hasn't necessarily gone gangbusters, or indeed, even if the first book isn't out yet. (This is also why they might make a two-book-deal from the jump -- because they KNOW that the first book is just the beginning, and it takes time, and they hope to be along for the ride as the author's fan base grows, etc).

So, usually the publisher is OK with taking a chance on you, assuming that sales will get better, yada yada. And if the unfortunate happens and the book performs REALLY poorly, so much so that the math just isn't mathing and they decide they do NOT want to pursue more books with you, well, there are other publishers, and those publishers don't know the details about the finances of your first deal -- if they love the book, they will be basing their numbers on how they think THEY will do selling this new book, not on the first publisher's numbers.

(This is especially true if you can pivot a bit -- ie, the book you are trying to sell to the new publisher is somewhat different than the first book(s) -- so like, let's say your first deal was for YA contemporary, it kinda tanked, you don't really want to work with Publisher A anymore or they have declined to do more with you -- but now you've written a high concept YA thriller -- Publisher B may say, yes, we see that you have this other book that just did meh, BUT, we think THIS book in this different genre will be a BREAKOUT for you!)

As far as "sophomore novels being harder to write" -- well, I think that people experience that for a couple of reasons. When they wrote their first book (or at least, the first book that got published -- maybe they wrote a bunch of books BEFORE that that never got published!) -- but anyway, the first time around, they were writing with no expectations. They didn't have an editor to "impress" yet, they didn't have a contract hanging over their head, they didn't know what the editorial process would be like, they didn't have a deadline, they didn't know what it was like to get their book publicly reviewed, they didn't have people asking them about their book/characters on social media, they didn't have any pressure about sales or marketing or whatever eating up their minds, their free time wasn't taken up with self-promotion, etc etc.

Then they got all those things. That's a lot of pressure they are feeling all of a sudden that they never had before! Little wonder it would seem more difficult. (Is it ACTUALLY "more difficult" in a literal way? Maybe not, but if it FEELS more difficult... then it kinda is, right?)

My friend, the brilliant writer Sara Zarr, told me a great piece of advice long long LONG ago (so long ago she probably doesn't remember this, but I have never forgotten!) -- she said something to the effect of, while you are on submission, and in the eons of "down time" between when your first book sells and when the editing and production process really ramps up, you should do your best to write at least the draft of the next book. Work on it absolutely whenever you can. WHY? Because when and after your debut comes out, your brain will be broken and you will have WAY less time than you anticipate. At least if you have a solid draft of the next thing, you have something to work with, rather than starting from square one with no time, lots of pressure and a broken brain!

My point is, authors obviously DO make it work all the time, and I have faith that you can as well. When the time comes, just remember, work on your next book whenever you have downtime, be flexible and able to pivot if necessary, and strategize with your agent, they have seen it all before and they are there to help!

#building a career

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justmybookthots · 7 months

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The Prisoner's Throne

This is THE book. The book that's been consuming my every waking thought since I read its prequel in May last year. The book which, if I didn't manage to read any in 2024, would be the only one I read this year at all. The Stolen Heir was among my favourite reads last year, possibly even more than The Cruel Prince because of Oak's characterisation.

The last few days before the book release was agonising. Sheer, skin-flaying agony. When Ann Liang's 2024 release let me down after I'd spent months hyping it up—as did I with Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands—I have to confess I was terrified the same thing would happen with The Prisoner's Throne. Ann Liang is one thing, but this is Holly Black. The Prisoner's Throne is on a much, much higher pedestal for me than any other book in existence thus far. If this hurt me like the others did, I might really go into the worst kind of depression. (Yes, I'm one for histrionics… only I'm being perfectly serious.)

After a night of poor sleep—I am still very grateful that I managed to sleep, albeit fitfully, most of the hours away—I started reading this book at 7AM. (I'd downloaded the book at 2 in the night.) And then I didn't stop until I was done at 10AM.

First thoughts: THANK THE FUCK IT WASN'T A MASSIVE LETDOWN OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. Was it as good as its prequel? No. But it didn't end up anywhere as bad as my jaded, paranoid self had secretly feared, and for that I am grateful. Overall, I enjoyed it!! I saw quite a handful of negative reviews on Goodreads but I don't feel the same way. Granted, the book definitely has a few issues, but being too slow or character-driven was not mine.

Let me talk about some things I liked and did not. Beware: Spoilers abound.

Things I did not love:

I'm going to start with my most major disappointment. Oak, who is the highlight of this duology to me, wasn't as alluring as I found him in the first book. I think that Oak's character is written best when his POV isn't the entire book. I definitely LOVED reading his POV and welcomed it, but I also felt that having the entire thing in his perspective dulled some of his mystique. This is my personal preference, because I don't generally love stories that have too much of the hero's POV. I think Six of Crows is a good example of finding balance with Kaz's perspective and the other characters'. Also, because the story is in Oak's head, we don't see much physical descriptions of him. I miss all those parts about his adorable marigold hair and his golden eyes 🥺

I also miss his cleverness. He was very manipulative in the first book, and it was easier to feel impressed back then because you weren't in his head and you didn't know what was coming. In this instalment, he thinks a lot about playing the fool, over and over. It gets wearisome because I'm constantly being told but not often shown. In the first book, I was actually shown without being told at all—which is why it hit so much harder. Moreover, I don't think he did anything specifically very clever in this book? I guess he did use the wedding ruse to prevent a war, and he did find out what Wren was hiding, but he found that out too late and that was less cleverness than the plot being in motion.

There's a running theme in this book about being accepted and loved for your truest, darkest self, but… I don't think it was conveyed very well. In the end, he says that Wren is the only one who can love him for who he is, but it isn't convincing to me because it's so clear to me how much—and how unconditionally—his family loves him. A lot of his inner turmoil felt very contrived and self-inflicted, whereas I thought Wren's own self-loathing was a thousand times more convincing and understandable.

I was also quite confused by how much he loved Wren when their feelings seemed to be only gradually building in the first book. But he's completely head over heels for her at the start of this book and I wonder about the transition. I'd been hoping for some clarity because he mentioned in Book 1 that he'd loved a lot of different girls, so what made Wren The One here? I suppose it's because he didn't play the fool with her and she "saw him as himself"? I wish the writing was more convincing in this regard.

Genuinely a little baffled by the plotline about the Ghost. I'd thought we'd already covered his part in Liriope's murder in the Cruel Prince series. (I may need to reread the OG series to be sure.) But it's being rehashed again like ripping open an old wound. And I never knew Oak cared that deeply about his biological parents. My point is: Leave the Ghost alone!

I wasn't invested in Tiernan and Hyacinth's story. I skimmed a lot of their screen time together, but their fans will probably receive quite the treat.

Lady Elaine, fuck off!!! (That said, I do understand her role in the story, especially the climax.)

OAK TRYING TO KILL WREN AT THE END, SIR, SIR, PLEASE. DO NOT.

We didn't need the sex scene being SO IMPLICIT –- GIVE ME DETAILS, DAMN IT!! Now I feel empty.

Things I liked:

One thing I predicted when I'd read the exclusive first few chapters of Prisoner's Throne months ago: Wren's power came as a cost to her health. I was right. And I loved it. I'm not the biggest fan of overpowered heroines and her limitations were a great story point to me. Holly always does such an exemplary job in making her heroines, including Jude, badass and yet so human (more a figurative phrase for Wren since Wren is fae) and grounded. Also, in general, I liked Wren a lot in this book. My heart broke for her over and over. I JUST WANT WREN TO BE HAPPY AND I AM GLAD SHE GOT A HAPPY ENDING.

I had COMPLETELY forgotten about her connection to her mortal family and I am so, so happy we managed to resolve that in this book. The fact that Wren would do anything to protect her sister Brex moved me immensely. Holly did well in tying that loose end up, and hurray that Wren finally got to spend time with her family at the end of the book. 🙂

JUDE AND CARDAN!!!! Especially Cardan. He was such a gem and so intriguing in this book. Once I'm done writing this review, I'm going to reread all his scenes. No one can complain that Jurdan wasn't in this book—they were very, very involved in the plot here.

Holly Black's prose is still one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. It's my favourite prose of any author, period. It's succinct and poetic at the same time. It scratches an itch in my brain that I never knew needed scratching.

The ending where Oak goes to find Wren and he proposes was so lovely. Ahhh. I will always have a special love and fondness for them. Bless their baby hearts.

Oak supporting Wren when she was ill will NEVER not move my stone cold heart. The way he held her weight to keep her from falling while they danced...

Before I sign off, I want to say one more thing: WHAT IS HOLLY PLANNING WITH NICASIA'S STORY? Is she going to write / create a male lead for Nicasia? What's going on?? Holly pretty much confirmed that she's going to write something else in this universe, and I must KNOW what she has in mind. Nicasia was so unlikeable in the original series that I wonder how it would be like to read her as a heroine of her own story.

Holly, I'm right here, waiting for whatever you might throw at us next.

#book review #the cruel prince #the prisoner's throne #the stolen heir #oak greenbriar #cardan greenbriar #jude duarte

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alltimefail-sims · 1 year

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Hi friends, and happy Friday!

Yesterday the sims team released its first stuff pack since Paranormal Stuff, so I wanted to give my thoughts and pseudo-review it for you all. I'm not sure if these little reviews are helpful in any way, but I've found that forcing myself to take the time and really isolate the new features, CAS items, and objects has made me appreciate, incorporate, and analyze them among the existent content a little better.

So, with that being said, here's my long and unbiased review of the CAS items from the Home Chef Hustle Stuff Pack! ↓

Let's begin with the outfits shown above. This pack provided items that I absolutely love and have been asking for whilst also giving items that are just...meh at best. (By "meh" I mean that after this review, they'll be forgotten in the catalogue.)

There are multiple variants of apron outfits for both frames and I liked all of them. I'm serious, I even liked the apron dress: it's a little frumpy, but it feels like a perfect cuddly grandma or elderly sim outfit. Also that shirt with the little towel over the shoulder in male frame? Love love love that. Crazy about it, in fact! But beyond the outfits themselves, I really like the color swatches in this pack and the fact that they have clean and dirty swatches. I say it every time, but I love the lived-in, imperfect CAS and Build/Buy items that the sims team has been rolling out lately and I hope they keep up with that style.

I also really love the turtleneck jumpsuit and honestly, it may be one of my favorite CAS pieces to date. I love all the swatches and the way it fits on sims of all sizes. They have been giving us a lot of jumpsuits lately, but this one stands out from the others in a positive way.

As for the clothing items I didn't care for and/or could do without: the one pair of pants that came with this SP. It's not that they're bad or anything; the swatches are fine, they just don't stand out as a staple item to me. Same with the chef coat - it's a nice piece, it has a variety of color and style options, but I'm not sure how often I'll use it as it's so specific/niche. Both perfectly adequate for what they are though!

However, the hoodie, t-shirt with the little ascot, and graphic tee did nothing for me. Some of the swatches on the t-shirt were good (the fire chicken for example) while some felt weird and wildly out of place with the existing animation style/graphics in the game. The shirt with the ascot is just okay, I like how it fit my sims but some of the designs are a bit on the nose and corny. I can't emphasize enough that some of the designs on the shirts were just decent while the other half were really, really bad.

The single pair of shoes in this pack aren't great either. I just thought they looked a little underwhelming, I had higher expectations I guess. I have clog/croc cc that looks much better than what came with this pack if I'm being honest, so I could leave these out all together. Plus, they warp the male ankles significantly, so I couldn't even use them on my male sim as demonstrated in the picture below.

I've seen a few people confused about the gloves that came with this pack, but I actually like them. I especially like the latex/rubber gloves: I would have a home chef wear these at their pop-up-shop for the play pretend impression of food prep safety (like in real life). It's silly, it doesn't impact gameplay, but it helps my imagination and storytelling so that's a fun touch to me. Any touch of realism is a win in my book, and they're also nice to have if you have Dine Out as well! Come to think of it, a lot of the CAS items from this pack would incorporate quite seamlessly with that pack if not for the fact that Dine Out is virtually unplayable. Anyway!

The earrings and necklace are cute, even though the knife is a little chunky. I love silly jewelry though, so I will definitely use all three of them. The tattoo, I'm sorry to say, is kind of goofy as fuck lmao. Just not my personal taste. "A" for effort though? I feel like they could have kept with the chef/foodie tattoo concept and been less on the nose, but it's fine. If nothing else, it's silly and it is in a good location at least? At least they've been trying to add tattoos in the last few packs after going a long while completely ignoring that category all together?

As for the hats...

Need we talk about the hats? They're bulky, chunky, they don't lay on any sim's head properly and it only gets worse as they get younger. We all joke about it, but I don't know that the Sims team has ever seen an actual human wearing a hat before. You'd think after we complain and make jokes about it every pack, they would get the message.

Regardless, the hats themselves would have been, objectively, super adorable if they fit correctly... but they don't. The swatches are pretty fun, the texture is actually nice. So annoying! I hope someone comes out with a default replacement fix because I would use these for my younger sims a lot.

Now...the hairs!

The first scarf hairdo in fem frame looks SO GOOD. Why it did not come in male frame, I will never know. It's one of my favorite hairs to date. Also the curly hairdo for male frames is so cute and like nothing else we have in the game, so that was nice too (and it also should have came in fem frame, but again I digress). I want to give them props as well for the short cut with shaved sides - that is one of the more fashionable, practical, reusable male hairs that have come with a pack. They always somehow manage to mess "staple" pieces up by doing something funky (looking at you Cats and Dogs hair with a fucking pawprint shaved on the side lmaoooo) but this hair is simple and good. Love that. I do feel like there are similar cuts to this already in game, but they don't look as good... so congrats to them for finally doing this haircut right on try 4 or 5 lmao.

I so so so wish they would do what CC creators do and create a headband overlay in the hats category so you could change the hairband color because I actually love the different swatches... I just hate that they're limited to certain hair colors! It's not like anyone is pairing a hat with a hairdo that has a scarf or headband, so whyyyyyy aren't they giving us that option yet? Hopefully cc creators pull through on this one as well.

Otherwise I genuinely have no complaints about any of the hairs. I think they're all quite nice!

Now onto the least exciting part of this review...the littles.

Not much to say about any of this: it's all the same stuff from the adult CAS items, with a lot left out. I would have liked to see an item made specifically for these life stages in mind, but that didn't happen, unfortunately. Everything they converted felt kind of random, and there were things they didn't convert that I thought were a missed opportunity.

For instance: I don't know why the hoodie didn't get converted, or the pants? They didn't make anything original for children, so I don't think it would have been much trouble to convert one or both of these items. In my opinion, the swatches on the hoodie would have probably suited kids better than the adults, and I feel like hoodies are a staple item in every child's closet so you can never really have too many? But yeah, big miss.

The random onesie for infants was weird and I felt like it had fewer swatches than it should have. Maybe they're trying to throw infants in as they're a new life stage and we have so little for them? I don't know. I thought it was weird toddlers got nothing but one singular hairstyle and the giant hat (all life stages got that). They could have at least given toddlers the onesie, too...or even the t-shirt. Regardless, this pack wasn't for kids/toddlers/infants, that much is clear, but they could have been incorporated better with a little more effort, and that's what frustrates me the most!

I'll be talking about gameplay in the next post. If you read all of this, I love you very much. You could have googled "Home Chef Hustle CAS items," but you didn't!! You read my rambles instead and for that I am so thankful. Big smooch on the forehead from me to you. <3

That's a wrap for now. See you in the next one, friends!

#ts4 home chef hustle #home chef hustle #ts4 lookbook #ts4 lookbooks #ts4 #simblr #the sims 4 #sims 4 #pack overview #the sims community #ts4lookbook #stuff pack review #ts4 stuff packs #oc: micah #oc: tristan

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lutawolf · 2 years

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TharnType Episode 1

I know a lot of people hate TharnType… But for me, it holds a special place. We live vicariously through art. Just because I watch or read murder mysteries doesn't mean I'm so idiotic as to believe I can solve a murder. Just because I cheer when someone knocks the shit out of someone in the movie, doesn't mean I think it should happen in real life. If you don't want to watch shows and movies that require critical thinking, then don't. I personally feel that we've taken so much critical thinking from shows and movie that people can't make logical leaps or think for themselves.

All that to say, that I'm well aware that these characters are toxic. I'll be pointing out a lot of toxicity, but that's also real life. And I personally want to feel something other than awww, when I watch a show or movie. I want to have to analyze my emotions. So that's what I'll be doing in this review.

Right off, we can see that Type is that man's man type of guy. He is tough and sporty, and he views the world from this very narrow view finder. Traditionally, men have been socialized to portray a strong image, especially in Asian society. And you have to understand that most victims of violent assault are made to feel weak. How often I've heard, "that wouldn't have happened to me because I would have punched someone." or "that won't happen to me, I'm strong." Men especially feel the weight of this. Because they are the "protectors" and "providers". So what we often see happen is over compensation of that masculinity, as if to completely erase any weakness. I've always been impressed that MAME details this because generally unless you can get a male victim talking, most miss this behavioral trait.

Techno runs in and tells Type that his roommate is gay. Because he knows how Type feels about gays. Let's talk about this. We know that all of Type's friends have no issues with gays, and yet they still hang out with Type. Which means they've already figured out that Type likely has a reason for his prejudice. Everyone, "Just because he went through what he did doesn't" shut the fuck up. Your lack of sympathy is showing. I do not know a single victim that didn't hate and didn't have to work damn hard through that hate. That's when we become survivors, but I'm telling you, I relate to Type because my hate nearly consumed me.

What I like about the initial confrontation is, despite Tharn's clear anger. He is education and brings up solid points that cause Type to pause. He sees the logic in the education. While there is anger, there isn't hate, which can cause people to get angry themselves and not listen. This right here for me is the first step we see to Type reformulating his bias. A seed has been planted, though he doesn't know it, but he will see it later on in the show when Type brings up these very arguments to himself.

We see more arguments. Type having nightmares of being molested by Tharn. Which they downplay in the show, but yeah, think about it. His anger is all about his fear and his fear of being weak again. See, anger is like armor, it hides the cracks of imperfections. The broken pieces.

Notice how Techno is not accepting of Type's prejudice. He educates at every opportunity. When Techno begins to ask if Tharn has hit on him, we see anger rise in Type. Again, this is used as a shield. In the flashback, we see the real Type. Through the flashbacks, we can see that Type really is a pretty likeable guy. He's friendly, respectful, and honestly easy going. He didn't fight for anything coming into the dorm. He didn't see it as important. Then we see the type of person one becomes when they let hate take over.

And that's the point of this next part! Now Tharn is letting anger take over and is the beginning stages of hate. You flame that, and it will grow till you are doing stuff in the name of revenge. Hatred and anger turns us all into different people, ugly people. People we don't recognize.

Techno sees Type for who he is. Techno is like that third point of view. Now back to Type and Tharn, we see the escalation of emotions that's going to lead to despicable acts. Then we watch the back and forth. We see Type feeling guilty. He can't stop what he started, but we aren't seeing an inherently bad person. You can really see this from the way his friends communicate with him.

I'm going to bring up something rarely brought up. Tharn has had a tendency to be in Type's of space. Type has had to push him back. Then he initiated that cheek kiss. That's when Type gets physical, which is fair. See, he is actually defending himself, and I know we all feel the need to cheer for Tharn because he is the one having prejudice against him. But Type wasn't physical. When do words and annoyances equal moving to physical? You can walk away from these other things. That being said, I cheered, hell yeah, I love a good revenge move, but I can easily see that these two are both wrong. They need to take each other out of the dating pool because they are so wrong that they are right for each other.

Techno trying to explain about Type without selling him out. He's explaining exactly why he is the way he is and why Techno forgives it. Why he is friends with him. It's just that it's not sinking in for Tharn. Or maybe he is like a bunch of people and doesn't think that's an excuse. But that's like telling someone with PTSD, Anxiety, or any other brain misfire that we can't control it. It really is very hard to control, especially when not given the tools to begin healing. He has had no therapy, no chance to communicate. This has festered as a dirty little secret.

Anyway, I think that's it more than anything. Tharn has an idea but no comprehension to show compassion. And a lot of built-up animosity, "I don't do drunk people." But he feels okay with hickey revenge. He has pushed passed what would be deemed acceptable behavior even to himself, but he's let animosity fester. And admit it. Some of us found the revenge sweet. Why we enjoy it so much is Type is a jerk, and we all fantasize about giving it to the jerk. But it's also uncomfortable, and it's meant to be. It's meant to make you realize that the need for revenge can push us where we shouldn't go. I really truly love the depth of this show.

Okay guys, give me feed back. Want me to keep going?

#tharntype #thia bl #luta opinions #luta talks tharntype

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hacash · 2 years

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ted lasso 3x02 thoughts

Listen, I think we can all agree that this episode could pretty much be titled ‘Trent Crimm: Return of the Crimm’. I’m not even a big tedpendent girl but this was definitely their time.

I loved seeing Trent back at Richmond! It’s going to be great having more of James Lance on the show: one thing I did think was that Trent had definitely lost a little bit of his customary swagger – he’s back at Richmond but he’s no longer dominating the press room, he’s very much now in the jock-dominated locker room where the Roy storyline made it clear that he no longer has that commanding power that he did in the world of journalism (James Lance’s headcanon that Trent got into sports journalism because his dad wanted him to be into football – Trent is both of that world and not of it - lives in my head rent-free), and the entire arc of this episode was a really interesting way of easing Trent into this scene.

Being a non-sports, non-celebrity, non-rich person, the one gripe I often have with Ted Lasso is it very much takes the rich celebrity jock-ish status of the team as given – of course the himbos are justified in being paid ludicrous sums of money, of course it’s funny and not unsettling that Jamie thinks of non-celebrities as ‘muggles’. So having Trent, who’ll be the first locker-room-regular to come from a more academic, working-a-regular-non-sports-job-background, will be an interesting dynamic switch.

Roy’s entire arc with Trent just stabbed me in the heart. I always knew there had to be more to the ‘you’re a colossal prick and you always have been’ line and now I feel so freaking vindicated. And whoever pointed out that Roy refused to carry on the cycle of condemning teenage players back in s2 as a pundit…argh.

AND HE CARRIED THAT REVIEW AROUND WITH HIM FOR TWENTY-ODD YEARS. (Apparently the British comedian Eric Morecambe did a similar thing: carrying an old bad review of his first television appearance with him for the rest of his life despite reaching unparalleled success in his heyday. *sniffles*)

The one thing that was slightly jarring about Trent’s return was it felt like everyone (except for Roy) was surprisingly chill about him being at Richmond, considering that he was the journalist who broke the story about Ted’s mental health problems (Keeley even mentions gunning for Trent in the S2 finale). Of course, Ted being Ted we can assume he did a lot of sticking up for Trent at the time, but this only turns us back again to the big, painful, heart-stomping elephant in the room…how much does the rest of the Richmond crew know about the leak? And if it does ever slip out, how exactly is that going to go down?

On that note, I was under the impression that we only had to suffer more of Rupert if we also got more delicious Nate angst and arcs into the bargain. The fact that this week we had Rupert’s gross manipulations and no Nate is just a slap in the face.

(Anthony Head remains so wonderfully evil though.)

Zava! I’ve been hypothesising about him since leaked pictures of the first West Ham match hit Twitter, and I’m really interested in seeing where he goes…though, I’ll be real, right now he strikes me as just a prick. And not even a dumb, amusing prick like s1 Jamie (who I knew I was going to have a grudging soft spot for back when he piped up about the snacks being shit), but just…a prick. We’ll see though. I’m also really looking forward to seeing Jamie’s reaction to Zava: if he doesn’t like sharing the spotlight with another ace, or if it’s seeing the primadonna beneath the glamour and not wanting Zava to hurt his team.

And speaking of Zava’s hire…Rebecca’s takedown of him was magnificent, and her ability to be dragged into dodgy business decisions just to one-up Rupert are being played for laughs right now…but let’s be real, this show always plays things for laughs before turning the tables on you. Which basically means: this is going to hurt like a motherfucker.

Also REBECCA WAS THE OTHER WOMAN?!?!? God, that adds so many layers to Sassy telling her she’d hurt people while with Rupert. I cannot wait to find out more about that, it’s already hurting my heart.

DANI SCORING A GOAL WITH HIS FACE. Also his puppy dog excitement about Zava, which I’m sure won’t come back to bite him in the arse later.

I love how Higgins is basically the Richmond equivalent of Varys – he has his contacts everywhere, and no secrets are secret from him.

Keeley and Barbara! Honestly, I’m quite here for where this is going – Barbara’s attitude in this ep unkind and, let’s be honest, pretty classist when it came to Shazza(? Keeley’s model friend?), but also you do need someone to be boring and sensible and check the numbers when it comes to running a business. I’m hoping they keep working together well.

And that moment when Keeley watched Roy come back to Chelsea *lip wobble*

Actually, that entire Chelsea return moment…

AND the knowledge that Roy left Chelsea and Keeley because he couldn’t bear to be left… That revelation hurt. Not even Ted batting his eyes cartoon-anime-style could take the sting out of that kick to the chest.

Jamie continuing to go from strength to strength by trying to comfort Roy (unsuccessfully) in this episode, in his own unique fashion. ‘Old people are jumpy because of the war’ was incredible.

Not nearly enough himbos in this episode, I’m sorry to say, but the scene where they react to Zava, Trent, and Roy breaking up with Keeley was a thing of absolute beauty. And Beard’s shriek at the news was both hilarious and justifiable.

I’m also fascinated by the choice to have the himbos identify the best tactic to fight back at the Chelsea match, rather than Ted – it’s the second time in so many episodes when someone else has stepped up to do something which would traditionally be Ted’s role, and I’m wondering if there’s a pattern here. (And if there is, how Ted – who’s clearly uncertain about his place at Richmond – will interpret that.)

God, I almost nearly forgot that this was the episode where we found out that Isaac is a student of kinesics (Renaissance man!) and apparently regularly checks out Roy’s arse. Here we were all thinking Colin would be confirmed queer this season…is McAdoo about to sneak in from under our noses?

Also the post-gym scenes made this the episode where I realised the Greyhounds are definitely sporting a somewhat more...athletic look this season. I may have to put together some s1 v s3 comparison pics to be sure about this. Stay tuned.

#ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #ted lasso speculation #theodore lasso #coach beard #trent crimm: the independent #roy kent #rebecca welton #keeley jones #rupert mannion #isaac mcadoo #jamie tartt

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romancomicsnews · 1 year

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem amplifies the fun of the franchise - REVIEW

*Slight Spoilers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem*

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been a franchise that has consistently been rebooted and I have never minded.

While the 2003 series was my initial Turtles introduction, the 2012 series really made me a fan. It had the right balance for me of brotherly affection, drama, stakes, and weird obscure villains.

While Rise of the TMNT wasn't exactly my taste, I can appreciate the animation, comedy, and going for a different new take. Plus my god is the Rise of TMNT movie good. I'm all for making really cool characters into animes now.

Going into this movie I had extremely high hopes. Not only has this franchise rarely disappointed, but it was produced by Seth Rogen, who has worked on shows like The Boys and Invincible, and directed by Jeff Rowe, who is not getting NEARLY enough credit for this movie. He was a writer on Gravity Falls and the co-director of one of my favorite animated movies: The Mitchells vs The Machines.

And I got to say, this movie does not disappoint.

The animation style is both impressive and at times disgusting in the best possible way. This is the first time I've felt New York feel grubby and grimy. Every shot looks wonderful, and that cannot be understated.

The hardest part of the Turtles is usually the brother dynamics. I feel like if not written or performed correctly, the Turtles can come off as buddies or even acquaintances. But this was not a problem here. The idea of having all four actors in the same room clearly paid off, as the four of them riffing and mocking each other were some of the highlights of the movie.

I do think coming out of this, some of these turtles will be the definitive versions of the characters. While Mikey and Raph have their charms, Micah Abbey as Donnie and Nicolas Cantu as Leo were stands out for me.

The idea of taking Donnie from the tech guy to more of a calculating nerdy weeb was genius. Donnie often is the guy who is most made fun of because he is nerd, and I think pivoting to him being a smart-ass and respected for his brain was a nice touch.

Leonardo as the goody two shoes dork who wants to lead so bad also worked for me. Leonardo can sometimes come off a sorta bully or arrogant for even trying to be the leader. Making him unsure but wanting to be a good leader makes him charming and more likeable.

Also among our heroes are Ayo Edebiri as April O'Neil and Jackie Chan as Master Splinter.

While April does not have as much to do as I would've liked, I think Edebiri is a nice addition and I'd be happy to see more of her. She has good chemistry with the brothers, although it did take me out of the movie to think of the age gap between Edebiri and Cantu.

Jackie Chan's Splinter may be my biggest problem with the film. While he is a passable Splinter and has plenty of laughs, he does not seem as fierce of a warrior as he has seemed in the past, nor as wise. I do not mind a flawed, anxiety ridden Splinter, but he should feel like he can take on the Turtles easily, and I don't think he can.

(Also, Jackie Chan is a bad father in real life and shouldn't disown his estranged daughter for being gay. Read all about it here!)

I'm not going to go to into the details of all the villains in the movie, as there are quite a few, but I really loved the inclusion of the vast TMNT universe, and their own fun takes on them. One of the benefits of having Seth Rogen as a creative is access to all his very talented friends. A highlight for me was Mondo Gecko, voiced by the great Paul Rudd.

The main antagonist of the film being Superfly was a rather interesting choice. While I was sure we were going to have a Jekyll and Hyde situation with Superfly and Stockman going in, the idea that it was his mutant son was a weird but fun choice. Clearly Ice Cube was having a lot of fun playing a villain. He gave me quite a few laughs and felt like a proper first villain for these turtles. I'm glad they didn't just jump into Shredder or Kraang.

While all the characters are fun and interesting, what I really love about this story is the central theme of acceptance. Having them all have the goal of being accepted by society felt natural, important, and very teen drama, which is fresh to the TMNT. They are often outsiders who don't really care about that, just protecting the city. Making that at the heart of the movie made me feel for them in a way I haven't before.

Leaving the movie where it does excites me for more movies and the upcoming show they have planned. I think this version of the turtles can last us a good 5-7 years, and will end up being as iconic as the ones that came before.

Not that there is a super high bar for TMNT films, but this is definitely my favorite. I think kids are going to love, TMNT fans are going to love it, and non TMNT fans are going to be pleasantly surprised.

I highly recommend you go see this movie, I know I am definitely going again soon.

Thank you for reading! If you'd like to support me, you can:

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literary-illuminati · 10 months

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Book Review 67 – Saint Death’s Daughter by C. S. E. Cooney

This is a book I’ve been vaguely aware of for a while, without really knowing anything about it beyond that it was getting a lot of positive buzz, but it got a WFA best novel nomination and that provided the impetus I needed to finally give reading it a try. And, well, I’ll be honest – this was a slog for me. If it had been half the size it would very likely be one of my favourite works of the year; as is the best way I can describe the reading experience is ‘slowly drowning in cotton candy’.

The book stars Miscellaneous ‘Lannie’ Stones, younger daughter of a declining noble house which has provided executioners and assassins to the royal family of Lariat since its founding, and generally but not lately provided necromancers as well. Lannie is the hope of the family, a necromantic prodigy (if one with a profoundly inconvenient allergy to violence that requires her isolation from the rest of the family and her raising by a bound revanent nanny and the dubiously trustworthy ghost of an ancestor). As the story opens, her parents have both died, and she’s been forced to write to her terror of an elder sister to come home as their debts are called due. She comes home with an enscrolled and deeply unwilling fiancee abducted during her studies. This, surprisingly, only takes up the first small chunk of the book, followed by a timeskip, the introduction of Lannie’s niece born in the interim, the elder sister dealing with the consequences of her seven-year campaign of bloody vengeance against the foreign court which murdered their parents, and the beginning of the actual plot.

I really did want to enjoy this book, and on the page-to-page level it was often somewhere between charming and delightful. But there were just so many pages, and so very little happening on most of them. After the timeskip the book spends something like 500 pages just leisurely meandering, stopping whenever anything catches its interest to spend half a page or three enthusiastically describing it. At a certain point the exuberant narration and playful vocabulary stop feeling delightful and start feeling like the author is somehow being paid by the word.

This is made all the odder by the fact that around the 80% mark the book suddenly realizes its got a bunch of problems to resolve and switches into an entirely different gear, rushing through revelations and resolutions like it’s on a deadline. Which apparently it was? The book ends with what feels like less of a sequel hook and more like a final hundred pages were chopped off the finished product by a longsuffering editor pushed past the brink.

So, the lion’s share of the book is interested less in plot than character dynamics and cute slice of moments. It’s very much a found family sort of narrative, delivered in an incredibly blunt fashion. Which definitely works for a lot of people, I’m sure, but everyone was so obviously written to be endearing and charming and fell into love of various sorts with each other so instantly it just left me cold, and more a bit bored.

This is a book with footnotes, and among those it feels pretty middle of the pack? Not doing anything particularly impressive with them, and they don’t have a real character or voice different from the rest of the book, but they’re a fun enough way to infodump a bunch of Stones family history (particularly all the ways different members have died).

Thematically...look, I’m aware this is entirely a personal pet peeve not shared by any particular audience, but the fact that Lannie’s whole life from infancy is being chosen as the beloved priestess of a goddess of death for one specific purpose, and that this is portrayed as an entirely benevolent, positive, and uplifting thing to have done at basically all points that it’s discussed just sets me on edge. There’s nothing really badly done about it, I’m just a contrary maltheist by nature and the book did basically nothing to allay that.

Generally – I don’t know, I’m not opposed to 700 page books (I’d be an utter hypocrite if I was. Almost certainly still am regardless), but I feel like being that long is a failing the book then has to justify? It should be obliged to do something with the length, if it’s going to demand so much of my time to wade through it. This didn’t really feel like it did.

#book review #saint death's daughter #C. S. E. Cooney #sff

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jakethesequel · 10 months

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My Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Review

From a long-long-time Scott Pilgrim fan.

Quick-form style:

PRO: The animation is stellar, does a great job at both adapting and upgrading the original artstyle with a bunch of motion.

PRO: I especially love all the little background references. Not just the ones related to the original comics or whatever either, there's a lot that are just aesthetic references to gamer stuff or Toronto landmarks (Honest "Ed's"!). Does a lot to make it feel more like it's really set in late 2000s/early 2010s Canadiana. I think you could fill a whole wiki just categorizing all the little connections they fit into every episode.

PRO: Truly a once-in-a-lifetime voice cast, I'm actually amazed they got the whole cast of the movie to come back after thirteen years.

PRO: Extremely funny with the jokes, as the comics and the movie both were, but even more concentrated, especially if you're sharp enough to catch all the background details and references.

CON: The main storyline feels rushed. More on that later.

PRO: Both the licensed soundtrack and the original compositions go fucking hard, rivalling the movie's already impressive album.

PRO: A lot of characters who didn't get a ton of development in the comics or movie get extra screen time and are seen in a new light that really fleshes them out as complete personalities where they might have been one-note before.

CON: A lot of the characters who were more important in the comics or movie have underdeveloped arcs in the anime, so they feel half-baked.

PRO: The scene-to-scene dialogue, and the way the characters socialize with each other, often feels fresh and real the way they were in the comics. It's cartoonish, of course, but they talk like long-time friends talk.

CON: Lisa Miller, my favorite tertiary character, was not included. Unforgivable.

Overall? Takes Off was an enjoyable addition to the series. Even with all its glitter, it's not as good as the original comics, but that's a high bar. I would say that Takes Off is equal or even better than the VS The World movie, and that's a good ass movie! The attention to detail and production quality is substantial in both. I personally think that the story in Takes Off had a little more substance, but I think opinions are going to vary strongly on that, and I can easily understand the other side. In any case, if you're new to Scott Pilgrim, Takes Off is a lot of fun, and if you end up liking it, the comics are even better. If you already enjoy Scott Pilgrim, Takes Off is a strong spin-off and worth watching.

Points heavier on spoilers below, and heavier on details as I slowly forget what "point form" means:

PRO: From the start, the first episode is bursting with love for the original series. There are multiple scenes that are shot-for-shot recreations of the comic, and it's a real treat to see the comic panels animated and voiced by the movie cast.

CON: Knive Chau's introduction is kind of brushed over. They basically say "Knives Chau: Scott's 17-year-old fake girlfriend (more on that later)." Except: There's never really more on that later.

PRO: A lot of the first episode's changes are done in a really funny way that fits the vibe. Obviously the Amazon -> Netflix change is just corporate politics, but delivering Netflix DVDs makes it feel like even more of a period piece. And changing Scott's awkward infodump from Puckman to Sonic cartoons - "one guy playing two versions of the same character" - is a cute lampshade hang.

CON: A lot of people are going to be turned off by the show's central twist. Everyone expected this to be an adaptation played straight, since that's what was advertised. It sure as hell shocked me when Scott "died"! I have no doubt some people are gonna have a more intense reaction and feel shitty about the rug-pull.

PRO: However! I came around on it pretty fast myself once I figured out what they were doing. While I would have adored a direct adaptation from the comics, I cannot complain about getting a brand new story by the original creator, and I think the whole AU idea of "what if Scott lost to the Seven Evil Exes" is a really fun one to explore! Regardless of execution, it's a cool concept and I kind of admire the balls of sucessfully pulling a bait-and-switch on such a major production. Managing to keep your main plotline a secret while working for a major production company and hiring box-office-topping actors is no small feat!

PRO: Again, the AU-fanfic-type stuff is a lot of fun. It's great how the League of Evil Exes finally gets to do their whole evil plan, and succeed in killing Ramona's date, then fall apart when they realize this didn't actually get them anywhere.

PRO: Also, while their fight does kind of unfairly nerf Gideon compared to his other appearances, it rocked seeing Matthew Patel clean house. I'm just a sucker for when a weak early enemy managed to usurp power through some bullshit. And of all the Evil Exes, he needed the glow-up the most, he got the least scenes out of any of them.

PRO: METRIC'S BACK!

CON: Even though he comes back to life, the funeral scene has weird vibes. Scott's friends and family reacted more emotionally when the comics did the "extra life" gag, but this is to their knowledge an actual permanent death. Even if she feels responsible, it's jarring that Ramona, who knew Scott for like two days and has an established habit of running from difficult feelings, seems more affected by grief than friends Scott that had known for years like Wallace, Kim, Stephen, even Envy. Hell, Knives was "dating" Scott for longer than Ramona's one-night stand, but she moves on quicker from the death of her fake boyfriend than her comic/movie counterparts do from just a breakup.

PRO: The casket just having spare change in it is a fucking great visual gag.

PRO: KIM PINE YURI???

CON: Kim's backstory and character arc gets shafted, and Scott's backstory loses complexity. More on that later.

PRO: There's less typical-late-2000s-loser type jokes about lesbians, and less catty bodyshaming, which is good. It might have been realistic dialogue at the time but it'd probably feel out of place in a modern production, even a period piece.

PRO: Related, Ramona has less internalized biphobia and doesn't make "experimenting in college" excuses about her sexuality. Some may feel like this simplifies her character, because her treating Roxie like an experiment is an important flaw, but I think it's a positive change. I'd rather her character be a bisexual girl with relationship issues than a comphet girl with relationship issues. The latter just reinforces bi erasure too much for me.

CON: Ramona inexplicably feels more loyal towards missing-presumed-dead Scott who she has had one date with than comic Ramona felt towards comic steady-boyfriend-of-several-months Scott, despite anime!Scott not getting to apologize for two-timing Ramona and Knives like comic!Scott did. I think this oversimplified her character and weakens her arc. More on that later.

CON: There's obviously an issue of balancing plotlines with runtime, but Roxie has a much more involved and interesting role in the story in the comics. She even moves in with Ramona for a while. The drama!

PRO: It's very cute seeing Knives hang out with the Sex Bob-omb crew on her own terms. She does that in the comics too, after she and Scott break up, but it's mostly offscreen unless Scott or Ramona also happen to be in the room. It's also a good addition to have her involved with the music herself rather than just be a fan.

PRO: Dead Kennedys needle drop. Fuck yeah.

PRO: In general, spending time with all of the Evil Exes is a lot of fun and does a lot of work to make them feel like well-rounded, fully realized characters. For me, I think this is the biggest benefit Takes Off brings to the series, and something that genuinely makes re-reading the comics more enjoyable. The Exes' scenes in their books pop more with the added detail to their personality from this anime.

PRO: Each Ex (sans Gideon/Gordon) gets their artstyle-shift backstory with Ramona lifted right from the comics.

CON: Even so, the Exes' appearances aren't totally even. Particularly Roxie, Todd, and Gideon/Gordon. Matthew, Lucas Lee, and the Twins benefit the most from the extra screentime, but every Ex has a few of their bumps shined off. Mostly in their backstories: while I love the flashbacks, they're all a lot less confrontational with Ramona about her own faults than their other appearances would suggest, again simplifying Ramona's story and weakening her arc. In previous appearances, many of the Exes were a lot less "fight Ramona's new BF to win her love back" and a lot more "fight Ramona's new BF because she broke my heart and I want revenge."

PRO: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost guest cameos!! That's how you KNOW it's an Edgar Wright project through and through

PRO: Young Neil becoming a cinephile and an accidental screenwriter is a great storyline, and the ongoing lampshading of adapting existing storylines makes room for a lot of good jokes at the creators' own expense.

PRO: WALLACE WELLS YAOI? Well, that much was more expected. But Todd Ingram/Wallace Wells yaoi? That's new ground!

CON: Again, it's a question of managing runtime and work-hours, but the Envy->Todd<-->Wallace love triangle isn't as interesting as the "taking a full page out of this volume for a relationship chart" love lattice from the comics, though it's still hilarious and a delight to watch. It would be fully in-character for Wallace to steal Envy's boyfriend, but that's nowhere near as juicy as the web of jealousy and desire between Scott+Ramona+Envy+Todd+Lynette+Knives(+Gideon, later on).

PRO: I'm glad they didn't re-cast Kieran Culkin, but I'm also grateful they wrote in a mea culpa about casting straight actors to play gay characters.

CON: Envy herself has very little character in the anime besides being Scott's bitchy famous ex-girlfriend, where the comics paint a much more sympathetic picture. Maybe an issue of Brie Larson being busy with Marvel, but unfortunate all the same. More on that later.

PRO: "Edgar Wrong"

PRO: Narration by Weird Al Yankovic

PRO: They have a lot of fun joking about Scott Pilgrim VS The World thanks to the set-up. I feel like every time there's an in-universe joke about adapting Scott Pilgrim (real life guy) into Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (movie) it also works as a fourth-wall joke about adapting Scott Pilgrim (graphic novels) into Scott Pilgrim VS The World (movie). If the writing was less tight I think it'd be grating and either feel too meta or too avoidant, but I think they walk that line with talent and make most lines work on both levels. It's nice to see the creators take a good-natured jab at themselves for the issues the real movie ran into adapting a not-yet-finished 6-volume comic into a sub-2-hour super-overbudget studio movie with a professional soundtrack from several major indie rock stars. That joke about the movie not being able to make up its losses didn't come from nowhere, unfortunately, but I'm glad they can laugh about it.

PRO: The Chau/Stills songwriting team is great. They develop their own friendship in the comics, too, but it comes to life way more here. It does see them relegated to more of a comic relief role, rather than their more complicated arcs in the comics, but more on that later.

PRO: Gordon Goose from North Bay Ontario is an inspired choice, as is him friendshipping it up with Lucas Lee after they're both broke, as is especially him hooking up with Julie. I could honestly even see them getting together in the comic or movie versions too, if the story had gone a little differently. They've got great chemistry that I never even considered.

CON?PRO?IDK: Gordon Goose from the anime is an entirely different character from the comic's Gideon Gordon Graves. Some parts could fit: him originally being a loser from North Bay, him hanging out with Julie and Lucas Lee, even the anime-binge depression spiral could fit if events conspired for him to lose everything. Other parts, though, are trickier. I mentioned that he was a far weaker fighter than in other works, but that's minor and idk maybe it's a rock paper scissors thing (Scott is stronger than Matthew, Matthew is stronger than Gideon, Gideon is stronger than Scott). The BIG changes are that he doesn't seem to have any of his evil genius plots going on besides the League of Evil Exes. In the comics, he infected Ramona (and later Scott) with the Glow, a kind of emotional infection that enables and encourages avoidance; and in the movies, he stuck a mind-control chip in Ramona. (Also in the comics he kidnapped and cryogenically froze his 7 ex-girlfriends sans Ramona in a giant machine to "save" them until he could convince them to take him back, because he's a massive fucking asshole.) He did both long before Scott and Ramona met, so it's odd that there's seemingly no counterpart in the anime. It's also super different that after losing his wealth he stops being obsessed with Ramona. Where the other exes might have been more revenge motivated, Gideon was the one who really did want to try and win Ramona back by any means. His main character trait is that he's pretty much incapable of letting go when women reject him. There's echoes of that when Julie talks about his high school years, which I think is a good addition, but it makes it odd that in the final few episodes he's almost entirely uninterested in Scott and Ramona. Maybe that's Julie's influence, but that's a hard sell without actually showing it. (Plus, Julie didn't want Scott and Ramona together either, so almost a shared goal.) All in all, this makes Gordon Goose feel way more divergent from comic/movie Gideon Gordon Graves than any other character is. Still, I'm hesitant to commit to calling this a negative. It's different, but it might have been a difference needed for Takes Off to do what it wanted to do. Part of me wonders whether a Gideon played a tiny bit closer to norm would have been better, but I'm not confident in that, so decide for yourself.

CON: Gideon/Gordon never mentions his fetish for dressing people (Envy in particular) up like dolls.

PRO: While I know time travel plots get tiring, I much prefer it to Scott just being dead, or someone having just kidnapped him regular style.

PRO: The aesthetic for future-Toronto - and especially Old Wallace's sugar daddy's Nintendo mansion - fucking rocks.

PRO: Old Scott's character design, both in his time travel gear and his street clothes, totally nails the "Scott Pilgrim from a Bad Future" assignment. No notes.

PRO: He keeps his X-Men jacket (of course) while literally playing out his own Days of Future Past storyline. You absolutely know he's loving that fact. He wants to be Cable so bad.

PRO: Lots of characters in the future timeline wear masks, and the bus has a little disinfectant machine. These are already kinda staple tropes for dystopian futures, but there's another layer that makes it even better: If you look at the timeline Old Scott lays out, saying that about 13 (or maybe 15) years have passed since Young Scott's era, it seems pretty clear to me that they're referencing the 13-year gap between the movie and final book releasing in 2010, and the anime releasing in 2023. Suggesting that Young Scott is from around 2010, and Old Scott is just from... this year. So it's entirely possible the masks and disinfectant aren't for ANY kind of cool futuristic reason, that's just how alt future Toronto dealt with Covid-19. Personally I find that detail clever and also hilarious, it really got me when I realized.

PRO: Old Scott, subtitle: 37 years old, looking a solid decade older than that. I know red hair can go gray quick but he is not looking great for his age. Which isn't at all surprising considering his lifestyle.

CON: Some people, especially those who were heavily invested in the Scott/Ramona relationship from the comics or movie, are going to be upset over Old Scott and the divorce/separation reveal. I get it. Especially in the comics, they go through a hell of a lot of growth, and learn to genuinely love each other in a way they never had with anyone else. It sucks to see them fall back to their worst habits, Scott turning a breakup into a neurotic attempt to fix anything except his own behavior, and Ramona running away from a relationship with zero communication or closure and creating another resentful ex.

PRO: However, I'm not one of them. I have my gripes with the time-travel plotline in general that I'll get to, but I think Old Scott and Old Ramona going through a separation and a rough patch after several years of marriage is realistic and an interesting place to go. The comic had (still has) the most deeply developed relationship between Scott and Ramona, and left them on the strongest footing possible for their happy ending. Even the comic, though, never really promised them "happy ever after," it just said that they had all the skills they needed to make their relationship work, and left it up to them to traverse that long journey. Now, maybe you disagree with me and you think that comic Scott/Ramona should have been able to handle a rough spot better than anime Old Scott/Old Ramona. Thankfully, the anime gives you an out here: Old Scott's VR photo album has a couple details that show his timeline isn't exactly the comic or the movie storyline, so we can avoid stepping on the toes of existing endings, and explore new possibilities without overwriting your old headcanons. Personally, I think that even with all the growth they've had at the end of the comic, it's believable that Old Scott and Old Ramona could have a big argument that leads to them temporarily separating. Even when you've got good interpersonal skills, big arguments happen, and even when you've worked on them, your gut-reaction coping mechanisms still come up. Whatever the argument was, it's not hard for me to imagine avoidant Old Ramona to put up space between her husband instead of dealing with a stressful argument. It's easy to imagine dumbass Old Scott interpreting their separation as a call for permanent divorce, and no matter the age Ramona Flowers is never the kind of person to proactively call up an ex to resolve a misunderstanding. I think it's a really interesting and juicy narrative choice. If they had really landed the execution with this, I would outright love it and think it was a great addition to their love story.

PRO: DP input for the VR vault which is a giant Game Boy. Sick.

PRO: THE VIRTUAL BOY! (Or "Virtual Guuy")

PRO: For some reason Old Scott bro-ing it up with the Old Katayanagis and making retro throwback music in the garage works really well? Like for some reason I could see it happen even in the comics continuity if they (a) came back to life and (b) did a redemption arc for kidnapping Kim Pine.

PRO: Callback to episode 1's sugar daddy joke, and they genuinely had me wondering if they were going to make Wallace hooking up with Scott on the rebound a thing.

CON: Honesty I think they should have just committed to the (not really that old) Old Man Yaoi! Live a little!

PRO: Silver Fox-y Wallace Wells living up to his destiny of being a rich drunk trophy husband. And aging more gracefully than Scott despite going fully gray.

CON: You've got to wonder where the rest of Scott's friends are. Again, we've got to consider the runtime, and that he's in an unusual life situation, but in the comics when he gets into a similar depressive funk, a lot of his friends and family reach out to him, and he tries to reach out to them. A "17 missed calls from: Stephen Stills" or a "Kim doesn't talk to me anymore" line might have gone a long way to excuse their absence. It's also notable that despite his extremely unsuccessful music venture with the Old Katayanagis, Old Scott seems to still be unemployed, which is an example of his character development being cut short compared to the comics. More on that later.

PRO: Old Ramona's character design is as stellar and on-brand aesthetically as Old Scott's, plus the benefit that Ramona actually knows how to dress cool. Fucking baller.

PRO: Also she looks exactly her age (not given in the show but likely 38). Not surprising given she's got a healthier lifestyle than Scott, but I guarantee her natural hair color has gone completely white by now. You cannot be doing a full bleach and dye job every morning ma'am! Those follicles are stone dead!

PRO: It's incredibly endearing seeing her try to undo Old Scott's time travel plan through giving Young Neil the screenplay, and even more endearing when she calls Scott her one true love. The contradiction between her thinking of Scott as her true love and going through this massive effort to stop his time travel plan, but not being willing to go to Old Wallace's house and actually talk to Old Scott, is great. It's the closest the anime has gotten so far to giving Ramona her original character arc, which really got sidetracked by Young Ramona playing Columbo. More on that later.

PRO: For those who weren't keeping track of the meta Scott Pilgrim story, it now goes: Scott Pilgrim (real guy, old timeline) -> Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, a memoir by Old Young Neil (memoir) -> Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (movie script adapted by Old Ramona, credited to Young Neil) + Scott Pilgrim (real guy, young timeline) -> Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (failed movie and making-of documentary) -> Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Musical (adapted by Stephen Stills and Knives Chao). It's also entirely plausible that all of these versions eventually inspire Old Young Neil to write his memoir and create a bootstrap paradox. Incredible. Plus, the musical part continues the metacommentary by being roughly analogous to the real-life anime!

PRO: Delorean rollerskates, need I say more?! Actually, the choice to use this kind of Back to the Future "one timeline that corrects and adjusts when time travel happens" is really smart. Especially when Old Scott says he doesn't want to send Young Scott back because he seems to always end up marrying and separating from Ramona regardless, or when Old Ramona's script doesn't stop the eventual divorce and Old Scott getting unstable. In this part of the story, it's a great way to show how them trying to literally change the past instead of resolving their current issues will never get them anywhere.

PRO: Old Ramona and Young Ramona failing to synchronize on a vibe for their photo

CON: This is where I started to feel the ending getting rushed. Over the final episode, it felt like all the existing plotlines sped on to a quick resolution to make room for the very sudden AK field and Even Older Scott climax, which itself felt in a hurry to finish.

PRO: Scott apologizing to Knives and taking responsibility for being an asshole creep.

PRO: Knives saying she's glad he's not dead but she's glad that it broke them up. Get his ass, Knives! He's earned it!

CON: While these are super important scenes to include for both Knives' and Scott's character arcs, and I'm super glad they made it in since it'd be weird if they left it unspoken, it does feel unearned. Scott has barely been away a couple of days, and it doesn't seem like either he or Knives have had the time for serious introspection they would need to get to this point. Scott could have been inspired to be better than Old Scott's example, I guess, but he clearly thinks of Old Scott as a different guy and doesn't feel responsible for Old Scott's actions. Even if the memoir/movie/musical/VR robot experience showed him Old Scott apologizing at some point, I don't buy that he's emotionally intelligent enough to internalize doing it himself, and if he did it would still feel unearned because he'd basically be following a walkthrough rather than understanding it himself. And Knives? From her perspective, in a couple of days her inappropriately older fake boyfriend introduced her to his band, cheated on her, and then died. Since then she's been hanging out with his old band rather than any friends her age, and writing a musical about the life of her dead ex. She has not been in a position to realistically process that their relationship was fucked up. Both the apology and Knive's response, though necessary, feel rote rather than genuinely felt.

CON: Likewise, Ramona and Scott being so madly in love when reunited. They've known each other for one and a half dates, 1.75 at most. Scott is slightly ahead because of the VR memories and meeting Old Ramona, but not by much. Now, Scott is honestly the kind of guy to fall headfirst into a romantic fantasy with a woman he's barely met, but Ramona is not, as shown in the anime when she decides to pull back and not have sex on the first date. In the comics they take things pretty slow to accomodate her needs there, not moving in together, not saying "I love you" for a while, taking a break from each other midway through, they go for a couple volumes before she even tells him how old she is. It's super out of character for her to go head over heels like this without hesitation. She has been trying to solve his disappearance for a while, but that hasn't really caused her to get to know him any better. Someone might argue it's because she's seen how their lives play out in Old Ramona's movie, but that has uncomfortable elements of predestination and denying free will that I'd rather not think about. If I was trying to fix this, I'd maybe say that talking with her exes and making peace with them while looking for Scott helped her get over her issues, or that being more impulsive than comic/movie Ramona is actually timeloop-style the reason their future marriage is unstable. But that would all be fanfic, it's not present in the actual text, so I've got to call this one against the anime's favor. In general, the anime tends to take a very love-at-first-sight ("sparks") view on love, which is in opposition to the comics' more mature view of love as an ongoing practice. More on that later, maybe.

PRO: AK (Anti-Kiss) fields taken visually and conceptually straight from Evangelion's AT (Absolute Terror) fields. I'm a sucker for eva! This and a few other references seem to make clear that the creators are gunning for Takes Off to be to Scott Pilgrim as the Rebuilds are to NGE.

CON: I genuinely don't think Old Scott is smart enough to come up with this. I know the Old Katayanagis are said to have designed the nanomachines, but I don't mean the technical side, I mean the strategic side. Scott is pretty stupid, bless him. Old Scott is still not very smart. Scotts Pilgrim are just not the kind of guy to ever consider a Plan B. I just don't buy that Old Scott would ever think to himself "I should have a backup plan in case my first doesn't work," he's too confident and too stupid for that. The AK field feels like a red herring for Gordon Goose going evil again, since it's similar to the Glow and mind-control chip, but it ends up going away without much fanfare. Even Older Scott even admits they would always figure out a way to get rid of it, so it's kind of a lackluster final mystery.

PRO: All of the evil exes showing up the musical but being totally uninterested in fighting Scott is a fun reversal of the norm. Especially the Katayanagi twins being totally fine acting on prophesies of bro-ship from their special little vegan robot oracle.

PRO: Despite being a downgrade from megalomaniacal genuinely evil ultimate villain to greedy but affably evil Saturday-morning-cartoon villain, seeing Gordon Goose get back to sinister plots is a big plus, and "It wouldn't hurt any of us! ...Maybe some cast and crew," is a great line for him. Even when he tells Even Older Scott that he has no interest in what's going on and wants to go back to the play, though it's an unthinkable sentiment from obsessive comic/movie Gideon, the line goes out with enough confidence and disrespectful disinterest that for me it actually makes up for it!

PRO: In general, I love when a show gets an opportunity to bring the whole cast to the event, putting all the personalities on display. Especially a formal event, because then sometimes you get fun new outfit designs! In Takes Off it feels even more special because this isn't just all the characters getting together at Scott Pilgrim the Musical for a last hurrah, it's also metatextually all the creatives from previous Scott Pilgrim projects reuniting against the odds in Scott Pilgrim the Anime for a last hurrah.

P: Speaking of all the characters getting together, there is - by technicality - an appearance by Lisa Miller, one-hit-wonder extraordinaire, in the finale. She's in the crowd of graphic novel characters drawn in to populate the musical's audience, face partially obscured. I do not consider this a proper appearance and will still count the lack of Lisa against the anime. However, in the sprit of fairness, I will offer a partially obscured PRO for this cameo.

PRO: Even Older Scott has clearly given in to the Satsui no Hado! Design elements like the hair, bandana, raggedy gi, wrist wraps, and inexplicable tan all call to mind Akuma and Dark Ryu from Street Fighter. I wonder if the Shoryuken input for Old Scott's vault was intended to tie in to this?

PRO: Even Older Scott acts like Master Roshi even though he's only 47. That's only like, Bulma in Dragon Ball Super years, man! How are you that buff but aged that poorly?

CON: Even Older Scott's plan makes zero sense. You've seen Back to the Future. You can't kill your younger self, dude! Total paradox! You'll cease to exist and therefore can't have killed your past self and therefore your past self should exist blah blah blah.

PRO: Even Older Scott is absolutely stupid enough to have tried it anyway. Especially after 10 years isolation.

PRO: "Even Older Scott VS Everyone" and "The World VS Scott Pilgrim" are nice wordplay, I'm here for it.

CON: The confrontation between Young Scott (and associates) VS Even Older Scott lacks emotional stakes, since it kinda came out of nowhere. There's the AK field, but Even Older Scott says they would figure that out anyway. There's the barebones stakes of Even Older Scott turning everyone into spare change, but nobody really seems to be afraid of that as a threat, and it's confusing what that would even mean with the time loop. Their dialogue suggests kind of a philosophical conflict between Even Older Scott trying to control Young Scott's life, and Young Scott wanting to make his own choices, but that also seems undercut by the time loop: if Young Scott was actually going to make different choices, Even Older Scott wouldn't exist. Maybe this is just the dialogue having some trouble getting the conflict across? They could be going for Even Older Scott futilely trying to change the past, VS Young Scott wanting to have the freedom to make those choices even if it causes him to suffer in the future, "better to have loved and lost" and all that. That's thematically cohesive so I think it was their intention, but I don't think it was communicated well in the fight.

PRO: Nevermind anything else, the fight scene itself is fucking fantastic. Expressive and punchy animation everywhere, banger music, and a chance to show off just about every character's personality as they contribute to the fight! Even some characters who haven't had major animated sequences yet get a shot in the spotlight, and often with a bonus to boot, like Knives finally getting her trademark knives from the comics/movie! We get even more chemistry between the characters when they team up and work together for combo moves, so not only does it give a moment of glory to everyone's individual personality, it gives us a spectacle to the relationships they've built, too. The circumstances surrounding the fight might not make a lot of sense, it's unclear why they're fighting or what they're fighting over, but in HOW the cast fights this whole sequence evokes an astounding amount of character.

PRO: Even Older Ramona. Gets another great design. Actually looks her age, and good for it. Actually looks like Bulma in Dragon Ball Super.

PRO: Even Older Ramona, to her credit, returns her original character arc. She stops running away from the romantic messes she's left behind, and comes back to fix it. A+

CON: I don't buy that Young Ramona has internalized that message enough to mind-meld about it. Ramona after 13 years of marriage and 10 years to think about it, sure. But not Ramona on her third actual date with Scott, 3.25th at best.

PRO: Human Instrumentality Quantum Super Reimona I'm drowning in Evangelion references here

PRO: Super Ramona finalizes Ramona's missing character arc! It might be a bit rushed, but it is a complete character arc. It might have taken her 23 years longer than the comic, but hey, this is a different story working at a different scale. They got there in the end.

CON: Even Older Scott never really gets his character arc. Super Ramona gives him a second chance and reverses his villain arc, but he's really at the same place at 47 that he was at 23, which kinda sucks. But, more on that later.

PRO: Super Ramona's "it's never too late to try and mend what you've broken" ending still leaves open the possibility of a rekindled Scott/Ramona romance, and at the very least implies they stop isolating themselves and develop a healthier, friendlier relationship. As far as I can tell, this fully resolves the timeloop AND gives a relatively happy ending to a complicated romantic relationship, both of which are hard as fuck to write. I salute the writers. Even if Scott and Ramona are destined to have a falling out 13 years down the line, they're also destined to forgive each other after 23, and who knows, maybe they've got a chance to get back together again in after 24. It's a messier narrative than the comics to reach the same basic message, but in it's own special way it's still beautiful.

CON: It does kinda leave Scott and Ramona's non-romantic relationships in the lurch, though, after a decade-long absence. Even Older Wallace deserves a thousand apologies and a foot massage for putting up with these two.

PRO: I love a good "where are they now" sequence! Matthew, Gordon, and Julie settling their differences and sharing the evil plots amongst themselves. Young Neil driving the mario karts on movie sets. Stacey getting some eye candy at the café and resolving Julie's joke from earlier about Luke getting a job there. Good stuff.

PRO: Knives fully joining Sex Bob-omb is a particularly genius choice.

PRO: It's true. As an anglo Canadian, our French does suck. (Our schools can never decide whether to teach us Parisien or Québecois and we end up speaking neither)

CON: Is it bragging if a Netflix show includes a scene of a video rental place shutting down? Feels like... when a cat wants to show off the mouse it killed lol

PRO: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost eating Cornettos. Magnifique.

PRO: Also hey! It's Mobile! Wallace's boyfriend from the comics! He's also psychic! And I guess works for Nintendo also? Damn, he's the total package.

CON: No real representation for Lisa Miller, the world's best D-list failgirl! 0/10

CON: NO STEPHEN STILLS YAOI! I joke, but I do consider it a major flaw that Stephen Stills never gets to come out. The movie got a pass because he hadn't come out in the comics yet, but there's no excuse here. The subtly concealed subplot in the comics of him breaking up with Julie and coming out of the closet in the comics is one of my favorite parts, and in the anime all he gets is an ex-girlfriend with no reference to him coming out at all.

CON: In fact, almost all of the original supporting cast gets this treatment. Scott, Wallace, Stephen, Knives, Kim, Envy. Even arguably Ramona, despite being the new protagonist. While their jokes are fun and it's a treat to see their personalities on screen, their pre-existing character arcs get neutered, disappeared, or straight up reversed. Sure, though I hate to admit it, it makes sense to cut Lisa's character, since she has no reason to show up in the first place if Scott's gone. But the rest of the supporting cast were the heart of the original comics; Their complex development over the books is what made the comics so special in the first place, and it's a heart all adaptations and spinoffs since have mostly lacked. I want to go into more detail on how these characters got done dirty, but I'll save it for another post. I'll link it here if I ever finish it.

PRO: Through the whole show, it's clear everyone loves Scott Pilgrim in all its forms: comics, movie, video game, anime. Bryan Lee O'Malley, Edgar Wright, the entire movie/voice cast, Metric, Anamanaguchi, and now Science SARU clearly have a lot of passion for these characters. There's a ton of work put in to bring this to life that wouldn't happen if they didn't genuinely care for the series. You think Chris Evans isn't getting better offers?

PRO: THE FUCKIN PLUMTREE SONG THAT STARTED IT ALL. FUCK. YES. WHERE MY HALIGONIANS AT

A NOTE IF YOU'VE GOTTEN THIS FAR:

I know I've written a lot about how the anime doesn't compete with the comics, or where it's fallen short, but I want to be clear that I actually really really like the anime. I think it's great! It's clearly a labour of love. It's just a lot easier to write a lot of words analysing parts that fail than parts that succeed. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off succeds at A TON OF THINGS!

I would honestly say that it succeeds far more than the movie, and people love that movie, myself included! It's a cult classic! The Scott Pilgrim graphic novels are just that good that it's hard for spinoffs to match up. If you ask me they're some of the best comics ever made, but I'm long biased by my personal history with them. You can never really be neutral about a high school favorite.

I think "spinoff" there is the right word, despite the show's marketing. It's not an adaptation by any means. It's not a sequel. It's doing its own thing, and it did it really well. If you expected an adaptation, I understand your frustration, it's shit as an adaptation. But I'd encourage you to give it another chance as a spinoff, it has a lot of value to add to the whole Scott Pilgrim experience, just as much as the game, and just as much as the movie.

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim takes off #scott pilgrim vs the world #ramona flowers

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