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fabdante · 3 years

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A List of Vergil and Kat Things

Alternative title: POV: You’re me and playing the reboot with your Vergil and Kat goggles on

I was asked to do my list of every possible Vergil and Kat thing in the game, including extended material, so I did. I told you I would if someone asked and I am doing it. I did not need to be asked twice. Though it did take me a couple of months to finish this up.

Some of this will be restating things I wrote about in the Kat and Vergil post and the Kat’s Theme post, so if those seem interesting to you, feel free to check those out before checking this one out or vice versa!

Now, forewarning, this is incredibly overkill. I literally combed through mission by mission for all the little moments I tend to notice when I replay the game. It’s like somewhere between 14ish pages (excluding pictures) of me microanlyzing every time Kat and Vergil do just about anything. I sound like this:

If that doesn’t sound like your thing that’s fine!! Thank you for reading this far! If it does, I mean, I hope this is at least entertaining. Analysis of…everything under the cut.

There’s a lot of ways to read Kat and Vergil’s relationship and they are all, frankly, supported by canon. Their relationship is very nebulous because we're usually spectators to a preestablished dynamic rather then seeing in it. If I spent this whole thing reading every possible take on Kat and Vergil, it’d be at least twice as long. So, I decided to focus on the lens that I read them through which is that Vergil genuinely cares about Kat, that Kat cares about him, and that he’s jealous of Dante. A lot of this comes up more in Vergil’s Downfall, but if you look back at the game with information we get through Downfall, I think a lot of this becomes very apparent in the main game as well.

So, keep in mind, that’s the lens I’m using and this is my play by play of every little Kat and Vergil thing I notice when replaying or rewatching the game.

If you want the full experience, you might want to watch the cutscenes along with each write up. I don’t know if it’s needed but it might be helpful. I’d add a link to a cutscene movie but I don’t know if off site links still break the search function so you can pick the video or method of your choice if you want to watch the scenes alongside each mission.

I realize I could post screen shots or like make gifs or something to help with my visual points but for a lot of them they don’t read the same as low quality stills I ripped from YouTube and I don’t know how to make gifs. So, I apologize that I didn’t get all of those and for the low quality of a lot of the ones I did get.

Also my favorite moments are marked with [Fave] because I was specifically asked for a list of my favorite Kat and Vergil moments but then wrote about every single one instead. So, if you want to go through quickly uh...look for those and ignore the rest. I will also have a follow up on the Vergil Chronicles because this was really long already and that part of this post ended up different then this part. But more on that at the end of the post.

Alright, let’s go!

Mission 1

Kat has Vergil’s car. That’s the level of trust we get right off the bat

Mission 2

First big thing. When Kat walks into the room where Vergil’s waiting to meet Dante, the strut she does is...not platonic: arms pinned back, chest puffed out, smug look on her face like...it’s not platonic. Like I just look at these bad photos I got of her.

It’s the smugness.

Vergil’s expression when Dante questions helping them. When Vergil’s all like it's for mankind and Dantes like ‘For mankind? What makes you think I give a shit?’

I’m including this because it’s very clear that Vergil does give a shit about humanity by his reaction here. And the game makes a point of showing us that reaction. This is relevant. Also his face just kills me look at it he’s like }:[

Kat does not like the ‘I like it rough’ comment from Dante when they go to paradise. She seems uncomfortable and annoyed. But importantly, Vergil also responds to this line.

If you watch Kat after, she actually has to like take a breath and recenter herself that’s how frustrated she is:

This is the face Kat makes as she mentally talks herself down from killing you herself.

If you watch Vergil in the background of the scene he is not happy. He seems very taken aback that Dante’d even say that in the first place and while he quickly recovers he does react. And it’s not a good reaction:

This is the blurry, low definition, low contrast face Vergil makes when you imply you want to sleep with Kat in his presence

[Fave] Then we promptly get to the only solo scene in the entire (main) game between Vergil and Kat

Right away in their only scene together in this game, we get the implication of the long history they have. They talk to each other like they know each other and they reference their past together that we know little about yet.

The ease the two have with each other is very clear. Their body language just feels comfortable to me. At least comfortable for them. Just something in the way their faces seem to have softened and they seem to relax...I don’t know this might be me reading too much into them.

The honesty as well. Kat very readily admits she’s not sure this is going to work. And Vergil very honestly answers that he knows it will, because it did with Kat. She is skeptical of Dante, but Kat seems to trust Vergil.

And the fact that Vergil is able to compare Dante and Kat shows how well he knows Kat and gives a hint at the different sides of her that he’s seen and known. The fact that he seems to strike a chord for Kat by pointing this out shows us how true it is.

It also goes to show the trust she has in Vergil specifically because she goes to Vergil to voice her concerns, rather then bottling them. And when he responds, he doesn’t have to convince her. She knows that he knows her and she knows how she changed.

I feel like much of Kat’s early willingness to try and work with Dante is not because she trusts Dante, but because she trusts Vergil and she’s willing to believe what he tells her in this scene.

And lastly THE SMILE THE DORKY LITTLE SMILE MOMENT.

The way he’s so happy about this and the way she gets all shy but smiles back your honor I love them.

Mission 3

This is only semi relevant but Kat’s really zoned out the whole intro cutscene because she’s definitely heard all of this 100 times and I think it’s funny

like mentally, she is not here right now she has checked out

Mission 4

Dante asks were Kat learned about witchcraft and Kat says Vergil taught her demonology and occultism to take her mind off of ‘nightmares’

This is important because right away we’re getting information on how interconnected Kat and Vergil’s pasts are with one another

It’s implied in Mission 2, and confirmed here.

Vergil is personally involved with her recovery. They have a deeply personal relationship.

I like how she says Vergil’s name in the game, there’s usually this special softness to her voice when she does it, like the thought of him makes her happier and softer. Which is probably me reading too much into it but if Kat having feelings for Vergil is intentional, that could also be intentional.

Mission 5

I want to point out that this is the point in game that Kat and Dante seem to realize they have a similar history. Kat may already be aware through the Order, but it’s definitely when it’s hitting home.

Later I’ll pin point where it seems, to me at least, Vergil begins to get jealous of Dante because he’s noticed this to.

Also I like how Kat says ‘Vergil pulled me out of the nightmare’

Mission 6

This is just the succubus fight

Mission 7

The. Car. Scene

Kat gives her whole backstory here.

[Fave] I think it’s important that Dante initiates this conversation, not Kat. He’s noticed that there’s something going on but he can’t figure out what. ‘You guys seem tight’, he directly notices that Kat seems very close to Vergil. And more over, that she trusts Vergil (and that Vergil trusts her)

I think this is important because it clues to the player that yes, we’re supposed to see Kat and Vergil as close. Dante see’s Kat and Vergil as close. They’re intertwined characters.

He want’s information on them separately, but he also seems to want to understand them as a unit.

I think her backstory and how she tells it gives us a lot when we talk about the intimacy of Kat and Vergil. It paints an interesting image of what happened, at least in Kat’s mind.

Every time I hear her story I always wonder how long it took for Vergil to convince her to let him help. Because this is the point where Kat is compared to early game Dante, the Dante who is a self described loner with trust issues. And we see Kat in game be fairly slow to trust Dante. I wonder how often Vergil had to keep coming back, convincing her that he truly just wants to help, before she believed him.

And keep in mind what we know from earlier, she stayed with him after. He helped her after with her trauma and everything. She trusted him enough to stay with him and not leave.

The fact she trusted Vergil with this part of her life is so important. He knows versions of her so many other people never will.

I talked about this before to (as well as the pitfalls of it) in the post about Kat’s Theme and Better Half (link again incase you want it), but the way Kat’s theme creeps into the scene and really comes out when she talks about Vergil, when she softens and takes off her hood, it’s just a really good moment

Like I said earlier Kat seems to have this very Vergil centered safety net. Talking about him makes her softer, makes her more comfortable. Vergil is safe.

And Kat’s theme is a song about vulnerability more than anything else. It’s used as a theme for vulnerability. It’s use here definitely ties into that idea. She’s being vulnerable with Dante. But it’s a song about Kat’s past to and it’s with Vergil who she’s vulnerable with in her past. It’s Vergil who she trusted, who saved her. It’s as much a song about he being vulnerable with Vergil as it is anyone else.

Please note also half of what I say about Kat’s theme is based off of an interview I barely remember from before the game came out where someone talked about how Kat’s theme is a song about her past which could be something I imagined into reality. I have no idea what interview it was to even check. But that’s how I take the song because that specific statement stuck out to me and I came to agree with it after listening to the song a lot.

[Fave] I also want to bring up something that definitely will come off like I’m reading way too much into this (even more then my insistence that Kat softens when she says Vergil’s name). When Kat starts talking about Vergil the entire atmosphere around her changes.

the scenes dark, they’re getting hit by street lights at random but the moment Kat mentions Vergil she gets hit by pinkish, reddish light that really softens Kat and the scene. It is the first time this lighting is introduced in the scene and it’s only used on her. And it’s only used at two points, this point and when she says she killed her foster father

her eyes seem to lighten up to and she kind of does this micro smile that’s hard to explain, like it just feels like somethings lightened in her.

she gets dreamy in a way, like she actually pauses around when she says ‘and I found Vergil there’ which she never really does at any other point in the story, not in the same way at least

also her tone shifts as she talks about finding him. Earlier it feels like she’s kind of uncomfortable and dead panned as she rifles through her past. But when she get’s to the Vergil part, there’s this little shift and she feels a bit more emotive. She even does this sort of stifled, bitter sweet, relieved, laugh thing when she says help.

This might be looking into things too much or just seeing what I want to see but, I don’t know. It’s one of my favorite things.

I don’t know she’s cute your honor:

The other side of the sword now, this scene is a good place to bring up a dynamic for the messier aspects of Kat and Vergil I haven’t talked about a lot yet and that being this idea of savior vs saved. I don’t have time for a deep dive into it but here’s some thoughts.

This scene highlights how Kat seems to see Vergil as a sort of savior and while she does credit herself with her victories, there is definitely a shadow of Vergil’s role and this idea of Vergil as savior

I doubt this is a conscious thought in Kats mind. But the looming shadow over Kat and Vergil’s relationship for us the viewer is ‘what are Vergil’s intentions’ and this almost idolizing him could have been intentional on his part. It could be read that way.

Also, kind of foreshadowing to what Vergil seems to see his role is for humanity later in the game

This I think is important with the symbolism of Kat as humanity, and Vergil as the divine.

Any way the car scene is really crucial in cementing this close, tight bond between Kat and Vergil and how much the two have been through together before we got here.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE

Moving on to the bridge scene!

Notable: Vergil passes on the plan to Kat to continue with rather than monopolizing the whole thing. It’s subtle, but I think it’s a nice show of Vergil’s trust in Kat. The subtlety I think is part of what makes this moment nice also.

But more notable, I feel like this is the first scene where we really see Vergil start to be suspicious about Dante and Kat’s relationship. Now, this is more a theory then anything but this is about how I read the game and this is key to how I read the game so hear me out.

You can see it in his face. Kat and Dante are starting to get along, and he’s noticed it. You can tell a little bit in some of what he says, like when he makes a point to tell Dante that Kat’s not coming with him this time.

But it’s when Dante winks and goes into the portal and we pan to Vergil looking at Kat that we really see it. The cameras on Vergil, even if he’s in the background and even if he’s drowned out in the light The camera wants us to see him react to this. And Vergil is very in his own head. He doesn’t seem happy.

Also bonus for how the lighting affects intentional or not emphasis how Vergil’s gaze is on Kat.

To me (and my girlfriend because she’s the one who pointed this out to me first and I agree with her), this is the point where Vergil starts to get jealous about Kat and Dante. He knows they have similar backgrounds. Before it was safe, because Kat didn’t seem to like him. But now she’s getting along with him. Now she’s no longer annoyed. He doesn’t know what happened between now and then. And he’s jealous.

Mission 8-10

Bob missions

Mission 11

It’s kinda cute that Kat knows where Vergil is. Like he’s second nature.

Mission 12

Ok the server room

This one’s kinda the elephant in the room. Which I talked about before. So, I’ll walk you through what I think about this mission but also the other side of the coin

[Fave] My first point, Vergil is genuinely happy to see Kat is alive. He could just be happy someone is there to blow up the servers which he can’t do from Limbo. But I don’t think that’s the case personally and I’ll explain why:

It's as simple as for a brief, brief moment, nothing else matters to him except for the fact that Kat is alive.

Tell me this is not the face of a man genuinely happy that Kat is alive

He stops talking about everything else. He zeros in on her and goes walking over to her. It’s not until Dante brings him back to the moment, asking how to get out, that Vergil stops and himself seems to remember what’s going on

This is where it gets me because Vergil of all people is taken out of this moment and focuses on Kat. And only Kat. And she’s equally focused on him to.

He also doesn’t fully turn from her either when talking to Dante. His body still faces Kat until he goes to talk about the servers and then he faces the servers. Though I’d argue from here it gets easier to argue that he’s not happy to see Kat, he’s happy to have a way to blow up his servers and Kat is a means to an end.

Again, the double-edged sword: is Vergil happy Kat is alive or is he just happy to blow up his servers? I think he’s happy Kat’s alive but I can’t tell you what to think.

My second point is more speculative but I would LOVE to hear what Kat and Vergil talked about when they’re alone blowing up the servers. They’re by the servers for a long while so I just want to know what they talked about and if that ties into Vergil’s later coldness.

I literally wrote a fic about this once but it’s old and bad but look I think about this a lot.

There is some cut dialogue from this scene but it’s just a couple of lines of them trying to work through the server stuff so not very juicy. But Vergil is very nice and calm with Kat despite clearly being kind of panicked. It’s a strong contrast to how he’s screaming at Dante often in this mission.

My third point is even more speculative but I feel like when people consider Kat, Dante, and Vergil’s relationship, people don’t often take the reality of the Order into account. This is something that actually kept derailing my first Kat and Vergil post and making it way too long, but I think it’s important to how I personally see and understand the game and Kat and Vergil’s relationship so I’m going to talk about it here.

Simply put, the Order is a resistance organization which self describes itself as the last and only line of defense for humanity against the demons. Given this and the importance the Order has put on this job, I don’t think it’s unrealistic for them to take into account that they could die for this cause.

To the Order, the plan is the most important thing. They signed up for this possibility. If they liberate mankind, it’s worth it.

The flip side is Dante didn’t. Dante didn’t come into this willing to give up his life or willing to let others give up theirs. Dante sees this as a situation where we win with lives intact or we don’t keep going. He’s not prepared for the possibility that anyone was going to die.

This is something we see come up again later in the added Definitive Edition cutscene. Dante is upset about the lives lost, and Vergil sees it as necessary in the grand scheme of things.

Which again, this can all be seen as Vergil seeing human lives including Kat as collateral. But it also can be seen as they both knew this could happen, and both knew what they would do if it were to.

What I think happens here is Kat and Vergil were prepared for this to happen in theory. But the reality is, obviously, not very easy to swallow and not exactly something they were entirely prepared for. They say what they need to while blowing up the servers. As a result of this impending reality, Vergil focuses his attention solely on the plan. Because that’s the point of the Order. Kat on the other hand is left alone with the fact she’s probably going to die and doesn’t know how to face that.

That’s my thoughts anyway

I do think it’s fair to point out that Kat seems to soldier on until Dante seems to let her know she doesn’t have to anymore with the surrender moment.

Which is again a moment to argue, who really cares about her

Like I said, I think the Order was ready for this in theory. But they’re a group of young optimists who want to save the world, I don’t think they really truly considered that they might actually die for this cause despite preparing for it in theory.

And like, dick move to just leave Kat like that, Vergil. Points removed from Vergil.

I also think there’s a key thing here about the sort of...falling apart of Kat and Vergil’s relationship. Vergil refers to the plans as his rather than theirs and effort was put in to show that Kat noticed this and doesn’t like having the credit taken from her

She doesn’t confront Vergil about this, but I think it’s good foreshadowing for later and I think also goes to the point of 1.) the priority is the mission and 2.) that Kat picks up on when Vergil does things like the quieting thing in mission 2 and this little slip up of his.

Oh and one more thing: with the idea of Kat representing humanity in the game and the boys humanity as well (particularly Vergil’s due to how she literally is used to represent his humanity in Vergil’s Downfall), Vergil abandoning her here sort of symbolically represents him abandoning his humanity. Which I think is neat.

Mission 13

This is the Kat video scene. The one where Mundus has Kat and Kat names Vergil.

[Fave] In the first post about Kat and Vergil I mentioned how it’s very likely that Kat isn’t naming Vergil due to Mundus torture but that she’s naming him because she’s out of body and looking for him.

I think this because the deliberate echoing of Kat’s backstory here is interesting. Kat’s out of body due to trauma and why shouldn’t she look for Vergil?

This interpretations also interesting because there is deliberate echoing of Kat’s backstory in Vergil’s Downfall as well. We keep getting echo’s of the genesis of Kat and Vergil’s relationship.

The ‘I don’t know who you are Vergil but you clearly matter to this girl so I’m going to assume she means something to you’ like that’s a moment

This isn’t really a pro Kat and Vergil moment, because like immediately after this Vergil’s pretty much like ‘oh, that sucks, well we gotta let Kat die now for The Cause’ but I mention it because it still makes my heart ache every time.

It is another example though of the complicated relationship of Kat and Vergil and how it’s very easy to read their relationship in a lot of different ways, though.

Mission 14

Lilith mission

This is off topic but I like how Vergil and Dante clearly had a chat on what to say during Liliths ransom video

Like you can just tell in the way Dante says ‘regarding your trade offer I’d like to suggest a counter proposal’ Which Dante is not dumb it’s just so not how Dante would have said that

Anyway back to Vergil and Kat

Mission 15

It’s just the trade. I wrote like 10 bullet points about how weird the trade scene is but deleted it. Comment if you want to hear me talk about how weird the trade scene is?

Confirmation it’s Vergil’s car I guess? (If the big V on the dashboard wasn’t enough)

Mission 16

The definitive edition cut scene

First like…I love this scene first off it’s really good I’m mad it wasn’t in the first run of the game

I do think this is important for the Vergil and Kat conversation when we talk about the idea of Vergil being willing to make sacrifices Dante isn’t. The sacrifices being you know, human lives, because this ties into what I was saying with the Order earlier. (I swear I’m not just trying to excuse Vergil from the server room scene, I just think it’s worth revaluating how the Orders ideology differs from Dantes)

Right or wrong, Vergil is willing to sacrifice for the cause. He sees the ends justifying the means, even if the means is lives on his hands. It’s something he’s worried about later. I don’t think it’s a stretch to see the Order as a whole operating under a similar mentality of the ends justify the means. Even if the means involve people in the Order dying. Which is why I think it’s fair to argue that Vergil leaving Kat for dead in the server room is a dick move, but I think is a move that makes sense to Kat and Vergil.

BUT you can so read this the other way to, that Vergil sees people unfairly as collateral to his ultimate plans. Either read is worth assessing. Both make sense and it really boils down to how you characterize Vergil.

Adding to this idea also, Dante is very firm that Kat needs to rest but Kat herself also views the plan as the most important thing right now. She’s hurt, she’s in pain, but Kat views continuing the plan as priority.

I just think the Orders level of conviction is often forgotten.

If you’re reading this as ‘she has a point’ or ‘she’s going way out of her way to justify Vergil being an asshole’, I have no idea.

Anyway, the way the boys both look at her is very cute to me this is really random and entirely irrelevant but how they sit there quietly looking at her as she talks about journeying the tower like little ducks is cute

I think I have to mention the ‘looks like we underestimated Kat’ line like…legally

Obviously a very easy point for the ‘Vergil does not care’ bucket (and I again repeat you would be perfectly right to see it that way, there is no one way to read this relationship)

It’s fair to point out to that Vergil can both genuinely care about Kat, but also underestimate her ability to do...any of this.

But I think you can read it as Vergil probing Dante about his feelings, something I’ve suggested both Dante and Vergil have done before.

If we accept the idea of Vergil being jealous about this relationship he’s convinced is happening, then I can see how this could be Vergil saying ‘you underestimated her, do you care about her? you didn’t care about this a few days ago’

Which kind of feels like a stretch to even me, but what gets me is Vergil's insistence of reminding Dante that he did previously not give a shit which I feel he wouldn’t do if he was just genuinely reflecting on underestimating Kat as casual chatting. It’s the focus on how Dante’s changed over the days that gets me.

I don’t know, I think it’s a fair read of the scene. Vergil could just be saying what he’s saying at face value, or it could be him trying to see how Dante actually feels about all of this while giving him the cop out of fake solidarity. It could be a mix of both.

I don’t really know how to take it personally. It seems weird to me that Vergil who knows what Kat is capable of would underestimate her and admit to it. On the other hand Vergil does view Dante and himself as superior to humans so maybe he is just genuinely reflecting on something he genuinely feels.

I haven’t sorted my thoughts on this moment still even after eight years.

Mission 17

Dante just…runs around in fire this mission

Mission 18

Bigger Dick

The only in game character who knows both twins who Vergil trusts who has also seen Dante naked that we know of is Kat. So, if she told him then this implies she has also seen Vergil naked which has Implications

Just saying (do not take this seriously asdfghj)

Mission 19

This is just…mission 19.

Mission 20

ok so the big one a lot to unpack here because of the betrayal and everything

[Fave] I’ve mentioned before but one of the most interesting Verat things I think is how Kat is the only one who gets Vergil to stop. Even if for a second.

Dante doesn’t because he pokes and prods and gets Vergil angrier but Kat gets Vergil to stop. Kat calls him out and Vergil shuts up and listens to her.

He stops to listen to her and like seems to actually feel guilty or upset about what she’s said. His reaction to her is very different then Dante who’s just pissing him off and who Vergil doesn’t seem interested in listening to, just arguing against.

Also, it’s only after Dante’s pissed Vergil off entirely that Vergil yells at Kat

Which I’ve seen some people argue as a Vergil takes off his mask moment which, again, isn’t a wrong way to read the scene

But I regardless think it’s important that it’s only after Dante’s got him angry that Vergil snaps at Kat

Another one that’s interesting is that Kat begs for Vergil’s life. After everything she can’t just let him die. Which, I can see the argument that it’s to spare Dante from killing his brother but the time Kat’s history with Vergil doesn’t just go away because of the betrayal. He’s still, at the very least, someone Kat was close to.

My two main points of this are how Kat goes about begging for Vergil’s life and the fact she’s clearly doing it for her.

She doesn’t belittle Vergil or appeal to Dante with phrasing like ‘he’s not worth it’ or ‘don’t do this you won’t forgive yourself’ and she doesn’t go to Dante’s side

She instead gets on the ground in a more neutral zone and she asks Dante to spare Vergil for her she asks him to do it for her. She doesn’t want Vergil to die, and she doesn’t want to watch it happen.

You could go at this to from the angle that Kat feels like she owes Vergil but after she saves him she doesn’t say anything to that effect. She doesn’t say anything at all really. So I mean, fair read but I personally don’t see it that way.

Also it’s fair to point out that her motive could be to spare Dante from the guilt of killing his brother and the reason she doesn’t go to him right away is she’s scared of him, that’s a fair read but I also don’t see it that way.

Personally, to me, this scene is Kat saving Vergil because Kat cares about Vergil. Not that she doesn’t care about Dante, she does, but she doesn’t want Vergil to die. She’s seeing Vergil slowly die and she just doesn’t want Vergil, this person who knows her more then anyone else, this person she deeply cares for even if she might not recognize him anymore, to die.

Adding to the idea of savior vs. saved, it’s kind of interesting how Kat tends to view Vergil as her savior in a lot of ways but she is the one in game constantly saving everyone including him.

She looks so heart broken when the twins don’t reconcile like she’s clearly hoping that Vergil changes his mind. Because she agrees with Dante and she just wants Vergil to come back

[Fave] THE WAY THEY LOOK AT EACH OTHER TO

Like...Stop This. Vergil looks away first but they look at each other for a long time like this and I hurt every time.

Which, I think its important to point out along with what I said earlier. She doesn’t have any comebacks, she’s not angry with him. She’s heart broken, her expression is honestly sort of pleading like she wants Vergil to come back.

(but also Kat like...you can be mad at him)

It hurts me

Vergil’s Downfall

Like I said at the start and my first Vergil and Kat post, Downfall recontextualizes Kat and Vergil’s relationship and I think it’s fair to say that it’s key to the idea of this ship having any canon status. Here’s why I think that:

Downfall asserts that Vergil genuinely cared about Kat, which then can lead to rereading the game while considering that lens

You can see how this framework of ‘Vergil genuinely cared about Kat’ at least causes one to reconsider a lot of what he did in a new light.

Downfall is the thing that the canon argument for Vergil and Kat stems from, truly. Not that canon really matters I mean as you can see from my blog, canon is dead, but without Downfall, I couldn’t write this post. Not this in depth.

I also think it’s important to address this like...weird spot in the canon that Vergil’s Downfall fits into. And that’s how you can read it two ways: all of this is real and what Vergil is experiencing is happening in the real world or that this is all entirely in Vergil’s head.

Word of God canon is going more for the idea that everything happening is real and happening to Vergil. But I personally prefer the idea of it all being in Vergil’s head or a similar state as Dante's mental training grounds. Both ideas are supported by textual canon and the important part is that everything in Vergil’s Downfall is directly impacted by Vergil’s psyche and as a result, very deliberate and enlightening to his mental state.

Onto the game proper now.

[Fave] So, the biggy: ‘But what would you do if you had another chance’

To me this is the Kat and Vergil moment. This was the scene that for me personally, I could no longer accept the idea that there was nothing between them. This moment which changed how I saw the game.

Vergil has this whole scene where he’s asked that and we get to see his thoughts as he goes through a montage ONLY ABOUT KAT. That’s IT it’s just KAT. His biggest regret according to Downfall, the thing he wants to change, is what happened with Kat. Not Dante. Not the plan. Kat.

So, to me the only way I can read this is Vergil either regrets missing his shot or he regrets messing up this relationship. But either read is clear, Vergil cares about Kat. And I think, realizing that, can consider some to see all of Vergil’s character in a new light. It did for me at least.

After this he basically is then forced to recreate how they met

Such as, chasing Kat and a demon around his personal hell so he can kill the demon

It’s interesting that Vergil’s essentially throwing his and Kat’s meeting back in his own face here. Like he’s rubbing his own face in it.

It’s like he’s giving himself a chance to try again, and he’s very eager to try again. I mean everything else goes out the window because he needs to save Kat

The savior and the saved dynamic comes into play here and there's something to be said about this dynamic to their relationship but I don’t have time to talk about it here this is already too long

[Fave] He then proceeds to find hollow Kat and tries to get her to understand him. Desperately.

Hollow Kat represents Vergil’s humanity in the framework of Downfall. This is another thing kinda brought up in Word of God type canon if I remember right. But you can see it in the text to because he gets more ruthless after her and I argue Kat from the start in the game represents humanity.

Which, one could argue that his desperation for Kat to understand him that he doesn’t extend to Dante or Eva is because he still has his humanity in this scene, he hasn’t symbolically killed it yet.

But it was a choice to put Kat first. It was a choice to make Kat represent his humanity. It was a choice to have him repeat a twisted version of how he and Kat met. It was a choice for Vergil to think about her (and only her) when he thinks about his regrets. This was done for a reason and the reason I see is that Kat is incredibly important to him.

So, I think it is incredibly important to Kat and Vergil and their relationship and how we’re meant to understand it that it’s Kat that Vergil tries to explain himself to. It’s Kat who he wants to understand him. It’s Kat who he wants forgiveness from. It’s Kat who he actually talks to. Because Kat is important. And he thinks, out of everyone, Kat will understand.

She knows him. Not him as a child, not him from his past, but who he is now. And she knows him better then anyone else. If anyone can understand him, forgive him, it’s Kat. He cares about Kat, and Kat cares about him.

I think also part of this scene that I think is interesting is like...this is all Vergil’s psyche right, so he can be seen as sort of calling himself out here. I usually read this scene as what Vergil thinks Kat is thinking and how she must feel, but you could also read this as Vergil admitting yes, he used her. Yes, he betrayed her. The idea of him caring about her isn’t contradicted by the idea of him using her for the plan. So this idea of him being guilty and confronting himself through Kat, trying to figure out how to forgive himself for that, is interesting. It’s not necessarily how I read this scene, like I said, but I think this is interesting enough to bare mention.

But then Kat berates him by leaning into Vergil’s fears that she prefers Dante

This ties into this idea I was talking about with Vergil being jealous of Dante, particularly Dante’s relationship with Kat

I think we see more of this jealousy angle when Vergil confronts Dante in Downfall but we see it here to with how Kat talks about Dante and throws this relationship Vergil’s convinced himself is happening into his face.

Vergil seems to feel like Kat has found comradery with Dante, that she thinks Dante is better than him, and that she’d rather be with him

[Fave] Vergil can only kill hollow Kat when she is turned into a monster.

Dante, he kills fine without his brother turning into something else. He even sort of torments Dante more then he has to, taking his necklace before Dante’s dead.

Same with Eva, he doesn’t kill her but that’s because it’s crueler to leave her alive

But Kat has to become something entirely unKat for him to be able to kill her. She can’t act like Kat or look like Kat when he does it, which implies to me that he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her. Because she’s Kat, no matter what she says.

Which again, you could read this as a run off of Kat representing Vergil’s humanity. So when she is dead, his humanity is dead, and thus he is free to be crueler. But you’ve seen my counter argument already.

And then like he just does the rest of Downfall and Kat’s not really involved the end but I mean THAT GOOD FOOD HUH.

So, that’s everything from both the main game and Vergil’s Downfall. Soon I’ll edit and put up the post on the Vergil Chronicles. It’s less of a rundown on Kat and Vergil events and more my thoughts on the comic but organized in a pro and cons list. Because I’ll be honest, I view the Vergil Chronicles less as a canon addition to the text and just a non canon addition that should be pilfered for the fun parts.

If you got this far in this post, thank you for sticking around! I hope you enjoyed the post!

#dmc reboot #devil may cry reboot #dmc devil may cry #reboot vergil #dmc reboot vergil #dmc kat #devil may cry kat #kat/vergil #vergil/kat #katxvergil #vergilxkat #verat #fab talks meta

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uniarycode · 3 years

Text

Ghost Game Pre-game

Hello Digifandom, unless you've been living under a rock (or just sick for a week) You've probably heard about Digimon Ghost Game, the new anime set to start airing in October.

This is pretty big news for the brand. The last time we had a new season airing immediately after another season it has no relation to is back in 2002 with frontier.

The last time we got Not-adventure was back with Appmon, which started airing October 2016, five years before Ghost Game will make its debut.

The Vital Bracelet is so successful Bandai expanded it to two other IPs, the current anime is likely airing about 12-15th in weekly viewership (hard to tell where precisely because they only post top 10), and seems to clock in above more recognizable brands like Pokemon or Boruto.

By all indications Ghost Game is keeping its current timeslot, which is kinda insane to begin with, since airing right before One Piece on the one morning a week kids don't have school has to be premium real-estate.

But I didn't make this post to highlight how well the franchise is doing. But more because my experience in this is, whenever Digimon gets a new IP, the fandom tends to be very self-defeating, and I'd like to get ahead of that.

Yes, it is Digimon

I'm not sure if this is the best place to say this; perhaps I'm preaching to the choir. But when a new series is announced, the loudest chorus is people dismissing it out of hand. Digimon is no stranger to experimenting with themes and the general response?:

Frontier wasn't Digimon, it was a power rangers knockoff.

Savers wasn't Digimon, Marcus had no goggles.

Xros Wars wasn't Digimon, there are no levels and's it's just a mecha series.

Appmon isn't Digimon, it's Appmon, in the name.

Of course, Frontier is now generally one of the more warmly remembered series, Savers pretty much didn't use gimmicks. Xrossing is just an extreme of jogressing which iirc predates the anime. and Appmon is just Digimon with a fresh coat of paint.

I don't know how this season is going to go. All we really know about it is that it seems to be based on the VB, but do keep in mind it seems almost anything could be seen as a reason something 'isn't Digimon’.

I state this mostly because I've been duped by this myself. The first time I watched Xros Wars I dropped it like 15 episodes in. While preparing for Digiweek last month I rewatched portions and remembered how much I loved Yuu, who doesn't even appear until more than halfway through.

Dismissing things out of hand is a great way to narrow your worldview.

It's For Kids

Well duh, they're all for kids (other than tri/Kizuna I guess). Just because you aren't a kid anymore doesn't mean that changed.

I've seen a few bizarre takes that this is attempting to knock off Yokai Watch. Bizarre because by all accounts I can tell the franchise is currently going stronger than YW. YW's Anime has been plodding along for a while now, but I believe its ratings have been lower than the Adventure reboots, and the franchise as a whole has been struggling outside of japan. And finally, Bandai owns Yokai watch (at least the toys I think?), so there's no reason they'd compete against themselves.

But even if it's not knocking off YW, it's still for kids of some sort. As was Adventure and tamers and well, everything. That's not inherently bad, just because an item is targeted towards kids doesn't mean they are the only ones who can enjoy it.

That said, it might start slow. Think about your favorite Digimon moments, the ones that really stuck with you. I'm guessing they did not occur in the first 10 episodes.

I'm generalizing a bit, but it feels like the moments people really enjoy don't seem to start coming until about episode 20+

That said:

You Don't Have to Watch it

I'm not here to gatekeep. I'm not going to call you less of a Digimon fan if you haven't watched every season.

A standard 50 episode season is ~17h long, assuming you trim opening/last time/next time/ending to make each episode roughly 20 minutes. That's a lot of time.

If you aren't enjoying yourself, you can do other things.

I personally think in fandom we need to accept "I just don't like it" as a general answer. Don't ask people to assign logic to an emotional response, you won't be able to argue them out of it.

On top of which, we have no idea if this will be legally available outside of Japan on launch. Appmon wasn't. The reboot is, but we don't know why Hulu dropped it.

Anyway, "don't like, don't watch" is probably preferable at this point to hate-watching. Since you won't give it a chance once you get hate-watching.

TLDR

New anime is good for the brand, no it won't be exactly like the others, yes it's still Digimon, yes it's for kids.

Maybe now we can all go into this with open minds and reasonable expectations.

#Digimon #Digimon ghost game

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thewillowbends · 3 years

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So I'm rewatching the first season and reading the book, and I've got Thoughts (TM)

And I've got a LOT of thoughts about what exactly Leigh Bardugo was doing here in terms of the moral and ethical statements of the narrative, so I'm putting it under the cut.

Something that's really glaring on the rewatch is just...the complete lack of compassion every character outside Aleksander has for the plight of the Grisha. The army treats treats them with reciprocal dislike, despite the fact that they couldn't even cross the Fold with the Inferni or Squallers. The tsar and tsarita treat them with condescension and disdain, clearly valuing them mainly as a utility that, historically, they've happily turned on when they felt they were growing too powerful. Baghra has just given up on trying to protect other Grisha who aren't immortal like her or Aleksander. Even Alina is guilty of othering them and has to be told off by multiple characters (Ivan, Aleksander, Baghra) to stop treating her power like a yoke instead of a responsibility and opportunity to help others.

We get this big, bad, armor-piercing line from her to Aleksander about how he doesn't care who suffers as long as he wins. Which is true to some extent, but...where is her compassion? Didn't we just spend a hefty portion of the narrative wanting to give her power away to somebody else so she can, what, be with her bestie? Meanwhile, there's, you know, an actual war going on. This isn't small stakes shit she sees going on around her. People are dying. We literally have an entire plot where we see a Grisha kidnapped, enslaved, and then sent to be put to death...who was given to the enemy by her own people!

And then we get that line from her in 1x07, only to have it followed up by her running away at the end of 1x08 for....why? Most people on the ship are dead or those that survived weren't his supporters. The people on the docks were killed, and most of them actually were traitors trying to kill Alina. Aleksander didn't lie about that. So she's running away to take the blame for some nebulous reason that's not really well explained, which is...well, what the fuck happens to the rest of the Grisha? Do we not care about how Aleksander's actions are going to reflect back on them and cause a potential backlash or something? Not to mention, nobody is on the other side to warn them that Aleksander is a threat to begin with. Even if you assumed he was dead, you'd definitely want to assume he likely had supporters back at the palace, too!

From a character writing perspective, I find it stupid that Aleksander doesn't tell her certain things because if he's such a big, bad, clever manipulator, he would absolutely be weaponizing his own pain and experiences to make her stumble in empathy. That's bad character writing to me when you're telling me somebody's an abusive villain but actually isn't using very real and effective abuser tactics. But then you also have Alina who refuses to even point out...Aleksander, I get it! I've talked to other Grisha! I see what you're going through! But this can't be the answer. You have to see this won't end well for you! Like, her own arguments make no sense to me. They're so myopic and self-involved.

One of the big things that bothers me that gets folded into Aleksander's other manipulations is this idea that he primarily associates and values her for her power, in contrast to Mal who primarily sees her for being herself. While I get the intent of that on a narrative level, in the scope of the wider story...it just literally makes no sense for Aleksander to parse those two as separate. Not when the whole reason Grisha are hunted down and killed is because they don't get the privilege of being people outside of their power. Aleksander doesn't get to be General Kirigan without also being the Darkling. Therefore, Alina doesn't get to be Sankta Alina without also being the Sun Summoner. Not a single other character gets to be relevant without being powerful.

Even on a narrative level, it makes no sense. One, it's frankly kind of sexist (when are male protagonists ever expected to be segregated from their power) and two...that's the whole reason we're telling her story! That's why she's the protagonist! She is special. She can't be separated from this unique power destiny has handed her. We don't tell stories about common, boring people; we tell stories about people who incite conflict or change. So even the mere concept to me of basing a character's identity or value around not wanting value is frankly kind of ridiculous.

There's just this strangely insidious underpinning to the story that power is inherently dangerous, even as it acknowledges that people who are NOT in power can very much suffer at the hands of those who do. So where's the moral and ethical reflection about what this means for the rest of us? What does that mean for minorities?

Think of the scene on the boat where Aleksander has Ivan kill off the nobility. The narrative wants you to see this moment as blackly humorous and awful, but stop for a moment and think about what happened there from his perspective. This is a man who spent centuries watching his people get killed and enslaved, and that isn't a false representation or manipulation from him, either. His statement is backed up both by what we see in the flashbacks and by other Grisha. Nobody created a safe haven for him and his people - he did that! He had to claw his way to the top, flatter, kill, and fuck his way through god knows how many noble houses, just to get to this moment where he could build a Little Palace. And it took him four hundred years just to get that! All while Grisha are dying!

And nobody did anything about it. Not the king, not the landholders, not even the peasantry. They were happy taking advantage of the Grisha's powers, of course, when Aleksander helped raise them up into a position of prominence, making them soldiers and enchanters. And even then, they're mocked! The army can't wait to get rid of them!

And then some noblewoman, who has enjoyed the benefits of her wealth and power, some of which were built on the backs of your people, sits there and tells you, the moment you take hold of the power everybody else has been grabbing for centuries, has the audacity to sit there and tell you that the world will hate Grisha and view him as a heretic?? When less than twenty years ago, your people were being killed right and left? When the enemy is still kidnapping and enslaving your people? When your own countrymen view you with fear and intrigue already? The audacity to sit there and frame it as a hypothetical when it's very much an actual reality still going on. Just look at the barely hidden seething rage and contempt on Barnes face when he delivers that quip about "needing to do that speech again." Motherfucker has been waiting YEARS for this moment, this revenge. And really, who can blame him...if you aren't wrapped up in the narrative wanting you to focus on just what he's doing to poor Alina.

The way the Grisha's situation is framed along with how the Darkling's descent into villainy is handled is so just incongruent to me. The pieces don't fit. You're asking me to see this man as completely irredeemable after you just showed me six episodes of Grisha being killed both for being what they are in the hopes of protecting Alina, after you showed me that Aleksander had already TRIED appealing to the protection of the crown by lending it his power, after making us see that lies and manipulation are the only way he and his mother have been able to survive as long as they have in a world that eradicated them. Where is the compassion in the narrative for that?

And okay, fine, you can do an irredeemable villain. You can do a Kilmonger-esque story with the Darkling, but that requires forcing your protagonists to empathize with the villain and change from it. But then I read ahead and...that doesn't happen?? She winds up walking away from it all at the end?? In fact, she even loses her power. And that's supposed to be a HAPPY ending? After we just saw how badly this minority was treated for how many centuries??

You know what it feels like? It feels like Leigh Bardugo read The Hunger Games, tried to replicate a Katniss, and then completely failed to understand the profound situational differences between her protagonist and that one. Katniss is a girl made extraordinary by her circumstances. She's not special herself other than the fact that she did the right thing at the right place at the right time and helped create the tipping point for a revolution that was already in the works before her. Katniss walking away from the world after makes sense because she's burned out after the war, but it also got its use from her. She helped make the revolution work; she showed up for the event while it was happening and did what she could. The situation was out of her control and power for the most part, and she still managed to rise the occasion.

Alina is NOT Katniss. She is inherently special. She is inherently powerful. She has the ability to create change and bring a new perspective that Aleksander has long given up on and which her country desperately needs. We know the world of the Hunger Games will be better because the creators of real change were always working behind the scenes behind Katniss. She was just their propaganda, their symbol. Alina is a symbol, but she is also a very real power. It's not an act of moral celebration for her to walk away from power at the end, namely because there's a whole minority class of people we still have to worry about. Putting a Grisha on the throne is no promise the country won't turn against them eventually, nor does that protect the hundreds of Grisha at the mercy of a superstitious peasantry and countries that will likely continue to invade them.

It's just...I dunno guys. It's frustrating because all the compelling elements are there in the characters and storyline, but it's like the author had a set of characters telling one story and then she had an entirely different plot in mind, and they just clash all over the place for me and become thematically inconsistent. But what really gets me is that she had seven years to think this shit over...and we're looking to get the same story all over again. Usually, it's a great thing to have an author involved in the show. This is a rare situation where I wonder if it hurts the chances of it improving.

#shadow and bone #shadow and bone spoilers #meta #long post #spoilers for the grisha trilogy too #critical analysis

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vexedtonightmares · 3 years

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hey :) do you mind sharing some more about the skam austin panel today?

yeah for sure!! i’ll put what i remember under the keep reading tab for ppl who wanna hear about it :) i only went to the panel, not the rewatch (bc money lmao) so there are probably some other things they talked about that i missed, but i’m sure there are other ppl on here that can fill you in on any gaps that i miss!

it was valeria (jo), julie (megan), and lakeisha* (shay), and pedro (p jo) on the panel (he was the moderator, the other three did most of the talking), though they did mention other castmates throughout :,)

*lakeisha was the name they went by on the panel, and in the info before the panel it said they use they/them pronouns, so that’s how i’ll be referring to them throughout this

all of them started out by talking about what they’re doing currently, julie said she’s dropping out of school because her therapist told her “you as a person matters more than you as a student” which i thought was a great sentiment as well

lakeisha said they’ve been making a lot of clothes and music (also throughout the whole thing they kept showing us their shoes and they left to pee like halfway through something they were answering one time hfjskaj)

they then talked about their audition processes (val had the most chaotic series of audtions omg i would love to see her audition tapes)

val originally read for either jo or megan, and she had literally just moved there like right before casting and almost didn’t go to her audition

she said that she decided to be the loudest person in the room so that they couldn’t ignore her, and that carried her through most of the rounds of auditioning

she said that at the end she said “if you don’t choose me, which you should choose me, but if you don’t, please choose another latinx actress because you have no idea how much it means to see someone who looks like you on screen”

julie auditioned because she was hoping julie (andem) would bring lisa and tarjei and she basically wanted a free meet and greet djkfshk

she found out about skam og on tumblr !! she’s one of us 😌

she thinks julie andem is the coolest person in the world

they told her that she was pretty much everything they envisioned megan to be, so they cast her fairly early on and then had her partner with the marlon prospects

giovanni, who eventually played tyler, auditioned for marlon and they kissed during their audition even though they weren’t supposed to

julie went to high school with till who ended up playing marlon and people would always ask her what it was like to get to make out with him and she was just like .... we just working bruh

lakeisha found the ad to audition on instagram and decided why not because it said it was a paid job

they looked up a bunch of improv games the night before because they had no experience and had no idea what they were doing

in the audition julie asked what the tattoos on their hand meant (and also the one thing lakeisha was excited about being out of contract was that they could get as many tattoos as they wanted without asking for permission)

they all had a lot of love for julie andem and loved working with her

val said that she’d always try to make julie laugh and she said that julie is the reason og and austin are so good, because it’s her story and her vision

they roasted the shit out of fb too (as they should)

basically fb ghosted them and never renewed the show but also never cancelled it so technically they don’t even know if anyone else could get the rights to reboot the show somewhere else (lakeisha said ‘skam austin onlyfans’ lmao)

i don’t remember which one of them said it but they said fb is like an inconsistent dad lollll

they also think that fb sort of finessed julie/her team because they were under the impression that it would be like og where they had their own website for the show and everything, but then it ended up just being a facebook page

they also filmed promo for season 1 that never ended up being used but they don’t know why

lakeisha felt super disrespected by the fact that not only did they not get their season, but also the fact that they just dropped the show like it was nothing and none of them even found out that they probably weren’t getting more seasons until they saw that their instagram accounts were gone

everyone was upset about the igs getting deleted too because they put so much work into the content on there for it all to just disappear

val said “no one tells a story like the one that was about to be told” and everyone agreed

val said that if the show would have continued, jo would have been undocumented and they would have shown her trying to navigate college (not only were we robbed of a jo season, we were robbed of college seasons 😤)

jo x jo were definitely going to be a thing

val said that when they wrapped s2 she was like finally!!! because now they could get into the stories that they really wanted to tell and really knew would make a difference (everyone vehemently agreed)

they were proud of the fact that they’re the most diverse cast and that they don’t just treat the characters of color like sidekicks like the other remakes do

julie talked about how skam france was the only remake to have jonas not accept isak right away when he was coming out and how it was suspicious that he happened to be the only non white jonas and that was the choice they made

val said that druck is the only remake she’s watched but she likes it

they also talked about how, even though it’s great that the cast was so diverse, practically everyone behind the scenes was white

val said that she didn’t really think about it much at the time because she found it hard to speak up since she was very young and inexperienced but looking back she wishes jo’s body wasn’t so fetishized as a latina (she didn’t clarify whether she was talking on a production level or within the fandom, but she talked about costuming so i assumed she meant more on a production level)

they all wished there was more representation off screen as well as on

shay x megan was brought up and julie said that shay was going to have her own love interest (am!even !!!!) come season three, and that it wouldn’t have been megan

she also said that megan was mostly just confused and like ‘haha i kiss girls when i’m drunk’ but then she also said that megan and shay never had feelings for each other at the same time so 👀

she was upset that they made megan and marlon get back together at the end of season 2 because she wasn’t a fan of them together, but she said it also makes sense because a lot of teen girls go back to their toxic exes even when they know it’s not good for them

lakeisha said that they hated shay’s acrylic nails because it didn’t make sense to them for her to have them (especially since shay was a musician)

they also said that they’ve been pretty confident and open with their sexuality since they were around 12, and that one time in middle school they dated a boy because he had an xbox and then they were like oh no is this toxic am i using him because he actually has feelings for me?? hdskafja

they also said that the cfgc music happened because they heard that the boys from og also had a song and at first i was like wtf are they talking about but now i think they meant the penetrator song 💀💀

julie has a cfgc shirt :,) and they all stole a bunch of clothes and stuff from set, val said she took a bunch of outfits that jo never wore which makes her sad to think about now

val’s favorite scene to film was the car scene in s1 before the party (she said it was one of the best moments of her life) and julie said she liked that one as well (val said there’s a shot of her looking into the camera and flipping it off but they didn’t include it in the show, i feel robbed)

people asked how it felt for lakeisha to be the first lesbian isak and they said that they didn’t feel like they were, because they didn’t really get the chance :(( but they also said that the idea itself was very intimidating and there was a lot of pressure around it

they also said that they and gio were very very close both on screen and off, they said it wasn’t even like they were an extension of one person, that’s how close they got

there were a lot of improvised scenes, particularly with val, and she also said that incorporating spanish into jo’s dialogue was mostly improvised

julie, val, and pedro also all talked about how they’re all mexican, and how each of their life experiences vary so much from one another, on the show and off and julie said megan’s upbringing was a lot like hers

they all also said that they liked the music the show used and a lot of them have emotional attachments to a lot of the songs

val said she wishes they used more frank ocean and i agree

they also said they’re not sure if there are bloopers or anything, but they’d love to see them if there are

i’m trying to think of anything i missed ahhh i feel like they talked about so much but i think i’ve got the key points soooo

that’s all !!! hope this was interesting to ppl who still care about austin like i do :,))

#skam austin #asks

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felassan · 3 years

Text

Highlights and insights from the MELE launch cast & crew reunion panel

[rewatch link] [highlights & insights from the N7 Day 2020 reunion]

In case a text format is better for anyone (in terms of accessibility for example). Cut for length.

Some paraphrasing.

If anyone’s interested in just the line-reading session, it starts at timestamp ~1:04:45.

In addition to the cast and crew from the N7 Day reunion, at this reunion also in attendance were:

Mac Walters (Project Director for MELE, Lead Writer of the og MET)

Melanie Faulknor (Lead Producer for MELE)

Crystal McCord (Producer for MELE)

Fred Tatasciore (Saren)

Seth Green (Joker)

Kimberly Brooks (Ash)

Ash Sroka (Tali)

This was the biggest reunion / meetup of the cast so far, and some of the cast and crew were meeting for the first time here.

It’s been so long since the og MET that PW & KW are getting to watch their kids experience playing it for the first time

JHale doesn’t play but since MELE she’s been sneaking around Twitch jumping into peoples’ MELE livestreams to lurk, watch and comment a bit

What drew Seth to the character of Joker? The whole concept of the game. He likes games and MET’s mechanics (different trees of adventure, stacking reputation, choices carrying between games) at the time were the most sophisticated that he’d ever heard pitched. He thought this was new and exciting and wanted to be a part of it. For the character they cast him based on his personality traits (i.e. he sounds quite similar to Joker personality-wise)

Would Seth ever want to play Joker again if the opportunity presented itself? Sure, he loves the character, and if the writers ever had more things to explore/expand with Joker he’d be down for it.

Seth said that it’s a different kind of fan that approach him about this project. The fans have spent many many hours in an intimate exchange with “him” that he hasn’t been a part of, but they experienced it nonetheless. “I’ve hugged a lot of strangers, you know what I’m saying? It’s great, you get an interaction with fans that you never get as a performer in any other experience”

Seth has been a space guy since he was little, it inspires him

With the state of the world the way it is now [covid, masks etc], does Ash think Tali’s story will be more impactful now than it was before? Ash hopes so, and that anything they do here will have a positive impact on a bigger level. Ultimately that’s why most of them do what they do, they want to reach people in deep ways. She hopes Tali is an inspiration in courage, bravery, standing up for what’s right and thinking about the greater good

The [MELE I think] dev team had a last team meeting with Greg Zeschuk, one of the founders of BioWare, who they had invited to it. He was regaling them with stories of the inception of Mass Effect. “You would imagine this sort of well-laid out, drawing boards everywhere... [but] it was basically just a napkin sketch in a Greek taverna with him and Casey going ‘We wanna do a space opera’, and then it took off”

The process of creating lore through development is very organic. A lot of it comes from character and story development. It builds up over the course of the game’s development. They did the codex entries at the end, the idea being that if they saved them for as late as they could, then they could pull from the story, characters and meaningful moments, and build them from there

PW wrote a bunch of the codex entries, elevator banter & lots of little bits of lore. They describe their time on the og MET as being a “baby writer”. They originally came in after Mac had back surgery and a junior writer was needed to fill in. “It was really fun, it was us sitting in a room together going ‘What do you think a hanar or a krogan thinks about this or that’?” For a first project for them this was an amazing experience - the world building itself creatively with all these awesome people

They tried to add multiplayer in every game but only got it to work in ME3

They had a lot of plots laid out in ME1 that they called “global plots”. These were outside the core critical path and would take players from planet to planet, and were sprawling stories. They pulled out a lot of really interesting concepts and ideas from these that did make it into the game, but all of the global plots ended up getting cut due to time. Mac still has old diagrams and spreadsheets which detailed how all of these would have come together

Q. If you all had to take a long-distance road-trip with two squadmates, who would you take and why? PW: “Jack and Mordin. Mordin because the drive would never lack for things to talk about at length quickly, Jack because you know you wouldn’t pay for the room. You wouldn’t know how you’d get the room, but you wouldn’t be paying for it.” Courtenay: “I’d take Mordin because there’d be singing, and FemShep just to have this thing - happen. In the room that I get for free.” JHale at this point fistpumped while saying “Yeess” [then I think what she said was “steaming hot”]

Seeing as asari are long-lived, how open is Ali to one day reprising her role as Liara? “She’s a character very close to my heart, it was such a great opportunity. In some games that we work on the character has already been created or voiced by someone else, but this was really a group effort. When I first went into the booth, the only thing I’d seen of her was a sort of like, rendering, and we slowly kind of came to her voice and presence. I would love to bring Liara back any time... hey, she can live a really long time guys. :D”

Caroline and people who do what she does (Creative Performance Director) are so critical to the quality of games. Caroline: “This group of people are extraordinary. We were lucky to have such an extraordinary cast. Every [recording] session was new and challenging. It was a labor of love. I’m tearing up right now thinking about it. I’m remembering my last session with Jen, she was the last session, just sobbing and sobbing”. When JHale was trying to say the lines of Shepard’s goodbye with Garrus, a line hit her like a tonne of bricks and she was in tears and was like “Shepard does not cry”. “It took me a second, I got it out and took another run at it, it was in there but stuffed down as it should have been, and I finished the line [and there was silence in the booth when usually Caroline would have been talking to give direction or instruction] Did we lose her? Did Skype crash?” and it transpired that what had happened was that Caroline was in floods of tears

ME was the first time Keythe had ever come across branching dialogue. “Normally when we work on a script and it’s from page 1 to 100. In this it was get to page 5, then go back to page 2 and play it a little differently. The skill and the fun and joy of it was to be able to go back and play a scene in a different way, with different writing, with different outcomes. This was not only a challenge but a real treat. So to all the writers who dreamed up how this build-your-own-adventure plays out, you have my undying respect. It was a real pleasure”

VEDA is a proprietary system that BW use to record the dialogue, which is the closest way of having it feel like having people in the booth together (it’s all digital and VAs get to hear the line someone else has done in that scene). Caroline really pushed for this because of the amount of time etc that was wasted due to lack of this sort of thing on ME1. William: “It was a god send for me, thank you, getting to hear a cue from Jen or Mark.” Ali: “Us being able to bounce off each other helps make it more real. This for me was the most real acting experience on a game I had ever had - the writing being so good, Caroline helping us through, being able to hear each other.” JHale was always early coming in to record relative to the others so only got to use VEDA a few times - a bit of Liara content and the scene with Anderson towards the end. “Those two times, oh my god it was amazing”. VEDA being a thing also helps from a scheduling standpoint

Seth and Tricia Helfer (EDI) only got to be in the booth actually together 1 time, to record/shoot a piece of promotional video. “We actually got to record a scene together and we were like ‘oh my god this is the best thing ever’. It was great, even though I had to stand on a stool. She’s the best”

Seth: “As an actor, the kind of opportunity to do this kind of material in games just didn’t exist.” Fred: “Oh, never! I had never had a villain part that was complicated like that. In a game? Never before, it was really interesting”

Raphael always goes back to the fact that ME brought more women into gaming than any other game before it. “The writing and the complexity of the relationships gave us so much ballast”. “This set this apart from running, shooting, gunning, looting”

JHale: “What I noticed in the times before when I got to be around fans, there was a huge hunger among women in the gaming world for something they could really jump into. They were starving for something which fed them what they deserved and needed”

Mac: “[praising Caroline] Caroline would often come to us as writers and challenge us and say, as an example, ‘Do we really need another male character to do this? Why are we writing another male character for this?’ She pushed that very early and to the betterment of everything we created”

PW: “Karin and Cookie and all of the editors across the trilogy, [were critical in] making sure that Shepard sounded consistent - [especially since] we had a large writing team, writers came and went, Mac is the only one with a significant writing contribution on each of the games”

PW: “[on game dev] It’s a process of getting hundreds of people pointed in the same direction, all believing that this is something worth doing”

Ash: “Having all the different possibilities and avenues, going back to play them all out in the different ways [really helped to round the character of Tali out and make her feel like a natural person]”.

VAs only get paid for the original recording sessions, not again (as in they don’t any royalties or anything from something like the remaster)

In MELE, they left all the original credits at the end of each game in

Fred: “It’s creating in five dimensions [because of all the outcomes and relationships etc]”. Seth: “The cool thing is that the audience feels that. They’re immediately struck by how dense, thought-out, prepared and planned the entire universe is”

How was it for the new MELE devs coming onto this? Crystal: “I knew it [the series and fans’ love for it] was big, but I didn’t know it was BIG! Working on MELE there was this infectious excitement. Being part of it was so exciting.” Melanie: “I came on at ME3, I had a 3 or 4 year honeymoon period with BioWare. Coming onto MELE, I’m getting really emotional. One of my first meetings originally was going into a cinematic review for an epic Tali scene in ME3”. Crystal: “On MELE, we had an hour or 2 every day where the team came together to play the game. In those reviews, a lot of the devs who worked on the original would tell all these stories. It was really fun to hear all the inside stories on ME’s creation and be a part of that”

DC: “Should this unit get vaccinated?” Ash: “Of course”

How do they think ME will be viewed in the next 10-20 years, what do they think its legacy will be? A piece of history, ground-breaking. It broke down some barriers and opened doors for people. It’s a powerful, powerful community. It’ll continue to age quite well and be enjoyed by a new generation, it’s original and evergreen and there’s a lot in it that people go back to. There’s a lot of universal things in it (personal experiences, like there will always be love, people fighting to belong, trying to make sense of their pasts etc)

JHale and Alix did the “I love you Shepard, now go save the world again” Shep-Sam exchange and both got teary. It was then Seth’s turn to line-read: “Jesus Christ, now that I’m good and choked up, fucking mess”. Ali was also actually crying from it

Seth: “It can’t be overstated, this community is so large and global, it is one of the most powerful fandoms that I’ve ever been greeted with. Thank you”. Ash: “It’s the most amazing group of fans ever. We’re all so grateful”

Some funny anecdotes/stories:

PW didn’t realize that Alix could do different accents. They remember a time when they were listening in the booth and an Alliance soldier was complaining about the gear had been given. They said “Wow that’s really good, who is that?” and the VO producer said “That’s Alix, Patrick”, “because she wasn’t doing her [normal British accent but was doing a Californian accent instead]. Alix roasted me later for not recognizing her voice and never let me heard the end of it”

Alix: “[on Sam’s toothbrush] Caroline’s like, ‘So then she pulls her toothbrush’ and I’m like ‘What? Sorry? A toothbrush?’ and obviously it’s funny now as everyone knows that Sam’s thing is her toothbrush. Caroline’s like ‘Yeah, you’ve gotta like, flirt, over the toothbrush’ and I’m like ‘Who wrote this - a frickin toothbrush, are you kidding me? Really guys?’ ANYWAY. I was wrong and it worked. :D”

Fred: “I remember a 12 year old kid coming up to me and being like [flat tone] ‘Oh yeah. I killed you’.”

Keythe: “The other assasin I play is Kellogg in Fallout 4. People come up to me like ‘Omg. I love you so much. And then I fucking KILLED you!’”

Courtenay once went out to dinner in NZ with a few prominent people from the Game of Thrones cast. “Everyone around was making a big deal out of it like ‘Omg, it’s so-and-so from GoT’. I was feeling a bit like ‘Hi, I’m here, just nobody’. And I looked around in the restaurant and there's one guy in the corner and he’s got an N7 shirt on and he’s just looking at me like [knowing look, does a peace sign]. And I’m like ‘I got one! I love you guys!’”

PW: “I have a question for the cast members, because I don’t know if JHale has done this to all of you or if she just does it to the devs. Show of hands if Jen has ever made you do push-ups.” JHale: “It’s just you guys”

Karin: “One of my favorite editing files that I ever had was a ME file. It was before Seth was coming in for a session. I opened it up and it was just 20, 25 lines with the word ‘Shit’, over and over again, and I was like, ‘This file is perfect, I don’t need to do anything to it, have fun!’”

Seth: “Didn’t we do a track that’s like 60 seconds of laughing? Escalating laughing? I don’t know about other actors but for me getting into a laughing fit is kind of like trying to get into a crying fit, it takes the same level of commitment, you start to follow a path until like you’re hysterically uncontrollably laughing. I remember looking through the glass, and I’m deep in it at this point, and I make eye contact, and I can see from the other side of the booth and they’re like [making ‘okay you can stop’ now gestures] - ‘Like that’s plenty, we got it’ and I was like ‘okay, okay [dying]’”

JHale: “The craziest thing Mark and I had to deal with was how many times we had to say ‘I should go’”. Mark: “We also, Caroline and I tended to use that as short hand when I needed to go to the bathroom”

The panel host: “The first time I interviewed Ali was a decade ago. She did the ‘I’ll flay you alive with my mind’ line halfway through, it was my first interview and I literally fell out of my seat [from being star-struck]”

Ash line-read Tali’s drunk omni-tattoo scene and in response DC said “I totally get why people wanna romanticize all these characters :D”. Karin: “We’ve had more than one person come up to us and show us actual tattoos that looked like that”

[source]

#bioware #mass effect #video games #covid mention #long post #longpost #garrus vakarian #best boy #feels #lul

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serenedash · 3 years

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I started rambling about my experience with kh and then it turned into khux and then it just turned into me rambling about Ryou and my art journey????? enjoy I guess,

it’s very long but there’s art in there :)

It’s funny to think about my kh journey as a whole tbh, I grew up watching my mom play video games, which included kh1 and 2. I wasn’t allowed to play the playstation2 we owned BUT I did have a gameboy so the first game I played was CoM (after my mom finished it ofc,) so I guess you could say I’ve always been passionate about kh “””side games””” lmao but I did fall off of kh very quickly bc again, I wasn’t allowed to play our PS2 and also I Am A Terrible Gamer I’ve Never Finished CoM I’m sorry you all had to find out like this, but then 358/2 came out when I was in middle school and!!! I didn’t care and I didn’t play idk why lol

Anyway, fast forward to high school I’m like 15 and my older sister, who HAS been keeping up with kh, has a wallpaper on her phone of roxas and ventus. And bc I haven’t kept up I say “nice roxas wallpaper” and she says “thanks but it’s roxas and ventus” and I proceeded to get so mad that I was determined to prove to her that her wallpaper was just roxas twice and then I fell down the BBS rabbit hole and suddenly I was reading about vanitas and then I’m reading the fan translations of the BBS novel and I’m crying??? I am sobbing???? and that’s how I actually got into kh for real lol we are vanitas stans before we are people,

It’s so funny how I thought I was some kh super fan, knowing all this stuff that I spent so long reading and rewatching cutscene movies, but I never once, SOMEHOW NEVER ever came across khx. It’s so absurd and bizarre I seriously have no idea how I never once encountered khx prior to khux. I suppose that has to do with the fact I wasn’t involved in the fandom? In early high school I had stepped away from fandoms as a whole and I didn’t have any interest in really posting content or interacting with fans anymore bc of how burnt out I was from a previous fandom,

but khux released! and I was so hype and excited for it! on launch day I was a senior in high school, I had ran around to every “nerd” and weeb I could find in school to ask them to join my party and fun fact about me is I have crippling social anxiety I literally refuse to start conversations irl so holy shit I was OUT HERE doing the MOST

My player just originally had my name (Matt) but everyone in my party had fun names so Ryou was born! High school was one big yugioh phase for me and ryou bakura is one of my favorite characters ever so it was just the logical name choice lol I quickly started creating Ryou, the character, as well. I was also leaving my homestuck phase and that + vanitas obsession made This character design (art circa 2016)

If y’all are familiar with my kh oc’s you might notice that keyblade now belongs to my kid Monty LOL

Anyway that got scrapped quickly for the chip and dale outfit (which is where Ryou’s trademark goggles are from <3) Goggles have been a staple of my character designs for a LONG TIME so like, it had to be done, (that’s a separate ramble about a separate oc tho)

OG Ryou was an interesting guy; he was a young party leader with this overwhelming responsibility on his shoulders bc of his status as a party leader. In his original story, he also struggled heavily with darkness, much like Terra but for Ryou it was more that the darkness was controlling him and not like a source of power like it was for Terra

A big part of early Ryou I kept, however, was the crushing awareness of loss. One of my party members (the strongest one at the time,) had left without saying a word and I was very confused and hurt. This was around the time the ephemera plot was happening so I decided to incorporate it into Ryou’s story; having him experience losing a friend to darkness since it’s so normal for wielders in Daybreak Town to just disappear, and this would unintentionally become a theme for both me and Ryou as khux friends would just randomly disappear.

I was desperate for khux at this point and I decided to watch the fan translations for khx and GOD, god, was I obsessed. I couldn’t stop thinking about the foretellers. And I’m not going off about that here bc I already did that, but I actually started entering fandom again! I did it slowly, I started on tumblr before this blog was made altho it was me sending anons to the few khux related blogs I could have lol a friend convinced me to get twitter where I got involved with the ffxv fandom, which led me to the kh fandom and eventually the khux fandom there which is what REALLY got me going on khux.

I joined discord servers, most of the servers I’m in are khux related, and from there I joined the khux oc rp (shout out to anyone there who might be reading this lol here’s some art from the beginning of the rp,)

It’s SO FUNNY how the RP influenced me so heavily. I hadn’t RP’d in YEARS, I used to have a strict no oc rp policy, but here I was? And the funny part is, I had barely developed Ryou. I had scrapped his original story and all I had was POST WAR Ryou so I literally had to reverse write him; I had only ever written him as a depressed, guilt ridden adult, but it was a fucking blast and I have such fond memories of this rp when it was active,

But anyway, this encouraged me to get more serious about art! I started drawing, writing, cosplaying, and roleplaying when I hadn’t done any of that stuff in a very long time. The first time I ever drew a background was for a deviant art khux competition actually LOL

also! I always think extremely fondly of the drawing I did of Aced in the keyblade war. It was also one of the first backgrounds I ever drew and it felt like my real starting point in the khux fandom. It got a ton of notes on here and someone wrote a tiny fic in a reblog which just made me SO HAPPY like it really felt like people were noticing me :) I was going to draw a matching Ira but!! I just never did!! One day tho, it’s on my art bucket list to redraw this along with Ira,

Aside from my personal growth, khux was great for my social life ngl, I made SO MANY friends online and got to meet a ton of people irl over the years! It’s crazy to think about all the people I now know and talk to? It honestly makes me really emotional. I’ll never forget taking the train into NYC and meeting up with discord friends. Going to conventions and talking with people about the latest khux update? Absolutely insane and those were some GOOD TIMES, if I thanked every khux friend or even just person who made an impact on me then we’d be here for a LONG TIME,

Fun fact, for my Lauriam cosplay all I needed to buy was the wig I just owned his outfit LOL also? Probably retiring that cosplay ngl people treated me like absolute garbage when I wore him and it led to a lot of confidence issues for awhile ngl. That’s probably one of the only memorable negative experiences I have with khux; it was great when khux people recognized me but for kh fans that weren’t in khux? They were FUCKING MEAN??? fuck kh fandom at large, I only care about khux fandom,

This leads me to another huge part of my experience in khux fandom: THEORIES!! I used to write SO MANY and oh my god my brain was so full all the time. It was a huge appeal for me in the fandom; I had been previously writing theory posts in the RWBY fandom and it just migrated over to khux for me lol I had done a ton of theorizing around Lauriam tbh, it was really the only reason I liked his character at all bc initially I did not care about the dandelions, anyone who wasn’t Skuld I was like “please leave Now thanks”

A funny part of khux fandom I never intended to be apart of is the MEMES, I really only started doing memes as stress relief bc college had me so busy all I had time/energy for was these quick little shit post drawings.

The first meme I made, file name “invi despair” LOL we need to get her a girlfriend smh anyway, I think in my senior year of college I did a bunch of rapid fire memes all in one month bc the stress of finals was getting so bad afdgfhdgf as far as I know my impact on this fandom will be my memes bc all I do now is enter a kh/khux server and introduce myself and I go “yeah I draw art. here’s a meme” and everyone goes OH YOU, honestly I am nothing if not a clown

I’ve talked so much idk where I’m going with this. Khux is just a good game even if the gameplay actually kind of really sucks yknow lol but it was the first game I played where I like, REALLY got into the meta and the mechanics. I used to read so much on the mechanics and watch youtube videos on which medals were worth pulling for. I was never a whale or a top player exactly, but I could rank well if I tried lol I’ve made it to the top 100 for solo rankings, my party has made it to top 10, and in pvp I’ve made top 300. I’m not the highest level in my party but FUCK do I know how to manipulate this game LOL

And with all that hard work, the strategies, the theorizing, the content I’ve made-- it’s been my life for 5 years. I’ve logged into khux almost every single day. At the end, I have logged 1820 days in khux out of 1910 days. Kinda crazy. Crazier I’ve never spent money on khux either lol the only “money” gone into it was one time my mom gave me a google play store gift card and I used it on my birthday for a VIP xemnas medal which eventually made it to regular pulls anyway but it was nice and a little treat :)

I’m not a gacha fan, I don’t care for it, so I don’t think I’ll be touching another gacha again. But for kh? This was pretty fucking awesome, even if it sucked a lot sometimes LOL It was worth it for the people I’ve met most of all I think. I would honestly be a completely different person without khux and that’s REALLY insane to think about.

#the khux hyperfixation is REAL #but yall knew this about me #there's so much more I could say but it's 2am and this is long enough already #im rambling

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doberbutts · 3 years

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I think it's wild we live in a world where being triggered by torture is considered unusual or weird. I absolutely am despite not having any real traumatic experience regarding it in my life that I'm aware of. I've been made fun of endlessly for my inability to watch movies like Saw or even popular TV shows like Game of Thrones/The Witcher despite loving the novels.

I didn't meant to imply that it's unusual, just that I have a pure trauma response to it due to an event that left me literally physically scarred that I'll remember for the rest of my life.

I know why I have this reaction and why it can verge on the extreme. Most people I would say are made uncomfortable by scenes displaying torture- that's a pretty typical reaction and in fairness I know enough about the franchise to know that those scenes are INTENDED to be uncomfortable to watch.

At the same time I would say that most people don't have a full on vomiting fainting panic attack the second the screaming starts. Otherwise movie theaters would probably not be so keen on playing these types of films. Some I would say, potentially you included, are more sensitive than others and it's not a great thing for them to be exposed to. And that's okay! And others may have a reaction like mine despite no prior trauma, but I'd guess that a significant number of people having an extreme reaction DO have something unresolved preventing them from calming themselves down.

GoT is another- I watched the show up until Viserys got his 'crown' and then I promptly threw up on the floor and ran out of the room still spewing. That was the moment the show went over the line for me. Supernatural achieved that during the zombie doctor episode in season 4 (4? 5? Dean hadn't died yet). Ironically the Witcher toed the line pretty hard with Yennifer's ritual but never crossed it, we'll see what happens in season two. I do skip that whole bit now during rewatches for that reason. I lost interest in a lot of cop shows years ago when they started introducing the Hannibal-like murder replays (except it was before Hannibal came out, so perhaps more accurate to assume the showrunners took a page out of SVU's book there). Any horror anything needs to be carefully reviewed before I can feel comfortable interacting with that media. I love del Toro but my first watch of Pan's Labrynth must remain my ONLY watch because that movie was Bad For Me.

And that's kind of the point. I can list off a good number of fantasy worlds that contain something that really does a number on my mental health. I can even go as far as to say I LIKE some of these fantasy worlds- some I just turned to the books when it became obvious that the show was not going to do well for me (GoT, Animorphs), some I stopped watching completely (Supernatural, various cop shows), others I'm still hesitantly able to enjoy but with the knowledge I'll need to skip scenes (Witcher, various horror games). But I know where that line is and I know how to avoid it, provided I'm given warning ahead of time that this will occur and I'll need to make a decision. Those that I felt were not giving me enough warning were simply crossed off the list.

That's the HEALTHY way to interact with things that make you uncomfortable. Acknowledging that different people have different comfort levels while still taking care of your own mental health. At no point do I think any of these franchises need to be destroyed simply because they bother my trauma. I just stop interacting with them and move on.

And that's what I think of whenever anyone's like 'this kink bothers me trauma, it's gross and bad and disgusting and you're a bad person that probably wants to do those things to innocent people'. I really don't think the creators of the Saw franchise actually want people to dig keys out of their own eyes or have their heads exploded by reverse bear traps or cut their own feet off with a bone saw. But they did want to tell a story that was dark and more than a little uncomfortable, and they had a good time doing it, and clearly with how much money they've made and how many of these films exist, plenty of people wanted them to tell this story and paid good money for it. If you don't like it, and it's clearly marked as what it is, then don't interact with it. Easy as that.

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mc-critical · 3 years

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hey, welcome back! hope your exams and stuff went well, and that you're doing fine now.

i wanted to hear your opinion on nigar hatun. i remember seeing one post of yours in which you said that she wasn't a favourite of yours like you favoured other characters and honestly, same. i didn't really much understand the fascination with her. she was an interesting character, but i can't imagine having her as a favourite when there are so many more characters who are far more interesting. i wish they gave her an alternate arc. idk what it could be, i'd like to hear your opinion on it. one alternative ending i came up for her is that she was extremely angry at ibrahim for toying with her and hatice for keeping her sweet little esmanur from her so she joins hurrem to defeat them? which hurrem did try but it didn't really go anywhere and nigar was against hurrem for killing ibrahim which just was kinda frustrating. they literally give hurrem no ally in the harem [except mihrimah later on but mihri is overall varying in terms of power] so it would be good for her to have some support in the harem from people who actually hated her enemies like her. she had actual political support from iskender celebi, rustem, and ayaz pasha and all, sure, but she didn't have much support in the harem, like all powerful women of the harem were against her. nigar obviously wasn't powerful like a sultan but she was an old member of the harem, was respected and even though she kinda lost her dignity with the scandal, she could've regained it with hurrem's help. sumbul was there later on but he was just a very faithful servant and didn't really have any real motive to harm any of hurrem's enemies except for out of his loyalty whilst nigar could've cultivated a hatred for hatice and ibrahim. this is a basic plot but i would've kinda liked seeing it. there can be many more ways her character could've ended but it would be good seeing a woman who didn't bow to her feelings all the time. the sultanas couldn't really control their feelings when it came to love because they were princesses who were used to getting what they wanted most of the time but nigar was a servant who also suffered the hardships of slavery and it obviously would've made her tougher as a person so she could control her feelings better; idk, i feel like this is an aspect of women they could've explored [or if they did explore it, i don't remember it lol my memory lapses a lot so i don't remember the show 100%] anyway, would like to hear your thoughts on nigar. thank you. welcome back again <3

Thank you! <33 Yup, I'm fine and the exams went well. Happy Pride month to you, too! 🏳️‍🌈

Hehe, I wrote that post years ago and while Nigar still isn't one of my absolute favourite characters, I've warmed up to her quite a bit. And honestly, now with the wider experience in the fandom, I can say that she isn't all that loved as it looks like. I then was under the limited wrong impression that the BG Mamma forum was a metric of all the popular opinions and yes, they loved Nigar a lot and I was sometimes confused as to why, but really, that and the Russian fanbase are the only places I have encountered that appreciate her all that much. There are characters I find more interesting than her, that's for sure, but she has her charm and I'm firmly against people reducing her to "evil" or "manipulative" or "weak after she fell in love with Ibrahim", so forth.

The thing she sets her first impression with is her intelligence caused by her relatively high experience in the harem. The advice she gave to Hürrem opened the path to her whole goal (as she herself acknowledged in E41) and that makes for quite an impact for a more recurring character. Despite of this, I never viewed early Nigar as someone taking an open side, hence I didn't find her supposed betrayal to Hürrem surprising in the slightest: she is also trying to survive in this environment in any way she knows how and she can't really find a fully comfortable position, because she is well aware that everyone is thinking for their own gain in the end. Including her. So the only choice she has left is to direct herself to where the wind is blowing and get advantages for herself once she gets the chance. Because all the experience has taught her to repress her feelings (E10 to Hürrem: "In this castle you can't show weakness."), opt to be the more level-headed person and seek for the more pragmatic solutions.

And yet she is very sensitive and perceptive to people that are different than the others or that are in need and is willing to lend them her hand. She adviced and helped Hürrem because she found potential in her, because she wanted to see her succeed, but not through endangering her own self or other people in the process (she told Hürrem that her game had gone too far again in E41), but through negotiation, compromise and adaption, to know when to start and when to stop and be respectful to those above her, no matter how hard or limiting that may look in Hürrem's eyes. Hürrem had the tendency in viewing every sign of support that came to her as granted, she still had that naive part of innocence in her in S01 and early on was in a desparate need of someone to lean on and unconditionally follow her path, that's why when Nigar diverted from that path, it hurt and took her a while to start trusting her again. But I didn't see Nigar as all that attached to Hürrem as Hürrem herself thought she was, especially with how Nigar became stuck between two sultanas later in S01 and that rendered her lost and more insecure than usual.

That's also why I don't view her as a two-faced or hypocritical double-crosser. Because for the longest time, Nigar was the one character in the series before Rüstem appeared that was clearly thinking about her own benefit and survival first and foremost from the beginning when darting between the powerful people in the harem and was the one well aware that she simply can't cling to a single side in her own position. Positions aren't permanent and can always change in such circumstances, so why can't she take advantage of this? Because who cares as much about the feelings for a Kalfa they can still order around after all? She has faced disregard from Mahidevran, Hürrem, Ibrahim and even Hatice. It is pretty understandable that she's going to seek the best opportunity for herself.

That whole facade breaks when she falls in love with Ibrahim. During rewatch, I found myself to have a soft spot for this character deconstruction, especially in S02. I know that it came to pass because of her falling in love with a man that doesn't share the same feelings and there were moments where it looked like she overdid it, even in S02, but for me, the whole thing nicely added a new layer of depth, while still feeling true to Nigar's character. Her future relationship with Ibrahim had been building up back in S01, when Ibrahim (both inadvertently and not I fully believe) played a part in helping her solve the first internal conflict she had (that is the struggle between the two sultanas). Maybe this didn't mean that much to Ibrahim, maybe he was simply trying to be helpful, but it meant a lot to Nigar - that was probably the first time someone seemed to take her feelings into account and actually listen when she couldn't help, but crack under the pressure. So it is only natural that she would search for this source of comfort once again, being ready to face every risk in the process. When she is appointed to Hatice and Ibrahim's castle, when she's practically left alone with Ibrahim, she decides to take that chance, to taste the forbidden fruit. He gave her something she never received and due to her not allowing herself to show weakness and having to cave to everyone else's demands before that, every ounce of affection Ibrahim shows her, it means the world to her. Thus she begins to idealize what she has with him, to the point of denial and delusion, and centers her loyalty completely on him. But that loyalty never seems to falter. She began to resent and/or hate everyone who could possibly stand in Ibrahim's way, something she wouldn't have ever done before. She keeps her level-headed self and intelligence (I don't think that this plot line reduced it in any way, not even when she was at her worst.) and she's ready to take any opportunity for herself (case in point: her marriage with Rüstem.), but now her softer sides and her wish for affection are showing all the more.

The problem I have with Nigar's character, writing-wise, and now that I think about it, the main subject of why I didn't get the deal with her back then (along with considering her S01 self bland.. somehow?), is her S03B characterization. While her falling in love with Ibrahim plot-line became an important part of S02 Nigar's storyline, I don't think it overshadowed or dominated over her other characteristics, making for a neat balance of traits and an interesting, nuanced character. In an attempt to keep her for longest time possible in the story, S03B flanderized her in every possible way and overexaggerated her biggest strengths and flaws until they became stale and unbelievable. Her love for Ibrahim read as а near obsession narratively and her opportunism coupled with her will for revenge, which put her into many repetitive intrigues. At one point I even felt she was reduced to a plot-device (the moment Şah Sultan appointed her as a spy) and she felt a little too purposeless and to have totally outstayed her welcome until her last moment in the series.

The root of this problem is again, that they just didn't know when to stop with Nigar. To be brutally honest, she had no long-term role left to play after Ibrahim's death and it was time for the writers to let her go and maintain her generally strong characterization. The ending I would've chosen for her is to simply have Matrakcı give her Esmanur's location and for her to live with her daughter in piece. I know that because of the tonal shift, the show seemed to be already inclined that everyone had to have a tragic ending of sorts, to underline the growing ruthlessness and cruelty of the themes, but I fully believe that Nigar was one of the only characters that were terribly forced through their tragic endings. She didn't need, nor deserve a tragic ending and I doubt it would've been such a problem for the half-season if she didn't get one. I find a happier ending to be perfectly fine for Nigar and I would've loved to see it, if only for a freshness in ideas for character endings. I loved her Esmanur storyline and to witness her finding happiness with her, the only solace she had left, would have been a great wrap up of her S03 plots and an amazing send-off to Nigar's character.

I appreciate the thought you have put into your ending for her and to be fair, your proposal would be much better than anything S03B gave us. It would nearly correspond with the revenge plot of hers they were going for and it would be something more original at the same time. Hürrem's principal lack of allies doesn't bother me as a fact alone, because all her enemies have understandable reasons to be against her, but what bothers me however, is when the writers try using it to dumb her enemies down and make them doom themselves through their own failings or outright use it to put forced (often soapy) conflicts to make the audience sympathize with Hürrem. Or to make everyone "mistitle" her (is that a word? probably not.) or disrespect her on purpose again for sympathy points (that go beyond the part of her motivation that wants to feel respected and does stuff out of fear not to fall under a less favorable position once again.), without changing the status-quo until say, S04.

It is so deliberate it becomes annoying and seeing something else for a change... honestly, gimme! While I personally prefer a happy ending for Nigar, I would live for Nigar and Hürrem to work together again, while keeping what's become her central motivation intact. It may seem a little OOC for Nigar to work for Hürrem by that point, because she's channeled her loss of the most precious people into rage on those that have taken them away, but it would be a decent shifting of gears and a reverence to her opportunism to work to eradicate those she hates for good, even if it means doing so with one of your bigger enemies. After all, after the mission is fulfilled, she could still work against Hürrem in some way, right?

[Tell me if I got what you meant wrongly, but there is an example of a dynasty sultana putting her love feelings behind and by that I mean Şah Sultan. Her love is in the past by the point she arrived in the castle and her love for Ibrahim is only used as a conflict between her and Hatice, which they get over relatively quick. Sisterly love and ambition are a much bigger priority of Şah's: she cared about Hatice past any resentment she may have harbored over the years and agreed to share her life with Lütfi for the advantage this may bring, even though she didn't love him at all. She divorced him only when he offended the pride of a woman and her own personal pride. Other than that, we indeed didn't have a female character in MC that puts her feelings behind in design as far as I recall, only ones that end up clinging to them completely like Nigar here or ones that let go of them eventually like Mahidevran. Characters that have this design by default are more present in MCK like Safiye, or Turhan, or especially Gülbahar, but as I've said many times, MCK is more ruthless, while MC is more about the personal feelings of the characters, hence every motivation they have is somehow tied to them.]

#magnificent century #muhteşem yüzyıl #muhtesem yuzyil #nigar kalfa #nigar hatun #ask #mihrimah-sultan-can-rail-me

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asterekmess · 3 years

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S3A - E8

I’m realizing just how damn far behind I am on working on season 3, but I don’t wanna skip any episodes of the rewatch, so let’s get to it! Double time, double time!

Content warnings for discussion of cannibalism.

Forewarning, this one is a doozy, so be prepared to Read More:

Lesgo!:

First thing’s first, Derek has experience with those awful sound thingies? Can you imagine how freaked he must’ve been seeing Chris bring those out when they were tracking Boyd and Erica?

Also, Chris Argent has been hunting Derek one way or another since he was a child. Even BEFORE Kate. Why the hell do we have a Derek & Chris broness in the later seasons? This kind of shit doesn’t just go away. I can’t believe I forgot about it.

I love how awkward sweet bby Derek is trying to run through the trees and tripping on branches everywhere. It’s honestly so much more realistic for a teenager than just the crazy cgi stuff. Also, since we know Derek is comfortable in the woods, it really gives you a hint as to how truly messed up he is from fear right now. He’s off balance in a dozen ways.

DEREK HAS BEEN WATCHING PEOPLE DIE IN FRONT OF HIM SINCE HE WAS 15. I’m gonna CRY. If I wanna hurt myself even More, you could argue that the Random Beta (RB) got shot bc he stopped to talk to Derek. So...guilty minds would assume Derek has been watching people die because of him since 15. I hate everything.

PETER comin’ in clutch. Also, hilarious that they use that arrow catching move so much.

I almost like how they tried to make Gerard look younger by just having him wear a douchey leather jacket instead of the serious grandpa one he wears in S2. He swaggers over to the body of RB, and it’s hilarious.

Okay, what is this bullshit about “Bring them back alive, we go by the code?” If you were going by the code then you wouldn’t be fucking hunting them AT ALL. They’re innocent! Why the fuck are you ‘bringing them back’ in the first place? Chris, you piece of shit. This is supposed to demonstrate that you’ve always been a stickler for the code, but all it does is emphasize how little that code actually means. “We hunt those who hunt us.” Fuck off, you hunt anything you deem ‘dangerous’ and find excuses to kill them so you can feel righteous.

Gonna casually note that RB was shot in the Throat with an arrow, but bc of makeup necessities they moved the arrow down to his chest when he’s shown on the ground. It’s funny. :)

It’s seriously so hard to hate Peter, do the writers realize that? Like, yes, he did horrible shit and I’m not denying that, but when you show him running into the hunter-filled woods to save his nephew’s life at 24 years old, then hiding with him in a cellar for two fucking days when he could probably have escaped on his own, it’s hard to see him as a heartless bastard.

I’m almost afraid to find out why Cora knows the details. Can you imagine? She would’ve been, what, 9-10? Her big brother and uncle both go missing for two days after a hunt and she had to stay at home waiting for someone to say they’d found their bodies. God, the lives of the Hales are so fucked up.

The rain is really making the mood here.

I gotta say, I’m confused about this initial Cora-Stiles interaction. He goes on about everyone who’s died or nearly died, but then Cora assumes he wants Derek to do something about the deaths, and Stiles agrees? Except that Derek currently fits the COD that all the other sacrifices have hit. Missing for about two days. Everything Stiles has said implies that he’s worried Derek is also dead. I don’t get why they go with ‘I’m worried about the missing man that I’ve been helping for the last four months because I blame him for the Alphas even coming to town”?

One thing they got on point here is just how disgusting they made Gerard. The slime and the spitting and ugh *shudders* it’s just so gross.

I’m also...I think intrigued is the right word--that they shoved this whole story into the episode without ever addressing the fact that Derek IS missing and they should go looking for him or something. It starts with Stiles asking where the hell he is, but then everything else is about this past moment. Talk about going off on a tangent. I mean, I don’t blame them, but if I shoved this much character background into one chapter people would call me out for the infodump that it is.

Which is all this episode is. Info-dumped exposition. Here’s how werewolves were made. Here’s why Derek’s cranky. Here’s why Duke’s an asshole. Here’s why the Hales are ‘special’

Again, I don’t blame them. It’s just...a lot.

Just a tiny thing: Why do they both roll up their sleeves when Scott only has to touch Gerard’s hand?

It is also very hard to believe that either Allison or Scott are remotely good people when they’re both lying to everyone about Gerard’s existence.

*finger guns, bc now i have to use the tag* I think this is the longest I’ve ever gotten before using it.

Another thing: Why does Gerard make the gross noises like he’s in pain, when we know it doesn’t hurt to get the pain taken away from him? It certainly didn’t hurt that lady in the ER.

I know this is a weird thing to notice, but I find it interesting that Paige is wearing actual makeup. Not just the ‘natural’ look, but eyeshadow that’s visibly dark. *shrug*

Is she Actually playing the cello? The notes Don’t look like they match up with her bowing and fingerings.

HA that music cut in is fucking Hilarious. Derek turns around like he’s in a teen rom-com, with that casual “I never stop smiling all the way bc I’m the coolest guy around” grin and the music just WHAM. That’s right, Derek Hale used to be a JOCK. He didn’t used to be ‘a lot like Scott.’ He was a lot like JACKSON.

So, this group of cronies Derek has. What is that about? He’s gotta have that posse just like Jackson did in S1? Unnamed people to cackle at his jokes.

Paige’s face, right there? That is the SHIT for me. That’s not hidden attraction, that’s genuinely “What the fuck is my life, why are you so lame?” and I am LIVING for it.

Derek peacocking is also hilarious. Peacocking so hard he (THE WEREWOLF) didn’t notice that she’d left the hall, is even more so.

I hate to tell you this Paige, but THAT is where I could tell you liked him. Giving in to his bullshit offer was the first step, that look on your face when he said, “Hold on” was Blatant “Holy shit, my crush wants to talk to me” but then all you idiots did was make eye contact. Paige, if you’re trying to get the ball, try looking away from those pretty eyes, okay?

Derek, you always go too far. You can see Paige lose interest when she realizes that he’s not actually into Her, he’s into showing off.

OOOF, i guess they weren’t such good friends after all, cus’ they left when Paige did.

I also feel the need to point out Derek is WEARING A CHECKERED SHIRT. *inarticulate screaming* Everyone who makes jokes about him thinking plaid is disgusting owes me five bucks bc he CLEARLY didn’t think checkers/plaid were that bad when he was in high school.

I’ll admit...the instant sorry is like...really good. If they’d had him come in and be More of a dick and then end up together, I’d be a lot more bugged. But his First real introduction to her is an apology.

THEN he goes back to being a dick. But at least this time it’s not about him, he wants to know about Her.

And I LOVE the turnaround! THIS is flirting. THIS is cute teasing. She plays his game Back at him, shows her own skill and forces him to get on her level. Then he weasels out of it, but in a Cute Way.

If there’s one thing that I’m routinely impressed by in TW it’s the scoring. They’re Really good with music to fit the moods and the vibes of the whole episode. For instance, all the transition music in this episode is Cello, bc it’s about Paige.

I hate agreeing with Gerard on Anything, but he makes a good point about the Dark Druid taking and killing someone else right alongside Deaton. Why would she take 4 people when she only needed three? She wouldn’t know that Deaton got a message out or that Scott would save Deaton. Plus the addition of the mountain ash circle is kind of weird, don’t you think?

Yah, I have no clue why your body is producing anything Either. You literally make no sense and you shouldn’t be alive. Period. Bringing you back was a lazy way to have someone who could be a sub-sub plot and hand out exposition and red herrings that are totally useless.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT GERARD? You weren’t There when Deucalion found out he could still see with his Alpha Eyes (Which makes no sense btw, he doesn’t have TWO sets of eyes???) and if you’d interacted with Deuc since then he’d have ripped you to shreds.

SERIOUSLY people, why the FUCK are we getting this information from Gerard when it makes WAY more sense for Deaton to tell them this? He was THERE for the whole thing!

I get that the point of the episode is supposed to be “Unreliable Narrators” (The whole show has an unreliable narrator.) but you had that covered with Peter’s story. You could’ve Instilled TRUST in Deaton by making a contrast and having Deaton TELL THEM THE TRUTH. Show the difference between reliable and unreliable. Gerard doesn’t need to be here!

Stiles, asking the real questions.

AND GETTING THE MOST BULLSHIT ANSWER IN THE UNIVERSE.

Could these writers GET any lazier? Put some fucking effort in and give us some information about Werewolves IN YOUR WEREWOLF TV SHOW.

What the fuck were Paige and Derek into that they knew where an abandoned distillery was when it wasn’t even in TOWN? And you’re telling me they left town every time they wanted to make out? Even worse, are you implying they had SEX in that distillery? And then trying to tell me that none of the fucking Alphas and their packs noticed the smell of Derek and his girlfriend all over the building?

...what...do people seriously not remember being teenagers? What the fuck Peter? In what fucking universe is “one minute it’s ‘i hate you, don’t talk to me’ the next it’s frantic groping in any dark corner’ remotely accurate to real life?

Teenagers in the majority don’t DO that. I really fucking hate that all teenagers are made out to be like this. Like they’re “run by their hormones” and “everything is sex to you” STOP. Seriously, STOP. Saying shit like that completely negates the fact that Teenagers are Real fucking People. They’re not just buckets of hormones and sweat that need to be shaped into an adult. They’re fucking PEOPLE and reducing them to sex-crazed idiots is lazy and stupid.

Are you ALSO telling me that the hunters dragged RB’s DEad Body to an abandoned building, then strung the corpse up and cut it in half? AND that someone happened to go the abandoned building and found the body and called the cops, or that they MOVEd the two halves somewhere they would be found, Or that They were the ones to call and report the body?

Has teen wolf got even a Single brain cell?

ALSO, what the fuck is this timeline? Derek and Peter went missing for two days after RB was killed, but the packs don’t get together to discuss RB’s death until After Derek has run out of the building with Paige because he could smell blood from RB being hemisected. So, they waited at Least two days before talking to each other about RB’s death? And Derek apparently recovered Instantaneously from his two day nightmare and went right back to macking on his girlfriend and laughing freely the Day he was found? Or did they wait even longer? I’m so fucking confused!

Okay, you tell me that this place is their favorite makeout/groping spot, but they seriously just walk in the door and start kissing in the middle of the room? You guys didn’t bring some blankets and pillows here? You’re gonna stand there the whole time?

WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU MAKING PETER A PERVERT? He was fucking watching his nephew make out with his girlfriend through the wall??? WHat is WRONG with you?

ALSO, Cora was alive and active in Derek’s life at that point. She wasn’t That young. She could easily point out that Peter being Derek’s best friend is total bullshit if it weren’t actually true. Which means Peter is telling the TRUTH here. Hell, she doesn’t call out his heartbeat for lies the entire time, and while they imply at the end of the episode that Really Good Liars can just force their heart to be steady while lying so they don’t get caught, that isn’t a thing for the entire rest of the show. Derek trusts KATE when she says she’s not lying. So the evidence actually points toward Peter telling the TRUTH in this entire episode.

THAT is accurate to teenagers. Using the word “like” and “liking” so many times in a conversation that it doesn’t even sound like a word anymore.

Paige...dude, I’m so torn. Like I’m glad you’re being honest with Derek about your worries, but also it’s a complete dick move to just Assume that he’s gonna bail? To say to his face that you Know he’s leaving you and you’re just waiting for it? Fucking rude.

Ennis...bro...how exactly did your Beta “Accidentally” kill a hunter? How would that happen?

AGAIN WITH THE TIMELINE. If the packs only CAME to beacon hills because of Ennis issue with the hunters, why was RB running through beacon hills when he was killed?

Also, side note: Where are all of these werewolves staying? Are they territorial so they like, all claimed different hotels to take over? Or do they not mind, and THAT’S why the Hale house is so big for such a small family? Because they had a ton of guest rooms for packs that visited to get that sweet, sweet Hale Wisdom?

I firmly believe that werewolves are clothing-optional people. Talia straight shifts into a naked human form in front of over a dozen other wolves.

Also, where the hell is the Hale pack here? Some random chick comes up and gives Talia a robe, but that person is standing with Deuc’s pack. So....what?

I’m so curious about the formation the wolves make when they hear Talia coming. Everybody backs away, except Deucalion. And they do this weird focus on his face as he watches her come in. And her eye contact is JUST with him.

OH GROSS. DID DEUC HAVE A THING FOR DEREK’S MOM????

I will admit that watching things with subtitles sometimes ruins the surprise. There’s that little pause before “I’m just a deputy” like it was supposed to be shocking to the audience, but the subtitle on Amazon Prime just Pops up right away and it kind of ruins the effect.

Here we go! The one piece of concrete information on “Packs” and “pack members” that we’re given in the whole fucking show. Word for Word. “Losing a member of your pack isn’t like losing family, it’s like you lose a limb.”

That is....severe. Now imagine that your entire family IS your pack. And losing almost every one of them. Is it any wonder that Cora, Peter, and Derek are so messed up? That they’re so dark and wounded looking?

I s2g sometimes Peter literally just sounds like he’s a self-insert for the writers. He explains shit that the writer’s are showing Really Badly as if to wave away the fact that the Ennis flashback is pretty much Completely unnecessary. “You just don’t understand my artistic genius, it’s never just a single moment, it’s a confluence of events. I have to show you all these random flashbacks because you need to understand why Derek is soaked in MANPAIN all the time. Which is totally relevant to the current plot bc....bc....bc ART (and also Tyler Hoechlin was busy so we could only get one shot of him for the entire episode)”

That is just the cutest shit oh my god. Derek listens to Paige’s music while he’s in class and doing homework. THAT is love, you realize? He doesn’t just deal with her dedication to her music, he loves it.

THat little wince when he says “Are you sure about that?” Paige knows he’s gonna screw with her.

THAT IS A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP. He gives her space! She likes studying during lunch so he Leaves her Alone. I LIKE IT.

What do you mean “Laura told you about the packs being here.” Derek KNOWS they’re here because he watched RB DIE IN THE WOODS. Seriously, I”M SO CONFUSED.

FUN FACT (that I might’ve already shared) Oak wood was liked by the Celts because it was really sturdy and hardy and bore food, but it wasn’t their favorite type of wood! Rowan was the favorite, and Irish pagan practitioners used to sleep in rowan trees so they could have prophetic dreams. After that, it was Hazelwood. :P

I...do not enjoy when they bring up the Celtic Druids. *Scuttles to get my textbook bc this is my nerd shit*

“We’re in a Nemeton” This is the correct wording, actually! A “Nemeton” isn’t a thing, it’s a “sacred meeting place” as Chris calls it. Go chris! Nemeton refers to the entire grove/area around the main tree.

I can’t speak to whether they chose a ‘Large, older tree in a grove” but it does make sense bc if we’re talking about Oaks they were a symbol of food and safety (acorns were a staple to Celtic diets) so choosing an older tree would not only look more impressive, but it would probably bear more acorns for the clan.

“It would represent the center of the world” *Puts on vine voice* THat is NOt Correct! The tree at the center of the Nemeton was called a “crann bethadh” or “Tree of Life” and it was essentially a Totem that marked the center of the tribe’s territory. It was not ‘the center of the world’ it was the center of THEIR world. Their land.

“There was a belief that cutting or harming the tree would cause serious problems for the surrounding villages” Not sure if ‘villages’ is the correct term for the era, but the rest of it sounds like a close mistranslation. See, in Ireland there were raids people would do against other clans where the SOLE PURPOSE was to destroy their crann bethadh, because it was demoralizing. It’s like graffiti-ing the front of a church. But technically, it WAS severely frowned upon to harm the tree in any way.

This is mostly because in most Celtic areas, Oak trees were considered symbols of the “Father of the Sky” or the “God of Thunder.” Of course you don’t wanna piss off Thunder man.

Also, you notice how I’m saying CELTS and not DRUIDS. It’s because DRUID isn’t a cultural label, it’s a SOCIAL CLASS. It’s like saying “The Educated”

Okay, back to the--OH WAIT. Before anyone gets any ideas, the blood on the crann bethadh isn’t human. Estonian Celts smeared animal blood on the tree roots as an assurance for rain and good harvests. This is the same concept as TONS of other religions, including Christianity. (Abraham was supposed to sacrifice his son, Isaac, to God, but God stopped him and had him sacrifice a Ram instead. So, Yes. Christians used to perform animal sacrifices.)

NOW back to the show.

THe fact that gerard doesn’t know this stuff implies that Chris is the nerd of the family.

I LIKE THIS. I hate that I like it bc it’s Gerard, but I LIKE IT. Gerard gets up from his wheelchair. He doesn’t need it All the Time.

I’ve never seen another show that bothered to have a wheelchair user who wasn’t wheelchair-bound, which is stupid because it’s Very Common for people using wheelchairs to not need them all the time.

though it does beg the question of why he’s sitting in a wheelchair when he’s in his own bedroom? Was he going somewhere? Or did he know he wouldn’t have enough chairs and didn’t want Allison or Scott to sit in his chair?

The story of Lycaon, who was considered a savage ruler of Arcadia and Zeus went to his house disguised as a human (this is v common in myth) to find out if he was batshit. Lycaon and his FIFTY SONS (he also had one daughter) wanted to know if the stranger was a human or a mortal, so they fed him human flesh in stew. Zeus flipped shit and blasted the room with thunderbolts, murdering all but one of Lycaon’s sons, and then turned Lycaon into a wolf.

So...this whole ‘myth of lycaon’ is totally fucked up when it didn’t need to be? Like, they didn’t NEED to change it to make it a messed up origin story of wolves. It already was.

There’s three major versions to choose from

Lycaon was a pius man who founded the city of Lycosura on Mount Lycaeus and used a child as a sacrifice to Zeus, thinking it would please him. Zeus flips shit and turns Lycaon into a wolf. FROM THEN ON; at every sacrifice made to zeus a man was transformed into a wolf and if he managed to restrain himself from eating human flesh for 8-9 years, he would be turned human again.

The same story as the first, except Lycaon Knew Zeus was in disguise and the child he fed him was Zeus’ own son, and it was revenge for seducing his only daughter Callisto.

If you want to make it match what you’ve already said about wolves in the show, they could’ve used the last one and it would’ve demonstrated how Ingrained the concept of vendetta/revenge is for wolves.

If you wanted to focus on the Turning Human part and working with Celtic Druids to learn to become werewolves, you could’ve used the second one.

there was no reason to add in the bullshit about Prometheus except as an excuse to make Deucalion look like he picked his name to be an asshole, which he fucking didn’t.

I’m so sorry about all the classical shit (i’m really not) but I studied it in college and I can’t just let this bullshit stand.

I’ll give them a pass on the ‘the lesser known part’ bc it’s technically plausible for the wolves to have run north to the Celts and beg for help, And the Druids (those who’s education was specifically in magic, not all of them) were known for shapeshifting (though not usually into animals. They did that to Other people, not themselves)

I cannot believe this is so long, i’m so sorry.

But WHY tho, Cora? How is an Emissary supposed to keep you connected to humanity if No ONe KNows Who They Are?? How are they supposed to do their job??

Yeah, well now Deaton is a sour bitch who has a chip on his shoulder against the Hale pack so like...fuck his advice.

I will say though! Pre-fire Deaton doesn’t give me the heebies like post-fire Deaton. He’s much more clear about the advice he’s giving, and it’s actually helpful! He still has a dumb little anecdote/parable about the scorpion and the frog (which...in most circumstances I hate. It doesn’t even match what happens) but he gives Real Advice instead of vague asshole nonsense.

“I’m an Alpha, I never walk alone.” I have an inordinate affection for this line.

Paige is clearly some kinda bad bitch if she thought nothing of going to hang out in the school in the middle of the night with Derek.

Okay, but like...why would he attack Ennis like that if he was the one who asked him to bite Paige? And why is the moment played up “A fifteen-year-old boy against a giant” Derek was literally swatted to the side while Ennis walked out of the building. this wasn’t some big showdown.

If she’d already been bitten, why was Ennis still grabbing at her??

....seriously? Peter is literally right there? And no one noticed?

Again with the “Scott is a genius now” LIsten, bro, why the fuck would Scott know a sanskrit fable? If he Did know a story like that, it would be bc Deaton taught him. In which case he would know the FROG and the scorpion. Come on, guys.

OH MY GOD GERARD DOES IT TOO. GERARD, PETER, AND DEUC all have a CHRONIC case of verbal diarrhea when they’re trying to be intimidating.

I do NOT understand this warehouse scene. It’s a GAS gerard, if you stabbed yourself with some sort of...antidote or whatever it wouldn’t save you from the GAS you’re inhaling. At the very least you would be shouting like everyone else because it HURTS going in.

why did it take so long for Talia to come? It’s implied that Peter left to get her, so why did it take so long? Even PAST peter looks fucked up at seeing that Paige is dying, it’s not like he would wait.

I’ll be real, i get weepy so i’m skipping the actual death. Just know that it hurts me. Severely.

Y’all know how much I hate this ‘innocent life’ bullshit for blue eyes. It’s very True Alpha-y in that it’s impossible to pin down the specifics. What constitutes an ‘innocent life’? What constitutes taking it? With wolf claws? With a gun? What counts and what doesn’t count? Ugh.

Eyyy, so I’m exhausted and this is so long that my computer is fritzing. There are five minutes left and nothing happens in them at all. Just Scott pointing out the heartbeat thing and threatening to kill Gerard (so he’s still fine with murder at this point in time. Good to know). Stiles telling Cora that he doesn’t think Peter was telling the truth (which she would Know if he wasn’t) and that he’s gonna ask Derek about it (which we never got to see). And Deucalion murdering his own Beta (who, tbf, tried to kill him first. Which, again, what the fuck is up with Deaton’s office that wolves are able to rip each other apart in it, but it’s still ‘hard for someone like Scott to cause me any trouble.’ I’m just so confused

Final Thoughts: This episode actually had some interesting stuff in it, which is kind of sad considering there was no PLOT, just Exposition. I look forward to tweezing the bits out that I want and dumping the rest in the garbage where it belongs. Oh, and like I said, the music was on Point.

#personal #anti-Scott McCall #TeenWolf-Rewatch #long post

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ja-khajay · 3 years

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2020-2021 Animation Watch(ed)list

I haven’t posted about animation in a while that I remember, and I know a lot of my followers are into it as much as me so I decided to make a list of the animated movies and series I watched on the past year or so, coupled with my short, spoilerless take on them. Enjoy!

Organized by

Things I saw for the first time

Things I rewatched

Under a cut for the sake of your dashboards! PS: I have not added any images yet. If you are interested in knowing more about the visuals of these movies, I might make an old fashion ask-prompted imageset list.

Part One: Things I saw for the first time

The Bear’s Famous Invasion of Sicily

Movie, 2019, Italian/French

9/10, a delightful little movie with amazing visuals. It feels like an animated picture book.

One of those “plot is in the title” media! I had never heard of this before but was heavily recommended it by my family members, who all loved it! It’s a sweet story, nothing groundbreaking but the unique colorful visual style alone makes it worth it.

The Castle of Cagliostro

Movie, 1979, Japanese

10/10. Reminded me of all the books i loved reading as a child

I assume its because it’s so old and the art style and themes are so different that it gets little to no love compared to other Ghibli movies, which is a shame! It’s fun with an endearing cast and as always, great animation and music

Mushishi

Series, 2006, Japanese

10/10 three episodes in I knew it was going to be my favorite series ever

One of the few things I’ve seen I’ll describe as life-changing. It’s absolutely lovely but never toots its own horn about it. Humble, calming, emotional and surprisingly mature. It’s pretty impossible to binge due to how intense the experience is. I just want to walk in the forest now...

FMA: Brotherhood

Series, 2009, Japanese

6/10 Dissapointing adaptation of a classic story

I read the manga for this when I was in middle school and remembered loving it. The animated version does an ok job of presenting the characters and worldbuilding and has some nice action scenes but overall looks really damn cheap and just. Not very good. Seeing I already knew most of the plot I did not have the element of discovery that made me marvel so much reading the original. It’s still a nice series but I really recommend reading it instead.

Code Lyoko (s1+2)

Series, 2003, french

3/10. 1.5 being for the opening song alone

This show sucks ass if I hadn’t been watching this with my bestie I would have dropped it two episodes in. The art style is ugly the stories are always the same and the first season has a (later removed thank fucking god) LITERAL “erase any consequences” button as a plot device in every episode. If you watch it for one thing let it be the nostalgia factor of early 00s Vidya Game Plot

The Legend of Hei

Movie, 2019, Chinese

7/10. Impressive visuals and a poor story

I finally watched this, peer pressured by the load of gifsets on my dashboard! It’s a sweet movie with really impressive animation, sometimes a bit too flashy for my taste (the action sequences go so ham they become not very readable...) but the story was just ok? The setting is barely explained and you are instead bombarded with vague epicspeech about powers and stuff that made me fondly remember Kingdom Hearts lol but that asides it’s a really good time! I need to watch more Chinese movies the few I know are just delightfully off the shits in how they approach action and I love that

Hunter x Hunter

Series, 1999, Japanese

9/10. Superior to the recent one!

I first got introduced to the series via the 2011 one. Comparatively, the 99 series focuses way less on action and way more on the characters, which I love because that fits my personal preferences! Despite mediocre filler episodes and some weird slight pointless plot changes, what it changes from the original manga doesn’t have much of an impact on the characters. The animation quality isn’t always consistent including a huge art style change for an arc (???) but it’s overall pretty nice. The series really shines in the last arc it adapts.

Oban Star-racers

Series, 2006, Japanese/french

9/10 a lovely surprise

This series is completly obscure despite having been created by people famous for their other series (Cowboy Bebop, Code Lyoko that i can name) and it’s a crime! It’s a kids show but without being stupid about it who tells the story of an inter-planetary race. If you liked that one scene in the star wars prequels you know what I mean. It’s got surprisingly nice animation for a TV series, and some truly great character design. The art style is a bit unique in a not for everyone sense, but I didn’t mind it much. It’s also THE most offensively 2000s series i’ve seen in terms of visuals. y2k kids assemble

The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon

Movie, 1963, japanese

8/10. Classic fairytale format with incredible visuals

Watched this for the art style because I know it inspired Samurai Jack, and it delievered! I dont’ have much to say about this one, it’s a very simply film but it’s sweet. For my pirates out there if you want to find it in good quality with english subtitles it’s VERY hard to find. If you just want to see the looks of it, it’s on Youtube with portugese subs.

We now enter the Gobelins Shorts Zone....!

My Friend Who Glows In The Dark

10/10 makes me cry each time

Pure delight...great animation writing everything. A little short about death and friendship but not in the way you imagine!

Colza

9/10

Visual treat...homely and nice :) not far from a 10 but a 9 because nothing about it is that groundbreaking

Sundown

9/10

If you’ve ever been ten minutes from failing a group project because of a single dude you will REALLY enjoy this. Loved the colors and personality

T’as vendu mes rollers?

10/10

It’s SUCH a sweet little short I loved that one so much

Dix-huit kilomètres trois

10/10

Surprisingly well written dialog. Visuals are great but the humanity of the characters carries this to another level

Un diable dans la poche

9/10

Amazing visuals and the most tense/creepy of Gobelin shorts i’ve ever seen. Chilling

La bestia

8/10

I had some issues with the pacing. Interesting story and visuals choices but I was not fond of the art style

Goodbye Robin

5/10

Confusing but predictable. Both at once??? Yes!

Le retour des vagues

6/10

Cool animation stuff but felt pretty pointless

***

Part Two: Things I rewatched

Ruben Brandt: Collector

Movie, 2018, Hungarian

10/10. Underrated as hell

Watched this fully blind for the first time in an animated festival and rewatched it with friends. It’s a crime I never see anyone talking about it given the amount of whining I see about the lack of both adult animation and 2D movies? This film is a unique love letter to art in the form of a weird mix of charming crime story and psychological horror with amazing visuals. I recommend watching it blind and also buying it to show appreciation for how nice it is!!! WATCH THIS MOVIE...

Mononoke

Series, 2007, Japanese

10/10 Visual/storytelling masterpiece in the weird shit departement

If you can stomach intense stuff watch this. The visuals are incredibly unique and beautiful and under the jewel tones and art direction high takes it’s a really cool horror series. My only obstacle to enjoying it the first time I saw it was how dense it is - simply put, it’s so...culturally Japanese it’s not very accessible to me who doesn’t know anything about the culture? Watching it for the second time helped understanding the stories more!

Corto Maltese in Siberia

Movie, 2002, french

9/10 but really close to ten. A great adaptation!

I’m a huge fan of the original comic so I entered this a biiiittttt suspicious it would suck but it was a really pleasant surprise! It has all the wonder and charm of the original and the animation was surprisingly good for the little budget. If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s a sort of geopolitical action/adventure movie but with it’s own really poetic vibe to it. It’s almost impossible to find online but happens to be fully on YouTube so go ham I guess?

Redline

Movie, 2009, Japanese

10/10 cinema was invented for this, actually

Every review of this movie i’ve seen gives it five stars and starts by talking about how immensly stupid it is. I’m no different. It’s a masterpiece of escalating energy with the depth of a puddle and it fucking rules. It’s free on YouTube too so there really is no excuse to not watch it. Watched it for the first time on a huge cinema screen and despite this my second rewatch on my small laptop was as/even more enjoyable. If you watch this stoned with friends you might travel to another dimension

Spirited Away

Movie, 2001, Japan

10/10 deserves the love it gets

I watched this a single time as a kid and had little memory of it! I mean it’s Ghibli you know it’s going to be good as hell but this one rly shines in how colorful and detailed it is and in it’s world! It made me remember I had a huge crush on the dragonboy as a kid. I’m gay now

Kung-fu Panda (1&2)

Movie, Usa

10/10. KFP fucking rules

Honestly my favorite franchise of the whole disney/dreamworks/pixar hydra. It’s fun as hell, doesn’t skip a single beat and has amazing animation and character designs. If something is a good time I will not care if it’s deep or not and boy I fucking love these movies

Sinbad, Legend of the Seven Seas

Movie, 2003, Usa

5/10 Some great some really bad and overall generic

I tend to hate american cinema and this includes that era of animation I have no nostalgia for. Sinbad is in a weird place because I love adventure stories and the visuals of the movie absolutely deliver but it’s very predictable and TANKED by the addition of the female character, pushed in your face as “look we have woman!!!” despite her writing being misogynistic as hell lol. The evil goddess rules tho. This movie would have been a solid 9 if instead of the girl the two dudes had kissed

#j #animation #if you want links to these ill provide but not for the indie ones that arent free #i have no remorse p*rating disney or a movie thats over 50 but if its recent and underrated just legally get it!!!

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Darkwing Duck Quadruple Feature! (Beauty and the Beet, Whiffle While You Work, Jurassic Jumble, Something Fishy)

Welcome back! It’s been a bit since I visited St. Canard and my march to watching Just Us Justice Ducks by watching one episode, with the exception of Megavolt the first chronological appearances of, each member of the Justice Ducks and Fearsome Five. The Megavolt exception was so I could, by comission, cover the one and only appearance of the OTHER Negaduck if you were curious.So far besides Negsy and Volty, i’ve covered both of Morgana’s first chronological episodes, Liquidator’s and (SIgh) Gizmoducks. But with only 6 left to go.. I put the seires on hiatus to work on ride of the three cabs and my minty fresh retrospective of life and times. At the TIME it didn’t seem like a bad idea, I could get to this any time and what not.. but in hindsight.. yeah putting an almost finished project on hold till two much larger projects, that at the time of this review have 10 and 13 installments left, WHILE also starting two more projects... was not my best move, especially since I have a comission, and an episode needed to properly review that comission AND a valentine’s day episode to review.. all of which come AFTER Just Us Justice Ducks chronlogically and 2 of which involve Negaduck. So yeah I whiffed it bad on this one and this mini-marathon is my way of fixing that, finsihing up the last few episodes before the big event. The episode i’ve waited almost a decade to watch and one of the most loved in the series history: Just Us Justice DUcks, which is coming up next week. Then LIfe and Times will be right back where it was and I promise to get that out weekly. But yeah with logisitcs out of the way and 4 episodes to go, I don’t know how to go slow so let’s get dangerous shall we?

Beauty and the Beat:The Misplaced Batman the Animated Series Villian

We open with one of the first Darkwings I watched via my old Darkwing Duck DVDS, rewatched a while back and easily one of my faviorite episodes and the first apperance of my faviorite Darkwing Duck Villian, though Liquidator and now Quackerjack are giving him a run for his money. But yeah I love Reggie and part of it is he’s something far diffrent than what Darkwing normally fights.

While he still fits in with the Rouges gallery: someone with either powers or a good gimmick whose intresting, engaging and most importantly to this show, Reggie is still diffrent in that he’s an inherently tragic figure. While the rest of the rouges have sympathetic qualities theier still not really good people: Quackerjack chose to lash out at what drove him out of buisness instead of starting over again, Megavolt is your standard wants money bad guy, and Liquidator was a massive asshole. And if you add in the other villians i’ve covered, Taurus Bulba was basically Marvel’s Kingpin as a bul and Splatter Phoenix while having a noble goal of funding her arts does so via framing an innocent child and stealing. They aren’t unsympathetic, some of them anyway, but they are still ruthless because they choose to be. Reggie.. didn’t get that choice. We see from the start of this episode his life has just been being everyone elses punching bag: His boss dosen’t respect him, his cowowkers not only don’t respect him but actively bully him and only the newsest researcher has ever paid him the time of day much less told the two assholes, Gary and Larson, a nice shout out, to stop. And given I reviewed Wonder Woman 84 yesterday i’ts NICE to remember a version of a “geek becomes a supervillian’ story that’s.. actually good. This is basically the same sorry, a disrpsected scientest trnasforms and gets revenge.. just you know done right.

And SOMEHOW Reggie’s life only gets worse as asshole one and asshole two sabotage his work, he gets fired and is forced to experiment on himself. While that’s a classic mad scientst and supervillian trope what’s notable is Reggie didn’t go immiedtly to world domination. He just wanted to cure world hunger and get some respect. He just wanted to be treated like a human being for once. Instead he got turned into a plant and despite this being a miracle.. he gets MOCKED by gary and larson and runs away, feeling like a freak. And since after that the transformation has clearly made his brain unstable.. he goes from a sweet, put upon guy who just wanted help to people.. to an obsessive plant monster.. who still just needs HELP. He needs therapy and a warm blanket and to turn his life around. And his motivation.. is just not being alone. While his kdinapping of the one scientest who liked him, and he assumes has feelings for him, is bad, and selfish.. it’s clear by that point Reggie is just not himself anymore. He’s Bushroot now. He’s lost himself and were this a diffrent show maybe he could’ve gotten the help he needed and some empathy. But what adds to the tragedy is Darkwing himself. This episode really showcases one of Darkwing’s biggest weaknses: his inablity to see crime other than in black and white terms. To him it’s just a game of heroes and villians. Nothing more nothing less. Villians can become heroes, as he hopes for Morgana, but to him there’s just good guys ,him and bad guys, everyone breaking the law. For someone whose often seen as an outlaw himself.. he still can’t see things in any other terms. However instead of just being lazy writing... it’s a clever character quirk, at the center of this episode and our final one, as well as one that pops up a little in Stegmutt’s first apperance. It nicely parodies/deocnscruts the whole good guy badguy dynamic by making it clear that sometimes while the person may be doing bad things.. they have a reason for it and sometimes the law just dosen’t work. It’s something I do wish they’d dug into more but given this was more of a comedy, I get why they didn’t, but what they did with it is great and it adds to this episode tremendously: Darkwing just sees Reggie as another villian to stop and not as a very unstable man who needs his help, but also needs tobe stopped for his own good. It’s why this is such a good episode, besides some great comic set pieces: it has a really tragic and moving story that , with some tweaking woudln’t of been out of place in batman the animateds eires. It’s still a bit goofy in places, as it should be giving the show it’s in btu at i’ts heart it’s just a relaly godo really tragic supervillian origin story.

Whiffle While You Work: The Saving Grace of an Okay Episode This one’s more of a mixed bag. For the good... Quackerjack is fucking awesome. While I already loved him from the comics, I hadn’t met his more lightehearted tv counterpart yet.. but boy was he a delight. From his it’s play time catch phrase which despite being repeated a LOT never got bored to his really invenitve use of toys. While a vilian with a toy gimmick is not new, Toyman has been around for.. 80 years? Damn. I should do some Superman TAS episodes this year to commemerate that. Point is between him and the joker the gimmick isn’t “New” but Quackerjack still feels unique from using actual jacks, to a motorized hula hoop, to a GIANT CRYING BABY DOLL TO FLOOD A CITY. Jackie is just a delight every minute he’s on screen, and his motivation is solid: wanting to get revenge at the Whiffle Boy video game and i’ts insuing phenmonin and merchandise deals for squeezing him out of buisness. It makes him mildly symathetic enough to be intresting but not enough to override his terrible actions. He’s just fun to watch, and Micheal Bell is phenominal in the roll. easily one of my faviorite vilians thus far and it’s easy to see why he showed up quite a bit.

Sadly the rest of the episode.. is not very intresting. It starts with your standard “Adult gets child away from the video game only to play it” plot which is belivieble, my dad was a gamer back during my childhood and probably still plays games ocasionally to this day. He fucking loved Starcraft, Ultima ONline, Super Metroid, Warcraft II and III.. and swearing. He really loved swearing at the games. And the idea of the episode isn’t bad, Drake is jealous that Gosalyn is in the limelight for once.. the issue being a grown man competing with his own daughter just makes Drake really unlikeable. He at one point tries to use his parental authority to take her out of the contest, lies about being in the competition, and dosen’t apologize or learn enough to make up for his being a dick about this. THe episode really suffers from Launchpad not being around to be a buffer between the two and as ssuch it’s just uncomfortable. Hell Gos threatens to reveal Drake’s identity to .. someone.. but she still comes off sympathetic as when Drake presses her on it.. it’s very clear she made the threat on the spur of the moment out of hurt.

Also the whole Whiffle Boy game craize extending to a city is delightfully batshit, and plausable given i’m pretty sure if nintendo could afford their own city we’d have it over in japan and for a video game episode in the 90′s, this one isn’t all that bad. It actually seems to get games on SOME level, and seems based more on an arcade game, which drake plays whiffle boy on at one point and the 80′s arcade competition craze, and since arcade comeptitions were still a huge thing in the 90′s, it’s very clear this si written by people who actually know what a video game is and don’t just fear it as some strange doodad their kids are into. Trust me I’ve been around animation so long this plot has become tiresome. So not a BAD episode, just held back by drake being written even more dickishly than usual. P.S. there’s apparently an ultima level to the game.. so either Lord British is finally putting Chuckles down or someone needs to know what’s a paladin.

Jurassic Jumble: Two Great One Shot Characters that Taste Great Together Well okay Segmutt does get one more episode but this is still his only episode on his own just like Neptuina next, so I count it well enough. Point is this episode is pretty good. It does have some weaknsses: It starts with Drake not beliviing Honker’s theory about a recent theft of acountants, one he’s only on the scene for because he happens to really need help with his taxes because, contrary to what Wesley Snipes thought, Superheroes still need to pay taxes. He dosen’t belive it’s dinosaurs.. he dosen’t belivie it’s dinosaurs despite the foot prints, honker being smart and HAVING FOUGHT A DOG MADE ENTIRELY OF WATER.

I just get annoyed when superheros in a superhero universe don’t hav ea logical reason for dismissing something.. or random citizens.. it was fine if reptitous in the stan lee days because it’d been 20 years, at the time, since superheros were active and people can be stupid but it gets grating when someone says somethin’gs not possible in a superhero universe. Given we’re currrently dealing with an outgoing president who refuses to accept an election is real and his followers who think masks are a polical issue i’ts not exactly unrelasitic, dosen’t mean it’s enjoyable to read or watch.

Still it works here because it splits the plot nicely and Gosalyn’s disbleif is less grating as she just wants it to be martians and dosen’t bully her friend or anything over it, just makes a few snyde remarks. The episode also wasn’t helped at first by the fact there’s a really reptitive bit where Darkwing bungies down to investigate the crook he thinks is responsible, but is actually just chilling at his minium security prison. It’s just not funny and takes up too much of the episode. But the episode picks up towards the second half when we meet our dinosaur: Stegmutt, a dumb but kind and friendly child like former janitor turned stegasaurs, whose unwittingly kidnapping people for his “friend” Dr. Fossil, the professor who turned him, and genuinely is not a bad soul and likes gosalyn and honker. He’s just clumsy and destructive and working for someone he dosen’t know is evil. Speaking of which.. Dr. Fossil is really damn awesome and i’ts a shame he never came back in the comics or cartoon and hopefully Frank does him better in the reboot. Seriously he’s enjoyable, a bit nebbish but delightfully insane, deciding to wipe out all non dino life because he’s tired of getting panicked screams in the street and of all the dino merchandise like those puzzles with the pieces missing. He’ sjust delightfully nutty, with his love of saying bin bang boom and his having to put up with Stegmutt’s antics, as well as the whole joke that he TURNED HIMSELF INTO A DINOSAUR, yet gripes about being a dinosaur and acts like it’s humanity’s fault , balking when Gosalyn suggests he just.. turn himself back. Plus Ptetrodacytl’s are awesome so tha’ts a bonus. Seriously his showing up turns the episode from okay to fucking amazing. Seriously bring him back for the reboot.. and get Rich Fulcher to voice him. Seirously Bob Fossil as Dr. Fossil... it’s too perfect NOT to do casting gag wise, and he frankly perfectly fits the charcter down to the nasily voice. Plus Rich does voice acting quite a bit, so he’s already likely in Frank’s Rolodex.

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Stegmutt himself is also not too shabby, your standard child like moron, but he’s got a sweetness and niceness to him and we get some good gags like his habit of breaking off handles, his opening sodas with his tail and Fossil getting rid of him by telilng him to check if he left the bathroom light on...

And the climax with Darkwing.. turning.. into this

I don’t get it either but i’ts still a fun climax. Also forgot to mention Dr. Fossil can do that blow you away by flapping his wings thing Storm Eagle can do. Neat. All in all while not the series BEST outing, it has some flaws holding it back, it’s a damn fun one and one I highly recommend. Okay one more.

Something Fishy: The Better Submariner This is a simple but good one: St. Canard beach has gotten trashy.. literally there’s trash everywhere. And while Drake is ambilent to it, Gosalyn is taking up the crusade to take out the trash and the garbage people... and gets her dad beaten up over it by dumping trash on some guys head but frankly, he deserved it. Things go up a notch though when some sea creatures invade and .. clean up the beach and beat up darkwing. And while they destroy some property.. they aren’t exactly wrong? This is where that flaw I mentioned comes in though. Drake just.. can’t see things in shades of grey and insits he must be the good guy and whoevers doing this must be stopped. However it becomes clear when we meet the antagonist that while her methods are wayy to extreme.. she’s in the right. Neputina is an awesome character, easily one of the series best and esaily horribly underulitized. She was a simple fish who thought a toxic waste barrel was a new friend.. and learned the hard way by becoming a sexy fish woman. Yeah I said it. But her motive is understandable thanks to her origin and just how BAD it’s gottne, with piles of trash all underwater and the laws Drake cites agianst this sort of thing not doing squat. It’s a nice take on the old enviornmental message , something I dreaded going in as it makes a valid point; sometimes diong things the “right” way isn’t enough.. but it still dosen’t justify harming innocent people in the process, as Nep’s ultimate plan to flood the city would. Launchpad ends up being the voice of Reason as drake is too caught in his games of good guy bad guy to get Neptuina ISN’T a bad person, just one fed up with people hurting those she cares about. Neptuina is a unique villan in that unlike Morgana, who while having a sympathetic motive was out for herself, Stegmutt, who didn’t reailze he was on the wrong side, and Gizmoduck.. wellll

Neptuina.. is just misguided. She has the right idea but the wrong methods and Darkwing’s too stubborn to admit it.. but he’s also seen as in the wrong with Launchpad realizing DW just.. isn’t the good guy this time, but in the best scene of the episode talking Neptuina down by pointing out innocent people will get hurt. It’s a good, nuanced episode about envrionmetnalism with a throughly charasmatic and intrersting, acted wonderfully by Sussan Silo, antagonist. Neptuina is a better version of Marvel’s namor the submariner: she goes against humanity.. but I don’t want to punch her and dosen’t have one of her constnat character traits as “I want to bank your wife richards BANG YOUR WIFEEEEE”

So overall.. a good batch of episodes. Only Wiffle While You Work was all that weak, and even it had it’s charms and Quackerjack. It shows the series overall quality: even the just okay episodes here are still really fun to watch. It’s just a solid show overall and whie not without flaws is a classic to this day for a reason. Next week we’ll wrap this up with JUST US JUSTICE DUCKS! Until then stay safe and goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

#darkwing duck #drake mallard #gosalyn mallard #launchpad mcquack #honker muddlefoot #neptuina #stegmutt #doctor fossil #dr fossil #justice ducks #quackerjack #regenald bushroot #bushroot #whiffle while you work #beauty and the beet #something fishy #jurassic jumble

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samreviewsmovies · 3 years

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Bo Burnham: Inside

Year: May 30, 2021

Director: Bo Burnham

Writer: Bo Burnham

Actor: Bo Burnham

Produced by: Josh Senior

Synopsis: Recorded in his home during the COVID-19 pandemic without a crew or audience, it was released on Netflix on May 30, 2021. It features a variety of songs and sketches about his day-to-day life indoors; he depicts his deteriorating mental health and explores themes of performativity and his relationship to his audience. Other songs are about internet activities including calling one's mother on FaceTime, taking photos for Instagram, and video game streaming.

Rating:

Rotten Tomatoes: 97%

My Rating: 9/10

Platform: Netflix

Thoughts: I’ve got to say right of the bat, that Bo Burnham is a very talented person. To be able to do all the things to produce a piece of work of this magnitude, and quality, and be as thought provoking, the man is quite possibly a genius or a mad. Probably, more the latter, if the content of his special has anything to say about it, but by all means, he is very clever and a hard worker. So, kudos to you, Mr. Burnham.

For a moment, I was hesitant to include this on my blog, because it’s not a movie or a tv show, but it’s not your typical comedy special either, if it can be call comedy. To me, it’s more of a piece of a piece of art. And I don’t mean, hang it in the Louvre, it’s the best thing since Monet’s Water Lilies, (even though I really enjoyed looking at the cinematography) but it makes us see things from a different perspective. The special asks uncomfortable questions that there aren’t really answers to. It’s social commentary, it reflects something about us in this moment, which is something that I think that good films and shows should do. Make us think and make us feel, way past the time we’ve gotten up from our seats. This special hasn’t quite left the back of my mind since I watched it earlier this month, (Future Sam, that’s June 2021 because you won’t remember) but that could because of how catchy the songs are or how they’re all over Tiktok. Probably Tiktok.

I know I said this not even two paragraphs ago, but Bo is really talented. From the way he analyzes musical trends to make catchy songs, from the points he brings up that are true and uncomfortable, and to the way the film was shot. I liked his transitions, I liked his use of lighting and projectors to influence the moods of his pieces, and use some not so subtle tongue and cheek symbolism. Yeah, I’m talking about the overlaid cross just so we’re clear. And these are things that movies do, that stage plays do, but that’s done by a whole crew of people. He put this together on his own. And he did a really, really good job.

Something that this piece does well, is make us question what is real and what is a performance, which I think is it’s intention and a critique. We’re all so geared to social media these days and trying to put our best self forward that we kind of ignore the real self. Not that that is necessarily only for social media, we’ve been doing it for years before the internet, and even in our heads with perceptions of other people we build up. Bo achieves this effect by interspersing his editing moments and his down moments between the performance pieces. We see the loneliness, the frustration, the despair, the daily annoyances, things that don’t usually make it to the screen. These might be true, human moments, (I’m inclined to think most of them are. It’s hard to be a creative, even before the added pressure of being a big name star, and it’s hard being human, too) but by the fact that he then chose to edit them into the film, they become part of the performance and maybe less real. He didn’t have to, he’s made them in to performance pieces. So who’s to say what’s real and what’s fake. Only he can, and even then does it really matter? Isn’t it funny how in movies and shows, the actors can be feeling real things, drawing from personal experience, but those emotions are ‘fake’. To make us feel real emotions, we have to watch unreal things.

All of his songs have some kind of message, some kind of deeper meaning, even if on the surface level they don’t seem like much. I’m going to highlight three songs/moments that really struck me on an emotional level. In no particular order they are: the laugh during “Welcome to the Internet,” “That Funny Feeling,” and “All Eyes on Me.”

“Welcome to the Internet” says a lot, about how all the different things we do, the things that you can find, how we interact with others. It was always meant to be a tool, but it has become a lifestyle. We spend a lot of time on it, and I’m not saying that’s good or bad, it just is. We spend a lot of time on the internet. And There is a whole generation of people growing up that have always had the internet around for them. The song has it’s own kind of story, being bombarded by information, it feels bad, out of control, and then Bo shifts the story into something softer, hopeful when you think that we’re out our most angry, our most insane, at our lowest. “It has always been the plan/ To put the world in your hand” and that line moved me. It was hope. It was good intentions. And then there is the laugh that plunges you into horror and madness. And that moment was *chef’s kiss*. I wish I could go back to rewatch that moment for the first time for the emotions it gave me.

“That Funny Feeling,” is a funny (ha) one for me to try to write about. It’s hard to put my finger on. A song of juxtapositions, some funny and some sad. It starts with the performance of someone who’s insecure, yet is putting themself willingly on stage. I had to laugh, because I could imagine that kind of person. We know who they are. That and this song, is admittedly in the genre of music I like to listen to, so I had to laugh at myself. (See, it can be comedy sometimes!) Listening to the song gives me a funny feeling that I can’t put my finger on after listening to lines like “ A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall“ and “A book on getting better hand-delivered by a drone”. I feel like I need a hot bath and a good cry, but I also feel numbed and expectant. This happens everyday, and it’s awful, but do I really care anymore?

Derealization: derealization disorder occurs when you persistently or repeatedly have the feeling that you're observing yourself from outside your body or you have a sense that things around you aren't real, or both. Feelings of depersonalization and derealization can be very disturbing and may feel like you're living in a dream.

“All Eyes on Me” is essentially a slow party at the end of the world, that just picks up the pace. There is a touching moment, about Bo Burnham’s personal life, that’s brave of him to share, and a heavy dose of situational irony. The lines that really get me in this song is basically all of verse three. “ You say the ocean's rising like I give a shit/ You say the whole world's ending, honey, it already did/ You're not gonna slow it, Heaven knows you tried/ Got it? Good, now get inside”. It’s both sides of the coin, both things that we might find ourselves thinking about every day, or at least I do. One half panic, fear, and dread and the other half a distant, nonchalance. How can you care when everything is the next greatest disaster, pulling your attention in many different directions to care about too many things. It’s overwhelming.

“How can you joke at a time like this?” Indeed. It’s either laugh, cry, or shut down completely.

Extra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Burnham:_Inside

#bo burnham #bo burham inside #netlflix #welcome to the internet #that funny feeling #all eyes on me #derealization

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