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eddawrites · 2 years

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Remember this guy?

Oh what am I saying, of course you do. There’s not much that we know about him other than that his name might be Miguel, that he’s absolutely getting pegged and that I find his face extra punchable. However, there’s a compelling theory making rounds that he might have an agenda of his own. Concretely, that theory links him to this girl:

And sure enough, when it comes to visage, these two do look similar. The same shade of green eyes and brown hair, pale skin and prominent lips... the girl’s dress even seems to be of the same turquoise colour as his jacket. It’s not too far-fetched to imagine these two being related, other than that one died in Ionia (recently revealed via one of the artists working on the show) and the other is now working as an escort in Piltover, seen wearing the mask of Kindred no less - the twin aspects of death:

Separate, but never parted, Kindred represents the twin essences of death. Lamb’s bow offers a swift release from the mortal realm for those who accept their fate. Wolf hunts down those who run from their end, delivering violent finality within his crushing jaws.

But what I find the most interesting about this tinfoil hat-worthy theory is what it would mean for Ambessa. At this point, she already has a fire catching under her ass, with her rival seemingly dead-set on wiping out her family. Old sins catching up to her and coming to bite her in the ass sounds like yet another layer of drama to pile on top of that already loaded plotline, but it wouldn’t be unlike Arcane to expand upon seemingly minute details and make them plot-relevant later. We’ve seen random items from ep. 1 showing up again during the mad tea party scene in the finale, the reappearance of Huck in ep. 6, as well as the coincidence that the boy who dies at Jayce’s hands in ep. 8 being a child of a moderately important side character.

To further support this theory - if indeed you can support a crack theory - Ambessa is always nursing a glass of wine in her hand and in this particular scene from ep. 9 even comments on its quality, appearing to be less than impressed with it:

91 00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 Noxian wine is bold by comparison. 92 00:06:35 --> 00:06:37 The grapes are hardened by the climate.

That is to say that perhaps the wine is poisoned, if indeed revenge is the dish being served to Ambessa. Local Cuisine seems very upset when Mel slaps the glass out of her mother’s hand and spills the wine, although he could very well just be angry about Mel ruining his pristine white shirt.

But what I personally find compelling is the possibility of parallel arcs in s2 where Ambessa and Jayce (and also Viktor) would have to answer for the lives they took. And Arcane writers do love their parallel arcs. Let’s enumerate some of those parallels:

Caitlyn, Jayce and Heimerdinger are forced to confront the realities of life in the undercity and their own complicity in the exploitation thereof

Jayce and Vi are trying to save Viktor and Jinx respectively

Mel and Jinx are forced to weaponise hextech at the behest of their parent

Viktor and Jinx undergo a transformation that makes them inhuman

Viktor and Jayce accidentally kill an innocent bystander, using a technology they invented to help people

Jayce and Vander are forced to make a deal with “the other side” in order to prevent further loss of life

Vander and Silco are given an ultimatum that involves giving up their adoptive children

Mel and Jinx are forced to choose between their parent and another person

... and many more.

Jayce killing - albeit by accident - a son of a prominent Zaun chembaron certainly doesn’t seem like a throwaway detail that will remain unaddressed. Renni will no doubt want to avenge her son and Jayce will thus be forced to face consequences of his actions, in addition to the trauma of killing a child roughly the same age he had been when he was saved by magic.

What’s more, according to the Council Archives, Renni has a personalised chemtank for her own use, meaning that she has one of these babies all for herself:

Do I smell a possible fight in s2? I do! If Jayce has to take up the hammer again and become his vigilante self of League of Legends lore, this duel might very well be the next step in his journey of embracing the mantle of the Defender of Tomorrow.

Admittedly, Ambessa’s and Jayce’s situations are not at all similar. They might both be heads of state that have taken some drastic measures, but she is a warmonger with many other, more heinous crimes to her name than Jayce’s accidental manslaughter; however, none of the parallels I’ve listed above are one-for-one examples either. There are always differences.

But I digress; what you really should take away from this post is: I think that Local Cuisine is sus. Or perhaps I just hate his face and want someone to rearrange it for him. Or both.

#arcane #arcane theory #arcane thoughts #ambessa medarda #local cuisine #jayce talis #renni #crack theories in this fandom are some of my favourites #local cuisine is sus #you can't change my mind #unless you've already seen s2 #duh

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thequibblah · 3 years

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director's commentary for the parts about how lily views sex in chapter 38? i found this so interesting and relatable and i love how it's so different from her attitudes in the solar power oneshot, it just shows how much awesome character growth is to come!

this is really the tallest task i've given myself with lily's character development LOLLLL but i at least have strong feelings about it so here we go

so. when i started writing this fic a significant question was what lily's level of romantic experience was because that will factor into not just her relationship w dex but also how her feelings for james evolve over time. (also it obviously impacts her and how she thinks of romance!) i find myself not very compelled by a lily who is waiting for marriage/love without like....a reason or a well-established underlying character explanation for that. i find it more interesting to explore when a principled character maybe has a less established principle, and finally has to come up against it and make a decision. (as a sidenote, i also wanted to write a lily whose fears and anxieties and desires are more in line with what i/my female friends talked about and thought about in high school)

lily re: sex has been a huge thread-the-needle sitch. like many in Our Society she has complicated feelings about the role of sex in her life, as a good girl tee em, but i also didn't want to establish a weird madonna/whore situation with the female cast of the fic, like, Only Some Girls Have Sex. considering that lily herself grapples with being a good girl and, well, still containing multitudes, i wanted to think out those complications through her.

at the same time, i think there's a tendency in fic (or really, any sort of romance story) to make sex super black and white. like, you have it with the Wrong Person and so it's bad, but then you have it with the Right Person and everything clicks! it's certainly true that you can have less-than-good sex with someone and the reason for that is them, but i really didn't (and don't!) want to make it seem like it'll be a simple and easy switch to james for lily because they're going to fall in love. it won't be! don't let the oneshot fool you!

she has things to figure out, and that, to some degree, is unaffected by who she's with (or isn't with). she's not like, wow it was such a mistake to have sex with this guy because i didn't love him! she's not like wow it was such a mistake to have sex with this guy because it wasn't mindblowing (she had low-ish expectations, which mary might say is a problem in and of itself but that's a separate thing lol)! it's all very convoluted and i don't want to delve too deep into questions that i mean to address in the fic itself.

but, anyway, though lily does do the deed, it's not entirely separable in her mind from residual shame. and who among us who experiences misogyny doesn't know that feeling lolllll. she's not walking around handwringing about how she's sinned against god, partly because catholic guilt would add about ten dimensions of complication to this fic and also because i was not raised christian, and don't feel well-equipped to go there. more than religion lily is anxious about having played against type.

this is made harder for her in contrast — obviously we judge ourselves not in absolutes but relative to those around us. so on the one hand lily has people like petunia who believe in propriety and undoubtedly look down on sex before marriage, and on the other she has friends like mary who are very ~modern~ in their sensibilities. rather than the latter being reassuring, though, i imagine it's....almost a barrier in its own way, because she sees a friend who's cooler and freer than her and is like, mary would do this because she's like this, and i'm demonstrably not like this, so i shouldn't do this (no matter mary's frank conversations on the subject!)

and in between all this is the fact that....she's a person who experiences desire! complication!!!! she wants something that she's not sure she should want, even though she feels that other people are free to have the same thing:

“Mare, are you really going to take a magazine’s advice on becoming a...truly sexual woman?” Despite her amusement, she half-stuttered over the word, even though she knew there was nothing to be shy about. It was the seventies, for crying out loud. They could talk about such things now. Said descriptors just did not necessarily apply to her.

in ch. 9 when she asks mary about sex, she really wants an answer that will absolve her of those complicated uncertain feelings — and of course mary can't give it to her. no one can!

so she's bearing all that baggage and trying to forge forward with the sensibility of well, i shouldn't be shy about this! it's the 70s! we're past that! without considering that just because society has apparently come so far (which, has it even? lol) that doesn't mean she's ready to go that far. and that was what i was pushing with the interlude bits immediately around the sexytimes:

Get it over with, a voice in her head said. The first time wouldn’t be the best time. All she had to do was cross this one hurdle and she could stop feeling so bloody nervous, like she was at the edge of a cliff she’d never be able to climb back up [...] and if only she could get over her silly hangup she’d be a lot less tense. That was just a fact. Everyone knew it about her. Even good girls needed to loosen up. Right? Right. This decision-making took a split second in her mind; she had rehearsed each argument so many times that she did not need very long to run through it again. So without a hint of hesitation she said, “Yes.”

and its not a coincidence that this comes right after a flashback to doris and her friend:

“Living together,” Lily’s mother sighed, her head angled towards her friend. “And she was such a sweet girl when I had her in school, too, so studious—” “Oh, yes,” Gertie said, nodding vigorously, “I always thought she’d wait to marry, let alone get involved with someone so soon—” “And like this!” Doris sighed once more.

of course lily can all too vividly imagine someone else saying that exact thing about her

this reads like so much word vomit LOL but thank you it was fun to try and explain my thinking here!

#anon #ask me #38 #director's cuts

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leam1983 · 3 years

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Felix the Reaper - Thoughts? Review?

Can't really go into too much detail, it's rather late as it is and the ol' bed is beckoning, but I also want to couch this down somewhere while it's still fresh...

So, Death as a concept - as a character - obviously permeates the whole of human civilization. You've got Anubis and Osiris, Humbaba the Undying, thousands of years of mythology surrounding the concept of life leaving you and your flesh-bits rotting, generation after generation of people processing grief in visual and abstract forms - and now, we're sort of living in a context where Death isn't really all that scary anymore. We understand it, we can push it back in some cases - and when we can't, then we can sort of map out its occurrence. What started as just this inexplicable force swiping at hunter-gatherers and that warranted Danse Macabre paintings across Medieval France is now something we can put an almost-precise date and time on. There's a bunch of "death clocks" online that project a potential DOD based on your age, gender, health status, habits and BMI; sort of turning the concept of memento mori into a shockingly literate manifestation.

You will die, one day. We're so aware of that that a bit of science and Web design wizardry can shit out a half-serious guesstimation of when it'll happen. Pre-Colonial aspects of Death survive in Mexican culture in the forms of both calaveras and the Santa Muerte cult, and the inevitability of death now even counts as a game mechanic in the SoulsBorne genre. You've got Terry Pratchett's extremely Humanist rendition of Death and, well, Hollywood faff à la Meet Joe Black. The short of it is we're far from the robe-wearing zombie we used to plop everywhere as a reminder of our own supposedly sinful urges or on the fleeting nature of youth.

Another item that's of interest is the notion of life and youth being represented as the Maiden - and of Death being in love with her. Sometimes, the affection isn't returned and disgust is shown. That's most of Holbein's death-related works, in this case. In others, the Maiden leans in, lets the skeletal figure push a hand underneath her skirt and against one of her thighs. They share a kiss, press against one another in the way honest lovers might. He's a dried-out corpse with a bloated midsection and she might've stepped out of some sixteenth-century church in the Netherlands, but their liplock is intense and genuine. In one statue, the Maiden looks like she might've just surrendered to the Reaper's arms, but her hands are also touching his scythe....

Eroticism, a commentary on suicide or plain acceptance - there's several ways to look at that duality, and it's even managed to worm its way over to cultures that don't natively have similar associations with human remains. The Japanese, for instance, do have their own Gashadokuro concept, but the locals of Nagasaki needed their initially-exclusive exposure to Portuguese traders to shrink down their massive skeletal eidolons of doom and to design woodblock prints where a Danse Macabre effectively meets the dress codes and habits of the locals under sakoku, or the Emperor-mandated closing-off of Japan to the outside world.

Death as a dancer. Death, especially, as a force that's quite lively, despite its attributes. A force that falls head-over-heels for Life in its own anthropomorphized form.

This is what Danish devs Kong Orange opted to work on in Felix the Reaper. Their Death has a human name, has a thing for the stuffier ends of Business Casual, is maybe eighty pounds overweight - and won't ever, ever, let the music die. He's also in love, obviously - and in love with Betty, the equally portly and nimble personification of Life. The pair look a bit like a Fernando Botero couple waiting to happen, with ample waists and sagging breasts held aloft by spindle-thin legs - but if Ghostbusters taught us not to cross the streams, then you can assume that Life and Death starting a tango in the same workspace could have severe coincidences on the biosphere. Not that Felix cares, he'd want nothing more than for Betty to notice him. His supervisor is voiced off-camera by Sir Patrick Stewart, who's as delightful as always, and who sort of plays the part of the well-meaning supervisor who eventually realizes his new employee's quirks don't diminish his potential.

And what is Felix's job, exactly? Well, he's Death. He's not getting paid to distribute hugs and kisses, obviously. He gets sent to the mortal plane to, well, kill people, and more specifically, to kill people in precise and pre-ordained ways. His "televator" takes him to an instant frozen in time, and he has to alter the surrounding scene so that once time resumes its course, the requisite accident or happenstance occurs. You do that by picking up items, flicking switches, and placing targets in the path of whatever it is that's set to kill them. You also move the sun around the world using a magical sundial doohickey, as Death can only move in shadows. You're basically Death in the same sense as in the Final Destination movies, except you really, really, really want to twerk and sashay your voluminous heinie through the small changes needed to turn a nothing-burger into a drunk huntsman getting his head stuck in the stump of a decapitated deer, so the dejected and near-sighted hunter you've been following mistakes him for a target and shoots his spear through his brain-case.

And yes, Felix does twerk and he certainly sashays. Dude dresses like a stuffy librarian, sure, but seemingly loses all inhibitions once his headphones come up - which allows the player to share in his personal soundtrack. This particular Reaper seems to have a thing for very bass-driven and samply EDM, with occasional forays into Ambient and Jazz. His many, many, many idle animations all sync with whatever it is that's playing, and so does the variety of prances, somersaults, grands jetés and twirls he goes through while moving from place to place. Comparatively, you get the sense that Felix's coworkers are more the dour and solemn type - with a few unsubtle cameos from Skeletor and Manny Calavera in the opening cinematic - and Felix, well...

Let's just say it's a wonder he has those hips and that paunch. If he twirls around for every little thing he does, then you'd assume he only sits down to hoover an Olympic athlete's worth of food once a day. Or maybe I'm overthinking things because, well, death.

And therein lies the problem, honestly. In thinking, I mean. Felix is a puzzle game through-and-through, and also ties into a Challenge system in order to really tickle those completionist nerves. The starting scenarios are braindead-easy, but the later ones left me stumped for fifteen minutes per screen. Add to that the notion that the game doesn't check off some of them as complete if you only do the bare essentials, and you're left with another would-be mobile offering that doesn't reach its endpoint until you exhaust every little bit it has to offer - even if you're effectively done with the main gameplay loop. It's a great game, but there's just not a whole lot to do in those six chapters, beyond repeating bits of drudgery until your noodle clicks or you give up and look up a solution online.

It's a shame, too. The isometric perspective is perfect, and the game could've been pitched as a hybrid between a puzzler and, say, XCOM: Enemy Unknown. You'd take cover to hide from moving targets or to escape daylight and instead of shooting at them, would emerge from cover to move items around or solve puzzle elements. You could've had Death evoke the illusion of a friendly face to inject some more concrete narrative delivery, for instance. Steal a friend's features, magically conceal yourself, and then have your target piece her own weaknesses together, leaving you to retreat and regroup before executing your plan of attack. But no, everything is out in the open and everything is spelled out for you. Kong Orange could've also stolen a page from Hitman Go and set multiple triggers in place to truly sandbox the experience.

What is there is fun - it oozes personality and charm - but there's just not enough of it to justify Steam's full asking price, IMO. Comparatively, the Switch's online store is currently running a sale for it (as of Sunday the 15th, at least) and lists it as being 2,15$. Two bucks for a few hours of harmless fun is a pretty good deal, as far as I'm concerned. It also underlines why the devs and Daedalic Entertainment alike consider it as having "bombed", as the marketing effectively targeted Devolver's usual stable. It's not crunchy enough, however, and not exactly irreverent enough to warrant that comparison. A more hefty Felix could've earned its full 20$ price point on PC - and Kong Orange's very design for Betty makes it obvious that if Felix ever returns, it'll be in a co-op setup with the love of his, well, unlife.

I'd be up for more of this cuddly, swinging skelly - assuming the devs mature a tad and put something together that's just a smidge more compelling.

#felix the reaper #pc #switch #ps4 #review #puzzle #game #indie #felix #the #reaper #fat #skeleton

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script-a-world · 4 years

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Submitted via Google Form:

How do I write a world where non-earth religions (I’m creating them) are both diverse, and also common place to see people participate in multiple religions’ festivities or rituals. One, because there’s distance to actual religion and entering common lifestyle. Example like on earth plenty of non Christians are holding Christmas parties, it’s a common thing and not overtly religious. Two, or why not because of the diversity, religions simply mix together. Like on earth why not have fasting like Muslims do simply become a common lifestyle custom alongside Buddhist meditations also being common lifestyle customs. Three. Like two, but why can’t someone on earth be both Muslim and Buddhist?? Does that even make sense?

I only gave you real life religions as example only, for ease of explaining, not at all what I’ll use.

Also in this kind of world, how would you see religious tolerance? Can it honestly really be in harmony? How about the bigots? There’s still got to be some won’t there? Especially when daily lifestyles, or simply in the architecture and design throw all sorts of religion in their faces they can’t avoid unless they live under a rock.

Feral:

I’m not sure what the question is here. Should some people in your world participate in religious festivals that do not align with their beliefs? It’s certainly possible, and it depends on the religion in question. Christianity is inherently an evangelical religion; “witnessing” is the call of every Christian, so Christian religious activities tend to be geared towards welcoming non-believers with the intent on making them believers. Not to mention nearly all Christian festivals were the festivals of other religions that Christians reshaped into their own. And not to mention the commercialization of Christmas specifically has fundamentally changed how Christmas is viewed by Christians and non-Christians alike; I’ve heard it said, and am inclined to believe more or less, that even Christians in Victorian England really didn’t celebrate Christmas until Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol.” So, Christmas, for example, is of such mixed ancestry and exists in such a way as to be welcome for outsiders to “celebrate” without already believing in the underlying religion. It’s very important to keep in mind that this happens in culturally Christian regions or where Christmas has been so commercialized that people couldn’t even tell you its religious significance; and a lot of people of minority religions really fucking hate it - it’s insulting to be told that displaying a hanukiah at work is against company policy because you can’t have anything overtly religious on display when you’re surrounded by Christmas trees and listening to Christmas carols like “Oh Holy Night” piped in over the sound system. So you’ll want to keep in mind that some people will view a religious festival that’s “ubiquitously” celebrated as a dominant religion being forced on them at the expense of their own religious identity. You’ll also likely have religions that don’t proselytize and have absolutely no interest whatsoever in non-believers participating in their holy days - they’re holy! They’re meant for the people who already believe.

I’ve already briefly touched on why some religions would have a problem with non-believers crowding in on their holidays, but it’s worth repeating - not all religions are like Christianity. I’d go so far as to say that no other religions are like Christianity in this particular way. As for your examples regarding “Muslim fasting” and “Buddhist meditation”? People do fast. People do meditate. And it has nothing to do with religion. A lot of what makes “Muslim fasting” Muslim is prayer and dedication to Allah; if you’re removing that religious aspect of it, then you’re just fasting. And fasting is part of a number of religions, so it’s really hard to say which religion it comes from once the religion has been stripped away. As for meditation, meditation gained a lot of traction in the West because of the explosion of yoga. Which is a religious practice in Hinduism and Buddhism (and Jainism). It’s just been stripped of the religion, and like with fasting, meditation is found in many religions around the world; it’s just not that unique.

So, Buddhism is quite famous for being adoptable into other religious practices. Like if you had asked “why can’t someone be Muslim and Hindu?” my answer would have to be a run-down of the many fundamental theological reasons why those two religions are incapable of coinciding in a single person’s beliefs; however, Buddhism or Buddhist practices can be practiced alongside most religions. It’s non-theist, so there’s no creator deity that could contradict the beliefs of monotheists, polytheists, and atheists. Buddhism and Christianity have this whole huge long history, and Buddhism and Catholicism specifically dovetail really nicely together. What you’re talking about is syncretic religion, and it’s pretty common worldwide and throughout history.

The answers to all of those questions depend so intimately on how you build your religions and what their specific beliefs are. Some religions are naturally exclusivist, or you might have soft polytheism. It’s your world and your religions; we cannot make these decisions for you. If you want fundamentalism and bigotry to be a part of your world, then you can build your religions in such a way that those things would naturally occur. If you want harmony across religions to be a part of your world, then you can build your religions in such a way that that would naturally occur. You can even have it both ways! A world is a big place, and how people interact with their religion and the religions of others depends largely on where in the world they are and who else is there with them. A cosmopolitan culture where you have everyone brushing elbows with everyone else will have people developing a tolerance and softening their hardline views that would not occur in a more homogenous society where one religion is dominant.

Delta: A note about bigotry and prejudice: In geopolitics on earth, religious intolerance tends to be about one of two things: first, the majority religion (in the western world, Christianity) feeling compelled to force itself on other populations who do not share their beliefs. Examples of this include the Spanish Inquisition and, to some extent, “evangelical aid.” In Christianity, evangelicalism is a very important concept; sharing the religion is almost as important as a person’s personal faith. Off the top of my head, as Feral discussed, I can’t think of another religion with quite the same focus; so, by eliminating this element of religion, a huge amount of conflict could be eliminated if practitioners weren’t compelled to make all their acquaintances agree with them all the time. (Which is not to say all Christians just walk around proselytizing all the time, but it is fairly common in America; though I understand it to be somewhat less common in Europe, which through both culture and law has become more secular; more on this later.)

Second, it’s also about not wanting to concede power or control. A huge motivating factor behind all the Medieval Inquisitions, including the Spanish Inquisition, was the effort to curb what people in power considered religious heresy or just straight-up religious differences. They thought it was their place to dictate a group’s religious beliefs. Spain in particular was trying to stop the spread of Islam through the growing Ottoman Empire, which comes down to Medieval geopolitics as much as it does the religious differences between Islam and Christianity. Modern Islamophobia and religious conflict falls in this category a lot, too. But if your religions weren’t tied to more extensive geopolitical conflicts, you won’t have politicians using them as leverage to take and keep power like we do, so you could reduce religious tolerance that way, too.

Finally, secularism, which doesn’t directly address your question, but I wanted to mention it. In China, the official Communist Party has been somewhat infamously aggressively secular because religion was seen as a potentially rebellious force. Soviet Russia had similar experiences, both particularly with Muslim populations with whom they have political differences with besides, religion in this instance becoming a motivating factor for rebellion.

This is different from someplace like France, which aims to simply be neutral. Europe, overall, does not share the same public religious zeal that places like Israel, America, and Saudi Arabia have, but that doesn’t mean the conflict isn’t there.

Utuabzu: Something worth considering is are these gods real in the world you’re building? If the gods are demonstrably real, religiousness will be a lot more common and people are probably going to be more accepting of those that worship different deities given that any claims about them being false are easily refuted. Another thing to consider is the difference between philosophy and religion. In the West, Christianity fills both slots for many people (Judaism and Islam also do for some). In much of Asia, however, philosophies like Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Yoga (the Hindu philosophical school, one of six major Hindu schools), etc. are practiced in addition to a more localised traditional religion, often comprised of a local pantheon of gods and some degree of ancestor worship. To some degree, even Christianity is sometimes treated like this, see the Chinese Rites controversy for example. It is entirely possible to have people simultaneously believing in local animistic deities (local forest/mountain/river gods), regional major deities (Sun god, moon god, justice god etc.) and one or more universalist philosophies. Add in the possibility of mystery religions (closed faiths that do not publicise their theologies and often don’t accept converts, see Mithraism, the Orphic Mysteries, or for a modern example, Yazidiism) and ethnic religions that don’t seek or don’t accept converts (see Judaism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism), and it is very possible to have a wide variety of beliefs coexisting in a society. If they’ve been coexisting over a long period, one would generally expect most people to be aware of the major festivals, ceremonies, etc. of each, and while some may be open to all and treated by non-believers as more of a cultural festival (probably the animist ones), others may be believers-only, or invitation-only. Some festivals might be shared by several religions, because they either come from the same root, or both revere the same prophet/saint/whatever, or both worship the same deity, or maybe just had similar festivals happening at roughly the same time and though mutual influence ended up doing them at the same time. It really depends how you’ve built these religions and what their stances on non-believers are, how long they’ve been coexisting and how orthodox/orthopraxic (emphasis on believing the right things vs. emphasis on performing rituals correctly) they are.

#pylons #religion #bigotry #google submitted

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rutilation · 5 years

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I have some Hot Takes about some Icy Floes. And also chapter 83, I guess.

But before I get to the ice floes, I’m going to work my way back through this chapter.

I find it interesting that Phos seems to balk at the idea of being repaired. On the one hand, you can read it simply as them being too impatient in their current state to wait for repairs, but on the other hand, insofar as Phos’s augmentations represent something about their state of mind, it makes sense that their body is going to be fractured for as long as their mind is broken. A new body part signals moving on, and Phos is in no state to do that. Thus, we may be looking at gremlin-Phos for a while. Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself and next chapter will see the Lunarians tying Phos down and forcing some replacements on them.

Phos’s nightmare speaks for itself, so the only thing I have to note is that those magic words, “If only you were never here,” have reared their ugly head again. Even if they’re using Antarc and the others as a mouthpiece, it seems clear that they’re really talking to themselves.

Like pretty much everyone else, I’d like to believe that Antarc would never say something like that to Phos… but it’s not like I foresaw Cinnabar rallying the troops to bury them alive either, so who knows. On one hand, Antarc loved Kongou the most out of all the gems, and would likely be pissed at Phos’s shenanigans. On the other hand, they are a sweetie. But, even if they could be repaired, their memories are gone, so we’ll never know how they would have reacted.

(Well, you know, they’re probably space dust. But it sure is suspicious that Aechmea just so happened to have a fake piece of Antarc on hand when Phos got to the moon. And what a coincidence that the aforementioned piece happens to be the exact same shape as one that broke off the actual Antarc.)

(…)

(He’s totally got Antarc sequestered away in a jar somewhere, doesn’t he?)

There’s something I find interesting about the conversation the gems have in the middle of the chapter. They all express an easygoing acceptance regarding the gems on the moon, aside from Zircon who is (rightfully) worried about Yellow. But, you’ll recall that Euclase suggested ice-breaking duty for any gems who were too rattled to sleep, and everyone present is someone whose partner/frenemy left for the moon. So, what does that imply? On that note, Bort is the only one who lost a partner to Phos’s rebellion that isn’t present. (Also, it’s nice to see that Morga has grown to be more confident.)

Jade’s interpretation of what happened, along Red Beryl/Obsidian’s unquestioning acceptance of that explanation, is so galaxy-brained that it makes me wonder if they all suspect that Kongou let Phos out, but are unwilling to admit that to themselves. Naturally though, Euclase seems to know what’s up. I wonder if they’ll confront Kongou about it.

I had wondered how Kongou would react after nearly starting third impact, and it seems he’s entered conceal-don’t-feel mode. It’s interesting that he’s keeping the fact that he let Phos out a secret; as far as I know, his programming wouldn’t compel him to withhold this information. What is it that he thinks would happen if the earth gems knew he was unwilling to keep antagonizing Phos, and not just unable? Another thing I noticed is that, while Kongou is sporting his usual stiff upper lip, the way his neutral expression is drawn seems just a bit more upset than usual. I might be imagining it though.

I’m not sure if Kongou’s line here is an obtuse way of saying that spring is on the way, or if he’s saying that global warming is still a thing even after the death of humanity. Though I must say, on a metaphorical level, his comment gels quite nicely with my observation from last month that reading this series is like being a frog in boiling water. Anyway, if he’s not referring to the change of the seasons, it brings up a topic that’s been on my mind for a while: namely, what are the gems going to do if they lose their island?

The subject has never been broached, but eroding away into nothing or being submerged by rising sea levels is the eventual fate of your average tiny island. And when that happens, and the gems are forced to live underwater, they’d lose their immortality for all intents and purposes. The saltwater would gradually wear away at them, and they’d have no way to harvest or even use the paste with which they repair themselves. It strikes me as a bit of a glaring issue, but I’ve seen no acknowledgment of it, aside from a throwaway line about a document measuring erosion rates along the shore. That said, ignoring uncomfortable truths is the gems’ favorite hobby, so I can’t say it breaks my suspension of disbelief.

If the island is revealed to be a volcanic caldera, then maybe they can hope for an eventual eruption which would bring forth new land for them to live on. Unless of course the island is sitting on top of a strato-volcano, in which case an eruption would blast the island and everyone on it to smithereens.

Anyway, I’ve grown weary of talking about things that aren’t ice floes, so let’s get to it. I’ve been having thoughts about them for a while now, and since this chapter features some ice floe action, I might as well take this opportunity to talk about it. It seems to me that the ice floes function as something of a metaphor. I think they serve to illustrate both the grief and despair that the gems endure, as well as their inability to reckon with such emotions.

I first made this connection when reading another user’s meta, which pointed out that in chapter 39, Phos’s head broke into the shape of the ice flows, thus showing that they see themselves as a sinner, which is what the ice floes apparently are. (I can’t for the life of me find the post in question, but if I do, I’ll edit a link to it onto this post.)

There are lot of unanswered question about the ice floes, and we only know a handful of things about them:

They are the same type of being as the gems—inclusions inhabiting a crystalline solid.

They have no will of their own, but can reflect the negative emotions of those around them.

They speak a language that Kongou understands which the rest of the gem do not, aside from Phos and their vore-induced powers of translation.

But, there’s reason to believe that we haven’t gotten the full truth regarding the ice floes. If they have no will of their own, then why do they specifically reflect negative emotions, and not just any thought that passes through someone’s head? Why do they menace and break the gems with what seems like malicious intent? Why are their screams so otherworldly compared to the sounds an actual ice floe would make? Why are shaped so strangely? Why are they “sinners?”

Here’s what I suspect is going on: The ice floes are just sentient enough to be upset about their cursed forms, but since they have no recourse other than to direct their misery at others, they resort to impotently screaming at anyone in earshot, and trying to consume the gems in order to integrate them into the ice—perhaps they feel that if they can’t be happy and whole, then no one should, which is certainly a sentiment that has cropped up a few times in the series. The way Kongou stares at the screaming ice floes in dismay as he clutches Phos’s eye makes me think that the two are being equated, that Phos’s wretched state is how the ice floes feel all the time. It also makes me wonder what Kongou is hearing at that moment, seeing as he can understand them. (And can I just say that this moment made me tear up a little? Even after all the awfulness that just transpired, he’s worried about Phos, and is hiding their pieces in his sleeve for safekeeping. The society he created may be flawed, to put it lightly, but I just can’t dislike anyone who chugs that Phos-loving juice.)

And in typical fashion, the gems are entirely incurious about the ice floes, and are only annoyed with them for disturbing their beauty sleep. Their solution is simply to shut them up, with nary a thought to the meaning of their actions, and, as Morga so aptly put it, to cheer louder than the ice floes can scream.

So, like I said, it kind of seems like the ice floes are an extended metaphor for both human suffering, and a failure to reckon with it. Man, remember how Phos’s first impulse upon learning that the ice floes are alive was to try and make friends with them? Even if it was dangerously naïve, I kind of find myself wishing that they had tried.

Have any of you guys ever read Ursula K. LeGuin’s short story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas? It’s a great, quick read. You know who really needs to read it, and take its lessons to heart? The entire cast, except maybe Ventricosus, or something. Because if someone, anyone doesn’t start walking away from Omelas, then this can only end in tragedy. (Phos tried to, but on their way out, they slipped on a banana peel and broke their neck.)

Which brings me to my thoughts on Cinnabar. Two of the things they said this chapter seem to subtly imply that they haven’t made peace with the idea of being happy at another’s expense. There’s their line about how Dia’s probably having more fun than they should be, and then there’s the moment when, after Kongou calls their happiness a blessing, they smile for only a moment before growing forlorn. They don’t extend that sentiment towards Phos—heaven forbid anyone show basic decency towards the local scapegoat—but I do think these moments are subtle indications that Cinnabar is more thoughtful regarding their place in the world than the others. You’ll also recall that the other gems didn’t spare much thought to Antarc after they were taken, so it’s nice to see Cinnabar pick up a bit of slack there. Now that I think about it, if my musings about them in the last chapter were correct, they might be assuming that they’ve done Phos a favor, and that they’re perfectly fine now that they’ve made it back to the moon. After all, they said themselves that they believe Phos is beloved there.

The only other thing on my mind this chapter is how, in much the same way the text has been preoccupied with both the joys and horrors of change, these last few arcs have concerned themselves with the act of moving on—the sense of freedom and relief it brings, but also the agony of being unable to let go, the futility of mere escapism, and the desolation of being the one who is left behind.

Finally, I said in my last essay that I’d be posting my crackpot Cairn theory in the near future. Here’s a link to that for any interested parties who may have missed it the first time around.

#houseki no kuni #land of the lustrous #well that chapter was mildly not unpleasant #can't wait to descend back into hell next chapter

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gamesception · 4 years

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@retphienix said:

I gotta thank ya for the @ because I struggle to keep tabs on tumblr with all the updates bricking my addons etc x.x Not that I was particularly on top of things before that lol.

god, same, yeah. no problem.

Also thank you for reminding me that Hollow exists, downloading now because I’m more or less juggling games to see which I intend to sit down and marathon a lot of and that’s a good idea for a title!

I really cannot recommend it enough. Easily the game I’ve played the most over the last couple years, and probably the game I’ve enjoyed the most since Undertale. That includes Dark Souls, which I first played during that period, and I *really* liked Dark Souls.

I would love to hear your take on it, when and if you end up getting around to it. It’s also nice to recommend a game to you that isn’t, like, bad in more ways than it’s good, with the great aspects that do peek out at you through the jank only serving to taunt you with the actually great game that might have been.

I do maintain that a game that’s bad in interesting ways can be a more compelling experience, and make for more interesting analysis, than a game that’s just good, but Hollow Knight isn’t *just* good. It’s fantastic, in a dizzying myriad of compelling ways that are all interesting to discuss, from the way it builds its tone and atmosphere to the way it highlights the best of what the classic 2d metroidvania has to offer while also sidestepping a lot of the genre’s pitfalls.

I don’t know what it is lately with various games I enjoy or try to keep tabs on suddenly and arbitrarily making difficulty spikes that don’t fit the game? I mean, it’s hollowknight, it’s a souls like and all that jazz, but you’d know better than me in this scenario since YOU PLAYED IT

It’s not all that bad, since it really is quite overtly segregated from the rest of the main game, and isn’t necessary to get what otherwise feels very much like the actual canon ending. Honestly, though, I think there was maybe an over reaction on Team Cherry’s part to what seemed to be a relatively common complaint about the base game, one that I would have shared honestly, in that it didn’t feel like there were enough difficult late game bosses to take advantage of the knights full move set.

This is something of a natural consequence of the open design of the game. It starts out pretty linear, but once you get a couple movement abilities virtually the entire map opens up and you can go almost anywhere, finding meaningful progression pretty much wherever you go. As a result, though, the devs are almost never sure of what upgrades you already have when you reach a boss, so they couldn’t really include any in the main game progression that required you to have particular upgrades to effectively fight them.

I think the trade off in favor of exploration is worth it, but it does leave a bit of a gap in difficulty for those who are old hats at 2d platformy action games.

But it seems like what the devs heard was “Hollow Knight is a baby game for little children”, and their response was basically

The first three content pack updates added several new and much harder endgame bosses, most of which are a ton of fun and have fantastic presentations. They even went back and ramped up the difficulty of some of the lackluster bosses in the base game, in particular one boss in one of the few late game areas that does need more of the knight’s move set to reach now calls on the use of those abilities in the fight itself.

And people loved it! All these expansions went over great. People loved the Grimm Troupe in particular, in part because of the legendary difficulty of its final boss. So it’s perhaps not surprising that the devs pushed even further in that direction for the final DLC, one that revolved entirely around bosses, and it’s not surprising that they ended up overshooting the mark for a fair portion of the audience. And given that there are many players super invested in the lore of the game that found themselves gated out of new endings by an absolutely brutal slog of an overlong boss rush capped off by a much more difficult version of the one boss in the main game that most players already thought was impressively hard?

I really do think the Godmaster DLC is worth trying even for those who go in content that they’ll never beat it. Some of the fights that can be accessed much earlier in the DLC are really cool and worth experiencing in their own right, but I have nothing against anyone who takes one look at it and just nopes the heck out, and I can’t disagree with those who point to it as one of the few noticeable flaws in what is otherwise a truly majestic game overall.

Some of it probably comes down to that “souls like” moniker. Hollow Knight really isn’t a souls like. Its a classic 2d metroidvania action-platformer, that just happens to have a similar tone, story structure, and method of lore delivery that are all heavily inspired by Dark Souls specifically. And the game really benefits from that influence. But where the game tries to parrot souls-like mechanics, whether in super hard bosses that the player is meant to throw themselves at repeatedly until they ‘click’, or in the corpse run mechanic, which is overly punishing in the early game when money is hard to come by and some progression paths are gated behind expensive purchases, but means nothing at all in the late game since HK doesn’t have a leveling system like DS does, so once you’ve purchased the stuff you want there really isn’t any cost to losing your cash on hand any more? That doesn’t work so well.

Worse, it’s actively detrimental to the idea of exploring wherever you like, by pointing the player back in the same direction every time they die, when players in the early mid game might be better served by taking death as an indication that maybe they stumbled into an area that’s a bit much for them right now and they might be better served by trying another path first.

There’s one clear example early on of a particularly tough optional boss fight against multiple opponents. If the player dies to this boss, the game even puts a friendly npc on the path back who heavily implies that the boss is maybe too tough for them, and the player should look for a way to upgrade their weapon before coming back. But that npc shows up /before/ the player reaches their corpse, which happens much closer to the boss itself, and by the time you get there to get your money back - again, this is still relatively early game so loss of your money really stings - and by the time you reach your corpse you’re right outside the boss door, and taking another crack at it can feel less daunting than climbing all the way back out of the area.

If you do beat the boss, ... actually, no I wrote a fair bit but no, cut that. I've got more to chatter on about that but I don’t want to spoil more than I already have. The point is, while it’s really cool you can beat this boss and the area behind it “early”, and I love that the game lets you do that, the corpse run mechanic pushes players who are less comfortable with the game mechanics to keep throwing themselves at the fight when they might be better served by trying another progression path.

monhun

I haven’t played the the new Taroth or however that’s spelled. Heck, I haven’t fought master rank jiva either. The most recent thing I’ve tried is the raging brachy. I actually found that fight pretty fun. Reminded me why I like Monster Hunter. But after seven runs in a row without getting a single reactor drop it also reminded me why I don’t like Monster Hunter nearly as much as you & Bard do.

Still, we should do a few runs together again at some point.

Man, what a thing to type when discussing a souls like, asking to martyr myself mentioning difficulty spikes or difficulty modes/options heh.

Honestly, I kind of share the criticism some people have made of the souls-like genre overemphasizing difficulty. Mechanical challenge is a key aspect of the games, but Dark Souls 1 in particular is really Not That Hard. It’s obtuse more than anything else, but once you know what the stats mean, know how to upgrade your weapons, and have a feel for the mechanics, it’s not that bad. Especially if you take advantage of the summoning / multiplayer mechanics. I know purists can get uppity about getting help, but those mechanics are part of the game for a reason. Dark Souls is probably the easiest of the souls-like games I’ve played so far once you know how it works. I’d also say it’s probably my favorite, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

The over-emphasis on difficulty alone when people discuss souls games can get in the way of enjoying them. For instance, it leads to situations like new players trying dark souls for the first time bumping into the skeletons at the start of the game and thinking “wow, dark souls really IS as hard as they say” instead of “these guys are clearly too tough, I must be going the wrong way”. It can also lead to developers focusing too much on challenge, and on a particular /kind/ of challenge, and missing out on the other compelling aspects of Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, including the way Demon’s Souls in particular emphasized delivering a variety of game play scenarios, or how it understood that a well placed deliberate anti-climax of a boss can sometimes be more engaging than yet another straight forward test of reaction time and pattern recognition.

>final achievement BIG CONGRATS, THAT’S SICK! I know what going over the edge on a game renown for challenging gameplay can do to ya, and that’s quite the darn accomplishment!

Thanks! I’m quite proud of myself, even if there are harder things that I still haven’t done in the game yet, and probably won’t ever. Stuff not tied to explicit achievements, but that still have little in game rewards or markers that you’ve done them. I certainly wouldn’t say I’ve mastered the game. But I’ve probably gone as far as I’m going to go, and I’m quite content with how far that turned out to be.

Not that I’m done with the game. I’ve played it all the way through three times already, and I can already tell it’s a game I’ll be coming back to replay fairly regularly.

>no thanks, I think I’m good I’m probably projecting since I’ve said the same thing 100 times (or thought to) on this very blog, but I ‘assume and apologize if I’m wrong in doing so’ you say this because you feel some sense of guilt like you didn’t ACTUALLY do all you could and you must put on airs for the blog and let me say, screw that noise.

Oh, no, not at all. Yes, there’s stuff left that I’m not able to do, and there’s people WAY better at the game than I am, but going by steam achievement records less than 3% of the people who beat the first boss go on to beat the final pantheon, so by that metric I’m in the top 97% of rattatas Hollow Knight players.

So yeah, I feel pretty chuffed with myself.

>Can’t promise it’ll suddenly be my next game, and even if it was it wouldn’t sadly get much showing I suspect because my pc is more or less down. I DID get replacement equipment so MAYBE? But I haven’t sat down and attempted to get my old setup running again.

So it goes. Again, if and when you do play it, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. Even if I can’t, like, watch you stream it or whatever. Honestly, I’d like to be able to just blather on about it to you at more length without feeling like I’m spoiling stuff.

#retphienix #redphienix #hollow knight #hollow knight spoilers

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makeste · 5 years

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on mysterious vestiges and intricate OFA time-travel plots

okay so I have done a lot of thinking about this over the course of the past week and have finally reached a point where I feel like I’ve more or less organized my thoughts, so here goes lol.

first off, a quick clarification; my lack of commentary on this in the recaps was due to my complete and utter failure to pay attention. sometimes I miss some pretty big details. in this case, I was so caught up in analyzing the OFA Avatars we could see that I failed to pay much notice to the two silhouettes aside from checking if either of them looked to be female. it didn’t occur to me to look for similarities to characters we already knew, because that wasn’t even a possibility in my head. obviously these two characters died years and years ago, so there’s no way they could possibly look familiar! logic! lol. (and off-topic, but I like to think this lends more weight to the Dabi = Touya theory because it just goes to show you that if you dismiss a possibility out of hand, your brain can completely ignore some pretty compelling evidence. so I think it is possible that Endeavor wouldn’t have recognized his grown up evil villain kid.)

anyway, so let’s start off by posting the silhouettes in question, from chapters 193 and 194:

and now some side-by-side comparisons. I’m going to start with Kiri first, mainly because I think the evidence isn’t as persuasive in his case.

like... I dunno. the shoulder pads are definitely similar, and an argument can be made that the silhouette clearly has something on their face that might be an upgraded version of Kiri’s faceguard. but that’s where the similarities end (and even with the faceguard, Kiri’s has a distinctly pointy shape that’s clearly more decorative than functional and which I believe is meant to emulate Crimson Riot’s distinctive pointy hairstyle. him changing up the look would defeat that purpose).

the hairstyle is very different. Kiri’s hair has a very pointy look to it whether he’s wearing it down in its natural state or gelled up in his usual spikes. a style like this would mean he’s grown it out to the point where his bangs are gone and it’s long enough to pull back completely with no hair coming loose on the sides. this would imply a significant timeskip prior to whatever is going on here. and that’s one thing I don’t see Horikoshi doing based on his interviews (though hey, who knows, I could be wrong).

lastly, there’s the matter of why Kirishima would be involved with OFA, story-wise. with Kacchan it makes some sense, since his story has been tied to Izuku’s from page one of the series, and over time his character has become increasingly connected to the OFA plot. Kiri, though, lacks any involvement in OFA matters as of now. he also lacks the personal connection to Izuku that Katsuki has; in fact he’s probably at least a good 5-6 characters down if I were to make a list of the 1-A students that Izuku is most closely connected to.

so given all this, for now I’m inclined to say that this figure is more than likely not Kirishima. as for who it might be instead, there’s a theory which I can’t find the link to (I’ll edit if/when I do) that it could be AFO’s masked bodyguard from chapter 193, which could be interesting and would make sense timeline-wise (if he was the second or third wielder). and their appearances do somewhat match up, although again it’s not exact.

aside from this, though, I have no current theories on their identity or why it’s currently being concealed. so for now, let’s move on to the other figure instead.

this last one is what sold me. with the other two images, I could be convinced that the similarities are just coincidence. we do, after all, have plenty of other characters with similarly spiky hair.

but for me, that last comparison goes past what can be considered a coincidental resemblance. here, take a look at it again, this time with the left image superimposed over the right:

this isn’t just “oh it looks kind of like his hairstyle/gauntlets/neck guard.” this doesn’t just resemble him; this is his exact profile. for Horikoshi to have drawn this and not been aware of the resemblance is frankly impossible. which means it must have been done intentionally.

besides which, there’s also the question of why he would keep the character’s identity hidden otherwise. if their appearance isn’t actually some sort of spoiler, then why hide it? I can’t think of any reason, which leads me to believe that it’s not just the hair, but the face as well. for whatever reason, this character design deliberately resembles Bakugou’s.

now granted, that doesn’t mean it actually is him. here are some other possibilities I can think of:

reincarnation (or hinted/implied reincarnation)

an ancestor of his

it’s not actually Kacchan, but whoever it is has a quirk that allows them to appear to others in the form of someone close to them, and so to Deku, they appear to be identical to Kacchan

some unrelated character that just happens to resemble him in a way which is intentional on Horikoshi’s part but coincidental in the story (possibly for humor purposes; “dsflkj he looks just like Kacchan how in the -- !?”)

however, I’ll be perfectly honest; none of these rings true to me. reincarnation doesn’t really seem to fit the tone of the series thus far. OFA itself is about as spiritual as we’ve gotten here. aside from that, we’ve steered pretty clear of metaphysical concepts and anything relating to religion, souls, afterlives, etc., so this would be a bit of a whiplashy concept to introduce at this point.

as for an ancestor, that seems more possible (particularly since we’ve seen that genes run incredibly strong on Mitsuki’s side of the family), but also would involve more coincidence than Horikoshi usually tends to work with. Katsuki’s ancestor just happened to be one of the original wielders of OFA, and now half a dozen generations down the line, his descendant just so happens to develop close personal ties to not one but two other OFA users. I mean, it could happen, but it’s odd, and I don’t really see the necessity of throwing in a detail like this, and it’s not often that Horikoshi does something simply for the hell of it without having some kind of purpose.

regarding option #3... it’s possible? weird, but possible. I don’t have any real rebuttals for it, other than it’s just really weird. I really only listed this because the idea occurred to me and I wasn’t able to completely dismiss it lol.

and lastly, the full-blown coincidence option. the character just happens to look like Kacchan. now @interstellar-elf, I know you mentioned the possibility of Horikoshi reusing a character design from a previous series:

here’s an image of Nina for those unfamiliar (she shows up in chapters 4 and 5 of the series, which you can find on the usual manga reading sites, sometimes listed as Sensei no Baruji instead of Barrage):

anyways, here’s my issue with this though -- this character design has already been reused. with Kacchan himself (and Mitsuki). if Horikoshi wanted to dust off an old design, I don’t think he would choose one so similar to an existent character, let alone one of the principal characters in the series. he has plenty of other available designs that aren’t going to invite the same comparisons. he already has two characters with strikingly similar appearances to Nina’s; why create a third? and again, why hide it if it doesn’t actually have some sort of plot importance?

all this leads me to believe that the most likely explanation is the simplest one: the shadowed figure that looks like Kacchan... is Kacchan.

and I know that I said “simplest” just now, but obviously a revelation like this would be anything but. how and why would Kacchan possibly be chilling out in Deku’s OFA dream presented as one of the 8 previous OFA avatars?? and here is my best answer: I have no idea. lol. this is beyond strange. chances are that any explanation I can come up with is going to end up being wildly off base.

having said that, the rest of this post is basically just wild conjecture. because if it is Kacchan, then there’s really only one possible explanation for how it would be possible:

time travel, bitches.

I know, I know. first off: is that even possible? but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say yes. partly because all things are possible, because quirks; and partly because superhero comic storylines are fucking rife with motherfucking time travel. it’s a comic book staple. some of the most beloved storylines (Days of Future Past, anyone?) hinge on it. so yeah, sure, why not? let’s say it’s a thing.

and so now we finally get to the part of the post where I basically go nuts and basically just describe to you all the elaborate time travel plot that I came up with. will this be what happens in the series? almost certainly not. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what’s actually going to happen. not the slightest clue where this is leading. this all still seems really weird to me. but what I can tell you is what kind of plot I would come up with if I was the one writing it, and basically just doing what I want but whilst trying to fit the plot within the existing canon and what we know.

so here goes!

AFO comes up with a plan to undo the whole “All Might melted off my face” thing -- nay, the whole “All Might” problem to begin with -- by sending someone back in time to halt the OFA cycle by killing one of the past wielders. (not sure why they wind up going so far back in order to do this; maybe they only have minimal control of the actual time travel and kind of have to work with what they’ve got)

it more or less works, but Deku and Kacchan are caught up within the time travel user’s quirk and thus spared from the Back to the Future-like effects. but somehow they’re able to see what happens, and they realize that the bad guy somehow altered the past and they have to figure out what (s)he did and stop them

whilst in the past, Deku spots someone he recognizes from his OFA dream (most likely the guy standing in between All Might and Trench Coat, by process of elimination) and is all “oh snap that’s one of my OFA homies”

he then realizes “oh shit Time Travelling Bad Guy is trying to fucking kill this dude” and so he and Kacchan try to stop it

they are only partially successful; TTBG succeeds in mortally wounding OFA IV (oh yeah, forgot to mention that it turns out this is the fourth OFA user). but, in order to keep the OFA line from dying out, OFA IV passes the quirk along to Kacchan (because it has to be him, because Deku already has it and no one wants to experiment with what might happen if someone gives you OFA twice. and also, it’s possible that at this point the mysterious shadowy figure in Deku’s head has cleared up some and he realizes that it is Kacchan, and that this is all part of some closed time loop/predestination paradox bullshit lulz)

so now Kacchan is all “wtf am I supposed to do with this shit now, though, I obviously can’t stay here in the fucking past forever, we’ve gotta figure out a way back” and Deku is like “yeah”

and something something plot coincidence they end up running into OFA VI (because Kacchan is of course OFA V, since it’s the only number that’s part of his name), a.k.a. Trench Coat, whom Deku also recognizes and is like “OH SHIT, KACCHAN, GO AND GIVE IT TO THAT GUY”

so they do, thus succeeding in preserving OFA so that Nana, All Might, and then Deku can one day receive it, and thus restoring the timeline back to its natural “AFO gets his face potato-ized by All Might whether he likes it or not” state

and something something they figure out a way back (or maybe the time travel quirk just wears off, maybe they only had 24 hours or some shit like that), The End

except not quite because lol now Deku’s got a version of Kacchan just chilling out in his head, so that’s fun. and then the one thing that I don’t really like about this theory: the fact that this means he’ll end up getting Kacchan’s quirk. though maybe he’ll just avoid using it since it doesn’t feel right. or maybe he can’t use it without injuring himself since his palms don’t have the same resistance to said quirk that Kacchan’s do. or something like that. or maybe he somehow doesn’t get the quirk after all for whatever reason, but that seems less likely though

aaand that’s it. honestly, this would be a lot of fun but it also seems... how to put this... wildly indulgent, lol. like, this would be a dream arc for me. so for that reason alone I’ve got a lot of doubts. and also I have doubts because it feels like something out of Star Trek. not quite sure that this would fit in with the general tone of the series. mostly it’s just me throwing ideas out there. but hey, it’s fun, so.

anyways, so this post ended up being so much longer than I originally intended, but tl;dr: whatever the case ends up being, I think that one silhouette likely is Bakugou, and the most likely explanation is that some sort of time travel is involved. other than that I really don’t have much of a clue lol. if you guys have thoughts hit me up!

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bakugou katsuki #kirishima eijirou #midoriya izuku #bnha meta #bnha theory #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #tbh there's no explanation for any of this that isn't intensely weird #the whole thing is just totally bizarre #I keep trying to come up with alternate explanations #but every time I go back to that third kacchan silhouette and it's like damn though #that's him!!#it's just so out there #guess we'll see #bak-u-go

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hocats-blog · 5 years

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7 Lord of the Rings Fan Theories to Rule Them All

As you probably remember, Gollum wasn't always Gollum. For a time he was Smeagol, a Hobbit quickly corrupted by the power of the One Ring. It was his "precious" that afforded him an extraordinarily long life, and warped him into the scrappy half-naked mangoblin that becomes the bane of Frodo and Sam. Though he's been Gollum far longer than he was Smeagol, at times there seems to be a war of identities going on within the sad creature. We assume that the centuries he's spent under the ring's influence has created this rift within the character, but that might not be the case at all. One intriguing fan theory claims that Gollum is actually a personality inside the ring, an entity that can possess anyone. The identity isn't unique to Smeagol, meaning that if someone like Aragorn held it long enough, he'd turn into a pasty diaper-wearing wretch just the same as you would. Think about those we know who have held the ring for an extended period of time. Right off the bat, there's Bilbo Baggins. He seemed relatively chill about the ring and managed to hold onto it for years without going nanners, but we definitely saw some cracks forming in his psyche when Gandalf came to town. Bilbo was less than thrilled about having his "precious" taken away. That, right there -- Bilbo unconsciously "gollum'd." That's the "Gollum personality" breaking through, its infection spreading within Bilbo. The possession gets a bit more overt later on during a conversation with Frodo, at which point Bilbo's face makes a hellish transformation. Looks a lot like Gollum, doesn't it? Bilbo doesn't just call the ring his "precious" just because he heard Gollum say that -- that's actually Gollum talking through Bilbo. For more proof, we have to look no further than Isildur. Remember Isildur is the one who lopped Sauron's fingers off and took the ring? Isildur is also the same shitbrick who, given the chance, didn't toss the ring into the fires of Mount Doom. Instead, he wore it around his neck, which is more or less the Middle-earth equivalent of treating a nuclear warhead like a piece of bling. The corrosive power eventually killed Isildur, but not before he wrote about the ring in a series of creepy journals. Gandalf discovered these writings, and found one particularly disturbing passage. Could it really be a coincidence that a dude who lived thousands of years before Smeagol would used the same word to describe the One Ring? Probably not. It seems a lot more likely that Gollum is a personality inside the ring that infects its host and possesses them to protect the ring and do Sauron's bidding. If Isildur's hubris hadn't ended him, it may well have been his wispy form that Bilbo came across on his initial adventure in The Hobbit. Now, the name "Gollum" is merely the name given to Smeagol after his neighors kept seeing him hacking up a lung every day, so it's probably not the actual title of the deity inside the ring. But the name "Gollum" has significance, in that it's pretty close to "golem," the mythological creature which is made of inanimate materials, but given life from an outside force. It's a compelling theory not because it dramatically changes the story, but because it gives you a new perspective on what the ringbearers must have been going through. That, and it's fun imagining a crazed Viggo Mortensen wearing a diaper.

This is a stupid idea. No one's going to actually come out and say that J.R.R. Tolkien created Albus Dumbledore and the world of Harry Potter. But it's a testament to the strength of fan theories that some beautiful bastard could come up with a convincing explanation that links Hogwarts and Middle-earth. It all relies on the fact that there are five Istari -- better known as "wizards" to people who have seen the sun in the last two weeks -- in the realm of this fiction. You probably already know three of them: Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White and Radagast "That Forest Hippie Who Refuses to Clean the Birdshit Out of His Beard" the Brown. The missing pieces of this magical grandpa pie are the two "Blue Wizards," which Tolkien glossed over briefly but never really followed up on. Last we heard, they were sent into Mordor to quell the threat of Sauron. They weren't seen again, but there's also no explicit mention of their deaths. The two blue wizards could be anyone, which is why it's entirely possible that they are in fact Albus Dumbledore and his nemesis/boytoy Gellen Grindelwald. All it would take is a temporal or multidimensional mishap, and they'd be in the modern world of muggles. How they got to Earth from Middle-earth isn't as important as the thematical connections. Dumbledore says that "It is important to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated." Meaning that he wasn't going to give up once Sauron was down for the count. Though Grindelwald fell to the "dark side" like Saruman before him, Dumbledore kept up the fight and was eventually upgraded from "Dumbledore the Blue" to "Dumbledore the White." It fits, especially because in Latin, "Albus" literally translates to "white." It makes sense that Dumbledore took the job at Hogwarts, as that was the place he could best mount his defense of the world. Once there, he builds an army of wizards to do just that. And yet, he still remembers where he came from, which explains why there's a portrait of Gandalf the Grey hanging in Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore had already assembled his wizard defense force, so he passed off into the undying lands in the most fantastical way possible. The entire theory sheds new light on Dumbledore's words: "Ah, music. A magic far beyond all we do here!" As it so happens, the world of Middle-earth was created via song by the Illuvatar. Did J.K. Rowling write Dumbledore with Tolkien's lost wizards in mind? It's not impossible, but it's probably unlikely. It doesn't matter, because veracity isn't the point of this fan theory. The real strength of this tangled yarn is just how creative it is in weaving two disparate but similar fictions together. These two worlds don't exist anyway, so why can't they they exist in the same place?

Though it's not featured in a big way in the films, the books go into a little more detail about the death of Frodo's parents. Drogo and Primula Baggins drowning during a freak boating accident is tragic, but storywise, it gives Frodo less of a reason to be tied down to the Shire. But one fan theory suggests there's a darker undercurrent to this story, that Frodo's parents were in fact murdered. The culprit: Gollum. We all know that creepazoid is capable of murder. It's arguably the first thing Smeagol ever did as Gollum. After the events of the Hobbit, Gollum set about finding the his precious stolen ring. Problem was, Gollum really only had two things to go on when it came to finding the ring: "Baggins" and "Shire." It's not out of the question that he might come across the Brandywine River on his quest, and he would certainly kill any Bagginses he found there. The theory is propped up by the questionable circumstances of the deaths. There seems to be a question among the Hobbits as to just how Frodo's parents passed. Whatever the case, both Drogo and Primula were pretty experienced boaters, so it's more than a little surprising that they would just fall in the water and die. No, it makes more sense that an angry Gollum murdered them straight out, giving up on his mission once he found nothing on their person. The only real damper on this theory is Gandalf, who claims that Gollum never made it to the Brandywine. That would seem to put an end to this theory, but put yourself in Gandalf's old man shoes for a minute. You're talking to Frodo, the guy who is going to lug the world's most dangerous weapon across a continent, and he's pretty fragile as it is. Now imagine if Gandalf decided to tell Frodo that the same guy who guides him through Mordor is the one that deprived him of his parents -- he'd undoubtedly lose himself to rage at some point, and as a result succumb to the power of the ring itself. If Gandalf hadn't pulled off an Obi-Wan-tier lie, our story would be over before it began. To be fair, at least that one ending is preferable to like seventy.

This almost feels like cheating. This "fan theory" is so perfect, fits so well into the mythos of the series that it's basically canon. But that's exactly the reason it can't be ignored. Just after the Fellowship is formed, the angelic Lady Galadriel offers each member of the group a special gift. Legolas got a rad new bow, Pippin and Merry each received sweet daggers, and Boromir was bestowed with a tacky gold belt that did not go with his bracers. The most interesting gift was that given to Gimli, the dwarf. While most others just took what was handed to them, Galadriel actually asked Gimli what he wanted from the elves. After a bit of stammering, Gimli gave in and requested his greatest desire. Others were naturally curious about this mystery gift. Asking for (and actually GETTING) a strand of Galadriel's hair might sound creepy, but it's really a huge deal. To explain why, we have to rewind a few thousand years. Several millennia before the War of the Ring, there was this shitbird named Feanor. Now, Feanor is a grade-A dickweed, but even he can see how lovely Galadriel is. As the legend has it, Feanor too asked for a single strand of Galadriel's hair, but he was denied. Twice more Feanor made the same request, and twice more he was shut down. Dude wasn't worthy of Galadriel's crusty toenail clippings, much less her luscious locks. Flash forward to the Fellowship, and Gimli's wish for a strand of Galadriel's flawless hair is granted threefold. Though Gimli is likely oblivious to the significance of the gesture, Legolas' smile tells us he understands. Up to this point, dwarves and elves had an uneasy relationship, like co-workers that hate each other but stay cool because they have to be in close proximity every day. But Galadriel saw the innate goodness in Gimli, and rewarded him thrice over. You can almost hear Feanor grumbling "It still only counts as one."

#the lord of the rings #lord of the rings #the hobbit #reviewbooks #reviews

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sesquipunzel · 5 years

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Act 2 (Backtrack through 251-264)

(I am better understanding the appeal of reading Homestuck liveblogs because now I really wanna go read how other people dealt with this lil reveal.)

So...one thing that didn't occur to me in my many previous Thoughts was that the Vagabond might not be here accidentally — I may have been unduly influenced by knowing them by the name "Wayward Vagabond." They might have been searching for the SBURB bunker precisely so they could interact with the kids/the past; they might even have arrived or been summoned here on this specific day so they can do so. Or they might be the Skaia-survivor I hypothesized, who was out of the bunker running errands, and we joined them as they were coming 'home'. Though the impression that the Vagabond was curious and wary and exploratory and Not At Home was pretty strong, so I dunno. (Also, I would think if they were in on the plot, they'd understand more about John/the game/the lingo.)

But the Vagabond DOES recognize that they can communicate with the boy on the screen, DOES know how to operate the console (simple as it appears to be), DOES know how to read and write and type (although not to turn off the Caps Lock). Which perhaps adds weight to the notion that they were alive/educated in the Before Times?

Also, this console is clearly designed to let someone communicate with those on screen — but Skaianet also clearly had the technology to allow even more extensive interaction, à la John's magic chest on the roof of his house. So why is the connection only via the command line, why not a full suite of SBURB-style fixit tools? It could be an inherent limitation related to: a) the time disjunct, if "years in the future" is true; or b) a place disjunct cos we have no idea where either John or the Vagabond are; or c) an internet disjunct cos we have no friggin clue how their computers are communicating with each other at all (especially since John's house shouldn't even have power). Obvi, the command-line could simply be the default function, and the console is capable of other things that we and the Vagabond don't know about yet, but we shall see.

Because the arrival of the "BOY" Voice coincided with the division of the Kernelsprite and creation of the the Harmesperm, I made an assumption that the Voice was the Sperm's voice (and I imagine I ain't the first). I do speculate that the coinciding wasn't completely coincidental, though.

The first image the Vagabond sees is just after John took the bite of the apple and got his house ozzed to wherever he is now. So I wonder if that's where this mysterious connection between their computers starts — maybe the Vagabond couldn't have watched any of the pre-Meteor stuff in John's house, or interacted with him before then?

As to HOW the connection started, or whether the ability for them to interact has anything to do with the KERNEL or the SPRITE? On that I have no guesses yet.

One curious thing is why the Vagabond's commands are reaching John as a "voice in his head." John is reporting this to Rose as new and troubling, so he didn't experience the previous reader commands in the same way, even if his "free will" occasionally argued with those commands. I've been told Hussie doesn't use dialogue in his comics, that all information is conveyed through Pesterlogs, command lines, narration, etc. So why did he choose to have the Vagabond's words manifest differently than the other reader commands, and differently from any other form of communication we’ve seen? I think the most important part is probably John saying “i feel compelled to do these weird things i don't really want to do,” that commands coming from that particular console/place are ones he can’t disobey?

If those commands had been communicated in a different way (like appearing on John’s devices) it wouldn’t have allowed for confusing the Vagabond's Voice with the SPRITE's, I suppose, and would invite more questioning from John as to who was 'on the other end' of the computer, but still interesting distinctions.

So — going to re-read from that first "BOY" on page 251, and capture any deeper/revised thoughts along the way.

Firstly, "the two halves go their separate ways, leaving behind the SPRITE portion" — I see that I misread that the KERNEL was the dual clown-silhouette things and the SPRITE was the mandala-thing left hovering in midair. But I see now the KERNEL was the circular "container" for the clown, i.e, the portion that existed before it was prototyped, and the SPRITE was the now-spermy clown-bit left after the seed-potential-power parts split off to go fulfill whatever that potential is. (dum dum DOOM!)

On to the weird interactions within the Flash…

Calling John "BOY" reinforced the impression that the Voice didn't know who he was, or much of anything else yet, which made sense if it was a newborn SPRITE. But now it means the Vagabond also doesn't know who John is — just a boy on a screen. So why are they so imperious in the way they talk to John, so sure that John needs to listen and obey? (How much does Vagga know about why this boy is on this screen at this moment? What do they know about what happened before, or what could/should happen next, for Earth's survivors? And are they friendly or foely to our heroes? Or to Skaianet?)

And who exactly is talking back (in the Green Boxes in the Flash version, or in plain text between black+orange Command Boxes in the non-Flash), calling the Voice a "nincompoop" and "sophomoric?" It seems to be our narrator, the one who used second person to start the story with "Your name is JOHN. As was previously mentioned it is your BIRTHDAY", addressing the character of John for the most part, but also the reader/player in some ways. But to have that narrative voice talking directly to another character is quite strange. (Although much of the response to the rest of the Voice's "EXAMINE"-type commands is back to our familiar narration style.)

"TIER PROTO TYPE THE SPRITE, OR THE THING YOU SAID. DO IT." Again, Vagga seems pretty sure about this being important to do, when they don’t even know the right words to describe it, or know that John can't do it himself.

Weird inconsistencies like not having enough Earth-context to call it a "towel", but enough to call it a "small Persian rug"? Familiar with "sewing machine" and how big it should be, but not with "totem lathe."

It's not the SPRITE that loathes clowns and harlequins, but the Vagabond.

(Housetrapped is still funny.)

"On the other hand, you would probably benefit from [NANNA's] elderly wisdom now…"

“UGH, NO.”

“So coy. So mysterious."

Twas an odd enough interchange when poking around the Flash the first time, thinking it was the SPRITE talking. But is there an implication here that Vagga knows (and dislikes) NANNA somehow, or the idea of John talking to her?

"A YOUNG STUPID BOY." On what grounds is Vagga judging John stupid?

Regarding the clowns in dad's study, the Voice says "IT HAS A KNIFE. BE ALARMED BY THIS." and "I SEE TREACHERY IN HIS EYES." — rather paranoid, aren't they? Worrisome in a newborn SPRITE, leaning towards interpreting it as inherently suspicious and violent, if not evil. Not really surprising, though, in a post-apocalyptic/post-traumatic wanderer (although it certainly doesn't rule out violent or evil).

Back to the main stream of the story, at 256: “NOW JOHN. RESPOND TO YOUR FRIEND UNIT.” Again, Vagga knows the word ‘friend', but not how to use it in a sentence. (is it because they've never had a friend?? are they a poor lonely, suspicious, violent cinnamon roll…???)

My curiosity about the Voice knowing the contents of the Pesterlog remain — is Vagga actually reading Homestuck, as it were, viewing John's screen/Pesterlog "over his shoulder" the same way we are? Or does the Skaia-built interface allow for more ‘camera angles’ than we have, or other direct access to the content this screen is meant (but by whom?) to show?

The narration on 257 that says "Oh well, you're the boss." has so many implications, doesn't it? But still notes that the commands are "awkwardly worded."

The Vagabond doesn't understand the difference between what John can do and what Rose can do.

(I just caught up to the fact that when John was fucking around with the Alchemiter, he could only create Perfectly Generic Objects because the dowel he had was Perfectly un-Lathed, with no distinguishing data points. You know how it is, it was all so new and confusing then… cause yeah, I'm WAY less confused now, right?)

But they get a platform built, and again the Narrator and the Voice tussle over commanding John and considering his feelings — the Narrator now seems protective of John, rather than objective. (That is, it has generally seemed objective before now, except in matters of taste and humor.)

The double "==>==>" commands that the Narrator was getting salty about make a lot more sense, imagining the Vagabond flailing at their keyboard.

John sensibly wants to go back inside, away from the aching and windy void, but Vagga says, "NO DON'T DO THAT. HOP OFF THIS LEDGE ON TO THAT CAR." This is the first time they've really suggested an action they came up with themselves, rather than responding to John mentioning prototyping, or encouraging him to follow Rose's instructions. (I'm not counting all the EXAMINE THIS and DESTROY THAT that helped us explore the Flash-House — those were still essentially passive responses to John's environment.) So I’m thinking that the mail in the car is really important in some way (I mean, I didn’t think it had been placed there as a time-wasting whim — it was the only real plot point of John’s excursion outside the house), which probably means the SBURB host software John can presumably use to rescue others the way Rose-as-host rescued him. (GG’s green gift might be important too but harder to guess how.) But that brings us back to the question of how the Vagabond knows about the software and its significance if they don’t seem to understand the game itself, or even how they know the software’s location in the car.

"==>==>==>==>==>" — and I thought two was impatient!

[hee, the Vagabond's keyboard does have the CAPS LOCK key lit!]

Right-Eo… long post, but more because I had a lot more musings to capture than because there was significant re-interpretation to do over whose Voice it was. Still worth the trip in my book. My blog, I mean.

The Kernelsprite has only actually attempted to communicate twice, right? Once with strange square textury symbols, and then after Harmequin-typing, with assorted Mardi-Grahdy fleurs-de-lis? (Floor Da Lease? Flurry d'Elise? Lorida Fleas? Flour Day Lilies? Stopping now.)

Gonna bet someone in HS fandom tried some pre-empty-ve code-breaking on the comparison between the two, but Ima keep on keepin on, trust that we'll discover what the Sprite is tryin' to say sooner or later in the story.)

Left-Eo then, backtrack completed and Yawnward Ho!

#homestuck liveblog #sesquipunzel reads homestuck #hs act 2 #homestuck #hs week 004

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eddycurrents · 6 years

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For the week of 2 July 2018

Quick Bits:

Ant-Man & The Wasp #3 is another fun issue in this mini as Scott and his tiny alien friends try to come up with a way to rescue Nadia. I’m still highly impressed by Javier Garrón’s art on this series, as it continues to push inventive designs, combined with Israel Silva’s bright, bouncy colours.

| Published by Marvel

Astonishing X-Men #13 begins Matthew Rosenberg and Greg Land’s run on the title and it’s very well done. It kicks off what looks to be Havok’s redemption arc, but the road is very rocky and unlike say, Magneto or Sabretooth, he’s not being given too much slack from his former compatriots. This first issue has a good deal of Rosenberg’s trademark humour and some pretty decent art from Land, Jay Leisten, and Frank D’Armata.

| Published by Marvel

Avengers #4 made it dawn on me what this run reminds me of, Grant Morrison and Howard Porter’s run on JLA. It’s intelligently crafted, widescreen action with Jason Aaron, Paco Medina, Ed McGuinness, Juan Velasco, Mark Morales, and David Curiel pulling it off very, very well.

| Published by Marvel

Captain America #1 is great. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ debut on the series finally addresses the fallout of Secret Empire on a personal and emotional level and it leads to an incredibly compelling story of war and pieces, as a new threat begins to surface and we’re left in a world where people don’t know who to trust. The story is enriched immensely by Leinil Francis Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, and Sunny Gho’s artwork which is just incredible. Yu is a consummate storyteller and this book is just flawless with its visuals. I’m very interested to see where this creative team is going to take this story.

| Published by Marvel

Cosmic Ghost Rider #1 continues the fun that was to be had during Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, and Antonio Fabela’s excellent run on Thanos, with Cates’ Interceptor/Reactor collaborator, Dylan Burnett taking on the art chores. You don’t need to have read the earlier Thanos series to come in here, but I still highly recommend reading that run. “Thanos Wins” was a damn good story and so is this. The irreverent humour is here in spades, the art is glorious, and Frank Castle’s new mission should be interesting.

| Published by Marvel

Dark Ark #8 takes a very interesting turn as Shrae confronts the monster of the deep plaguing Noah’s ark. Juan Doe’s designs for even more of the monsters, and the deep one, are amazing.

| Published by AfterShock

Deadpool #2 has more glorious art from Nic Klein. This is among the best art in a Deadpool series and the character has seem some pretty incredible artists work on him. I can again easily recommend the title on the art alone, but I do have to say that the story is growing on me. I like the somewhat serious yet patently ridiculous interplay between Klein’s art and Skottie Young’s dialogue, with some very nice humorous moments here.

| Published by Marvel

Death of the Inhumans #1 is going to break your heart. Even if you hate the Inhumans, this is pretty harrowing. Donny Cates, Ariel Olivetti, and Jordie Bellaire are crafting a tale of loss here and this issue really makes that loss feel real, the threat possibly inescapable, as the Kree threaten genocide. This is pretty epic and I’m anxious to see what happens next.

| Published by Marvel

Death or Glory #3 is a harrowing issue, cutting deep twice, once as we go on a trip through Glory’s past and once again in the present, with a few other punches for good measure. Rick Remender and Bengal are delivering an incredibly nuanced, well-thought out, well-illustrated crime tale here and I recommend it highly for everyone. Loving this series.

| Published by Image / Giant Generator

Delta 13 #3 reaches the point in the horror story where there are weird shenanigans going on, but the creature(s) haven’t yet revealed themselves to the crew. Steve Niles and Nat Jones are really milking the atmosphere they’ve established, it should be very interesting when the story explodes.

| Published by IDW

Doctor Strange #3 is labelled as an Infinity Wars tie-in and given that it advances the plot and whereabouts of the Time Stone, it is absolutely essential to the overall story (even if “Infinity Countdown tie-in” might be a better label at this current point). Mark Waid and Jesús Saiz deliver a mostly standalone story here, fleshing out some of the character development between Strange and Kanna, but this issue should have interesting ramifications on the wider Infinity Stones arc.

| Published by Marvel

Giant Days #40 sees the welcome return of Max Sarin to the art chores, coinciding with Ed moving back in from the hospital. I’m impressed with what John Allison does with the confrontation between Ed and Esther. It’s not at all what I would have expected, but it feels right.

| Published by Boom Entertainment / BOOM! Box

The Gravediggers Union #8 is the quiet before the storm, with Cole having a talk with his daughter before the end, trying to convince her to walk away from destroying the world. I still love how Wes Craig, Toby Cypress, and Niko Guardia have turned this huge, weird epic into a deeply personal story of a girl who feels betrayed by her parents. Very much looking forward to seeing how this concludes next issue.

| Published by Image

The Highest House #5 is another brilliant issue in this series that everyone should be reading. Everyone. The layers of characters, the intricacies of the plot, the absolutely amazing artwork, Mike Carey, Peter Gross, and Fabien Alquier are crafting a masterpiece here.

| Published by IDW

Hunt for Wolverine: Weapon Lost #3 takes a turn as the detective group searching for Wolverine find a Wolverine. As with the other Hunt for Wolverine minis, most of this looks to be shaping up to be a wild goose chase, but for the most part these are still interesting stories in their own right. Charles Soule gives us another cliffhanger at the end here, I wonder if it will end up like last issue’s?

| Published by Marvel

Immortal Hulk #2 I’d probably argue is even better than the first issue. While that feel of the lonesome wanderer that’s reminiscent of the television series and the Marvel Knights run from Bruce Jones is still present here, of a Bruce Banner terrified of the Hulk, the story here twinges a different flavour, Len Wein and Bernie Wrighton’s Swamp Thing. This issue taps into that feel of the reticent monster, hunting down things that are even worse. This is a great standalone tale from Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy José, and Paul Mounts.

| Published by Marvel

Incognegro: Renaissance #5 concludes this wonderful series, working out the final details leading up to Xavier’s murder. Like the original Incognegro graphic novel, Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece have crafted a wonderful mystery that weaves into it some very important, very interesting history and sociological themes. I’m hoping that there will be more.

| Published by Dark Horse / Berger Books

Infinity Countdown: Champions #2 makes some big changes, huge developments really, that make this issue absolutely necessary if you’re a regular Champions reader. Jim Zub, Emilio Laiso, and Andy Troy conclude this tale on a bittersweet note, including an epic confrontation between the team and Warbringer.

| Published by Marvel

Joe Hill’s The Cape: Fallen #1 reunites the team who adapted Joe Hill’s short story the first time around, Jason Ciaramella, Zach Howard, and Nelson Daniel, for a new mini set between the panels of the original story. While reading the original certainly informs this, I feel like you can still enjoy this new mini so far on its own merits.

| Published by IDW

The Last Siege #2 brings us round to gathering the pieces for the conflict between this last bastion against an upstart king, as well as the ramifications of capture and exile of Sir Feist. Like the first issue, the art from Justin Greenwood and Eric Jones is perfect.

| Published by Image

Medieval Spawn & Witchblade #3 incrementally advances us forward, giving us a fight between Spawn and one of the Queen’s minions and delivering a bit of exposition on the Witchblade’s legacy. I’m not sure if it’s in Brian Haberlin’s originals, since it kind of looks like he’s using digital models, or ultimately completely Geirrod van Dyke’s work, but the rendering on Spawn and Scourge’s armours looks incredible.

| Published by Image

Paradiso #5 returns with some incredible world-building as we learn more about the religion of the world as it is now and of some of the history and landmarks throughout the city. Everything about this series is amazing, with Ram V, Devmalya Pramanik, Alba Cardona Gil, and Aditya Bidikar, creating something very unique here.

| Published by Image

The Quantum Age #1 begins a new ongoing series in the Black Hammer empire, with Jeff Lemire riffing on the Legion of Super-Heroes, and Wilfredo Torres and Dave Stewart providing some beautiful artwork. I’ve loved what Lemire and his artistic collaborators in Dean Ormston, David Rubín, Max Fiumara, and Stewart have done previously, deftly working through the various different eras of comicdom (mainly with analogues to DC stuff), while still telling engaging surface level stories. This looks to be no different, although featuring a future gone wrong rather than the optimism of the usual LoSH stories.

| Published by Dark Horse

Submerged #1 is an enthralling first issue, with Vita Ayala, Lisa Sterle, and Stelladia capturing an almost perfect balance of magical realism, juggling between the fantasy and horror of the descent into the underworld and the mundane of Elysia’s family life.

| Published by Vault

Thief of Thieves #38 comes a little more than a year and a half after the last issue, with a transition from Andy Diggle to Brett Lewis on writing duties for this final arc. There’s a decided stylistic shift, from all out action to Lewis’ epistolary narration, but with Shawn Martinbrough’s art it still feels like a continuation of the overall story. It does a decent job recapping what happened previously in story through a flashback of Conrad’s last moments, but even as someone who’s read the rest of the series, I feel like I need to go back and re-read them again for full impact.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Transformers: Lost Light #19 adds a step away from zombie robots to the mix as the series races towards the end. There are a lot of moving parts coming together in James Roberts’ script, plot threads and characters converging from years of storytelling, and the payoff is pretty epic. It’s also really nice to see a return of IDW’s original Transformers artist, EJ Su. It seems fitting as everything starts coming to an end to return to the beginning.

| Published by IDW

Unnatural #1 begins republishing in English Mirka Andolfo’s Contro Natura, which was originally published by Panini in Italian. It’s definitely different for North American markets, but I welcome more translations and more funny animal books. Especially ones as good as Andolfo delivers here. The art is phenomenal and the story, putting forth a society that is oppressive in its reproductive rights, making taboo any number of unions that don’t follow conception, is a much needed one.

| Published by Image

Weapon X #20 continues this transition into a new incarnation of the team. It’s not as hard a break into the new as the solicitations and some of the ads would have you believe, continuing on the story of Omega Red and the Russian mutant death camps, but it’s working towards setting up a new status quo under Sabretooth’s lead. The humour and action from Greg Pak and Fred van Lente is still present, but they’re joined here by Ricardo López Ortiz, just recently having finished an arc on Hit-Girl, who brings a decidedly different verve to the story.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Ask for Mercy #2, Assassinistas #6, Cloak & Dagger #2, Dungeons & Dragons: Evil at Baldur’s Gate #2, Elephantmen: The Death of Shorty #2, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark #1, Ghostbusters: Crossing Over #4, Go Go Power Rangers #11, Hillbilly #11, Jazz Maynard #12, Jeepers Creepers #3, Jim Henson’s Beneath the Dark Crystal #1, Jimmy’s Bastards #9, Judge Dredd: Under Siege #2, Lowlifes #1, The October Faction: Supernatural Dreams #5, Paper Girls #22, Prism Stalker #5, Pumpkinhead #5, Red Sonja/Tarzan #3, Ruin of Thieves #3, Spawn #287, Spider-Man vs. Deadpool #35, Spidey: School’s Out #3, Star Trek: Discovery - Succession #3, Star Wars #50, Star Wars: The Last Jedi #4, Throwaways #14, Transformers: Bumblebee #1, Vagrant Queen #2, Xerxes #4

Recommended Collections: Animosity - Volume 3: The Swarm, Betty & Veronica: Vixens - Volume 1, Doctor Strange: Damnation, Fear Agent - Volume 2, James Bond - Volume 2: Eidolon, Quantum & Woody! - Volume 1: Kiss Kiss Klang Klang, Rogue & Gambit: Ring of Fire, Scales & Scoundrels - Volume 2: Treasurehearts, Skin & Earth, Sleepless - Volume 1, Spider-Man - Volume 4, Transformers: Wreckers Saga, Witchblade - Volume 1

d. emerson eddy often feels like a stranger in a strange land

#This Week in Comics

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mst3kproject · 6 years

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409: Indestructible Man

Both this movie and last week's MUZ have an appearance by the Angel's Flight Trolley in Los Angeles, which climbs a steep hill and makes the news every ten years or so when somebody dies on it. They're the only two MST3K movies that show it, and it doesn't actually mean anything that I happened to watch them one after the other. It's just an interesting coincidence and I thought I'd mention it. Anyway.

After Charles 'the Butcher' Benton is executed by gas chamber, mad scientist Dr. Bradshaw procures his corpse for an experiment. Exactly what the experiment in question was supposed to do the movie never tells us, but what it actually does is bring Benton back to life as an indestructible killing machine! He promptly sets out to find and murder the former associates who turned state's evidence on him and sent him to the gas chamber in the first place, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. The police investigate this new crime spree, only to find that all the evidence points to the impossible conclusion that the culprit is a man who is already dead!

This could have been a really interesting movie, but it wasn't. A story about a criminal brought back from the dead could explore ideas about the afterlife, about morality, about what to do with such a rare second chance. Having a scientific rather than a supernatural motivation for his ressurection could also be cause to examine the biological nature of life and death and its relationship with the spiritual and philosophical meanings we layer onto it. Indestructible Man doesn't bother with any of that, though. All it wants to be is the world's cheapest monster movie. Who needs special effects when you can just zoom in real close on a very sweaty Lon Chaney Jr?

So instead of anything thought-provoking we get a story told to us by dickhead dick Dick Chasen, who does this annoying Dragnet narration to exposit things that could be better delivered by action and dialogue. He's supposed to be our protagonist but we're never interested in what's happening to him because his situation is never nearly as interesting as Benton's has the potential to be. I don't think the movie wants us to root for Benton, but we end up feeling like we know him a lot better than we do Chasen, through the simple magic of Show-Don't-Tell. Chasen's character development is him sitting in a car telling a woman his life story. The things he's saying aren't particularly interesting, nor is his voice or the visuals that accompany the scene – in fact it's so dull it nearly brought Joel to tears! Benton, however, actually does things to show us who he is, which is much more powerful even when the character is mute, and the things he does humanize him far more than Chasen's less-than-heartfelt speech about police work.

Chasen's motivation in the movie is to find the missing money – this is just part of his work, and he wants to be thorough. There's nothing personal riding on it for him, and therefore it's not very compelling. Benton's motivation is revenge. He's mad as hell at the three accomplices who squealed on him, and everything he does after his resurrection goes towards the goal of taking them by surprise and making good on his jailhouse revenge threat. This anger alone constitutes more convincing emotion than Chasen shows in the whole movie. When Chasen is frustrated, he talks boringly about it. When Benton is frustrated, he breaks necks. The writers probably figured we'd respect Chasen as somebody who keeps his emotions under control, but Casey Adams is a crummy actor so we just don't believe in those emotions, period.

What makes Benton's revenge plot even more appealing is that his intended victims, Joe, Squeamy, and Lowe, are also terrible people. For starters, Squeamy and Joe are thieves and killers as well, and before we even meet them we've already learned that they turned on a friend so they wouldn't have to give him his share from their last heist. The script takes some trouble to drive home that this was shady even by criminal standards – Squeamy is unable to find work as a safe cracker anymore, because others figure that what he did to Benton he's likely to do to them too. Then there's Lowe, who was supposed to be Benton's attourney but did a half-assed job because Joe and Squeamy bribed him. He's also firmly in the Douchebag Box. It's hard not to take a side in this revenge plot, and the side we take is definitively Benton's.

Benton isn't even all bad. Among the people he does not kill is his ex-girlfriend, Eva Martin. Indeed, it seems that he cared about her very much, even after she rejected him romantically – enough to leave her a map to the missing money! I remember when I first saw this episode, I spent the whole movie waiting for Eva to get carried off and need rescue but it didn't happen, and apparently the reason is simply because Benton respects her! Indeed, he respects her a hell of a lot more than Chasen does – at the end Chasen goes and tells her boss she quit, because he's about to propose to her and doesn't want to give her the option of saying no! The scene makes it hard to believe that the script was written by two women.

Aside from that one scene, though, writers Vy Russel and Sue Dwiggins also treat Eva with a great deal of respect. Not only is she never the damsel in distress (in fact, by trying to warn Joe and Squeamy that Benton is still alive, she actually serves a plot purpose outside of falling in love with Chasen! How about that?), she is not condemned for working at a Burlesque! She explains how she ended up in that business and that she stays at it because it's a reliable job and she makes good money. She's on good terms with her co-workers and they support one another when their boss is being a jerk. I've seen way worse depictions of strippers in much more recent movies.

Now about the title. I have from time to time taken issue with these movies and their inaccurate or misleading titles. Examples are many and familiar at this point and I shouldn't need to repeat them. Indestructible Man ends with Charles 'The Butcher' Benton dying all over again, so is its title just another lie? I am going to say no! There's a big difference, after all, between 'dead' and 'destructed'. Benton stays true to his title by being one but not the other! The cops hit him with a bazooka, which clearly causes him a lot of pain but doesn't leave a mark – his actual death happens by electrocution, which fries his brain but doesn't destroy his body. So for all that sucks about this ending, I can't actually complain about the title!

What does suck about this ending is that it's a complete accident! The movie has to end with Benton's death, of course, because even if he's a fairly sympathetic villain he is still definitely the villain of the story. In a better movie, even a better movie made in the 50's, the process that resurrected Benton ought to have been the key to killing him again – even with Bradshaw and his assistant dead, the police could find his notes and make something of them to destroy the indestructible man. Instead, however, we get the accident with the gantry and the power cable, which seems like the equivalent of the lightning strike in The Mad Monster or the garbage truck in Blood Feast. Nobody could figure out how to end the movie properly, so they ended it with a coincidence. As in those other examples, it feels like cheating.

Back at the beginning of the review I observed that this story could have explored ideas of life and death but didn't. When I think about it, I suspect it was something that came up during the writing process and was deliberately avoided. Leaving aside life, the movie doesn't even get very deep into death, which is kind of interesting in itself because it makes Indestructible Man a rather heathen movie. There is no hint that Benton experienced anything between his death in the gas chamber and his resurrection on Bradshaw's slab, not even anything so cliché as the tunnel of light and the voice telling him his time's not up (or whatever the opposite is for people who are going to hell). His threat to his associates from death row, that he will get them somehow or other, suggests that he had some kind of premonition he would come back... but this isn't explored either, and might well be empty bluster on Benton's part.

I'm guessing that having been hired to write a silly sci-fi detective movie, Russel and Dwiggins explicitly decided that the story didn't have the time (or the production the money) to get into the metaphysics of the situation. This is actually kind of a problem, since upon learning that a man has come back from the dead, the first thing anybody's going to ask him is what he experienced. If they had Benton give an answer, it would need further exploration – and if they had him say nothing, it might anger their assumed-to-be-Christian audience. Therefore they chose to make Benton mute, so that no answer could be given. This serves the intended purpose, certainly, but as I observed above, it also ruins any chance of the story meaning anything even without going into the meaning of life. A man who can't talk can't introspect in a way the audience is privy to.

If you want a movie that ressurects a criminal and actually has him re-examine his life and confront ideas about mortality and morality... I'm afraid that's All Dogs go to Heaven. This, sadly, is just The Indestructible Man.

#mst3k #reviews #indestructible man #50s #allow me to recommend a better movie #everybody do the zombie stomp

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wristic · 7 years

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Science VS. Reality

Pairing: If I continue it there will definitely be Mad Sweeney X Reader, for now I was only having a bit of fun in the world of American Gods

Word Count: 1800

Warnings: You being a little shit of a know-it-all

-Part 1- -Part 2- -Part 3- -Part 4- -Part 5- -Part 6- -Part 7-

Growing up in an age with science on the rise, your grandmothers stories are sweet but you know they’re just that, stories. You humor the idea from time to time only to notice a certain pattern and like any true scientist, begin to experiment with it.

Your grandmother Essie was a strange one. Still telling these fanciful tales to scare your siblings and cousins, or leaving out food for the rats every night. Your father never did anything to sway her into the current times, maybe because she was too aged to try but it still bothered you. Science was clearly the wave of the future, its was useful, efficient, and could be so much more magical than little tales simply because it was real. You could see it, touch it, taste it, science was tangible and as magical as it was explainable.

“he might crawl into your mouth and make his home in your belly, for that great eater will take all the good out of your supper, so no matter how much you eat after, you’ll never be satisfied, never, never, never-” Elizabeth started to sob at the story and you rolled your eyes. Your aunt quickly grabbed your cousin and pulling her away, the other kids dispersed feeling too uneasy to stick around. Grandma Essie looked positively distraught, her lip trembling to see the blanket empty of a captive audience. In your pampered youth you didn’t care to acknowledge that with any comfort.

“Why can’t you just barf him up?”

She flinched up to find you still by her side, sighing in exasperation. “Of course a little shit like you would-”

“Or just eat really gross things until-”

“He’s magical! He cares none for what you eat nor your pryin’ to get him out! He’ll be bound to your stomach as you’re bound to keep him in there!”

You nodded, “Good to know you can at least torment him by eating buckets of liver and onions. Uck.”

Grandma Essie ruffled, “Ooh! Someone should eat your liver and onions!”

“I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, I only have one and it’s bitter.”

As she huffed, a reluctant smile started to form on her, turning into a chuckle you were glad to see. Most didn’t like your sass but Grandma Essie always seemed to cherish it. Gathering herself she looked at you a long while, “Why don’t you want to believe in magic? The Otherworld would love your wit if you only believed.”

You scoffed, leaning back in your annoyingly huge pink and blue ruffled dress. “Who is there to show my wit to Grandma? You say you have a leprechaun friend, but you’ve never even seen him! How can you possibly know he exists and you’re not just mistaking coincidence with faith?”

“If I had no faith, if I didn’t leave out milk and bread, why would he come? Why would you help someone who refused to acknowledge you existed?”

“But why believe it at all, why believe magic when you haven't seen it outside of your own imagining?”

“Why believe in your sciences when you’ve only seen it in books?”

“Because I can recreate it.” You pompously replied.

Turning up her nose she motioned to your lap. “Alright, do it now.”

You stiffened, looking about for an answer. “Well I-I need all the proper...stuffs.”

“Oh of course...like milk and bread?”

“No~! That’s different!”

Grandma Essie only laughed in your face making you fume and pout. You felt your over-sized hat that was more an umbrella get plucked from your head. “Oh y/n,” She brushed the fuzzy strays of your immaculately brushed and pinned hair. “Don’t let these things frustrate ya so. Whether it has magic or it doesn’t, try to just enjoy life will you? My little Ceanndána cailín.”

But you couldn’t. She soon passed from you and her death hit harder than you imagined. Her talks and tales of some other world tormented you and you were one night forced to admit it was because you enjoyed her magic and her stories, you missed them. You missed her.

That night in her memory, you left out a bowl of milk, a slice of ginger bread and a gold coin by the window. Sitting in your bed on the second floor up, you stared at the meal under the moonlight, imagining some mean looking red haired man to come and snatch it for god knew whatever reason compelled him to.

Because magic that’s why

You smiled at the thought, feeling your eyes heat as you felt your Grandmother laughing at your refusal to believe. For her, tonight, you believed, and you enjoyed the uplifting mysticism it brought about on you as you threw over the covers and cried yourself to sleep, wondering what it would have been like to take her to the science convention the next day.

When you woke up you were shocked to find both the bread and milk eaten, the coin missing. Quickly to calm yourself you reasoned your father did it, the only possible way to excuse it all missing from two stories up, though you didn’t tell a soul what you’d been up to that night.

It was very quickly forgotten as the convention went far more splendidly than you could have ever imagined. Do to your extravagant outfit your mother always dolled you in you were called up to help in a performance that caused your many ironed and oiled curls to float in the air. You talked with the young scientist afterwards who humored your enthusiasm for hours, him showing you all his inventions in progress.

That night you didn’t care to leave anything out, only for the convention to leave early the next morning when they were supposed to stay a week, making the mans proposal to meet with his teacher impossible.

It hadn’t occurred to you the strangeness until years later as the pattern continued, leaving out bread when you missed your grandmother, having a magnificent day only to be followed by a terrible one. Having turned into a recluse from a world that didn’t accept a woman having an interest in science nor one that ran around in simple men’s clothing, you had no issue with leaving to a large cabin in a vast field, secluded by woods to minimize the damage estimated by bad luck. If that was it could so be called.

You tested again and again, keeping detailed reports of your day, your well being be damned (though you really could have done without the bear attack on your cabin and the shot gun locking up) and somehow you actually produced the same results. In days you left the offerings, you found things once missing, kind people visited, your brain burst with inspiration and you wrote entire dissertations to experiment with once you were home. On days you didn’t, you lost things, suspect people visited, and your fingers couldn’t make a single line, at one point your work somehow caught flame nearly losing it and the cabin itself. You tried to reason it was all coincidence, you were making it up in your panic, but you couldn’t explain how the offerings kept disappearing.

Starting to search for that answer you placed a dummy under the blankets and laid in wait under the bed, watching your window and the food, seeing just what came to eat and drink because it certainly wasn’t your father states away. The first night you passed out long before you could see the dawn. The second you came so close to making it through the night. But tonight, you were ready.

Three young ladies had stopped in their travels and you offered them a place to stay and eat seeing as it was getting dark. They thought you were harmlessly strange and kept good conversation, but you could see the questions as their eyes roamed your messy cabin having been hit off and on with attacks of every kind. Now they slept, giving the illusion no one could possibly be paying attention to the bread and milk on the windowsill.

And then it happened, you heard no footsteps but a large hand came down and lifted the window, despite the fact you had purposely locked it. As the bowl of milk lifted you crawled out from under the bed, quickly and quietly sneaking about until you caught him outside your window.

“Ah-ha!” You hoped out from the door, unarmed, in your knickers and a mans shirt, beaming arrogantly in triumph.

The man had ragged but decent clothes, not so much homeless as it was rough around the edges. His fiery red hair tickled at his open collar and his dark eyes only stared wide-eyed at you, looking at your choice in pouncing attire before putting the empty bowl back to the window next to the bread. “Well this must be awkward for you.” of course his Irish accent was as heavy as your grandmothers had been.

You crossed your arms and drawled, “So you’re my grandma’s supposed leprechaun.”

He sucked on his teeth, turning to face you. “I am a leprechaun.”

“How do I know you’re not just a homeless man out in the woods for a free meal?”

He took a few steps to you, the thuds under his feet heavy now that he didn’t bother to hide it and you held back a gulp realizing just how tall he was. “If you believed that, I wouldn’t be here.”

You squinted at him, swaying because you couldn’t deny that point. “Than it would be no trouble to prove it.”

He rolled his eyes, lifting his hand and producing a single gold coin between his fingers. Turning his hand, you held out yours for him to place it in. “There, keep it for good luck hm?”

You examined it closely, finding it a bit odd the coin wasn’t marked in any currency you recognized. Yet you stopped him as he turned for the bread, “I’ve seen a magic show or two in my day, and those sleeves are awfully long.”

He smirked, at least amused by your stubbornness. Tossing up his sleeves he came back around and grabbed your hand, pulling the palm open and slapping his onto it. When he slid it back a mess of gold coins spilled out, slipping from your hand and thudding on the ground.

You gasped and ripped yourself back. The coins crashed around as you stumbling, holding your hand like it was now cursed and searching the porch scattered in gold coins. “How?! How did you do that!?” You started circling him looking for some answer, him tossing his hands in his pockets enjoying your little shatter of reality. “You can’t of done that! That’s impossible! How did you do it?!”

Coming back around you jumped him and started pilfering around in his jacket for anything.

“Ay-AY!” He harshly shoved you back, “Knock that off! Can ya not gather what you see with your own fucking eyes?!”

“But that makes no sense! You can’t pull things out of thin air!”

He snapped his wrist and out popped three gold coins between the tips of each finger, glinting in the porch light an inch from your face. “I can.”

They slipped from his hand but you didn’t bother to watch them, staring at the man before you, almost convinced a man he wasn’t. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some bread to eat.”

Keeping glued to your spot he picked up the morsel off the windowsill and started eating it in one huge bite, slapping the offered coin out of existence. You kept a good circles distance as he walked by you and off the porch into the moonlit grassy hill, making ready to disappear in the night.

“What...what happens if I stop leaving out bread and milk?”

Turning with his mouth still full, he winked at you, wordlessly revealing you knew the answer already.

#mad sweeney #american gods #mad sweeney imagine #mad sweeney x reader #american gods imagine #my stuff #Science VS Reality #Sweeney's showing off his mad bread eating skills

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gunnerpalace · 7 years

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Let's Talk About Orihime

This is a bit long, so I’m putting it under a cut:

But first, because this requires some setup, let's talk about Mace Windu. Now, someone a lot more famous than me has already had this discussion, if a bit crudely:

youtube

So, in short, Jackson was cast not because he was good for the part, but because his name would bring in extra dollars and an audience that might not have come otherwise.

Anyway, keep in mind the quoted section.

Now let’s talk about Bella Swan. This is by no means the most exhaustive breakdown of her character, but it will suffice.

Throughout the series, Bella is only defined by her relationship with Edward. That is what sets her apart from the other characters. She has no special traits or defining hobbies or characteristics. She could just as easily be replaced with a secondary character and the only difference would be the name.

[...]

This is a product of the bad writing evident throughout the series. Meyer never shows, she just tells. She tells the reader Bella is smart, though, over the series, a veritable mountain of evidence stacks up against this fact.

[...]

Bella's main problem, however, is not her lack of depth, Twilight is a poorly written romance novel after all, you cannot expect too much, the main problem is Bella's essentially anti-feminist characterisation.

Keep this in mind too.

Last, but not least, let’s talk about healers in JRPGs, specifically, Final Fantasy. Now, when people think of White Mages, they think of something like this. And of course this image of healers as chaste, pure, pretty maidens is quite the trope, and begat its own offspring.

This became so rote that eons (almost 20 years) ago, PSM had an article on trying to change up the tropes in JRPGs to keep them fresh. I can’t find the article, but here was their concept art. (The female lead was a black mage, not a healer, and the healer was actually pretty into violence.)

The pinnacle of this trend was, of course, Aeris:

Now, everybody thinks of Aeris as a pure princess because of FFVII: Advent Children, and the associated following Kirk Drift. But Aeris was street-smart and loved to crack innuendo, so this is largely a mass-misremembering of her actual personality in FFVII. (The definitive screenshot LP of FFVII makes the case for this handily.)

Still, you get the idea: healers are pure, pretty princesses.

Speaking of pure, pretty princesses:

(Gee, you wonder if that color-scheme is a coincidence?)

So here’s the thing: Orihime is bait. She didn’t start off that way, but that’s what she became very quickly, certainly by the end of the SS arc.

She is a very shoujo character in a shounen. Who do you suppose that she is designed to attract? The answer, of course, is women, specifically teenage girls who can identify with her. (This is analogous to Mace Windu being introduced to expand market capture.) She serves an auxiliary role through her design, as IH has lately seen fit to constantly crow about: her huge chest also makes her fan service for male readers. (This is like Mace Windu being the “only” Jedi who can balance between light side and dark side and the only one with a purple lightsaber.)

Not only is she perfectly designed to appeal to a non-traditional demographic in addition to shoring up a traditional one, she’s designed to do so through insidious means. Put simply, much like Bella Swan, she was largely designed to be, or became, a tabula rasa. She is a blank slate. What few personality quirks she had to begin with were eliminated to focus her existence entirely upon pursuing Ichigo. We’re told that she’s smart, just like Bella, we’re told that she has an interesting interiority, we’re told this, we’re told that... All of that is systematically eliminated for the sake of her pursuit of Ichigo. She exists for no other purpose. She is the girl seeking to get the guy.

And much like Bella Swan, she is successful in that appeal, because by being so thoroughly bland, and sympathetic in a rudimentary way (that is to say, relatable, because she is aimed at an age-group when people are figuring out how to pursue relationships), she is the perfect template onto which to project one’s desires. She exists for the reader to use as a self-insert.

Unlike Bella Swan, she does have one special trait: she’s the healer. Orihime is practically an archetypal example of the pure maiden/princess archetype of a healer. And of course, her powers are routinely hyped up as something truly astonishing (the, to paraphrase, “transgressing into God’s domain” quote that gets bandied about) even as they are simultaneously dismissed. (Hachi doesn’t regard her powers as special, Kisuke considers her powers dispensable, Aizen ultimately had no use for her except bait, etc.)

Orihime isn’t powerful. For all of her vaunted ability to reject events, she is neutralized by differentials in reiatsu, just like Soi Fon is by Aizen. Against a more powerful opponent, she’s ineffective. Further, she lacks a killer instinct, and was only able to muster it once. (This being in the defense of Tatsuki; some will argue she was ready to hurt Moe if he had been the one to injure Uryuu, but close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and global thermonuclear war.)

What she is, is fast. Soul Society’s healers are able to reproduce her results or better with time, but she can do the same very quickly. This makes her convenient, particularly to the plot. She is an expedient deus ex machina for enabling our heroes to do what they do, and this gives her an air of necessity to their adventure. She seems very important as a result! But we must remember that this is a story with an author, not a record of events, and that stories can be incredibly contrived.

Hanatarou couldn’t fix the degree of injuries she could, or fix them as quickly, but he could largely fulfill the same role—and in fact did during the Soul Society arc. She could be swapped out for another healer, like Unohana, and very little would change except the necessary pacing of events. She exists to speed up the plot.

In other words, Orihime is the perfect synthesis of the three examples I lead off this essay with: she is a cynical readership-expanding token character, she is rather featureless and designed to facilitate audience self-insertion, and she is a Mary Sue with an overstated importance to the plot that conceals her weaknesses. (With the last point: I don’t refer to Aeris in actuality, but more the idea of her that was built up by the extended universe ex post facto.)

She basically became a plot and marketing device.

And the hilarious thing is, she worked perfectly. Her popularity poll numbers were acceptable enough, but it’s the zealotry and rancor of her supposed fans that really tells the tale:

There is the continued focus on her physical form, particularly her breasts; this reduction of her to her character design is a gleeful admission that such was her function in appealing to men.

There is the lack of concern toward her ending showing the final destruction of her early dreams and personality: this reduction of her to her relationship with Ichigo is a gleeful admission that such was her function in appealing to women.

There is the constant defense that she “deserved” Ichigo’s affection because her chaste love was so pure and selfless: this is a gleeful admission that she achieved her objective of standing in for the speaker’s own estimate of their self-worth and value.

Orihime is ultimately utilized as a surrogate for happiness by those who identified with her. She “won,” therefore they “won.” She “deserves” Ichigo, just like they “deserve” their own figurative Ichigo (that is to say, “love”). They extol her “importance” because it means they are “important.”

Not everyone who likes Orihime identified with her to this extent, of course. But I think it’s rather obvious that the diehard core of IH—that is to say, the faction that is presently occupied with making fools of themselves in the ask boxes of IRs—did.

And this is, of course, exactly why this faction of IH is so aggrieved. Orihime does not really exist as a character to them (just as Ichigo doesn’t; but Ichigo at least has a character), she exists only within the matrix of IH, because that is her purpose. When IR, or the fandom in general, rejects IH, they view it as a rejection of themselves. It’s a repudiation of the commitment they made, and of their core being, and thus they lash out. When they demand recognition for their ship, what they are really demanding is recognition of themselves. They are trying to compel respect and love.

The tragedy and irony of this is of course self-evident, but nonetheless noteworthy, for they are in effect being told the one thing they cannot actually cope with:

Santen Kesshun: I Reject!

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anghraine · 7 years

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So, my sister wanted to watch ANH, and I’m a noble and selfless big sister (:P) and agreed. It’s been ... at least a year?

Impressions this time:

- ANH is really a magnificent film, just in terms of how everything comes together and how completely balanced the different elements are. It is what it is—a fancy Western-meets-Kurosawa fairy-tale space opera—and instead of trying to ~transcend~ its origins, it embraces them and goes for executing them at peak quality. Overwhelmingly it succeeds. I think that’s really its strength among the SW movies: it’s not the most ambitious, it’s not the most creative, it’s not the most inspiring, but it is the most cleanly, evenly executed, the one that succeeds most completely and unambiguously at the kind of thing it is.

- I definitely think the TFA=ANH thing is overblown. They’re very different movies with very different characters. The only exceptions are 1) the cantina and 2) the trench run. Speaking of which, the cantina scene remains spectacular. (And the trench run! My God.)

- Rogue One fits in REALLY WELL, while also feeling like an even more profoundly dissimilar film. But it really felt like it picked up right where RO left off. Like a lot of people, I was cackling at Leia’s sheer gall in her “???? HOW DARE” at Vader. Unfortunately, the near-seamlessness had me completely convinced that RO just happened and so I was like “wow, okay, Vader just took off after Leia and Jyn and Cassian just died WAIT WAIT ABORT MISSION DIDN’T HAPPEN BYYYYE”

- I thought the criticisms of RO!Tarkin were overblown (tbh I tended to think that a lot of them tended to forget how uncanny valley Tarkin is to begin with), and that’s also only more cemented. He seemed absolutely like the same person. I also don’t think I noticed before how ... bored? he seems with a lot of it. Like, Vader thinks the Death Star is shit but is gung-ho about Doing Empire Things and Victory!!! while Tarkin tends to be more “eh.” Gets a kick out of puppy-kicking Tuesday, though.

- I know it’s been litigated to hell and back, but the SE additions are in nearly all cases very jarring. (OTOH, going back and updating the terrible 70s computer graphics would have been a very feasible choice!) Similarly, I know it’s stale and everything, but the suggested backstory does seem very different from what we get in the prequels; I kept finding myself mentally working to make it fit.

- If it’s possible, I feel even more strongly than before about how wrongwrongwrong the soft, fluffy, sunshiny!Luke* thing is. Despite his streak of fatalism, he’s also almost invariably confident—sometimes to the point of braggadocio, but in most cases in fact correct. His goals are largely heroic, but he is far and away the most purely pragmatic of the main trio. He’s incredibly naive, but also resourceful; almost all the actual ideas for what to do come from him, and in most cases in a single moment. When Han snaps that “he’s the brains,” I don’t think he’s actually being sarcastic (though obviously he’s being annoyed). Luke is the idea guy, Han is the shooting things guy (which both find frustrating on occasion). Luke combines a streak of earnest gentleness with very frequent abrasiveness. He’s very much Leia’s brother.

(...on that level.)

- Han is incredibly brash and reckless! Sometimes hilariously so. I continue to love the scene where he runs from stormtroopers only to run into WAY MORE stormtroopers and just runs away screaming. He’s interesting because he’s not at all a comic relief character, but he does actually have a lot of it. I think it contributes to his lovability.

- Threepio and Artoo’s relationship remains the cutest, omg. And how did I forget Artoo’s built-in fire extinguisher??

- HELLO WALL-E

- LEIA LEIA LEIA LEIA

- There’s a gifset about how Leia is the only person unafraid of Vader, and I actually disagree. She quite plainly is afraid of him, IMO, quite naturally in the torture scene and then when she backs into him to get away from Tarkin. She just doesn’t let it govern her will or conduct even a little bit. <3

- I remain convinced that all probability is that Vader argued against the destruction of Alderaan, though not for any heroic reasons. I also remain creeped-out by Tarkin’s behaviour towards Leia accompanied by his genuine shock that she would lie to him. Vader is just “duh????”

- I’ve also noticed it before, but it never ceases to amuse me: when Luke and Leia scream at Han about shooting in the compactor, they sound exactly the same.

- Luke is the one who thinks to shoot out the cameras in the detention center.

- Obi-Wan’s lightsaber is the proper shade of blue, but Luke’s/Anakin’s has been left at greenish for some reason.

- ROBOT IS A CANON WORD

- I also think criticisms of the Obi-Wan/Vader duel are overblown. It’s a very different style, which seems odd, but ... looks like pretty normal fencing to me? A bit slower than Vader vs Luke in ESB, but that’s what you’d expect. I definitely got the feeling that Vader was drawing it out for maximum enjoyment, lol, but could have ended it at any moment.

- I love Threepio, but I find Chewie super irritating, sorry.

- Leia and Luke are so pretty!!!!

- Han’s snark about “female advice” remains as “well, fuck you, Han” as ever. I’m also not a huge fan of him going on about how he doesn’t care about the revolution or about her, considering that he knows perfectly well that she just saw her planet wiped out. How Jyn trying to survive is worse than this is just ?????

- Nevertheless, ANH Han is by and large my favourite Han. He’s genuinely charming, while his pseudo-devil-may-care is just ... aww, here’s your YOU TRIED star. Setting the implied incest aside, the back-and-forth with Luke about Leia is super cute. I also love the “no reward is worth this,” haha, along with “either I’m going to kill her or I’m starting to like her.”

- If I didn’t know better, I would definitely have thought Harrison and Carrie’s affair was during ESB, not ANH. The UST seems much less intense here (definitely present, but in a more lowkey, adorkable sort of way).

- Luke and Leia both seem to feel this irrational, near-immediate bond. They tend to pair off and Leia flips out when he’s pulled underwater as much as Luke did when he realized she was scheduled for execution. Luke tends to back her when she’s pissed at Han or ignore it altogether. I also think it’s kind of ... sweet isn’t the word, exactly, but when Luke gives Leia the blaster to cover him while he gets his swinging cord out, he doesn’t seem to have the slightest doubt about her capabilities. And she doesn’t seem to doubt that he’ll be able to carry her with one arm across the BOTTOMLESS PIT OF DOOM.

- That’s also there in the celebration scene; with Han there’s the UST with his wink + her I’M PUTTING ON MY PRINCESS FACE NOW, while with Luke he grins at her and she grins back, like they’re kids together. (Also, I think, a reason the twin retcon—while certainly awkward at points—works more than not. It's much more about this easy natural camaraderie they have than anything else. They’re bros before they were bros!)

- Leia actually isn’t certain if the plans will show a weakness or not, which suggests 1) she wasn’t told Jyn’s full testimony, or 2) she’s not at all sure about it either.

- People generally seem to treat the Imperial Senate as a legit concern—not just Leia, but many of the Imperial officers, and Vader himself takes care to create a smokescreen to keep them from realizing what happened to Leia. The OT is not much for politics, but I suspect the abrupt dissolution of the Senate might have contributed to the expanded Rebellion of ESB and ROTJ.

- Even here, though, the Rebellion does seem very well-funded, and Han’s reward appears to be no problem at all. Also, everyone rides around on little carts.

- Luke totally knew Obi-Wan already and I am personally very doubtful that it took just a few hours or a day to get to Alderaan. Think: Leia supposedly caves about the Dantooine base right before Alderaan’s destruction (i.e., after Han&Co go into hyperspace). The Empire sends a contingent to Dantooine from Alderaan, who find and search the abandoned base, and send a report back. I definitely don’t think that’s something that in its entirety would be handled in a day.

(I always get a sense with the OT—and RO—that we’re seeing snapshots of a wider story, with plenty going on in the empty spaces that’s just not critical, or which can be inferred from what we do see. Luke’s bit with the remote is clearly not his only interaction with Obi-Wan on the trip, say; it’s just a representative bit we see that coincides with the destruction of Alderaan. I think it’s part of the reason it’s compelling in a very fannish way, even though I have very very few issues with the series as-is; normally I get really fannish about things that are super compelling but have a lot of issues I feel the need to address. SW, though, manages to provide those spaces where I want to fill in the blanks, but as a form of storytelling rather than faultlines.)

- Aww, it’s for little children! also have you noticed that one of the charred skeletons at the homestead is contorted weirdly

- I love Carrie’s low voice

- the development of Artoo and Threepio’s relationship is not something I’ve really noticed before, but I was genuinely touched this time? They’re friends, clearly, but they start out at this snappish, intolerant place and Threepio gets increasingly more and more concerned and less selfish. He manages to look devastated when Luke shouts that Artoo is down and then when he offers his own gears and circuits for Artoo, it’s just... awwwww. (Also when they ask Luke if he wants a less beat-up droid and he’s NO WE’VE BONDED. Luke <3 <3)

- Alec Guinness, whatever his private feelings, does a really great job with Obi-Wan as this shrewd, tricky mentor with a deep sense of ambivalence. I think it’s part of the reason the retcon works so well; his behaviour seems entirely credible as someone who’s lying. I also think his :| at Han is pretty hilarious? He’s just seriously?? so much of the time.

- The whole deal with the parsecs was obviously meant to be stupid bragging from Han. There’s no need for an explanation; Obi-Wan and Luke’s faces are both like “...sure, bro.”

- Even the damn summary of the title crawl on the back was like T_T

The Jedi Knights have been exterminated and the Empire rules the galaxy with an iron fist. A small group of Rebels have dared to fight back by stealing the secret plans to the Empire’s mightiest weapon, the Death Star battle station. The Emperor’s most trusted servant, Darth Vader, must find the plans and locate the hidden Rebel base. [etc]

*sob*

But, just incidentally, there is never the slightest indication given that the team of spies didn’t actually make it out of their mission or that there’s any particular tragedy around the first!!!! victory!!!!!!! They’re never explicitly pointed out, but there also isn’t any occasion for doing so; we don’t see anyone outside the purely military arm. No senators beyond Leia (who’s only there to bring the plans, and had originally intended to go to Alderaan anyway), no Mon Mothma, no operatives of any kind beyond soldiers, pilots, and commanders. It looks like they evacuated everyone else, so even if the Scarif mission had gone precisely according to plan and like 75% of them made it out, there’s no reason for them to show up in ANH anyway. But yeah, basically all we know is that the team that recovered the plans was a small and brave one affiliated with the Rebellion.

*feel free not to remind me that the sun is powerful and dangerous. this is a metaphor

#anghraine babbles #anghraine rants #/#//#///#////#/////#star wars #luke skywalker #han solo #leia skywalker organa #threepio #artoo #anakin skywalker #governor tarkin #obi wan kenobi #the skywalker twins

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princeofny · 5 years

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Inside the Empire: The True Power Behind the New York Yankees – Book Review

It would be a stretch to compare Inside the Empire: The True Power Behind the New York Yankees to a piece by Leni Riefenstahl mirroring content usually produced and presented on the Yankees’ state-sanctioned propaganda ministry, the YES Network. Were that the case, it would have been penned by Jack Curry, had twice the ingratiating obnoxiousness and a quarter of the skill.

Still, within the first 20 pages, the direction of the narrative was clear as the authors – Bob Klapisch and Paul Solortaroff – dumped on, in order, Derek Jeter, Joe Girardi and Joe Torre. Ranging from a Yankees icon to a Hall of Fame manager to a key role player and World Series winning manager, they had fallen out of favor in the Bronx for a variety of sins and were cast out to the purgatory not limited to estrangement, but to open hostility.

This is no coincidence as it occurs simultaneously to avoiding foreshadowing (or foreplay) or any other writerly (or sex-based) techniques and going straight into the borderline pornographic worship of Brian Cashman. Reading between the thinly veiled lines, Cashman could also be referred to as “The Man Who Could Do No Wrong.”

Part of the book’s disappointment and failure is not the story itself, but of the expectations that preceded the news that it was being written in the first place. For those who read baseball tell-alls like Ball Four, The Bronx Zoo and others, a yearlong case study followed by an autopsy regardless of the outcome holds tremendous allure. Unfortunately, the writers retreat to the safety of the current trend of “baseball business” books, most of which pale in comparison to the initial and admittedly interesting while incredibly flawed and misunderstood Moneyball. Post-Moneyball, The Extra 2% was the next and last of the immersing stories that had yet to be told. After that came the love letters to the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Chicago Cubs and Theo Epstein, the Houston Astros and Jeff Luhnow, and a few others, all of which were agenda-based, misleading and largely dull.

It’s tiresome not just because the stories have basically been told, albeit in different forms with a different cast of characters, but because the stories are so repetitive and devoid of criticism. This goes beyond the caveated individual mistakes that turned into learning experiences with substantial blame doled out on others since the main characters certainly couldn’t have been at fault as that would have sabotaged the entire goal of the story: to create a hero even if there wasn’t one.

The book doesn’t enter the realm of The Yankee Years by Torre and Tom Verducci where Torre aired his gripes, executed his vendettas and cemented his self-created and media-promoted visage of a combination Vito Corleone and the Pope, but Cashman and Torre’s perception of what occurred during that time and, by extension, how that impacted his replacement Girardi, are key parts of Inside the Empire.

The baseball business book model might be what publishers are looking for and what editors steer the narrative towards, but for those who want an insider’s perspective, it simply no longer works. We want meat, not cotton candy.

Perhaps Klapisch was scarred by what was, on the surface, a legitimate attempt at a tell-all with The Worst Team Money Could Buy about the disastrous 1992 New York Mets. The book itself was also a disappointment for those who hoped for a day-by-day diary of spending spree, a cast of compelling characters and a promising season that quickly devolved into a nightmare, but it was far better than this patched together mess, a book that tries to appeal to the Yankee fan and retain access while taking care not to offend anyone who is still closely affiliated with the club.

As much as Klapisch says those Mets players labeling him as someone who can’t be trusted did not affect him one way or the other; that he was not intimidated when Bobby Bonilla physically threatened him, for someone like him, who is and has for a long time been under the impression that he was not just a journalist who covers the team, but a peer who sees himself as a player, this is a scar that could have been reopened had he been completely honest about the 2018 Yankees and not diluted the tale so as not to “betray” anyone in whose confidence he was taken.

And therein lies the problem. The authors traded access for the lavishing of praise upon the characters who remained in the Yankee family.

Aaron Judge? Awesome player and human who everyone loves.

Didi Gregorius? Emerging leader whose good humor and affability masks an intense competitor.

CC Sabathia? The Yankees’ version of Yoda.

Aaron Boone? Wonderful guy whose even keeled demeanor was a marked departure from Girardi’s twitchy tightness.

It goes on and on.

At its end, there is an open question of Cashman’s blueprint of power above all else, ignoring situational hitting and strikeouts, wondering whether he would eventually look at the Red Sox and Astros and admit that perhaps adaptation needed to extend beyond the restructuring of the organization and adherence to cold numbers, accepting that the analysts didn’t know everything and there was nuance to the tactics by using the strategic single rather than every swing being for the fences.

The one remaining Yankee who did get criticized was Giancarlo Stanton, but even that was limited to a hand-wringing, halfhearted musing of his positives and negatives.

Gary Sanchez – the player who deserves to be slaughtered for his inattention, lack of fundamentals and bottom line laziness – is largely spared from a deserved lashing.

Boone is protected from criticism for inexplicable reasons that one can only surmise of him being a nice guy who is so completely devoid of any responsibility apart from following orders and providing monotonous platitudes that the team could have won 100 games if they stationed a mannequin in a uniform at the corner of the dugout and used a series of wires for him to perform “managerial functions.”

It all reverts to Cashman and his vision; his goal; his intent when masterfully taking charge of the organization and nudging Hal Steinbrenner into the direction he wanted.

The excuses are mind-numbing and fall into precisely what the late Boss, George Steinbrenner, would not have tolerated not because he was an unhinged, raving lunatic (he was), but because he would have been right not to want to hear that Sanchez's lackadaisical behavior was because he was injured; that Boone's absence of fire was a positive; that Stanton repeatedly striking out was part of the $300 million package. Nor would he have quietly acquiesced to the other explanations as to what went wrong as a team that won 100 games was discarded like irrelevant debris by its most hated rivals.

Cashman tried to assuage the concerns of fans and media members who were slowly coming to grips with the reality that this was no longer the Yankees of The Boss by proclaiming the organization a “fully operational Death Star,” implying that the so-called Evil Empire had gotten its payroll under control, rebuilt the farm system sans the Boss’s constant interference and template of preferring to trade young players for proven veterans while spending on exorbitant free agents, and was again prepared to combine tactical decisions with price being no object to return the Yankees to baseball’s pantheon not with a sole championship to break their decade-long drought, but with a team that was set to be the next dynasty.

In truth, it was unabashed hyperbole. Without Darth Vader, there is no Death Star. And The Boss was the organizational Darth Vader and proud of it. Instead, the Yankees’ ultimate weapon is more something out of Mel Brooks with Cashman as Rick Moranis’s “Dark Helmet,” someone who looks unimposing in person, sounds unimposing in practice, and is a technocrat who seized power piecemeal with an admittedly admirable Machiavellian efficiency and has decided to use that power to be like every other supposedly forward-thinking organization in sports and hope for a chance at a championship rather than winning the championship itself. The constant statements about accountability are nonexistent under this regime because no one is getting fired if they fail; players are unafraid of checking their names on social medial for a missive from the deranged Boss; and a Little League credo of “just try as hard as you can” is deemed sufficient.

And that’s not the Yankees that George Steinbrenner built.

The book could have been an exposé of what would otherwise have been a failed season for the Yankees, but was instead a borderline celebration of what they have become with the architects credited for its own sake. Had they ignored the fallout of telling truths that would have angered the organization, the book could have been excellent. Instead, it’s another generic tale about the baseball business, the kind we’ve seen too much of already to be memorable.

#Yankees #Brian Cashman #MLB #Books

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