#i mean thank you. for the compliment. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

good-beans · 23 days

Note

this is so stupid but i always have fun imagining the milgram characters watching their own/others mvs and seeing their reactions, especially for MeMe

That’s not stupid at all, thank you so much for the ask!! It’s sooo interesting to think about! I planned on just posting this drabble, but the more I thought about it, the more I started jotting down headcanons for everyone 👀 Of course there’s the initial disbelief and shock that Milgram can really do what it claims, but once they accept that, they’d have a lot of interesting reactions…

Es gets to watch the video first, then the prisoners are free to watch their own in the privacy of the courtroom/extraction room/wherever. Other prisoners can watch them only with explicit permission from the video’s singer. No one is allowed to watch Undercover except for Es. At first they spend hours looking at those final frames of themself flinching from the camera, hoping to jog any sort of memories, but eventually they give up on it. While actually watching it, they don’t mind the murder silhouettes. While sleeping, however, it has triggered more than one nightmare.

Haruka: He thinks Weakness is very pretty – he’s amazed seeing himself on the screen and hearing his voice, knowing he’s not that good of a singer. Even before his innocent verdict, it gives him a huge surge of confidence. Once he gets to know the others better, he gives them mv permissions, then stares intently at their faces to see their reactions as they watch it. AKAA scares him a bit, seeing his own intense emotions on screen, and he only gives Muu permission to see it. When he’s alone, Haruka pauses the shots of his mother, just to stare for a while.

Yuno: Laughs at the symbolism her mind used in Umbilical. She’s never shied away from sexual words/thoughts, so it's funny the video was as tame as it was. She thinks the song is fun, and isn’t afraid to show the others and sing snippets of it around the prison. Some days it’s too emotional for her to get into it, but most of the time she tries to display a confident attitude about it. After Tear Drop, she’s satisfied with her anger and more overtly sexual images. If anything, she feels too exposed by the shots of herself looking more vulnerable/sad.

Fuuta: He experiences a solid mix of embarrassment at the gaming theme in Bring it On and feeling a surge of pride that he looks badass in the knight’s armor. He’s worried the warden won’t take him seriously with the video game obsession, but he absolutely loves the song and thinks it portrays his toughness and ideals well. He’s less thrilled with Backdraft, everything about it unsettles and embarasses him. He’s thrown by the shot of crossing out his own silhouette – he’d had self-harming thoughts, but wasn’t quite ready to confront them so blatantly yet. Like Haruka, he can be caught pausing the arcade shot just for a moment before turning the whole thing off and storming away.

Muu: She has mixed emotions towards After Pain. She hates seeing herself look so weak and pathetic, but it gives her a lot of hope that her story will be understood. She misses her friends, and seeing them again is bittersweet. She closes her eyes at the moment of the stabbing – she’s only gotten the courage to watch it through her fingers once. She watches INMF once, then refuses to look at it again from shame/horror. Despite Haruka’s begging, she doesn’t let him watch it, either.

Shidou: He asks Es what they saw in Throw Down. Upon finding out his family wasn’t in it, he chooses not to watch it. He believes he already knows all about his emotions and crime, so there’s no need to go through that pain again. He’s tempted to watch it when he’s confused about Es’ verdict, but still holds off. He does watch Triage when informed his family is in it. He spends hours in front of the screen by himself. Only after seeing that one does he watch Throw Down, though he’s still left confused about Es’ decisions.

Mahiru: Absolutely loves TIHTBILWY. She thinks it perfectly describes her situation, and that the song is very cute. She lets others watch it, and unlike Yuno, feels like singing it 24/7. It reminds her of her bf, and she thinks that’s very romantic. Similar to Shidou, she spends a lot of time watching I Love You just to look at her boyfriend. She shows it to everyone, just to show him off and talk about him, even if she does skip over the beginning and end each time.

Kazui: He is very similar to Shidou; he refuses to watch his videos until T2, assuming it would be too painful to watch something he already knows and wishes to avoid. Unlike Shidou, seeing Hinako is far too painful, and he regrets watching it and seeing her so happy on their wedding day. Though maybe he’s still waiting, and hasn’t seen any of the videos yet…

Amane: Magic makes her worry more than anything. She fears she’s poisoned by unnecessary vainness since so much of her video involves cute things, colors, outfits, animals, and is set up like a tv show. She’s also worried that Es and the others will really see her as a child because of how cute the whole thing is. She prevents herself from watching it too many times, but buried under all her fears, it gives her a surge of pride seeing herself so talented and pretty and the star of the show. Purge March only reaffirms her confidence in her crime – the video brings up some awful memories, but it shows her as a leader, a warrior, a hero! It brings her comfort and confidence more than anything.

Mikoto/John: The videos are distressing to both of them, and they spend all their time studying the others’ screentime. Mikoto watches in horror as John does things that line up with his spotty memories, and John panics seeing that his actions distress Mikoto more than they’ve reassured/saved him. John does end up watching his own scenes a few times – it feels incredibly good to appear in a way that Mikoto may finally notice him. He feels seen. Now, logically I think that MeMe would be the final tipping point in which Mikoto finally accepts the situation and his DID, but if I must stick to his canon denial, then I’d say he goes on a whole rant about movie magic andt the crazy things you can do with editing nowadays. He doesn’t have a good explanation on how Milgram found his home and knew so much about him, but he explains everything away as cgi or camera effects. Double manages to sway him a bit more, as he hears John speak so plainly to him. Just as the audience had some debate on who was apologizing at the end of Double, Mikoto and John wonder who is apologizing to whom. Though they both come to the conclusion it’s their own apology, they decide that if it was the others’, they’d accept it and forgive them.

Kotoko: She’s very pleased with Harrow, and is unashamed to show it to the others. Though she’d been able to watch a few of the previous prisoners’ videos, it still shakes her a bit when she realizes that Milgram really does have the tech to look deep inside her. She watches it just a few times – not obsessing over it, but not afraid either. Deep Cover, however, is a once-and-done sort of deal. She claims she’s not letting the others watch it because “they couldn’t handle such harsh but true criticisms about themselves,” but she doesn’t end up watching it anymore herself, either.

#milgram #es #haruka sakurai #yuno kashiki #fuuta kajiyama #muu kusunoki #shidou kirisaki #mahiru shiina #kazui mukuhara #amane momose #mikoto kayano #kotoko yuzuriha #thank you so much! and for being patient 😅#i didnt mean to take so long but i kept chipping away at ideas while i got to this one #these were so much fun to think about!! i went for more emotional ones here but i do have silly thoughts too #i have that silly post about them making a competition after seeing each others mvs #though -even if they dont make it outwardly a big deal like that #i think they definitely would silently compare their videos/crimes to each others and decide whose was better #i still stand by the fact that fuuta asks kotoko if shes a furry after seeing harrow sdfasdf #i cant imagine kazui allowing anyone in the prison to watch his but IF he did #fuuta would also ask if he was a furry after cat ADSFSADF #i think the reactions t1 would be pretty positive/comforting #but in t2 theres a lot less pleasantries and compliments #aside from the obvious deep insights the videos give i think theyd reveal a lot of sweet similarities #like appreciation for flowers or cooking or performance or video games or music genres #but by t2 everyones on edge and suspicious of each other #or ashamed themself :(#i think its really cool imagining who would want to share theirs and who would keep theirs private...#rose posts

72 notes · View notes

lazuliquetzal · 5 days

Text

Whee Fight Scenes! (This Is A Seirei no Moribito Advertisement)

For the past couple of years I have been almost exclusively writing fanfiction for action-fantasy video games which has led to me developing opinions on writing fight scenes. I used to hate writing them because what even happen fight, really, like what the hell??? But now I’ve learned to tolerate them! Sometimes I even enjoy writing them! So now I will share my wisdom with you.

(Disclaimer: This post was written so I could avoid writing a fight scene.)

My credentials: I occasionally write fight scenes in my action-fantasy video game fanfictions, and I have seen Seirei no Moribito the anime several times. I do not claim to be an expert on fight scenes, but I do claim to love Seirei no Moribito to bits.

Part 1. The Set Up

There’s this excellent anime about a mercenary on a life-long quest for redemption who ends up taking a cursed prince under her protection. It’s about unraveling propaganda and colonialism, and also about kicking ass. The first time I watched this anime, when I got to the episode 3 rice field fight, I thought, “holy shit, I see now that a good fight scene requires not only a kick-ass fight, but also narrative/emotional build up in order to give the scene weight and tension.”

Like, lots of anime have excellent and extremely iconic fights, but this was the show that really made the writing aspect of it stick in my brain. Seirei no Moribito is also an adaptation of a book, which might why this stood out to me: the way its fight scenes are constructed are not as reliant on the actual visuals so much as they are on everything else (the animation for the fight is gorgeous, too, like, just watch this show please it’s so good). That said, I haven’t actually read the book. But I have seen this show several times and the rice field fight gets me so hype.

(And also every other fight scene. I’m never over episode 13. If you have to watch only one (1) episode of Seirei no Moribito, watch episode 13. But also, don’t do that. Watch the entire thing you coward.)

Anyway. What’s going on in Seirei no Moribito episode 3?

Part 1a. The Narrative Stage

Ep3 is early on in the series. The rice field fight is not the first action scene, but it is the first fight scene. This is what we know going in:

Balsa, our main character, is a formidable mercenary with a practical mind and a strong sense of honor. She has sworn to protect Chagum, the prince of the Empire. Her goal is to keep Chagum alive at all costs, because saving his life is crucial to her personal goal of redemption.

The Emperor (Chagum’s father) has dispatched his elite warriors to kill the prince, as they believe that he is possessed by an evil water spirit. Their goal is to kill the prince because the evil water spirit is a bad omen for the empire, and they believe that killing the prince will save the kingdom.

Balsa’s spear is damaged, and she is outnumbered. She has the disadvantage.

We are, of course, rooting for Balsa and Chagum at this point in the story. Balsa’s our main character, she’s super cool, and child assassination is a bad look. We know that Balsa is strong: we’ve seen her do athletic stunts, and it’s been alluded to that she is extremely skilled with the spear. This fight is the first time we get to see her use it, so it’s very exciting to the viewer. We want to see her in action.

Part 1b. The Emotional Stage

Chagum doesn’t have much of a personality at this point: we know he’s a child prince, and we know his dad wants to kill him. So we don’t know him well, but he’s already sympathetic due to circumstance.

When Balsa and Chagum get to the rice fields, they are almost home-free. They’ve spent a lot of effort trying to redirect the emperor’s warriors and the plan almost worked. We are extremely close to safety, so the fact that this is when the emperor’s elite catch up is very tense and frustrating.

All this puts the audience in the mindset of: oh man, they’re so close, I really need Balsa to win! I don’t want the kid die! You can taste the safety, you are almost there—it’s the type of tension that gets you invested in the outcome of the fight.

Part 1c. The Physical Stage

The first half, and the faster-paced portion of the fight takes place in a rice field at night (a classic). Wide open, with water to splash in, and nowhere to hide. It’s right on the edge of the thick forest, which gives Balsa and Chagum an immediate goal: get to the denser terrain so that they might break line of sight of their pursuers.

The second half of the fight is less of a fight and more of a close-up, emotional moment of action. It takes place in a clearing by the edge of the forest.

The physical location of the fight ties in with the short-term goals of the characters: the open field forces Balsa into direct confrontation even though she wants to run, and the clearing by the edge of the forest gives Jin (one of the emperor’s warriors) the illusion of privacy when he tries to kill Chagum, and it gives Balsa cover to hide until she can intervene.

Part 1 – TL;DR

Even before you get to the actual fight, the setup of the fight has inherent tension and intrigue. One can reasonably assume that Balsa and Chagum will survive, because this is episode 3 of a 26 episode anime. But you don’t know if her damaged spear will hold out. You don’t know why the emperor wants Chagum dead. You don’t know if Balsa will kill the emperor’s guards, or if she’ll be able to make a clean getaway with the prince. All these uncertainties create mystery, which creates tension. And tension is what makes the fight fun.

Part 2. The Purpose

I mentioned earlier that this is the first actual fight in the show.

It’s the payoff for a bunch of little questions that have cropped up so far. How strong is Balsa? Is she good enough to win, even when outnumbered? What does her fighting style look like?

A lot of action stories have big fight early on, and that’s because a well-done fight scene squeezes in a massive amount of characterization. In this fight, we learn a lot about Balsa, and we learn a lot about the Emperor and the difference between the Emperor and the people who work for him.

Some questions that get explored: How do they think under pressure? What kind of fighting do they do? Are they strategic? Reactive? Brute force or trickster? How do they solve problems? How far are these people willing to go to achieve their goals?

There’s a moment in this fight when Balsa is wounded, and the emperor’s warriors retrieve Prince Chagum. Balsa ends up retreating into the forest. Jin says something along the lines of: she’s a mercenary, she works for money and she’s already been paid; she won’t risk her life to come back and get the prince.

But she does. Even though she’s been wounded, and even though she had the perfect opportunity to walk away, she comes back and saves Prince Chagum at the expense of her own health. Balsa keeps her promises; Balsa’s personal quest for redemption is more important to her than her life. We know her, now!

Fight scenes are great for characterization because it’s a deviation from status quo. A person’s default state is not “battle,” and stories thrive on extraordinary circumstances. “How does this character change/act/perform under pressure?” is a really great characterization question, and a fight scene is the opportunity to show the answer rather than tell it.

Fight scenes are also great for thematic debate. You get the opportunity to literalize the conflict between different philosophies via characters fighting each other. EZ story moment. You know that one Howard Ashman quote about how, in musicals, the characters sing when they’re too emotional to speak? That’s what fight scenes are to me. The characters fight when they can’t talk to each other.

And then, of course, a fight scene is also moving the plot along. The conflict is happening, information is being exchanged/discovered/buried. Some characters life, some characters get hurt, some characters die. A fight scene is a way to physically bring characters to the state they need to be in for the story to progress (in the right emotional state, the right physical state, the right location, etc). Lots of things going on, which is good—you want all of your scenes to be purposeful.

Part 3. The Details

All of that had to do with the zoomed-out, overall story view of the fight (how the fight fits into the overall story). I am now going to continue to gush about the episode 3 rice field fight up close (how does the fight scene work in isolation). Because Seirei no Moribito rocks.

Part 3a. The Setting

I already mentioned the open rice field/dense forest dichotomy and how that affects the characters’ short-term goals. It’s also a great choice to establish Balsa’s superior technical ability with her spear. The rice field is wide open and relatively flat—no obstructions or distractions, with everyone on equal ground. There are no tricks to pull, no environmental quirks to exploit: this is a clean fight between Balsa and the emperor’s warriors. When she comes out on top, it’s because she’s better than them.

Depending on the character, it might be better to change the terrain. Have the stealthy warrior fight in a forest, where they can appear and reappear and use their sneakiness to their advantage. Put a trickster in a situation where they can improvise traps. There is an aspect of your character that you want to show off, so set the stage so that they can show off. It’ll be totally badass and fun.

Part 3b. The Short-Term Goals

When you read a story, you can reasonably assume that the protagonist will stay alive (especially if you are not near the end of the story). Knowing the outcome can make a story stale if you're not careful. You can lose tension if there’s no risk. Some stories try to create a world/tone/atmosphere so that anyone can die. A lot don’t because that’s a little depressing.

My friend @yellowocaballero has an excellent post on this regarding OP protagonists, but to summarize: if you know the protagonist is always going to win the physical fight, you have to make the win condition not about that. Balsa isn’t OP, but giving characters goals beyond “win the fight” can make a fight so much more interesting.

In the rice field fight, Balsa does not have to defeat the emperor's warriors: she has to get Chagum and herself away alive. Her goal is to make a clean getaway. When the warriors show up, she makes the decision to confront them, and her goal is not just to win, but to win so decisively that they won’t be able to follow her. When Chagum gets caught, she changes her goal to ‘keep him safe at all costs, no matter the harm done to myself’, and she gets seriously wounded. She can succeed in some goals, but fail in others, and the story reacts and keeps changing. It’s the same principle behind why rolling a nat 1 is so entertaining in D&D. The more you fail, the more creative you have to get.

Part 3c. Monkey Brain

There is just something so cool and so satisfying and so fun about seeing a character kick ass. There is also something very cool and very satisfying about seeing a character get beat up. The rice field fight has it all: Balsa kicking ass, and also getting beat up. It’s fun! Fight scenes that know exactly why they are cool are just so good. Hell yeah, overindulge and use every single weapon despite how impractical they are. Yes please show someone pulling off an unrealistic move for the coolness factor. Absolutely include the explosion-that-would-definitely-kill-but-doesn’t.

Part 3 — TL;DR

If you want the fight to be cool, make it cool! Set it in a cool place! Give your characters opportunities to show off! Make it interesting by changing the win conditions! Conflicting goals forces characters to prioritize and it makes scenes fun!

Part 4. Words???

Unfortunately, as mentioned, Seirei no Moribito is an anime and I haven’t read the book so I cannot analyze and gush about its prose in this section. Otherwise, the advertisement would continue. You’re safe for the moment.

Re: prose, there’s probably a post out there that goes over the language of fight scenes better than I ever could. I write with the diction of a middle-grade author because I read PJatO too much as a child and it rewrote my DNA. This is not a bad thing, this is just a fact. So I’m just gonna fire off fight scene writing advice I heard from around:

Filter words — if you want a more immersive reading experience, you want to avoid filtering the action through the narration. So use sentences like: “Her arm hurt” as opposed to “she felt her arm hurt”. But if you’re trying to distance the reader, like recreating the feeling of shock/dissociation, then filter words would help achieve that effect.

Make the rhythm of your prose match the energy of the fight. Short and choppy feels fast in the brain. Long and wordy feels overwhelming. Fragmented sentences and run-ons are chaotic. Customize the vibes.

Establish the important details of the setting beforehand so that you don’t have to stop the action to describe the specific placement of a relevant tree stump. I think I heard this one from Brandon Sanderson on a podcast somewhere, but I think about it a lot when I write because blocking is hard enough and it's even harder when you have to stop and attempt to translate the movie in your head into words. I can’t tell you how to block a fight scene. We need to find someone else who is smarter that can tell us.

Part 5. The Point

Fight Scenes are Fun, actually. They can be really effective if you set them up properly! If you know what you want to do with them, you can arrange it to be as cool as possible! You don’t have to be in a visual medium to make fights fun. You just have to figure out how to translate the cool bits into prose, which I think is mostly done through giving your fight cool shit on both the macro story level scale and the micro scene level scale.

Also, watch Seirei no Moribito.

#i got a comment somewhere that was complimenting my fight scenes which. thank you! fight scenes stress me the FUCK out #but i do think i've gotten a lot better at them since i've started writing so i figured i'd write something about what i learned #and by what i learned i mean. gush about #seirei no moribito #tav this is not a response to your one post about fight scenes earlier that was a coincidence #lazuli talks #writing

20 notes · View notes