#as a kid i loved every dragon from Book Of Dragons having its own episode | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

raayllum · 9 months

Note

I just finished Book 5, and do you think that Ezra’s arc will have him learn that words aren’t enough? Some fans do think that he’s the least emphasized of the Dragang

I don't think Ezran is going to learn that words aren't enough (they have been, often times in his life, and trying non violent routes are important) but I do think he's going to be presented with more and more situations where it is, as he acknowledges, "Not that simple" (4x03).

In Arc 1, you had the transformative trio of characters (Callum, Rayla, Soren) who were rapidly changing as people versus the more "circumstances change and drag out certain personality traits either more or less" stagnated trio (Ezran, Viren, Claudia). In Arc 2 thus far, it seems that Soren, Claudia, and Ezran are the 'stagnant' ones and Viren, Callum, and Rayla are the transformative ones. That being said, I do think S5 focused on Ezran as much as S4 focused on Rayla, so it's not surprising there's a bit of a trade off (especially with Janai very much being a Main Character in arc 2) with Callum (always our main Main protagonist) getting a decent amount every season. There's definitely a lack of Ezran in the first four episodes (he gets about one scene a-piece) but I do think it's over quality > quantity, in some ways. (Bow from She-Ra for example is in every single episode of that series, but gets very little by way of arcs or conflict or interiority, y'know?)

That said:

I talked about this a bit more in a podcast review I did for the season / this meta, but I think Soren and Ezran are having slowburn arcs that will come to fruition in S6. Soren, after all, hasn't really changed as a character since the end of S3 - he's on team good guy, he's reaffirming his choices and love for his friends, he still cares for Claudia and still views his father as a cruel villain (which, Viren is/can be).

Ezran, likewise, is dealing with his own well, slowburn of problems. In a lot of ways, Ezran has to hold it together when everyone else is falling apart (Rayla is MIA, Callum is a mess; staying level headed even when they're arguing; being the main negotiator seemingly between the Pentarchy and the dragons of Xadia; and ruling is own kingdom). He takes his duties seriously and wants to broker peace further, if maybe a tad faster than people are ready for. Like Janai says, I think, his priorities have changed since becoming king. His duty first and foremost is to his kingdom/the world. (Not that it wasn't his mindset before, but it wasn't his responsibility before pre-series, y'know?) Which is very Rayla of him, I think ("I let them all down" in 3x04 / "I just feel like I'm letting everybody down" for Ez in 3x03).

And we see how much this weighs on Ezran based on how heavily he takes responsibility for his perceived and or literal mistakes. Whether it's speeding things up too fast / not giving enough room for his people's, or his own anger...

E: I had a speech planned for today. It was about peace and love and hope. But I think I left something out. I ignored something that was true. I denied something that is undeniable.

or in doing the right thing in saving the Baitlings, but putting his friends in danger.

And Soren acknowledges that this isn't really fair for Ezran, either:

Soren: This is all too heavy. It's not fair you have to struggle through this alone. You deserve time to do kid stuff. If you spend all your time doing adult stuff now, you'll grow up weird, like your brother and Rayla.

Now, on the certain level, Ezran is alone because he's like - he's the King, and that's its own unique position. However, if you look at how close Viren and Harrow, and Harrow and Sarai were, in their decision making, they did everything together. In spite of being a single dad, Harrow was never alone in what he did as king (for better or for worse): "I accept that tonight I may pay the price for our mistakes."

So I think it's interesting this emphasis on loneliness/alone in the same season we have Amaya and Rayla's conversation about it too:

A: My big sister Sarai was the smartest, strongest, bravest person I knew. When she died, I felt lost and weak without her.

I hated feeling that way, so I learned to be strong alone. Stoic, strong, and lonely. [...] To have that kind of strength, it is not enough to love someone. You have to trust them to share the burdens you're carrying.

So who does Ezran depend on to carry that burden with him? Because Ezran isn't supposed to be alone as king, and Harrow spelled it out for us:

When I am gone your brother Ezran will become king, and you will be his partner, his defender, and his closest advisor.

So the question is... has Callum really fulfilled his role for his brother? Callum isn't crownguard, so actually protecting Ezran is primarily in Soren and Corvus' hands, exemplified by Soren being the one to get angry over the ruined painting in 4x03, to run to Ezran in 4x09, and for Callum to be absent from the Dragon mission in S5. And when Callum is there to have a duty to fulfil:

Then we see the brothers - not Ezran and Rayla - disagree on how to proceed forward with Aaravos, getting momentarily a little heated before they both turn to Rayla (and remember those Rayla parallels I mentioned earlier?):

Now, it's not surprising that Ezran wants to take the diplomatic / least violent route. He's the one primarily appealing to Akiyu rather than barrelling onwards, and expresses great concern for her (even after she tried to kill them). Claudia thinks she can appeal to him in 5x09 because of his empathy. A more compassionate, reasonable route is what he's always done, trying to reason evenly with Finnegrin and with Rex Igneous, even if it doesn't precisely work out... simply because they, like his brother, don't exactly Value the same things Ezran does.

Alright, so the broyals disagreed once, and Callum is a little flighty as a High Mage. So what? Well: Callum now knows, and has already committed himself, to helping Rayla free her parents from the coins, including Runaan.

And Ezran's short story going into S5 hints that this may not exactly be something he's happy about:

Ezran gripped the arrow tight. The thing in his hands was a terrible letter, the ribbon its message: the king of Katolis was dead. King Harrow. His father. Something cold lurched inside him. He fought against it. He’d fought it before, that same hurt, years ago—when he’d found out what really happened that night in Katolis. Still, it haunted him. He couldn’t help but imagine the scene, all of it playing out like grim theater before him, as though he’d been there, as though he’d stood by and watched it happen. That Moonshadow elf upon the castle ramparts, skulking toward his father’s chambers.

It stared up at him. Ezran felt a coldness twist its way around his heart. It took his lungs, too, and for a long moment he could not breathe, could not feel anything but an unfamiliar anger so potent it seized the whole of him, inside and out. Ezran stepped towards the arrow— —and stomped down on it as hard as he could. He wished he were bigger, stronger, he wished his boots were made of iron and not something soft. Still, it was enough. When he pulled his foot away, Ezran glared down at the arrow’s hawkish head, flattened and broken. Its ruby eye slipped from its socket, its black metal bent like frayed feathers. He left it there in the dark.

Full short story here.

So Ezran is going to find out, or possibly feel, that Callum and Rayla are keeping a secret from him (again, just like S2, which didn't make him happy then, either). Callum is going to side with Rayla over him if he mandates that Runaan shouldn't or can't be freed, giving into his anger and grief much the same way his father did. He may pull rank - and Callum is going to disregard it. A very similar fallout repeating itself...

Ezran being increasingly isolated (especially if Callum and Rayla are working, or leaving, to find the Starscraper), his disapproval and grief, trying to manage the possible fallout of Zubeia being injured/MIA, feeling undervalued and disregarded by his brother... There's little doubt in my mind that Callum and Ezran (and Rayla) will reconcile and find their way back to one another, healing their hurts, but Ezran has a lot of potential anger and angst to express and a lot on his upcoming plate, steadily added to and set up by the previous seasons.

Which in a lot of ways, makes sense. Ezran as king and Callum as high mage, and as brothers, have to prove they won't fall apart the same way that King Harrow and Viren did, more necessary than ever now that Callum has done dark magic again. Ezran was there to pick up the pieces after Rayla left, but he may still have anger over that and their joint secret keeping from him / feeling like they're treating him 'unfairly' like a child. We've also never really seen Ezran have this type of conflict before, nevermind for the trio as a whole (most of the time it's been Callum and Rayla disagreeing, a couple brief instances of Ez and Rayla, and Callum and Ez a few times in S1 / 5x05) so for Ezran to be what starts falling apart would really rattle all three of him, and seems to be where he's headed, character wise.

And I for one cannot wait to see it.

TLDR; Ezran's slow burn arc, much like Soren's, is being steadily set up and is going to likely be a big focus in the next two seasons, pushing him and other characters in brand new directions and with some really emotional, powerful storytelling to upstage our previously held status quo in all the ways.

142 notes · View notes

vikenticomeshome · 22 days

Text

Cyberchase Character Discussion (for your local Cyberchase trivia quiz) - #2: Matt

I made a post while back talking about archiving material from the Cyberchase website, including the now-removed character bios. I made a post about Inez, intending it to be the first in a series, and then I put it aside. Now I'm getting back to it.

#2: Matt

So, let's start with his character bio in "Meet the Cybersquad". This was released in 2001, before the series started airing in 2002. I don't know how much of this is still canon, given how much time has passed.

We learn that Matt, like Jackie, is 11 years old. He is presented as Cyber-detective, which is interesting. All of the kids engage in problem-solving. I never really thought Matt was into detective stuff specifically. He is big on the use of his yo-yo when thinking, and he does come prepared with tools in his backpack.

His favorite color is green, which makes sense, as he wears a green turtleneck in almost every episode. He enjoys pizza and pancakes. He enjoys Brian Jacques's "Redwall" books, so we know he isn't squeamish. I love that his favorite is "anything by Will Smith". This bio really is a product of its time. His favorite movie is "Star Wars". He might be referring to "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" back when it was titled just "Star Wars", or he could be referring to the franchise as a whole. I wonder if he canonically liked "The Phantom Menace", which would have been the only movie from the Star Wars prequel trilogy out at the time.

His listed pet peeve is waiting (for anything). That part is definitely still canon, though he has gotten less impulsive and more patient as the series has progressed.

He also has a ton of pets, and this isn't even counting any livestock his family owns on the farm. He has:

A Bearded Dragon named Boomerang

An Armadillo named Spike

An African Water Frog named Sharky

An African Water Frog named Fins

A dog (mixed Golden Retriever and Yellow Lab) named Obi Won Kadoggie

I didn't even know pet Armadillos were a thing.

That's it for the "Meet the Cybersquad" page. I'm a little surprised that they didn't mention that Matt lives on a farm with his family. They also didn't mention his love for Greek Mythology.

We can also look at his introduction from the official Cyberchase prequel web comic, "How It All Started: Episode 3", for this information.

Narration: Matt lives on a farm with his family, and dreams of being the homerun champ. Little does he know he'll soon be a hero of a different kind.

Narration: Matt is into Greek Mythology big time!

Here is Matt's official Cyberchase trading card.

His favorite line, as listed here is "OK, what do we know?". I thought that was actually one of Jackie's common lines, right next to "Let's get organized". I would have used "Touchdown!" here. It also talks about him being interested in magic. I don't remember that interest coming up, even in the Shari Spotter episodes. He's great at skateboarding, yo-yo tricks, milking cows, and trying new things.

He can also be ruthless, like that time he threatened to destroy The Hacker's Grim Wreaker ship.

We can talk about his impulsiveness and recklessness, like in Season 2 Episode 8: "Whale of a Tale". He saw a steam-filled death pit, where he couldn't see the other side, and tried to jump over it. He thought it was only one meter, due to a partially-obscured sign.

It wasn't one meter.

This is not good! This is not good at all!

Off topic, I love how expressive they made Inez in this episode.

And of course, he wants to try again.

He was also at the center of the Cybersquad's disastrous attempt to promote Motherboard's re-election campaign against The Hacker in Season 2 Episode 4 "True Colors". He accused The Hacker of lying about his good deeds without any proof, and it turned out that The Hacker was telling the truth about them after all. Matt's efforts to bring up The Hacker's prior crimes were also seen as mud-slinging.

I'm not here to bash him as a character. I like Matt, flaws and all. He's a member of the Cybersquad. All three of these actual children have been in way over their heads since the start.

Even in these two instances, the show is careful to show that he learns his lesson. In the incident with "Whale of a Tale", he is one who has Glowla re-check her work and catch her addition mistake when she is computing Spout's new shutdown code.

In the incident with "True Colors", Matt admits that he was wrong in his emotional accusation against The Hacker. Then, he corners The Hacker with the question about curing the virus, which forces The Hacker to lie about the cure. Finally, the Cybersquad as a whole catches The Hacker in the lie about the triangle-based cure. I really need to do a full post on that episode, as it was brilliant.

Let's look at something else. Matt is quite strong. Here he is in Season 2 Episode 6 "Mother's Day" with Inez standing on his head, while Digit stands on Inez's head.

And here's Matt effortlessly lifting the "Good Vibration" artifact, which is bigger than him, from Season 2 Episode 9 "Double Trouble". Even Jackie and Inez are fleeing from his power. Okay, so they were probably fleeing from The Hacker, who was off-screen, but still.

What else can we say about Matt? Well, he was originally going to be called Kyle, who had a different haircut and smaller feet. Apparently, Kyle wasn't considered a good name for a farm boy.

No disrespect to whoever made Kyle, but I prefer Matt's final design. We have the Who's Who document. It does give us a few nire pieces of information. For example, he loves jokes and puns, which I don't remember coming up much in the show. It also confirms that his favorite cybersite is Radopolis.

I swear that I read some source that claimed he was the "leader" of the Cybersquad. However, I cannot find it now. I didn't think this team structure had a true leader, since all the kids here equal partners.

That's about all I can think to say about him for now.

EDIT: I forgot that Matt had a bio on the Nelvana website as well. I thought only Jackie got one, since I found one for her. I never found one for Inez, Dr. Marbles, Motherboard, The Hacker, Buzz, or Delete. It doesn't help that they used a picture of Jackie on Matt's bio.

I like the line about him inventing trial and error. If he can collect royalties off that, then he is set for life. It talks about his hands-on learning style, which was a major point in the episode "Problem Solving in Sangri-la". This bio emphasizes him charging forward without a plan, which is a well-known character flaw.

#cartoon #cyberchase #2000s #nostalgia #pbs kids #2000s childhood #matt #longpost

13 notes · View notes

pharawee · 1 year

Text

Every week I think, yep, Big Dragon - favourite show right there. But then the next episode is even better than the last one and here I am, with five gifsets in one evening and ideas for about a dozen more. I'm truly living my best life, even if my version of photoshop is waging a constant war against Windows 11 🥲

But on to this week’s episode review:

This episode is aptly titled Good Old Days, and there’s so many flashbacks and memories and little stories being told. It’s all woven together so well. It even comes with its own red thread of fate.

It all starts with a flashback of a flashback and we learn two things almost immediately: Mangkorn’s really close to his mum and she knows about her son’s crush. Being the amazing mother that she is, she approves.

Her son has his eyes on the Moon of Business Administration, after all (what a catch!).

That his crush goes back to their first year of uni didn’t really shock me because the reveal is pretty much the same as in the book (which has even more of an enemies to lovers vibe - honey, stop punching your future boyfriend just so you can be near him). I’m actually really happy that they kept this part in because I really liked the “plot twist” (hey, it counts as a plot twist if there’s hardly any plot). They even hinted at their whole rivalry only being a thing because Mangkorn kept hanging out at Yai’s Faculty and everyone thought he was there to “steal” girls (when in reality he was there to make heart eyes at Yai).

Mangkorn fell first AND he fell harder. This is it, this is the whole show.

Well, a big part of it anyway.

And speaking of Big.

I’m definitely not immune to older characters kneeling down to tend to their lover’s shoes/feet. There’s just something almost reverent about it. An unwritten rule that is broken because someone just cares so very deeply.

If only Nine knew about the colour-coding in Big Dragon, then he’d realise that Yai's wearing a red jacket and that’s Mangkorn’s colour. He never stood a chance.

But I loved this repeat of a similar shot in episode 2, when Mangkorn and Yai meet in the hospital:

Nine is even wearing the same kind of shoes that Yai usually prefers. He truly is the embodiment of Yai’s comfort zone - which makes Nine’s metaphor about well-worn, comfortable shoes so fitting. Only that Yai is very direct in saying that he sees Nine as an older brother only.

Which is why I don’t get why he’s kissing Nine back for a full minute in slow motion and several different camera angles, but hey, it’s Big Thanakorn. I don’t blame him (Star Hunter, I beg you, give this man his own show! It’s been 84 years etc).

Maybe this is why Nine refuses to read the room even after Yai tells him to never do it again.

Enter the yin & yang pendant Yai conveniently loses as a kid while playing with - gasp! - Mangkorn (negl I’m not a fan of the whole “I’ve loved you since we were children” trope but I get why they included it here).

But the red thread of fate it’s hanging from is even more obvious, and it weaves its way through the entire episode, thereby connecting the past and the present - and binding together Mangkorn and Yai.

Meanwhile, in the present, Mangkorn contemplates doing his Master’s abroad - something he obviously didn’t plan for as long as he thought he had Yai in his life (no, really, was he like “no, I can’t go to New York. There’s this crush I fight every day at his Faculty building. Clearly I can’t go!”).

Oh, and apparently he’s told everyone - and I mean everyone! - about his crush on Yai. He’s told his Mum. He’s told Ajo. He’s told Hong. They’re all rooting for him! At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if he told his professors, too (which will come in handy once he withdraws from the program). This is just so damn adorable.

Too bad Yai won’t have any of it.

This scene is incredible in so many different ways, though.

It’s set in an empty room, one side red, the other a murky green, all strict vertical lines that can’t be crossed. The room is a piece of their past, a (messed up) memory that Yai wants to destroy, while Mangkorn (as part of his job as an intern) wants to preserve it. He clings to “their story” in the same way.

But Yai has a different story to tell. It’s shown through a mirror and it’s really unnerving, the way it makes Yai almost irrecognisable (and this is all Mangkorn gets to see - he doesn’t see how much Yai struggles with his emotions, too).

If only Yai knew how close he is to the truth, though. Mangkorn has wanted to get close to Yai for years, even though it hurt him. And now Yai is telling him to “stop fighting”. Ouch.

It’s the little nod he gives right at the end that absolutely kills me dead. And even before that, the whole scene is so different from every other conversation they’ve had so far. There’s no argument, no back and forth, not even any kind of miscommunication.

It’s the way Mangkorn is literally fading into the background.

Good thing there’s still the red thread of fate.

And it’s interesting how Mangkorn is shown approaching the cruel mirrored version of Yai to return it to him - like he’s breaking through his barriers.

Yai, through the power of instant flashback, understands immediately.

And I love how later, when he lashes out at his father and his father’s girlfriend, the camera lingers on their reactions even after Yai has already left. He’s literally blind to the hurt he’s causing in his own distress. He’s accusing his family of being cold without his mum, but of course it is. That’s what grief does. That’s what it turns into when it isn’t shared.

Because of course his father has already visited his late wive’s grave first thing in the morning. But what good is that to Yai when he’s never seen his father grieve? No wonder he thinks him cold.

And now it’s Mangkorn’s turn to wear green as he makes up his mind (good thing he’s told everyone about his love life - that certainly makes it easier to seek advice).

While Yai, surrounded by red, is allowed to heal:

And the red thread comes full circle.

And maybe I’ve cried for ten minutes straight after I’watched this scene.

Anyway.

Nine. You’ve talked about this. How is this brotherly? What are you even doing here?

Now it’s Hong’s turn to give advice (good thing Mangkorn has told everyone) and maybe she and Nadear won’t have to elope to the UK after all, like they did in the book (but Star Hunter, consider this: it’d be very cute), because looks like they’re going to tell the dads to get with the times. Oh, yes, and Mangkorn looks very pretty as he finally dares to choose:

Also, finally someone who’s not completely oblivious to their students talking loudly in class. NatureBL is healing.

The green jacket! The soft lighting! The red brick and green leaves!

And I wonder how many times Mangkorn has daydreamed about this exact scenario🥺

I’ll leave you with this brand new reaction image because you deserve it after reading through all of this. Thank you Jame, thank you Jet, thank you unknown third guy who I’ve never seen before.

#big dragon #big dragon the series #jane watches stuff #this was supposd to be shorter than last week #clown shoes squeaking tbh #i should give these reviews their own tag #bd meta

61 notes · View notes

thehappiestgolucky · 8 months

Note

I, for one, would love to hear you talk about monster hunter. *Hands you one "free rant about monster hunter" card*

You have genuinely no idea the beast you just unleashed but i am taking this card in my mouth and tearing it like a rabid animal

Monster Hunter - despite being very well known in Japan, still feels like a hidden gem in the western world. And I get it - its a hard game for beginners to get into because of just how many mechanics there are and especially when I first discovered it back in like 2012 ish. It also wasn’t well marketed. In a time where everyone sung nothing but praises about Skyrim - I found a game that genuinely changed my life. I mean that so literally.

I had practically gave up on art and things that made me happy - and whilst I still have pretty intense depressive episodes - I nearly quitted art altogether back then. You can thank Monster Hunter that I’m even here being able to ramble about it.

The games breathed a life into an ecosystem that I had never really seen done in games before and after - the only current contender being Rain World. I’ll be blunt - I don’t like Skyrim, which made me so sad as a kid. The combat is clunky and I was bored so quickly with the lack of coolness from the dragons. So to see what Monster Hunter brought in such a variety - made me want to art again. Every creature is thought out in both individual and ecosystem - how they interact with other and how they adapt to their habitat. And some designs are fun, cool or downright scary - and each one fights like you would expect it to.

My first Monster Hunter was 3 Ultimate on the 3ds - after seeing one of the adverts on the TV featuring a Brachydios chasing down hunters down a volcanic cavern - cornering them. Little me was in such awe - it was the coolest design I had seen in ages. I couldn’t get many games but I managed to get that one after pestering my mum a lot - and I’ll be honest I was fucking terrified at first! but then I got better and understood it - started just fighting the monsters. Its an experience I’ll never forget. When you spend nearly the entire 50 minutes you get fighting an absolute tank of a monster because you don’t have the right equipment - but you keep going even when you run out of healing items because when you do manage to win its a rush that I still have never felt in any other game. It both rewards and punishes risks - it entices you to grind and prepare and throw that all out the window.

I’ll be the first to admit Monster Hunter has flaws - especially the game I first got - but they’re flaws that keep getting sorted out with each iteration of the franchise. For all those flaws you battle through to see and feel the grit and beauty of the game - the brutalness it offers but the rewards when you each and every time make it step by step.

I felt a rush finally beating the Lagiacrus that terrified me, I was grinning stomping on the Brachydios that dominated the trailer, the awe of the Caedeus in a unique and almost somber fight against an ocean god - and the fear, terror, adrenaline, frustration and euphoria of solo falling the Dire Miralis, a living volcano that boiled a sea by its presence. And beating an Alatreon is still such a difficult, nervewracking task. But you still try. you may lose, but you try again.

It’s a game with memorable and beloved characters - full of life and fun, jokes and genuine touching stories hidden behind simple interactions. Each receptionist that you get the quests from have their own unique personality and goals that you learn from passively just doing the quests - 3 Ultimates guild receptionist always pulling out her hand written book of monster information basically boiling down to “Oh thats awful, well good luck!” or even just “Whoops nothing here! Dont die!” is genuinely so fun and engrossing than any tragic story for a quest giver can give to me. And bro - Monster Hunter is not known for its story or characters, it’s known for its monsters and gameplay and rightfully so.

I know the complaints of Capcom - but as a FPS disliker I can firmly say they just don’t fucking miss with combat. The giant Great Sword feels clunky and meaty - and landing a hit with it feels like you’ve torn a chunk out of the monster. The small lathe Dual Blades feel like the risky weapon they are, sacrificing protection for raw DPS that can double for status effects as it quickly repeatedly applies them. The newest weapons added being the Insect Glaive and Charge Blade being such unique mechanics that through iterations of games still hold their light.

And the base mechanics of these weapons are hard to learn they are - you only realise how many hidden and complicated mechanics and combos there are after so many hours of playing. You will never steamroll Monster Hunter on your first game - but the more you do it later games makes you feel like the veteran you are, adapting to the new mechanic whilst having the basics down. Its a learning curve each game has actively tried to make easier and easier to overcome.

That’s another thing about this franchise that I adore - they iterate each time, trying new things with each entry to both make every one feel unique from the others despite sharing the base mechanic each time, and trying new things. 3 Ultimate had underwater combat, which was received poorly, and as much as I want it back for its unique cast of monsters - and to bring my beloved Lagiacrus back its full glory, I know why they’re hesitant to bring it back. 4 Ultimate focussed on a mounting mechanic - the Insect Glaive was created with that in mind. It was received well but informed it was overpowered. So it stuck around for Generations Ultimate but that wasn’t the main mechanic of Gen, Generations introduced Hunting Styles - anime power moves basically. And they were fun as hell. In World Iceborne they introduced a new style altogether - a basic slate to show the new polish of the franchise. The art style was still there - the iteration brought the franchise to a new light. Hunting styles vanished in replacement of the Grappling Hook thing - which was uhh mixed. In the latest entry - Sunbreak - they mixed the grappling and hunting styles together in such a unique and fun way - introducing a new way to explore the world and use your combo knowledge to really dominate a hunt.

They try - and god when they do it well they do it well.

Monster Hunter was not my first game ever. That was Pokemon Pearl. And whilst that means the Pokemon franchise does hold a gem in my heart - I’d be dishonest if I didn’t mention Monster Hunter Stories - a spin off to Monster Hunter I didn’t see coming. Its everything I wanted out of Pokemon. Its everything I still want out of Pokemon.

And the first game was basic - it had a fairly generic but heart warming story and the characters still shone as fun as they always have. Reverto my beloved.

But then came the sequel. I didn’t believe we’d ever get one because the first game flunked in the west.

And just like each iteration of the main franchise before - Stories 2 did exactly that - change. Be better, learn from previous mistakes and change. You could bring in your knowledge of the main games to fight the monsters - you can build your team in any way you wanted - and the story matured with it. I urge every disheartened Pokemon fan to give the free demo on the Switch a shot. Its so worth it. Its the one I recommend to newcomers BECAUSE its so much more accessible and you never have to play the main games to adore the nature of the franchise. Even watch a Kinship move compilation if nothing else - its everything I wanted Z moves to be and more.

I will say - it isn’t a game for people with flashing problems or camera issues. Its unfortunate, that it limits a bunch of people despite the settings in place that aim to reduce that. But if you can handle it I urge you to give the free demos a shot. You might not like it - you might find it’s not to your tastes or you don’t like how it plays. And that’s fine. Games are for the people it appeals to. Monster Hunter simply appeals to me.

Look at the monsters, watch the ecology videos on youtube. Its wonderful, its goofy, its serious. Genuinely seriously look at the MUSIC. There’s a reason Proof of a Hero played during the Olympics. Listen to it now/lh

The community is… alright. There’s a larger amount of gamer bros unfortunately but some are gems. Hell, the official Twitch livestream gaming each week is really fun and wholesome! I just listen to it when I’m doing things because its just people! Playing a game!

Overall, its just a game I hold so dearly to my heart. It’s creative, the devs care so much and it shows through every piece of art, each monster, everything that this franchise is. Its love. Its nature. And its wonderful.

#happy rambles #long post #*ahem* its 2 AM i’m sleeping now #i probably missed more but this is already long as hell lmfao #please though. if nothing else listen to the monster themes #they’re SO good on god i could assign so many characters to themes and be a banger each time #this ramble isn’t cohesive but i dont care #get special interested/lh

17 notes · View notes

creepy-feathers · 2 years

Text

Okay y'all, I see a lot of people listing off various t-word scenes in movies/books, yet they always somehow manage to leave out my favorites?? Like does nobody know they exist or something?

Well anyway. I'm here to fix that.

There is a really good one in Love Comes Softly (the movie, idk if it's the same in the book), and I can't give a timestamp cause I haven't watched it in forever, but it's after Marty has had her baby. A short chase scene, then the magic happens.

The Vow, and oml this movie is a gold mine. A literal. Gold mine. The best ones happen within the first fifteen - twenty minutes (if I'm remembering correctly), and last several seconds. Here's a mind blower - it is openly said that Paige (the girl that receives it) likes to be tickled, so her husband does it often. I was so happy, even though my mom was in the same room, like I could barely contain the euphoric laughs I wanted to release while watching it.

Liar Liar. Yes, the Jim Carrey movie. There's a short one at some point in the beginning (again, haven't watched it in years but these scenes stay in my memory), in which a father pulls out "The Claw" and gives his son a good laugh, and right before the credits roll, it's heavily implied that tickling is happening behind the walls of the house we can no longer see.

RV, and this is pretty similar to Liar Liar, in which case a dad is shown tickling his kid - a little girl - this time. If I recall, it doesn't last more than a couple of seconds, but still cute all the same.

Pixar - A Bug's Life, Toy Story, Up, Inside Out, Ratatouille, Cars 2. If I'm leaving any out, please let me know. Most of these are brief (what one would probably expect) but I wrote them down anyway.

Disney - Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid 3, Alice In Wonderland, Lilo & Stitch, Tarzan 1 and 2, The Rescuers: Down Under, Bridge To Terabithia, etc. This kinda bums me out, as Disney often included tickle scenes in their movies back then, but they don't anymore. At least we have nice ones to look back on!

Annihilation, and this is honestly one of my all-time favorites. There's only one, from what I remember, but it's so good! Basically Natalie Portman and her hubby are laying in bed together, and (I think?) she says some sassy remark and it prompts him to tickle her.

Coraline. So the producers actually included this scene in the trailer, and I was probably eleven the first time I saw it. The moment I did, I was urging my family "yeah, it looks like a good movie! Let's watch it!" so we did. It was awesome. Also, I will shamelessly admit that I want my own Snap Dragons.

My Little Pony. Okay, I know this isn't a movie or book, but it's still worth mentioning, most notably "The Magic Duel", "Just For Sidekicks", and "It's About Time".

Ride the Wind by Lucia St. Claire Robinson. This book is absolutely full of beautiful tickle scenes, and if you're willing to deal with the tragedy and brutal nature of its characters' culture, you will be pleasantly surprised. My favorite one happens over the halfway mark, but there are plenty to keep you satisfied 'til then :) Just keep in mind that this story is not a light-hearted one, so if you decide to read it, prepare to sob. A lot.

Dragon Tails. This is another children's show that would showcase tickling a lot. In every other episode, I'd say - there was even one about actual tickle monsters, and one that had a flower that tickled you, so that was a gleeful time for my kid self.

This one is exceedingly random and I swear I just remember tidbits because I was like four, but there is a short scene in ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie’. I literally have no clue when, or where, or who it happens to, but I know it does happen. That was like half the reason I was so obsessed with that movie when I was little XD

Be More Chill, the recording with the original cast. It’s like a two-second scene but I swear it looks like Michael reaches over and tickles Jeremy, hence why the latter reels away the way he does. I’m unconvinced it’s anything less than that, and maybe that’s just cause I’m obsessed with the idea of Michael being a super physically affectionate (yet still mischievous) lil’ bean, but I digress. This is the video, and the timestamp is roughly 26:12.

Little Monsters. Despite how stupid this movie may be, it was still a large portion of my childhood, and I recently went back and watched it. I rediscovered a very solid tickle scene that I somehow never recalled between Brian and his father. It was very cute and I was pleasantly surprised. It’s around the first half, I think? When Brian stays in Eric’s room the first time.

These are all I can think of at the moment, though I will probably be adding more eventually! It just annoyed me how so many great scenes were being missed out on because nobody remembered/knew about them. So here they are! I hope I informed you~

#tickle scenes #movie tickle scenes #book tickle scenes #tickle #t-word #t-word scenes

20 notes · View notes

reignof-fyre · 1 year

Text

I have so many thoughts and feelings about season 1 of HotD so I'm gonna share my unwanted opinion right now.

Overall, i did like the season. The first few episodes were brilliant and they introduced the characters well, giving them well-rounded personalities and arcs and ambitions. I, however, didn't like how they made Rhaenyra and Alicent besties. In the books, Rhaenyra is only 9 when Alicent marries Viserys and Alicent rarely tries to befriend or get closer to Rhaenyra because of her (and her fathers) ambition to see Aegon II on the throne one day, even if Rhaenyra was named heir.

Because of the direction they took Alicent, she loses some, if not most, of her agency. In Fire & Blood Alicent's ambitions are her own. She wants her son on the throne, she wants to be known as the First Lady of the Realm, as a Queen in her own right. She isn't an anxiety riddled teen dancing to her fathers tune the whole way through. Show!Alicent just seems...bland and pretty unsympathetic tbh. I do understand why they went with Rhaenyra and Alicent being friends, and tried to make her a "victim" of the patriarchy (otto) that becomes a patriarchal enforcer herself later in life (wanting aegon on the throne etc) but it kind of fell flat.

Rhaenyra also lost some of her agency to me after the second or third episode. She's named heir and given this position of power but still treated like a little girl by the men around her. She doesn't take her newfound power by the horns and demand the respect a male heir would get, and I understand that's a major part of the story, the patriarchy continuing their belief that women are inferior despite their position in the world, but to me Rhaenyra seems like the type of woman to demand respect, but she just...doesn't. She had every opportunity to shore up her succession and place as heir, but it never happened. (This also occurs in the books, and its frustrating). I also get pissed off how everyone is like "omg her sons are bastards" like so WHAT? Laenor accepted Jace, Luke, and Joffrey as his sons. Corlys and Rhaenys accepted those boys as their grandson's. Viserys accepted them as his grandson's. Their claim to the throne passes from RHAENYRA not their father. I get that "bastardry" is considered this huge tabboo, but honestly it's not that big of a deal? They've proven their Valyrian heritage by claiming dragons. Rhaenys in the books has black hair, she's related to the Baratheons, hell Rhaenyra's maternal grandfather is an Arryn, who had brown hair. I know it's Westeros and recessive genes aren't a thing but...honestly. what choice did Rhaenyra honestly have when it came to having children? She couldn't force Laenor into having sex with her if he wasn't interested. She isn't that type of person. She was honestly stuck between a rock and a hard place. Even if she slept with some Lysenne male whore with the valyrian look or Daemon to get "valyrian" children they wouldn't look like Laenor, who's black in the show, and it'd be the same thing. So why shouldn't she have fucked Harwin, a man she actually liked?

Viserys was pretty on brand the whole season, and I did end up loving him beyond reason even though he's a shit king and even worse father.

Daemon swiftly became my favourite character for a plethora of reasons. It became clear that Daemon doesn't truly want the throne or the title of King, as he's bored to tears with politicking and he'd resort to cutting off heads, and it seems that Daemon is self-aware enough to realise this, and his one true ambition is to protect his brother, his king, and his family. Evident in how he defends himself in the throne room before he's exiled. He wants nothing more than to protect his brother, and he sees Otto's ambitions and schemes for what they are, and how Viserys is taken advantage of by the council. I liken Daemon to a rebellious kid who acts out for attention, because it's the only time he'll get attention, even if it's not necessarily good attention. He's desperate for approval, desperate for his family's love, and he will do anything - even monstrous things - to ensure he succeeds in defending his kin. He's not a good person, not by a long shot, but he's fundamentally the type of man whose a born protector and defender. He will bear the negative connotations and vitriol against his name if it means those he loves (and is unable to show it because he thinks showing emotions makes one weak, e.g Viserys) are safe and protected. He doesn't chase Rhaenyra for the power she'd bring him by being her king Consort, but because he genuinely likes her. If all he wanted was power, he'd have gone through with his plan in the brothel (his true plan was revenge against Viserys for his exile, as stated by the showrunners and writers, not to force a marrage), but he couldn't. He refused to debase her, even if word reached Otto and Viserys and he was once more exiled. He wouldn't have raised an army to support Viserys' claim at the council, nor would he have defended Rhaenyra and her sons by killing Vaemond. He wouldnt have looked so utterly devastated by Laena's death. The showrunners have really tried to make us hate daemon by cutting scenes where he shows his softer side (hugging Baela and Rhaena, mourning Viserys and Visenya on the beach) but Matt Smith is so brilliant that we see his softer side in subtle moments: when he comforts Rhaenyra at Aemma's pyre, when he refuses to cut Laena open to save his son, when he stammers upon seeing viserys' condition, how he snaps at Alicent about Viserys' health, when he strokes baby Viserys' head, how he strokes Rhaenyra's belly, when he helps Viserys onto the throne and places his crown back on his head, his expression when rhaenys tells he and rhaenyra that viserys is dead. When he's the first to kneel to rhaenyra and proclaim her his queen. I just love this nuanced, emotionally repressed, angry little bean so much.

Otto, a second son like Daemon, however, is Daemon's antitheses. He doesn't grasp for power for anyone but himself. He wants his daughter to be queen no matter how she feels about it because it brings him power and prestige. He wants his grandson to be king not to protect the realm, but because it will bring him power. He doesn't care that show!aegon is a drunken rapist. To Otto, Aegon's the perfect puppet king to further his own power. He knows war will follow no matter who is crowned, but war is okay if it's to keep aegon on the throne, and not rhaenyra. He suggested her as heir to get rid of Daemon because he knows Daemon is a terrible advisary to have. He never intended to let Rhaenyra be queen; she was his place holder to get rid of Daemon. He knows Rhaenyra and Daemon are uncontrollable as puppet rulers, and that's what Otto desires. Jaehaerys was too ill to be a king when Otto was named Hand, Viserys was a weak king and easy to manipulate, and so will Aegon be...for a time.

Otto and Daemon are two sides of the same coin to me, personally. Otto wants power for himself by any means necessary, and Daemon wants to protect his family's power by any means necessary.

All in all, the show is fine and entertaining. The characters are magnificent, the actors do a brilliant job bringing them to life, but it lacks the air of personal ambition that game of thrones does. In GOT, everyone wants something and is willing to kill for it. In HotD everyone is puppet-like and going through the motions of what's laid out before them. Like, yeah, Otto is ambitious but it doesn't really scream "game of thrones" ambition that we saw in agot. I know the moral of hotd is how men a stupid and the patriarchy is an insidious thing that, in medieval time, will treat women like shit...but in agot we have female characters like catelyn, cersei, brienne, daenerys, yara, olenna tyrell, and maegaery who have this sort of viciousness to them and ambition to actually force the men of the patriarchy to listen to them.

I love the women of hotd - except alicent - and I hope to see that vicious ambition and strength from them in season 2, because it was lacking in s1. I reckon we will, because the war will be all-out in s2. I'm looking forward to it.

#hotd review #hotd #house of the dragon #daemon targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #rhaenys targaryen velaryon #matt smith #emma d'arcy #alicent hightower #olivia cooke #asoiaf #meta #game of thrones #agot #otto hightower #viserys i targaryen #daenerys targaryen #got #me

8 notes · View notes

dreamescapeswriting · 2 years

Note

I have awoken from my slumber once more !! Honestly good with reader getting with yoongi at the end. I think I've seen one of his sim videos or maybe 2. Yea I dont think ill personally play it either but if I do im sure I'd have fun with it. Yes yes, there's so many kinds of villains out there that it's hard to not take a liking to atleast one, especially with the backstories some may have. Yea I'd wish for a happy ending for a villain but I dont think it would happen a majority of the time sadly. You're welcome, and those sound like fun! Im sure it would be great to work or even own a bookstore!! I think you have what it takes to be an author based on what I've seen you write, even if they are fanfics they still showcase your writing!! You could always do it on the side but dont force yourself I know it's a hard industry to get into as well. AND THAT SOUNDS REALLY FUN!! I wish my class did something like that, it would of been a great experience. Yes it is, they did an amazing job with it as well as the other OSTS. I dont know if its considered an OST but I remember being so disapointed when warriors by imagine dragons didnt play that one episode or two like it did for the other episodes, i was expecting it to be played once every episode tbh. I'd love to see what you think of it!! OH AND I HAD THIS SORT OF THEORY FOR SWEET HOME LIKE TWO NIGHTS AGO. it looks to be in the style of the show from total drama island but i dont know who it is if its an actual character from the show, it might not even be a actual character i dont know either 😭😭😭😭 oooh i see!! I dont listen to girlgroups much, the only ones im really into are dreamcatcher, 3YE and EVERGLOW. But my ult groups are: Monsta X, ATEEZ, Stray Kids, ONEUS, VICTON, PENTAGON(LOVE THEM BTW gladly reccomend they're work as well as checking out their videos, they're quite chaotic), ONEWE, SEVENTEEN and ONF! but some others i like are KINGDOM(rlly reccomend their work), A.C.E, TNX, GOT7, VAV, VERIVERY, THE BOYZ and many others whom I may not be able to remember. But for soloists I like Wonho(tho i'm ot7 for monsta x, i aknowledge he's his own artist now), Dawn and Hyuna

Awh hope you slept okay!!! And yas! Reader deserved a lot better than Jin ✋😂

For real! I do play some games though, I mainly got into Stardew Valley because of some youtubers and my friends telling me how much they thought that I would enjoy it

T-T The poor villains haha but with this book series I think its pushing for one so im sshdghakfabfaf about it haha

Thanks so much lovie! That's so kind of you! I just think anything where I'm surrounded by books I would be over the moon with!

That would have been awesome if it had played again in every episode T-T By far that was one of my favourite songs on the whole album for the show haha Ooooo what theory?!!?

It might be 😭😭😭 or it could be some edit I'm totally not sure haha

Oooo i like everglow, I've heard a couple of songs! I'm trying to get into more girl groups aha and oooo they're all good, I have a couple of songs/one song liked from each of the groups you sent! Dawn and Hyuna 🤩🤩🤩

#m answered #lovely anon

3 notes · View notes

azenkii · 4 years

Text

ATLA Fic Rec

because I've been spending way too much time reading it. Btw, this is a rec for gen fics and zukka fics.

Note: an asterisk after the description means that the fic or series is incomplete. (Sadly, this is a lot of them, but I'm pretty sure most of these fics are still currently updating.)

GEN:

Anything by MuffinLance is a must-read. my personal favourites are Salvage (where Hakoda ends up with one (1) grumpy new prisoner/crewmate/adopted son) and Little Zuko v the World (where Zuko is 12, and it's adorable).

The Family You Choose by TunaFishChris is a god-tier platonic soulmate au about zuko and the gaang, so like...go read that right now

The kintsugi series by discordiansamba is an AU where Toph's parents hire Zuko-as-Lee to be a bodyguard for her, and I love it so much. It has some of the best Toph-and-Zuko sibling bonding I've ever seen. *

Dragon Moon by Satirrian is a Dragon! Zuko AU and it's incredible. It also features Bounty Hunter Zuko, so do with that what you will. *

The What We're Given series by Haicrescendo is *chef's kiss*. It's an AU where Zuko flipped his father off early on into his banishment and started living his best life with Iroh. Enter the Gaang. Shenanigans ensue. *

The Internment series by Hannahmayski is another Zuko breaks free from his dad early AU, and it's also really good. Basically, Zuko was never given the option to capture the Avatar, making his banishment indefinite. He sails around with his crew fighting the Fire Nation and it's great. *

The best way to solve your problems (is to help someone else) by hewwodarkness is an AU where kids start disappearing in Ba Sing Se during Book 2, and Zuko takes it upon himself to do a little vigilantism. It's fantastic. *

The Blue Spirit AU series by H_Faith_Marr is an AU starting from, surprise surprise, the Blue Spirit episode. The Gaang takes in Zuko without knowing who he is, and the Power of Friendship™ goes to work on Zuko. *

The the first rule of earth kingdom fight club... series by ohmygodwhy is an AU where Zuko, among other things, fights in underground cage matches, meets Toph early, and realises that his dad might be wrong. It’s pretty funny and really good. *

The The Non-Existent Twin series by FoiblePNoteworthy is hilarious. It's an AU where Zuko poses as his own twin, Li, and the Gaang buys it hook line and sinker. *

The Guilt (The Jet Adopts Zuko AU) series by FoiblePNoteworthy is also really good. Like the title says, it’s a Zuko joins the Freedom Fighters AU. *

The new ways series by blueseam is just a Zuko and the Gaang bonding fic, mostly set in the Western Air Temple, with a side of Zuko not taking care of himself and the Gaang stepping up to the job. If you’re like me and am an absolute sucker for Zuko and the Gaang, go read this.

The Family Matters series by WinterSky101 is a really good fic if you’re looking for Hakoda and Zuko. That’s all I have to say: Hakoda and Zuko.

a nation, held by snowdarkred is a GREAT Fire Nation & Zuko fic - set before and during canon, not after it. Go read it, right now.

Notable mentions: a lot of works by naggeluide are gen and pretty funny, though if you don't headcanon any of the characters as LGBT+ you might not like some of them.

ZUKKA:

anything by Haicrescendo and dickpuncher420. For Haicrescendo, my personal favourite is the Carry On For You series, and for dickpuncher420, it’s love language.

sirens & sleepless nights by Satirrian is a modern AU that just borders on dystopian. Ba Sing Se has been overtaken by the Fire Nation, Zuko is a soldier who broke away from the Fire Nation and got shot for it, and Sokka finds Zuko on the street and brings him inside. It’s amazing, go read it!

do you take this jerk to be (your one and only) by jatersade is a fic that I’m 90% sure is on every zukka fic rec list, and it deserves to be. It’s an arranged marriage AU where Zuko is engaged to Yue, and Sokka is his cultural guide. *

midnight runs and other things by isamagicdragon is a modern AU where Zuko keeps sleepwalking into Sokka’s apartment. Shenanigans ensue. Also, top-tier Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee interactions. *

Unchained Melody by avocadolove is another fic that I see a lot on rec lists, and it 100% deserves it. It’s a long fic (as of now, it’s at 63.8k) and is an AU where Sokka, after getting taken to the Spirit World by Heibai, ends up as a ghost that only Zuko can see. Ft. great enemies-to-friends-to-lovers and an incredible plot. *

Ozymandias, King of Kings by Think_of_a_Wonderful_Thought is SO good. It’s an AU where, instead of being banished, Zuko was sent to work in a coal mine/prison, which eventually becomes the target of a Water Tribe raid after Aang’s return. It can get pretty dark, so watch out for that, and it’s really long (as of now, 168.8k). But trust me, it’s worth it. *

Heart Beat Here by thefangirlingdead is an adorable Modern AU oneshot where Zuko, while shopping for engagement rings with Katara, freaks out when Sokka lies about where he is. It’s a happy ending, don’t worry. One of my favourite fics.

feels like we only go backwards by oldpotatoe and A Certain Slant of Light by JustGettingBy are both amnesia fics where Sokka loses his memory several years after the war. They’re both so, so good. A Certain Slant of Light is finished, but feels like we only go backwards is not.

reality strikes, so bring back the night by zukkababey is a time-travel oneshot where Western-Air-Temple Sokka wakes up in the future to find his older self married to one (1) Fire Lord Zuko. Fluffy and funny.

maybe i just see you (in everything) by epicbubbles is a really cute Modern AU oneshot with love confessions and just fluff all around. 10/10 go read it!!

it’s the illusion of separation by argentoswan is a fic that has legendary status and it absolutely deserves it. God-tier Modern AU where Sokka ends up working at the Jasmine Dragon alongside his former high school bully, Zuko. (Kind of) enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, and it’s just...SO good. *

say you like your shirt soggy by crosspin is a reallyyy nice 5+1 fic. It’s Modern AU, and it’s pretty short (3.7k), but the amount of yearning that gets packed into that 3.7k,,,,*chef’s kiss*

and they were roommates by flydunes is another Modern AU where sokka puts up an ad for a roommate. Zuko moves in, and Sokka gets a crush. It’s just good vibes all around :) *

like blood from a stone by catalinacat is a Soulmate AU that took a completely different direction with the soulmate trope. The summary does a better job of explaining it than I can. *

absence of heat, excess of destiny by theycallmesuperboy is one of the best soulmate AUs out there. it’s not too long, only 4.3k words, but it covers the entire series and then some. Seriously, go read this.

it isn’t strange, but it’s true by theholyterror is a 5+1 post-canon fic with some of the best pining I’ve ever seen, ft. Ambassador Sokka and Fire Lord Zuko. The 5+1 is times Zuko went out of his way to touch Sokka. *

like the sun inside of you by ofherlionheart is another post-canon fic, and it’s incredible so far. the first chapter alone is 23k, so it’s already a decently long read. *

the stemverse: earth science zuko au series by acezukos is a REALLY good Modern/University AU. So far, it only has one work (earth system history) but that work is already *chef’s kiss*. The series is incomplete, but earth system history is complete!

rebellion’s such a hushed affair by zeitgeistofnow is a fantastic Modern AU that, like sirens & sleepless nights, borders on dystopian. Actually, I think it is dystopian, but it hasn’t been tagged as such. Anyway, 10/10, go read it right now immediately

Mark Time by foil is a Modern AU where Sokka ghosted Zuko years ago, and they get brought back together by Aang and Katara’s wedding. It’s really good, but the fic has some pretty heavy content, so make sure you read the warnings. *

That birds would sing and think it were not night by HisMomoness is a Modern AU that has Zuko tutoring Sokka, with absolute top-tier pining. Like, seriously, the pining is insane. Superr good

this love burns so yellow (becoming orange and in its time, exploding) by meliebee is one of the best post-canon fics I’ve ever read. It features a civil war in the Fire Nation (that gets resolved about halfway through) and some great Toph and Zuko interactions, as well as some Grade A pining.

boy problems by burnt_oranges is FANTASTIC post-canon and has sokka and zuko in an accidental arranged marriage, plus some attempted assassinations. It’s great.

zuko vs the homie sexual agenda by parmigiano has Zuko and Sokka pining for each other in Ikea. Do I need to say more?

Friendship Bracelets by peachcitt is a Modern AU best friends to lovers. Pretty short (4.9k), but the pining is immaculate.

isn’t this the vision that you wanted by nebulastucky is INCREDIBLE, I read it recently because it just got completed and it’s *chef’s kiss*. It’s post-canon ft. mutual pining and some reallyyy good ‘and there was only one bed’ scenes.

Real Slow and no one knows anything but us by surveycorpsjean and quidhitch respectively are two of my favourite post-canon Ambassador Sokka and Fire Lord Zuko fics. Go check them out!

The Duke’s a Hazard by naggeluide is a really nice AU starting from the Western Air Temple, where the Duke decides that Sokka and Zuko are now his new parents. They bond over coparenting, and the (kind of) enemies-to-friends-to-lovers is really good. Plus, it’s funny.

Those Who Favor Fire by CSHfic and VSfic is a really good fic of the Spymaster Sokka AU. If you don’t know what that is, it’s an AU where Sokka fakes his death and goes undercover in an organisation that wants to kill Zuko.

Fics I added after posting (so far, all Zukka):

The Road Between Action and Inaction by Donvex is a fic that I can't believe I left out the first time?? It's a modern hitchhiking AU and it's great.

Rituals of the Ocean Floor by Donvex is a nice one too. It's only around 2.2k words, but it's a Fox Spirit!Zuko and Sharkman!Sokka AU, and I just really like the writing style.

by the stars above, i knew we were in love by theycallmesuperboy and The Fate of Nations in Our Hands by sapphic_ambitions are both top-tier post-canon fics. Be warned: by the stars above is a liiiittle bit angsty.

blue's clues by parmigiano is a really good Modern AU where Sokka, a university student journalist, gets ahold of the phone number of the Blue Spirit, a new campus vigilante. He ends up talking to the Blue Spirit to get an interview out of him, and it's really cute!

Honourable mention: the Avatar Zuko series by the_cloud_whisperer is one of the best series I've ever read, and it's really long - it got completed about a month ago, with 493.6k words in total (415k if you ignore the extra work made up of author's notes). It develops all the characters really well, especially Lu Ten, but the main ship is Zukaang. Personally, my biggest problem with Zukaang is the age difference, and Aang is aged up to be Zuko's age (or older, I think? I don't really remember) in this. I kept reading it because the plot was too good to give up, and I do highly recommend it, but yeah.

I’ll add more fics if I remember them, but this is what I had bookmarked. Also, shameless self plug here because I also write ATLA fic @ azenki on ao3

#atla #zukka #fic rec #zukka fic rec

546 notes · View notes

beybladefanboy · 3 years

Text

Top 5 Metal Masters Episodes

Honestly, out of the three main seasons, Masters to me is the weakest. That is by a slight margin, it’s still a very good season, but it is a more noticeable margin than the one between Fusion and Fury. I think we can all agree that the time they spend in America in the last twenty five or so episodes is the most consistently good part of the season. Before that, this season goes up and down in quality like a rollercoaster. In the end though, this season was more good than lackluster so here are the best episodes.

Honourable Mentions

Episode 98: The Fallen Emperor

This is the episode where Da Xiang and Julian battle. I honestly really relate to Julian’s story where he was held to really high expectations and was never allowed to fail so when he did, he didn’t know how to handle it and felt like he lost everything. This episode also made me really like Da Xiang. He was annoying at first but seeing him become a leader who has found strength supporting his team and getting back up after every defeat and teaching Julian to do the same was really nice. It was a great moment for both of their characters and it was cool seeing Da Xiang use the full extent of his abilities. I didn’t really think of him as a really strong blader before this episode.

Episode 100: The Wild Beast Unleashed

This is Kyoya and Damian’s battle and once again, I’m biased toward Kyoya. I like his battle against Damian more than Gingka’s because Gingka was sort of guaranteed to win while Kyoya could’ve gone either way. I don’t really have much to say: it’s just an epic battle and an interesting look into Kyoya’s character. I won’t go into that because another Tumblr user has already done a much better job and I don’t want to copy them, it’s just really in line with the Kyoya we know.

5) Episode 77: The Dragon Emperor Returns

I mentioned having a Kyoya bias but if there’s a character I have even more of a bias for, it’s Ryuga. Long story short, this is the episode that made Ryuga my favourite character. I liked him as a villain in Fusion, and was already starting to get a bit of a crush on him, but this episode made me fall in love. In fact, I can pinpoint the exact moment it happened: when he explained how the dark power was man made so he could overcome it and draw L-Drago’s power from its original source, showing that he was willing to admit his mistakes and determined to grow from the experience. How could I not admire that? He’s also just a total badass. His entrance in this episode, walking in with a sadistic looking smile as he makes meteors fall all around him before he beats the crap out of everyone there was just amazing. This is also a great episode for Tsubasa, another favourite character of mine. He’s going crazy due to the dark power in this episode, letting his dark side take over and drive him to battle Sophie, Wales, and Julian in the woods at night with the intent to destroy them. It’s tragic but the Dark Tsubasa arc was the best part of Masters so I really liked seeing him struggle with this darker side and seeing Ryuga provide him the solution: to become one with the dark power. Just a really interesting episode overall.

4) Episode 69: The Scorching Hot Lion

Here’s more of my Kyoya bias. This episode was a huge breath of fresh air. Masters before this point was really uninteresting for me, with the exception of the Dark Tsubasa stuff which hadn’t been portrayed much at this point. It was mostly battles I didn’t care for and Gingka, Masamune, and Yu being insanely obnoxious. So to get away from them, and see a character’s return I was personally waiting for with baited breath, it was like a drink of cold water on a hot day. This is a simple episode all things considered: it’s just the formation of Team Wild Fang but that was more interesting than anything else in the season at that point. Kyoya and Nile’s camaraderie/friendship is developed and showcased well, to the point where they already really feel like a team. Demure is sort of just inserted into their group but he does prove himself to be useful and to kid me, it was a nice surprise that he was the one to make their team. So yeah, just a simple episode showing fun interesting characters forming bonds.

3) Episode 91: The Furious DJ Battle?!

This episode is honestly just funny. It doesn’t accomplish anything plot-wise: it’s just Gan Gan Galaxy trying and failing to find a replacement member for their team since Tsubasa and Yu are both hospitalized. Kenta and Wang Fu Zhong all battle for this honour, when Ryo interferes in his Phoenix costume. He tries to join the team, stupidly not knowing the rules of his own tournament and in one of the most satisfying moments EVER, Hikaru puts this idiot in his place and Ryo is disappointed. His suffering is points in my book. Then the American and Japanese blader DJs come in. Rewatching it now, this episode was probably fan service for people that wanted to see them battle but it’s honestly great fan service. Seeing the main cast react to such a terrible bey battle, with the series’ over the top announcing, is just amazing. Words can’t really give it justice. Just watch the episode. It’s the funniest one in the show.

2) Episode 72: Eternal Rivals

In my opinion, this was Gingka and Kyoya’s best battle. I always have fun seeing these two battle but at this point in the series, they hadn’t battled one on one since Metal Fusion. The battles got much more layered and fierce since then. Gingka and Kyoya are constantly going back and forth between who is winning, trading special moves and keeping you on your toes and wondering who’s going to win. And then… neither of them do. Gingka and Kyoya end up being equals in power, using up every ounce of their strength trying to defeat their opponent before collapsing from exhaustion. Yeah, it’s kind of disappointing we never saw Kyoya defeat Gingka. However, I think a tie was the perfect way to end this specific battle. Before this, Masamune lost to Nile so one more loss would’ve kicked Gan Gan Galaxy out of the tournament but simply giving Gingka the win would’ve sort of discredited the hard work Kyoya put in. Having them tie keeps Gan Galaxy at the disadvantage without making them lose and showcases how far Kyoya has come as a balder. Overall, just a really epic battle that makes the slower parts before it worth it.

1) Episode 79: Dark Eagle

There’s a very simple reason I love this episode: it’s the culmination of the Dark Tsubasa Arc, aka the best thing about Metal Masters. It was an interesting look into a character's psyche and added a darker layer to the earlier part of this season. However, this resolution was what made it really stick out to me. In other shows I've seen (Yugioh for example) the goal is always to drive out/destroy the darkness within people but this episode decided to go in a more realistic direction. Realistic in an representational way I mean. In real life, we can't drive out our "darkness" so to speak. What we can do in real life is accept ourselves and learn to overcome our inner demons rather than denying them, which is what Tsubasa did in this episode. He accepted that his darker self was part of him but that it didn’t define who he was, overcoming that darkness and creating a new special move on the spot to defeat Sophie and Wales. Yeah, the battle itself is still really good but the flashback of Tsubasa as a kid and him overcoming his dark power is what propels the episode into being one of the best.

#beyblade #beyblade metal fight #beyblade metal saga #metal masters #beyblade metal masters #daxiang wang #julian konzern #don't think I've ever tagged them before #they're both cool #kyoya tategami #tsubasa otori #ryuga #ryuga kishatu #gingka hagane #I do love this season #I really hope I haven't made anyone think otherwise

39 notes · View notes

steve0discusses · 3 years

Text

Yugioh S5 Ep 19: Yugi and the Only Neck Accessory He Didn’t Really Want to Wear

Been busy! Hopefully stuff will open up soon as I’m taking a hiatus on a different quarantine project and will be finishing painting the entire roof of my car this week? One can hope. Sanding the rust off the whole top of a car takes a long time it turns out?

Also, fun Yugioh fact, I recently painted a book cover for an author who is older so she’s never seen the show, and she looked at my tumblr, saw my Duke Devlin fanart and was like “That’s him. That’s my main character. OMG. You captured him perfectly!” and I was like “Ma’am that is Duke Devlin, hence the single dice earring on his lobes there, but we can work with this.” and now a spiritual Duke Devlin is on the cover of a Wuxia-style fantasy trilogy on the Vella. Had to give him a top knot and delete the eyeliner for Wuxia reasons but uh, that’s just Duke.

So long story short, fanart can get you work, don’t even worry about posting that stuff online because most people don’t even know it’s fanart anyway and older ladies freakin love it.

Back in Yugioh, the team was doing their best to navigate a map through the woods and they do about as well as they normally do.

And inside Tristan lifted up the floorboards and was like “I found the only way out, this is it, this is the only way.”

And they ended up in something that has a color scheme I would actually associate with a jungle. Finally. We have finally left California (in order to go to another Hell.)

Youknow, when we went to California, we visited Hell, and when we went to India, we also took a stop at the nearest death destination. There’s just so much death on this show and sometimes I forget because there’s been a ghost in our party for so freakin long it’s been normalized.

(read more death imagery under the cut)

Joey freaks out at a flock of crows and reveals in this episode something I never realized about him before.

Like I’m not always the perfect observer as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I love that this is canon for probably only this episode, but I will never forget it for the entirety of this series.

You go on hating birds, Joey.

Bro was like “Maybe it’s a deep cut about Mai Valentine because she’s a harpy lady” but eh...pretty sure we spent like an entire season of Joey telling us that Mai was a good experience? Would be incredibly funny if immediately after all of S4, Joey was like “You know what? Screw Mai, guys.”

So my thoughts...it’s probably just a literal bird experience. Like I had a friend who hated deer because once she went to a petting zoo, got some pellets to feed the deer, but her finger was sticking up, so when the deer came over to nibble on some pellets her finger went up it’s nose by accident. She was so disgusted by this event that was entirely her fault, that she brought up how much she hated deer basically whenever we saw one.

So like...maybe Joey fed a bird wrong at a petting zoo. I can see him getting bit by a parrot because he was too Joey Wheeler.

But now that we’re in a graveyard neighborhood, Pharaoh decides to hop out because there’s a lot of ghosts here and he needs to practice socializing with his peers.

So that’s just a Yugioh monster doing the ostrich dance, right? Like this is a meme from like 2010 but on Yugioh in 2003(4?)

Good to see the Ostrich dance here in the land before Vine.

So they pull out their Pokemon to do some antics, Tea looked like she was about to do something useful, and Yami does a yump across time and space to get her as far away from playing (not)cards as quickly as possible and y’all...sure was a position these animators animated.

Holy crap.

And I was going off about that scene last season where they woke up in the same bed like...

...have these two been together this entire time? Like together together?

They’re like...way more comfortable than you’d figure they’d be considering Yugi nearly passes out every time he gets a hug. But Yami just like....How long has this been going on? As long as Joey’s fear of birds?

Like obviously this show would never cover what the hell Yugi may be thinking about this overreaching move here, because we’re gonna gloss right over that, and just run away up a flight of stairs. No one mentions this ever again. Which is mind blowing for an anime to do. I think in most anime I watch, the kids would be like “ahh ahhhh I bumped into a booooob!” like it does for I want to say every other episode of My Hero Academia. But in Yugioh, they saw that low hanging fruit and they were like “we expect a higher level of maturity out of our audience. Now here’s a fleet of ostrich dancing tree monsters with faces for crotches.”

They decided to sprint up this flight of stairs, and it enough of a slope to deter the monsters who are only unbalanced weird legs.

I want us to take a moment and admire this background painting. I can’t unsee the rocks that are all the same size, just piled on top of eachother. Did Alexander the Great just plop rocks here--or was the mountain made up of tons of similarly shaped boulders?

Like there’s a lot of nice bg’s in this arc, don’t get me wrong, but this one...I’m just trying to wrap my head around the logic of it.

At the top, they meet a pantheon, that is immediately blocked by this wall, because if this arc had a tagline, it’s “Yugi gets inconvenienced every 4 seconds.”

Bro was like “Clearly they would have pushed it over if Tea wasn’t slacking off” and like...she is actually. Look at her. Only used one hand? Slacker.

Joey was disappointed he couldn’t push over a massive wall, and the team decided not to analyze how much Joey Wheeler thinks of his own strength and instead fixate on these statues.

Usually in anthro characters they kinda look birdlike but act human. But what about an anthro that’s just a bird? Like human torso, but can turn his head 180 degrees? Yugioh made me ask this question.

And then Joey was like “wait, there may be a solution that isn’t just to use brute strength!”

Youknow it is a bummer that Kaiba couldn’t witness Joey own a dragon while he himself only has a robot jet dragon. Although, the jet is probably faster, stronger and overall...better than this baby dragon. It would have been great for Kaiba to witness Joey under-utilize this dragon and forget he has it for like huge swatches of the episode.

And then Grandpa pulled some body horror out of nowhere.

Wow.

I mean that is really gross.

I guess Grandpa can’t use Blue eyes, because Kaiba ripped it up, Grandpa can’t use Exodia because Weevil tossed it off a boat, and grandpa can’t use the card that’s just a building because...it’s a building.

So instead Grandpa has a bunch of meat and bones that look like something out of Doom. It’s probably from a more obscure Konami property, but I forget which.

I’ve seen Tristan hold back Joey in this hold, first time it’s been Tea.

So much shipping in this episode, it’s wild.

It’s also wild how low my standards are for what could possibly be shipping when it comes to Yugioh because of how freakin tepid all of these characters are, which as I’ve brought up before, I really don’t mind.

So Yugi decides that because Grandpa was folding his arms like one monster and it made a gem light up or something, to just do the video game thing and use the giant ass statues as clues.

Why was this arc not a video game? Like parts of it really feel like it was meant to be.

So Yugi falls down a hole, where the walls cave in like it’s that dumpster in Star Wars but like...it barely phases him.

Also...Yugi might be able to see in the dark. It’s never been brought up but like...the more I think about it...has Yugi ever struggled to see without the lights on?

After Joey disappoints everyone, he confronts death.

And Pharaoh and Yugi decide to solve the puzzle of “how do I get out of this trap dungeon room” which, honestly, is probably what they’re doing every time they hang out in the brain pyramid.

So they summon their mascot monster, and surprisingly the show decided its ability to fly cannot help them out here.

Kuriboh manages to become enough of a doormat to push Yami up to the stone and they end up in a set of weird cuts that ended in this?

Like seriously it was like flashes of light and then they were just...up here like this.

Hey like...

Alexander the Great, my man...

Were you planning to put that stone in the middle of a exhaust vent hoping someone would touch it? Because there’s no way anyone would rationally have done that. You would need to fly to do it. This is the world’s worst DM.

Like Yugioh pulls a lot of fantasy nonsense but this arc is a lot more like a “it’s a kid’s show, just go with it.” arc than most of them. It’s not a bad vibe, necessarily, it’s just not the vibe I’m used to.

So once I witnessed maybe the most boring conversation I’ve ever witnessed about corn (this was on a twitch stream, by the way, a guy was playing an interesting game, and then a guest came on and started talking about corn and plants for 2 hours) and they would not shut up about how all taxonomy is wrong because there are no such thing as trees and how all animals are labelled incorrectly, and then they started comparing it to like all sorts of mushrooms and phytoplankton as you would if you clearly got a little bit high before dumping your corn knowledge on a twitch stream.

Anyway, after that bizarre experience I suffered so I could learn how to play an obscure video game, I think I can safely say, that while I know everyone here thinks a bird can’t be a dog. If you’re a high biologist: a bird is absolutely a dog. Apparently you can just do that if you’re the most boring biologist alive and no one will argue with you because to do that would involve talking to you. We’ll just say a bird is a dog and no one can fight me or I will talk about the corn book that this guest on this twitch chat was thinking about renting from the library about the different types of corn mutations inherent in freakin Indiana. Therefore, Joey’s fear of birds and dogs is same.

So they use Dark Magician to save them from the statues, and Yugi busts into the pantheon again because they got to open this casket before a time limit that I kind of forgot about, tbh.

And inside the casket, is...this thing!

(enjoy this line on the bottom of the image I don’t feel like fixing it)

And you may say to yourself...it looks like it’s just floating in mid-air, that’s silly, and so I want to introduce you to the next panel where you can see that it is...quite literally...just floating in the air like a video game.

and it just slurps itself onto Yugi before he can be like “nonono.”

Wasn’t there some horror movie where you were stuck in some sort of body brace that slowly tortures you (was that Saw?) This has that vibes. Like man that looks uncomfortable to wear over a jacket and two belts and a collar that is another belt.

That and I...I gotta appreciate that Yugi popped his collar while wearing body armor and chunky necklace. What 00′s fashion appreciation right there.

Bit like...this isn’t breathable, right? Like Yugi’s gonna finally take this thing off and his jacket will just be completely soaked in sweat?

Anyway, that’s it for this post, next week we’ll see if Yugi can walk through a doorway in that thing.

Also, I can’t bring up the ostrich dance without sharing the vines of my generation

youtube

#Yugioh #YGO #yu gi oh #photo recap #episode recap #S5 #Ep19 #Yugi Muto #Joey Wheeler #Joey's fear of birds I've never heard about until this episode #Tea Gardner #Grandpa Muto #Tristan Taylor #Baby Dragon #This weird ass tranformer that Yugi is wearing.

27 notes · View notes

gunterfan1992 · 3 years

Text

Interview with Half Shy (the songwriter of “Monster”)

For the last few months, I’ve been collecting information for a second edition of Exploring the Land of Ooo that will also cover the production of Distant Lands. This means that I’ve started to look into the new songs that we have been graced with this year, and this of course includes “Monster,” the beautiful track from the masterpiece that is “Obsidian”. And so I reached out to the song’s writer, Half Shy, who was kind enough to chat with me via email about the songwriting process!

(Photo courtesy of Half Shy)

In many ways, Half Shy is living the creative Adventure Time fan’s dream: She got asked by Adam Muto himself to write a song for “Obsidian” after he heard her music through Bandcamp! (I’ve dabbled in fan music before, and the fact that someone from the show might listen to it just blows my mind.) What an opportunity; I am so excited for her!

Since a second edition of my book won’t be coming out until after all the Distant Lands episodes air, I thought it would be best to share my Half Shy interview now. Read on for the fascinating behind the scenes story of how Half Shy and “Monster” came to be..

GunterFan: What is your origin story? How did you get involved in music, and how did the Half Shy project come to be?

Half Shy: I’ve been making music pretty quietly since I was in high school with a keyboard and guitar. I played one or two shows a year after college when I could find a friend or my brother to get up on stage with me, but I don’t really have that performer gene in me naturally. I get too much in my head and forget what the lyrics are to the song I wrote, or what the next chord is. Total brain freeze. So that whole experience is a bit of a mental drain. It’s something I think I’d like to dig into and figure out, but right now I’m really enjoying the time writing.

Even playing a song for my friends I still get pretty nervous. That’s where the name Half Shy comes from. I’ve always been interested in making things that by their nature draw a bit of a spotlight, but at the same time, I am just really quite nervous about the attention.

I recorded my first songs under my old name Hey V Kay in my bedroom and started putting them up online one at a time. When I got enough I thought about packaging it up into an album, but then got really distracted by learning how to fix up motorcycles and going to automotive tech school. When I eventually got back around to it I named the album Gut Wrenching.

After a few years I realized that I didn’t want the day-in-day-out life of a mechanic, I just wanted to know how to fix cars for myself and to have that knowledge in my back pocket. I got back into making music but grew frustrated at the process of writing and recording songs. I felt like I wasn’t able to capture the ideas I had in my head. Like trying to draw on your computer with a mouse. Doable, but it’s not going to come out like you’d hoped.

So these last couple of years I’ve focused more on learning the technical aspect of it, from the initial ideas and lyrics, to the recording and mixing. During that process I put out Bedroom Visionaries, and while writing I happened upon the name Half Shy in an old Thesaurus which felt instantly right. Learning all of that has been fun, I even went as far as to create my own book to solidify a daily writing routine (lyricworkbook.com). All that has been a bit of a tangent from actually making much music though. I should be getting my books in December from the press so I’m really looking forward to getting back into making more music instead of dealing with printing presses, setting up websites, and sourcing ribbon suppliers.

GF: What is the story behind "Monster"? How did the show get in contact with you?

HS: I keep a log of “Song Starters” with neat things I’ve heard in the world, and I would look through it every now and then and notice just how many came from Adventure Time. Eventually I thought well, I have to make a song about this show that just keeps breaking my heart. It was around the time I was nearly done with the first [Adventure Time-inspired] song “In My Element” that I got an email from Bandcamp saying “someone bought your album (Bedroom Visionaries).”

I get maybe one or two of these a month at most so I love to go in and say hi to the person and say thanks, be curious about who they are, [and] what they’re all about. Turns out it was Adam Muto, the executive producer of the show. (I asked and he has no idea how he happened upon my stuff. He guessed that I must have tagged something #adventuretime and he just happened to see it.) So I sent him an email saying, “Hey wow thanks for checking out my tunes. Also... holy crap you’ve made the best show I have ever seen in my life.” [I] played it real cool like. After finishing up writing my second [Adventure Time-inspired] song “Betty” I couldn’t help but fangirl real hard [and I sent him another message saying], “I’m sorry this is probably awkward, but I really love your show and I wrote these songs about it.” He was incredibly kind and shared them with his Twitter Universe, and a while after that I got a random email from him saying basically, “Hey, I’m working on this thing I can’t talk about, would you be interested?” I was like… well you know I’m pretty busy working at a sign shop so I’m gonna have to pass on this once in a lifetime opportunity (J/K. Obviously I fan-girl squealed and said yes immediately).

We chatted a bit about what the project was going to be and the direction. He mentioned there [would be] two Marceline songs in the special, [and he asked if I] would I be interested in giving the love song a try? Trying real hard to suppress my instant imposter syndrome I was like, “Yea, totally I’d be into giving that a shot!” So I read through the story and loved the idea of the dragon mirrored in Marceline, thinking through how they’ve both built up a protective shell, how she grew tough for a reason, but now she can open up and be vulnerable with PB.

From there I wrote the initial demo with the first two verses mostly intact and we went back and forth a few times editing it down into the final version. I recorded the final parts for the show in my little home studio in Seattle.

GS: When you were writing the song, what emotions, thoughts, or ideas were you channeling? Was there any sort of memory of event that you were trying to artistically "catch" or "recreate" with the lyrics or music?

HS: As far as channeling an emotion, generally I’d say just the experience of existing as a human. It can be so hard to open up and be vulnerable. I can remember that feeling even as a young kid—getting really excited about something and having someone completely trash it or look at you like, “Why are you so interested in that? It’s dumb.” [It causes us to grow] a little more weary to share ourselves because we know that hurt and embarrassment. The pain of being misunderstood is something I think a lot of us can relate to. Then having to decide whether to keep sharing those vulnerable parts of yourself or think, “They’re just not going to get it, I’m going to get hurt, so why bother?” and then stop putting yourself out there. You lose a lot with that thick armor though. You might feel protected, but you’re not feeling a whole lot of anything else other than the weight and chafing of it (I had a whole lot of armor-related metaphors that I didn't end up using.).

I struggle with this in songwriting too. I’m not the bolt-of-lightning type. There are pages and pages of cliches, total garbage, bad jokes, and cheesy lines that I have to get through in order to get to something that I am excited to put out there into the world: “Here I did this thing, I know it’s a little (this or that), but I made it... What do you think?” It’s hard to open yourself up to hearing the other end of that question.

I filled about 5 little pocket notebooks just thinking through the story, ideas, and trying to get this song right. I wanted it to feel familiar and honor the past songs of the show ([e.g.,] using the ukulele and referencing a few of the familiar chords from “I’m Just Your Problem”) but also be pretty open and vulnerable and different for [Marceline]. [I wanted to] show that she’s going through some tough emotions but also figuring herself out and growing.

GF: I feel like “Monster” is, at its core, an ode to the “Bubbline” ship. How do you feel about your song being intimately connected to one of the most famous LGBTQ+ relationships in animation? Do you have any general thoughts on Marcy and PB, Bubbline, etc.?

HS: Oh, I’m a total fan girl of Bubbline. The whole story of how Rebecca Sugar and Muto slowly morphed it into this deeper relationship is just great. As a part of the LGBTQ community myself it really means so much to see the representation of characters like yourself portrayed in an intelligent way. Growing up I was too young to fully understand what was going on but I saw Ellen getting cancelled, and [I] heard people around me saying they’d never watch her show again after she came out. That stuff sinks in as a kid and so to have these characters who are not only intelligent, but funny, complex, and unapologetically strong who also happen to be queer is really great. I love that the story here isn’t about their orientation, but that they’re people struggling with how to be open and vulnerable in a relationship.

It feels like something sci-fi and animated shows do so well—to show that ridiculousness of limiting who a person should and shouldn’t love. Marceline is a 1000+ year old half-demon/vampire and PB was born from the Mothergum of an apocalyptic radioactive world, but you’re going to get hung up on them loving each other? It sort of brings it into perspective in a really interesting way.

GF: Do you have any other thoughts about the experience that you'd like to share?

HS: Just how lucky, thankful, and honored I feel to be a part of my favorite show, writing a song for one of my favorite characters. It’s also incredibly cool how the people on the show are so willing to connect and collaborate with their fandom. Everyone [on the production crew] was very open and a real joy to work with.

I’d like to give a huge “Thank you!” to Half Shy for agreeing to participate in this interview; she really was quite amiable! If you’d like to hear more of her music, check out her website and her Bandcamp. You can also follow her on Instragram here and on Twitter here. And of course, here is Half Shy’s awesome video of “Monster”.

#adventure time #atimers #adventure time distant lands #atdl #half shy #monster #bubbline #marceline #marceline the vampire queen #bubblegum #princess bubblegum #pb #adam muto #interview

180 notes · View notes

darling-i-read-it · 3 years

Text

The Great Red Dragon

3x08

Hannibal Lecter x reader x Will Graham

Hannibal Re-Write Series Masterlist

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: spoilers for hannibal, murder, dead bodies, blood, surgery, canniblism

Author’s Note: I LOVE will graham and you can tell in this chapter i kinda went ham with my absolute adoration for him. Usually i try and hold back but im to sad to tonight so here is this love letter to will graham

I used some direct quotes from the script so some things may seem familiar

Official Episode Summary: As events jump forward three years, Jack seeks help as he pursues Francis Dolarhyde, AKA `The Tooth Fairy Killer'.

I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director

Tag List (is always open!) : @llperfectsymmetryll @ericacactus @vlightning95 @sweetgoodangel

(not my gif) (can you tell i love will graham. i feel like its excessive now but he is so handsome in this episode and every epsiode but this episode too)

Alana Bloom sat on an uncomfortable chair. The divider between her and Hannibal Lecter was a thick, clear plastic. To Hannibal they were sitting together at his desk. To her, to the reality of her, he sat in his jail cell. The two of them seemed comfortable with each other once again, now that there was no way Hannibal could lay his fingers on her again.

It was the only reason Alana agreed to stay.

“Congratulations, Hannibal. You’re officially insane.”

In front of Hannibal were different and various papers. A newspaper sat there, detailing a family slaughtered in Buffalo.

“There’s no consensus in the psychiatric community what I should be termed,” he said.

“You’ve long been regarded by your peers in psychiatry as something entirely Other. For convenience, they term you a monster.” Hannibal’s eyes flickered up, away from his papers and on to her. She had cleaned herself up since they were last close. The suit she wore made her look distinguished. Her hair up in curls. Sophisticated.

“What do you term me?” he questioned.

“I don’t. You defy categorization.”

“Do you still prefer beer to wine?” he questioned. She pursed her lips, remembering bad memories.

“Stopped drinking beer when I found out what you were putting in mine.”

“Who,” he corrected. She gave the slightest of nods.

“Who.” She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “This means you’ll be spared the federal death sentence. They had enough to convict you dozen times over.”

“A baker’s dozen. Lest we forget Mason Verger. You’re welcome.”

“You’re welcome Hannibal. The needle was guaranteed. But you beat it all on an insanity plea.”

“I’m not insane.” Alana nodded. She understood that.

“You know that and I know that. A dozen or a baker’s dozen, enough people have died.”

“You haven’t,” he pointed out simply.

“A promise in waiting, isn’t it? A promise you intend to keep.”

“I always keep my promises.” His lips flew into a small smile. Alana simply adjusted her spot in the seat.

“Get out of my chair, Frederick.”

Chilton stood up from Alana’s chair. Since she had become the director of the asylum things had been changed. For the better. Chilton was crooked, despite his frequent placing in her chair. She walked over and sat down at her desk and reorganized the documents that Chilton had been messing with.

“Shall we join hands in prayer of gratitude? ‘Thank you, Father, for allowing us to remove this monster, monster of monsters, from your flock. Thank you on behalf of the souls We will spare of pain.’” Chilton stood at the other side of her desk now.

“Thank you on behalf of the monster.” She leaned back in her chair. “Was that the magisterial We?”

“It’s our cabal, yours and mine. Hannibal Lecter will spend the rest of his life in a state institution, watching the diaper cart go by.”

“We lied. You wrote a book of lies,” she pointed out.

“Not difficult to see lies flying above my head, but it is almost impossible to shoot them down,” he pointed out.

“You should be lucky that Y/N is a respectable woman. She should have sued you for what you insinuated between her and Hannibal,” she pointed out.

“You say that only because you couldn’t sue me for speaking the truth about you and Hannibal.” He dragged a finger along the desk. “I wasn’t invited to the wedding though.”

“You held the groom at this asylum when you ran it,” she pointed out.

“Still. I put the actual murderer in jail.”

“I’m pretty sure they did that.” She picked up her pen. “Either way, Hannibal will shoot down your lies. He’s written a brilliant piece for The American Journal of Psychiatry.”

“Everything he writes is always about problems he doesn’t have,” Chilton said.

“What he’s written is going to be your problem. It’s not so much an article as it is a rebuttal.” She smiled to herself. “He has an acid pen.”

Will stood out by the shed. The dogs were balancing around him, running around and barking happily. Will was bundled against the cold although you had been the person who threw all of the layers at him. The dogs kicked up the snow. He was repairing the fence out there, something to keep busy.

He looked up the gravel driveway and a black SVU came down the track.

He let out a sigh, caught by the cold.

Jack Crawford came out of the car.

“Don’t want to talk inside?” Jack asked as Will handed him a mug of hot cider. Several stray dogs lay and mill at their feet as Will leaned against the porch railing. “Don’t want to let me inside. Come too far to let the cold stop me, Will.”

Will pursed his lips.

“Bold of you to show up.”

“Where’s Y/N?” he questioned.

“Making dinner. She didn’t hear you coming up and was, lucky for you, unaware I was making two cups of cider.” Will was relaxed but his tone was uneven.

“You don't want to talk about it here,” Jack said.

“I don't want to talk about it anywhere. You’ve got to talk about it, so let’s have it. Just don’t get out any pictures. There’s no point in doing that.”

“How much do you know?” Jack questioned.

“Two families killed, in their homes, a month apart. Similar circumstances,” Will said. You and him and passed the newspaper to each other at breakfast. Looked into it.

“Not ‘similar’. The same. You ever think about giving me a call?”

“If I ever thought about it Y/N would divorce me on the spot. But I didn’t think about it,” he admitted.

“You know what it is,” Jack said.

“I didn’t think about calling you because I didn’t want to. I don’t think I’d be all that useful to you, Jack. I never think about it anymore. I don’t believe I could do it now.” Will looked down at the lakeshore and Jack pulled out two pictures from his jacket pocket. He flipped them out on the table. Will looked down at them.

“All dead. This freak seems to be in phase with the moon.” Jack tapped the photos. “Killed the Jacobis in Chicago almost four weeks ago. Full moon. Killed the Leeds family in Buffalo night before last. One day short of a lunar month. If we’re lucky we have a little over three weeks before he does it again.”

“Will!” Your voice carried in from the home. Both men looked over.

“Looks like your luck has run out Jack.” You opened the door to alert Will that dinner was done. Upon seeing Jack you stopped. For a moment you were wordless. You looked down at the two pictures on the table, at Will, and then back at Jack. You recognized those people from the newspapers. You took in a deep breath and held your composure.

“If you want to by any chance keep your head I would recommend picking up those pictures, putting them back in your pocket, getting off my goddamn porch and driving your car back to where you came from,” you said evenly. “And give me that cup of cider.” Jack handed it to you and you snatched it, allowing it to spill on your hand without a reaction. “We need Will’s help. More of these families are going to die,” Jack said.

“I’m not going to let this happen again. I let it happen once.”

“You would sacrifice families lives for the miniscule chance one person gets a little hurt?” You stepped forward to him but Will lifted his hand. You stopped but you were still pretty close.

“If that one person is Will then yes. He’s saved enough lives.”

“He isn’t going anywhere,” Will said. You looked up at him and stepped back.

“Dinner is done,” you said and turned back into the house. Jack and Will shared a look.

“So,” Will started, pushing himself off of the balcony railing. “Joining us for dinner?”

You sat beside Will who was at the head of the table. Jack observed the house. It looked simplistic, comforting. On the small shelf by the table were picture frames. Each one of both of you. One when you were fishing, a small fish in front of your face as you laughed. One of Will by the fireplace in the Baltimore house. A couple from the wedding of the two of you looking happier than Jack had ever seen.

Jack had been at the wedding. Will invited him discreetly and because you were so distracted by your own happiness you couldn’t fight. You looked amazing. It had been a long time coming that day and when it did come everyone celebrated. There were even pictures of you, Margot and Alana on that day, cheering to a new beginning.

“People dump small dogs here all the time. I can give away the cute ones, rest, stay around and get to be big ones,” you muttered, petting the dog at your feet.

“You’ve always been a sucker for strays,” Will said.

“You’re not fooling anyone Will.” You stabbed at the plate and took a bite. Will placed a hand on your thigh and kept it there. You put your hand on top of his destreetly.

“Got a nice life here,” Jack said.

“I’m lucky here. I know that,” Will said.

“Surprised there aren’t any kids yet. Bella and I wanted them but with my job we could never fit it in.” The mention of Bella would make you sympathize with him and he knew that. Despite having calmed down a bit you still held up a good face.

“We have a lot of dogs although I can’t say we haven't been trying,” Will said. His face flushed a bit but you were so mad still you couldn’t even be flustered. Will knew there were some things you needed to say to Jack that you couldn't’ say in front of him. “I’m going to take the dogs out to pee.” He tapped your thigh once more before letting his hand leave as he stood up from the dinner table. You nodded numbly as he left, watching him go.

Your gaze went back to Jack.

“When you came into his classroom that day I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt but you failed me Jack. Countless times, you failed me.”

“You left me there to die In Florence.” You smiled.

“A fond memory.” You placed your fork down carefully. “You’re going to take him no matter how much I want to kill you for it.”

“I have to. I’ll make it as easy on him as I can. He’s changed. It’s great you got married.” You nodded.

“He’s better and better. He doesn’t have nightmares anymore.” You paused and collected yourself. “He was really obsessed with the dogs for a while. Now he just takes care of them. He doesn’t talk about them all the time. Doesn’t worry about them.”

“I know what it is I’m asking Y/N. And I wished to God I didn’t have to.”

You smiled slightly at what you were about to say.

“If he decides to go, and that’s a big if, he will not be going alone.” Jack nodded slowly. He figured this would happen. There was nowhere he went you would not follow.

“I know.”

“And you’re willing to deal with me for as long as it takes to get rid of this killer?”

“If I have to.”

You sat on your bed. The world was quiet out here. You loved it. Will loved it. It was why you got it together, your first joint home purchase. Will was taking off his shoes and you put your arms around him from behind.

He cuddled his head against yours. He could feel your breath against his skin when you spoke.

“I don’t want you to go, you know that.”

“I don’t imagine you’ll let me go alone,” he whispered. “But you know if I go, I’ll be different when I get back.” You nodded.

“I loved you at your worst and I’ll love you for the rest of the time you’ll let me,” you promised. You kissed him tenderly and his hands rested on your cheek, moving your body with his other hand so that he didn’t have to crane his neck.

Darkness moved around the bedroom peacefully. You slept beside Will but he was awake. He looked over at you and then slid out of bed. He pulled open a drawer quietly and took out a letter. The envelope is addressed to Will and Y/N, through the FBI. He hadn’t shown you this yet. He wasn’t sure if he should.

But you had felt him get up. Years of feeling when he was having a nightmare trained you for that kind of moment. You sat up and slid out of bed. Will looked over to you.

“What’s that?”

“I wasn’t going to show it to you.”

You walked over to him and put your arms around him from behind. You looked at the letter and the second you saw the handwriting you froze.

“Is it directed to you?”

“Both of us.”

You took it from his hands and stood up straight.

‘Dear Will and Y/N, we have all found a new life, but our old lives hover in the shadows, like incipient madness. Soon enough, I fear Jack Crawford will come knocking. I encourage Will, as a friend, not to step back through the door he holds open. I don’t doubt Y/N will protest against this ever happening but in case her will is not strong enough I must promise that there is darkness on the other side of the door and madness is waiting.’

You handed him the paper.

“I’m calling the girls from down the street. Their teenagers will watch the dogs.”

Will and you looked through the Leeds house. The two of you looked at the bloody remnants of what had happened there. You weren’t there to observe though. You were there for moral support.

His eyes were shut for a while. You watched him stand there. You were silent.

Until he opened his eyes and a deep breath left his lips. You quickly approached him and hugged him tightly. He hugged you back, catching his breath in your arms.

“Jimmy you’re the light of my life,” Jack said.

“I know. The print’s smudged. Came off Mrs. Leeds eye. Never did that before. Never would’ve seen it, but it stood out against an eight-ball hemorrhage,” Jimmy explained. You, Will, Jack, Jimmy and Brian all stood in the morgue together. He kept stealing glances at you and Will whose thoughts were elsewhere. “I just...I can’t believe you’re back. I’m surprised you're back.”

“I’m surprised Y/N didn’t drag Jack's dead body in here,” Brian said. He hit Will’s back. “Welcome back.”

Jack looked up from his desk to see Will and you standing before him. You were both looking at the information sheet.

“You were asking about the dog. Last night, a vet called the police. Leeds and his oldest boy brought it into the bet the afternoon before they were killed,” Jack explained.

“What’s going to happen to it?” Will asked.

“Please don't worry about the dog.” Will smiled a bit.

“What do you expect me to do?” he whispered. You smiled at him. Ever the sweetie.

“Best you can, that’s all. Busyworks been a narcotic for me sometimes, especially after I quit the booze. For you too, I think,” Jack said.

“There’s something else we can do,” you started. You paused for a moment. You and Will had talked this over just briefly but you understood it was what you needed. “We can wait until Will is driven to it by desperation in the last days before the full moon. Or we could do it now, while it might be of some use,” you finished.

“Is there an opinion you want?” Will nodded slowly.

“We have to see Hannibal.”

3x09

#hannibal lecter x reader #will graham x reader #will graham imagines #hannibal lecter imagines #hannibal imagines #will graham x reader x hannibal lecter #hannibal lecter x reader x will graham

150 notes · View notes

entertainment · 4 years

Photo

Entertainment Spotlight: Jacob Hopkins, Dragons: Rescue Riders

Jacob Hopkins is best known for his starring role as the voice of Gumball in the Cartoon Network’s animated hit series The Amazing World of Gumball, and can currently be heard lending his voice to Axel Finke on How to Train Your Dragon spin-off series Dragons: Rescue Riders, which is now in its second season on Netflix. You may also recognize Jacob from his roles as Alexander Drew on True Blood, Chad Kremp in The Goldbergs, or appearances on shows like About A Boy, How I Met Your Mother, and NBC’s Animal Practice. Jacob took the time to talk to us about voice acting Dragons: Rescue Riders, and more:

How would you describe your Dragons: Rescue Riders character, Axel Finke? Do you think you share any traits with him?

Axel Finke is a pro conman. He knows exactly how to get what he wants when he wants it. He can appeal to both his evil genius uncle, Magnus Finke, and the Rescue Runts- er, Riders. He has his own agenda, but it’s always changing based on his situation. All that being said, deep down, he really does want to belong somewhere, even if it’s with someone like Magnus. I really think that Axel has good in him, which is what I would share with him.

If you had a dragon, what would you call them, and what would their strengths be?

I would definitely want a Swiftwing (the type of dragon Winger is). They’re stoic, powerful, caring, and incredibly fast. Basically, the ideal companion for adventuring. I’d call him “Swiftnight.” I mean, it’s all right there.

Apart from the obvious, a lack of cameras, can you tell us about any differences between voice acting and acting on camera? How does the audition/your day on set differ?

On camera acting definitely requires a more refined use of body language and reactions, whereas voice acting uses a wider vocal range and requires even more emotion to be portrayed solely through your voice. For voice over auditions, I usually record at home with my own personal mic. If I get the job, I always record in a sound booth with my voice director, a sound engineer, and one or two of the writers and/or the creator on the other side of the window in front of me. For on camera auditions, I either go into a casting building or submit a video audition. If I book the role, then I either go on location to shoot or I shoot on set, which can hold a vast amount of different rooms and settings.

What’s the first thing you can remember being a fan of?

I’m still a huge fan of Dragon Ball Z. I remember watching it on Cartoon Network as a kid, every Saturday morning. It’s actually what inspired me to become a voice actor!

You played a “young” vampire in True Blood, how did you prepare for the role?

As a young lad of nine years, I had already read tons of books about vampire lore. I used to be really fascinated with monsters…I still kind of am. I combined a defiant, authoritative attitude with all my knowledge of vampires to prep for Alexander Drew, the most powerful and oldest vampire on the Vampire Authority.

What’s your favorite situation Gumball has got himself in since you voiced him?

I’ll always adore the love story between Gumball and Penny. One of my favorite episodes is “The Shell”, which is when Gumball convinces Penny to break out of her shell and embrace her true self: an incredibly powerful and potentially dangerous shape shifter. But with the power of his love, Gumball sees past her frightening abilities and sees her for what he describes as “extraordinary.” He goes on an intrepid chase after her, teams up with her to fight a pack of wolves and ends the episode with a kiss. And then Richard cries. Like we all did.

What’s your favorite thing that you’ve seen on the internet this year?

During this pandemic, I like to see people reaching out to one another, rekindling relationships, and helping each other in any way they can. There are a lot of scared people right now, but it’s comforting to see even more kind people.

Do you have a dream role you’d like to play? What is it, and why?

I don’t want to say anything specific (I don’t want to jinx anything!), but I’d love to play a Marvel superhero, whether it’s on camera or voiceover. It’s totally at the top of my bucket list.

What’s something you never leave the house without?

My crucifix necklace. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember, and I feel incomplete without it.

What’s the first thing you’d do if you suddenly woke up in Huttsgalor? Who would you turn to? Would you try to join the Rescue Riders?

Well I’d OBVIOUSLY join the Rescue Runts- uh, Riders! You know, gain their trust, maybe technically steal a baby dragon, but definitely not take it back to my totally not evil Uncle Magnus and study it to create a powerful Mechano-Dragon. Wait a minute…

Thanks for taking the time, Jacob!

Photo: Tim Schaeffer at Cellar Door Studios

#entertainment spotlight #jacob hopkinns #rescue riders #Katz PR

814 notes · View notes

algernoninwonderland · 3 years

Text

Miraculous, intertextuality and why referencing other works all the time isn’t necessarily a great idea

TL;DR: Miraculous loves itself some pop culture references, they’re in the show all the time for you to enjoy, especially if you’re a big nerd.

Only, making a list of references and trying to replicate what other works did before yours doesn’t make your show good by association, and when it comes to Miraculous, these references seldom do these original works justice. Instead, it makes comparing these other works with Miraculous really easy, and the comparison is rarely flattering.

Miraculous would be a much better show if it tried to be its own thing, a few scenes are just that and they are great. It’d be a wonderful show were they not so few and far between.

Miraculous is made by nerds, as is the case with most cartoons. The show itself lets you know that right away. It’s a pastiche of magical girl anime and Silver Age comics, it uses a lot of their visual languages, and references its other inspirations a lot, for instance:

The name of its fictional locations, (Françoise Dupont is a regular kid with a masked detective alter ego named Fantomette, Marinette’s address is a reference to a French illustrator who often drew a talking ladybird)

The way its characters look (Master Fu is both Mr Miyagi from the Karate Kid and Muten Roshi from Dragon Ball, when akumatised, Mme Couffaine becomes basically Captain Harlock and her houseboat becomes the Arcadia)

Sometimes entire scenes are references to other works (Aurore’s akumatisation is straight out of Utena’s Dark Rose Saga, “Gorizilla” has a King Kong pastiche).

You could fill an entire Wiki with all the references in Miraculous if you wanted to. If you paid me well, I’d do it myself.

Wearing your inspirations on your sleeves is a double-edged sword, really.

On the one hand, you showcase the things that inspired your creative process, a way to say, “hey, that show/film/book exists within a landscape, it’s the heir to such and such work”. You acknowledge that you owe a lot to your predecessors, you acknowledge that there’s no such thing as a 100% original thing. That’s a great act of humility.

And intertextuality conveys meaning, too! Let’s take a very mainstream example. When you notice that ha! The pod-racing scene in Phantom Menace comes from the 1959 movie Ben-Hur for instance, you get the sense that you understand the cinematic masterpiece that is Episode 1 a bit more. It tells you that your movie about space wizards owes a lot to other genres, and that it transposes these genres to another setting, space! “It’s Ben-Hur, in that that slave kid is pod-racing for his freedom, but I gave it my own spin,” George Lucas tells you. “Look, the funny Gungan stepped into that space cow’s poop! Haha, sure hope I’ll sell lots of toys and buy myself some death sticks!”

You feel really smart when you get a reference, too! “Hey, that’s a Dezaki effect right there!” “Wow, is that a robot from Castle in the Sky in Age of Ultron?” Likewise, if you don’t recognise the work being referred to, you might get curious about it! References send back to other things and your knowledge of these things and when you get it, it feels nice. Lots of people discovered Utena thanks to Steven Universe and that’s really cool, and these references add to the meaning of the cartoon! Folks who casually got into RWBY but didn’t know Soul Eater and Cowboy Bebop heard about those shows and many others while discussing RWBY and I’m sure lots of them got into anime thanks to RWBY!

On the other hand, by being so open about your sources of inspiration, you expose yourself to criticism, especially in the case of your work being compared with what inspired it: it might be seen as derivative, or even worse, unable to do these previous pieces of media justice by only retaining and replicating their most superficial elements without a great understanding of what made them work, gratuitous fanservice for nerds.

And I’m not quite sure where Miraculous stands. Oftentimes, it feels more like a Spider-Man/Kamen Rider crossover with bits of outdated shoujo manga and superficial wuxia sprinkled in there than a show at least trying to be its own thing.

And the problem is, Sailor Moon is better at being Sailor Moon than Miraculous could ever be, as it uses its visual language better, and it has a tiny thing called “the main character having a group of friends who aren’t props and a plot you can follow” that is the very reason why people liked the manga and anime in the first place. Miraculous only retains the very superficial aspects of the manga/anime and of the genre. Marinette still trips over a cat in the opening. Because that’s how it happens in Sailor Moon. Her characterisation as a civilian screams “Usagi Tsukino but more stressed out”.

Spider-Man is better at splash pages than Miraculous because ML’s CGI is pretty meh when it’s not in motion, these weird filter effects don’t look great, that only works when you’re Into the Spiderverse and have comic-book aesthetics. Queen Wasp has a whole sequence that is just that scene in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 only this time Queen Bee sabotaged a metro on purpose to stop it. It’s not an awful scene, it carries its point across rather well (Chloé is a selfish nerd who thinks she can be like these comic book characters but truly isn’t fit to be a hero) but the original did it better, it was more impressive, there was more tension to that original scene, some really interesting camera and foley work that made you feel the weight of that train. It didn’t feel cheap the way that scene in “Queen Wasp” did.

Utena’s Black Rose Saga explores the psyche of some of its secondary characters the audience is already familiar with, with problems we could already identify within them. It offers an examination of the storyworld from another point of view, and helps build it further. There’s always a proper buildup before these characters have a mental breakdown in an moody elevator with a butterfly pinned on the wall that turns back into a chrysalis, because the characters are going through a kind of regression that makes them easier to manipulate and turn into “villains” while acting out their true desires in a twisted way. “Stormy Weather” has most of that, an elevator with dramatic lighting, a butterfly and a mental breakdown, but the character is all new to us so it’s just not that impactful. Often, that one secondary character who’ll get transformed has had spoken lines, yes, but that’s only minutes before they get akumatised.

“Kinda the same but a bit worse and missing some of the key aspects of what made the original thing so good” isn’t much of a tribute, is it?

In an earlier post, I stated that Animaestro was basically “I have watched a lot of animated shows and I know how to mimic them, the episode”. It told us nothing about animation as a medium except that it’s cool sometimes and that you get to imitate other people who are much better at the things they do than you are.

It’s not a clever metacommentary, it’s just “me likey moving pictures”. Good for you, I guess… Did you really need an entire episode to make that point?

And then you’ve got all the bad outdated shoujo tropes with characters falling on top of each other, aggressive flirting (harassment, really) from Adrien portrayed as really sweet and romantic because it’s just like in the shoujo manga (which one?) you see… And that’s just not great, is it?

Miraculous is a much better cartoon when it doesn’t try (and fail) to emulate other shows and movies and comic books and manga. The only thing it tells us about these works is that That Guy and co really like them and that copy-pasting them is the best way they’ve found to show their love. Imitation and flattery and all of that I guess.

“Look, it’s like in that scene in the anime! Did you like the anime? It sure was a good anime, and if our show makes you think about it, then it’s also good, right?”

No, you guys, I’m sorry but no. If making references was all it took to be good, then gaming webcomics would be regarded as masterpieces.

Very often, the show seems interested in being anything but itself. And it’s a shame, because there are lots of ideas the show kind of brings up but never quite touches. Marinette is interested in fashion design? That’s great, show us more of that! Make it an important part of her character, and by the same occasion, make her creations look not-laughable. Miraculous could be the first cartoon to explore what it’s like to be a biracial kid with a Chinese parent in France (would that work with a crew of almost strictly middle-aged white men is another question to which the answer is a resounding “no”). The show is set in Paris? Cool, how about exploring the city outside of its landmarks every tourist and their mom already knows?

Inexplicably, in the middle of an episode when you expect it the least, you get brilliant bits of directing that aren’t references to other works. Alya becoming Rena Rouge and her first steps as a superhero? Brilliant, really immersive, loved it, not a reference. The sad car scene in Puppeteer 2? It’s really really good, not a reference either. All the unexplored lore? It seemed really promising and having more of it would help us understand things a bit more!

People don’t just like your show because it reminds them of another show. Why watch it if you can watch that original work in the first place?

Trying to make a superficial mashup of all things you think are great in other works is not the way to do these works justice, nor is it the way to make your show interesting, let alone good.

#miraculous #ml salt #ml writers salt #ml critical #ml analysis #longpost #rwby #star wars #spider-man #adrien salt

66 notes · View notes

nevermore-the-kitsune · 4 years

Text

Top Ten Biggest Polt Twists in Animation (in my opinion).

Spoiler Warning

10. April is a mutant (TMNT 2012)

In this incarnation of TMNT, the turtles fight the evil Kraang. Their main target is April O'Neil. The reasons why have been kept vague until it is revealed that she herself is a mutant! Not any mutant but a combination of Kraang and human DNA.

9. The Philosopher Stone is made out of People (Fullmetal Alchemist series)

Brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric committed the ultimate taboo and attempted to bring back their deceased mother. However, in the process Ed lost his arm and leg while Alphonse lost his body and became a soul bound to a suit of armor. The brothers came to believe that only the philosopher stone, who is said to hold unlimited alcchemic potential, was the only way to get their bodies back to normal. That dream is shattered when they learn that the stone is made by killing thousands of people.

8. The Author was Stan's Twin Brother (Gravity Falls)

Gravity Falls is a town that holds many secrets. During their summer visiting their great uncle Stan, Dipper and Mabel discover a mysterious book that holds the secrets that lie beneath Gravity Falls. A major theme throughout this show is "who is the author" the mystery twins encounter many strang things in their quest to find out who they are. Only to have it revealed that Stan's brother was the author.

7. Chad is still in the KND (Codename Kids Nextdoor)

In the beginning of this series, Chad or #274, was the leader of the KND. Until his 13th birthday, when he betrayed them. Throughout the series Chad joins the KNDs nemesis, the teenagers, and takes a part in their plots to destroy the KND. However, when #1 is given a chance to take him out, Chad reveals that he never left the KND and was working as a spy.

6. Grandpa Max was a Plumber (Ben 10)

Ben 10 tells the story of ten year old Ben Tennyson who is on summer vacation with is grandfather and cousin, traveling the U.S in an old RV. On the first night Ben finds the Omnitrex, a device that allows him to transform into different aliens.

By the end of the first season Max reveals that he was a Plumber, an intergalactic police officer, and had know the whole time what the Omnitrex was and the Aliens Ben transformed into. While not a huge twist (the series would have some bigger ones as it continued) it was still a shock to learn that Max knew what was going on the whole time.

5. Rose betrayed the Huntsclan (American Dragon: Jake Long)

Dragon Jake Long fell in love with a member of The Huntsclan, Rose or Huntsgirl. However, she in turn fell in love with Jake not knowing that he was a dragon. Rose gets the chance to kill Jake, if she does she will become a full fledged member, but Jake shows her his human face. In turn she lets him go and runs away.

During the second season, the Huntsclan attemp to destroy every magical creature by using mythical skulls that grant anyone who brings them together a perfect wish (Think the dragonballs). In the last moment she strikes down her master and instead wishes for the destruction of the Huntsclan, knowing that that will include her.

4. Rose Quortz was Pink Diamond (Steven Universe)

Many believed that Rose Quortz, the leader of the resistance and mother of Steven, had shattered Pink Diamond, one of the heads of the Gems. However it is revealed in season 5 that she WAS pink diamond and had faked her own death to protect the Earth.

3. Nagisa's blood lust came from his mother (Assassination Classroom)

Class 3E is the bottom of society, but they have been given the chance of a lifetime. A being who can move at mock 20 says that he will destroy the Earth in one year, unless one of them can Assassinate him. He takes on the role of their homeroom teacher to better prepare them.

Out of all the students in 3E, Nagisa Shoita was the lest impressive. He was small, weak, and looked more feminine than his female classmates. Yet, Nagisa has the national talent of an assassin. He managed to get the drop on their gym teacher, a man who is skilled in many fighting styles, and took down an ex military officer (twice). He has surprised his classmates with his abilities, feom getting the drop on top assassins, including their homeroom teacher, to installing fear with just a glare.

However, this came at a price. His mother is abusive beyond reason. She forces Nagisa to grow his hair long, makes him wear dresses and other feminine clothing. On several occasions she has bashed his head into solid objects. She is unpredictable, forcing Nagisa to do what all children in that situation do, learn to control his emotions and read the thoughts of others. This woman created a viper.

2. Eric Cartman and Scott Tenerman are brothers (South Park)

Cartmans mom has always been loose. The identity of her son's father was likely going to stay a mystery. But during the second episode of season 2 we get our answer (kinda). The answer was given now we could move on.

In a later episode Cartman gets scammed and humiliated by Scott Tenerman, an older teenager. So, Cartman devises a scheme. In the end Scotts parents are dead and eaten in some chille.

Many seasons later its revealed that Scott's Father and Eric's are one and the same. Ms. Cartman amd the town had lied about his identity in order to protect his public image. Thus Cartman killed his own father.

1. Zak Saturday is Kur (The Secret Saturdays)

From the beginning I knew this would be number one.

The Secret Saturdays is about a family of scientists who study crypteds, or strange creatures with unique abilities. The most dangerous was Kur, a creature said to have the power to raise a crypted army and take over the world. Zak has the ability to manipulate crypteds leaving him and his family to believe that shoukd Kur be unleashed onto the world, Zaks power woukd be the only thing that coukd stop it.

At the end of season 1, the truth is revealed that Zak IS Kur.

The entire first season is dedicated to finding Kur and talking about how dangerous he is. Then it turns out that it's Zak, a 12 year old boy with a kind heart. I cannot describe how shocked I was, then having to wait years to find out the outcome (we moved around alot) killed me.

Remember that this is my opinion. What are some of your favorite plot twists in animation?

(Images are not mine, all credit goes to the artists)

#ben 10 #fullmetal alchemist #gravity falls #codename knd #knd #american dragon jake long #steven universe #plot twist #plot things #south park #assassination classroom #secret saturdays #my opinion

67 notes · View notes