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#This episode did. Nothing. To worldbuild OR move the plot forward OR move the character development!

itsclydebitches · 3 years

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Midnight”

Happy Saturday, everyone! I’d like to extend a formal congratulations to every Cinder fan in the community. Criticisms of the writing aside, you all struck gold with twelve whole minutes devoted to your fave and I’m absolutely thrilled for you.

We again start with a dark screen and some audio, in this case Cinder’s scrubbing. This technique—along with closeups on eyes—is a real favorite of RWBY’s this volume, to the point where I think they’re a little too enamored with it. But at least this is just a preference, not something that actively harms the storytelling in any way, so it’s welcome to stay. This time, unlike our premiere, we stay on Cinder as her life is summed up with three events intercut with one another: scrubbing floors, getting taunted by boys, and the sound of heels making their way towards her. It’s clear that Cinder leads a poor, miserable life, if her dirty clothes and stronger guys throwing her around is any indication, but all that changes when the rich woman says “I’ll take her” and Cinder is transported to a better life in a wealthy hotel.

At least supposedly.

Here’s my problem with the worldbuilding. This moment has Witcher vibes and Witcher, in turn, built itself off of a trope seen a hundred times before: A young woman is treated terribly by her family, is whisked away by a wealthy/powerful caretaker, and though her life has arguably improved, she quickly learns that the new world she’s entered is just as dangerous and harsh as the one she left. In Witcher’s case, Yennefer is a disabled woman abused by her family, bought by Tissaia, and taken to Aretuza where the other girls hate her and the curriculum is potentially deadly. Cinder is a poor woman arguably abused by her family (scrubbing)/the locals (fights), is taken by an unnamed woman, and whisked away to the swanky hotel where the daughters hate her and the work is potentially deadly due to shock collars. The difference between these two setups is that Tissaia bought Yennefer because of her magical potential. Why does our hotel lady take Cinder?

I mean yeah, obviously she wants a slave, but it’s a little weird isn’t it? Usually when a young woman falls headfirst into a new and questionable life, there’s a solid reason for her entry. This woman—whose lack of a name also says something about the worldbuilding—could have hired anyone she pleased to abuse. As we saw in regards to Atlas and Mantle in the past, every city has its poor and downtrodden. So what made her go out to some random farm and snatch Cinder up? It just, as always, feels a little too convenient. Cinder didn’t enter this life because something about her characterization or origin justified it, the plot simply ensured that she, out of everyone possible, and with very little reason, was the one chosen to follow The Plot™ .

It also messes with the Cinderella parallels. Originally (or “originally,” going off of Disney here which is likely what RWBY is using as a template too) it’s her step-family that abuses her and yes, we recreate that via the hiring (“hiring”—I doubt she was paid), but Cinder was already scrubbing floors back home. Her status as the servant already existed. So why change locations? Why not just keep Cinder as an abused farm girl, or have her a part of the hotel family right from the start? Part of the reason why Cinderella resonates is because of the contrast between the happy life with her father and the new, horrific life she falls into once he dies. Which is then further contrasted by the rest of the outside world. Fairy Godmother, Prince, and party-goers alike are all presented as kind, decent people. They represent the “real” world that Cinderella can escape to. By making Cinder’s original life horrible, her new life worse, and everyone connected with that life cruel and/or indifferent (with the exception of this one, special huntsmen)… you paint a very different picture of the world as a whole. Which is something RWBY has been vocal about trying to accomplish—it’s not a fairy tale—the only problem is with how these moments are undermined the second the story wants Ruby to ~Believe in People~. Cinderella is a story about enduring and eventually overcoming temporary hardship. Cinder’s story is about endless hardship that creates villains. A dark and fascinating story… but how does that fit into last week’s episode where Ruby told the whole world about Salem, expecting them to band together in peace and harmony? This is how Remnant’s world treats people when there’s not a global crisis, and Cinder isn’t even a faunus.

Which, I want to make clear going into the rest of this recap, does not excuse Cinder for her actions. At all. I think there are some complicated acknowledgements to be made in terms of her abuse and the Huntsmen’s responsibility in it continuing, but that does not give Cinder a blanket pass for all the horrific shit she has pulled over the years. Cinder didn’t just defend herself from abusers, she became one. More on that in a minute.

First though… is the Huntsmen’s name Rhodes? Did we hear that in the episode? If we did, I totally missed it because I have a note here about the one important character not getting a name. So yeah, idk. If we got this from more supplemental info, bad RWBY. If I missed it, bad Clyde. Either way, I’ll use that name going forward.

Back to the plot at hand. The hotel is, as said, populated by indifferent and shallow people and there’s no desert nearby, so I presume we’re supposed to be in Atlas? (Why did this woman buy a girl from another Kingdom?) There are customers getting drunk, flirting, and generally just enjoying their wealth, which harkens back to Weiss’ comment in Volume 4 about all their problems being superficial. We’re introduced to the owner’s two daughters who are, as expected, quintessential Mean Girls.

They love ordering Cinder around, not just with hotel chores, but personal ones as well like, “rub my feet”… despite the fact that this place is massive and must have an equally massive staff to stay in business. Why aren’t the girls terrorizing anyone else? Again, it makes sense for Cinder(ella) to be the focus of their abuse when she’s in a single household, but transplanting that to a hotel raises a lot of questions that RWBY hasn’t bothered to examine. You can’t move a story like that and not think about what further changes that would evoke.

See, RWBY could have done something interesting here by considering some of those other changes. Like having one or both step-sisters be the one to help free Cinder from her abuse, playing the villain before becoming the fairy godmother. Up until she turns villain instead of hero, this is just Cinderella’s story copy and pasted into RWBY. It’s moments like this that should make us wary of using fairy tale allusions as evidence for our readings and theories. Whether RWBY is deconstructing or upholding a story varies wildly, and we never know what we’ll get until we actually see it on screen. Even then we can’t count on a choice remaining consistent, as we saw with Ironwood’s deconstruction being tossed out the window in Volume 7.

Cinder is originally just as meek as her fairy tale counterpart too. We don’t hear her speak until the owner is about to leave when she simply goes, “Food?” The sisters laugh at her and a roll is thrown to the floor with the comment that she should get busy because it “looks filthy.” I quite like that moment. Your job is to ensure the floors are clean enough to eat off of—literally.

We see a montage of Cinder doing just that, lots of chores, with a new song listing all the tasks she’s now responsible for. During this, Rhodes is seen in the background and witnesses when Cinder (presumably) first uses her semblance by heating up the brush and chucking it at the sisters, creating a massive cloud of steam.

It’s that moment which “earns” her a shock session with her necklace and I’m staring at the screen, a little open-mouthed. I mean, that’s the second child torture we’ve seen this volume (with Cinder being ten here). Again, I’m not making a specific accusation, just going, “Really?”

Also, note the anti-faunus sign. Nothing like continually showing us racist establishments rather than actually writing a story that deals with the racism needless put into the story world. I’d like to remind everyone of my previous comments this Volume about how the story works hard to paint Mantle as sympathetic, but refuses to show anything that does the same for Atlas citizens, people who are in just as much danger with Salem as an equalizer. A whole city is not actually made up of shallow racists, the show is just showing us only those people to create a simplistic “They’re all bad” reading that encourages us to reject Atlas and, by extension, Ironwood. Weiss is walking proof that Atlas citizens are both complex individuals and capable of bettering themselves. If we can come to adore the Schnee heiress, we should be questioning why nearly every other citizen is painted as an abuser, too wealthy to care, or has conveniently left the story (Rhodes dead, Klein gone, Whitley rejected, etc.).

As Cinder is being tortured, we see that she’s forced to say, “Without you, I am nothing.” Now see, this is excellent... in theory. This is the kind of line we needed to hear with some consistency over the last seven years (if RWBY still insisted on waiting that long for a backstory), setting up that this line is clearly engrained in Cinder and she repeats it on instinct. Instead—to my recollection, anyway—we only get it this Volume, in two episodes. If it appeared before then it wasn’t notable enough to remember. I commented on this before, but it wasn’t a, “Ah, this line must be important” reaction, it was a “Lol why is RWBY using the same line twice? That’s weird.” By only giving it to us twice before the backstory and in such a short timeframe, the impact of this reveal is lost. We’re only now realizing that the line is important, rather than coming to realize why.

Our writers know just enough to recognize what techniques work, but not enough to have figured out what makes them tick. They get that providing a RWBY-vised version of Cinderella is cool, but not how to adapt that 100% successfully. They know that repeated lines have power, but not how to create good setup for the reveal. They know the camera should use closeups, but not what moments are important enough to warrant that. RWBY, eight years on, still feels like a newbie writer copying what the great stories are doing without yet understanding why those aspects work and, thus, how to recreate them.

I mean, Cinder’s backstory appearing now attests to that most obviously. I waved at the Cinder fans before, but the reality is that most viewers don’t care, either because Cinder herself is so bland, and/or because the story waited too long to make her a little more interesting. This entire flashback was handled badly simply by virtue of it arriving over seven years past the character’s introduction.

So after this torture session Cinder steals Rhode’s sword. We hear some dialogue in the background of him getting pissed that it’s missing and the sisters promising to find it, implying that Cinder will have this tool at her disposal for a while. Instead, seconds later he’s found her hideout and confronts her. I don’t know if I’m impressed with Rhode’s skills, or rolling my eyes at how contrived this all is. Chuck in the question of whether Cinder was talented enough to steal the sword out from under him, or if Rhodes was stupid enough to leave it lying around, and I’m edging towards the eye rolling.

He dodges Cinder’s attack, rolls her more weapons to prove he’s not here to hurt her, and acknowledges that she’s not getting “the most fair treatment.” Okay, here’s where things start to get complicated. Rhodes tells Cinder she shouldn’t run away because then she’ll be running her whole life (don’t really agree with that). He likewise (rightly imo) tells her not to straight up murder them because look, no matter how much of a shit stain someone is, I can’t condone slamming a sword through their chest on an individual’s say-so (especially when two of those people are also kids growing up under an abuser, like Whitely). So what’s left? Rhodes says Cinder can train to become a huntress. At ten years old, she has seven years to prepare for the exam.

But she has to stay with her abusive family until then.

My problem is far less with the claim that this “has” to happen and far more with the writing’s failure to tell us why. Cinder could have begged to come with Rhodes and he says she can’t because… idk. Make up a reason. He doesn’t make enough to feed the both of them. It would be too dangerous out on missions without training and he doesn’t have a permanent place to stay (hence using the hotel all the time). He could even go the “They’re your legal guardians” route with more explanation because it’s arguable that Rhodes had no idea about the collar. Doesn’t mean Cinder’s treatment isn’t “that bad” in his eyes, just that he might not have known the extent and thus thought it was preferable for Cinder to put up with “just” being insulted and overworked until she’s 17. That this life that he only has a partial picture of is preferable to the life she’d have at his side. Something to explain the stakes here, the risks, and why he took this stance.

And/or give us a reason why Cinder doesn’t try to run, a suggestion I make very cautiously because it’s not my intention to put the responsibility solely on her. This isn’t meant to be a “Just save yourself! It’s easy!” claim. Rather, it’s an acknowledgement that young, barely trained kids go out into the world all the time in this show—Ruby, Oscar—and it’s an acknowledgement that Cinder tugged off her collar easy-peasy. The point is, practically speaking, Cinder could have left and braved the streets like Emerald did… so give us a reason why she decided to stay. Maybe she’s scared of living on the streets, acknowledging that a little food and a place to sleep is better than nothing. Maybe she’s scared that if she doesn’t have a direct connection to the hotel (convenience), Rhodes won’t train her anymore. Maybe, as an abuse victim, she can’t articulate why she won’t leave, she just can’t. Something to acknowledge these gaps because, right now, we just have the fandom going, “See? This is why the huntsmen are all evil cops. Rhodes took the lawful route and look where it got Cinder! He’s the responsible adult in this situation, so it’s all his fault.” Problem is, this take ignores:

The fact that our heroes are also huntsmen and were pretending to be huntsmen before they had those lawful licenses. So what does that make them? We can’t continually criticize these professional roles without criticizing our heroes’ use of them as well. Ruby just ensured the world would take her message seriously by introducing herself as a huntress. We can’t condemn these laws and privileges while likewise letting Ruby continue to use them however she please. It’s okay if she’s a part of the system, because Ruby is inherently good! That’s not how this works. I’ve just described every American cop show that tumblr is currently turning against: The system is corrupt and needs to be overhauled, but our protagonists are different.

The story fails to tell us why Rhodes won’t do more outside of a single line about Cinder being of legal age. That just acknowledges that age has some bearing on his decision, not whether it outweighs other considerations (can Cinder survive if she leaves?), or whether Rhodes even has a full picture of what’s happening to her (the collar). The takeaway is that we don’t know what his though process was because RWBY didn’t show it to us, not that his thought process is automatically awful.

Rhodes, as a literal stranger entering her life, is not 100% responsible for what happens to Cinder. I know people don’t want to acknowledge that because leaving a child in that situation is absolutely horrific, but if RWBY wants to be ~realistic~ (and it does) then we need to acknowledge that reality too. If you saw a child employee getting yelled at in a hotel and then found her with your sword, would you rip the collar off her neck and be like, “Congratulations, you’re my child now”? Nice as that trope is, probably not! Or hell, maybe a lot of you would upend your life and risk legal action to whisk them away, but a lot of other people wouldn’t... and they're not the devil for doing what they can within the bounds of the law. The idea that because Rhodes unexpectedly had one (1) encounter with Cinder means he’s now responsible for her life and outcome is, well, crazy. “But, Clyde, you can’t just see that kind of horror and not do something about it.” You’re right. You know what you do? Tell the authorities. But does Remnant have the equivalent of social workers? We don’t know! Which means we can’t assume that Rhodes didn’t call them just because he’s a bad person. Or maybe they exist and the fandom considers them too corrupt to be useful, like so many other authorities in this show. So… what else is there for him to do? There doesn’t seem to be anyone above Rhodes that he can turn to, he doesn’t (for whatever reason) want to essentially kidnap Cinder and start a new life with her, so what’s left? Try to give Cinder a healthy relationship and a way to escape in the long run, which is precisely what Rhodes did.

Honestly, I’m kind of salty that this guy went out of his way to help her, he saw what everyone else saw and was the only one who would help her, but because he didn’t do more—because he didn’t entirely upend his life and/or risk arrest to take her away to this hypothetically better situation—the fandom is acting like it’s his fault Cinder killed her abusers. It’s not. Cinder made that choice.

At the end of the day, blaming Rhodes reveals the expectation that it’s his responsibility to solve this massive problem purely because he had the bad luck to be the one Cinder stole from. That’s like telling a teacher who learns about abuse from a paper that following the lawful channels and going out of his way to assist the child in other ways is responsible when the kid murders their family one day. “Why didn’t you just barge into the house and take the kid?!” Because there are a hundred reasons why that would go incredibly badly? Rhodes can’t help Cinder if he’s in jail. Rhodes can’t help Cinder if she ends up dead on a mission while following him. Rhodes can’t help Cinder if their attempt at escape fails and she bears the punishment.

The only thing I think Rhodes did absolutely wrong was giving Cinder the sword while she was still under the owner’s thumb. Stupid, but not cruel. And again, stupid does not equal blanket responsibility. I’m likewise seeing, “Rhodes gave her the sword and thus it’s his fault that Cinder got in trouble. It’s his fault they died. What was Cinder supposed to do, not defend herself?” Are people forgetting that Cinder stole the sword herself in the beginning and then readily accepted it again? She had agency in obtaining weaponry and what she wanted it for. Are people forgetting that, in accepting it, she likewise accepted the risk of keeping it hidden in the hotel? Are people forgetting that the time skip shows this happening years later and that Rhodes clearly thought Cinder was past her murderous streak? Are people forgetting that Cinder killed the owner by snapping her neck and resisting the shock collar, no sword required? She could have killed them any time she pleased based on the crime scene, whether Rhodes had given her a weapon or not. The weapon was just the catalyst that, truthfully, could have been caused by anything else. Cinder snaps when they find the sword and she’s tortured. Cinder snaps when she drops another tray and she’s tortured. She had planned to kill her abusers and never completely let go of that.

Honestly, I’m just annoyed that we have another good hearted, takes action, does his best and makes some mistakes character getting blamed for everything another character chose to do, erasing their agency in the process. Rhodes did not abuse Cinder. Rhodes did not force her to kill her actual abusers. And Rhodes is certainly not responsible for what Cinder later becomes. Could Rhodes have done more? Of course, but every character could always do more.

The tl;dr is that this complex situation needed far better setup in the show and the fandom needs to stop using that lack of setup as “proof” that characters are horrible people when they fail to magically fix said complicated, badly explained problems. Cinder chose to murder three people. Whether that was justified in the face of her abuse is up to you to decide, but it was still her choice. Please stop blaming the adult male characters for the choices the teenage girls in this show make. RWBY is too convoluted and attempting to tackle too many complex issues to reduce that to, “Every man here is the evil, responsible party and ever girl is a #queen. Even when they go on to murder Pyrrha ^_^” As a woman who would very much like to be rooting for the mostly-woman cast more than I now do, this isn’t the feminist take people want it to be.

But I’ve jumped waaaay ahead. Let’s backtrack a bit.

That first interaction between Rhodes and Cinder is super weird because the camera keeps covering Rhodes’ face and I don’t know why.

We segue into that montage of him training her for presumably years (Cinder’s hair changes) until we see him giving her the sword in what’s meant to be a moment of pride and trust. Soon after, Rhodes (randomly) comes back to the hotel when everyone else is asleep and hears noises in the back. Moving to check them out, he discovers that Cinder has murdered the two sisters and is in the process of murdering the owner, throwing back the line, “Without you, I am nothing, but because of you, I am everything.” Again, much more impactful if this had been a line we’ve associated with Cinder for years now, not a couple of episodes.

After she breaks the owner’s neck (damn, strong hand!) she tells Rhodes she doesn’t have to run anymore. Cinder clearly expects him to be happy for her and is shocked when he takes out his weapons.

I’m sorry, this is not a “betrayal.” Could Rhodes have just let Cinder go? Sure. Should he have? Given what she becomes, that’s very debatable! Rhodes clearly thought he’d helped her grow into someone who was not inclined towards murder (giving her the sword) and thus is probably going to be a little rattled when he walks in to find her killing three people. Again, there are obvious differences given the level of abuse Cinder seems to have suffered in comparison, but imagine that Glynda, after teaching Weiss for years, walked in on her killing Jacques and Whitley in revenge. Is she supposed to just ignore that? Shrug her shoulders and wish her well? I know a lot of people consider that the “fair” outcome given the inclusion of abuse, but that’s because we’ve had an omniscient view of Cinder’s history and insight into her emotional state. Rhodes doesn’t have that. All he has is his oath as a huntsmen to prevent things like, you know, murder sprees. I’m not going to delve into the overall ethics of a judicial system, either in RWBY or the real world, and thus I’m not going to make any naive claims about it being fair—it’s fucking not—but I don’t think the answer to these systematic problems is, “Why wouldn’t you just let the teenager murder three bad people and then go on her way? She totally deserved it!” Rhodes is not in a position to decide that, which is the entire point of having a judicial system in the first place.

So Rhodes wants to bring Cinder in. Kind of like how Clover wanted to bring Qrow in once he had an arrest warrant. I can’t emphasize enough that wanting to start a legal process rather than letting clearly guilty/potentially guilty people go because they WANT to is not a “betrayal.” Regardless of what teen dramas may have taught us, you don’t have to potentially throw your own freedom and your morals away because you found out a friend is wanted by the authorities. Or you walk in on them currently snapping someone’s neck. There are options other than, “Believe your friend is right without question and help them hide the bodies” (looking at you, Maria, Pietro). Whitely is not insane for going, “Hey, can you not make me an accomplice to a crime by forcing your way in here with a bunch of fugitives?” I’m constantly surprised by the number of fans who can, in one breath, condemn characters for not throwing a middle finger up at the law and in the next praise Jacques’ arrest. Do we want to benefit from this system or not? If yes, that means you have to weigh which laws can be broken (such as in a protest), which should be obeyed (bring murderers and wanted men in), all while working to change the laws that are prejudice and aren’t working.

Anyway, they fight. It’s short and sweet, backdropped by the large clock striking midnight, hence our title. I’m incredibly suspicious of Cinder breaking Rhode’s aura first, given that she’s still the student in training, but here we can more persuasively say he wasn’t fighting seriously, given that he then stupidly rushes towards her without a weapon. Still, that would be the second time now that RWBY has relied on elite fighters “holding back” to explain how the kids in training beat them, the first instance, of course, being with the Ace Ops.

Rhodes does rush Cinder though when she hits the wall and breaks her own aura, clearly concerned. She uses the moment to stab him with both swords. He uses his last breaths to put a hand on her head, conveying that he doesn’t blame her for how this all turned out.

Then Cinder pulls off her collar with a single snap and looks up at the broken moon, crying her single tear.

I’m dragging the flashback for multiple reasons, but I want to emphasize that I think this episode is leagues better from what we got last week. Absolute night and day. It’s just that, as always, improvements are incredibly comparative in RWBY. It’s not really good for numerous reasons… it’s just better than what we’ve gotten before. It’s “great” provided you go in with standards buried in the ground.

We then return to the present as Cinder wakes up in Salem’s whale. This scene gives us a great shot of her grimm arm, so cosplayers take note!

Emerald arrives soon after and immediately rushes to her side, expressing how worried she was. She grabs Cinder’s grimm hand without hesitation. Honestly, I don’t care much about either character… but this single frame activated some sort of ship button in my brain.

Not fully because I’m personally not drawn to toxic relationships in fiction (which, as I’m about to explain, would absolutely be the case here), but just the tinniest bit. Because I’m a sucker for monstrous people being loved despite their monstrous nature, so having Emerald take that hand over the other is like a ship speed run for me.

I’m predictable, folks.

But we need to talk about less happy things for a moment. I mentioned above Cinder becoming an abuser herself. I hope I don’t need to lay out the laundry list of murders, attempted murders, sabotage, and general taking-over-the-world-ness she’s engaged in since Episode One. Don’t let a sad backstory erase all that. Hell, for all we know the hotel owner had a horrific backstory too! Doesn’t justify how she treated Cinder. The point though is beyond her clear status as a villain, we now know that Cinder treats Emerald just like the owner once treated her.

Cinder was “rescued” from her life on the farm by the owner. Emerald is “rescued” from her life on the streets by Cinder.

Both realize over time that the situation they’re now in is actually worse.

Both reiterate that they “owe” the other “everything,” with Cinder having that shocked into her and Emerald seeming to willingly believe it.

The owner treats Cinder as a slave. Cinder treats Emerald as a slave. “Both of you, get out. I’ll let you know when you’re needed.” The only difference is that Cinder’s orders were things like “Scrub floors” and Emerald’s are “Convince an audience this girl attacked our ally.”

Both use threats to keep the other in line: the owner with her shock collar and Cinder with her Maiden powers. Cinder doesn’t need to resort to violence (yet) because Emerald adores her, but the threat is always there.

There are even visual similarities this episode, such as kneeling and gem necklaces, though I acknowledge fully that those are just interesting details as opposed to anything like persuasive proof.

The point is that Cinder became exactly what she hated, she just turned the dial up to eleven by going after the whole world instead of a single child. “But Cinder never had a chance to be anything else.” Sure she did. Blake and Weiss are proof of that. Even if we believe that Cinder was doomed to be a villain due to the extent of her abuse, what does that say about the hotel’s owner? We don’t know anything about her history, so what if she was abused too? Does that mean she was always “doomed” to treat Cinder that way? Does that excuse everything she did to her because she supposedly never stood a chance of becoming anything else? Of course not.

Though very iffily done, this is a commentary on the cycle of abuse. Each case is horrific, but it doesn’t excuse what comes later. Every abuser was once an innocent child and every innocent child has the capability of becoming the next abuser. Cinder’s life up until now was beyond awful and yes, she lacked a lot of privileges that others had to help them head down a better path, like Weiss’ wealth. On the other hand, she lacks other difficulties that would make that path harder for others, like Blake’s status as a faunus. Everyone has a choice to make: Will you treat others the way you were treated because that’s “fair,” or will you decide to treat others better than what you were dealt? There are lots of aspects that factor into the likelihood of someone choosing the latter—which is why I really like Rhode’s hand on Cinder’s head, acknowledging his understanding that she’s an abused kid taking the only path she thinks is available to her—but individual agency is by no means removed from the equation. Cinder escaped her situation and decided she’d never be powerless again. What does that mean to her, perhaps becoming a community member who works to prevent abuse like the kind she suffered? No, it means grinding the entire world under her heel until she’s the only one with power left.

This GIF continues to be the only one I need.

(No, the fact that it comes from a cop show and I’m using it for such an anti-law, anti-establishment story/fandom isn’t lost on me.)

(Also, if anyone is curious, this is why I love Ozpin. Out of everyone in this cast, HE has suffered the most, tenfold, and yet he still chooses to be kinder to those than they’ve been to him.)

Anyway, I should really stick to the plot lol. Cinder realizes that her waking up means that they’ve lost, which I still think is BS. Cinder needed a win to come across as a formidable villain again and the likes of Neo, Emerald, and a Maiden with years of practice under her belt should have wiped the floor with a scientist, retirement grandma, and a girl who got the powers an hour ago. But I again digress.

Mercury reveals that he will no longer be following Cinder’s orders because Salem has a special job for him. They’ve all been told to meet on the bridge.

Then we cut to Ozpin and Oscar.

My poor boy is a mess and Ozpin is in the process of begging Oscar to take a “break.” “I would like to express again that this is my burden to bear, not yours.” Take note, fandom. In a few moments Hazel will accuse Ozpin of being a “coward” because “All this time, it could have been you, but you let him suffer.” I just know a bunch of people will be going, “Yeah! Ozpin just let a kid get tortured instead of him. WTF??” Okay 1. We should always be suspicious of agreeing with the takes villains have and 2. Oscar just refused to let Ozpin do that. It is—again—his choice because he thinks that Hazel is “holding back” with him. Oscar is being a brave and logical dude trying to make the best of this situation for both of them. Don’t take that away from him just to make Ozpin look bad. What would we even want him to do? Take control back? The fandom has been yelling at Ozpin for that since Volume 5.

So they’re going back and forth when Oscar suddenly announces that they “can’t leave yet. This is our chance.”

Ozpin even says he thinks Oscar must have taken one too many hits because… yeah. What? Long story short, Oscar recognizes that they’ll never be this close to Salem’s subordinates again and that they should try to undermine her from the inside out, just like she’s done with the world since she knows she can’t take on everyone at once. I love Oscar taking charge here, I love them speaking in unison, I even love the hope of achieving something epic while in captivity despite my own belief that Oscar should break and reveal the Lamp’s password. What I don’t love is:

Another messy, unexpected belief that Salem made her choices because she “knows” she can’t win any other way. Except that—like Ruby’s line in the recording—Salem’s current attack blows that idea out of the water. She IS taking on the whole world. Granted, Ozpin and Oscar presumably don’t know that the whole world literally knows of her existence now, or that Salem was smiling about it, but they do know that she’s attacking Atlas head on. What else is that except a declaration of war with all of Remnant?

The idea of undermining Salem from the inside via Hazel. For anyone who reads my other metas, I just said that this idea wouldn’t work because Emerald isn’t the one torturing him, the one character who has consistently demonstrated hesitation (or, now, Neo). Hazel despises Ozpin so much that he would never listen to him. He despises him so much he doesn’t even see Oscar as his own person… at least he didn’t before. That’s been retconned now with Hazel going “easy” Oscar and having an actual conversation with Ozpin. Whereas before, he was slamming Oscar into walls and screaming about how he’s going to kill the “murderer” of his sister. They basically softened his character to make this plan possible.

The fact that this scene came about without Oscar and Ozpin ever getting to reconcile their problems. Last we saw them, Oscar was saying how he hated that Ozpin came back and refusing to acknowledge their merge. Now, they’re working together like they’ve always been solid allies. I get that the danger they’re in helps to put it all into perspective, but why can’t we get a few lines of them hashing this out? Or at least putting things aside until they’re out of Salem’s clutches? If you don’t need to re-write Hazel’s character with “he’s going easy on me” lines, you can use that space to deal with the conflict we’ve already established. Especially given the strange choice to have Oscar refuse to give up control and be the one coming up with this plan... but then Ozpin does take control and (maybe, see below) enacts it? I feel like we’ve missed huge chunks of this story. As it is, I wonder if RWBY will bother coming back to this. The questions of if/how Oscar will accept Ozpin and if/how he’ll reveal this secret to the group feels like they’re being swept under the rug and it will likely go unnoticed by a lot of viewers simply due to how intense the kidnapping plot is.

So things are a little messy, but otherwise enjoyable, and they’re about to get downright confusing. For me, anyway. See, Hazel reveals that he follows Salem because she can’t be beaten (cue my continued worry about Ruby telling the whole WORLD). She “can’t be stopped. She’s a force of nature,” and Ozpin is fighting a “cause with no victory, no end.” He yells back that “Someone has to try!”—bless this man—and then looks down at the ground going, “Salem can be fought. Unless… she brings the Relics together, if that happens…” and mentions summoning the Gods.

So here’s my confusion. The scene makes it feel like Ozpin is planting some sort of seed in Hazel’s head. He and Oscar JUST got done agreeing to try and undermine her from the inside out, then we get this line that feels like him “accidentally” dropping a secret that will turn Hazel against her. Except… Ozpin doesn’t lie here? The line isn’t useful to them as far as I can tell. They are screwed if Salem gets the Relics. …Right? Because if not, why the hell have the heroes been working so hard to keep them out of her hands? So I can’t decide if:

A) This scene is just written badly and none of this is part of the plan to undermine Salem.

B) Ozpin is going, “NO. Don’t collect the RELICS. That would be the WORST THING EVER /s” in an attempt to trick Hazel into doing it anyway and this is somehow supposed to hurt Salem, despite being presented since Volume 5 as the worst outcome for our heroes?

C) Ozpin specifically wants Salem to make the mistake of summoning the Gods because he thinks he’s completed his task? Or something? But what in the world would make him think that—especially without seeing Ruby’s message (not to mention the lack of unity that mess should cause)—or what makes him think the Gods would just destroy Salem regardless of what he’s achieved? If summoning the Gods was ever a defeat Salem option, why hasn’t he done it before?

I’m leaning towards A just because it makes the most sense by far, but that would also mean we had Ozpin and Oscar decide on this plan, have a chance to start this plan… and then didn’t actually do anything. Yelling at Hazel for following Salem isn’t a new strategy, they were doing that before, so what’s new? Or has the new strategy not been revealed yet? Idk, as happy as I am to see them being BAMF together, I’m slightly unsure about how it all hangs together. I’d much rather have an internally consistent and clear outcome that’s predictable (Oscar breaks or just holds out until rescue) rather than what appears like a super cool, badass, unexpected plot on the surface… but crumbles once you poke at the foundation a bit.

So whether Oscar and Ozpin started this plan or not, they’re dragged into the throne room where they’re forced to kneel before Salem. Yikes. She sits on her throne with the Hound, who I’m only now realizing could be read as a messed up Toto

We learn that Tyrian heard from Watts about his incarceration and hacking Penny. What? Okay, I took the time to go back through “Amity” just to find this screenshot.

That’s not a working Scroll! Idk what I thought Watts might do with it at the end of last week, but it wasn’t send a full, uninterrupted message to Salem that updates her on everything that’s gone down in Atlas. This thing is toast! Moments like this make me question how much communication there really is between the writers and the animators, despite last Volume’s disaster with Oscar telegraphing his punch like whoa. Are we still getting that level of miscommunication?

Salem then punishes Cinder for disobeying her by hurting her grimm arm. See, this here (for me, anyway) is the mark of a newbie writer. When the moment first started I went, “Oh nice. Just like the shock collar!” Then the scene made that abundantly clear by cutting to flashbacks of Cinder in her collar. That’s too heavy-handed. We already got the parallel, but then the show went, “Do you get it??” It shows that the writers are too scared that the viewers won’t get it, that their nuance will be lost, so they scramble to make it as obvious as possible, rather than trusting in their own writing.

And if you’re like, “So you want RWBY to be more clear and also… less clear?” the answer is, sadly, yes lol. The things that are already confusing due to retconning and inconsistent themes need to be made explicit, whereas the details that are already strong don’t need an in-your-face, “Okay, but did you really get the parallel here? We’re just making sure.” It’s like launching into explaining why a joke is funny when it’s already landed vs. telling a nonsensical joke and then waiting for the laugh that will never come. RWBY struggles in both areas.

Salem delves into this speech about how this is actually all her fault and she should let Cinder spread her wings or something. AKA, go free Watts and track down Penny. Then you can have your precious Maiden powers.

There’s a massive earthquake across Mantle and we watch a + medical symbol go out. Again, heavy-handed. We don’t need that in order to understand that the whole city shaking while the grimm look happily up to the sky is a bad thing.

We cut to Winter listening to the Ace Ops complain about Penny. She tells them to act like the elite they are, likely because she hates how they refer to Penny as “junk.” Still being set up to betray Ironwood, I bet. During this scene we learn that they have “confirmed visual of her leaving Amity. She appeared to be malfunctioning.” So Penny is alive? Also, they have eyes on Amity Tower and were able to see Penny leaving, but didn’t see any of our trio coming to launch it in the first place? Did Ironwood want it to launch? Did they see Cinder? I just don’t know.

Before they can get there though a message from Jaune comes through. Serious kudos to Team JNY for asking that “anyone” respond/taking the personal risk of calling for help in the first place. They’re finally putting—as Harriet says—they’re own selfishness aside in favor of the greater good. Yang obviously hates that it’s “you guys” they ended up with, but she’s not outright attacking the Ace Ops or anything. I’m like,

Excellent job, Yang.

Jaune is a little harsh in his panic. He said in his message that a “large mass of grimm” is heading towards Mantle and then when Harriet leads with asking about Penny, wants to know what’s wrong with her. Why are you asking about Penny when lives are in danger and “it’s” (the grimm) are “right there”? Except he, uh… points at nothing. There’s the chasm with (I presume) the weird grimm goo down it? Not sure based on the shot, but the Ace Ops expected a “mass of grimm” and then land to see no grimm anywhere nearby. So yeah, they’re more focused on the missing Maiden than the seemingly imaginary enemy Jaune is freaking out about.

They only get on board when the river launches itself at Atlas.

So the goo is, like, sentient before it becomes individual grimm? Or Salem is controlling it from her whale? Either way it’s BAD.

I want to briefly gripe about how the hell everyone is watching this. What, is there a camera conveniently trained on this one random part of Atlas’ underside and everyone’s scrolls tuned into that the second the attack started? It seems far-fetched, to put it mildly. In RWBY’s favor though, I want to acknowledge that we finally have appropriate expressions for the situation! This is good!!

I’m going to level with you all. My notifications have known no peace since I made the mistake of criticizing the adored trio that is Ruby, Weiss, and Blake. I thought supporting Ironwood would get me heat. Nope. Not supporting the main girls is what did it and honestly? I shouldn’t have been surprised. Last week I pointed out that having them smile and, in Ruby’s case, coo during a moment of horror is not good animation and implies some pretty uncomfortable things about their overall sympathy level. The image in question:

It doesn’t set a good tone, especially when we add in what we’ve gotten for Ruby’s group across the rest of this volume. The counters of, “They need and deserve a break. Why won’t you let them be happy?” fall flat when we ignore that this group has been animated as consistently goofing off post-premiere. Sneaking into the guarded military base of a former friend? Tube shenanigans! Need to find your way around? Funny Penny moment! Semblance reveal? Cutesy chibi explanation! Need to do more sneaking? Silly coffee plan! Nora gets electrocuted? Joke about how awesome that was! Even Wiess telling Whitley to go to his room reads as funny to the audience.

Ruby in particular has been a problem, given that she’s our main character and the others’ leader. We take our emotional cues primarily from her. Alongside being a part of all these fun and games, her animation during more serious moments has been less than stellar. This is Penny when Nora goes down.

This is Ruby, Weiss, and Blake. No worry, just focused on the fight.

This is Penny when the fight is over.

This is Ruby, Weiss, and Blake. No worry, just chatting about suspicious activity.

This is Penny in the airship, worrying about Nora and the situation they’re in. This is also Ruby in the airship, apparently not worried at all.

This is Ruby when she learns her uncle is in jail. Is there shock? Fear? Horror that he might be in serious trouble? No, she just maintains the same emotion she had before: fury at Harriet.

So when we reach them watching the recording and they look like this:

No, I’m not convinced that this trio is taking the situation seriously, or that they really care about the people involved. I know they’re supposed to care, they all obviously care from a meta perspective, but the “obviousness” of that only exists in our personal understanding of the characters if we don’t see it on screen. I completely believe that Penny is worried about Nora because she’s animated expressing that worry. I completely believe that JRY are in the middle of a warzone because they’re (mostly) animated as fearful and angry. The rest of Ruby’s team has a scared line from Blake and Weiss holding Nora’s hand, whereas the majority of the emotion across this adventure has been indifference or playfulness. That’s a problem given how horrible the events of this Volume have been, most of which the group is aware of.

All of which is an incredibly long-winded way of saying that this

finally feels appropriate. Well done, RWBY.

Alright, this recap is already over 7k long so I want to return to our plot with the summarized: IRONWOOD WAS RIGHT. He said they couldn’t withstand a head on attack by Salem and he was right. It literally took seconds for her grimm to burrow into Atlas, knock out a tower, and disable the shield. Everyone still claiming that leaving is useless because it’s oh so obvious Salem’s grimm could fly however high it wants (when did we learn that?) are ignoring that leaving was at least a plan with some kind of hope attached to it. And, given her focus on the Staff, may have saved Mantle by drawing Salem’s attention away from the city. The point is we don’t know. All we do know is that Ironwood tried to do something in the face of hopeless odds, Ruby’s team stopped him, and now look, everything is awful. No one could have possibly seen that coming.

Salem: “It’s time.”

I’m very pleased that Salem is finally using the tools at her disposal. Upon reflection, I still don’t buy why she had to wait. “Well, she was waiting for the grimm goo.” She couldn’t have used flying grimm to take out the tower? Take a burrowing grimm and give it wings? She couldn’t have used the goo that was apparently inside her whale the whole time?

It’s all very convenient. In the sense that we’re drawing out the volume by having the villain inexplicably hang back, despite not having a good reason to. In the sense that—unless Ruby’s message comes back to bite her—the villain’s passivity also conveniently let the heroes accomplish the one goal they were desperate to achieve. All of that’s still not good, but at least the Volume seems to be moving out of the “not good” category and into the “slightly better” territory.

Although, as I just acknowledged to a friend, RWBY seems to alternate for me. Every time I have an episode where I think, “Okay, there are still massive problems here, but I can see a glimmer of hope” the next episode is inevitably the pits.

Still, grabbing onto that hope with both hands: Atlas should be decimated, folks! Grimm are swarming, our idiot heroes herded everyone directly under the city, the world should be panicking, and the cold should still be killing people if the story remembers that it exists. At this point my only question is wtf our heroes are supposed to do next, but regardless of what the plot gives us, it’s going to be wild. You all know what’s coming. Next week is our final episode before a two month hiatus, which means we’re going to witness all kinds of awful and then end on a six week cliffhanger. It’s inevitable, so best to emotionally prep for that now lol.

I don’t believe we have any Bingo updates, with the exception of edging towards a few: “Winter betrays Ironwood,” “Army of grimm conveniently doesn’t kill any civilians,” “Atlas somehow survives,” and “Ironwood dies” being the most notable. We’ll have to see what, if anything, gets checked off next Saturday.

As always, thank you so much for reading (I feel like I don’t say that enough :D) and I’ll see you next week! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby recaps #rwby midnight #mymetas

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thelavendercrows · 3 years

Text

My Review of Netflix’s Shadow and Bone! (show-only watchers beware, I spoil minor stuff about the books)

So! Shadow and Bone came out - og book fans will know it depicts the story of the first instalment of the Shadow and Bone trilogy, along with new unseen prequel content for Six of Crows. Some things are intentionally shifted around, especially in terms of timeline and who meets who, but if I had to quickly summarise my thoughts: THAT WAS SO GOOD! Sorry in advance if this review is absolutely incomprehensible!!!

Part 1: Characters

Alina - making her more assuredly half-Shu seemed to work, though I can’t speak on the topic as I am a pasty bitch. Otherwise, Alina remained largely the same and I’m here for it - she was already a pretty interesting protagonist imo. Nothing but love for Jessie’s performance, I loved seeing Alina’s growing confidence though I wish there were more training scenes.

Mal - they made him so much more interesting. Archie brought a lot to the character, and even though seeing Mal get fucked up every episode was a tad repetitive, I think it made him far more sympathetic and actually showed us that awful suffering he mentioned in the first book. Seeing his close friends die was just an incredibly powerful scene, and Malina feels a lot stronger with Mal being a more rounded character.

The Darkling - just because I dislike Darklina doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the Darkling as a character. While I dislike that he revealed his true name so casually, that he and Alina seemed to fall for each other so quickly (I liked it better in the book because she had more training scenes, indicating more time had passed for their relationship to develop), and that they removed “the problem with wanting is that it makes us weak” line, I do enjoy Ben’s portrayal of the character. He was rendered a little pathetic by the Crows, but I do love the Crows so I’ll excuse it. Where his character really shined is with the flashback scenes and his interactions with Baghra. I’m very interested to see what they do with him next.

Kaz - a lot of people have said Kaz is a lot softer than we’re used to. I agree, but it makes sense. Kaz was that mean but well meaning leader at the start of Six of Crows - he was only made harsher as he was forced to confront his traumas, and go on a difficult heist. Also, I think it gives a bit of context to why he and Inej end up having feelings for each other. We know in the books that they worked closely together for a long time, but actually seeing those moments makes all the difference. Freddy did an amazing job showing Kaz’s rough exterior battling his inner demons.

Inej - amazing, 10/10, can’t applaud Amita enough. I’m not sure about the choice to give Inej a brother? It could cause more grief later but it’s another weirdly jarring difference from the book. However! Inej was done perfectly in the show in my opinion. We see her stealth, knife and acrobatic skills, we see her initial horror at taking her first kill (amazing scene) and her motivations and religious beliefs are not ignored in favour of pairing her off with Kaz immediately. I do wish they kept Kaz gifting her that knife instead of Alina though. I always wanted to see that scene.

Jesper - DID YOU MEAN STAR OF THE GOD DAMN SHOW? Normally a comedic relief character has me rolling my eyes, but it makes all the difference that Jesper actually has troubles and flaws and motivations and HILARIOUS DIALOGUE. I love him. Kit Young did such a good job, he played Jesper perfectly and I also love the foreshadowing of Wylan’s appearance! Love love love Jesper. A+. Also he is bisexual look at him go!!! Representation!!!

Others: NINA AND MATTHIAS ARE AMAZING!!! ENEMIES TO LOVERS A+ EVEN IF THE TIMELINE IS ALL WEIRD. David and Genya. My loves. Perfect. A+ as well. Nadia, amazing. Very gay. Not sure why they killed Marie off like that. Pekka is scary but why did they make him kinda hot? Milo is my hero. I would die for Fedyor. ZOYA?? That is not my Zoya. Why did they make her say something racist to Alina when she herself is mixed race. Zoya would never. But all the actors did a great job even if the characters were a little different.

Part 2: Plot

The rest of these parts should be shorter. So, the plot is mostly the same in terms of Shadow and Bone, but the stuff for the crows is all new and some parts of the story were changed to include them. While the crows on their own were amazing, I think the parts where they interacted with the Shadow and Bone cast felt forced and added some good moments at best, or actively damaged other characters at worst. For instance, Inej witnessing Alina was amazing. But Kaz outsmarting the Darkling, while it made sense, just lessened the Darkling as a threat. Otherwise I think everything was really good! The new Crows stuff was brilliant on its own, even if Nina and Matthias’ story was moved forward I still adored it, and Shadow and Bone stayed loyal enough to the books in terms of plot to remain engaging.

Part 3: Worldbuilding

My main concern about the show was how they would handle the language differences, but they did a great job. Like, they had Fjerdans speak in their own language, they made a new alphabet for Ravkan? I think they know what they’re doing. Seeing the Crows and the Shadow and Bone cast communicate in the same language didn’t really make sense but that’s just a nitpick.

Also, all the settings look amazing. Not much to say, they’re just great.

Part 4: Effects

Music, perfect, visuals, great (the volcras look amazing but Alina’s light power looked a little...fake), costume design and props, best I’ve ever seen. Enough said.

Part 5: Final thoughts

When a book is adapted into a show or film, I usually just assume that it will serve its purpose, maybe be a little frustrating or terrible at worst, and go. Shadow and Bone though, it adapts the books faithfully while still including worthwhile changes. It isn’t perfect, but it comes close. I imagine show-only watchers will like it a lot.

Alternative take: Jesper and Milo carried the whole thing. Goodbye.

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unnursvanablog · 3 years

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All the books I read in 2020 / part 2.

The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker: ☆☆☆☆☆

Loved how these myths and legends were used within this story. It is a beautiful tale of immigration and friendship and how Wecker conveyed that was just beautiful. The text did drag its feet in some places, but this story is also so character driven; their experience with the world, and their longings, so I understand that slow pace. Everything about it felt really sincere and it truly is a book that leaves you with something. I have never read anything like this before and I felt like it bridges the gap between historical history and fantasy well.

Naturally Tan - Tan France: ☆☆☆

I listened to this book in one sitting as I drove from the capital area and all the way home to the countryside. And I really enjoyed it because I really like Tan France and he narrated the audiobook himself. The text, the chapters and therefor the book itself goes a bit all over the place and it feels a bit vapid at times. It was about everything and nothing, really.

The Silence of Bones - June Hur: ☆☆☆

I am not so much for these types of mystery novels, so it was not something that drew me forward, but I did find the atmosphere that Hur created within the story and the historical elements really great and made the story quite enjoyable. I felt like learning a little more about certain parts of Korean history that I did not know before, and I really enjoyed that.

In the Labyrinth of Drakes - Marie Brennan: ☆☆☆

The world that Brennan has created continues to wow me. It is complex and it’s so much fun to travel around it. I love getting to know these characters at different stages of their lives and it just makes you like them even more. The story often runs into the same problem for me and that is that I find the first parts of the story so exciting, it is an adventure, but then it loses me a little towards the end.

The Will to Battle - Ada Palmer: ☆☆

After the amazing storyline of the second book, this book really lacked any excitement within the plot to propel you further and instead we got a lot of philosophical lessons and musings. In the previous books I felt like Palmer managed to strike a balance between those things, but not here. So little was going on. This story is deep, beautifully written, and complex and all that, but the text is often so long and dense, and my dyslexia just wants to skip these walls of texts that often just feel like statements about something philosophical but not real conversations or reflections from the characters.

The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep - H.G. Parry: ☆☆☆☆

I was hoping for a 'grown up version' of Cornelia Funke's Inkheart, and although that was not quite what I got, I really enjoyed this. I thought the world was well thought out, and the idea of the readers interpretation of the characters and even literary criticism can affect how they would appear in our world was a cool concept. In some places I felt that the story was a bit stunted or towards the end I was starting to predict where it was going, and there was a lot of misunderstanding between the characters so the story could continue, which got on my nerves. But for the majority of the time, it was a really fun read.

Midnight Sun - Stephenie Meyer: ☆

You can judge me for this. I judge myself too. It was strange to fall back into the Twilight world after completely falling out of it after reading the last Twilight book. But out of sheer curiosity, I decided to give this one a try. But wow… this was not fun and added almost nothing to the original story and Edward is just so damn boring and having to spend time in his mind was just kind of a torment.

The Absolute Sandman, vol 1 & 2 - Neil Gaiman: ☆☆, ☆

I was going to listen to the whole thing via the new and shiny audible version of the Sandman comics, but I could sit through more than the first two volumes. I could not tolerate the violence against the female and queer characters. Oh my god! You do not have to go that far to make your story edgy, or create a complex, dark world. Nothing that happened seemed to move me or make me want to keep listening to this story. It does not really seem to revolve around anything. Or maybe I am just too annoyed to pay attention to the story. Fortunately, Gaiman seems to have improved as a writer since.

Radio Silence - Alice Oseman: ☆☆☆☆

Listened to this and although contemporary YA is is usually not something that hooks me or interest me in any way, Oseman manages to make the story so genuine and down to earth despite all the teenage drama, and the character felt so real that it just draws you in. The daily problems of teenagers often seem too dramatic or unreal to me in books like this, but that was not here. The text is not to flowery, but not too simple either. The story just as a really good pace going on. Everything just flowed together.

Wicked Fox - Kat Cho: ☆☆☆

The story did sound like a kdrama to me and I was hoping it would be that. Just fun and cute and fluffy with some loveable characters and sprinkle of myths and legends. It was fun, it didn't go into too much depth with most things within the story. It kinda brushes over a lot of things. For me the book started of well, but then towards the middle of the book things start to happen to fast and there was not enough time spent on bulding things up, so in the end the story kinda went nowhere for me. The little bits of the Gumiho legend, at least how the legend was presented in this book, inbetween the chapters was my favorite bit.

The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien: ☆☆☆☆

You can tell that worldbuilding and just spending time making things up for this magical world that he crated was one of the things Tolkien enjoyed the most when it came to writing. The stories about Middle Earth, even the backstories, are so rich and lushus. I do struggle with the writing style, it does feel a bit dry to me at times, and it does feel like short stories set in the world of Middle Earth and not at tightly knit story which isn't always my cup of tea so it did take me a while to get into it.

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London - Garth Nix: ☆☆☆

The story really throws you straight into the action and you just have to find your bearings as best as you can while the story goes on. It was really fast paced and the story never really stops for too long to give you a breather. It was light and funny, a little weird and the character were whimsical, which I enjoyed. Sometimes I felt like I was in a Doctor Who episode, except with magic and not aliens. I just wish it would have let the story breath a little more for me to really enjoy the world that Nix had crafted and such things.

A Deadly Education - Naomi Novik: ☆☆

I do not know what happened here, but wow, this was so not Novik at her best. Neither the characters or the worldbuilding that I am used to getting from Novik was in this book and for the most part there wasn't a whole lot going on in this books. I can deal with a slow burning book and really just enjoy a good fantasy world but there was very little interesting things here to explore. I can deal with a unlikeable main character, but this one didn't grow at all during the book, she just kept on reminding us why she was cranky all the time and how much she delighted in it. There was a whole lot of telling about this magical school and the diverse world outside of it, but very little showing so it all seems rather empty and after a while I just started to skim over the text. And there was really no story there that kept me going and I could not see the purpose for anything that happened.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V.E. Schwab: ☆☆☆☆☆

Oh, wow. The feeling that this book created inside me and the sincerity within the text just grabbed me and would not let me go. I made me feel a lot of things, and I love when a books do that. There are so many emotions behind it and you can really feel them. The atmosphere that Schwab creates in the story is great and it hooks you in, but it is the character and their stories that make you stay. I don't usually enjoy timejumps, but Schwab did them so well and they do explain the story and the motivations for each of the characters really well, although it get's a bit repetitive at times, especially towards the end.

The Moomins: The Exploits of Moominpappa, Moominsummer Madness, Moominland Midwinter - Tove Jansson: ☆☆☆☆

I love the Moomins, but there's just something so cozy about these stories and characters. They are part of my childhood, they are so light, whimiscal and funny, yet have depth to them, which is a balance that is difficult to achieve in my opinion. My journey through this book took me almost a year, as I only occasionally picked it up to enjoy the text and my stay in this small, strange world that Jansson created. I was savoring it.

Shine - Jessica Jung: ☆☆☆

SNSD, the band that Jesscia Jung was in, is my favorite kpop band since I started listening to kpop more than 10 years ago and their music is one of the main reasons why I got into kpop to begin with. So of course I was intrigued! The story here is something that I think could be inspired Jessica experiences within the kpop industry, or that thought never left me as I read it even if there were lot of unbelievable things going on within these pages. But it's definitely overdramatized at times. But how she talks about gender discrimination between female singers and male singer, from other people in the business and from the fans and the expectations that people have towards these singers and such. That felt really authentic to me. For all the glamor and the dazzle of the kpop world within this book the plot and the characters are a bit dull, and some of the more unbelievable events (like all of those trips and secret cafes) often pulled me out of the story. And I did not find the clichéd YA romance fun to read at all.

#book reviews #book review

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seyaryminamoto · 4 years

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Re: my ask on The Great Divide and Avatar Day... Holy crap, I wasn't expecting you to write a whole essay! Thank you! (It's also interesting that you bring up The Fortuneteller as the series' other big filler episode - I was always under the impression that The Painted Lady was what rounded out the trifecta, but then, fandom opinion on it has never seemed as extreme.)

Hahaha, sorry not sorry xD I don’t know how to be brief, it’s a problem xD but I’m glad you seem to have enjoyed it!

I brought up the Fortuneteller because it’s from Book 1 too, same as the Great Divide, and Book 1 is the one where a first-time viewer largely might feel like what they’re watching isn’t really going anywhere. I mean, I remember asking my sister if they’d ever get to the North Pole back when I was first watching it x’D I guess if the show offered the occasional glimpse of where they are on the map you’d at least feel like they’re making some progress (as the old Turbonick site allowed). But until the Northern Air Temple, there’s not much in the way of revealing how far north they’ve traveled so far within the story itself.

Anyways, the other reason I brought it up was because the Fortuneteller is a generally loved episode, despite objectively it doesn’t do much for the plot at all. It’s a handy way to compare it to Avatar Day and The Great Divide, because the question would naturally be why is it better than these two? What would make that one, as plot irrelevant as it was, more cherished than these two?

As for the Painted Lady, though... conceptually, I like that episode a lot. Not because of the Painted Lady herself, honestly I’m not as stoked about spirits in general as a lot of fans might be, and I’ve never felt too passionately about Katara’s plotlines: what I loved was the Fire Nation village of Jang Hui. It’s by far the lousiest of Fire Nation villages we see, even if Yon Rha’s isn’t the greatest, but this one is basically being killed by the Fire Nation’s warfare policies. The message conveyed is one of the most important ones I felt the show should have put forward, and it’s that the lack of balance in their world is damaging EVERYONE. The Fire Nation’s militaristic approach to... well, everything, would have consequences not only for the rest of the world, but for the Fire Nation itself.

That’s why I’ve even taken advantage of that particular situation in my main fic, because confronting a Fire Nation character with the reality that the war is harming their nation is just a great development and growth resource that the show squandered... and I will never understand why it did xD

But beyond that particular element of conceptual brilliance... the Painted Lady leaves much to be desired for me too. I don’t lump it in with the others as “filler” because of what I said, it really does add something of far more important value to the war and worldbuilding than Avatar Day did (despite that one features Kyoshi’s story, which, sure, expands the history of the Avatarverse but not exactly your understanding of their world as a whole...?), and obviously, much more important than what The Great Divide features. Still, I really don’t enjoy Katara and Sokka’s conflict here. Sokka’s position to not help people, to do nothing and just push forward with their plans, when he had taken the exact opposite stance in earlier episodes (namely Jet, where he saves Fire Nation soldiers from the dam’s destruction, no less, or even the Northern Air Temple, where he could have easily said “well okay this is too much drama let’s go to the north pole now, Aang”) felt like the writers were just hellbent on turning them against each other just for the sake of drama. Yes, Sokka and Katara often clash because of how different they are, but it’s different here than it would be in Books 1 and 2: you’d expect they’d have learned a few things from their frequent conflicts, such as the one they have in The Great Divide, but it flat-out doesn’t look like they did. After this, they still clash over Hama and later yet over Yon Rha. Meaning... they didn’t learn much from this conflict either. So, there’s not much in the way of growing and changing as far as their sibling relationship is concerned? It’s kind of... disappointing. At least, it is to me.

It was also really strange for Sokka to be so hellbent on sticking to a schedule that looks like an Excel spreadsheet graphic when

They have several days to spare when they reach the Black Cliffs in Nightmares and Daydreams.

He and the others wasted time in varying ways during the episodes leading to the Invasion (both before and after the Painted Lady) and he never used the schedule again as an argument to keep moving.

It’s not out of character entirely for him to act this way, but it makes no sense that they’d arrive at the Black Cliffs with time to spare if they devoted that much time to cleaning a river, getting Sokka a few swordsmanship lessons, lounging around lazily in a hot spring cove, visiting Roku’s old house for a while, running scams with Toph, dealing with Hama and her creepiness/saving all those villagers... I mean. Really. Time WAS wasted. A lot of it. And somehow they got there several days early?

For me, the conflict between Sokka and Katara in this episode feels less genuine than whenever they had conflicts before, partly because it was an old, tried and tired situation that presented Sokka as the cold-bloodeed and Katara as the emotional one (where Katara of course is framed as righteous and fair, while Sokka looks like a self-involved jerk up until he defends his sister). But it feels even worse after you progress in the show and find out that Sokka’s big concern over arriving on time was actually completely unnecessary? It’s an artificial conflict, really. It doesn’t feel genuine, it feels like it’s there just to create emotional stakes that don’t really pay off because we’ve seen these two for almost three seasons and we know their conflicts don’t last and always are resolved for the better (only for them to jump into a new one a few episodes later). No real difference here. You don’t learn a single new thing about these characters. It’s more of the same situations they’re always in.

This episode is probably great for Katara fans, and it definitely paints her in much better light than the other Katara-centric episodes of Book 3 (The Puppetmaster and The Southern Raiders), so I’d assume a lot of Katara fans love it to pieces. There’s also the obsession certain areas of the fandom have over spirit alter egos of characters... I don’t need to elaborate much on what I mean, but safe to say I’m far from intrigued by that particular trope (though my bigger qualm isn’t with the Painted Lady but with the Blue Spirit, against whom I have a gazillion reservations and I’ll voice them as many times as I must). So, as far as personal investment in this episode goes... yeah. I really don’t have any other than in the village of Jang Hui because of the implications it holds for the worldbuilding and the Fire Nation as a whole. Beyond that... this episode doesn’t really do anything for me. I often have to rewatch episodes for research purposes with Gladiator... this one I haven’t watched since ages ago and I can’t say I’m interested in doing it again anytime soon.

Still, as far as trifecta of fillers goes, I think it’s difficult to really determine which episodes should be part of it? There’s a lot of filler content in ATLA, but often peppered with stuff that will be useful later on somehow. Yet there’s a lot of it that isn’t? The nuns of the Abbey never come up again. The pirates aren’t relevant past Book 1. The entirety of The Ember Island Players is absolute, unabashed filler content, and some people even feel that way about The Beach too. Soooo... I guess ranking the filler episodes depending on their usefulness can be tricky. Some are more useful, some are less so, most of them don’t feature much in the way of useful, lasting character development and sometimes resort to old problems that could have been resolved already... such as the Runaway’s big Katara-Toph rivalry, which hadn’t reared its ugly head since The Chase, so it looked like a problem long-resolved.

So, would I round out the trifecta of fillers with the Painted Lady...? Yeah, well, I can’t say for sure, but I can say it ranks amongst my least liked episodes just like the other two xD

#anon #threw in a read more #just in case #I do ramble #a lot #oops #someone ought to stop me #but anyways I don't really know for sure what the worst ATLA episodes are #strangely one of my most disliked episodes is the Swamp #I... don't even know why #it makes me sleepy #and it's not like it's not useful as far as worldbuilding is concerned #hell I literally will take advantage of that swamp in a myriad of ways in my story #... but that episode #just doesn't work with me

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themattress · 5 years

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“Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til its gone...”

Upon reflection, I’ve determined something.

Kingdom Hearts II’s way of doing Disney world visits was the best one for the series.

Now, don’t get me wrong here. The original Kingdom Hearts still did the technical best job of incorporating every Disney world visit into the plot. In fact, you could say that KH, KH2 and KH3 are all on a spectrum when it comes to the quality of story writing when it comes to world visits and the overall stakes of the plot: KH being the best (the stakes are highest with a universal apocalypse being underway, with crucial reasons to visit the Disney worlds and the overarching story being pushed forward in them in ways both big and small), and KH3 being the worst (there are no stakes since nothing truly threatening can really happen until the Keyblade War at the end, and there is no reason for Sora to be visiting any of the Disney worlds beyond Olympus and the things the Organization get out of the Disney worlds are usually incredibly nebulous and undercooked). KH2 hits the sweet spot in the middle (there are stakes but they are not as imminent, are more slow-moving, and more personal than they are epic, while not all the Disney visits advance the plot but there are usually legitimate reasons for Sora to be there - I say usually because a lot of the revisits sadly drop the ball.)

But that sweet spot in the middle is how I think the visits should have gone in KH3 and other games in the series. It’s shonen anime style done RIGHT: there are filler episodes that are still usually fun and allow a breather between important plot points, while there are still important episodes that advance the main story and character development, plus even the filler episodes can follow larger themes of the story and characters, and contain little moments that add a lot to the overall experience. Plus, I’m sorry but it has to be said: the first KH was lightning in a bottle. It was never gonna be recaptured, the kind of epic, atmospheric crisis crossover with a universal apocalypse needing to be stopped couldn’t be replicated, nor should the attempt be made because it would just undermine that first game. KH2′s style takes a different direction in having a more slow-burning high-stakes situation and a more personal edge than a universal one, but still follows in the original game’s footsteps in making you care about the characters and making you want to see more worldbuilding happen in this Disney/Final Fantasy crossover universe. It’s an ideal balance. Look, here’s the KH2 map:

Now, ignoring 100 Acre Wood which has always been optional fun fluff and Atlantica which is also optional and also just a colossal mistake on almost every level, we start with Land of Dragons (filler), Beast’s Castle (important), Olympus Coliseum (important), Disney Castle / Timeless River (important), Port Royal (seems like filler, later turns out to be important), Agrabah (filler), Halloween Town (filler), Pride Land (filler), and Space Paranoids (important). Then on the second go-round, we get Land of Dragons (seems important, later turns out to be filler), Beast’s Castle (important), Olympus Coliseum (important), Port Royal (important), Agrabah (filler), Halloween Town (filler), Pride Land (filler), and Space Paranoids (important). All of this situated between (and in the case of Space Paranoids, blending in with) the important beginning, middle and end of the story. Again, it’s not like the first KH where it feels like every step of your journey is important regardless of how big or small that importance may be, but it’s VASTLY preferable to the near-total filler treatment the Disney world visits get in literally every other game in the series (COM, Days, BBS, Coded, 3D, X/UX and KH3).

Seriously, is it any wonder KH2 was gotten the reputation as the peak of the series’ quality?

#Disney #Square Enix #Kingdom Hearts #Kingdom Hearts II #Opinion #Analysis #Truthbomb #This has been a PSA

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fountainpenguin · 5 years

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T.U.F.F. Reflection

Now that I’m done with “T.U.F.F. Puppy” I thought I’d condense my overall thoughts into a single post (minus my Keswick thoughts since we’ve already established that I like Keswick).

Action isn’t really my genre, so “T.U.F.F.” wasn’t my favorite of the four Hartman shows, but I’m glad I was finally able to watch it. There were some interesting characters, episode plots, and dialogue that I enjoyed and I look forward to figuring out whether I can add the show in my united Hartmanverse timeline.

“Guard Dog” was hands-down my favorite episode. “Kid Stuff,” “True Spies,” “Bluff Puppy,” “Organized Crime,” Dancin’ Machine,” “Doom and Gloom,” “The Rat Pack,” “Legal Beagle,” and “Happy Howl-O-Ween” are up there too in no particular order. “Love Bird” was also good and was totally worth the season and a half spent setting up the “Bob” joke alone.

I did appreciate the commitment to animal puns. I kept expecting them to run out, but they kept up throughout the series.

I really enjoyed some of the T.U.F.F Agency’s rules, such as not attacking criminals in the presence of children, and the laws protecting members of endangered species. I thought those were played very well.

Interesting worldbuilding details: The animal people visit the vet instead of the doctor, animals that need to hibernate do indeed hibernate in winter, the hospital maternity ward has a place for mothers to gather together and incubate their eggs, and Dudley is able to eat large amounts of chocolate despite being a dog. Dudley’s mom seems to have trained him to obey the usual dog commands since his coworkers sometimes tell him to Sit, Stay, or Heel and he listens instantly. Mousetraps, pesticides, and flea collars are legally sold and no one questions the morality of this.

However, when Dudley’s flea collar made the Chief ill, the Chief was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and healed. It would seem that targeting “pest” species this way is legal, but if someone calls the police or hospital, the “pest” is treated like any other patient. The line might be drawn along a border of indirectly killing another animal by setting a trap versus hunting them down and directly attacking them.

Speaking of fleas and morality, can we talk about the Keswick-Chief relationship because I want to talk about the bloodsucking parasite and the three-hearted alien, please.

And speaking of aliens, Keswick joining the alien-hunting club in the hopes of meeting girls will never not be funny. Never.

There was some excellent subtle worldbuilding in the background, like hamster tube tunnels between the buildings, the hamster tube monorail system in general, and these beautiful multi-species restrooms:

Similarly, I always enjoyed seeing the characters’ animal sides come out in small ways, like Dudley curling into a ball to sleep, fetching things, and dropping into a crouch when he’s upset. Also good: Touched-starved Chameleon using the “I’m cold-blooded” argument to demand snuggles.

I really liked how Snaptrap and the Chameleon had day jobs (running a dance studio and hosting the evil shopping channel respectively). Those were excellent, consistent details that really helped flesh them out. Snaptrap teaching Kitty to memorize dance moves through crime-related mnemonics was super cute.

I enjoyed the snippets of backstory we got from the villains, but I’m always interested in more. I felt the Chameleon was extremely rounded and well done, Snaptrap was mostly rounded but grew dull and repetitive quickly, and Bird Brain was flat and super predictable the majority of the time.

So, I’d have liked to see a larger pool of villains. There were only three major villains throughout the series and their associated henchmen, followed by the reoccurring antagonists: the F.L.O.P.P. members (who were generally together and basically count as one), Quacky and the Sharing Moose (who again count together), and the Caped Cod (I don’t count the Weasel or Jack as reoccurring). The reoccurring villain pool felt like it only contained “six” villains and I’d have liked a few more (especially since the Chameleon and the Meerkat were the only reoccurring antagonists I was actively fond of).

Also, the Caped Cod might be the most annoying cartoon character I have ever seen in my life. It’s not usual for me to actively dislike a character, but he successfully annoyed me. A lot.

I’m kind of disappointed in the lack of lady villains. Zippy was merely Birdbrain’s tagalong and didn’t really do anything evil herself, while R.I.T.A., Snowflake, and Katty appeared for one episode each (two of them appeared early in Season 1 and were never seen again).

In fact, there just weren’t a lot of girls in general (Kitty being the only one to appear consistently) and I found that a little strange. Some behind-the-scenes lore digging revealed that Snaptrap and Larry are brothers-in-law, so I’d have liked to see more of Snaptrap’s sister / Larry’s wife.

To be honest I’m a little miffed the fact that Snaptrap and Larry are related by marriage wasn’t ever mentioned in the actual show, because those two are at each other’s throats constantly and it’s kind of something I’d have liked to know.

Continuity was a little hit-or-miss throughout the show. I did appreciate when background details remained consistent (like Dudley having his new house and new bed in later episodes after he obtained them), but things written in later episode scripts didn’t always line up with previous scripts and it bothered me a bit. On that note, though, Keswick having a fear of drowning despite having gills is something I find hilarious.

I had some issues with Dudley’s characterization over the course of the series. Early on he was obsessed with being helpful and did everything enthusiastically, including paperwork (to the point that his thoroughness with paperwork drove everyone crazy). He was constantly on edge, quick to jump to conclusions, expected that villains to show up at any time, and was completely unable to relax on vacation. Later episodes directly contradict this by portraying him as lazy, ineffective, and forcing Kitty to do his work for him. I suppose it’s reasonable that he grew bored of his job over time, but I found him more difficult to like. If I ever write him, I’d most likely be drawing inspiration from his early characterization.

Similarly, Kitty was shown early on to love relaxation, and her greatest weakness was that she was easily distracted by stereotypical cat interests like yarn, birds, and fish. In later episodes she loses interest in fish and the “easily distracted” weakness was dropped. She is also portrayed as a workaholic who refuses to calm down despite loving to relax in the beginning. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a hard worker and I would have believed it if this episode had come first, but I’m not a fan of how she and Dudley flipped personalities so completely that they basically switched characterizations by the end of the series. As with Dudley, I’ll probably favor Kitty’s early characterization if I ever write her.

So, those are my initial “I have now binge-watched this kids’ show” thoughts. As I rewatch “T.U.F.F.” episodes over time I might find new things I like or new things that bug me, but this is the hot-off-the-press general reflection. Not my favorite, but it was interesting and I’m glad I watched it. I’ll look for places in my united Hartmanverse worldbuilding where it can fit, though I’ll likely be less of a stickler for canon with “T.U.F.F.” than I am with the others since the cartoon physics are so extreme.

At this time I’m thinking I’ll write a one-shot (or maybe a three-part short story) that will allow me to explore some of the darker aspects of animal people world we couldn’t have in a kids show. Specifically, we’d be delving into predator-prey interactions, the legalities of hunting, and the flea-and-host relationship Keswick and the Chief seem to have going on behind the scenes because I’m super predictable. As I said, Action isn’t my genre of choice and I’m more interested in exploring the worldbuilding and character relationships.

I won’t write any major stories for this show like I’ve written FOP ‘fics, but I’d like to write a bit about the “T.U.F.F.” world and characters just to mix things up in my writing life. I’d say expect some Keswick backstory for sure, because he’s fun. He’s really fun. I might also write a bit about the Chameleon, possibly by combining Chameleon POV with a Larry x Snaptrap’s sister wedding story so we can get a look at that relationship too. Since Snaptrap and Larry have such extreme conflict throughout the series, I think that would be fun to delve into for a warm-up one-shot someday.

We’ll see how it goes.

#Riddle watches TUFF #Spy dog show #Special Agent Mutt #Lonely lizard #Kitty the good cat #Mostly true blue gadget guru #screenshots #Puppy Love #Cruisin For a Bruisin #Til Doom Do Us Part #Guard Dog #Share a Lair #More character tags later as I think of them

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puppetmaster55 · 6 years

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Thoughts on the s3-s6 Storyline

So.

Yeah.

I’ve already spoken about my thoughts on the clone storyline (back when it was a theory) and on how s3 and s4 connect as a singular storyline (they do not), and on how I feel about s6, what I believe Lotor’s true endgame was, how Naxzela was absolutely a trap Haggar wanted Kuron to lead everyone into, how Acxa knew about Sam Holt, and so now comes my thoughts on all of it. All twenty-six episodes that make up s3-s6.

These twenty-six episodes were more geared toward being Lotor’s storyline while Voltron took a backseat to his arc. The war was ended, I guess, when Lotor took the throne bc we don’t see any rebel force fighting the empire after that. Heck, during the Kral Zera both Haggar and Sendak proclaim the empire is no more.

I dunno. I think the writers wanted to have the war die with Zarkon, or something. It’s very unclear, until we see the aftereffects of all of this in the next season.

I don’t think I can divide this post from how I feel about clone theory, now clone storyline. Because that whole thing was just… one clusterfuck of a mess, and one that we will never see explained. Everyone’s come forward to say that the clone storyline is done, and even watching the show I could tell that we are never going to get an explanation. Nothing about Operation Kuron is ever going to be explained.

We saw the clone reveal, and with it came… zero explanation. Every single clone is now dead. The whole operation was destroyed. OG Shiro is back and with presumably more holes in his memory than he had before, depending on how you view it. The clone served his narrative purpose and now we’ll never know or understand the in-universe reasons for there even being clones outside of speculation and fanon.

And there’s no build-up to the clone thing. All we have ever had to go on has been the vague flashes seen when he appears and as someone who doesn’t recognize clone tropes when they’re being used, I didn’t catch that they were a buncha hints that he was a clone.

Honestly, there was just… so much build-up to it being mind control (which it kinda was) than to there being clones. From Narti to the Hoktril to Haggar using the mind control to look into Zarkon’s mind (and see through Narti’s eyes), it all felt like a whole lotta build-up to the reveal that “clone” was a red herring and it was real shiro all along, just mind controlled there at the end.

But instead it was a clone, whose reveal as a clone was purely for shock value and given zero explanation for why Haggar would clone Shiro.

I still don’t like Keith as the leader, because I’ve barely seen him make tactically sound decisions that weren’t in the heat of the moment and weren’t explained to the team. Even worse, that he left the team, stopped being a paladin, for almost three years on his timeline, and he comes back and fits right in like he never left. Nobody is the same person they were after spending two years without social interaction outside of your family and a dog you raised (even if you get flashes of your whole life story in those two years).

Over the course of these four seasons I grew less and less interested in Keith, to the point where I was zoning out for entire scenes he was centered around (I… honestly will have to watch The Black Paladins several times before I can even get drawn into it and remember what happened there). Do I have anything against Keith? No. I just have nothing toward Keith either. I feel nothing for him, because there’s nothing about him that I can really relate to.

Keith has never wanted to be the Black Paladin and frankly neither do I. He’s not someone who inspires others, or can stand as a beacon of hope, or any number of things that makes him anywhere qualified to be the guy calling the shots.

To say little of the fact that Keith, just like when he was first introduced, swooped in to save Shiro when Lance had all that build-up. I do not think, at this point in the story, that that is ever going to change.

I love Krolia to bits, though. She’s amazing and I desperately hope she isn’t killed off.

These 26 episodes have felt more like they were devoted to telling Lotor’s story than to telling the continuation of Voltron’s story, or the war of the Coalition against the galra empire. The last we see of the Coalition is the opening of s5, where they’ve regained a whole third of the empire and it seems like that’s it.

There’s so much story that happens off-screen too, like when s5 opens with the minor timejump all for the audience surprise of “the generals have Sam Holt”. Or… whatever that past Lotor has with Acxa.

Really, I could stand to have an episode of Acxa’s backstory so we can understand just what in the hell the point of the s4 finale betrayal was if she was always on his side all along, as we learn in the s6 finale. Because nothing about her turning against Haggar for Lotor makes any sort of sense otherwise.

Thata’s the crux of it, ultimately. The s3-s6 storyline was like an iceberg: we were, at any given point in time, only given ten percent of the story. Even now that it’s done a lot of us, I think, are still scrabbling to uncover just what that other 90 percent of the story we weren’t shown or explicitly told was.

Compare this to s1-s2 storyline, where by the end of s2 we understood everything that happened and everything that was going on, because it was all clearly told to us.

Ultimately, I feel like Lotor made more strides in his arc than anyone else. Allura now knows how to use the powers she discovered at the end of s2, and Lance now has a sword and a more long-range weapon, and yeah Pidge now has found her entire family but… it doesn’t feel like anyone else is at a different place than they were when they began. Unless we count the continued groundwork of the future “Lance quitting the team” arc.

I’m still not sure if I should count Lance as having an arc, considering that he went from having a lion he was super bonded to (Blue) to having a lion that he just… flew and completely failed to stop Lotor or realize the full extent of what was wrong with Shiro.

This set wasn’t great for a number of reasons, least of all the muddled storyline. Lotor’s storyline was enough for 26 episodes, while the war was enough for 26 episodes, and… we had two separate storylines that were enough for 52 episodes condensed into half that amount. Lotor had no bearing upon the war whatsoever, that when we jumped back into it in s4 it felt jarring. Almost entirely because it was a sudden timeskip.

I siad it before and I’ll say it again here: the decision to split the 13-episode seasons into smaller seasons was a major saving grace, with how little s4 follows the events of s3… for the Voltron side of things.

Because, again, Lotor had a much clearer storyline for these 26 episodes than anyone or anything else.

There were things I loved about this season set (Sven, Lance getting a sword and sniper feature, the worldbuilding among the Galra, all the new characters, THE OG PALADINS THEY HAVE FOUND THEIR WAY INTO MY HEART BLAYTZ ESPECIALLY) and some things I didn’t (clone storyline, oh my god I was so against it the moment I heard it as a theory bc I knew the show couldn’t pull it off and by god did they not pull it off).

And oh my god, Lotor. I love Lotor, so incredibly much. He was so genuine but his pragmatism and the way he bent morals to do what needed to be done made him a fantastic villain. It makes me almost wish he had been someone genuinely good who kept getting pushed into looking like the villain because of his parents. Almost.

God but I dearly hope we’re not done with Lotor, because he went full Azula and to see him undergo a redemption arc at that point would be so stunning.

Everything in these past 26 episodes went from being clear-cut to being a mess. We have the Coalition, Rebels, and Blade working to destroy the empire, the empire falling apart into a civil war, and Voltron jumping sides as they find new people to ally themselves with. Everything is going in so many different directions now, that I feel like I need a flowchart to understand it all. I can only hope that, moving forward, the dust can begin to settle so we can see where everyone stands. I can only hope that the plot finally slows down enough for both audience and characters to get their bearings.

...also I am unashamedly stating that s5 sits as one of my top three favorite seasons of the show so far, purely because of how much it focused on the interaction and relationship with Shiro and Lance. Also, Monsters and Mana is the filler episode we’ve been begging for all along. Please let us get more like it.

#puppet rambles #puppet gets salty #....not all that salty tho #voltron

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mustlovemustypages · 7 years

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2017 Yuletide Letter

Hello Yuletider!

I’m glad you’re here and reading this letter. Please know that I am extremely grateful for your time and all of the effort you will be making to write the best story (or stories) possible. Listed below are some of my favorite “small” fandoms and the ships that I adore in each. Most of these fandoms are ones that I think ended too soon or there wasn’t as much exploration of the ships as I would have liked.

Please don’t feel boxed in by my requests. At the very bottom, I’ve tried to explain what I do/don’t like in the most concise way possible. Don’t stress too much about your writing as I’m sure whatever you create will be fantastic... if you love these fandoms enough to write about them, you’re my favorite kind of person.

**Edited: Thanks to a coalie for pointing out that I hadn’t actually specified which characters I am requesting... my bad!**

Pitch:

Characters: Ginny Baker and Mike Lawson

I was in a rut for days after finding out that Pitch was canceled. There was so much left unresolved!

Mike/Ginny are it for me and this show, although Blip/Evelyn are pretty great too and if they were a side couple I wouldn’t complain.

My main request is that you fix it so Ginny and Mike are together. I don’t care if you have this happen after canon in a “Season 2” sort of way, or if you twist some of the storylines around so that they get together earlier. I just want to read about it happening so that I smile a ton and forget about the tragedy that is this show’s cancellation.

A few ideas:

Hurt/Comfort in dealing with Ginny’s anxiety/panic attack or some lingering PTSD with the car accident.

The team and the media having fun and talking about how Ginny and Mike are perfect for each other and how they know every single thing about each other while remaining completely oblivious to the fact.

The Darkest Minds:

Characters: Ruby Daly and Liam Stewart

X-Men was my jam when I was younger, and The Darkest Minds is basically X-Men set in a dystopian world with really loveable characters.

Liam is such a sweetheart. Book 2 when he gets his memories back had me literally crying. Ruby is a precious gem that needs to be protected at all costs, even if it’s from herself. Chubs and Zhu are amazing, and I love the little family the four of them made together. Vida was also really great, and so was Cole… and you get the point. I loved them all.

Story ideas:

Reunions are the best. Write how you would have liked the Liam and Ruby reunion in Book 2 to have played out or expand on canon to bring on even more feels. Other character reunions are also welcome.

Show Ruby’s struggle with her abilities and how she copes in healthy/unhealthy ways.

I wish there were more scenes exploring the dynamics of Cole, Liam, and Ruby (not in an OT3 sort of way). Writing an extension of the scene that took place in the shower with Ruby and Cole where they talk more about their respective relationships with Liam and their powers would be interesting.

Write a “scene between scenes” dealing with some of your favorite dramatic moments of the book series.

Tru Calling:

Characters: Tru Davies (and Davis if desired)

THIS SHOW… It’s been over a decade and I’m still not over its cancellation. I’m really open with what you write for this fandom since there is such a lack of fics.

I only care about Tru being the main character. Including Davis is optional, although I really did enjoy the friendship between him and Tru on the show. Tru/Jack is my favorite ship, but I know Jack is not in the tagset (because I was an idiot and messed up my nominations) so I can’t specifically request him. If you do include Jack, that would be amazing, but don’t feel pressured to do so.

Story ideas:

Continue the story. This can be your own headcanon of what would have happened, or what the various cast/crew members revealed would have happened (basically the show was going to revolve around the mythology of two opposing forces in the world that balanced each other out in terms of life/death).

Write an episode-like story where Tru gets the traditional “save me” in the morgue and goes back in time to save their life.

Show the toll that all of Tru’s dealings with death are having on her, and how certain people in her life help her cope (i.e. Jack, Davis…)

Flash forward into the future where Tru and Jack (or an original male character that has the same abilities as Tru) have become reluctant friends (or more?) and Davis is simultaneously appalled by the idea and also like “I knew this was going to happen all along.” (REMEMBER: No pressure to include Jack - I think it’s hard to continue canon without him, but I know there were some that weren’t his fans)

The Defenders:

Characters: Jessica Jones and Luke Cage OR Matt Murdock

First and foremost, I want to put it out there that I was hardcore Luke/Jessica even before the tv show came out. I thought they were great in Jessica Jones, I was disappointed that there wasn’t really anything about them in Luke Cage, and the small moments between them in The Defenders were like little bursts of hope for me.

That said, I totally get the appeal of Jessica/Matt, so a fic with them as the pairing would be okay with me as well. Please don’t do OT3s with Jessica/Matt/Luke (or any other characters for that matter). I would prefer gen between all of the Defenders rather than putting more than two of them in a romantic relationship.

Story ideas:

Luke and Jessica learning to trust each other again amongst the events of The Defenders, and Jessica sharing a bit more of her past with Kilgrave to help Luke understand what exactly she went through.

Jessica Jones is a walking poster child for PTSD and I would really like to see this explored more. Recovery isn’t necessary, but having at least someone else realize her suffering (Luke, Matt, etc.) and talking it out a little would be great.

Out of all of the relationships in The Defenders, I think Matt and Jessica’s was the most interesting. They had a natural chemistry and seemed to form a bond rather quickly. An exploration of their burgeoning relationship through the eyes of others would be fascinating.

Chicago PD:

Characters: Erin Lindsay and Jay Halstead

Sophia Bush leaving Chicago PD hurts my soul. Please give me some Linstead to fix this giant, gaping hole in my life.

Story ideas:

Write the car trip episode that was written and never made it to air. From the sound of it, the episode was going to be extremely shippy and tell us a lot about the characters’ pasts.

After a rough case, Jay is wondering why Erin is reacting so badly and she ends up revealing parts of her childhood/life before living with Voight.

Linstead through the eyes of their team.

Things I don’t like:

Alternate Universes – For the specific fandoms that I picked, I really like the universes as they are. I’m definitely okay with deviations from canon, but please don’t make Chicago PD/Pitch into a supernatural werewolf story or The Darkest Minds/The Defenders take place in a mundane coffee shop setting. (I don’t mind Soulmate AUs because those can be incorporated into canon with little change to worldbuilding)

Non-Con/Rape/BDSM/Sexual Violence/Graphic Sex – I like my characters to be happy and everything within shipsto be 100% consensual, no question about it (mentions of non-con if it occurred in canon is fine). I also prefer plot over porn, especially with one-shots.

OT3s – Two people per relationship please. Any more than that makes me uncomfortable.

Character Bashing - Unless a character is a bad guy in canon, I don’t want to read hundreds of words about how awful they are, especially if they are one of the characters that I requested. Don’t take it out on the characters if you hate my pairings, just write gen.

Things I love:

Hurt/Comfort – There is nothing I love more than one character comforting another. The hurt can be physical, psychological, or both.

Happy Endings – I’m all for the realistic endings… but if they could be plausible AND happy-ish, that would be amazing.

Expanded Scenes/Contorting Canon – Feel free to expand scenes and change up canon to your heart’s content as long as it makes logical sense.

Humor/Banter/Snark – I thrive on this stuff.

Bonding/Building Relationships – Whether it be a friendship or a romantic relationship, I adore reading about two people coming closer together. When characters know each other so well that they can have conversations with just their eyes or anticipate the person’s next move (especially if it’s to the surprise/confusion of everyone around them), my shipper heart is thrilled.

Dark to Light – Seeing a character come out of a bad mindset/situation and get better is so satisfying.

Thanks again and happy writing!

- Maddy @mustlovemustypages (on Tumblr, Ao3 and FF.net)

#yuletide #ginny x mike #the defenders #linstead #matt x jessica #the darkest minds #ruby x liam #tru calling #jessica jones #jessica x luke #chicago pd #erin x jay

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