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rigelmejo · 5 months

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Things Read 2023

I thought it'd be kind of fun to do a little collage of some of the things read in 2023. Because pictures entice and maybe one of these will look interesting to you, and maybe I'll just feel slightly more motivated the next time I try to read something.

First row: Easiest novels to read, I highly recommend if you're a beginner. 秃秃大王, 大林和小林, and 笑猫日记 (any book in this series).

Second row: also fairly easy, though maybe not for total beginners? (Unless you want). 小王子 (which was the first non-graded reader novel I read in chinese, and in retrospect I wish I'd started with the books above instead... but this was still readable as a beginner, I read it in paper form to stop myself from looking words up and it was still a doable read), 盗墓笔记重启（幽默漫画）a very cute domestic side stories for dmbj set during chongqi, extremely easy to read if you know the character names. 他们的故事/Their Story by Tan Jiu, a cute slice of life girls falling in love story, it's setting makes it quite easy to read.

Third row: manhua that are a bit harder, but still probably very readable if you're not looking to work hard and sink into a novel. 19天, bl and funny af, set in school so common vocab but the jokes land better as u understand more, I also love the art. 破云 1 and 2, they're kind of hard to read in that this manhua has a page just for niche word definitions in the front, but it's easier to read than the novel it's based on. I thought it was a fun way to enjoy the story while I waded much more slowly through the novel version. Similarly, I've been reading the 烈火浇愁 manhua (not pictured) on and off since I can get further in the manhua than the novel before running out of steam. There's a lot of manhua on the Bilibili Comics app, and that's definitely an option if you're into manhua too if you like a novel premise but aren't quite ready to tackle the novel (or want to check out the manhua too). Also, sometimes on bilibili.com you can find videos of manhua with voice acting and music, which can be nice.

Fourth row: some novels I'm still in progress with lol. I read 盗墓笔记 books 1, 2, and half of 3 in 2023. I'm continuing along, and maybe eventually I'll get to sha hai. If you plan to read/watch more in the tomb raiding or supernatural genre anyway, I highly recommend reading. dmbj is not that hard to read, new words usually pop up early and then are repeated enough that you learn them within a few chapters, which makes the following chapters easier and easier. By the time I was through book 1, I switched from looking up unknown words to looking up no words and just guessing from context and it went fine. npss also writes in an easy style to read once you get used to a few wordings/slang. A lot of the words I learned from dmbj were helpful with other supernatural genre stuff I read, since I like to read that kind of stuff. 撒野, both harder than I thought it'd be and easier. It is very doable of a read as far as following the main idea of the plot, after you've read a few other novels (like row 1) or gotten comfortable with daily life words. It does some beautiful stuff though with the writing style, and detail, that's more noticeable upon re-reads. I've restarted this novel like 4 times because each time I picked it up again my reading skill had improved, and the writing felt different upon reading. If you can watch chinese shows with chinese subtitles you can read this without looking words up, but if you do encounter unknown words this was a novel I found the unknown words were frequently useful and worth learning. I'd say it's very approachable, it's just the chapters are quite long so it's always a painful reminder of how slow my reading speed is. It's about two teenage guys who meet and fall for each other, and it's also about their families and personal struggles and very character focused which I love. After this novel, I plan to check out the other novels by this author. And of course, still, 镇魂. Look, I keep reading the whole first arc, then taking a break, then re-reading the whole first arc. I need to stop being a perfectionist about understanding and catching every detail, and just move forward. I've read my print version about 2 times to the end of the sundial arc, and the web version about 2 times. I've yet again reached the end of the sundial arc as of December 2023, and hopefully I just move forward at this point. I wont say it's an 'easy' read, but I will say I picked up so much of my initial reading vocabulary from this and Tian Ya Ke, that priest's preferred writing vocabulary and particular way of phrasing sentences is more familiar to me than any other author's. So now I have a much easier time reading priest's other novels. And in the case of Zhen Hun, I know 98% of the words more or less on any given page. So yes, it's a bit silly I keep combing over to try and understand more details. (In my defense, I've been combing over the AUDIO my last read through, to try and get my listening vocabulary comprehension closer to my reading vocabulary level - I figured it was a good novel to do this with since I know nearly every word reading-wise in the sundial arc at this point). Anyway... when will I finish reading Zhen hun? Ask me when the last official english translation book is published. Because I'm waiting to read the english until I finish it in chinese first. So no doubt when the english is totally out I'll probably rush through anything I didn't finish so it's easier for me to compare. (You'd think I'd do that for Sha Po Lang and... lol you're not wrong... that's why I haven't started reading SPLs official english translation yet... I want to dig out my chinese print book and compare). Tldr: Zhen hun is one of the easier priest books to start with, all things considered. Or Tian Ya Ke. I started with both, and they're still easier reads to me than Dage and Sha Po Lang and Can Ci Pin.

Special mention:

I also read 2 pingxie fanfictions, 半夜衣寒 and 寒舍 by 夏灬安兰. The first story is shorter by far, both are around as easy to read as dmbj or a bit easier, and they're supernatural au in everyday life so a lot of the words are applicable to either the real world, or to books in genres like dmbj.

I also read/watched many a voice-acted manhua video on bilibili over the last year. Bilibili algorithm recommends me tons of bl, and supernatural mystery stuff, so I'd click on manhua compilation videos when bored and use the voice acting speed to get myself to read faster than I would if I were just reading the manhua in silence. I found a pretty cool horror manhua, but upon making this post I checked bilibili and the compilation I saved was deleted. If I find it again I'll post a link. It was a college student who just moved to the city, and he meets this ancient guy who may be a demon/guardian sort of thing, and the city is just full of haunting and awful deaths and misfortune going on. It was both scary and full of comedy, which was fun.

#reading list #my reading list #my reading list 2023 #chinese reading list #2023 #rant

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tavyliasin · 5 months

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Of Living, Loving, and the Strangest of Bedfellows - A Tav's Guide to Fucking Across Faerun: Sordid Coast Edition (ATG)

Trying something new, scheduling full fic chapter drops on Tumblr throughout this month! They'll drop around the same time every day, and enable those without AO3 to read the full works. So we're starting with my ongoing series, which is usually shortened to ATG in the titles so that's how you'll see it referred to from here on in! The chapters will also all be reblogged on my side blog @atavsguide for anyone who wants an easy way to find the posts again!

----- General Notes About ATG, Tav, and The Story Overall

Who is the Tav in this Fic?

Named in the first chapter as "Tavylia Rugala", this was my first concept for a Tav who would be able to be known as Tav but with a little of her own unique identity. One which I promptly adopted as my Psuedonym. By the time we get to later chapters, I no longer refer to her as Tavylia, and just call her Tav, as Tavylia has become more my identity than hers, and I do not consider her to be a self-insert. Tav is a cis woman, a high elf (wood elf) Rogue with the Urchin background. Her parents were former adventurers, one leaving when she was very young and the other died of sickness before she was 10. Because Rogues with living parents is weird, and it makes for an interesting enough start, and gives her reasons for her personality.

More details follow!

------------ So, Why The Long Title?

When I started, it seemed fun, fairly accurate to the vibe I'm going for, and ATG (A Tav's Guide) is a nice little shortening of it.

What's the Plot?

The premise is following the game, approximately, with a few changes to spice it up or allow for a parallel story. There's a lot in the game to expand on, and to add flavour to. The idea really came from the amount of options there are to have sexual encounters in the game, and how that can be a premise for a character who is interested in experiencing all of this to actually do so in a believable way to their personality. Hence, ATG's Tav. She's bold, maybe a little too bold for her own good, but having lead a hard life her philosophy is one of living in the moment, taking what pleasures she can get in life. Love and Lust are separate entities to her, she is quite happy to have a meaningful relationship, but doesn't need one to have good sex. And with the full agreement and ongoing communication with a romantic partner, she is confident indulging in sexual endeavours outside of the relationship, or even having a full polyamorous relationship if the context is right. So we will have the canon sex scenes, along with a few extras that I felt we were cheated out of (Raphael, please, just let me smooch the old devil). The main romance is Astarion, there will be poly involvement with Halsin, and I will try to cover every canon sex scene available in that setup along with some extras and canon-divergent relationship building amongst the characters.

How Long Will ATG Be?

Currently I am at 13 main chapters, and in Act 3 of the story. I think we can go to around 20 chapters to cover the pairings and story beats I intended, with a few fun spinoffs and side stories.

AMA!

Ask me anything about ATG, Tav, the pairings, characters, story, or anything else around the fic in the comments below~ I'll read and respond to all of them.

#baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 tav #a tav's guide #ATG

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fuh-saw-t · 2 years

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What are the pros and pitfalls of writing very manipulative/deceitful characters?

Manipulative and Decietful Characters: The Basics

Manipulative and deceitful characters are so fun to write, and can definitely elevate your story to the next level. The plot twists, the angst, the betrayal...and the potentially endless slew of ways they can be entirely messed up.

There's no right way of writing, but there are definitely things you should consider doing or avoiding when it comes to certain character and story tropes. So, let's discuss.

Pros!

To start, I'll lay down a key piece of advice I'll be referencing for the rest of the post.

Remember your reader.

Sounds a little stupid and all too simple, right? Well, let's think about it in context as I go through the main tips I think make the best manipulative characters.

1) Trust

In order for your character to manipulate the other characters in your story, they need to gain their trust. Without it, their deceit will be obvious to the characters, and their inevitable betrayal will mean nothing (at least emotionally) or seem entirely avoidable.

To create trust, you can have them act as a source of information for the protagonist or other characters. If they prove to be a reliable source of information, they must be a reliable person, it could be assumed. They could even be in a mentor role, or be a simple guide to a naive character that doesn't know any better. This way, it could be easy for the manipulator to change from giving reliable advice to making the character(s) do things that, ultimately, are for the benefit of the manipulator, or some evil plan that's been cooked up since day one. Your character could overshare, too, in order to create the impression that they are open and would never keep a secret from the protagonist or other characters.

Or, you could have the manipulative character be the presumed naive one. Perhaps they go to the protagonist for help and act as if they know nothing, the other characters not noticing the ruse until it's all too late.

What's important is that your manipulative character is trusted at some point in your story. I say 'some point' purely because of how creative you can be with it. They could even be a reformed villain who only pretended to reform, or went back to their old ways. Perhaps the protagonists are the ones in the wrong, and the manipulative character is manipulating them for the good of the world.

Though, connecting to what I said before, remembering your reader is vital to using this concept of trust to its highest potential. If you really want to make it so your reader follows along with the story and experiences of your protagonist, ensure that your reader has just as much trust in the manipulator as your characters do. Have the manipulator's story unfold through the reader's eyes.

Unless, of course, your manipulator is your protagonist…

2) Give Signs

Twists that come out of absolutely nowhere might seem amazing, but they can often read as lazy and unsatisfying.

Lay down puzzle pieces for your readers, and your characters, to find. How, when and how often you do so entirely depends on when or if you want your readers or protagonist to discover the truth.

Maybe the manipulator can slip up, or give a character a task to do that obviously isn't a good idea and was pre-established to result in a curse. Maybe they can tell the protagonist a lie that the protagonist begins to question as the story unfolds. It could be that you subtly hint that the manipulative character doesn't like the other, giving snide remarks, a rude nickname. You could even hint through describing the appearance or actions of the other character poorly or insultingly whilst the point of view follows the manipulator, showing that the manipulator sees the character in quite a disgusting and pathetic tone despite not actually saying it.

Keeping in mind the reader once again, it'll give your audience a mystery to invest themselves in. Even if they don't see the reveal coming, it'll promote them to reread your story and appreciate it in much more depth than ever before. Besides, real manipulation never comes overnight. People don't change that fast, and nobody's tracks are entirely clear. Your manipulative character is bound to slip up eventually, regardless of how smart, powerful, or ultimately dangerous they are. It's important for you, just as you would with any other character, to identify their faults and weak spots.

3) Manipulative Tactics

It's important to keep in mind how a real manipulator acts, regardless of the context and abilities present in your story.

A manipulator may try to isolate someone from familiar places or people. For example, they could convince them to leave their family or friends, either by cutting them off or moving away. This way, the character is easier to manipulate as they will have a much smaller circle of people to tell them otherwise. Their influx of information will be limited. They will also not be familiar with their surroundings, and would effectively be in the lion's den - a dangerous place to be where they have no knowledge nor control of their environment, yet the manipulator does.

A manipulator will try their best to establish a high level of trust as fast as they can. Keep in mind point 1 and 2. Does the protagonist find this suspicious? Perhaps another character does, but how is that character treated? This could again link to isolation; the manipulative character isolates the protagonist because they begin to see others, who are realising their deceit, as a threat. Maybe they manipulate the protagonist into believing that those who realised the trickery and suspicious behaviour are the real villains. Maybe that manipulation extends to the reader, too.

A manipulator will make fun of people. They'll guilt people. The blame will never truly be on them, if they can get their own way. They'll know how to play their cards right. A really good manipulator that's entertaining to read will be smart, dubious, and ready to take risks to get what they want, even if it means playing down their intelligence and true power to assume the role of a victim.

4) The Aftermath

If you choose to show the aftermath of the final twist - the reveal that shows the true colours of your manipulator - try to think it through. That sounds obvious, I know, but it's good to consider what could be explored.

How does your protagonist feel (or those directly manipulated)? Do they feel stupid, if they saw the signs yet held onto their trust? Or do they feel unsurprised, knowing that they were being used at the end of it all yet not having the will, energy nor heart to turn on the manipulator? Do they feel surprised, shocked and overcome with grief as they never saw a speck of a clue coming their way?

How does your manipulator feel? There's usually two main options: the guilty and the unfeeling. The guilty feel, well, guilty. Do they regret what they did? If so, why? Do they not? That's entirely fine. Not all villains need to be sympathetic.

Don't be afraid to explore the stories and feelings of other characters, too, that could have been cut out or shunned in the process of the story. Reunions, apologies, heartfelt love confessions and horrified slandering. Let the whole cast collapse, if you see fit.

Pitfalls.

Now, here's what I heavily advise not to do. I'll keep this section short, considering I've already covered quite a bit.

1) Cardboard Characters

Your manipulative character is still a character, at the end of the day. For the love of the Lord, don't let the big twist in your whole, grand story be a flat cardboard cutout of a person. Just because they're evil and manipulative doesn't mean they can't have feelings nor experience their own take on events and situations. Give them a personality, interests and depth, just as you would anyone else. But, of course, with the mandatory touch of evil.

2) Blatant

What's the point in lying if you're comically bad at it? It's mistakes like these that come from not getting your reader or your characters to be convinced that your manipulative character isn't all bad. If you know they're a bad guy from the start, that's not a manipulative character. That's just your average villain.

Besides, if your character does or says things that are really obviously pointing to them being a bad person, it definitely takes some stretching to make sure your other characters don't see it. Oftentimes, poor writing like this leads to the protagonist or other characters being dumbed down more than they should be, which is a bad experience for everyone involved. Especially for the reader.

Not to say that your characters all need to be Einstein. Your manipulative character should just be convincingly smart, enough so that the characters being deceived is entirely plausible. Because, for an idiot to be the smartest person in the room, everyone else has to become the mental equivalent of warm ice.

3) No Reason

Linking into past points. Give a reason.

It doesn't have to be blatantly said, just at least insinuated. Your character is deceiving people...why? Why are they doing that? What is their motive, their backstory? What is their ultimate goal?

This ideally should match their actions in terms of extremity. You have a character that manipulated someone into cursing themselves and their bloodline for a thousand years? Why? Because they annoyed that character one time in a parking lot last week? Give a solid reason. Please. I'm begging you.

Also, why is the character they manipulate actually manipulated by them? If someone is vulnerable or in a vulnerable position (e.g. in urgent need of help, shelter or guidance), they're more likely to be manipulated. Of course, the manipulator could just be really convincing.

But, if you're going the last route, actually make the character convincing. Get a beta reader. Seriously. They save lives.

And yep, that's all the advice I can think of for now. My asks are always open for more questions and discussions like these. Thanks for likes and reblogs <3

#letsdiscuss #creative writing #writing #writing advice #writing prompt #writing help #fsasks #send asks #literature #ask blog #reading #fiction writing

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sirenalpha · 4 months

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I've been bouncing around different DC comics storylines like a lunatic instead of reading one thing straight through so I've read comics from the 80s through to just a couple years ago, obviously not everything that's been published it's basically just Batman and Superman or related stuff but definitely a decent number of issues

I think something changed in the early-mid 00s with how comics are written for the worse

I'm not saying there's not flaws with 80s-90s comics, it's still difficult to find an entry point for any new comer, storylines are spread across multiple different comics making them hard to follow, 80s/90s handling of sex and race etc

but while the art is usually much better mostly in terms of paneling/page layout not necessarily how the characters look it can be both great and bad in either era

the writing post 00s is like on fucking steroids, you can't breathe in any of these stories, something must be constantly happening usually multiple things at once that may or may not have to do with each other and things whether plot beats or characters picked up or dropped in an instant as necessitated by/convenient for the plot on top of having no good entry point and running across different comics

that's not to say there are no overarching plots in the modern comics, in fact it's basically all serialized plots, nothing episodic and resolved in a single issue, but they are buried under five miles of distracting bullshit and no one is allowed to emotionally deal with the consequences because you must immediately move to the next thing

in comparison, the 80s-90s comics there's either one main plot with multiple components running in sync no bullshit on top (like return of superman which I'm part way thru so juggling lots of characters across different comics but you're sorting out one plot, it's one story no cut aways) or it's more slice of life vignettes, they just happen to be about the life of superheroes

like during Jason's post crisis run in the late 80s, Dick returns as Nightwing to meet Jason and confront Bruce, Dick and Bruce argue with each other no physical fighting or anything else going on the panels are basically empty except for them, and everyone gets their chance to speak and to react and recover after the talk is over, it all happens in one issue and it's a complete thought that gets full completed, ended with a period, no bullshit on top of it, the whole run is basically like that, each issue covering one thing in its entirety

you want to know the single solitary comic I've read published post 2000 that works anything close to that?

Wayne Family Adventures

that's what pisses me off about "real comics fans" or however they'd like to be called who think WFA is bullshit

yes WFA is fluffier than the mainstream Batman comics coming out, and yes the characterization is obviously different it's working on its own continuity

but the writing isn't fucking insane, it's the only one where it's not insane!! it has a supremely easy and convenient starting point no backstory needed, each issue/two parter is a complete and satisfying story, and it has far, far more coherent storytelling

if you don't like WFA for the art style or tone that's personal preference and fine but acting like you can't tell why someone new to comics or not can appreciate and like WFA...maybe you're just not that much of a comics fan because WFA is how DC comics used to be

as far as I can tell, comics did the same thing as tv shows where they shifted from episodic stories where each episode has a contained story with an eye for syndication and reruns so that each episode could be watched in any order without added context (kinda like how comics issues work) to serialized stories, seasonal plots becoming stronger until a show is following one continuous story where you have to watch them in order and are potentially made for a binge session rather than appointment viewing once a week

except for television that's prestige tv for a second golden age of television and in comics it's whatever the fuck is going on now

one of these is much enjoyable than the other is all I'm saying and it's not modern comics

the 80s and 90s stuff is charming compared to the more contemporary stuff (not the sexism and racism just the vignette story telling style)

#I'm not an expert I'm just noticing and having opinions

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bsd-bibliophile · 3 years

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Survey Dates: November 15, 2020 - December 15, 2020 Number of Participants: 331

You can view and download the full results here.

Comments:

#BringBackYumeno2020

How cool you included translators in this! You ROCK.

bsd kunikida needs a vacation

Bungou Stray Dogs have been a blessing for me ever since I started watching the series last year. I had lost my drive for reading and writing as a hobby, university and disillusionment with the publishing industry killed that, but now I have been revitalized thanks to the series. Not only did it drive me to go back to writing original works, but I have started writing fanfiction again after almost ten years of hiatus from story writing. The BSD online library has been a blessing not only as a source of research for the writers for my fanfic, but also has been the only way that I have been easily been able to get a hold of some works by the authors in English, my preferred reading language. Please keep up the good work! Thank you so much for everything that you have provided for this fandom.

Buraiha,,,, just them

Do not make me choose between Dazai and Chuuya, I cannot, they are both my favs lol.

for the question about how many books by japanese authors i own, i responded with more

Hello friend! Twain’s my favourite in bsd but this is about japanese literature soooo than 10, but to clarify: they are not all from bsd authors.

hello!! just a quick thank you note!! im polish and variety here in japanese literature (either in polish or english) is very limited, but thanks to your website it's very easy to find works i want to read both by japanese or russian authors. i also like the fact that i can read abt the authors' connections and how they influenced each other in their works, and get some historical context. i want to be a translator in the future, so i'm incredibly grateful for this kind of accessibility. keep up the good work and thank you once again!!! <333 - julia sz

I will like to thank you for all the information that you have supplied us on the tumblr page. Also I will like to know if you have any information about "A New Hamlet" the adaptation Dazai made of Hamlet. You will really help me if you know anything about it.

hi, i really enjoy your blog and "no longer human" as well as "the moon over the mountain" are on my christmas list. i hope to learn more about these authors and i wish you a good day!

Hi! Just hope you have a great day!

I am currently learning Japanese and I hope one day I can read these authors works in Japanese instead of a translation

I am interested in reading literary works translated into languages other than English, but have difficulty finding ways to read them. For BSD, I also watch the recordings of stage plays. Also, BSD and the authors have sparked my interest in other Japanese literature (I really like Banana Yoshimoto's books). Lastly, thanks for the online library, it's such a huge help!

I am sad to have to answer that I’ve not read these authors. I just watched the whole anime in the last two weeks and am going to go read some of these authors now. I actually have two literature degrees from US institutions and have become increasingly aware of how awfully western they are. I love this anime and am glad it’s opened me up to these authors. I’m excited to read them.

I can't wait to see what you do with these results!!

I cannot thank you & your blog enough for helping me fall further in love with Bungou Stray Dogs. Keeping so many works in an easy-to-access place is also a total lifesaver--and you just made it all the more easier to realize my love for literature. I know I'm rambling, but thank you so much!

I have a question, is it better to read these Japanese novels in their original language (Japanese) or does it not really matter if you read the English translation? I guess it's a given that reading it in Japanese is more authentic, but I'm just wondering if it's really worth it to learn such a complex language just for the sake of authenticity. Are English translations at least 90% legit anyway?

I have read most Japanese works in English except for the poetry of Nakahara Chūya, which I read in/translated from Japanese.

I have very mixed feeling towards BSD, I prefer the side stories rather than the main plot and I only like a small choice of characters, but I appreciate the series for introducing me to many great authors that I hadn't known.

I hope you have a great day!!

I just found BSD Biblio blog recently, but still I get to know about the real life authors a lot. I can't understand japanese much, so this blog truly helps me to know more about the authors and their remarkable works. I'm greatly appreciate the efforts that had been put on this blog ^^ My deepest gratitude to the translators~♡

I just wanted to say thank you for your big interest in sharing japanese literary œuvres on the internet. Here in Spain there aren't many works translated in spanish, and those that are translated, have a poor translation, except the works of Dazai. Your page lets me enjoy many pieces of art from the great japanese writers!

I love bsd and bsd-bibliophile is a great blog

I love the blog and my favorite things are the quotes! Keep up the good work. <3

I love the universe that taught me to love books.

I love this blog and thank you sm for all the love and hard work you put into it. Thank you.

I love your blog, but I didn't know you had a library! I'm definitely checking it out, since where I live it's not easy to find the books of all the authors and I want to read at least one book of each! ❤️

I love your blog:)

I love your blog!

I love your tumblr! Thank you so much for collecting all the information about the authors!

I LOVE YOUR WEBSITE ITS AMAZING THANK YOUUUU

I love your work and dedication!

I mostly make do with the books that are available in my public library, thus the only physical copy I own is "the key" bu tanizaki (if that's the correct translation of the novel)

I play the BSD mobage; that is about as far as I am into BSD as a fandom, as I've only began a couple months ago.

I prefer print, but ebooks are good when that's what's available. I started reading the BSD manga, but stopped. I enjoy it much more just vicariously through my friends who read the manga and novels. Thanks for providing Japanese lit content all the time! I'm trying to learn Japanese, but I've a long way to go, so it's cool to learn about authors and possible English translations.

I read a lot more Japanese authors than I used to before, due to the anime Bungo Stray Dogs

I really adore what you do. Though I have not been very active in the library due to real life issues, I look forward to sitting down and looking through it!

I really appreciate BSD-Bibliophile. I've learned a lot and I know without it, I might not have gotten this into Japanese literature!

i really enjoy seeing your posts on my feed and reading quotes from various writers. thank you for your effort, i really appreciate it :)

I really like that you share quotes of these authors, they're really interesting to read! :) It also helps me to decide what I want to read next haha

I really want to read the light novels, I wish one day you can upload them! Love this page so much!!

I saw a few posts from your blog on Twitter and I'll definitely follow it from now on! What you all are doing is truly amazing and I wish you and your blog only the best! (I don't have enough free time to dive into as many books as I wish I could, so your blog is really helpful)

I think Asagiri-sensei try to promote these famous Japanese authors and I really glad he did because I actually like the poems and story by these authors and whenever I read you guys post a quote from any of their books, I feels the need to buy the book. Thank you for your hardwork!

I think your work in organizing and encouraging people to engage in Japanese literature beyond the series that introduced them to it is awesome.

I use BSD-Bibliophile so much and am very grateful to have it!

I wanted to read some of Dazai's, Kenji's and Akutagawa's works, but they are hard to find in physical stores

I wanted to thank for both the blog and the online library for granting me acess to works that are either too expensive or not available in my country <3

I'm following BSD for 4 years and I read literature of BSD authors as much as I can. I'm deeply in love with its characters, and I'm delighted every time I discover the references from the real life authors and their works. I recommend for those who want to go in-depth with BSD to read the literature, or at least learn about the real life authors. It worths the time. You'll love BSD even more, and maybe the real life authors and their works as well.

I'm new to Bungou Stray Dogs, and I plan on getting my hands on the manga soon! and also the works of the real authors the characters are based off of. :)

I'm so thankful for the site! Since I can't afford the actual book, I am able to read them thru here and if you don't mind, please add Hagiwara Sakutaro's Hownling at The Moon and Kikuchi Kan's Beyond the Pale of Vengeance. Thank you!

I'm so thankful to the amount of effort put into this blog. Thank you so much.

I've been following you for years, your blog is one of my favorites. Thanks for all you do!

I've come by this website a few times, but today is the first time I've really read anything on here. The posts provide a lot of insight. I'll definitely be coming back here to make use of the online library. Thanks for making this available!

I've read and enjoyed Dazai's works, and he's the one I choose for favourite, but it's hard - if I had to choose a second I'd go with Chuuya's poetry. I've somehow wound up reading and re-reading it both for reference in my own works, and just because I want to, when I like.

I've thoroughly enjoyed all the works I've found through this series and I highly recommend people look into Tachihara's poetry! He's my favorite poet ever and his work is highly underrated.

I'm very thankful for this blog. It's heaven-sent for a booklover and fan of Japanese literature for me. I'm sure you're constantly trying to update the library, but there are a few very rare books I've always wanted to read but I'm not sure if I'll get to. Can you add "Azamukazaru no Ki" by Kunikida Doppo? I'm not sure if there exists an English translation, but I'd be eternally grateful even if you uploaded the original Japanese (actually, I would prefer that to the translation, even though it would take a million years for me to decipher the whole of it, at my level of knowledge of the Japanese language. Japanese and English being poles apart in grammatical structure, a lot of the nuances of a Japanese piece is lost in a translation, and this being a record of Kunikida's innermost feelings, I would prefer to read the original.) I also want to read the reports Kunikida made while he was a war correspondent during the Sino-Japanese war, that made him famous as a writer and journalist, but I'm not sure if those could be available. Please include Kunikida's wonderful poetry too. I have mostly read some them in the original Japanese, or Bengali translations made by a senpai of mine, but I would love to read more. As you can probably tell, Kunikida is one of my favourite Japanese authors (although I selected Akutagawa as my favourite in the survey... I love both of their writings equally, but the survey only wanted one answer, so I chose Akutagawa.) Please include writings of other Japanese authors who are not featured in BSD as well, if that is possible (you could maybe create a different section for them?) One of my favourite Japanese authors is Komatsu Sakyou, but I've only been able to read one book of his ("Japan Sinks"). I also want to read "Virus: the Day of Resurrection", "Take Your Choice" and assorted short stories written by him, but Japanese literature is unfortunately not at all easily available where I live. Which is all the more reason I'm so thankful for your blog. I wouldn't have been able to read so many amazing books of some of my favourite authors if it hadn't been for your blog. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope you will read this and consider my requests. Have a nice day :)

it is through bsd-bibliophile's blog that i am able to go in-depth about japanese authors, so thank you so much! and just a little suggestion, though you don't have to do this if you don't have time or there's simply not any reason for you to do it, i would really love to answer a survey not only featuring japanese authors but all authors across different literatures (japanese, american, english, russian) who are featured in bsd because i think that would be fun as well. and this is really a fun survey~ thank you so much!

It was very fun to fill this list.

It's too hard to choose only one character or author

Keep doing what you do, it's amazing!

keep the great works!

Loved this!!! 💕

Nothing in particular. I just wanna thank you for having this survey. Loving BSD forever.

Since I only recently fell into the world of BSD and Japanese literature I haven't been able to read many of the works I want. I'm quite eager to read "No Longer Human" by Dazai-sensei since I really liked his style. An interesting thing is that I wasn't very fond of reading poetry until I discovered Yosano-sensei and Miyazawa-sensei, I enjoyed their work a lot. I'm very grateful to this blog, I wouldn't have been able to immerse myself this much into Japanese literature and read all this wonderful works if it wasn't for you so thank you so much! Keep up the good work!! ♡

Thank you for all of your hard work in these translations; reading Japanese literature has always been my wish. Being able to find and read their works in English is the greatest thing that's happened to me.

Thank you for all the hard work! You all curate the content so carefully and do so much for the fandom. It's one of my favorite bsd

Thank you for all the work you do~ and thank you for the library as well~

Thank you for all the work you’ve done💕✨

Thank you for all your hard work!

Thank you for continuing your work on this blog!

Thank you for everything you do!

Thank you for helping me find the translated copy of Return to Tsugaru by Osamu Dazai a while back!

Thank you for making the online library available! It's a great way to read some of these works that are not easily found elsewhere.

Thank you for providing the PDF's of these books, I don't want to buy them until I know I like them because it's hard for me to read because of my ADHD, so thank you for providing them in English!!!!

Thank you for the survey!

Thank you for this site! It really helps me to learn more about the Japanese Literature. Thank you to everyone who worked hard to translate the manga and light novels! I cannot decide which author I liked the best nor which book I liked most. It really is hard for me too choose! *sends love to everyone in this site*

thank you for this site! this really feeds my reading and BSD obsession <3

Thank you for your hard work :)

Thank you for your hard work, BSD Bibliophile! You are amazing! ;)

Thank you for your hard work!

Thank you for your work ♥

thank you so much for all that you do!!

Thank you so much for all your work on the BSD Bibliophile website!

Thank you so much for both your blog and the online library!!

Thank you so much for bringing closer the translated works and thanks for the authors who translated them

thank you so much for creating this special blog! I love it and really adore it

Thank you so much for your great work! your blog is a treasure for those who don't speak Japanese but are in love with Japanese literature (─‿‿─)♡

thank you so much for your website!!! sending love from hk!! :DD

Thank you so much for your wonderful work in making Japanese literature more accessible, so people who cannot find them in their country are also able to enjoy them <3

Thank you very much for your efforts in providing information and reading materials for everyone! I find your blog and website especially useful since I can't seem to find any physical copies here where I'm from.

Thank you!

Thank you.

Thanks for all of your hardwork!

thanks for ur hard work <3

Thankyou so much for this amazing collection of Japanese writers and BSD!

The translations from the BSD Library are amazing.

there's always more than one favorite character or author but it is hard to pick between them

This blog is has so many posts that have helped me to read these literary work and became an important part of my life. Thank you for all moderators for sharing these beautiful works.

This is an interesting survey for bsd franchise also for the people who like and read Japanese literature. As a casual franchise wanderer, I'd like to fill this for showing my country existence//slaps wwwwwwwww. Thank you for providing this survey. Salam Literasi!

This library is amazing!

This was fun!! I use the bsd-bibliophile tumblr a lot - reading the quotes helps me pick which book to read next!! Through reading the Japanese literature written by BSD characters, I’ve since found other Japanese authors I love like Sakutarō Hagiwara and Dan Kazou, too!!!! <3

To clarify some of my answers, The Japanese books I own are mostly children's books. My parents however, have some Japanese novels and short stories as they are from Japan (for example my mom has a copy of Kumo no Ito by Akutagawa). I never finished Setting Sun nor Kokoro. I got about halfway through both before I had to return it to the library. The only other jp lit I've read not including poems is like a quarter of Snow Country by Kawabata Yasunari.

would just like to thank you for always providing the resources for BSD fans! i have been introduced to some of my favourite all-time works since discovering your blog and your resources!

You have a great blog, thank you all!

You're doing amazing work. Thank you so much for all you do for this fandom and the Japanese literary sphere in general.

You’re the best!

Your blog is absolutely amazing and if i hadn't found it i wouldn't have been able to read any of the BSD authors' works, i downloaded each one that interested me in PDF from your blog, hence why i admire it so much and i am so grateful for it. It is obvious that you put a huge amount of work into this blog and i love to wake up to new quotes and fragments every day. Keep up the great work, with love, a reader from Romania!

Your blog is amazing. Keep up the great work! Much support ♥️

your blog is SO helpful for my master's thesis on japanese literature. there is basically nothing in my country about japanese authors and i cannot thank you enough for the work you have done. seriously you are saving my life !!!!!!!!!! i really hope you have a good day!!!! you are really awesome™

Your BSD Library is very helpful for me, thank you for your efforts on creating it!

Your website is great, and I really appreciate your work, it’s makes it so much easier to find Japanese literature and to find new authors.

Your work is beautiful and you have expanded my knowledge of international literature so much; thank you :)

#survey #results #2020 #japanese literature #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd-bibliophile

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mittensmorgul · 4 years

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As Above, So Below

I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly why the focus on “heaven is fixed and actually a paradise now!” is just so deeply unsatisfying to me. And I think I need to preface this with a bit of backstory about me, because I think that gives the rest of this essay some relevant context.

I know this isn’t relevant to my main point here, but this is a metatextual and thematically identical example of the exact thing I’m gonna lay out, because context is always helpful. So please forgive this seemingly irrelevant detour, because I promise it will be relevant by the end.

(plus, would it really be an Essay By Mittens™ without at least one baffling tangent? no, it would not!)

Tangent time!

I think everyone that follows me knows how skeptical I was... or should I say how WARY I was of the way Eileen was returned to the narrative this season. We were warned in the PREVIOUS EPISODE how much Chuck was attempting to interfere in their lives. I was accused of some very nasty things, of hating the ship, or hating the character of Eileen, or of hating Sam and not wanting them to be happy. No amount of pointing at obvious warning signs in the text, no amount of yelling about Sam’s God Wound or the absolute klaxon warning that the wound had become “quiet” and his Chuck-O-Vision Nightmares had apparently stopped seemed to matter. I was declared “wrong” and told to shut up.

And then 15.09 happened, and basically everything I’d been wary of was shown to be what actually happened, but there were still unresolved issues. Eileen doubted her own feelings and walked away. She doubted what was actually real. And at the time, I said many times that I would be thrilled to see those issues resolved by the end of the season, and for her to truly know that what she’d felt growing between her and Sam was real. And by the end of the season, despite my personal horror at her previous situation (and having that personal horror compounded by the fandom literally gaslighting me and attempting to bully me into ignoring this basic actual plot detail of this specific growth process which... in the context of what my personal objection was to accepting her return at face value in the first place having been personal trauma associated with gaslighting and manipulation...) by the time 15.18 aired, I was 100% convinced that Sam and Eileen had fully chosen each other, and felt the traumatic pain Sam suffered during that text conversation with her during the snap. She NEEDED to come back, because she had been set up to be part of Sam’s Win. They were clearly each other’s future.

The show literally put in all the work to make even *me* feel this to be True and Right and Good. And then after that point we never even hear Eileen’s name again. We never were told that she was even returned at the end of 15.19. Sam, who had been so entirely devastated by her disappearance in the previous episode that he couldn’t even process it was apparently hit with an amnesia hammer and just... never even thought about her again through a long greyscale life with a blurry baby Dean factory vaguely in the background of a single scene of his life. I can’t credit or justify how after an entire year invested in making us all truly care about Sam and Eileen and the happiness they found in each other if only the cosmos would allow them to choose each other in the end would just... erase all of that in the series finale.

Which brings me to the second tangent, which is specifically about *me,* and how I feel about the cosmic order in the television show Supernatural. Because I feel a lot about it. Probably more than most people ever did. And this is also important to understanding the main underlying point I need to make here.

Something I’ve been most looking forward to, for YEARS, about Supernatural eventually ending someday was writing a book, or a thesis, or even just organizing and compiling all my observations into a cohesive narrative specifically about the cosmology of the Supernatural universe. I’ve been cobbling together my observations and realizations about the nature of heaven, hell, purgatory, the empty, the alternate universes we’ve seen, and yes, even the cosmic function of the mundane level of the story as told by events that transpired on Earth. So of everyone watching this dumb show for the last 15 years, I don’t actually know anyone who cared more that I did about finding a satisfactory resolution and transformation of every plane of existence-- the mortal world AND the “afterlife realms” we’ve experienced on this show. And in the wake of the finale, I feel cheated out of that. Because in the end, it wasn’t about the triumph of free will and a flip of the script, it was just more of the same.

And now that I have those two preliminaries out of the way, I’ll finally get to the point. :’D

(hooray, it didn’t even take 1k words to get there for once!)

The “main stage” of Supernatural has always been Earth. It’s always been “Humanity.” At the very start, we meet two men whose lives had always been dictated to them by higher powers. At first, that “higher power” was their father who raised them in his vengeance mission, who trained them to hunt the supernatural. It was the inciting incident of the entire series, after all, their realization that forces outside of their control had irrevocably altered the course of their lives. It had forever torn down what they’d trusted in family, in personal safety, and would become something they couldn’t outrun or fight back against for long before another wave of cosmic discord would settle over them once more.

We watched this story play out in ever increasing spheres of cosmic significance, until Gabriel laid it out on the table for them in the simplest possible terms (in 5.08).

GABRIEL: You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate. SAM: What are you talking about? GABRIEL: You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other. DEAN: What the hell are you saying? GABRIEL: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always. A long pause. SAM and DEAN look down, then at each other. DEAN: No. That's not gonna happen. GABRIEL: I'm sorry. But it is. GABRIEL sighs. GABRIEL: Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. ***

And isn’t that all even 1000x more painfully ironic that it all still happened even 10 years later? It was always going to end with them. And lol, “I wish this were a TV show” because if it was then it wouldn’t have to end bloody.

But this… was a Major Acknowledgement that the meta level of this story was consistent, and was telling us something important. It demonstrated that the Cosmic Structure Itself was the cause for Sam and Dean’s “destiny” in this story. But that’s not what the point of this story has ever been.

Nobody (including me, who is literally obsessed with this aspect of the story) has ever invested themselves in the narrative of Supernatural because they cared about the fate of the cosmic order over and above the fate of the characters who had committed to overthrowing it all, to “tearing up the pages” and writing their own destinies. I mean, we became invested because Sam, Dean, and Cas as characters took us by the hand and invited us to come along with them as they battled against fate for the good of EARTH and HUMANITY.

And certainly, Heaven being a horrific sort of eternal replay of the “highlights” of individual souls greatest hits, where free will didn’t apply as everyone was just boxed away into their individual holodecks to serve as some sort of giant Heaven Battery powering the furtherance of this narrative, this “cosmic order” that had become so powerful it dictated the events and manipulated the lives of people who still existed in the ostensible realm of free will and human life on Earth… that couldn’t stand in the end. But what the narrative (and people I’ve seen attempting to justify the finale as narratively sensible) seems to have forgotten was that all of that was Chuck’s construct to begin with. That without Chuck holding his kingdom in Heaven together, the walls of all those soul cubicles ceased to even be relevant.

After spending their entire lives to this point constantly fighting their way to the absolute pinnacle of the As Above, So Below narrative and pulling the plug on the original creator himself, Humanity should’ve triumphed. And I’d argue that it DID, through Jack restoring the missing essential “humanity” to the divine condition. And, silly me, I thought they’d achieved the promise of “paradise” heralded by Jack’s birth at last, and truly “flipped the entire script of the narrative.”

Ever since they thwarted the original apocalypse, I had hope that they would continue to achieve the same result right up the ladder. Metatron trying to fill the role of Chuck Junior hit his own narrative wall in TFW, while Dean’s battle with the Mark of Cain, and Cain telling him he was “living my life in reverse” and would succumb to destiny by killing his loved ones in the “reverse order” to Cain’s own path to downfall cemented this for me. Dean not only failed to kill any of his loved ones (you didn’t kill your own brother. why?), he SAVED them. He didn’t fulfil the prophecy in reverse, he subverted it. He UNMADE it.

Perhaps I was thinking on too grand a scale, that the ultimate inversion wouldn’t be “God is overthrown and replaced by more of the same,” but “God is overthrown and the entire order of the universe is restructured from the bottom up rather than the top down.

I’d hoped against hope that the conclusion of the narrative would be “As below, so above,” with the fundamental power of human love becoming the new foundation of the cosmic order. It never even occurred to me that “taking back the narrative to rewrite it for ourselves” was not the ultimate goal of Team Free Will, or the ultimate expression of their biggest win.

This whole “well heaven really needed to be rebuilt, there was still work to be done!” seems… irrelevant to me if they’d truly won free of the cosmic narrative. The entire structure of the universe-- including Heaven and Hell-- should’ve defaulted to the paradise state that Jack was literally born to bring to fruition. Wasn’t that the point of his entire role in the story, ultimately?

And if that wasn’t the case in the end, why did we never learn the fate of Hell? Was it just… irrelevant and unchanged after this? Or just… abandoned as a concept entirely? It’s just strange to me to put such a focus on heaven being the sole sphere of import in the end that it undercuts the essential humanity of the narrative for me.

The story itself had kept Heaven on a back burner for years, only occasionally mentioning that the structure of the place was falling further and further into disrepair with a dwindling force of angels struggling to keep the walls in place at all, that it seems like it could’ve been an afterthought at the end of the series rather than a focus so large it required the death of both main characters to make sure we all understood that Heaven Had Changed Now. Because TFW had never been fighting to make Heaven right. They’d been fighting to save the world itself, for humanity to all have a chance to live their lives as their own.

And we didn’t need to see that in the final hope they might get their own lives on Earth to explore. In the end, the fundamental narrative that Life On Earth was dictated by the cosmic structure of creation was never fully subverted. And for me, that’s the main reason I just… can’t accept the finale. It wasn’t a victory of free will and humanity, in the end it was just more of the same.

I appreciate the attempts to take the essential bones of the story we did get and apply a different polish to the surface of the skeleton, but to me it still feels like we’re looking at completely different beasts in the end. Like… to me this was as jarring a revelation as those drawing of modern animals reimagined as dinosaurs entirely based on their skeletons. Like, all along the narrative told me I was looking at a swan. They told me this skeleton they’re building out from is definitely a swan, without a doubt. I know what a swan looks like-- a graceful feather-covered bird with magnificent wings. I trusted that in the end it would be at least remotely swan-looking. And then the finale ended up looking like this

and I just don’t even know where everything went so wrong. Or maybe all along I just assumed they actually knew what a swan looked like, but weren’t sure they could actually pull it off and settled for whatever the heck this is instead. Either way, I’m actually kinda grateful to the finale for being so entirely disappointing on every level, because otherwise I probably would’ve tried to adopt the monstrosity of it anyway. And I’m really, really glad I don’t have to.

#spn 15.20 #spn cosmology #heaven hell purgatory and the empty #and this is why no amount of narrative defense of the finale is capable of making me feel any better about it #i admit i thought too big... but it was all right there in the narrative to see #oh well at least all i have to do to hold on to my grandest notion of the universe is throw out the finale :'D

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cottagehowell · 3 years

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okay so I'm seeing a lot of people going "I always thought DEH was horrible bc Evan says he knows Connor to get with Connor's sister" etc. etc. without actually knowing the details of how it happens in the musical

disclaimer: I don't actually like the musical that much, I like some of the music but I agree that it gets really repetitive. also, I really only like the music in act 1 (with a couple of exceptions), so I'm really comfortable with the plot at the beginning, but once it gets to the Connor Project, I really only vaguely know what happens. also, like most people, I haven't seen the movie

OKAY let's start with Evan and Connor meeting. contrary to many posts that I've seen, they DID meet each other. Evan goes to the computer lab one day before school to print out a letter to himself - his therapist makes him write these letters, "Dear Evan Hansen, Today's a good day, and here's why....." So as he's printing this out, Connor comes into the computer lab, looking kind of intimidating, but generally being nice to Evan, asking him about his cast, how he broke his arm, whatever. Since no one has signed Evan's cast because he has no friends, Connor signs it in big letters to fill the whole thing up, which is really sweet! it's a nice moment. and then Connor sees Evan's letter to himself, sees that it mentions Connor's sister Zoe because Evan has a crush on her, and Connor gets understandably pissed off. he takes the letter and storms out. for Evan, this is the end of the interaction. it was weird and awkward, but it's done, and his only worry is that Connor might find him and like beat him up over it or something.

when Connor kills himself, his parents find the Dear Evan Hansen letter in Connor's pocket, and they assume it's a letter written by Connor to his secret best friend Evan Hansen. they're overjoyed in the greatest capacity they can be having lost their son, because at least their loner son had a friend, someone to help him through it all, even if he didn't make it through. Connor's parents feel somewhat culpable for Connor's death because they really didn't give him the support he needed, so the idea of Connor having had someone to support him takes a load off of the parents and makes them feel less guilty.

the following day at school, Evan is called into the principal's office. when he gets there, Connor's parents and sister are all there (he probably doesn't even know who Connor's parents are when he first sees them, but he definitely knows Zoe), and they tell Evan that Connor killed himself. and Evan is understandably confused because that shouldn't have anything to do with him. and then they show him the letter and make it clear that they think Evan and Connor were friends, which is corroborated by Connor having signed Evan's cast, and they effectively thank Evan for having been there for their son. and Evan goes along with it, both because of his anxiety and because it would be super awkward for anybody to go "sorry, your son actually didn't have any friends, I met him for the first time yesterday when he signed my cast and then was a dick to me and ran off." the idea of Evan being Connor's friend is clearly providing a lot of comfort to Connor's parents, so Even lets them think that they were friends because that's an action that seems totally harmless.

and then Connor's parents want Evan to be part of their lives, almost as a way for Connor to live on with them, and they start asking Evan all kinds of questions about their friendship. and that's where Evan starts to lie. ultimately, he's still trying to comfort the family by creating stories where Connor was kind and had fun and was trying to get better. in the process, he ends up almost gaslighting Zoe into doubting the existence of the emotional abuse she endured at the hands of her brother, but even for her, Evan is trying to provide an alternate history where Connor actually liked her. it's worth noting that Evan is also trying to sell the lie to himself because it would've been nice to have had a friend. Connor and Evan initially got along when they met, they're both in dire need of a friend, they both struggle with mental illness, and their families mirror each other in the show. if things had gone differently, I really believe that they could've been friends. and this possibility is so appealing to Evan, especially in the song "For Forever," where Evan rewrites the story of his suicide attempt to be a day out with Connor where Connor comes to help him after Evan falls from a tree.

is it shitty that Evan uses this opportunity to get with Zoe? absolutely. was lying at all not the best move? totally, but also he's a teenager who struggles interacting with people, so I don't blame him so much for getting himself in this mess. I never felt like Evan was really at fault for starting the lies, especially since it was such a great source of comfort for everyone involved, and since Connor's parents pretty much just pushed their assumptions on him. he's definitely a morally grey character, even more so as the plot goes on, but I don't think his actions become truly shitty until he starts getting some personal gain with it i.e. the resources of a more affluent family, dating Zoe, the celebrity of starting the Connor Project, etc.

also, I've seen the argument that audiences thought Evan was totally excused from his actions because of his anxiety. this was 2017, peak "uwu smol bean" era, so people online definitely felt that way, but I think critical reception (and like, normal reception by adults) of the musical was more nuanced. pretty much all musical theatre fandom at the time relied on super reductive, black-and-white thinking to categorize characters, so it's no surprise that a show with a more-than-typically morally gray main character would be super distorted by fandom. I've also seen complaints about people shipping Evan with Connor, which, yeah, that was pretty fucked up. since we really only get to see Connor through Evan's romanticized made-up stories about him, it's easy to read a romantic interest into it, especially when "Sincerely, Me" does make gay jokes about them, and also I heard that a lot of people thought the song "For Forever" was a gay love story without the context of the musical. food for thought. anyway it's not a particularly shippable musical in the first place, so pretty much the only other ships were Evan with side character Jared and Zoe with side character Alana. I can understand people gravitating towards the ship of two main characters, even if they didn't actually know each other and it's kinda fucked up

#dear evan hansen #dear evan hansen movie #deh #long post #sorry #i dont mean to excuse things that evan did or things that the fandom did #but i do think that the beginning of the lies is at least very understandable in the musical

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freckledbodty · 3 years

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Stripping Away The Bloat - The Umibe No Etranger Movie Did The Manga Dirty

I finally got around to watching the movie of Umibe no Etranger - a movie I didn’t know existed based on one of my old favourite BL mangas. And oh boy, does this adaptation reflect a painful trend in manga to anime/movie adaptations overall. Allow me a moment to rant, if you will...

TL;DR: READ THE MANGA BY THE LOVE OF GOD IT’S WONDERFUL. Also the movie is super pretty, but here’s a semi-detailed look at why it still really didn’t do the manga justice. You bet I came with receipts.

A few important notes before you start:

1. Remember this is just my opinion, and I’d love to hear other people’s point of view on the matter, whether you agree or disagree!

2. I am not fluent enough in Japanese to read the original without a translation, so my thoughts on the manga are coming from fan translations, which 100% might have affected how I view this! The anime I’m a little more sure on as I can generally tell when the subtitles have deviated, but that does mean I may have missed something/something was lost in translation that means something I say here is incorrect. I’m very sorry for this, so remember this is my view based on the media types I’ve consumed.

3. Also the manga cuttings I use are not the best quality because of tumblr’s sizing, so even more of a reason to go read the books yourself!

I’m aware I’m very late to this party, but when I saw the other day that this movie had been made, I was horrified that I hadn’t known about it sooner. I read the manga years ago, and adored it - it’s genuinely a sweet and beautifully drawn romance, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone. With that, however, the movie was a huge disappointment to me and I just need to have a moment to gush in a less than positive way.

The Pros:

Let’s get this out of the way, I’d still probably recommend this movie to anyone who likes romance anime-style movies. It’s beautifully animated. Seriously, this movie is stunning, with wonderful expressions, bright colours, and a pretty well suited soundtrack too. The animation tries to match the original art style of the manga, and frankly, I think it captures it perfectly. 10/10. Gorgeous. Watch it just for the prettiness.

I’m also a big fan of any BL/GL adaptations that get a little more into the mainstream. This movie is definitely a huge win in terms of representation, especially when the manga (on the whole) avoided the more negative tropes that the BL/GL genres have historically been known for. (More on that later...) So that’s a win, and I will take it.

The Bloat Cut:

To put it simply, this movie fell into the trap of what I call (in my head) ‘cutting out the bloat’. As a long-time anime and manga fan, who has seen countless adaptations over the years, it’s a common theme that tends to make or break an anime.

‘Cutting out the bloat’ to me means that the adaptors cut out a lot of the ‘smaller’ moments and panels that are seen in a manga. This movie was thankfully very good at following the original plot and took us through the same beats that the manga did (many adaptations don’t bother doing that at all), but they left out a lot of the extra stuff - the aforementioned ‘bloat’.

The bloat isn’t really bloat in that it is pointless, however: the problem is that these little moments and scenes are seen to be pointless by the adaptors. Again, understandable: they have a limited run time, and it’s hard to include every little tiny moment, especially when they are ones that are easily scanned passed. Some bloat cutting is necessary to make an adaptation viable at all, but sometimes, it can be hugely detrimental to the piece. Umibe no Etranger is a key example of this.

Setting:

I watched this movie without rereading the manga, and as such, I was quickly thrown off by how bad the movie was. This was one of my favourite mangas, wasn’t it? Had I really had such terrible taste? (Yes, let’s not go there, but this manga was not one of my high-school bad decisions).

The characters felt strange. Personalities did complete 180s after the time skip and did some questionable things that I couldn’t recall finding issue with when I read the manga. The two main characters felt so hot and cold that it didn’t feel like the story I remembered. Even the pacing felt off and janky at times.

After watching, I went back and reread the manga, and this is where I saw all the ‘bloat’, the little intricate moments and minor panels that were easy to overlook but made the story what it was. Here’s a few of the biggest examples I could find.

Shun:

Oh, Shun. What did they do to you?

Shun’s character was bizarre. In the first 15 minutes of the movie, he was bubbly, friendly, and even bold enough to flirt with Mio. After the time skip, he was sour, cold, and completely withdrawn from the world. I understood Mio’s confusion because after the time jump he was a completely different character.

The manga is often focused on Shun and his inner thoughts, and he’s the one who is hurt the most by the bloat cutting. For starters, he wasn’t as over-the-top friendly at the start of the manga as he was in the anime, and we’re able to see his inner thoughts and worries that cause his reservations from the first few pages we meet him. We also get more hints earlier on as to Shun’s past that explain a lot of his behaviour as a whole, as well as getting little hints as to why he’s even more negative and exhausted after the time jump.

Mio:

The biggest bloat cut out in terms of Mio is the big plot point of the phone call. For context, before leaving for the time skip, Mio promises to call Shun once he’s gotten to his new home. In the movie, this is never really brought up again, focusing on the relationship in the present, but this was a huge point to leave out. I think it was cut out because it was explained in one short scene in the manga, and therefore easily mistaken for bloat.

In the manga, it’s explained that Mio does call, but it’s Eri who answers, and there’s a very important conversation that sets up Mio’s whole character development and explains why he returns to the island set on having a relationship with Shun. Eri warns him that calling Shun, despite knowing that Shun has feelings for him, is cruel and unfair, and tells Mio he shouldn’t contact him unless he’s worked out his feelings. It’s a great scene, and a real shame to leave out when it explains firstly why Mio never called back, and secondly why he is so adamant about his feelings and love for Shun when he does finally return: because he saw Eri’s warning to mean ‘don’t come back unless you are serious’.

Relationship:

In the movie, Mio and Shun didn’t really seem to have a relationship until the drama kicked up and then it quickly seem to disappear again. Shun was extremely held back and reserved, and barely ever seemed to return Mio’s feelings (even in the scenes he was instigating) - he even totally avoided anything resembling physical contact at first.

Compare this to the manga, where there are little hints of their relationship progressing throughout the chapters. For one, Shun is never as cold and blank as he seems in the film, and when he does seem that way, the manga quickly shows a glimpse of his thoughts to explain how he’s exhausted or distracted - without those little bloated thought bubbles, he just seems... a little cruel frankly.

A really good example of this is the beach kiss scene. In the movie, as Mio is about to kiss him, Shun suddenly announces that he’s hungry and avoids the kiss altogether, leaving Mio confused.

In the manga, they actually do kiss - it’s their first kiss, in fact. Shun seems embarrassed and his ‘I’m hungry’ feels like more of a way to distract them both. He explains he’s exhausted (which is fair enough, this is a big thing for him to process on little sleep that his inner thoughts earlier in the chapter already set up) rather than just outright shunning him. (Ha. Shun. shun. Get it?)

A more *noted* bloat they cut out is that Shun and Mio get physical in the manga way earlier than the movie, the touches just not quite being everything Mio wanted. Without those more tender moments, where they actually seem like a couple, it seems like Mio is chasing after Shun desperately, whilst Shun couldn’t care less about him. It detracts from the whole relationship. Below are some examples of the two of them actually seeming like a couple that were cut from the movie, including longing looks from Shun, Shun hugging Mio whilst he’s asleep, and Shun asking to kiss and touch Mio.

The Issue:

Bloat cutting always annoys me, but usually, if it’s not hindering the story, I don’t mind. What bothers me most of all in this movie, is that without these subtle little panels and moments, the relationship between Shun and Mio seems... forced, frankly. In the movie, Shun seems to be the instigator of the flirting, and then after the time skip he acts practically disgusted, avoiding a lot of Mio’s advances, and we don’t get to hear his inner thoughts like we do in the manga to explain why he’s feeling this way.

In the manga, during these ‘bloat’ pieces, Shun is an actual willing participant in the relationship, and Mio isn’t just forcing his advances onto Shun. It’s natural. It’s not flipping between hot and cold, or suddenly ramping up after a big moment of drama, it’s slow and careful and a real relationship.

This would be a bad change in any adaptation, but it’s especially so in this one. Anyone who is a fan of BL specifically is probably aware of the genre’s bad rep historically for having some... questionable consent issues. This manga didn’t have them. The movie? I’m not so sure, and that’s why it’s rubbed me the wrong way. I could spend another 1000 words talking about this issue as a whole, but I’ll leave it there, you get the idea.

Expected? Yes. Okay? Meh.

There’s no real point to this post aside from to complain a little and point out just how much more the source material gives us. Cutting the bloat always happens, and I don’t want it to stop happening per say, that would be impossible, but I’d kill for adaptors to just take a little more time to work out what is unnecessary and cutable bloat, and what is something they should really keep in.

The movie is still cute and beautifully made, so please go watch and see for yourself! Mostly, I’d highly recommend the manga: it’s got the same gorgeous art style, only about 5 chapters long, and the story and relationship is that little bit more firmly built.

I’ll stop ranting now, and I hope this actually made sense? Anyway, congrats on making it all this way.

#umibe no etranger #bl manga #bl anime #yaoi manga #anime discussion #please note the important points #this does not mean its a bad movie by any means #just was a disappointment

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pebblysand · 3 years

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[writing rant - on filler words]

[yes, i should be writing castles but here i am giving you unwarranted writing advice instead. sue me.]

this morning, you might have seen me reblog this post on filler words. it's a classic, very typical piece of writing advice where the author lists a number of filler words/sentences that you should scrape from your writing to appeal to publishers or make your prose seem more professional or whatever. i reblogged it saying: 'i disagree with most of these, don't listen to people who tell you how to write.' which a couple of you liked (cheers!) but upon reflection, i feel like this needs a bit more of a nuanced response, which is what i'm doing now. i'm not reblogging the post again because it's long and this is going to be long, and tumblr isn't necessarily text-friendly but do go read it first if you fancy.

now, as far as i'm concerned, the truth isn't that i think filler words are amazing and that you should keep them all, love them all equally like your precious children. of course, you should watch out for them. just like we do when we speak, we fill our written sentences with a lot of pointless fluff that brings nothing to our message. when used "wrongly," filler words slow down sentence pacing, hurt the rhythm of your prose, your ability to choose the correct lexicon for certain actions, etc. they're not always good, and you should definitely be aware of them in your prose.

however, what i dislike about these types of posts is the way people dispensing this "writing advice" make whatever they're saying sound like some sort of golden rule. like: if you don't do this, your story will be shit and never get published. i don't know much about the publishing world but i have written 300,000+ words of mildly successful fanfiction over the years, so i do know a thing or two about writing as a craft, if not a business. and, here's the raw, honest truth: believing that anything about this crazy art we're making is set in stone? that is the kind of thing that will make you a shit writer.

now, if you're following this blog, i'm guessing you like my writing, are probably quite familiar with it. then, this will not be a surprise to you: while i don't pretend to hold any sort of truth on the matter, god knows, i use a shit ton of filler words. by which i mean: a SHIT TON. take any paragraph of any fic i've ever written and i'm sure i could point you to some random word "botox" in pretty much every sentence. this post itself, if you're paying close attention, is also filled with them. and, another surprise: i know that. it's by design.

and, that, my friends, is what matters most. you should watch out for filler words, be aware of them, but if they end up in your final draft, it has to be for a reason. in fairness, i think that's where most of those writing advice posts get it "wrong" and why they annoy me so much: they tell part of the story, but not all of it. they talk about words in a vacuum like our words only exist to be pretty on a page, rather than to share something with other human beings.

now, as a disclaimer, i should preface this by saying that: it depends what kind of writing you're into. this is all very related to personal taste. as a reader, i tend to prefer stories that are told from a very distinct pov, where the story is told by a character rather than by the author. this preference also informs my writing. to me, a story can be first person or third person, it doesn't really matter, but i like a good old restrictive, terribly biased and unreliable pov in a story. i'm someone who 100% favours character over plot (although plot is terribly important too, don't get me wrong) and i like a person to tell me a story, not a robot.

in that context, "filler words" aren't just sentence "botox," they tell a story, too. they tell you who your narrator is. in a post like this, they inform you that i probably speak quickly, that i'm somewhat bubbly but assertive, that my sentences are long and rhythmic, and when i write "in fairness" rather than "to be fair," or "to be honest," it even hints to the fact that my main dialect is hiberno-English. in a work of fiction, filler words can tell you mountains about where your character is from, what they think, feel, etc... are their sentences short and devoid of any filler words? perhaps, they are extremely poised and self-confident, or perhaps they are so detached from what is happening that they are actually on the verge of an emotional breakdown. are their sentences filled with "just"s and "you know"s and "slightly"s and "really"s? perhaps they are insecure, unsure of what their next move will be.

filler words are also where style and pet peeves happen. you'll notice that i use "and:" and "like:" as sentence openers relatively often. it depends on the work and how i feel about the character, but it is something i enjoy playing with. i use 'rather' and 'perhaps' frequently, too, frankly for no other reason than the fact that i like the sound of them. not everyone does, obviously, but since i'm the queen of my own fictional kingdom, i get to authoritatively decide to abuse them. that og post said to not use "that" as a conjunction (prefer: "he said he wouldn't," to: "he said that he wouldn't). man, aside from dialogue, i hate "he said he wouldn't" with a passion. i always use "that" as a conjunction and detest the way my sentences sound without it. i find the absence of "that" clunky and unclear. i don't know whether it is right or wrong, but that's how i roll. the people of the internet seem to like it but if they don't, they're more than welcome to read the work of another author who doesn't use "that" as a conjunction. i'm not holding a gun to their head.

however, as you've probably guessed from the above, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't be aware of your filler words. both yours and your characters'. know what you like, what you don't like, how your narrator narrates and how your characters speak. know how you speak and write, what your strengths and weaknesses as a writer are. edit your work critically. this being said, scraping all the words that make the work special is ludicrous. you would be scraping your work of so much personality that could actually be what makes it unique. writing is an art, not a game of exactitude. if the goal was to write everything perfectly, you could ask siri or alexa to write your short story for you. where you need to be careful with filler words is for them to serve your story, rather than hurt it. the filler words? they need to be carefully considered, questioned, and you need to make sure that they are intentional, not accidental.

and, of course, that's the hard part. that's the part of the writing advice these posts never get into because making blanket statements in the world is always easier than saying: it depends. creating a work of art out of thin air isn't as easy as cmd+f-ing all the "just"s and hitting "delete all." it's noticing which of those filler words you overuse, and keeping them in the back of your mind while you edit, taking a lot of them out. it's listening to your beta/editor when they tell you to take more out. it's also sitting for hours in front of your word document, contemplating every sentence and asking: should i use "just" here? does it show anything? does it have a purpose? does it sound right? let me read this out loud. and, what about the "eventually" there? does that sound natural? is that more of dialogue thing?

that's the line of critical thinking that will make you write better. and, don't get me wrong, posts like the above are useful as a guide in the way that they tend to list the most frequently used filler words, which you can then use as an inspiration to spot these idiosyncrasies in your writing, decide whether to scratch them or use them creatively. but: i'm sorry to say, there's no golden rule to it all. just hard work and practice. trust yourself.

i hope this helps.

#writing tips #writing advice #filler words #writing rants

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thechildofstark · 3 years

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The Problem With Civil War

Civil War was supposed to be a Captain America movie. It was not a Captain America movie.

However.......

The problem with it being a Cap film is that Steve (+ his team) are supposed to be the ultimate good guys. In all the previous Hero Title films (Iron Man Trilogy, Thor Trilogy, Etc.) the guy whose name is on the poster is the guy the audience is supposed to root for. However, because of CA:CW’s marketing and story arc, it was very much a Steve & Tony / Steve vs. Tony film, while trying to simultaneously portray Tony as a secondary character.

This post isn't about Team Cap or Team Iron Man.

The catalyst for the story of Civil War is...........interesting. (in the comics, its different. and a whole lot easier to understand the reasoning of both sides of the argument. but that's a post for another time.)

Tagging/registering/tracking every mutant/mutate/superhero/powered person is objectively a very bad idea. but so is running amok with no supervision in other countries and destroying property whilst literally wearing the American flag.

There are big problems on both sides.

The issue I find most people have with Tony is that they find him an entitled sellout who only cares about himself and that he committed war crimes, and the problems I find most people have with Steve is that he defended a baby Nazi and went on an violent international rampage in direct violation of the UN because his dead terrorist ex-boyfriend may or may not have murdered a whole bunch of people.

Ooof.

The main reason I think people get very annoyed/attached a specific side is because they are still projecting the characterisation from the earlier movies.

Iron Man 1 and The First Avenger? I love them. No notes.

Obviously yes there are issues in-universe but these are flawed characters with complicated issues and stories and so on, and I like them that way.

If I wanted a Nice Unproblematic Superhero I’d rewatch the Christopher Reeves Superman films. That is not why I am here today.

But by the time we get to Civil War, Tony and Steve have become caricatures of the ideals that they represented, so that the studio can make a movie.

Morally, Steve is in the right. Legally, Tony is in the right.

Ethically? I don't fucking know, they both suck equally in that regard.

Okay to be fair, Tony does try to help Steve like.........so often in the film. Because Steve is the Protagonist and he is Right even though half his actions don't actually fit with his previous characterisation/character arcs/basic human logic.

CA:CW was supposed to be a movie about Steve Rogers. But it failed in the single regard that the story wasn't about him. Even other Hero Title movie, the main character either does something, or has something done to them, and then they react to the situations and there are gratuitous explosions and a life lesson and probably a kiss near the end. But this film had the kiss nearer to the middle ew Sharon why and while plenty of shit got blown up, plenty of civilians and local law enforcement also got mashed by/because of the title character.

That is not how the lead in a superhero movie is supposed to behave.

And the film also continues down the general path of giving Tony shittier and shittier character arcs. The war he behaves in his own movies vs the avengers films? it’s a complete values dissonance. It is literally not the same character. Probably the closest to consistency we get is Iron Man 3/Age of Ultron but even then the differences are pretty startling. At the beginning, Tony was, idk, a realistic if fictional person. But the time we get to CA:CW all we have is an avatar for the writers to manipulate, damn character consistency, damn reasonable behavior and logic and everything that the audience has been told about him in the past.

Same with Steve. Heck, same with everyone in the entire damn movie. Barely anyone acts or reacts in a way that either A) previous behavior would suggest, or B) an actual human person would act or react.

Yes. I know. It’s fiction. I can suspend my disbelief.

But like........damn they fucked Clint and Natasha over.

The creators were trying to recreate a well known and well liked comic book story arc, capitalize on the growing divide in parts of the fandom over preferred characters/character ideologies, and do so without using the expanded universe and added context which made the original comic book arc so fucking good.

They tried to split the Avengers in half, only to realize that they had split the Avengers in half, and then when Infinity War came along, they basically had to write a plot where both sides did their thing without sharing a single second of screen time together, because the whole -

S: you tried to kill my best friend

T: he killed my mother

S: actually he was brain washed

T: but you knew and didn't tell me for years

S: well I was worried you would react badly

T: I wouldn't have

S: you literally tried to kill him

T: yeah I'm sure you be totally fine if you saw your parents being violently murdered and the guy was right there and your teammate lied about it and you were very sleep deprived to boot

- drama would start up again.

ANYWAY

the point is, I used to really like both these characters - I still like the comic book versions tho - but then they got way fucked over. I'm extra salty about Steve, because this was supposed to be his movie but loads of the screen time was given over to other shit and he literally commits so much crime and murder and has absolutely zero moral or emotional consistency. especially when it comes to Bucky and Wanda vs. everyone else.

Also with Tony, there is so much of an issue with Telling vs Showing vs other characters in-universe opinions of him I genuinely don't even know what the creators want me to feel about him anymore.

uuuuururhrhrhrhrhrhrhghfjjhdhjf.

tl;dr -

I saw this movie like six years ago and the way I feel about it has changed a lot over time. I used to be team iron man, could you tell? But the basics of it is this should have been an Avengers movie if it had to exist at all, there are so many cool Captain America stories worthy of being put to film, and this really wasn't the most perfect option. Civil War has so many problems, and I can even begin to try and list them here.

But I'm making this post because I just followed a really cool blog who happens to hate on Tony a bunch (I don't really mind consciously) but that annoyed me out of habit, so I started examining why I liked him as a character, and it mainly boiled down to A) some of the comics are cool, and B) CA:CW said I had to pick a side and Steve did so much dumb shit I just went with the easy option.

the blog doesn't seem to be a huge fan of Steve either.

my current stance is that they both got fucked over and if you want some solid positive Marvel content go read Runaways, or the Hawkeye comics.

The Hawkeye comics are the best.

#literally only one person is going to read this #anti tony stark #anti steve rogers #pro Tony stark #pro steve rogers #cacw #civil war #captain america civil war #marvel #disney #mcu #hawkeye #clint barton #natasha romanov #wendy mayomoff #bucky barnes #marvel comics #team cap #team iron man

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silyabeeodess · 3 years

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So... Last night, I read the Balan Wonderworld novel. It’s... something. It's not bad--I did enjoy it and it does have its moments--but there’s bits that don’t really seem to work as well as they could’ve and they can add up. To avoid major spoilers, like last time, I’ll put my thoughts below the cut, so be warned:

Most of my concerns are issues with the individual characters, but I’ll start by talking about the book itself first. Because there are so many people and themes in it to discuss, with the plot covering every stage and each of the residents’ backstories, you have to move through events quickly: We don’t really spend enough time with any of the characters to know them beyond some basic traits and what they need. Fine for a game and with visuals, sure, but not so much for a story. Things can feel like they’re moving a bit too fast, which I can excuse because of the large cast number; however, the writing only amplifies the problem and makes it feel like the book is being padded with wasted, repetitive dialogue that takes away from the story. I want you to imagine taking the 12 Days of Christmas and turning it into a novel--not with the things divided up into each individual day, but each chapter repeating all of the other days that came before it. It’s stale, it’s droning, and you as a reader will just end up skipping through material after a while. The book does this through the visions the characters share of Balan and Fighter/Emma, with Streetbeat/Leo and the residents each having them with slight differences in-between. As you meet each individual resident, one by one, they repeat a lot of the same things over and over. Not only that, but then you have to loop back through them and their stages a second time as Leo saves everyone. It’s not quite as bad as my 12 Days of Christmas example, but it does get to the point where you’re ready to say, “I get it! Your lover gave you calling birds, hens, doves, and a partridge--please, just move on already!” There are such easy fixes to this issue too, like having characters already meeting in each other’s stages to cover them together, maybe summarizing the differences in their stages to set up Leo’s expectations before he sees how distorted they become later on since he’s going to have to visit each one anyway. Instead, time is wasted that could’ve been spent on descriptions or building the characters in other ways.

I think the one character that suffers the most because of this Fighter/Emma. Because she’s placed in the story with the same mystery as Balan and viewed as a villain by the rest of the cast up until the end, she’s constantly being sidelined even though she’s a main character. She’s used more-so as a plot device for Leo, running off to do her own thing when she’s no longer needed, and then gets no conclusion where all of the other characters do. It’s like that meme where a person asks, “What about Emma?” and everyone just repeats the question dismissively as an answer. Again, I get it, we’re following Leo’s story here just as we would only be following one of them in the game, but it’s bad to keep dismissing her all while using her as a necessary key to saving everyone else. I guess it’s implied at the end that the Wonderworld gang might seek her out too, as they did with each other, but she’s barely a footnote. Balan and Lance suffer a little bit too, but do make enough satisfying reappearances that it’s not as much of an issue.

I kind of want to avoid talking about the writing style further, as I can’t help but wonder how much might be more of something like a translation issue; however, I will say that if you plan on reading this with a young reader, be ready to explain some extensive vocabulary to them. The style itself isn’t very flowery, the book isn’t a heavy text, but there are some words they won’t understand that can’t be deciphered by using the surrounding text. Like I said, the book doesn’t have a strong focus on description: Moreover though, there’s not as many illustrations paced through the book as you would imagine based on the preview. You end have having to rely on what you already know going off those first images at the start of the book introducing the characters or if you’ve played the game. It’s not a big thing, but I can see it being a small problem if you chose to read the novel alone. I tend to lean toward styles with heavier description in both my reading and writing though, so that might be a bit of my personal bias as well. Some of you may prefer it as it is.

Now getting on to the individual characters... Oh boy, is there some stuff to go through. Let me start with the one I’m actually a little uncomfortable with, as her actions affect some of the other characters as well in major ways: The Clocktower Kid/Cass Milligan. Throughout the story, we’re given clues that she has a big crush on Pensive Perriot/Attilio Caccini--who, as most of you likely already know--is in love with a woman who works with him at his theme park as a princess. By the end of the book, it’s revealed that there’s a near decade-long gap between when the two stepped into Wonderworld and that Cass is the princess... Thankfully, Attilio showed no interest in Cass as her child-self and this means that they’re actually close to the same age, but let’s unpack the assortment of other problems this brings up. 1.) This goes beyond a childhood crush with someone older that most people get over: The girl devoted a decade of her life to getting the princess role so she could be with the guy. If it was a year or two between teenagers, that would be one thing: This borderlines obsession. 2.) She knows who Attilio is from the beginning and waits for him to confess his love to her before revealing her identity. She says it’s because she didn’t want to risk messing up the timeline, but her own actions could’ve done exactly that had the princess role been meant for literally any other girl on the entire planet. She didn’t know that she was meant to be the princess: All she knew was that she wanted to be with Attilio. 3.) Either Attilio just kind of accepts all of this or, again, the pacing won’t give us some much-needed details, because the next thing we know we’re getting to their engagement and honeymoon months later. Keep in mind: While she waits a decade for him, his confession takes place barely a few hours after he leaves Wonderworld. I think the guy would need at least a little time to process everything. 4.) While the book seems to stay close to the game’s canon from what I’ve seen, this particular relationship is handled even weirder in its cutscenes. For one thing, it’s not revealed that Cass is the princess. For another, despite this, we see her with Attilio anyway as her young, childhood self--granted, without any big hints to a romance between them. I’ll let you dissect what you will from that.

Let me get to The Checkered King/Cal Suresh next. In the novel, a couple of the characters had their backstories tweaked. These changes don’t interfere with what we see from the game’s cutscenes, but they do add more context to them that changes what particular issues the characters are suffering through. In Cal’s case, his obsession with his champion title in chess led him to ignore his dying wife, adding an extreme sense of guilt and longing that wasn’t there when we believed this was just a matter of his pride and sense of identity alone. Enter Cass, who reappears in her timeline before this death takes place, finds out who Cal is... and apparently does nothing to warn him. We can use her timeline excuse, but this is someone’s dying wife we’re talking about--she even sees him grieving over her in an illusion as they’re all leaving Wonderworld. Even if no one could do anything for Mrs. Suresh, even if Cal didn’t listen to Cass and dismissed everything she had to say about wasting precious hours better spent with the people you love, I think an attempt at talking to him would at least be necessary. No though, the book just ignores that while the two of them and Attilio eat snacks together.

Cal isn’t the only one who had the added trauma of death: They did it to The Watcher/Sana Hudson too. In her case, she was trying to protect some endangered birds that were killed--both directly and indirectly--by the construction workers in her area, leading her to despise humanity for its “greed and selfishness.” Now, her situation/feelings is/are perfectly understandable, especially given how the construction workers in the story are portrayed. What doesn’t really work is the context surrounding the issue and her actions involving the event. Now, I admit this first point is a bit weak as I can’t speak for the regulations across every country and we don’t know exactly where Sana is from, but a lot of places have heavy regulations and work with big organizations to protect endangered species. Not to mention this is a bit of a heavy topic with much-needed context for a book like this to properly cover. This fact isn’t even glossed over though and the workers have no problem cutting down the birds’ tree despite how this would likely cause massive legal trouble for them and be a major deterrent as a result. As to the “greed and selfishness of man,” this doesn’t really work well considering that the workers are trying to build a residential area. A cost to the environment? Yes. However, it was likely ordered for the benefit of the community. We see this debated a little more evenly in the conclusion to Sana’s story; however, we’re also pretty much told “Yeah, humans are terrible and can never change. Pick birds over them,” beforehand. Lastly, Sana’s own actions--or rather, lackthereof. When the birds lose their tree, their eggs are destroyed and the parents stay behind out of their love for their deceased offspring rather than leave for winter later on, resulting in their deaths. To try to prevent this, Sana begs the birds to leave... Let me repeat that: She begs the birds to leave. The problem? They’re birds. They’re animals. And, outside of the theatre, this is supposedly a world just like ours. You can’t reason with a bird like a person. She could’ve just as easily tried to capture the birds and brought them somewhere safer herself or called someone who would. If that didn’t work, at least those actions would make a lot more sense for the hatred she feels towards other humans: Instead, this decision makes their deaths kinda her fault too for leaving them there despite knowing what would happen is she did.

I don’t know how I feel about the added issues involving death. Yes, there’s a lot surrounding that theme alone to cover, but part of Balan Wonderworld’s charm is confronting all these people with extremely diverse problems, some stemming from issues beyond their control and some their own, internal struggles. The inclusion of death might have made the consequences of events more traumatic, but I think to a detriment. It doesn’t affect Sana as much, but Cal’s case is the worst, as his wife’s passing echoes the regret and mourning we already get from The Lady/Iben Bia’s story when it could’ve been it’s own, independent thing focusing on pride, identity, and a sense of fulfillment that we see more in his game counterpart. I can’t help but feel that we miss out on a wider range of messages by emphasizing on the aspect of death so much.

Lastly, let’s get to Balan and Lance. Overall, I greatly enjoyed the twist at the end with the connection between their characters. The problems I have with them, honestly, I debate whether or not are even problems at all as they do address real concerns that perfectly fit what individuals in their circumstances would go through. First Lance, then Balan, they’ve spent a millennia helping others repair the imbalance in their hearts. People come, people go, and they’re left behind, forever alone in that that theatre. It would be crushing. Lance already broke under the weight of that pain, which is why Balan exists--and now he’s likely doomed to continue the cycle as he suffers this same degree of loneliness. My main issue is that there’s so much to cover about this that we’re barely given a teaspoon of. The author couldn’t really give us much, as this book’s main focus was on Wonderworld’s inhabitants. It feels though that there’s something being built-up that we might not ever get to see completed depending on how successful the franchise it, which is sad if that’s the case. (Hey though: That’s where we fans usually step in, right?)

Secondary to that is that there’s a level of hypocrisy to Balan, Lance, and how they engage with the inhabitants. I kind of love it, but this is where I’m a little conflicted since Balan is supposed to be the one helping people fix their hearts. Two general themes that carry over greatly among all of the inhabitants is the importance of love and friendship, how we rely on others to grow and save us from the worst of ourselves. Balan, however, is required to stay detached from others no matter how much it hurts or what it will inevitably lead to, as everyone must leave Wonderworld eventually. It’s a conflict of interest. Ironically enough, it’s Lance’s decision to trap Leo in a stage and his overwhelming longing for true connections that allow the inhabitants to find and help each other. It’s bad that Balan and Lance couldn’t take the lessons they gave others and apply it to themselves, because their situation is so extreme.

Furthermore, there’s a hypocrisy between Balan and Lance in their decision to wipe the inhabitants memories. It’s revealed not to be a magical phenomena caused by the theatre itself once people leave it as many of us thought, but rather a conscious choice Balan makes--just like Lance. However, while Lance does it to keep the inhabitants contently trapped inside their hearts, we’re not really given a reason for Balan’s actions. Memories, good and bad, are a vital piece of us: We reflect on them as we grow to maintain the lessons we learned in those moments that make us who we are. We see the danger of lost memories not just with Lance, but with Balan as well as part of Sana’s conclusion alludes to a potential relapse. It was her connection to the people she met in Wonderworld that allowed her to recognize one of them--Eis Glover--back home and keep her grounded in another, potentially shattering instant of her life. Similarly, Leo only managed to restore his imbalance because of his friendships with the other inhabitants--friendships he was destined to lose the moment he walked out of the theatre had Balan taken everyone’s memories. This too, I feel, could’ve caused Leo to relapse. If so, Balan’s choice to let them keep their memories of Wonderworld likely prevented them from needing to come back to the theatre--at least not as often as they may have needed to otherwise. Let’s get to the question Lance brings up at the end: “Honestly, enough with the self-deception. You normally take everyone’s memories when they leave, so why this time did you make an exception?” It could be that Balan simply didn’t want to be forgotten anymore. It could also be that he loved them enough that he didn’t want them to suffer to the extent where they had to return to the theatre even if it meant there was a chance he wouldn’t see them again. That idea would beg a second question though: Why did Balan erase the memories of every inhabitant who came before them? (If it isn’t obvious by now, this scene was my favorite bit in the whole book.)

I know this whole post seems to be mostly a series of complaints, but I did enjoy the book overall: I just have a tendency to look at every detail and, when things don’t work, they stay in my mind for a long while. Like I said at the start, the novel isn’t a bad read, it just has some bad points. If you’re already a fan of the game, you’ll probably enjoy it too. If not, I’d recommend checking out some of the other content available--like the video previews/cutscenes introducing the characters--before stepping into this.

#balan wonderworld #bww #video games #novel #novelization

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notyouraverageeldaryafan · 3 years

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World Building part 1/5

The History of the Fae World

Hello and welcome to the first post dedicated to explaining how I would rewrite Eldarya! You can find the context to this post here. Before I begin here is your kind reminder that this is just my opinion and that it is subjective and that my version/AU is not better than the original or any other version for that matter, feel free to disagree and even tell me how wrong I am as long as you remain kind and polite. I will assume you are familiar with the game’s plot and so these posts will contain spoilers.

Let’s start with one of the core problems of this game, the world building. The game glosses over it, vaguely explaining it and seldom utilizes it in the plot. The team had a few good ideas, such as the war between the dragons and the aengels and it’s aftermath, but also they fail to take into account some of their decisions and their consequences. I am referring to the fact that the ritual was not completed and thus the food grown on Eldarya isn’t nutritional, it’s interesting in theory but the application is sloppy considering they have to constantly steal food from Earth but are unable to bring the main character back home. I will try to rewrite this origin story as well as a bit more of this world’s history, trying to make it as interesting but without it having so many consequences that are just making things less fun. (warning: this is unnecessarily long)

The creation:

The birth of Christ was but a few centuries away: humanity was slowly learning how to write, faes were worshiped like gods and everyone lived in harmony. All was good and dandy until The Oracle (yes, the one in the Crystal) foretells a grim future. The Oracle was but a young witch back then, someone very similar to the Oracle of Delphi who could see into the future. She began to tell of a world where there’s only God who’s word is law and where fear of the unknown pushes humanity to persecute and abuse of faes (aka Christianity and unholy amount of persecution they led against witches and pagans). This of course was terrifying to the current leaders of the faes and, despite having some doubts, they still decided to act upon this prophecy. The Oracle offered the solution, the creation of a new world, an escape, so that, if things get out of control, the faes can just escape to this world and close the gates towards Earth guarantying their safety.

All that was required was to complete a century long ritual, led by none other than the Oracle, where three of the mightiest faes species will have to sacrifice themselves in order to use the power within them to create this new world. These species symbolize what this new world should be like: the Dragons represent its power and might, the Phoenix, its immortality and fairness, the Aengels, its generosity and beauty. But there was a catch. The Oracle was using part of the power released by this sacrifice to become more powerful herself, unbeknownst to the others. Her Apprentice ended up discovering her secret and told the sacrificed about it. They decided to trap her during the last ritual inside of a giant crystal so that she may not use her new found powers against them in the future. And so they did, The Oracle found herself eaten by blue crystals where she stood and as she understood what was happening to her, she cursed this new world that she built: pieces of her Crystal will make faes go insane with greed and power, forcing them on killing sprees, that as much as they will try to keep the crystal in one piece, it will shatter, poisoning the inhabitants reminding them of her wrath. Dumbfounded, the remaining faes didn’t know what to do now, afraid of going in this new and now completed world, none wanting to go insane. The Apprentice stepped up, promising she knew how to appease her late master and thus control the intensity of this curse.

Thus began something known as the First Wave, only a few thousand faes left for this new world they have created, to understand if it was truly dangerous, led by the Apprentice and much later by her reincarnations. Among these faes were the Original Three (the Dragons, Aengels and Phoenix) who each claimed one of the four main continents, the last one going to The Apprentice and her followers (you can find more details about the geography of this new world here [yet to be written]). At first, the Crystal was easy to control and the cases of Corrupted Faes were few and far between but it couldn’t last forever. (cf:The Fall of the Mightiest and The Return of The Oracle, found below)

The War between the Dragons and the Aengels, also known as the Rise of the Mightiest:

The Ritual has left the Original Three weak and far less in numbers than they used to be. The Apprentice decided to give up the continent she was assigned, preferring to dedicate her life to dealing with the Oracle than to rule land. Both the Dragons and the Aengels wished to take this now ‘vacant’ continent for themselves. They were unable to compromise lands both wanting the land in its entirety. A war began between the two, The War of The Mighty Two. Meanwhile the Phoenix decided to remain true to their principals and remained neutral and fair, not taking part in this quarrel. They ended up regretting this much later. The war stretched for a couple of centuries until the Aengels disappeared completely from the face of this new world, declaring the Dragons victors and rulers of now three of the four main continents. Thus the Dragons began to change history, changing the name of the Aengels into Daemons and antagonizing them in history books. The Phoenix let them do so out of fear but also because they were afraid of losing their neutral stance.

Special thanks to @partyinnevarra for helping me perfect this section and giving me the idea for the better reason behind the War between The Dragons and the Aengels, thanks again for your help <3

The Fall of the Mightiest and The Return of the Oracle:

In some sort of divine karma, the Dragons themselves suffered greatly. The Crystal, who had been quiet until then, awoke. The Oracle, who is theorized to have a conscious, waited until the new world was at its weakest to attack. The Dragons were the main victims of the First Corruption, going insane with power and destroying the world they promised to protect. The local faes were overwhelmed and called upon the faes that had remained on Earth to help them, mostly Dragons that have stayed behind. This was know as the Second Wave, starting around the fall of the roman empire and ending around the middle of the Dark Ages. The on-going fight with the Corrupted lasted less of a millennium and is to this day the longest cycle of Corruption to date. It is also good to know that back then, the faes weren’t sure how to fight these Corrupted, even more so that they used to be their saviors and were the strongest faes at the time.

The easiest way to deal with the Corrupted was to kill them and take the piece of Crystal from their cadavers in order for it not to spread. It was the way that was prioritized for it was the most straight forward one (this technique is still used to this day). Another way is to trap the Corrupted in objects or caves or what-not, anything that can potentially contain something, but it required a lot of skill and maana and thus was deemed too costly (more on how that works here [yet to be written]) (this can also be an interesting villain for an episode, maybe a Dragon from the Dark-Ages trapped in ice or something else being freed by a villain or something) (this technique also explains the monster that could eat knowledge that was released by the main character in one of the episode). The last and perhaps the most efficient way of dealing with the Corrupted is through the Apprentice’s divine powers. The reincarnation of The Apprentice can extract the Crystal piece out of the Corrupted without harming them, this is called the Purification, but it is energy consuming and, well, there has only been 4 reincarnated at a time for thousands of Corrupted, so it is still considered the last viable option. (more information about how the Reincarnated work go here [yet to be written])

The First Corruption led to the almost complete extinction of the Dragons. On one side they were Corrupted and killed, on the other they fought against their brothers to extract the Crystal from them. The few Dragons left on Earth were hunted for sport by the likes of Arthur and his knights. A few unhatched eggs were saved and are kept by the Phoenix, in hopes that one day they will be able to save their species but there have been many debates surrounding the subject, mainly because of the fear that if the Dragons were to return, the Crystal might target them again.

Aengels, Daemons and The Divine:

The Aengels were not all gone, a few escaped to Earth while the rest went into hiding. The ones on Earth quickly abused the then growing Christianism, becoming the known angels and demons. Despite that, they couldn’t hide from the witch hunts and the industrialization and either disappeared or returned to the fae world during the Final Wave.

The Final Wave and The Second Corruption:

After the last of the Dragons disappeared, the First Corruption calmed down, the exact details aren’t clear, mostly because the faes that survived were few and traumatized. It took one full century for this new world to heal and for the faes on Earth to figure out that maybe, living in the fear of being Corrupted is better than dying at the hands of angry mods. Because, you guessed it, the Inquisition began followed by the witch hunts as well as the colonization of most of Earth which meant that even the places that were still considered “safe” (places that respected their legends and magical creatures, co-habiting, I’m thinking mostly of native tribes) started being invaded. Thus the last of the faes left Earth and joined the fae world, though a few remained but not enough to be worth being considered. The Second Corruption happened soon after the Final Wave and lasted less than two centuries. This time, everything was managed better, mostly because of the creation of the Guards (one of which the story takes place in), military bases meant to regulate the “bigger” Crystals and be able to predict the amount of Corruption, usually a Reincarnated accompanies the Guard members.

The Third Corruption:

After a few centuries of moderate silence where the Corrupted were present but not the worst of threats, the Oracle awoke again. And it is at this moment the actual story starts.

Nota bene:

This version of their history won’t be told to the heroine until much later in the game. At first, she will believe the story the Dragons have crafted, the version where Daemons are the villains and deserved what happened to them. The Oracle is also not seen as the villain for most of the game, mostly because the Oracle and the Crystal are seen as two different entities in the faes’ consciousness. The Oracle is seen as a helping hand, sometimes even worshipped as the goddess of this new world. The Apprentice and her reincarnations pushed forward this deification in an attempt to calm her late master’s wrath, maybe being seen as the goddess she always wanted to be would sooth her (spoilers: it doesn’t). All of this history being hidden would work greatly in the game’s over-arcing theme of lies vs. truths (it’s a theme that was present in the original material: just look at how many things the Guard hides from the protagonist even in A New Era where she is their savior). The fact that most of the faes population believed a lie ties in perfectly into the theme without making characters that the player is supposed to like and sometimes romance lie to the protagonist’s face (idk why for some reason beemoov keeps making their LIs lie to their main character, no one in 2021 finds that hot anymore, not that i think anyone ever found it hot in the first place, also you don’t need to have people lie to each other to create drama pls beemoov im sick of it) (sorry for the rant xD)

Wow!! I’m actually done... this was way to long, thank you so much for reading so far if you did. This is way too fun tho, wish I could do something more with this than just throw it in the void that is tumblr. Oh well. Next time, I’ll try to tackle the gameplay and the dreaded maana system.

Thanks again and have a good day!

#rewriting eldarya as not-really-an-average fan #eldarya #world building part 1/5 #order 1 #the history of the faes #man i forgot how hard is english

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lapetiteshippeuse · 4 years

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The D. Gray-Man Rare Pair Week : Alternative Universe Extravaganza (Creature Feature)

Keyword chosen : Demons Format chosen : headcanon The Rare Pair chosen : Allen Walker and Road Kamelot

Hello everyone !

I am very happy to have chosen to take on the challenge of “DGM Rare Pair Week” ! This is my first time participating in a "DGM Week" and I am very excited !

For today, I have chosen to prove, in a headcanon, how Road and Allen could be a couple that could enters in the canon of events.

Two small things to specify first :

First of all, remember that as you have seen, the program requires a change of universe. However, I choose to keep the universe and the Hoshino canon. After all, the theme and keyword of the day seem to match, and @letspleasuretogether told me that everything would be ok ^^ So let's keep going!

Then, know that I am doing this out of pure fan service because I love this ship, but behind it I have found that making this ship canon is HARDER than you think. It was very hard to find romantic coherence. So much that, yes, I confess that there are some arguments in this post that I don't fully believe. I doubt it even enough. But again, I'm doing this in pure fangirl.

Here's how it's going : being a college student, I couldn't help but follow the classic plan to produce a plausible and cohesive and brilliant argument to illustrate an idea : introduction / development / conclusion. (note though that I won't be doing an introduction at all : I would introduce the characters there, and I'd rather not waste time with that, because I can imagine that any DGM fan here is pretty much familiar with the characters in this game, Allen Walker and Road Kamelot. Let's just say you're reading the introduction to this post right now!) I'll pick a timeline-style plan here, which will be built according to the sequence of events over time in the manga.

As a consequence, I prefer to warn you : this is gonna be a very long post ! I hope you have time right now ! If it’s not the case, you can come back later.

One last thing : please, be kind. I’m so tired right now, I gave very much time to write all of this, once again this is gonna be VERY long. So please, no insults, because you’re not a Roallen shipper. Thank you very much for that.

And precisely speaking of that, here is the main idea that I will illustrate ! Now let's start the development :

The Roallen ship is a combination of kindness and humanity, which distorts and intoxicates the relationship between the two characters.

Road Kamelot, antagonist.

Allen Walker, protagonist.

The two met as enemies. It is this enemy context that we will attribute to our first part.

And at first, we will see this humanity side of the ship, orchestrated by Road. Road’s humanity, which we will illustrate with one of her lines: " (I am) Just a human being », in the city backwards. This sums up the essence of this ship in one sentence.

The first thing that will surprise the reader / viewer is Road's hugging Allen.

First the shape, or what may already be visible. It's true that it's still disturbing : this is the first time that I have personally seen an antagonist hugs a protagonist, so close. Seriously, where did it come from? The introductions aren't even made yet, as Road tightens her arms around Allen. Then, the bottom, what does it say? "Do you feel this heat?" She will tell Allen about the softness, warmth and security that a hug can provide. She goes on to say that it is an emotional sensation that only a human being can experience. Her name is Road Kamelot, and she is a human being, and she is capable of tender gestures. This is her personal way of introducing herself. No, she doesn't seem to mean at first glance that she is sadistic, cruel, sociopath and psychopath at the same time. Her name is Road, she's a human, and she loves hugs.

Note also that when the fight ends in the city backwards, Road leaves without killing Allen and Lenalee.

Allen and Road's face-to-face (rather, back-to-back) makes it likely that there is only a yard between them and Road chooses not to end it just yet. (A little candle lightning in the heart, and then it's flaky !). But she's going to declare to Allen "I'll be back to play with you Allen," openly proclaiming that she would like to see him again (so no doubt about that). To hurt him again of course, but THAT’S JUST THE BEGINNING OF THIS SHIP’S STORY ;) Still, Road didn’t kill Allen, when the opportunity was too good. And this scene, where she chooses to miss this opportunity, there are quite a few that look alike like that! (But I'll come back to that...)

And Allen in all of this?

Well, because of his personality, Allen brings the theme of kindness to this ship and believe me, kindness is not without consequence.

Road : Are you intended to kill me ?

Allen : I must defeat you.

Road : It’s useless, you cannot kill me.

Remember that saving tormented souls is Allen's reason for living. He has it on his conscience if he can't save everyone (akumas for the left hand, humans for the right hand).

At the end of the city's fight backwards, you would think Allen would win the fight against Road by destroying the three akumas and without her being able to recover Miranda's innocence, or kill her, or kill the exorcists (by the way, I wonder what the character really wants).

You would think the fight ends on a score of Allen 1 - 0 Road.

It is not so.

In truth, it's an equality, ball in the middle (1 - 1).

Let me explain : in a bad, as in a good intention, Road scored a point, at the time of their last dialogue, while Allen points his innocence right at her, before she leaves by her door. She tells Allen not to shoot, and then explains why.

First, the bad intention : she reminds him that his hand being a weapon, that is to say implicitly that Allen, himself, is a weapon. Allen then remembers that earlier, when meeting them, Road confessed that a weapon was designed for the sole purpose of "humans killing other humans." This is pure provocation, to put Allen a little more beside himself : she calls him a murderer, when Allen is quite the opposite. On the other hand, also remembering innocence has no effect on Road, so right now is not the time to point his innocence at her. All she does is manipulate him. It is a double-edged sword. One point for Road.

Now, let's note the good intention our little sadist wants to send to the protagonist : if she tells him not to shoot, it's for a good reason. "You really have a heart of gold Allen," she will tell him. It seems like a warning, a limit for telling Allen he's going too far : by pointing his gun at her, he is pointing his gun at a human (as she introduced herself to him). But if Allen kills her, that makes him a murderer ; or whatever he isn't, and whatever he swore he wouldn't become. It might sound strange, but Road seems to warn Allen not to fall into the dark side. Not to be so cruel (she realizes that this is not his style, since he has "a heart of gold"). And that makes him reflect on his duty as an exorcist : an exorcist is not an assassin. She appeals to his kindness again. In this way, Road makes Allen feel a lot of things contrary to each other : she makes him doubt of himself but also allows him to question himself better.

Road must stay alive at the end of this scene : Hoshino therefore went out of her way to show the relationship between the two characters, why he shouldn't kill her, and that's what the characters are talking about, in this face-to-face.

Personally, as an anecdote, I find this scene much tastier in the French version (in the anime) : while Road is gone, you can hear Allen say "Shit". But in the French version, it says "Je t’attends, Road." that we can translate in “I’m waiting for you, Road” WHICH SHOWS THAT THE DYNAMISM OF THIS RELATIONSHIP IS ONLY BEGINNING !!! The duality is posited ; the staging and the atmosphere are at their peak during this confrontation, regarding the nature of this relationship between these two characters, brought to meet again.

Later in the manga, Road and Allen will meet again : first in the Ark, where Road is shown an attraction to Allen.

Then they will meet again in the neighborhoods of the American branch during the Alma Karma arc. This is where their relationship will evolve, this time in an ally context, which concerns them mutually.

Now getting back to Road’s humanity, I would first like to answer a quick question that many fans have : As Sheryl Kamelot asked Bookman, what was the nature of her relationship with the Fourteenth?

Many assume that these two characters shared a romantic relationship. This is a legitimate assumption. After all, Sheryl knowing that Allen Walker is the fourteenth and having noticed that her daughter seems attracted to her host, and knowing that he learns that the latter is partly the cause of her disappearance, Road having tried to protect him before he asks Bookman this question, it doesn't seem indecent to think that Road may have been in love with the Fourteenth. However (and this is only my personal opinion), I do not agree with this : firstly because, for a manga where the plot seems to become more and more complex, that would be a bit too much "easy". All of the sudden, that's what the mangaka wants us to believe, and what she's trying to tell us is "it's more complicated than that". Secondly, because I consider, as a reader, that Hoshino seeks above all to demonstrate that Neah and Allen are completely opposite characters in terms of personality :

Neah wants the destruction of humanity, he is a murderer ; Allen, meanwhile, wants the world to be saved, at any cost

Neah wants to become the new Millenium Earl ; Allen wants to destroy it.

Neah would kill innocent people to achieve these ends ; Allen cannot kill humans, even Noahs, his kindness and compassion are great

Neah is sadistic, devious and manipulative ; does not look like Allen

Finally, Neah seems to be just downright cold ; Allen is a warm person

Road did know Nea, well enough to know him enough to know that Nea and Allen are clearly not the same person. If a D. Gray-Man character gets it right, it's Road.

Besides, I think that knowing that Neah has taken possession of Allen, seems to upset Road more than anything else.

When she reads the paper certifying it (paper by the way that looks like an official paper, "formalizing" that Allen is therefore doomed to disappear), she becomes melancholy, following this news. As if she would have preferred, like Cross, that it had fallen on someone other than him. (That being so, a moderately valid argument, since looking at the paper, she mentions the fact that Nea tried to kill the Earl, and it would not be indecent to think that this would be what bothers her more than anything else ; but again, I don't think this reflects any love towards the Fourteenth - I think Nea was a beautiful person who unfortunately went wrong, kind of like Anakin Skywalker).

Likewise, a reply from Sheryl : "Road ? Is there a hint of tenderness in you voice when you say “Allen” ?" only fuels the potential attraction Road feels for Allen, as Road goes to ask the Earl: "...". She seems to be showing more and more concern for him.

Finally, it can also be remembered that in The Ark, Road told Allen that she would not hesitate to kill him if she touches a single hair in his family. Yet, in the rest of the story, it seems obvious that she cares about him just AS MUCH AS her family. Road wants to protect her family at all costs, because she has already lost her first thirty five years ago ; but Road, she also wants to protect Allen.

He and Road will first approach in another world ; memories of Kanda and Alma. Personally, I really like this scenario, because it gives an isolating feel to two characters who come together for the first time, before they get even closer in the real world. In the memories of Kanda, a world where no one can see them, she crosses the enemy line and joins him in the memories of the Japanese: while he almost gets swallowed up by the memory of Kanda, Road saves him the life, hugs him once again and reminds him of who he is so that he remains aware that they are in the past. She is particularly worried about him. But again, the opportunity is too good for Road to do away with the fourteenth : she could let Allen be swallowed up by Kanda's memory so that there is no fourteenth at all. But she leaves Allen alive. Again, it's probably to see Nea again, but again, I honestly don't think Road is in love with the Fourteenth. She looks at Allen, she knows that he's the one she's talking to, knows Nea well enough to know he's not Allen (she repeats "Allen" a lot of times in this scene, by the way).

Especially since I specify that she runs her hand through her hair, as a sign of affection, and that in general (and this is why I say IN GENERAL, not everyone does), it seems to be a love reflex, or very affectionate, more than just plain friendly.

Also, a certain ambiguous moment in the dynamics of the two characters is present, when Allen asks Road if the revival of Alma Karma is part of the Central Administration plan. The two are particularly close to each other (seriously, as a reader I thought they would kiss), and Road will give Allen a friendly look. The latter seems intimidated, as he probably didn't think she was capable of having any such feelings.

Additionally, Road is going to help Allen understand the Exorcists' Second Project, which is a key moment and element in this story arc, and therefore proves to be a very good ally to Allen. At this point, she doesn't seem mean and sadistic at all ; she will even help the hero on his way. And rather than showing that Alma's awakening is the work of Noahs, she especially wants to let him know that it is also the work of the Central Administration, to qualify what we are talking about here way of saying that the Noahs are not the only wicked).

Finally, to highlight once again the French translation of the manga, when Alma Karma comes out of nowhere and surprises Allen and Road when they are connected to Allen's memory, sound effects written in Japanese are inscribed. But only a French translation exists (yes I looked for it. No I'm not obsessed) : "Ils se rapprochent à vitesse grand V !”, which can be translated as “They are getting closer at high speed !" I have the feeling that this is almost the mangaka talking to us, if I'm not mistaken ^^. Or maybe it's a simple "instant ship" moment rather than consistency and a love canon.

Later still, Allen and Road are going to get closer in the real world, and there are only more and more emotions (therefore, drama) : first, when they meet again when Allen is imprisoned by the Central Administration in return of mission is attacked by Apocryphos, when Road enters in scene, the first thing she chooses to do, it is to take him in her arms, ONCE AGAIN. And that's not all : once again, she will produce an emotional, warm embrace and reassure Allen. In this rush, she doesn't seem to be paying attention to what Tyki, or her family, may think (he himself suspects something about not bringing Sheryl). And once again, the opportunity is too good to finish with Allen : she can let Nea continuing to metamorphose into him to finish it off faster with the fourteenth, but she does not. Because killing the fourteenth, is go back killing Allen. Choice that Road doesn’t want to see that happen, if it comes to.

And shortly thereafter, not only do we climb in emotion, but also in action, which produces more and more drama : Road will sacrifice herself and take a punch in Allen's place, to the point that it makes her disappear (that is, she must genuinely have tender affection for Allen). (Has Lenalee ever done this for Allen ???) Finally, before disappearing, her last words : Road is crying, for the first time she is very moved, and very vulnerable. She is therefore very capable of humanity.

This is where I'm going from the start of this second part : to me, it's clear, Road is in love with Allen. There is no evil or unhealthy manipulation technique, no cruelty, not even slight flirtation. There is even tenderness and emotion. Road doesn't want to lose Allen ; for me, she refuses the reincarnation of Nea in him, she chooses to protect him at any cost, even if she disappears, and does not care of what her family might think about it (Sheryl, Tyki). From there, it's not flirting anymore, but the birth of her loving feelings towards him.

To wrap up this development, we're going to revisit Allen's goodness, and this time focus on this evolved relationship and his “alliance” to Road, and most importantly, the fact that he can't kill her, he'll even tolerate her presence.

First, in the Ark, Allen chooses not to kill either her or Tyki, but rather exorcises them if he has to go through it (of course, what he doesn't know is is that we have to go through murder to exorcise them from Noah who are in them). This is what happens with Tyki Mikk, even if it fails. When Lavi Bookman comes to himself, he almost goes to the point of committing suicide by burning himself, but he chooses to take Road with him to death (though that also fails). Lavi stabs her, he knows he can go this far with an enemy ; but it’s a choice Allen couldn’t make (even Lavi is also going to suspect something, comically, after Road has been charred and disintegrated).

In addition, he also curiously tolerates her presence in the memories of Alma and Kanda.

She is even helpful to him, lends a hand to him, he's alive and that's because of her, she's even kind, and affectionate, even if Allen doesn't understand everything. She is even tactile, and he does not push it away.

There's a lot of tactile between Road and Allen from there, more than you would think.

It is mostly an intention that comes from her to him, unreciprocated at that moment, but he instinctively does not reject her. Between two enemies, when the status of friend / ally is not even formalized yet, but a rapprochement and a tactile effect is more present, I almost have the impression that it fits in the canon, in my opinion (let's not forget that this is just a headcanon).

The same with the Apocryphos bow: in his cell, and this time in that embrace, (and once again!) Allen lets himself go into Road's arms. There is even a comfort ... and a curious affection ... it's curious that anyway! You might even think he finds a rather tender emotion, like her. Later in his desertion, what I found personally disturbed (while it seemed rather like an insignificant detail, to me) was that Allen wears Road like a princess (like LaviLena !!!!). Of course, it seems consistent in terms of comfort : it would be easier to wear Road. But still…It figures that out this is apparently those insignificant details who are “weird”, you know...

What is most ambiguous in all of this is the following in his desertion : Allen is going to be worried about Road's unconsciousness.

He ends up asking Tyki why she doesn't wake up. Even Tyki seems to be less worried than Allen. Moreover, the Noah seems to trust her enough to take care of her on his own with the awareness that he must cover their escape with Timcanpy.

Again, Allen refuses, claiming that they are Noahs and therefore his enemies. But after a little morale lesson, Tyki disappears. In the end, Allen neither accepts nor refuses to enter Road. They are both ; she is unconscious.

Allen knows she is vulnerable ; and his gaze on her is also uncertain : which I find brilliant is that his left eye seems to offer a suspicious look, towards her.

And his right eye, a compassion look, because of her vulnerability.

Again, this is troubling.

And then we can remember Road's tirade in the city backwards : it could be cumbersome in his flight, but Allen cannot kill Road, because he knows she is above all human, even though he still struggles to realize it.

But not for long : when Road says her last words, she looks Allen in the eye, crying and talks to him. She says something to him which is directly addressed to him.

Most importantly, Allen is shocked : he never saw her cry, and he didn't believe her capable of that. Friendly looks, tears, of course Road is human like him (To use the Road quote sums it up). All this, before she disappeared : Allen sees that she was even more vulnerable than he thought.

And Allen shakes his fist : upset? Because he couldn't save her? Hard to say. Deep down, I think he knows she's not really dead. But here we have a failed act : the truth is that Road and Allen would have spent a long time together, Road accompanying her on her escape, but that doesn't happen since she disappears; a rapprochement, which ultimately does not happen.

So, what can we therefore conclude from this ship?

That in terms of reciprocity, we remember : that after a while, our two enemies employ the refusal to kill each other.

Then, that one is worried when the other is in danger.

Finally, that they are able to save each other, or come to the aid of each other, mutually.

This is already, I think, a great development. So I know what you're going to tell me : there is nothing romantic here, it's probably just a budding friendship. And you would be right to think so! Nothing tells us that there is a romantic future for the two characters (that would even strike me as quite inconsistent, given the current circumstances of the story). But, if you are a shipper at heart like me, you will have noticed this thing : this atmosphere, this staging, this atmosphere that the mangaka has chosen to adopt, which makes the reader work to imagine some love story (you know what I mean?) In the memories of Alma and Kanda, I find it rather blatant. It's that “stuff”, that something that reminds me of this potential romantic arc. But again, you would be correct in thinking that basically not ; I still think so myself (because Lenalee is around ; and sorry, but I don't ship AllenLena at all, no offense). But they have already shared their first kiss !!! You couldn't take it away from me !! (although it was not agreed)

And precisely, could we imagine the circumstances of their next meeting? Honestly, it was an exercise that I must have had a hard time doing. Especially since given the turn the manga is taking, I can't see how… But what I can assume is that, even if it could happen in a very long time, I don't see the fact that Hoshino decides not to do them again interact. As much as their relationship follows "progress."

By the way, don't you like this parallel that Road and Allen bear the opposite Christian scars of the cross-shaped stigmata of God and the satanic cross in opposition to their clan? ;)

Thank you for having reading !!

#d gray man #Road Kamelot #Allen Walker #ship #relationship #roallen #dgm rare pair week 2020

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yeonchi · 3 years

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Kisekae Insights #18: Madoka Magica Part 1 (Takumi Magica)

(Art by dai)

The anime series that have had prominence in my personal project are at least ten years old now and this one is no exception as Puella Magi Madoka Magica celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2021. In fact, this post has been timed to be released ten years after the finale originally premiered (following a delay as a result of the 2011 earthquake).

This instalment highlights a complication associated with adapting series that are ongoing; some elements are implemented with the knowledge that something is the case, but then new material for the series comes out and it turns out that that thing is not the case anymore. Also, I do some male-centric gender equality because men are hated in current year thanks to SJWs and anime is sexist due to its constant focus on females.

How the involvement started

Madoka Magica was introduced to the project in 2012. In the mainstream series, they were introduced in the Series 7 Salacian Time War arc with seemingly no context, but they had a two-parter introduction in a spinoff series featuring the Fourth Doctor. I didn’t write the episodes, but I did use the titles in a couple fanfictions, titled Grief and Souls and The Girl Who Lives Forever, which showed my “interpretation” of the episodes, which was essentially the Doctor being involved in the plot of Madoka Magica. Looking back, it was a bit cringey and I’ll admit, I never watched the series in its entirety more than a few times, so my understanding of the series wasn’t as deep.

Much of the details I provide here may not match my initial visions back in 2012, not that it matters in the context of this series. On top of that, the ongoing state of the series has led to changes in the status quo, as this instalment details.

For the purposes of this project, Mitakihara is located northwest of Cardiff, past the Brecon Beacons along the A470 road.

Takumi Kamijō: The Magical Boy

Events here take place following the end of the TV anime. When the Salacian Time War happened, Parker enlisted Homura, Mami and Kyōko to be part of his army of 72. At the same time, Hiroki was kidnapped by Akari’s cousin, Daniel, and taken to his base in the Serra do Mar mountain range where he was subjected to the Dehydrator. Takumi was born from Hiroki’s sixth incarnation as a result of the ensuing meta-crisis regeneration. This left Hiroki requiring help to regenerate fully, resulting in Takumi’s “twin”, Kumiko, being born some time after.

It should be noted that at this point in time, Takumi appeared similar to Hiroki with black hair and he didn’t have a name yet. Also, due to the nature of Kumiko’s birth, Takumi would refer to Hiroki and Akari as his parents even though he would be considered Hiroki’s “sibling”.

After finding some clothes to wear, Takumi leaves the base and walks through the mountains to Santos, where he joins the battle against the Salacians at its climax. Following the battle’s end, Takumi makes his way to the Doctor and Parker, who entrust him to Kyōko and give him the task of working together with the magical girls to defend Mitakihara. At this point, Takumi moves on to his own spinoff series, aptly named Puella Magi Takumi Magica.

Upon arriving at Kyōko’s hotel room, Takumi sees her feeling sad and gets her to open up to him (somehow). It is then that he learns about Sayaka and her sad story, at which point he decides to “evolve” himself into a “reincarnation” of her by using the 15 hours of residual regeneration energy to turn his hair and eyes blue. Seeing his new appearance and likening it to the sea, he decides to give himself the name Takumi, though Kyōko states that while he may look like Sayaka, he will never be her, a fact which Takumi acknowledges.

Some time after, while exploring Mitakihara on his own at night, he encounters Kyōsuke Kamijō and Hitomi Shizuki, the two people who made Sayaka heartbroken. Following them to an alley, Takumi finds a metal pipe and beats the two of them up as revenge for Sayaka. He also decides to torture Hitomi by beating Kyōsuke up even more. They are only saved from certain death when Homura, Mami and Kyōko see the scene and pull Takumi away. This event leads Hitomi to make a contract with Kyubey and become a magical girl, wishing for the strength to fight back against Takumi.

After witnessing Homura, Mami and Kyōko fighting wraiths in the city, Takumi becomes determined to become a magical girl, or rather, boy, so that he can work together with them to defend Mitakihara like the Doctor asked him to. Though they initially laugh it off, the girls take Takumi to see Kyubey, but he refuses to make a contract with him because he is not a girl. After Takumi breaks the necks of a thousand Kyubey clones, he relents and allows Takumi to make a contract with him out of interest to see what would happen. Takumi wishes to honour Sayaka’s legacy by fighting in her place and as such, he gains powers similar to that of Sayaka’s. Unbeknownst to Kyubey at the time, fulfilling Takumi’s wish would be his undoing.

(These are just my impressions of what Takumi’s magical boy form would look like. Art by モリコ/とーま, purincipium/flaon and gureipu)

This ends the first major arc of the spinoff. Moving into the second major arc, Takumi learns that there are magical girls scattered all over Mitakihara and the world and makes it his mission to unite them as one. As such, Homura, Mami and Kyōko become the first members of Takumi’s team. Learning about how the Soul Gems and Grief Seeds work, Takumi uses this information (and latent Time Lord knowledge, yada yada yada) to invent the Incubation Cleanser, which would automatically purify any Soul Gems put inside it so that magical girls can fight without fear of falling into despair and disappearing/becoming witches. Think of it like in Rick and Morty when Zeep created the Miniverse as a replacement for the Gooble Boxes.

Hitomi, now a magical girl, finds Takumi and fights him as revenge for attacking her and Kyōsuke. After a couple of skirmishes, Hitomi decides to challenge Takumi to a battle – if he wins, she will join his team, but if she wins, she gets to take Takumi’s life. Takumi comes out victorious in the challenge and Hitomi joins his team, with Takumi forcing Kyōsuke to become a magical boy as security to ensure Hitomi’s loyalty. It is also at this point that Takumi takes on the surname Kamijō.

Takumi leads his team to Asunaro City in an attempt to recruit more magical girls for his team, despite being warned that they would be stepping onto the territory of other magical girls in the process. After some conflict, Takumi would gain the cooperation of Kazumi and the Pleiades Saints. He then found a place to establish a base for him and his group, which he names Torchwood Pleiades in honour of the two groups.

This is all that I have written for the series’ setting. Only two seasons of the spinoff were broadcast in 2012-13; the developments that follow are post-spinoff. During the course of the spinoff, Takumi and Kyōko’s relationship develops, but their resolution would be revealed in the mainstream Doctor Who series. Due to various factors, Kazumi Subaru, Kaoru Maki and Umika Misaki would be the only surviving members of the Pleiades Saints by the end of the spinoff.

The Rebellion Incident

Takumi’s character was created in 2012 during the development of the three Madoka Magica films. Learning that Sayaka would be revived in The Rebellion Story raised a conflict between her and Takumi, given that the latter was created as a replacement character for the former. As a result, Takumi did not have any involvement for most of my 2014 stories, mostly because I didn’t know what to do with them. I later figured out a solution and planned to write a special for Takumi Magica titled Afterrebellion, but I never got past the first chapter. What I’m about to tell you know is an impression of what that story would be like.

During the 50th Anniversary Series in 2013, Takumi and Torchwood Pleiades would have significant involvement in the stories. Takumi gained a sonic modulator from one of the enemies of the series and modified it for his own use. In the sixth block, the spirit of Sayaka transforms Takumi into herself for some temporary bullshit I didn’t write. In the ninth block, Takumi reveals that he is aware about the upcoming events when he says that there is a worse day coming for him, much worse than Hiroki’s death or Koshi Castle. Takumi and Kyōko get engaged at some point, but Takumi delayed their marriage in order to deal with the oncoming issue.

Around the events of The Rebellion Story, Kyubey came to regret making Takumi a magical boy because his actions subverted everything he was working for. He exiled Takumi to a pocket dimension, which he later came out of somehow. When Takumi came back, he saw Sayaka and quickly realised that he would lose everything, even Kyōko, if he allowed her to live as she was; after all, his main purpose for the past couple of years was to take her place and he couldn’t be left with nothing after everything he had done. Takumi proceeded to quickly confront Sayaka and absorb her into himself.

What follows is a fight between Takumi and Sayaka; since Takumi wouldn’t allow Sayaka to leave his body, she decides to fight him for control of his body. It was easy for Takumi to conceal the fact that he was having an internal conflict in public; since his face and hair wouldn’t necessarily be that different, he just had to wear a big-ass coat or something that wouldn’t show Sayaka’s breasts popping out every time she managed to gain control of his body.

Despite Takumi’s best efforts however, all is unravelled one night when Kyōko tries to have sex with Takumi. Kyōko discovers what is going on and after Takumi and Sayaka explain themselves, Kyōko gets them to find a way to cooperate. Eventually, the two distinct individuals become in sync with each other, allowing Sayaka to take control of or split from Takumi’s body. Takumi and Sayaka would later experiment having sex with themselves and having a threesome with Kyōko.

By the end of 2014, Takumi and Kyōko got married. This plot point wasn’t mentioned at the time, but in a way, Sayaka and Kyōko got married as well thanks to it. It’s honestly astonishing how much fanart I see of male Kyōko with female Sayaka but not male Sayaka with female Kyōko. I honestly think it would have been easier for Takumi to be in Kyōko’s place, but she’s not the dead girl at the start, Sayaka was.

Anyway, following the events of The Rebellion Story, which was nicknamed “the Rebellion incident” by Takumi, Homura exiled herself from Torchwood Pleiades in order to fulfill her role as the devil of the new world. Thanks to whatever Homura did (I didn’t watch the movie, I only relied on wiki info lel), the Incubation Cleanser was made redundant, but witches, wraiths and magical girls still existed and therefore, so was Torchwood Pleiades. Takumi reformed his team, with the exception of the Pleiades Saints, and somehow recruited Madoka to replace Homura’s place, giving her what was necessary for her to be a productive member of the team.

The Next Evolution

Alongside the Shinkengers, the Magirangers were one of the first teams to join UNIT’s Superhero Project during its beta testing stage in 2014, with two more magical girls joining them in 2018:

MagiRed: Kyōko Sakura

MagiYellow: Mami Tomoe

MagiBlue: Takumi Kamijō

MagiPink: Madoka Kaname

MagiGreen: Hitomi Shizuki

MagiShine: Kyōsuke Kamijō

Wolzard (Fire): Homura Akemi

MagiIce (Mother): Nagisa Momoe

While developing the equipment, Takumi accidentally created an extra MagiPhone because he forgot about Homura’s situation. He attempted to seek one of the remaining Pleiades Saints to give it to, but he was attacked by Homura, who stole the spare MagiPhone and used it to transform into Wolzard.

In one of the Superhero Project preludes, the Magirangers and Shinkengers worked together to defeat Hiroki and Narutaki, who had been turned into Grim Reaper vessels by Evil Death.

The Magirangers’ main feature in Gokaiger would be in the second episode, which follows the storyline of the third episode of the original Gokaiger. After the Gokaigers were separated by Salamandam’s volcanic blast, Takumi would test the Doctor and Marco to see if they were worthy of using the Magirangers’ Megazord Powers. Kyōsuke would give Kai a test as well by having him fight Wolzard, who defeats him in a Megazord battle.

The second part of the episode features Homura attacking the Gokaigers, Magirangers and Dekarangers as Wolzard with her Nightmares and Homulilly minions. Once the Magirangers and Dekarangers defeat Homura’s minions, the Gokaigers morph into the Dekarangers to finish off Wolzard. After the Gokaigers defeat the Centaurus Wolf Megazord, Homura fights them as Homulilly, only to be defeated by the Legendary Patrol Megazord. Following the battle, Takumi is insistent on having Homura rejoin Torchwood Pleiades, but Sayaka says that they “don’t need a demon like her”.

Later on, Homura fights alongside Takumi and her former friends in the crossover special when the Rangers and Riders are turned against each other. She would appear again in the series finale alongside Nagisa when they fight Prince Vekar’s invasion fleet with the other Rangers.

In the third Space Squad movie, Rassilon would accuse Takumi and his brothers of being homophobic due to them “taking” their girls away from their true (lesbian) lovers. Sayaka doesn’t blame Takumi for doing what he did; in fact, she is grateful to him for keeping her legacy alive when she wasn’t and now, she only wants to make sure that everyone can be happy.

Before I can continue with Takumi’s story, I will need to cover another story first, which is the story of the other magical boy, Yuki Yamaki. Once again, I’d like to remind everyone that Takumi’s backstory was retroactively written following his introduction because of the way I liked to write stories back then. See you in the next instalment for the continuation of this saga.

#kisekae insights #puella magi madoka magica

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acalculatedfuture · 3 years

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🔥

Send me a “ 🔥 “ for an unpopular opinion.

So to add some context for this one I've dabbled in game design a few years ago and in general been the kind of Pokémon fan that Likes Making Things and looking up fan content pretty much ever since I joined the community, so the conclusion I got from all that is

The typical Pokémon fangame is actually garbage

(Under cut because it'll get long and also because I'm gonna spoil some plot points of Pokémon Reborn and Pokémon Rejuvenation)

First of all, the most common idea behind Pokémon fangames is "the canon games are too easy so I'm gonna make something Harder for The Mature Audience" and you know what? Fair! The difficulty in Pokémon games reached its peak in gen 4 and basically got tossed off a cliff in gen 6, so the idea of a game that actually makes you think is very appealing. However, this causes two main problems:

1) One of the main appeals behind Pokémon games is that you get to choose your own difficulty. Every regional Pokédex has literally over a hundred Pokémon, and while this means you can choose the stronger ones for an easier time and counterpick the main bosses' own teams, it also means you can make many different combinations on the same team and turn each playthrough into a completely different experience.

For example, Pokémon X/Y is typically considered effortless, but it can actually be a pretty tough game if you just... turn off the Exp Share. Likewise, if you think that the game hands you too many overpowered Pokémon too quickly, you can just not use them. There's like 450 Pokémon in Kalos, you don't HAVE to use the starters, the Kanto starters, the gift Lucario, the gift Lapras, an Aegislash or whatever it is if you don't want to. It works for Mega Evolution as well, if you feel like it makes the game trivial you're only forced to use it once. The same is true for literally any other Pokémon game, if you want a bigger challenge you can use traditionally weaker Pokémon, use a monotype team, use unevolved Pokémon, play a Nuzlocke, the possibilities are endless, but if you want a challenge while playing what's basically the game's easy mode then of course you're gonna be bored. And that brings us to our next topic:

2) The average Pokémon fangame dev has no idea how game balance works. Case in point: Pokémon Reborn, which is basically the most famous example of A Pokémon Game For Grown-Ups, With A Grown-Up Plot And A Grown-Up Difficulty, except it's not a hard game, it's an unbalanced one. Most of the challenge comes not from the actual battles requiring a high level of strategy or resources being so scarce that you need to be inventive with them, it comes from the fact that the game is just really inconvenient to play.

I'll prove my point: One of the main aspects from Pokémon Reborn as a game is that Pokémon are hard to find and the really good ones are reserved to the engame, so combined with the fact that the gym leaders and most important bosses have full teams and are fought in terrains that stack the deck against you, you have to get creative if you want to win. This is bullshit, the only thing this restriction really does is that you have to beat the game the way the dev intended (therefore removing the customization aspect of Pokémon altogether) or just find oversights to exploit, like how the Bug-type gym gets bodied by a Vulpix or how the updated version of the Ice-type gym couldn't do anything to a Magnemite, which usually get removed in a future update effectively turning your playthrough illegal. It's not even an impartial process, as Gardevoir trivializes several midgame bosses but never gets pushed back because it's the dev's favorite.

Oh, and you know what I said about terrains? Most of them consist of the bosses' Pokémon getting several buffs just by existing while all their weaknesses get nerfed or outright neutralized, which means two things: There's no real strategy involved, since all it really does is that you have to hit the enemy with neutral moves while getting blasted by attacks with x2.25 multipliers on top of STAB, and also the game gets REALLY easy if you just change the terrain because every important boss other than the first gym leader is completely reliant on it. Seriously, if you have an Ampharos with Electric Terrain you've won.

(though to be completely fair the engine's ai is HORRIBLE so the game can't have good strategies, but that really just proves that the idea is flawed)

The gameplay isn't all, though, there's also the story as one of the main appeal of Pokémon games is that they're more mature and able to handle themes like murder, corruption, mental illness and war.

THAT'S A FUCKING LIE THEY JUST READ LIKE IF MY IMMORTAL HAD A CHILD WITH CALL OF DUTY

Like the idea of a Grown-Up Pokémon League For Adults where the deck is constantly stacked against you and every challenger has to fight the gym leader at a disadvantage is flawed from the beginning no matter how you look at it. Pokémon battles are a sport, and gym leaders are basically professional athletes, meaning that they're subject to rules and most important, public opinion. If all your victories come from the fact that you're in top condition and the competition isn't, then you're gonna lose credibility REALLY fast because could you really win in a fair fight? If you have to issue a handicap against every challenger, aren't you basically admitting that you can't win without it?

And that's before we get into the fact that most of the time the league challenge is FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE for anyone other than the player to complete, even though it's supposed to be something that affects the whole region (oh and since usually those leagues are from 'the strongest trainers all over the world' it's implied that there's a lot of challengers from other regions as well). In Reborn, one of the gym leaders was TRAPPED IN A PARALLEL DIMENSION FOR 15 YEARS and that one is ironically one of the most accessible. Half of the league members were trapped in an orphanage and unable to accept challenges, several of them are part of the evil organization and end up on the run either before or after you defeat them and several of them (including the ones from the orphanage) follow you through the region. Then there's Rejuvenation where one of the gyms is only accessible through a dream world, several of the leaders ditch their gyms either to follow the player or to hide from the police, one of them tries to kill you and ends up frozen alive and you have to repeatedly travel back and forth in time to advance the plot. How is literally anyone other than the player supposed to complete the gym challenge? Even the rivals basically stop talking about getting badges because it makes no sense.

Then there's the evil teams. Despite the fact that they're supposed to be more realistic and gritty than the canon ones, most of the time they're gonna be some sort of cult based on offensive religious stereotypes (with Giratina as satan because OF COURSE), a blatant ripoff of Team Galactic or just a fascist allegory, which I ranted about before because those are the most irresponsible. Their biggest claim to fame is that their higher-ranked members are too strong to defeat because the writer usually won't do enough research about how crime syndicates actually work and makes the league members seem even more incompetent because they're supposed to be the best of the best and yet keep getting clapped by a bunch of thugs for no good reason. They're gonna kill a bunch of people, but conveniently 95% of their victims are gonna be extras that the player has no reason to get attached to. Oh, and the edgelord Gary Oak-esque rival WILL join them for reasons.

In short, they're made using a bunch of popular characteristics without putting much (if any) thought into how they actually work together, and the gameplay is built to be unenjoyable (which doesn't necessarily mean hard) because people play them for bragging rights rather than actually having fun. Most canon games have more mature storylines because mature doesn't mean pointlessly dark, and even though most of them are hyped up by ragging on X and Y, Lysandre is a more compelling character than like 80% of the fangame villains. Oh, and Big Boy Pants unfair leagues are ridiculous

#mirroredranger #ooc #ask meme #amano's cursed opinion of the day #i was REALLY into fan regions back in the day i have strong opinions about this

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