#He's the most likeable villain by FAR but nobody seems to care about him at all | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

deltaengineering · 5 years

Text

Fall Anime 2019 Part 2: Fanservice

Choujin Koukousei-tachi wa Isekai demo Yoyuu de Ikinuku you desu!

Here we go. We’ve had some isekai that wasn’t totally bad for one reason or another, but of course that couldn’t last. Choujin Koukousei-tachi wa Isekai demo Yoyuu de Ikinuku you desu, or Choyoyu if you want to be merciful, or High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World if you want spoilers, is so nakedly isekai that I’m actually kind of confused. You see, usually isekai is about some loser that gets transported somewhere where his mediocrity is overwhelmingly powerful. I don’t like it, but I get it. Choyoyu, on the other hand, is about a bunch of kids that are already hax and get transported to another world where they’re even more hax and also elf girls give them tongue kisses. Is this for people who are so emotionally fragile that they don’t even want to be reminded of how much they suck in their isekai power fantasies? Then again this is written by someone who also thinks that politicians (one of the kids is the prime minister of Japan... yeah) are supergeniuses, and that if you max out journalism, you prestige class to ninja. Yes, it is more or less comedic and so bizarre that it almost seems like an attempt at parody again, but lemme check something real quick...

Nah, I’m all out of benefits of the doubt and running low on fucks as well.

Azur Lane

So, Azur Lane then. I could tell you all about how it’s a gijinka thing about World War 2 warships, but then you’d say “isn’t that just Kantai Collection” and yes. Not to mention that Azur Lane seems to be more popular than Kancolle now, so either way this isn’t very surprising. So let’s just go over the differences: Azur Lane isn’t almost entirely Japanese ships, and there’s a three-way fight of Axis vs Allies vs Aliens going on. The upshot of this is that Azur Lane is mostly shipgirl(s) vs shipgirl(s) and not everyone vs mobs. And that’s it for the one difference that matters, apart from that it’s a bit more varied than the Kancolle anime was, but that just gives it an uneven tone that swings between Gochiusa-levels of fluffiness and lesbian twincest aircraft carrier villains hamming it up. Characters? We have several dozens of them, thanks for asking. If you play the game or stalk Danbooru/Pixiv religiously, you might even care about them. The (supremely silly) action is technically alright, but doesn’t reach the level of “impressive”, and of course it’s hard to follow with so many obligatory participants. I’d label this one “fans only” and even for them I’d assume it’s just decent at best.

Null Peta

This is a short about a child genius that misses her (dead?) sister so much she builds a robotic version of her. Several mishaps later and she’s stuck with something that most closely resembles Doraemon if Doraemon was all ara ara and also all mofu mofu (apart from when the spikes come out). As far as wacky children’s adventure comedy shenanigans go, this seems to be fairly agreeable, but where it really shines is how it looks. This season admittedly hasn’t had a real sakuga heavy hitter so far, but Null Peta comes the closest to one since it looks quite dope, especially for a weird random short. 5m/week and nothing too annoying make this one easy enough to follow up on.

Chuubyou Gekihatsu Boy

Here we have the example of an anime where I would admit that it’s pretty good at what it wants to be, but what it wants to be is just intolerable. This appears to be a reverse harem with the theme of all the boys having some shade of chuunibyou (if you gotta ask, you don’t want to know) going. I even like the protagonist girl, she’s likeable and shows a bit of personality when being exasperated at the gang of incredibly annoying idiots surrounding her. But that’s the problem: In particular “Red”, a genki runt with a sentai gimmick, is a show destroyer all on his own. The others aren’t quite as bad as him but I’d still accept maybe one of them per harem at most. It does alright in execution, visuals, timing and so on (DEEN’s “poor man’s SHAFT” team, cf. Meganebu, seems to be seeking a comeback), but you’d have to be embarrassingly thirsty for idiot dick to put up with this shit.

Val x Love

Just to prove that I am an equal-opportunity harem h8r, here’s a non-apparently non-reverse one and yes, it also sucks. Not only is it easily the cheapest looking show so far, it’s also reminiscent of the Conception school of harem setup: If you must know, Val x Love is about an ugly ogre of a dude whose lonely house is suddenly stuffed full of Val(kyrie)s (= 9 Japanese harem archetypes because, you know) by none other than Odin himself between cuts. He then has to fight some monsters by cuddling one of the Vals, which unlocks their super or something. Barebones, uninteresting and crappy looking, this one is a real stinker and should be of interest to nobody.

Fate Grand Order - Absolute Demonic Front Babylonia

It’s the seventh story arc of the hit mobile RPG Fate/grand order! How do I know? Because they talk about how they skipped the previous six ones, presumably because they’re boring. Or more boring, at least. It’s Fate, and I know an embarrassing amount of details about Fate (e.g. enough to know that the Rinclone that appears apropos of nothing is Ishtar), and I’ve even seen First Order (which sucked), but this stuff is impenetrable, yo. This iteration on F/go definitely doesn’t care for people who don’t play the game, rare as they may be, and at best you’re supposed to let the proper nouns wash over you and enjoy the spectacle. It’s just that it’s CloverWorks this time, and while an attempt was made, shit just blows up way gooder over at ufotable. So the spectacle is insufficiently spectacular, and Mash is still insufficiently moe. In the end this does nothing to change my opinion of F/go away from “functionally identical to every insipid homebrew Servant thread on /a/ ca. 2010, also Shiki can kill Servants, discuss″, and I ain’t watching 2 cours of that.

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun

Iruma-kun is a goodhearted boy whose scumbag parents sell him off to some demon, who then transports him to hell and enrolls him in demon school where demons try to step to him. Isekai and battle harem is my first suspicion, but not so fast! It’s not a light novel, and while the general gestalt of this setup might resemble a certain conical helix, this appears to merely be convergent evolution. In other words, it’s just a funny kid’s manga, and it’s not even bad for that. It’s colorful, moves at a decent clip and I was moderately amused by the antics of Midoriyaface trying to dodge the ol’ KILL BY DEMONS. It’s just that I also know that this is very much not for me, and while it’s better than say, eIDLIVE, I don’t think I want to stick around. Props where they are deserved, though.

#anime #impressions #fall2019 #Azur Lane #Null Peta #Chuubyou Gekihatsu Boy #Choujin Koukousei-tachi wa Isekai demo Yoyuu de Ikinuku you desu!#Val x Love #Fate Grand Order - Absolute Demonic Front Babylonia #Mairimashita! Iruma-kun

91 notes · View notes

praphit · 4 years

Text

SM3: Nice Jerks are the Worst

I don't know about y'all, but I had big plans for 2020. Now, maybe those big plans will still happen, Idk. But, this was supposed to be our year! - that's what people say, right?? This was the year that you were going to go on that vacation. You were going to drop that dead beat spouse, leave that spouse with the kids, and run off to Mexico, right??!. You were going to start that business. Gain that weight. Come out of the closet. Finally tat that left butt cheek. You were going to stop doing hardcore drugs. Maybe this was going to be your year to start doing hardcore drugs. I'm not here to judge, only to ramble.

But, 2020 quickly turned to shit. Now, we're all looking for someone to blame. Someone has to pay for our horrible haircuts or hairiness, our newfound hatred for our families, and for plenty of much more serious stuff.

I, personally, like to turn to movies for lessons about life. And I think I have the perfect movie to help us figure out who to blame - you guessed it "Spider-Man 3"

This first attempt at a motion picture SM was doing so well. We loved Spidey (though some didn't care for Tobey Maguire, playing him).

Spidey and Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) are adorable. Then, this thing showed up and everything turned to shit (not unlike Covid-19).

Let's look into what went wrong, and who is to blame.

First, let me say that I really liked the action in this movie. There are three villains in this movie: Venom (played by Topher Grace), that thing you see above.

Green Goblin (played by James Franco), who is... a green goblin.

And Sandman (played by Tommy Church), who has a body that is now kinda made of sand - which seems silly if you pick it a part... though so does a man with the powers of a spider.

There was lots of action, and it was all shot well. There is one action scene where there is NO ONE around... I mean NO ONE. It's frickin NY. Peter Parker (not dressed as Spider-Man) and Green Goblin are causing all kinds of damage and making a lot of noise, and not ONE new yorker has anything to say about it? Unless you're a healthcare worker, I bet new yorkers are still cursing at each other from their homes. This was glaring, but Imma let it slide, cuz the action was good.

That's about all of the good I have to report:)

Quick plot recap:

1) MJ and Petey are on the rocks 2) James Franco is an asshole, trying to destroy Peter for killing his father (which he didn't) 3) Venom is trying to kill Spidey (what else is new??) 4) Venom, at one point, infects Peter Parker, to become "Black Spidey" - this, of course, is also when the people of the city started to hate him.

5) Oh, and Peter, mm! He's the worst. I've got something for him later.

There are two major reasons why people talk shit about this movie.

1st - Casting/Characters

Nobody is likeable in this movie

From the very first scene, MJ is singing to us, annnnd it's sooooo boring. I don't think it was supposed to be. Someone in the audience should have been booing. We can’t just allow entertainers to get comfortable, thinking that they can do whatever the hell that they want! - that’s how you end up with stuff like this

It was like, if Snow White were to perform a number for a large crowd.

Just Snow White - I ain't talking about no cute animals around or the suspense of menacing dwarves that might turn on Snow White at any moment. Not even a prince who might be gay (that’s the word on the streets). Just a long movie filled with songs from Snow White; that's what we're talking about. First, MJ bores me, then she's pathetically whining throughout the whole movie.

Sandman is cool (despite his love for striped shirts), but we don't really get to know him.

Side note: He gets his powers by accidentally getting trapped in a science experiment. The scientists, btw, ( And Lord knows what they were up to) knew that something could have been trapped in there, assumed it was a bird, and kept on going. See, this is why certain people don't trust y'all.

James Franco is James Franco (an asshole). Not worth a pic.

Venom doesn't really have a personality (and his host... well, he ain't no Tom Hardy)

PLUS, Peter Parker is a dick (again, we'll get to that later).

The most likeable person in this film is JJ Jameson, and we're not really supposed to like him.

A person with that look shouldn’t be your most likeable character.

Look at this stage -

Who is likeable up here? Fauci, maybe? But, betting by the amount of times that he puts his hands to his face,

- there are things he's not allowing himself to say, so though perhaps likeable, if we can fully trust him. And as far as Trump... Even Trump supporters can't HONESTLY say that they LIKE the man (I mean, if he weren't the prez, would you honestly want him around? - your family?). They certainly can't say that they trust him - though I guess the amount of people looking into ingesting cleaning products after Trump mentioned something along those lines, would beg to differ.

This is the group we're looking to for direction?!

And this is also a problem in the movie. I have to be able to like SOMEBODY!

I need to be able to trust someone to stop the cheesy-written shit storm that is this movie.

"Cheesy Shit Storm" - how bout that for a visual? :)

2nd - dance numbers!

I actually didn't mind the first one, when Peter is dancing through the streets.

Ha! Wow, he is going for it. Come get it while it’ s hot, ladies!

It's odd, but it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be funny, and it kinda is. You ever dance a lil bit while you're out at a store? I know I do; especially now that we're wearing pandemic masks - no one knows who I am. NBD to dance a bit in public, but if you keep going passed a certain point, it just becomes annoying.

That's why the second dance number is bad. Plus, it doesn't make any sense.

At this point MJ and Peter have broken up. She's singing in a bar, and Peter interrupts her song with a dance number (while using his new girlfriend to poke at MJ). Now, While MJ’s songs of boredom deserve interruption, she didn’t deserve that.

Venom is like a drug. Venom brings out the worst in a person. You're telling me that Peter Parker, with all of the rage built up from Uncle Ben and villains and his life not being all that great; the best or I should say "the worst" that he can do is Jazz hands? With all of his superpowers, he should be out there slaughtering everyone in sight. I mean, he did slap the shit out of MJ though (by "accident"). That's when he snapped out of the evil dance number. I don't know what kind of message that sends.

"MJ, it wasn't until I slapped the holy hell out of you that I realized the error of my ways, so... thank you? I'm just going to go on about my day now."

I see this misguided scene as a metaphor. Peter Parker is dancing around his issues:

His relationship with MJ has been bad. He's on that stuff (Venom). And honestly, MJ knows that he's Spider-Man. Why couldn't he have just explained to her what was happening?

"Sorry, baby. I got possessed by an alien again, you know how it is."

And he was dealing with the fact that the person who killed his uncle is on the loose. Another side note: MJ, even though they had just broken up, still cares for Peter while he's dealing with the news about Uncle Ben's killer. That's a damned good friend right there! - especially the way Peter had been acting towards her.

We've got to deal with stuff, people! We can't just get bad haircuts, wear weird clothes, and do drugs! Eventually, that will lead us to slapping the shit out of someone that we love. There are a lot of realities that we're prob not facing at the moment (and some we prob have no intentions of ever facing). A lot of things that we could have done to prevent certain things from escalating, but... we were busy doing our typical dance.

Peter was warned about Venom and did nothing about it. He told himself, "I got this", and clearly he didn't. Honestly, the whole city was screwing up by not helping Spider-Man at all. At the end, when the big fight is happening, and MJ is near death, everybody is just watching all of this go down. Where were the cops?! The S.W.A.T?! Other superheroes? New Yorkers themselves! - they're bold! But, to be fair, Venom came from outer space, so... it was a bit unprecedented; people were prob scared. I'll cut them and Spidey some slack.

You know who I won't cut any slack - Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker!

Peter Parker is a jerk. I'm thinking that Tobey's Peter Parker has always been a jerk; a nice jerk, but a jerk. Have you ever met a nice jerk? They do all of the things that a regualr jerk does, but they'll rationalize their behavior, and look puzzled when you react to their awfulness. I didn't notice this in the 1st movie, cuz I was just happy to get Spider-Man. I didn't notice in the 2nd movie, cuz those kids were just too darn cute. But, his niceness was so annoying in this movie. And he treated MJ horribly : He never listens to her, he’s always late, he only talks about himself, he’s too damned nice, he never knows when they’re in a fight, he kisses other women right in front of her and then is like “What did I do?”

I kept wanting her to punch Peter out; he would have deserved it.

The foundation of the character of the 1st Spider-Man was a problem from the start! If the foundation is shaky, then - whew! I'm glad that we finally fixed it:)

Plus, he never said he was sorry. He did one of those "Well, I'm not perfect." things. She ain't asking for perfection, just quit being a jerk!

A better movie would have been if MJ had been infected by Venom. For starters, she would have given a better performance, in the beginning. Something more like this -

She would have banged Peter's friends. She would have destroyed her critics. And most importantly, she wouldn't have taken any shit from Peter. That could have been the main plot. Instead of a convultued blend of three villains around the nice jerkiness of Peter, it would have been Spider-Man vs MJ - beatening each other up all throughout the city; though I guess that would be considered domestic violence. But, why dance around real issues out there!

It could have been a family-friendly movie about drug abuse (Venom) and domestic violence... and possibly some make-up sex in the middle of the city. But, after that, one of them, if not both, are going to jail! We gotta deal with the problems, people!

Grade: an entertaining D+

I did enjoy it. It wasn't as bad as I remember it, and I'd prob watch it again. But, I can't deny that on a technical level, it's crap.

"Who’s to blame?" isn't really the question. It's more "Who deserves what percentage of the blame?" There's a lot of blame to go around here... even to us who enabled Peter's jerkiness in the first two movies.

I like the direction that we're going in now.

A better Spidey A better MJ Better villains

And even a better Aunt May

- looking all good with Tony Stark.

- imagine Tony aggressively flirting with the older one

10 notes · View notes

aotopmha · 5 years

Text

I saw the Broly movie in a specific way (as it is I have no other ways to see it anyway - low or high quality) and have been stewing on it a little. I'm probably going to write a much more elaborate post once the highest quality version is out. I'll also try my best to not give many spoilers here and keep it vague, but I will address the big spoiler everyone knows - Gogeta.

So, here's the stuff I really liked:

-Goku's character. He cares about getting a good fight going into it all and as always, is naive in not entirely good ways, but you also see him be very empathic and sweet and care about protecting the Earth. The usual, technically, but above all, I appreciate the balance here. I was never bothered by DBS exgaggerating Goku's traits at points to the point where I hated his character (some of those points are actually very interesting to me), but it did bug me a few times. Here, the balance is pretty much perfect to me. Aside from that, he does have a pretty interesting character moment at the end of the movie (not the obvious one, but rather something the moment implies) - it's something that will only be obvious if you think about Goku's initial story in OG DB, perhaps even something that could entirely be nothing or unintentional, but a bit of character writing I think that potentially creates a parallel between Goku and Broly that I regardless found interesting. I even thought they would make it one of the central points of the story, but it's there in a much more subdued way, to the point where it could potentially be unintentional, but I chose to think it's not.

-They fixed Broly and actually made me feel for him. He has a pretty clearly defined personality, and above all, motivations that make sense and are very human. He's still pretty basic, in that he is reserved and barely speaks, but that's part of what is also unique about him to me. Much of his personality comes from his expressions and manner of behaviour, rather than a very complex perspective on the world or elaborate dialog. The complexity he has also comes more from the circumstances and the interaction/relationships with other characters around him, rather than a straight-up clearly defined character arc. However, out of any new characters introduced in Super, I think he is the best example of a character that could have an arc that could go in several different directions. Out of most of Super's new cast I feel like he has the most room to do something with. Rather than being just a story that is finished by the end of the movie, this movie feels more like a beginning for Broly.

-Paragus. Paragus is an interesting villain because he's 100% a villain, but you can still get where he comes from - and he actually even has an arc that leads to his villainy.

-Chirai is really fun and very likeably justice-driven and proactive. She's the "heart" within the movie along with Goku and I love her for being so empathic. Lemo is the crusty old man sort of counterpart to her, empathic, but more passive about it.

- Freeza is entertaining humor-wise, but also still very hateable as a villain. I like his further development into a more effective villain. He's kinder to his subordinates, ready to retreat when things look bad, rather than just doing everything to get a victory right away - undoubtedly evil and self-serving still, but much more calm and collected about reaching his goal. It wouldn't surprise me if being so lax with him would later lead to very bad things.

-The more diverse portrayal of the Saiyans. They're not just a cold-blooded warrior race, but we also see regular workers like Gine or Beets and the social stratification of the whole society plays a big role in why the story takes place at all. Basically, we get a much more nuanced look at the Saiyans.

-Piccolo's brief role. I really liked his moment with Goku and his moment with both, Goku and Vegeta later on was a blast.

-Animation and music were mostly spot on. Great, great stuff. I thought there was some odd music placement in one scene, but beyond that, I think even some of the sillier-seeming music choices fit. There were a couple of CG moments, but they didn't distract me all that much and outside that I thought the movie looked pretty excellent throughout. This is in fact probably the best Dragon Ball has ever looked and the other big reason I can't wait for the high quality version of the movie.

I had parts of the movie I wasn't as big on as others, but I didn't straight-up dislike anything in it.

-The fights took too long. Particularly the Gogeta fight felt too long. It was a pretty-looking battle, but that was just it. The fights with Vegeta and Broly and Goku and Broly, plus their double-team at least had character stuff going. The Gogeta fight is pretty much 100% fanservice stuff outside of the finale, which did a very cool perspective thing with both participants of the fight. But, again, at the very least, it was REALLY pretty-looking fanservice stuff.

-Related to that, while it fits the more focused nature of the story, it's really odd that nobody else but Piccolo seems to notice the battle. In fact, I think Broly could've been restrained by Gohan and the other fighters just as well as Freeza.

-Gogeta is pretty much the weakest link to me in terms of plotting, though. Again, imo, nothing that ruins the whole thing because I think the outcome would be same no matter which way - getting the Potara (Goku could have just gotten them from Shin by quickly teleporting there, the movie does not address this, it just says they don't have the Potara or Senzu) would've just prevented maybe some of Freeza's beating. I think a Fusion or something of that level was actually needed considering Broly's green-haired form clearly kept up with Gogeta and he went into it after being pushed by Gogeta, so I can believe Goku and Vegeta individually would've been beaten if they pushed him.

That is, if you don't consider Ultra Instinct. Ultra Instinct probably could've also done the job, but they dance around that by having Goku do the smart thing and retreat before it could happen that he is pushed too far and have him opt for the Fusion instead. If that didn't work out, Ultra Instinct probably would've done the job, too. You could replace any of them because with any option Broly would probably be pushed into his green-haired form and defeated. Gogeta has just never been used before, so it's a more unique option.

-The Minus stuff went past pretty quickly and I actually think the rewrite is very much better than the initial Minus story, but it's still kind of bland. Bardock's story fits in what the Saiyans' life is like much better, but Gine is still boring and I still basically felt nothing for this part. In this case though, the purpose for it was just setup, which is another reason why I'm more alright with it.

I think the series has had much worse writing moments than these and it makes me happy this is the most I have to complain about. It's all mostly quality of life stuff to me and doesn't break the story or it's ideas.

Above all, I appreciate that this movie took something soulless like Broly's character and gave it soul - portions of it are clearly there to just please the fans, but the whole thing is tied together by pretty strong and heartfelt character writing and themes.

I want to definitely recommend it. If you can, support it. I want DB to continue have such heartfelt stories and look so good. This is a very good direction for the series, even if I'm bummed about the older side cast not getting to do much.

I have much more elaborate thoughts on basically all the characters and, again, 100% can't wait for the HD version. I also can't wait to dig in the themes. It has a very simple, but human core.

Right now, is it my fave DB movie? Not sure. I think it's up there.

Right now, out of those I've seen, I think only BoG tops it, though. We'll see how I'll feel on rewatches.

#aotopmha talks

3 notes · View notes

survivorsunsetrodeo · 3 years

Text

Ep 8 Pt 1 | I Am The Loop! - Taylor

THE WAY I PLAYED MYSELF OMFGGGGG

If I had just fricken voted for Chloe lmfao!!!!! God I am the worst Survivor player ever. The good news is that I think everyone kept me on the revote????

Frankly, I may have fucked up my game, but at least it was the round before merge maybe??? I don't know if jury will start after this next tribal, but my goal was merge and I am PRAYING to all that is holy that I made it.

Holy fuck!!! Megs going and two idol plays!!!! We love the drama!!!!! I manifested Megs going before merge and here it is!

youtube

Just so y'all know what went down....

I voted for Jacob, BUT I told Jacob I voted for Ali and I also told Ali I voted for Ali.... lmao BECAUSE ALI SAID HE VOTED FOR ME!!!

This is honestly the most crackheaded thing I've ever done. Ari knows that I voted for Jacob.... which could be bad? but I trust them not to expose me just yet.

Y’all making merge is such a fricken relief honestly. But also I’m scared af. I think there are a lot of eyes on me. I’ve survived so many tribal councils. People have to know I’m connected. I am not gonna down play it necessarily but I’m gonna try to blend in.

It seems like there are quite a few people mad at each other frim the other tribe. I can see Nic and Brandi being targets quickly bc of their tribes last tribal council. I need to minimize my target as much as I can now. I need to like meditate on it and see what I think is best.

First impressions of the two people I haven’t met yet are:

Jabari - very outspoken, had great energy. I think jabari is likely fiercely loyal but not afraid to play dirty when she has to. I wanna pick her brain a little bit about her swap tribe dynamics. TSL - I really like her! She has a good spirit and seems like a really strong social player. She is someone to watch out for but could be a good person to have on my side.

My plan moving forward is to stay swap tribe strong for as long as I can, but also, if Ali needs to go home.... he needs to go hone

youtube

WE DID IT I MADE MERGE I CAN FINALLY BREATHE AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

oh my god oh my god okay. so tonight HAPPENED and i sure did predict it right from the start! i sure did tell ali not to do it and he sure did it anyway! but it's fine this is actually kind of excellent because it means me and jacob look entirely innocent, dan now trusts me even more fully and feels guilty for not telling me what he was doing, i have less of an obvious connection to ali, and we can go into merge with the idea of drama / discontent in order to more effectively mine intel.

so anyways. all that aside, let's talk about MERGE itself! here's where i am at, should i choose to believe everything i've been told: -jacob and i are bffs final 2 until we die -ali and i are also obviously gucci always -dan allegedly trusts me more than anyone and constantly thanks me for being so amazing -josh and i are a secret pair beware where we'll have each other's backs even if we end up on different sides of the numbers -taylor is absolutely thrilled to have me back and acts like she's just regrown a missing arm about it -brandi wants to get to know me and is working with tsl so might actually mean it -nic and emma are ???? dont really care tbqh sorry -jabari is also very ?????? that's [checks notes] six out of nine people who at least have expressed interest in wanting to work with me, if not outright proclaiming their undying love & affection. do i believe all of it? hell no - but it's a pretty good starting point!

i think this season twist is actually going to work really well for me because usually when i make it to merge, the sequence of events is: a) ari wants to work with everyone, b) ari tries to work with everyone and play the middle hardcore, c) ari eventually gets caught playing the middle and sent home for being a threat. BUT this time there's so much more room to maneuver about the votes because i can literally tell anyone i voted however they wanted me to and there's no proof against it. so i guess my primary objective = get everyone to love me and be my bff jenna-style, then tell them what they want to hear, then pull all my puppet strings to get all of them out. listen, it's the first night of merge and i am allowing myself to dream big. while we're at it then, let's have my ideal bootlist!!!!

10th place: jabari. nothing personal, i just think she's the hardest person to connect with socially and strategically from my past experiences. maybe she'll prove me wrong, but from what others have told me about how she's been on the new beeho, it doesn't seem like it. also this round jacob wins immunity. 9th place: emma. i said it day one and i'll say it again... galapagos has spoken and they've gotta go. i win immunity this round and tsl buys a gun and tells nobody but me about it. 8th place: nic. this is mainly because i think dan has some kind of attachment to him that'll be hard to shake for a bit but by this point nic will have gotten himself into enough hot water and dicey scenarios that dan won't find him worth the trouble and will be happy to let him go. jacob wins immunity again, probably in a really cool big-brain live challenge. 7th place: this is where we get down to people i actually want to work with so it'll be interesting to navigate but i think josh has to go here. he hasn't been doing enough socially and i was never gonna take him to the end anyway. sorry host bestie! we'll mix it up this round and let dan win immunity just to feel good about himself bc he's probably had a rough few days and needs a break. 6th place: ali. ily bb but you gotta go sis, you're gonna drag me down with you if i let you get too far! i'll act like this is a big shocker to me but jacob will have found out about it. also i think an idol will get used this round for sure and maybe even another secret advantage. 5th place: this is the last time i can use my gun and by chance it happens to also be an idol so i am going to use it to shoot tsl outta this game. we'll let jacob win immunity again. 4th place: brandi. honestly you stuck it out way longer than i expected and it's been an honor getting to know you but you're far too likeable to get close to ftc! there will be some unnecessary drama but it won't actually matter that much. oh and jacob won immunity for the fourth time but he gave it up to me. 3rd place: i can't believe i let dan get this close to the end! sneaky sneaky! if it's a final three that's fine because i can attribute his early survival and merge moves to myself, but if it's final 2 then he's gotta go and tell the jury how great i am (i cried during the live tribal it was very emotional). i think we all forfeit immunity here as it's the only fair thing. 1st and 2nd place: ari and jacob will split the prize in a first-time-ever deadlock tie and will both share the rodeo crown. i win the fan favorite though obvs. tsl is player of the season and ali is the best villain and brandi is the hero that everyone loves. all the hosts pick jabari as their fave.

I made merge!! Yay! Me and Ari bout to secret pair beware this game #TeamLasagna

me josh and nic are the cutest alliance i feel so bad for megs but oh well she gonna win retirement home second chances she highkey ate thats why she had to go i feel like rn my chances are low rn of winning but im here to cause chaos have some fun and have me or my allies win special shout out to josh without them i would wanna quit but that would suck and shout out to nic too i am kinda scared for merge but im really excited i dont think these people would take the easy route if not thats not trying to win but who knows tbhh i kinda want old pearl back together lowkey but im not sure im trying to think of my target list rn so rn im just gonna try to be more social then i was a few rounds ago make sure that i can get my footing back like i did pre swap!

mmmmmm MMMMMMMMMMMMM this is starting to look very fun and festive over here! the more intel we gather the more it's becoming clear that this first vote is gonna be a taylor/brandi versus nic/emma/josh/jabari bonanza with the four of us sitting pretty getting to decide who we want to work with. i'm personally more inclined toward the taylor/brandi of it all, what a coincidence that the four people i was least enthused about are also all working together... gonna call with dan and compare notes more later but i am feeling very optimistic

also people i want to work with to people i want out v soon OG: Pearl Josh> Nic> Dan> Brandi this is tough i really love og pearl probs the fav og tribe i ever been on like ever...

og beeho Ari > Taylor (she a threat i think taylor is lovely and like them alot )but i dont wanna go super far with them ) > Jacob > Ali >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Jabari.. Jabari is nice but idk if i can work or trust with them tbh i like everyone left haha also im aware or think that ari is the biggest threat but would i maybe die on my sword for them.. if i work with them yeah.. im not that person that i was a few years ago

Why is everything I know a lie? Apparently Megs never wanted me in her alliance of her, Brandi, Jabari, and Taylor to begin with and only added me because Jabari requested it? Which I guess is why they thought her and I were a duo? I'm having trouble understanding what Meg's vendetta was against me. I literally have spent the entire game trying to socialize with her and Brandi and I thought it was going well?????????????????????????????????? What did I do to her?????????????? Genuinely????????????????????

Anyway. Jabari is so kind. I really feel like I can trust her now. I feel like this merge vote will come down to Me/Emma/Jabari/Josh vs. Ali/Taylor/Brandi with Dan, Jacob, and Ari somewhere in the middle. I have the most confidence of Dan working with us but even with his vote it'd be 5-5, not to mention Brandi has a double vote. But atleast our side has an idol.

It seems like I am once again on the bottom for no reason. Even in her absence Megs is fucking me over.

youtube

My headspace is so fucking bad rn about this game. I just feel like even tho I’m probably in a decent position that this competition will be won by more dominant people than me. This challenge definitely doesn’t play to my strengths and idk wtf to do.

I talked to Ari about it and they really want me to try hard but I just like really don’t care... if I’m the next to go, I’m the next to go. I must be such a horrible ally bc I am seriously checked out rn.

Dear Jsh, if you have any brain cells now is the time to use them. I need to speak to Brandi and Dan and solidify something with them. I also have to reach out to Ari to see if working with them is an option moving forward. I got the vibe last round that Taylor was only using me to survive the Megs and I mean....fair I was doing the same to her but I’m hoping she doesn’t find out that I’ve been lying to her by saying I voted Nic. I really hope Ari doesn’t snitch. I don’t think Ari is a rat but...you never know!

The way I see it me, Emma and Nic have two options. Work with Ari, Ali and Jacob or work with Brandi and Dan. Working with New Pearl seems like a no brainer since we hold majority easily but the question is if they ARE willing to work with us. The problem with solidifying an OG Pearl alliance is Brandi doesn’t trust Nic and I don’t trust Dan. What Nic wants to do is bring in Jabari and kick out Dan and have a 5 person alliance with AARP (me Nic and Emma) + Dan and Jabari which I am defenitely not on board moving forward. I can work with them for one round but I honestly would rather work with Ari and Jacob both who I actually talk to regularly. I just really need to make this alliance to happen because I like to work with people I actually get along with.

As far as the vote is concerned...Ideally I would like to vote out Taylor or Ali this round because I can’t figure out where they stand but Ali is an unlikely person to be voted out because Ari is protecting him.

first merge boot be lookin good for me if people dont put in effort into speaking to me why should i try? jabari i dont want to target them anymore its not smart i need to talk to brandi alot more also idk im kinda tired thank god i got the idol.

dan is having a rough time today and i feel bad :( it also doesn't help that ALI decided to tell nic that he thinks dan is a threat which ofc nic ran and told dan right away so i had to be like ali wtf don't do that!! and he was like no but its good for us bc they'll think we aren't close...... that is NOT THE POINT RIGHT NOW ALI!!!

youtube

#confessionals #AintNoGloryInTheWest

1 note · View note

truffuri · 6 years

Text

Long Ass Post About my (mostly negative) Thoughts on P3D and P5D

I’ll save everyone the trouble and let you know that Shinji, Ryoji, and Goro aren’t confirmed (yet) for being in P3D or P5D and I just want to express something.

Let me just say I’ve pretty much given up on Atlus a lot these past few years. Persona 4 is probably my favorite game of all time and I constantly find myself going back to play it even with all of its flaws. I’ve been very invested in the Persona franchise for years and I’ve played and purchased just about every SMT game and spin-off to come to the US. And I’ve given up on Atlus making anything that makes sense, instead of just reusing the exact same ideas that have shown to make money in the past.

Let me also say, I’ve given up on Ryoji. He’s my favorite character in Persona 3, but hey I’ll be realist. He’s in the game for about 1/8th of its run and isn’t a part of S.E.E.S. I don’t know why I had faith that Atlus would ever want to try and rewrite one of the shittiest main villains in all of the Persona games or perhaps give him a second chance. Even though it's obvious from his treatment in the movies and in the stage play they tried to give him a bit more something but completely ignore all that effort to go back to the idea that no one is buying P3D for the boys they only care about their wifus. Even though Ryoji is not presented as a villain and it seen as the MC’s best friend, and is a character specifically written to be sympathized and pitied to be likeable, fuck that. I’ve given up. I can kinda get the logic behind Ryoji, I do still have faith that he probably will be added in the game as a one song, $5, DLC character (I mean if Adachi got in so can Ryoji).

But honestly I don’t understand why Shinjiro isn’t immediately confirmed for the game. It’s like Atlus loves writing characters you are clearly supposed to like and then forgetting about them because “oh yeah, well he died so everyone probably just forgot about him by the end of the game”. Shinji is as much a member of S.E.E.S as Akihiko or Mitsuru are. I see him as more of a permanent member than Yukari or Junpei ever were. And I mean I’m being real here, why the fuck is Ken Amada in this game if Shinji isn’t? Did they just think that because Ken was in Arena Ultimax he suddenly became likeable? Shinji is a much more iconic member of S.E.E.S than Ken (because lets be honest, if there was one character in the entire game I never saw coming in any way shape or form it was Ken Amada. I knew Koromaru was gonna be a member of S.E.E.S before I thought Ken was). If Naoto can get into P4D, why the fuck can’t Shinji? They’re in their respective games for the same amount of time pretty much, just that one is presented in the middle and one is presented at the end. It’s pretty shitty in my mind to reduce Shinji down to a DLC character, because he actually was a lot more valuable to players than that. If you want DLC characters you can have your hands full with Metis, Koromaru, Chidori, Ryoji, Elizabeth, and Theodore.

P4D had 10 characters that each had 2+ songs. So far P3D has 6. That seems way too low in my opinion? If they are sticking to the idea that each character kinda gets their own style of remixes (which they should because that’s about one of the only design choices I liked in that game) then that means that each character would get about 4+ songs to themselves? That seems like a bit too much, and it would be better to space it out over other characters so you can have a more colorful cast of kids all having a good time. Akihiko and Shinji dancing together is about as iconic as Yosuke and Narukami tbh???

Goro I have the same opinion on pretty much, don’t write a character who is specifically meant to be pitied and liked when you just throw him out like trash because he’s not Futaba the ultimate wet dream wifu. I think it would be an interesting dynamic to get him to dance with the other characters, something that you really couldn’t get from any of the othes. I don’t know why Atlus treats Goro like the terrible stepchild in every single piece of media they release despite the fact he was an important character in the game and they obviously took time designing him a persona, a full moveset, and a phantom thief outfit like they did all the others. The only nice thing I will say for Goro possibly being a DLC only character is that P5D just doesn’t have the source material to draw music from so it might have a thinner OST. P4D took from P4, P4G, Arena, and PQ and P5D is only gonna be able to take music from the one game, so it’s possible they couldn’t come up with enough songs to hold 8+ characters (because I’m assuming the velvet room attendants are also going to get their own song like Margret did) and have everyone get at least two each. But I doubt that's the case and most likely they just wanted to use the space a Goro song would take up for about 4 thousand more models showing off Anns ass (the fact they seperated the girls and the boys in the PV is very, “don’t worry your wifu’s are also in the game too” to me) I also didn’t have hardly any hope for Goro to begin with because he is constantly thrown to the curb.

And the reason I just don’t get any of this, is because I doubt many people who don’t like Persona are interested in these games. I mean, stand alone they suck as rhythm games. If you want a good rhythm game on the vita or ps4 don’t worry, project diva has got you covered with many choices to choose from. They’re making a game that is supposed to sell pretty much only to their fans, and then cutting out key characters and expecting nobody to care? Or selling them as DLC characters because you fucking know people like Adachi too much to pass up the nasty ass remix of Fog?

And I’ll leave with that I guess. I do have quite a bit of faith that they’ll make all of the above characters DLC songs, but I don’t agree with that choice. If a character is a main character, is presented within the game as being part of the team (S.E.E.S or Phantom Theives) than they should be treated just as much as a character as the others. Atlus needs to take a tip from Danganronpa and learn to treat characters who live up to the end or die in the first hour all the same (with the exception of main boys and highly debated love interests). They might be saving a few characters as unlockables like Margaret was, but I’m pretty sure those positions will be easily filled by Elizabeth and Lavenza/Caroline/Justine.

But with all that being said, I am disappointed but I also am happy these games got green lit. I do get tired of Atlus’s constant reusing of the exact same game method but I’m still a slave to them and get happy when I see other characters I like in cute outfits and dancing around on screen. I just wish they all could be there because it feels so incomplete without certain members.

#persona #personal

1 note · View note

kokeggy · 7 years

Text

my brain is filled with ouma and i cant stop it

i totally forgot the time man, its almost been 2 months since i played the game and it totally didnt feel like that at all

i still can recall a ton of things fluidly and as for now i dont see a particular reason to replay the game (other than wanting to get to know ouma better)

but oumas character is just.. so tragic. i cant even begin to explain the depth of his character, it would be pages long and im way too lazy for that. ill always just write mental drafts and let myself feel when it comes to ouma

ill a cut here since its already a bit long rn lmao

and i think ouma is a character who is deeply troubled by his insecurities/possible mental illnesses (such as bpd or servere depression) in a way that these insecurities are his most memorable characteristics. that is absolutely sad and tragic

furthermore since the moment i started to play this game i always thought it was suspicious that ouma claimed he hated liars even tho he was one himself. sure that couldve been one of his lies, but my intention rlly didnt like this idea so i thought he was actually speaking the truth. i realized today that ouma was hinting at shuichi that he hated this persona that he had to create for the sake of this game

but i do agree that i sometimes tend to overthink ouma lmao while is incredibly intelligent, he couldnt have figured everything out, plus his trust issues and paranoia were in the way of looking into every possible situation. yet i somehow believed that he did a lot of stuff while being completely aware of their consequences - but thats not possible. ouma is not a superhuman who can figure out what happens to the world in [insert year]. hes a character with deep flaws which balances his cunning behavior

to his actual personality, i might seem like the most biased person in the world but i truly believe that ouma didnt want to harm anyone. its just that the killing game... happened lol

as far as i can self-insert, i do believe if i happen to be in a killing game i would be quite similar about it. minus the creating a fake persona thing for me its absolutely impossible to trust 15 people whom i just met that they wouldnt kill me under stress. you know, if you activate the right buttons on someone, they can work how you want them to. and this is what feared ouma (rightly so)

anyways i take the anthologies as canon material since theyre approved and licensed by spike chunsoft, and we obviously see that ouma is nowhere near as antagonistic as he was in the game. although, i only have read the first anthology (also while we are at it, i cant wait to buy the thjree v3 anthologies even without knowing japanese, lulz)

but we also see his character actually getting darker and darker with each chapter, with chapter 4 probably taking the point. esp on when it ended. at first i was kind of conflicted about his oversentimal reaction towards gonta being executed, because that felt just as fake as his overly evil presentation afterwards. altho after some time thinking abt this, i came to the conclusion that he just leaked a little bit of his juicy true self(tm), realized that what he meant was actually genuine and then proceed to vent his emotions in making him seem like the most villainous person u ever met. because i think one of the reasons ouma acted out like is because he believed he was at fault for gontas death. so instead of trying to sweet talk yourself, he just took the oppurtunity to make him the least likeable person. cuz who would ever want to like someone who jokes about genuinely being concered about someone dying? yeah no one dude

also i think ouma is ironically a bit well-mannered (yeah guis im not joking here). .. .if we ignore all his stupid pranks.. so you see, whenever i got rejected after dates with ouma in salmon mode.. it went like this for example “eeh, wow you are going to the libary with me and now you want to leave? that hella rude man, why am i wasting my time like this” or “wow you really must think highly of yourself if you think you are worth changing for, how arrogant” which looks like he knows what is appropriate and what not

i remember what he said that and i suddenly went like “shit i cant believe im hearing this from you man” which was kinda funny as a side note btw

anyways, to his motive video. oh shit, his motive video . . . even without having known how messed up the translation was, that damaged me.-.. i mean i always thought that ouma exaggerated the size of his organization, at some poiint i just thought that his entire organization was a lie and his tru talent was the ultimate liar. which obsly wasnt the case lmao

but his motive video.. just wanting to prank ppl for laughs and entertainment. its so light hearted compared to what he claimed it to be that it hurts another thing that i think is worth noting is that DICE was his motive video, not his family. DICE, who is like family. but not his actual family. what does that mean? does that mean that his actual family wasnt like family to ouma? i sure as hell thought so and i still do

a different thing is that ouma said that nobody would care about him dying and that his organization would be better off without him, plus that it seems that monokuma said that ouma knows what happened to DICE in the motive video which leads me to.. uhh.. what if ouma did something he absolutely regretted doing (since it caused DICE trouble?) - but im not entire set on that theory

its also sad that he constantly had to hint about hiimself instead of just talking abt it to shuichi. like, he wanted shuichi to help him or actually even hinder him at carrying out his plan, he low key hoped for it because shuichi is a detective which showed to be shrewd enough to be able to make proper deductoins in class trials, furthermore he isnt a dick towards ouma and actually respects him in a way. something that ouma most likely didnt calculate

which mades the statement that shuichi said in the end of chapter 4 even more painful. shuichi was the only person that ouma kind of trusted and relied on. and prob the only one he wanted to show his true self to, that very person told him hes 5 ever alone with no friends at all. that hes a pathetic little brat who should start to view the world differently (def not what shuichi said 1:1 but.. yeah idk my own interpretation)

im pretty sure that hurt ouma a lot

hnnng, i truly wished for ouma to be one of the survivors. altho i figured that hes gonna plot something absolutely mind blowing in chapter 5, i seriously couldnt believe that he was actually dead... well, not until the closing argument. as soon as there were the words “closing argument” all over my screen i began to cry like an idiot. i couldnt even read properly man, thats just how blurry my vision was from all the tears

in other hand: i was (and still am lol) extremely attached to ouma and his death was very unsatisfying, since he died quite heroic but nobody considered him so. also he never made up with these ppl. also fuck kodaka

#drv3 spoilers #ouma kokichi #my posts #im trying this very sleep deprived so excuse me for my grammar and spelling mistakes u will ever seen one #ill try to correct it after i get some sleep

2 notes · View notes

bolbianddolanhouse · 5 years

Text

BNHA self insert AU

Nani the heck is this? Read here!

Chapter 30: Ya Wey! Pinche Pendejo Wey!

To make things short of security for the hero class, the school is getting real tired of these twinks and their stubborn asses, so they’re being closely monitored but everyone has to fend for themselves. The intel students couldn’t care less about the notion, fuck these hero students.

-Homeroom, intel 2A class-

“Good morning students” Diya started class looking more run down than usual “as you all know, we don’t have to fend for those hero students as per Nezu’s say. So we’re back on track to our studying for finals” he motions toward Mimi, Jin and Me “and for you 3, labyrinth practice test is the day after the last day of the school year. I expect you to train independently for it.”

“Yes sir!” We barked back unison. Jin raises his hand.

“Yes Matsui?”

“Do we get priority for reserving training gyms on weekends?”

“Not sure but I’ll let you know by the end of the day” Diya clicked his pen to make a note for himself “But in other news, a few more redesigns came in for fitting plus there will be no field section for this final” he puts his pen in his breast pocket “since all of you have proven well enough that you can hold formations, lead others and follow weapon safety after all these villain attacks. That counted for field work credit and physical points, so no need to show me again things I know you’re great at.”

The class collectively sighed in relief, our concern was mostly on the physical part of the final because of vehicles and mechs portion. Now we can focus on what’s important. I go about my normal day and feel the most amount of dread entering my last class of the day.

“Class, today we will be doing some spar work” Aizawa announced after taking roll, which I guess is just marking me down as present “I have the pairings on this sheet, match ups are based on weaknesses and flaws in combat” he taped the sheet on the wall next to the door “as you walk out of the door to dress out, take a look at your pairing.”

I check mine and I got....Midoriya?! The one twink I didn’t want to be paired with. No matter, I had to do the thing and I just wanted to get it over with. We were all over the gym in our pairs, the goal was to use no quirks and improve weaknesses.

“Please go easy on me Palma-san” Midoriya whimpered as he bowed to me before we got things started in the gym “I know I’m no match against you.”

“Oh geez already with the weakness?” I scoffed “come at me like you would with a villain, right now is the time to show me up and take me down.”

“Okay, here I go” he cleared his throat “give back Kacchan! You villain!”

“I guess that works” I shrugged before striking at half force, Midoriya was taken back with my speed and directness “Izu at least try to hit me back” I connect my lunge punch to his chest after some quick punches “it’s embarrassing to see you so dependent of your quirk, what’s the point of all that alone training time in the grass if you can’t land a hand on me?!” I pushed him hard enough to knock him on his butt.

“You’re just so unpredictable and have zero weak spots!” he yells back as I tower over him “how am I supposed to take on the one person nobody has defeated yet? Or come close enough?!”

“I can think of 5 off the top of my head” spoke a voice that silenced the class “they’re all over her body and super obvious.”

The class muttered but I was getting defensive “WHO ARE YOU?! Show yourself coward!”

“Now now” spoke a different voice, an oddly familiar voice “I know mommy isn’t around but this that how you talk to your guests?”

“HEY if you’re just going to hide in the shadows and talk your big talk” I pound my chest to provoke “then you can go and eat my ass!” the class gasped at my hostility at these 2 voices.

“INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE YOUNG LADY! Someone oughta straighten you out!” as they finished their sentence, everyone saw a dark mass rise from the ground and morphed into my size and shape. Without warning, this mass lashes out at me and I dodge and avoid the best I could.

“Dirty tricks!” I grunted after realizing I can’t land any sort of attacks on this mass because I can phase right through it, like it was my shadow “can’t face me yourself!”

“Oh you want to lose today?” taunted the second voice “then so be it!” the sound of flute trill froze me in place, leaving me no chance to react.

“Nygh! I’m- stuck” I was full on panicking now and so was everyone else “who are you?!”

“It’s been nearly 2 years since our last meeting” footsteps followed with that statement “did you already forget about me?”

“Surely you remember me once I play your song” the second voice said with the flute introduction to Wave by Antonio Carlos Jobim playing, at that moment everything clicked.

“NO FREAKIN WAY!” a big dumb smile broke onto my face and the paralyzation lifted. I turned quickly to see my two mentors that helped me on my journey away from home “it’s you! it’s you, it’s you! AHHH!” I ran toward them chanting with my arms out for an embrace.

“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” Kaminari bluntly asked “who are these two Palma-san?”

“Guys, these are my mentors, Mr. R. Lee Hemingway of US Homeland Intel and Sgrt Sergei of Austria Intel” I introduced them to the class “Hemingway here was actually my band teacher before I was sent away and he helped me with codes and technical stuff. Sergei was my weapons and quirk combat mentor when I was in Austria for those 2 weeks of transitional.”

“What kind of quirks are those?” Midoriya asked very forwardly.

“I have shadow manifest, if it casts a shadow, I can use it to fight or help retrieve” answered Sergei “good for long range but usually I let my Natasha do the dirty work” he whips out this polished black glock with the name ‘Natasha’ engraved in the handle in a fancy font.

“I have 2 quirks, sound wave and paralyze” Hemingway explained “I can produce sounds that can break anything with my whistling or, my personal favorite, with musical instruments!” he plays a plays a low note on the flute and it made Aoyama’s pants fall “that was a note low enough to break a belt buckle fastener. And I can paralyze any creature with just one look.”

“I didn’t know that was his hidden quirk!” I giggled “I just thought he was so intimidating that I just naturally froze in place when I pushed it too far.”

“Oh how you just LOVE to disobey me” he ruffled my hair “you haven’t changed a bit, have you? You little scamp!” he turned to the others “she makes it so hard to not like her! she’s super talented and smart that I’ve just grown accustomed to her defiance.”

“Yes, very much so” Sergei sighed “I pity the man that’ll end up marrying her and reproduce more curly-haired ‘fuck all the rules’ youngins.”

“Gah shut it you!” I playfully shoved Sergei “but why are you here? I’m pretty sure yall couldn’t just come to visit.”

“You’re right, we’re actually here to train you for your Labyrinth practice exam” Sergei cleared his throat “you and your squadron for the next few weeks.”

“We know all about all the added stress of these villains with flawed logic” Hemingway put his hand on my shoulder “so we’re here to give you 3 the best chance at completing the practice one so you can do the real one later in senior year.”

“Really? That’s so- wait a minute” I got sentimental until I remembered something “who sent you over?”

“Damn you’re good at this, it was your caseworker” Hemingway chuckled “I’m impressed by your intuition and quick thinking” he turned to Sergei “she really has come a long way from being my pupil and musical prodigy.”

“How was Palma-san in America?” asked Mina “is it true that she was a quiet and timid girl?”

“She was but that’s because you aren’t allowed to use quirks in public” Hemingway answered “since there’s no need for fighting as she was the most likeable and smart young lady in school, everyone painted her in this good light. But I guess you all see her as this strange, bold and powerful little lady that can do anything.”

“America doesn’t sound very progressive for what they claim to do on the news” Shoji thought aloud “No hero culture and no power to the people, just oppression.”

“Well if you put it like that then yea America fucking sucks” I laughed nervously then turned to the two men “shall we go to my squadron? I’d love to introduce them to you!”

“Yes lets!” Sergei responded “excuse us, it was very nice to meet all of you.”

We walked to the main building and I broke the silence “How’s everything back home? Any sign of break through?”

“I wish I could tell you that things are going to be okay” Hemingway deeply sighed like he didn’t want to say what he was going to say “they’ve claimed the whole district and killed everyone that tried to rise up against them” he stopped and turned to me to make full eye contact “they killed Gio, Rigo and Trigo. They formed into a vigilante trio to avenge you and they were slain one at a time by the gang.”

“My section?! They’re gone?” tears well up in my eyes, it seemed not that long ago we were messing around in the band room after practice “but they were such sweet boys, why would they-”

“Your death brought the bravery out of everybody to fight back” he wiped his tear “they followed your example of bravery to protect your friends and myself to bring attention that we are in desperate need of hero culture. I don’t know how many more deaths are needed to bring the change we need” he wiped my tears “but you’re leading the fight you started for a safer community.”

After some consoling and more updates from home, I introduce them to my squadron to get a full training run down. For the next 3 weeks, we’re on a strict regime of training, no drinking and no social time. Just hardcore training but we also had to miss out on all the fun things like the dance and kick-backs.

-Night of the dance, Hero dorms-

“Iida-kun, can you help me tie this?” Sero asked as he knocked on Iida’s door “If you aren’t too busy.”

“Oh no, please come in” answered Iida “what needs tying?”

“Iida-kun you aren’t even dressed?!” Sero exclaimed “weren’t you going with Palma-san to the dance?”

“Not this time” he got up from his desk chair to tie Sero’s bow tie “she’s under strict training for her practice test, she looked so sad when I asked her to be my date again and told me why she can’t go.” He sighs “That was a week ago and I’m a bit concerned for her, she hasn’t spend any social time with anybody since her mentors showed up.”

“Oh oof I’m sorry she had to decline” Sero sympathized with Iida “well, thanks for tying this for me! See you when we get back.”

-Meanwhile, in the Intel dorms-

“I don’t want to move!” Mimi groaned face down on the floor “my body feels broken.”

“It was nice of them to give us tomorrow as a healing day” Jin tried to make light of things after a very rigorous day of training “sucks that we can’t go dancing with the others.”

“Welp, I’m gonna have a soak” I floated myself to the bathroom “nothing like a hot bath to pass out in after a training day.” I take my bath and get envious of all the fun everyone is having at the dance and how I had to decline Iida’s offer to be my date. I imagine things going right if I went and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get that slow dance kiss. After getting pruny as heck, I dry off and get ready for bed when I get a text from Shinso.

[Hey, I heard you couldn’t go to the dance. Are you upset?]

[A little, I really wanted to dress up and one slow dance at least]

[Hmmm, that can be arranged... Meet me on the hero roof in 20 mins in any dress you have on hand.]

I start freaking out and show Mimi and Jin. They also get excited and help me choose a dress. I didn’t wait for Shinso to show up first, I teleported to the roof the moment I was ready. He arrived 3 minutes later.

“Oh, hey” Shinso was taken by surprise “I didn’t expect you to come early, were you waiting long?”

“Nah I teleported in like a minute ago” I kept my excitement contained “so I’m here, in the nicest dress I had in my closet” I smoothed out the front of my floral print chiffon dress “kinda wish I could’ve dressed up a bit more fancy.”

“Are you kidding me? You look stunningly gorgeous” he put down his bag to hold my hands in his “and in purple, my favorite color” he kissed my hands “I know you really wanted to go to the dance, so I wanted to bring a little bit of the dance to you” he took out a portable speaker and connected it to his phone to play a pre-compiled playlist, he bows and presents his hand “may I have this dance?”

I take his hand and giggle. We danced and I forgot that I was in pain earlier, my heart was fluttering in happiness, this is what I’ve always wanted a partner to do for me. “Ya know Hitoshi” we lock eyes “if I didn’t know better, I’d say you want something from me.”

“Like what?” he pulled me in closer “I know you’ve been working hard and I just want to do something nice, nothing to repay.”

“Are you sure I can’t repay you for your kindness?” I tilt my head “nothing at all?”

“Seeing you happy and being around you is enough for me” he changed his hand positions “I missed your company.”

“Yea, training has been rough on me” I put my head on his shoulder “just another week and a half of it then I take my practice exam.”

“I hope I can go see it” he puts a hand on the back of my head “I’m going home for the holidays but I’m not sure how soon I’m leaving.”

“Oh that’s exciting” I perked up “last year the whole hero class couldn’t leave for the holidays so just spent it together.”

“How did that turn out?” he chuckled.

“Annoying! Half way through festivities I teleported to the intel dorms and celebrated with my friends.” We spent more time talking and slow dancing. Forgetting about the time and longing for the right moment for a kiss. The moment finally presented itself when Love by Keisha Cole played, at the climax of the song we locked eyes and closed in for a kiss. This kiss was different, it gave me those sweet and warm feelings in my chest...Shinso is the one, game over y’all, this is love.

“Wow, so that’s how it feels like” he says after pulling away from the kiss “to kiss you after pinning you for so long.”

“You, pinning me?” I was being sarcastic “no way!”

“I guess a confession is in order huh?” he laughed off my comment and motioned me to sit on the blanket he laid out “Let me start from the beginning, it’s embarrassing but, I’ve had a crush on you since you came back from you 1st practice test.”

“The first?- OH! the pro-hero take down one?”

“Yeah that one” he held my hand “since then, I’ve been just observing you from afar and practicing my proper introduction to you because I wanted to stand out from the rest that was trying to get your attention. Since then, every time you waved hello to me in the hall or talk to me in passing, I lose my cool once you’re out of sight. I developed my feelings over time as you helped me with my placement exam, I’ve never met someone so kind and charismatic as you” he diverted his gaze “not going to lie, when I saw you holding hands with Iida, I got jealous until you said he’s just a friend. I just really wanted to be the one to hold your hand and have all of your attention like the way you looked with him” he squeezed my hand a little “but who knew that you already had eyes for me, all the playful moments and serious ones spent together. It has made me confident to say that I like you and I want to be all yours...but,”

“But what?” I asked softly as I felt his tone change and his hand letting go of mine.

“I understand that this isn’t the right time to start something” he looks to the starry sky “life is putting you through the ultimate test and you can’t be spending your energy on romantic relationships, at least not now” he turns to me “I won’t be the added stress to your life like everyone else, when the time is right, we’ll start our chapter.”

“You’d really wait for me?” I asked, in near tears “am I really worth the trouble?”

“Of course you are” he caresses my face “I’d never let you slip out of my hands and wait as long as it takes.” We kissed again and again, the ease of mind made me that much more excited for the day we’d be in a serious relationship.

-Fast forward, day of the Labyrinth practice test-

“AGENTS!” Hansai barked at the first years in the auditorium with multi-paneled screens “as you know, our beloved trio of upper-classmen are going to take the labyrinth practice test, take note on their techniques and quick thinking as you might need it when you go on your internships in a few days.”

“LABYRINTH PRACTICE EXAM IS IN FULL SESSION” blared the announcer on the speakers “AGENT 21, J.MATSUI WILL BE DEPLOYED IN 30 SECONDS.”

“Our King is going up first” blurted out one of the underclassmen “I hope he makes it out!”

-Meanwhile, at the exam-

“Breathe baby boy” Mimi hypes up Jin “you have studied the blade and now is the time to cut ‘em!”

“Thanks guys” he walks up to the double doors to the starting area “I’ll see you on the other side.”

“You’ll do amazing sweetie!” I yell as he walked through the open door. Mimi and I await in the holding area for more announcements. 10 minutes later we get an update.

“J.MATSUI IS UNABLE TO CONTINUE THE EXAM, CAPTURED IN THE 3RD STAGE.”

“Oh no, poor baby” Mimi gasped “I wonder what happened? He never gets caught lacking.”

“AGENT 20, M.M.OLESHIN WILL BE DEPLOYED IN 30 SECONDS.”

“See you on the other side” I give Mimi a quick hug “you’ll do great.”

“See you on the other side” Mimi said as the double doors started to open “I love you.” I sat alone in the holding area, tapping my fingers on my knees to calm myself. What seemed forever, I finally get an update.

“M.M. OLESHIN IS UNABLE TO CONTINUE THE EXAM, KNOCKED UNCONSCIOUS IN THE 6TH STAGE”

“Oh fuck” I yelped “she was also caught lacking, she’s always so careful not to. What the hell am I up against?!”

“AGENT 19, I.PALMA WILL BE DEPLOYED IN 30 SECONDS.”

I walk up to the double doors to await my time “Lord, if you’re listening” I look up to the celling “please grant me the courage and strength to complete this exam.” The double doors open and I dash in to the first stage, a simple task, find the key to the hostage’s shackles for a later stage and gather intel on the ‘villain’ on the final level. “hmmm, so they’re a fire quirk villain. Doesn’t seem too difficult.” Second level was defusing, simple cut the blue wire situation and check for other explosives. Third level was taking down a group of lackeys, though difficult, I powered through to move on. Fourth level was retrieve the object without triggering the alarm or traps, easy peasy with my quirk. The fifth level was were I ran into trouble, it was an empty room and I couldn’t figure out what to do at first. After 5 minutes of looking around, the room filled with smoke, making visibility difficult. I get to the next stage door and see it was different than the others, it had a 4 digit pin code to unlock! I remembered something from the 1st stage and used it as the pin-code, lucky me, the door opened. With no time to catch my breath, I close in on the sixth stage. I see why Mimi was defeated, Eraserhead was in this room.

“Well! I was hoping to see you Miss Agent” Aizawa flashed his smile at me “what tricks are you going to play for me?”

I lower my visor and reach for my pocket “I’m gonna juggle!” I pull out 3 black balls from my pocket and wave them in my hands “lookie lookie! no quirks!” I start juggling.

“Well I’ll be damned, the circus is in town” Aizawa laughed “do a backflip!”

“Okie dokie!” I toss the balls up and do the back flip, the moment the balls hit the ground a blinding flash of white ignited.

“Flash grenades, dirty tricks!” Aizawa grunts as he rubs his eyes. But it was too late, I dashed behind him to copy the erasure and activated it before he could turn around. He realized what I’ve done and chuckled “you never cease to amaze me, but try this on for size!” he used his capture device but with some quick thinking, I used the net gun before the device reached me.

“That was fun” I propped him up on a pillar “see you later!”

“Best of luck Miss Palma!” he yelled as I ran through the double doors.

Stage seven, just this one and one more to complete. I was met with a barricaded door to the next level with a timer with 4 minutes on the clock. I worked quickly to move what I could with my quirk and kick down plus brass knuckle my way to the rest of the blockage. Thank Sergei for all that extra muscle conditioning so I could make this possible, and just in the nick of time too! I had 30 seconds to spare and I bolted to my final stage. I arrive to a room with a group of hostages but no ‘villain’ in sight.

“Help us, help us!” yelled one of the hostages.

Upon getting closer, I see that among the hostages is Iida and Todoroki “Oh my, don’t worry! I’m here to release you” I unlock their shackles and remember what I was supposed to say in the situation “is anybody hurt or in need of medical attention?” I await a response, none of them spoke up “please come this way for the rescue team to retrieve you” I lead them to the marked area and do a simulated ping “19 to rescue, all 5 hostages are gathered and ready for transport” I turn to the hostages as the double doors open “please follow the rescuer’s instructions and stay together.”

“WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING!” bellowed a voice behind me and I just knew it was the ‘villain’ I was supposed to fight. I turn around and see none other than Endeavor.

“Eww is that your dad Shoto?” I was in genuine disgust.

“Yes that’s him” he turns to me “beat his ass Palma-san, like he deserves it.”

“With pleasure Shoto!” I crack my knuckles and face my opponent “so you’re the so called mastermind of this here circus ey?!”

“I’m- not running a circus?” he scratches his head and mutters “did I read my script wrong.”

“It’s going to take more than clowns and tricks to take me down!” I strike a defense pose “because I got the power of God AND Anime on my side!”

“What do those have to-” I interrupt him with dashing forward to throw my pocket sand in his face “puh! what the hell was that! it’s in my eyes!” he covers his face and I slap him a couple times to pester and copy his quirk.

“Heh! not so tough are ya clown master?!” I taunt as I circle him to check if he has any sort of stun device or remote controls on him “LOOK AT ME!” he struggles to see me but once I activated his quirk, he went pale.

“That’s my- GIVE MY QUIRK BACK YOU BRAT!” he lunges forward but I predict his next moves “that’s enough playing!” he gets aggressive and launches me against the wall like a rag doll.

“I won’t let you get the best of me!” I yelled as I staggered to pick myself up “I have inner demons way scarier than you!” my visor cracked and fell off my head, exposing my face and the bloody, shallow cuts on my forehead.

“You’re just a little girl!” he laughed “defeating you will be like-”

“I’m not your children, you can’t beat me around like them!” I snapped back, giving a mischievous smile.

“ENOUGH!” his flames ignited “I’m going to wipe that smile off your face!”

“Try me bitch!”

-In the control room-

“Oh wow she’s really tearing him down verbally” Hemingway observed the surveillance feed “she might actually win this one.”

“That’s our girl” Mimi puffed her chest out like a proud friend “I’m very excited to see her finishing fire move, The Rising Phoenix!”

“I love that move!” Todoroki gasped “I can’t get it quite right but it’s a beautiful fire power move.”

“Never mind that!” Iida exclaimed “how are you all okay with her getting pummeled like that?!” he points at the screen with a chop as she gets hit hard enough to get airborne.

“Give it time! It’s all part of her plan” Jin assured Iida “you worry way too much over her.” They all watch as she lures the ‘villain’ into her trap but she’s very beaten, battered and bloody like she’s about to collapse.

“That’s it! I’m doing something about this!” Iida charges toward the control panel where the proctor was sitting to press the ‘emergency stop’ button.

“You foolish boy!” cried out the proctor “you sabotaged both of them!”

-In the final stage-

As I lifted my arms to do my finishing move, I get hit by something just outside my range of vision. Next thing I know I was on the floor, paralyzed looking up at the high vaulted celling. I hear the sirens wail and the sound of 4 people yelling my name and running.

“Please baby girl! speak to me!” Mimi begged as she scooped me up from the ground.

“What happened?” I asked confused “did I lose control? Did I hurt myself?”

“No no! you didn’t” Sergei kneeled down to my level “someone interfered with your exam, this wasn’t supposed to happen! You were about to win too!”

“What? Who did it?” I looked at Mimi, Jin, Hemingway and Sergei, all of them had the same expression of anger “I promise I won’t get mad! Please tell me.”

“It was glasses” Jin clenched his jaw “he did his heroics and hard stopped everything.”

“Never mind, I’m enraged now” I was too numb to show how mad I was “also can I get the antidote to this paralyzer? It’s getting harder to breathe.”

“Right!” they all said collectively and I was whisked away to the infirmary.

I was on bed rest for a week due to my many injuries. As I laid around, my anger grew and I wished Shinso was around to vent and forget about everything. He left the morning of my exam and won’t be back until after New Years. Mimi and Jin banned Iida from visiting me or even getting near me, which is a good thing, otherwise I’d be in a full blown fist fight with him. That’s how close I am to exploding in anger. The more I stayed cooped up, the more I want to just roam the city and do something that isn’t laying around. I finally had it and got dressed up to go somewhere for a bit in the evening. Mimi and Jin gave me my space to do this but Iida was persistent in talking to me. As I made my way to the parking lot on the dorms to get to my car, Iida zoomed out of the hero dorms.

“Hey! Ita I was just noticing that you’re heading out” he stood in front of my drivers side, preventing me from unlocking my car “may I accomp-”

“No” I said firmly, trying to hold back my anger “I’m fine thank you very much, I wish to go alone.”

“But I want to talk to you” he put his hands on my shoulders, I push them off me “I know you’re upset and I want to-”

“Oh ho! Upset? You think I’M upset” I scoffed with my anger levels rising “Tenya, I’m fucking ENRAGED! Because once again, your unnecessary heroics ruined everything!” hot angry tears poured out of my eyes “I trained so long and hard for that exam and because of your little act, I’m at risk of not only failing that exam but also getting my tuition money taken way because of my failure to complete the exam!” I look into his eyes to drive my point “I don’t want your apologies nor comfort, I want to be left alone.”

“Please Ita, listen to me” He grabs my arm to stop me from walking away “don’t push me away again, lets go and-”

“Let. Go. Of. Me.” I growled in warning “I want to be alone.”

“No, I won’t allow you to just disappear again!” his grip tightened “lets work things out like friends.”

The word ‘friends’ hit me the wrong way and I lashed out “I said I don’t WANT TO TALK!” I thrash about until I was out of his grip “I don’t need a friend right now, I need to clear my head in solitude” I turn around and fast walk toward the main road. Before Iida could react, she teleported away.

“Ita?! ITA?! COME BACK” wailed Iida as he ran toward where she stood before disappearing “I’m sorry, so sorry, come back” he horsely spoke as tears fell from his face, his legs buckling and giving out, making him fall “I’m a bad friend, what do I do to make up for my mistakes.” Moments later, Midoriya and Kirishima walk up to Iida’s sobbing mess on the ground.

“Iida-kun? We saw what happened” Midoriya gently spoke “is she going to be alright going out on her own like that?”

“I don’t know” he didn’t move from his spot “just leave me here to rot like the bad friend I am.”

“None of that Iida-kun!” Kirishima flipped Iida over to show his face “you’re not a bad friend, just too heroic” he extended his hand out to help Iida up “Palma-san has every right to be angry and we need to give her the respect to clear her mind” Iida refuses his hand “she always comes back, this time is no different.”

“He’s right Iida-kun” Midoriya puts his hands on Iida’s arm “lets go inside and wait for her to come back, it’s starting to get really cold lately so she can’t be out too late.”

-In downtown-

“Stupid Tenya” I mutter as I make my way through the town square “he thinks everything can be solved with a meal and slow dancing, well not this time!” I walk through the much more un-urbanized part of town, the traditional look of the shops and street was pleasing to me. I wander around to get familiarized myself with the area since I’ve never been in the area. My wandering got me lost after what seems like hours, winding up in an alleyway that leads to what seems like a warehouse district. “Maybe if I go back I can find a familiar spot and teleport to town square, I can go get something to eat” I tell myself as it was getting dark and the area wasn’t as well lit. I felt the chill creep up my arms as it got darker but I was still lost, coming back to the same alleyway, now even darker and spookier. “How the hell do I keep coming back here?” I get annoyed with myself “guess I’ll just try to navigate on my phone” I check the GPS and I don’t have a strong enough signal to get located. I was too busy trying to get signal that I didn’t see that I was getting barricaded from the alley entrance.

“There you are~” spoke a familiar voice “so this was your little hiding place?”

I stopped dead in my tracks “It can’t be” I uttered in fear. Looking up and at the voice I see two people, one in a wheelchair and one pushing the wheelchair but I knew who they were “No...it’s not possible!”

“Oh but it is!” spoke the man in the wheelchair “and you were right! That quirkless boyfriend of yours did have a use to me after all. Too bad it lead to your demise, he loved you so.”

“Humberto would NEVER help you!” I screamed, trying to show hostility “what did you do to him?!”

“OH! Being stand off-ish?” his tone petty as hell “fine by me! I came here to eradicate you, like I said I would but with more vengeance.”

“That won’t happen” I got in my stance “I’ve done more than just hiding for 2 years, you’ll never win Johnny!”

-To be continued-

#bnha #mha #self insert au #not canon #chapter 30 #will update regularly #ask me anything #next one will be up in 3 days #then an update in the FAQ

0 notes

keets-writing-corner · 6 years

Text

Intro to Character

Minor mentions of: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek

Specifically talked about in discussion: Toy Story, Inside Out, Happy Feet, Sleeping Beauty Disney), The Princess and the Frog

So what makes a story great? Well, a lot of different things actually. Cool plot, interesting setting, well use of point of view, but the most important part about a story is forgotten a lot ironically. I’m talking about characters. What do I mean by this? Well, if you’ve ever taken a Creative Writing class, you’ll usually find a ban on genre. By genre, they don’t mean horror, or comedy, they mean like anything that isn’t considered normal in the real world. No flying horses, unicorns, witches, and wizards. No myths, no fantasies, and no folklore. No extremely advanced robots, aliens or space travel. No zombies or vampires. No ghosts. No metaphysical entity and no science fiction.

Why is this though? It seems rather unfair, doesn’t it? I certainly thought so. After all, I had so many cool ideas involving myths from old religions, folklore, even an alternate earth that was a weird mix of medieval times and future technology. For years, I feared the day I would get a teacher or a professor that would enforce this rule on me (I’ve been lucky enough to have super chill teachers so far who didn’t enforce the Genre ban). Until I asked why such a rule existed.

Genre creates distraction. Of course you want to work with all the cool stuff! Who doesn’t want to work with magic, and wizards? Especially after Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings make them so thrilling to read about. Of course you want to write science fiction with Star Wars and Star Trek out there? Have a favorite fairy tale? Why not make a variation on it? It’ll be so much fun! *gasp* Even better? Why not create an entire world?! Freezing popsicle sticks! Can you imagine all the possibilities?! The lore! The history! The alternate laws! The multiple cultures! The different species! Science fiction? What kind of tech do they have? Fantasy? What does their magic look like?

That’s exactly the “problem” with genre. You get so distracted about all these cool variables that the most important part of a story, the characters, have a tendency to become underdeveloped. This isn’t to say “Don’t create stories with genre”, after all, it’s because we have so many great stories that intermingle beautifully with genre that we want to work with it. But the reason so many Creative Writing classes have a tendency to ban genre is because, chances are, the people there are blossoming writers. They’re still learning how to write really good stories, and if they’re allowed that much freedom, the most important part of the story gets neglected in the euphoria of everything else. The reason that the ban is there is for writers to learn how to properly take care of and develop their characters BEFORE they start adding all these cool magic tricks and pyronetics. Without all of the flashy fireworks, seductive circus dancers, and glittery lights, writers can sit down and learn how to work with characters in a familiar setting, the real world. (I will make a post (or several? Not sure yet) about world building, but I will say, anyone who’s tried to make their own world KNOWS that it’s a lot harder than it looks. Some people can do it naturally, others have a harder time and need a preexisting world. Neither is wrong, the point is that by taking away that pressure to create a new world, writing is easier. You’re working with rules already established and familiar to everyone and you don’t need to make any of them up).

So why are characters so important? Well, Stories are kind of about them/revolve around them? I promise you, it doesn’t matter how cool your world is, how much you know about each culture and how much it’s explored in-story, if your characters are boring, underdeveloped and uninteresting, nobody is going to care.

So, I do have many posts planned about ‘Character’, but let’s give a quick rundown on what makes a good character. Remember, I’ll be doing separate posts going into detail about most, if not each, of these AND these are not the only things I’ll be covering about character.

Connection. Audience needs to be able to connect with the character. Sometimes it’s physical appearance, sometimes it’s the gender, sometimes it’s the place of origin. These are all superficial ways of connecting with a character (Superficial in this sense being used as surface level, a character’s physical appearance, and is not a “cheap” way of making a connection). But there are more ways of connecting with a character, aren’t there? After all I connected the most to a tap dancing penguin when I was a kid. There are different ways to connect with a character, superficial ways, and also deeper more internal ways. The main goal of a character (at least a main character) is to have audience be able to see themselves in that character in some way/shape/form.

Flaws. You hear it all the time. Characters are not allowed to be perfect (I’ll go into this when I cover Mary-Sues). Characters need flaws. What frustrates me however is that flaw is often confused with struggle. Supposedly, we connect with characters’ flaws(again, in my personal opinion this is completely untrue because we actually connect and sympathize with their struggle). What’s the differences between Flaws and Struggles? I literally have an entire post planned covering just that, so fret not! For now, let’s just summarize what I see a flaw as. I see a flaw as a character trait that keeps them from being a “perfect” character. It’s not something they need to overcome, it’s just a part of them. Sometimes a flaw can even be a strength in certain situations, or a strength can become a flaw.

Struggle. Now if you ask me, this is what really makes an audience connect with a character. Everyone struggles in life, or has something they struggle with. These are often confused with Flaws. Let me give a few examples to explain what struggle is. Let me go back to Mumble from Happy Feet. The entire movie, he’s struggling to be accepted. He’s not struggling to be normal or to be like the other penguins, he loves his talent, and he knows there’s nothing wrong with it. He just wishes the other emperor penguins could accept him, and he struggles with this the entire movie (I hope to also do an analysis on Happy Feet in the future, where I’ll be talking about this WAY more in depth). I’ve always felt like I’ve been struggling for people to accept me, especially since all the molds society wants to put me in just don’t work for me, the same way Mumble can’t sing, no matter how hard he tries. Another example. Woody, from the first Toy Story. He struggles with selfishness and jealousy. One might argue that these are his flaws, but I disagree. I think the biggest difference between flaws and struggles is that flaws are static. They don’t change. Struggles do. You overcome them. You learn from them. Woody had to learn to overcome his jealousy and his selfishness, and that’s what he does. Again, I’ve got a lot to say about Flaws VS Struggle (and their third often ignored little sister, maturity), so for the purpose of not making this post longer than it already is, I’m going to move on. Summary of this paragraph: Characters need something to struggle with, internally, externally, emotionally, whatever.

Likability. Okay, this one veers more into protagonist territory, BUT if you want audiences to like/sympathize your antagonists or other characters, this applies as well. This one is basically “Why should I even care and root for this character?” Granted, some of the caring and rooting for them is interlaced with struggle, BUT it’s not until a character does something that’s considered likable that any of this really matters. Literally, you give a character ANY characteristics that fall under being a decent human being, and they will have some sort of a fanbase. Maybe they’re an underdog (this also falls under struggle :D ), maybe they just gave some food to a dog, maybe they have a soft spot for children, maybe they care about someone in their life, maybe they’re super polite! Anything! If a character does any of these things, the audience will automatically like them to a degree, even if they’re a horrible villain. If said villain shows that they care about dogs, or a specific person in their life, they’re instantly more likeable than a villain who treats everyone around them like dirt. On the flip side, there could be a horrible, selfish, anti-hero protagonist, but the moment there’s a quiet moment when they do something kind in secret, the audience goes, “SECRET HEART OF GOLD! YESSS”. Let’s go back to Pixar for a moment. Both in Toy Story and in Inside Out, in the original writings of the movie, the main protagonist was incredibly unpleasant and unlikable to viewers, being overly cruel, or too selfish. Pixar fixed this by doing two things: thing one, they gave these characters some “decent human” traits, and thing two: they gave these characters some struggles that everyone could get on board with. With Joy specifically, they fixed her jerkiness by making Sadness annoying. We’ve all had that one annoying person in our lives, so suddenly, Joy isn’t a jerk, she’s just annoyed by Sadness and is trying to get her to go away without hurting her feelings. Aww now Joy looks like this really nice person who’s tolerating that annoying person and trying her best not to hurt her even though nobody wants this annoying person around.

Motive. I’ve got a lot to say about this one too, so to keep it simple, characters need to want something. This could be a driving goal that moves the story, or not. It could also be something that fuels their decisions that may or may not go against what they need to do, which can cause juicy juicy conflict. If a principal character has no motive, then why are they in the spotlight? If they have no drive, they are passive and will generally not affect the story, which isn’t something a character in the spotlight should be.

Agency. How active is the character in the plot? Is the character letting things happen to them or are they actively trying to take control of the situation. I don’t mean assertive characters over shyer characters, I mean do they actually do anything in the story? Now, don’t get me wrong, Sleeping Beauty was my favorite Disney movie for a while when I was 5 (although, how much of that is due to the awesome dragon and how much of it is because it’s a fun princess story is debatable), but honestly, Aurora has exactly 0 agency the entire story. She gets cursed because her parents decided to not invite Maleficent -> not her fault. One of the good fairies makes the curse less lethal -> beyond her control. Her parents and guardian fairies decide to take her to the woods to protect her from Maleficent while she ages -> not her choice. This guy in the woods tells her he’s in love with her -> she’s a little creeped out at first, then just goes along with it. Her guardian fairies tell her that she’s actually a princess and she’s supposed to return to the castle tonight -> she doesn’t want to, but she literally just bows her head and goes. Curse gets activated -> she’s not in control of herself and succumbs and now she needs rescuing from Phillip. There is nothing wrong with Aurora except that she shouldn’t have been so heavily advertised as the main character. Literally, the only Disney main protagonist with less speaking lines than her, is Dumbo, who’s a baby elephant. He can’t talk. While it’s true that in real life, we can often be in completely helpless situations, that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything or at least try (for ourselves or others), and the same is true for the characters. Now, granted, using Sleeping Beauty as an example was a little cheaty of me because it’s quite common for local legends and folklore to have characters without a lot of agency (and also the time is was made it was encouraged for women to be this way). But it was a deliberate choice of the moviemakers to adapt the motion picture that way. Let’s look at another Disney example, The Princess and the Frog. Another folkloric legend in which the characters don’t have a lot of agency (still more than Aurora, but not much). In Disney’s version, Tiana is all over the place doing whatever she can do. She wants to own a restaurant, so she works two jobs and caters for her friend until she can buy it. Then the dealers go back on their promise. She’s sad, but she’s already thinking about what she can do about it (this is literally the entire reason she turned into a frog, Naveen promised her money which she could use to get her restaurant). Then she gets turned into a frog. What does she do? “Heck no! We’re going to break this curse!” And drags Naveen along. This goes on the entire movie. Tiana is FULL of agency, even in hopeless situations where she was otherwise helpless. Note: Not all characters need agency, but protagonists are not one of these characters. This is getting too long, so I’ll cut it short at this: Characters need to actually do stuff.

Of course, there’s A LOT more to characters than what I just mentioned. Again, I have multiple posts regarding different aspects of characters planned (from arcs, relationships, flaws, struggles, motives, anti-hero/anti-villain, etc). But for now, I think this is a good introductory to Character! Is there anything in here you recognized in your own favorites?

0 notes

horrible-monstrosity · 6 years

Text

8 "muh assassin" what fuq is natural dialgougue. her character's so heavenly but it took this forced retarded thing to bring it out- oh no wait if electric guy likes her she must be terrible to punish him for being a baka hentai who is interdested in the gril "I'm gonna have to ask this gril out sometime" (5 seconds later) "hey wanna go out after this???" - well I guess immediately afterwards is "sometime". and as expected elecguy is made to look like a moron and loses in five seconds. Actually it's pretty something* how all of the battles are so short... Like, it was the point of the Beku vs creeps battle that it woukd be over in a second based on whoever got their slight advantage down first, but every other battle? They're all made out to be equally important but they're so brief and uninteresting they might as well be skipped over... also why does grass gril do a fucking meguca reference? you're not allowed to reference better animes like that, you're shit. go burn in hell ... why does everyone *hate* the blonde guy from class B? he's done, like, nothing, except just now awkwardly boasting about a classmate winning. And of course the random gril is the sociable and likeable one. Why does no one hate earbuds gril if they hate this guy? Could it be..... gynoceeeeeentircismsdsssss ???? - why is beku still using that beat up scorched notebook? just buy a fresh one. It's this weird little forced bit of continuity that looks "good" because hey remember when his notebook got nuked back when whenever it was that happened, but actually doesn't because him still using the damn thing makes no sense. Just... buy another fucking notebook... If he's been using it the entire time he's been at the hero school, since it was already partially filled before you'd also think he'd have filled it up and had to buy a new one anyway... not that we have any idea how much he's actually been doing with the other students so far anyway seeing as how they SKIPPED OVER MOST OF IT...

Alright, there's one thing that actually makes sense. Students can't use gadgets unless they "need" to, which isn't just judged on nothing but on some unspecified paperwork that we don't need to be told about because no one cares but we get the idea. And then legs makes a basic but actually functional heartwarming speech about integrity and shit so he's allowed to use it. Man, this show getting basic things basically fucking right is just so fucking astounding.

Gadget gril has a quirk? Why? It seemed like the point of the alternate classes was that you might as well not have a quirk, or that only the hero classes definitely had quirks and that made them detestable showoffs or something. "she's turning the festival into a commercial" I thought the point was to sell yourself to the agencies why is doing that deliberately a bad thing

I dislike the next fight simply because I like navel guy and am indifferent towards pink slime gril - oh, when navel gets trounced it's a joke but when skin-gril loses it's super-boo-the-fuck-hoo-feel-sorry-for-whoo. You think navel felt as bad about losing, not to mention having his underwear shown to the entire audience? Ha ha, nope! Fuck you! - earbuds randomly decides to assault grapes-kun for being disinterested in some other fight. no one cares fuck you you piece of bitchy shit reeeee

9 man remember when floatgril had a really fucking stupid life goal? maybe losing to splodey will make her do some introspection, go back to doing the thing that made sense and was more likely to succeed. ......naaaaaaaaah

- splodey "getting really good at using his splosions to move in mid-air" is like the only thing I've heard from this show implying there was any training or self-improvement going on at all ever... But wait, wasn't he already doing that in the fake-villain-training-battle thing? What's the difference between then and now aside from you telling us there is?

floatgril spends all the time trying to touch splodey but there's all this debris flying around she could touch and use for, like, something. instead she just keeps running at him like an idjit. then the crowd starts demanding he beat the shit out of her more and booing him for not doing that. the fuck... oh, okay, no, she was just taking fucking forever with it and taking ludicrous damage. that's ok i guess. but how the fuck did nobody notice this? There's seats in the stadium up that high, right? Rqocks cast shadows, right?... I mean it's a better battle idea than most of what we've seen before, but I'm still left thinking that either she outghta been doing something on the field while she was building that up, like make some token attacks or use some debris as a shield so she can survive better in the meantime, or that the audience oughta have wondered why the fuck she was apparently doing nothing. I dunno, it's not bad but there's just something missing. And doesn't she puke if she uses her powers too much or something? What happened to that? Was that ever even supposed to be an actual thing?

This is supposed to be some stupidly dramatic "I pursued muh dreamz and I still didn't make it!!" thing, but being a hero was never really Floatgirl's dream. It was just this... weird halfway goal she came up with when her father gave her a confusing speech about how her dream isn't her dream and she should pursue her dream again. So when we get the flashback with the overbearing emotional music it's just like... why does she even care? This is just such a nothingburger.

"weren't you injured???" "yeah but recovery gril lol" why fuc are you surprise beku. you were here just like an hour ago, for your fingers. And then they mention the stamina thing again to remind us that it's totally a thing u guise, but for some reason Healgril went easy on Ururuka even though she doesn't have anything better to do after this. And if it's still a thing then this raises the question of how much she did for Beku's fingers earlier (which would have been the time to bring it up anyway, not here where it doesn't fucking matter). Did she leave his fingers half-broken, or did he randomly have enough stamina this time for a full heal like THE TIME SHE FIXED THREE LIMBS AND HE WAS COMPLETELY FINE AFTERWARDS BUT LATER NEEDED AN IV DRIP AFTER JUST ONE? god fuck this shit "... but that doesn't mean you can't still be a pro hero" but she doesn't want to be a pro hero she wants to (?????????????). Hurrying or not isn't the issue. The dad needs to tell her again that she shouldn't pursue her dream for the sake of someone else or whatever it was he said... but now that that dream is "hero" it's just not to be questioned.

O... kay, apparently the reason everyone thinks Beku's power is like Al Mite's is because of... wind pressure, or something. But Al Mite never does the flicky thing, because he can actually use his powers and doesn't need to rely on clever tricks to spare his skeleton. Firedad is the one person Beku needs to really not let find out about Al Mite's secrets, because Beku telling us this cheaply increases the tension. "And this match with you will be a good (whatever) of how much training he has left"... again, why does he think this? All he saw of Beku's powers was the one flick that left his hand totaled (which he might not have seen, but still). If Beku had some awesome fighting skills, wouldn't Firedad think he would have used them against creepsy, and the fact that he didn't implied his power was somehow useless (which it basically is)? Actually, remember when Beku waved his arm in Icyhot's face and it did something but he didn't break his arm? I think that was also even a wind pressure thing. Why not reference that? It was against his own son and it was almost marginally more impressive... well, maybe not. I don't know. Point is there's literally nothing Beku has done that should have impressed this guy. Hey, at least he's polite about it.

and handsy is still just bitching at his laptop about everything lol. imagine if he had spent that last month putting together another "brilliant" evil plan. he could be accomplishing something instead of wasting away in an abandoned net cafe somewhere.

Next episode is Beku and Icyhot's designated fight scene. I am so fucking reverse hyped for this shit, you have no fucking idea. I want to find a player that lets you speed it up to like x4 so I can cram it all into my brain at the highest possible velocity. Just fuck me up

#macademia

0 notes

supified · 7 years

Text

Nevernight Book 1

Nevernight book 1, is by New York Times best selling author Jay Kristoff, an author whom likes betrayal and sad endings in his books. He is certainly a good author and his preferences are a big give away if you’ve read any of his work or about him just what you can expect. Since I am a nobody reviewing a work by an accomplished writer I will try to go into what I liked and didn’t like and why so you can decide for yourself if this book is something you want to read or not. I will also respond to any comments posted about the review. What can I say about Nevernight without giving away too much. As I’ve pointed out already, Jay Kristoff likes his books to be dark. This is kind of a pun for this book because shadows play a heavy role, but as far as dark is concerned I’m not entirely convinced. There is dark stuff and if you know about the author you can guess betrayal will happen. But there is also a lot of light hearted and friendly stuff going, heart warming and also the main character (at least in this book) may not be entirely the villain protagonist she’s implied to be. That’s largely up to you to decide, certainly there could be arguments either way, but it doesn’t entirely fit the kind of writing Jay claims to do. Why you may ask, do I care about what kind of writer Jay is and what to expect? Good question, me. The thing about this book is that if you’re used to modern writing and serial novels, or main stream writing, or the mega popular Young Adult genre, then you are probably familiar with more than a few tropes. The romance tropes, the frienemy tropes, the character marked to die, the bury your gays, the fact that most modern authors who want to avoid controversy will simply pretend LGBT doesn’t exist. So on. If you go into this book with that in mind then Nevernight is going to start ringing alarm bells quick and is going to keep ringing them for the good first half of the story. Now this isn’t a critique, this is more a warning that what Jay does in the first half of this book is set the stage. You’re actually supposed to do that with the three act structure of story telling so it’s good that he does. In the first act, which can easily span half a book (three acts doesn’t necessarily mean each act gets equal book time, in fact typically act three is the climax and is the shortest by far). Anyway, the important thing of the three act structure is act one sets the stage and tells you what is and isn’t, therefore it is vitally important and this book uses it extensively to build for what is to come. In a nutshell if you find yourself bothered by over used tropes in the beginning, don’t be, because they’re there to build the story and the pay offs in my view are quite worthwhile because they turn many of those tropes on their heads. There are some problems, but the book is by no means stale or entirely predictable. The book tries to convince you rather heavily that it will be a dark tale and it largely is. A lot of the people whom are going to die will be red shirts (nameless fodder), with some more heavy consequences not appearing until later, but even near the end there mostly red shirt slaughter. I found this particularly interesting because it doesn’t fully express how much the opposition may view the acts perpetrated as evil. The book doesn’t gloss over this nearly as much as many other stories do, but still there isn’t a lot of sense of the “bad guys” living normal lives with families as they almost certainly did. It’s implied that they had lives and that’s no small point to make to the book’s credit. If you like black and white stories where your good guys are white and so on then this book will probably bother you. While there are bones thrown to make the good guys likeable, you’d have to bury your head in the sand to completely miss how dark their actions are and the book does try to throw hints and reminders toward this end. Besides the three-act structure, another good rule to remember when writing is to focus on a topic and stick to it. Most books break this rule by throwing in sub plots, with romance being far and away the most popular sub plot. This book does have a romance plot, but is it truly a sub plot? In the early sections of the book, the first half I mentioned before, it felt that way. A great deal of the romantic interludes happens at inappropriate times. That part is a critique because you shouldn’t be doing playful romantic banter when your life is on the line, but this totally happens a bunch. Still, the romance as much as it feels like a distraction from the main material is an important part of the story. I won’t give away what that is, only to say that if you like romance you should enjoy this one, if you don’t like romance you should still read ahead because it is important for interesting reasons that fit entirely with the narrative of the story. A couple caveats. There is about twenty pages of very graphic bedroom wrestling (sex) which depending on your taste, you can just skip. It won’t detract from the story if you choose not to read about the intimate stuff that happens. Het norm themes and gender themes are especially odd in this book. During the first half of the story, the het-norm narratives are overwhelming. At first, I thought the author was just going to go the route of avoiding controversy by ignoring the existence of LGBT, but I was wrong. In fact, the book treats it as a non-issue and it does occur and no one blinks or thinks twice about it. This was a relief and a breath of fresh air, though it was still very het normy and this feeds into the greater gender role stuff. You can tell this book is written by a male. For one there is a lot of assumptions about female life that a guy would have. Like a girl casually talking about her pmsing on people, though never once in the book that takes place over several months, if not years, does any of the female characters display monthly irritability. If you read about PMS, it’s a real thing, but men who pin it to women really don’t know what they’re talking about and treating it like a common and typical occurrence just isn’t reality. You can look it up. You could argue that the book world isn’t ours, but since the book fails to show this as a thing anywhere in the story we can chalk it up probably to a male view on women. Additionally, the view of what women find attractive in the story (in one another at least) is heavily slanted at what would probably appeal mostly to men. Full lips, big busts? Sure, typical male might like that, but I really don’t think women have the boob envy as written by a lot of male oriented stuff. It’s a small potatoes complaint I think, but it does show and I think it also explains why LGBT is handled the way it is. If this bothers you at least you should know it’s not a big part of the book and you could probably skip these sections (usually just a line long here and there) and move on. My real complaints are more grounded in a few of the things the book does that I feel either didn’t make sense in a bigger picture sort of way, or just seemed awfully dues ex machina. The whole idea of a dues ex machina is the author takes control of the narrative to force something. Another good rule of writing is not to tell lies, and dues ex machina’s are always lies. What is a lie? Well it is basically making something happen that doesn’t make sense to the world or characters. If Walter White from Breaking bad solved a problem by turning into literal super man and flying then that’s a lie. Super man simply does not exist in his world and Walter White isn’t super man. In this book the powers assigned to characters are at times, way too much. It’s to the extent that I had to ask myself would the world function the way it did if people like this, or things like this truly existed? Would they be treated as cavalier as they are? I found this a little immersion breaking, especially when these sorts of super powers started solving problems for characters. It just felt lazy and made the action scenes less meaningful. If the author was just going to give someone something, like training they didn’t establish or a power then why bother? It is hard to get emotionally invested in a tense scene when these sorts of things happen and I kind of wish there was more thought put into them or checks and balances. So, should you read the book? The biggest thing I would say is that if you can’t handle dark stuff you probably won’t like this book. There will be some heart break if you are invested and prefer happy endings and Jay Kristoff has said he doesn’t really like to write those super happily ever endings. You might not be happy if you like the good guys winning narratives either. This just isn’t that author though and even he might suggest you look elsewhere if that is you. If it isn’t though, if his tag about what kind of stuff he writes does appeal to you then you probably should read it. There may be sections that bother you, but the pay off in the end is pretty good and the time spent setting the stage does have a meaningful conclusion. As far as some of the cheating is concerned with narrative conveniences, it’s a gripe, but not in my view one worth skipping this book over. Ultimately, I would say I liked it more than I didn’t and at times a lot more.

#nevernight bookreview

0 notes