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deltaengineering · 3 years

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What remains of Fall Anime 2020

You might have noticed that I haven’t been keeping up with my season impressions, mostly (but not exclusively) because it’s really boring to come up with new ways to say “it’s isekai, which means it’s garbage for stupids”. So here’s what I ended up finishing, in ascending order of goodinosity.

Hypnosis Mic -Division Rap Battle- Rhyme Anima

Ostentatious rap battles in an insanely stupid universe are very fun. The thing is that this doesn’t want to be a good anime, it wants to sell us on these characters, and the characters are pretty terrible on account of all of them being one-word gimmicks. So, let’s give them three rounds of introductions and have them solve lame, generic crimes for 8 episodes instead of setting up the rivalries that everyone suddenly has later, when the show gets good - because it does start delivering towards the end, and becomes really all I wanted. So I can’t even say I’m disappointed, but the first half of the show is almost entirely worthless. 4/10

Assault Lily Bouquet

I don’t want to be the guy that’s all “I’m mad at this show not catering to what I want”, but I do have to say that Salt Bucket is much better at being a goofy, lighthearted yuri comedy than it is at action (though there are a few choice cuts) and at having an engaging storyline. This is again just an ad for some game or other, so it’s no surprise it has about two dozen characters too many, but it also has quite a lot of superfluous plot - so much so that I suspect it was initially planned to be twice as long. Apart from that, it’s cool and all that some Gainax old hand got to make his own Gunbuster-like, but it’s just not very good at that and all I wanted was Kaede antics and bath scenes, of which 1 per episode is clearly too few. 5/10

The King's Avatar 2

King’s Avatar got a sequel and overall I have to say, I kinda like it more than the first season even though it looks much less ambitious and even the character designs were changed towards the bland. But I honestly don’t care much about the esports aspect of this and much of S2, especially in the back half, is more about schemes and social engineering - as close to an Eve Online anime as we’re ever going to get, I guess. It’s still very chinajank (why the hell does every episode come with a redundant chibi summary of itself, etc), and while I can’t call that “good” it does remind me of a time when I wasn’t filled with useless knowledge of anime tropes and was just enjoying the weirdness. Also, Ye God’s antics is as close to “looking for anime with OP MC” as I’m comfortable with getting. 6/10

Heaven Official's Blessing

Now how about some Chinimation that isn’t very janky? I only became aware of Heaven Official’s Blessing when it suddenly rocketed to the top of the MAL charts, so I gave it a looksie and oh boy. The first few episodes of this show are flat out gorgeous, quite funny and very very gay. So I was ready to agree with MAL for once, except it then launches into an arc that mostly consists of our dudes sitting in a dark pit telling each other stories that aren’t very interesting and seem barely related to the setup. Yeah, the back half of this just isn’t very good at all. And the subs are hot garbage. Still, the beginning is so impressive that I would recommend this show despite the middling rating it’s about to get. 6/10

Ochikobore Fruit Tart

You know the problem that these 5girls4koma stories have, where one of the characters is an annoying pervert, yeah? Well, in Fruit Tart every character is that character, and they’re rather cultured as well. Yes, it’s often of questionable taste and it has a terminal case of 4koma storytelling but dammit if I didn’t enjoy it. It certainly helps that this show’s greatest asset by far is Broko and it seems to be aware of this, because there’s a lot of Broko material. It would have probably have gotten a 6 but the last episode is just so... maximum Fruit Tart. I’m down for some trash if it’s as well made as this, and I do like my kiraralikes spicy, so thumbs up over here. YMM definitely V on this one. 7/10

Majo no Tabitabi

Speaking of things that are hard to recommend despite me liking them a lot, Elaina here challenges the very notion of what a TV show even is supposed to be. I assume most people tune in every week expecting to get something roughly similar. Not so with this one, you could get everything from slice of life antics to Higurashi-style gore, or reasonably deep character study to pervert comedy. I would say that the only unifying thread is the presence of Elaina, who is a very fun character, but there’s an episode she’s not in, so there you go. But I’m a connoisseur of the weird and I also have to say that I enjoyed every episode in its own way. Also, each episode stays remarkably consistent by itself, and in the end it wraps it all up with a sort of neat “life is like a box of chocolates” thematic bow, which isn’t earthshatteringly profound but hey, it’s there. Just don’t go in with expectations, especially not expectations based on the first episode. 7/10

Love Live! Nijigasaki

It’s Love Live. Good old reliable Love Live. Really not much to say about this one, any discussion of what makes this different from previous iterations is going to end up in minutiae only people who already watched this could possibly care about. I do have to say that while the musical numbers are as good as Sunshine’s were towards the end and there’s also a lot more of them, “looking budget deficient outside the CG” is the one thing I didn’t expect from something that’s ostensibly a Sunrise premium product. So boo on that one, apart from that it’s idols (an anagram of solid). 7/10

Garupa Pico Oomori

The chibi SD shorts based off Bang Dream are still better than the main show. Even if S3 was actually quite good, this is just the best thing you can do with 30+ characters that aren’t that deep. Garupa Pico specializes in absurd humor setpieces that at points is better at being Pop Team Epic than Pop Team Epic itself was. Take that, memelords. 7/10

Fire Force S2

Fire Force is just weird, man, and it’s sort of great. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a property of this magnitude show this much of the ol idgaf spirit. How about an episode where the A plot is the most evenhanded exploration of religion i’ve seen in anime, and the B plot is about blowing up a tryhard edgelord by exposing him to panties? How about a subplot where Batman and Thor infiltrate the vatican to kill the pope, only for that to lead into a gay rape backstory, only for that to be resolved by dank weed and dismemberment? It really is quite a thing, as they say. Now, Fire Force certainly delivers hard at points, but it’s also very scattershot, even if S2 is somewhat more consistent than S1. The weakest parts are unsurprisingly still the ones where it’s remembering its fighting shounen template, and that’s not only because I don’t like that, it’s also because it’s particularly and consistently bad at scheduling these huge, simultaneous multifight setpieces it often crescendoes with. But hey, at least these tend to look super cool. In short, Fire Force is a land of contrasts and still the only fighting shounen I give a damn about. 7/10

IDOLiSH7 Second Beat

Did you know that I think Idolshi7 is the best one of all of these huge-ass commercial idol franchises? Yeah, I think it’s better than Love Live, and as of Fall 2020 also the better looking one because Troyca still delivers where Sunrise apparently can’t. I guess still don’t like the music much, thankfully there isn’t a lot of that. It also still specializes in gigantic drama, and to its credit S2 is now much better at either getting to the point or at least making it silly and fun. You show that door who’s boss, Sou. Still fantastic Tsumugis all over the place as well, in fact I think I like all the characters now. Even Banri gets his big moment in this season! Yeah, this stuff is pretty cool. 8/10

Adachi and Shimamura

So here’s the AOTS, and it’s the lovechild of Bloom Into You and Tsuki ga Kirei. While it definitely isn’t as good as either of these two, because it lacks the “about more than just teenagers being hyperbolic about a crush” part from Bloom and the part where it has an actual ending from TgK, it carves out its own niche with its loopy, almost stoned tone that’s full of side weirdos and yuri hyperspace. It’s also uniquely focused, with a tiny core cast and even Shimamura doesn’t really matter all that much. This is all about Adachi, and thankfully Adachi is amazing. Amazingly awkward, that is. It’s very cute. So yeah, this is a bit too lacking in substance to aspire to classic status, but it’s a great time nonetheless. 8/10

#anime #review #fall2020 #Hypnosis Mic -Division Rap Battle- Rhyme Anima #Assault Lily Bouquet #The King's Avatar #Heaven Official's Blessing #Ochikobore Fruit Tart #Majo no Tabitabi #Love Live! Nijigasaki #Garupa Pico Oomori #Fire Force S2 #IDOLiSH7 #Adachi to Shimamura

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felassan · 4 years

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Tevinter Nights

Major Plot Details & Story Summaries for stories 1, 3 and 5

There are no leaks, these are just available to see in previews.

[spoiler warning for all stories jic, obviously]

Three Trees To Midnight

The opening story is set about one week after the fall of Ventus in Tevinter to the invading Qunari in 9:44 Dragon. (This event was shown in the comic Dragon Age: Deception.) The Qunari invasion is progressing beyond Ventus and moving into Rivain. The Qunari Antaam have attacked the people of the south without the blessing of the other Qunari societal bodies. Consequently, their efforts are somewhat hampered as they are without their usual support-base of workers, healers, craftspeople, spies. Little things are not running as well as they should - supplies are late, ships are not in good repair. The absence of the Ben-Hassrath means that there is nobody to determine which captured bas mages should and should not be given the mind-altering substance qamek, or to measure out the correct doses. The Antaam are taking many prisoners as they go and enslaving them in work-gangs. They are also giving large, mentally-lethal doses of qamek to every single bas mage they capture. Small doses of qamek shackle the mind. Large doses completely break it and leave the recipient effectively lobotomized forever.

Saarbrak of the Ben-Hassrath posed as a member of the Antaam and went to investigate the rumors he had heard of these actions. The Antaam who took Ventus were not acting in accordance with the Qun. Saarbrak knows that some of the bas now call Qunari monsters as a result. He is disappointed in the Antaam, and believes that it is their actions that truly threaten the Qun. He kills Bas-taar, keeper of bas slaves and work-camp overseer. Bas-taar was a leading figure in the conquering of Ventus.

A few Dalish elves snuck into Ventus as it was being sacked to get information about the Qunari invasion. They succeeded, stealing Qunari plans just as Ventus fell. One of them leaves to quickly get word to the Dalish clans before the Qunari land in Rivain.

We visit Arlathan Forest for the first time. The spirits in there are very old and powerful, remember what once was and can feel the moods and fears of those who enter. The woods are also home to rare entities known as forest guardians, which are large quadrupedal structures made out of wood, stone, runes and lyrium. They have two lethal blade arms which they swing around in combat and may be powered by magic, but it is not clear. They are not usually hostile to elves in the forest and in this story one responds aggressively to hostile intruding Qunari.

A City Elf who joined the Dalish and a human Tevinter mage (mlm) who originated from a slave family unwillingly join forces as they escape from an Antaam work-camp where they had been imprisoned and flee into the forest. Along the way they begrudgingly learn to work together and by the end they have developed a sort of mutual respect for one another, thanks to this trial by fire.

The Horror of Hormak

In a Nevarran forest, Wardens Ramesh (mlm) and Lesha are on a rescue mission to find a missing party of their colleagues. The lost group had been led by one Senior Warden Jovis (mlm). It is implied that Ramesh and Jovis were in love but Ramesh pulled away due to the trials of Warden life, leaving things between them unsaid and unfinished, many years ago. Everything about the woods they’re in feels wrong, bad, off. Lesha’s horse spooks and flees. There’s a weird briny smell and there seems to be something horrid and predatory and squishy-sounding lurking around; there’s a decidedly “DA:O build up to the Broodmother reveal” vibe going on through this whole short. They find one of the missing Wardens, Friedl. She’s raving mad, has snapped, and has gouged her own eyes out. She garbles creepily about something “down there, something bad”. Jovis’ party thought it was darkspawn, but it’s worse. Different. Not twisted, created. She says she escaped and pleads with them not to make her go back. “We must leave this place to her, to them.” She screams and sobs. “They build it for her! They wait for her!”

The Wardens make camp for the night, tieing Friedl up so she doesn’t harm herself. In the night she whispers and mutters. Friedl chews through her restraints and then her wrists and bleeds out. She trailed thin gray fluid behind her, and when they find her body gallons of the weird liquid pour out of her mouth, for a long time. Disgusted, they build a pyre for her and press on. The woods fall away and they reach a mountain. They find evidence of a large fight between the missing Wardens and darkspawn. There are dozens of darkspawn corpses, insane amounts of Warden blood, but no Warden bodies. Clearly something awful is going on. They notice the darkspawn bodies are different, mutated like no darkspawn has ever been known to be. Extra heads and limbs, genlock parts on hurlocks and such like. Ramesh and Lesha are disturbed but find a staircase down into a dwarven thaig called Hormok. They descend into the most decrepit thaig Ramesh has ever seen. Hormok fell centuries ago and it’s unexpectedly, oddly quiet. They find coded marks made by the missing Wardens which say they don’t plan to come back and warn others not to come after them. The two resolve firmly to go after them as Wardens leave nobody behind. At that moment, darkspawn appear. They are also changed, each in a different way. Scorpion tails, avian skulls, snake heads for fists, bat wings. And they’re strangely cunning.

The Wardens defeat them. They search and find a secret door, and descend further down a passageway. The stench of decay and brine is even stronger. They find a painting of three figures; a person/supplicant, a priestess/queen and a monster. The figures themselves look elven but the artistic style seems dwarven or like Avvar cave paintings. Further on the same painting repeats many times, but in each instance of it the person and monster change and change again. The priestess seems to look a little crueler in every iteration. This freaks them out but they press on. Further still they find a vast room which is clearly part of some elven ruins. Sometimes in the Deep Roads Wardens find elven architecture mixed in with dwarven, but this place is entirely elven, nearly pristine and ornate with carvings. The walls are covered in endlessly repeating bas-reliefs. On the top row, elven knights and queens hold court over respectful kneeling folk. On the middle row, elven mages heal patients and remove illness and injury from their bodies. On the bottom row, armies of halla pull elaborate aravels to distant mountains - one of which is the same mountain they’re beneath now. The more they stare, the more disquieting the carvings become. A halla horn symbol repeats on each column and seems to shift before their eyes. They look back at the bas-reliefs, which now seem all wrong. Prison-ship aravels, alien insectile halla with too many horns, mages forcing corruption into the infirm, contemptuous rulers and terrified subjects.

They tear themselves away and find the final door. The smell is now overpowering. They slip through and find ranks of twisted grotesqueries, a menagerie of twisted body parts assembled at random. A halla with a snake’s maw and varterral legs. A spider with many serpents instead of many eyes. In the center, there’s a massive pool of the gross gray liquid. Above a huge lyrium crystal is suspended and growing sickly green. Streams of energy flow from it into the pool. Darkspawn walk in, the ‘water’ flows round them and when the ‘cocoon’ shatters, out comes another fucked up darkspawn. This is an army, but not of darkspawn, of something worse. The Wardens accidentally make a noise. The boulder they’re hiding behind isn’t a boulder. It’s a massive monstrous centipede. Each segment is the size of a horse, each leg a small tree. It screeches and surrounds them with all the grotesqueries baying in a cacophany. But the centipede’s head isn’t a head, it’s Senior Warden Jovis, twisted and broken. He’s fused to it, the flesh of his waist flowing into chitin, eyes unseeing, mouth stretched. The thing recognizes and talks to Ramesh. It’s clearly wrestling between being Jovis and being the creature. The Jovis-thing tells Ramesh his party of Wardens drank. Unlike darkspawn they can’t just touch the liquid, it needs to be inside, and it takes a while for the change to happen. “They turned us. Two halves, two wholes. Trying to be two ones. But I stayed me, and it hates that. And we waited for you! Oh, yes! Now you come.”

The monster begs Ramesh to “bury it, bury me”. “Can’t let this out. She cannot have it. Not again. Locked for a reason. Collapse the entrance. Stop me, stop us.” The remaining humanity in the thing is suddenly gone. The Wardens fight it and the other beasts. Lesha dies holding everything off so Ramesh can escape. He runs and runs and manages to bring the mountain down on the monstrosity before it can escape, using dwarven explosives they passed on their way in. Ramesh grieves and weeps, and goes to warn the other Wardens about the horror that lurks beneath Hormok, and probably elsewhere as well. He realizes with slow terror that in the bas-reliefs, the aravels brought their prey not only to the mountain he’d just brought down, but to eleven others.

(yo I’m lookin at you Ghilan’nain)

Luck In The Gardens

In a tavern in Dairsmuid, Rivain, a Lord of Fortune (who is Rivaini and almost certainly genderfluid, non-binary, bigender or similar - “I’ve always just thought of myself a myself, and had fun in the bargain”), sits by a fire drinking with companions. They narrate to their audience a tale of something they recently got up to in good ol’ Minrathous. Lords of Fortune are new additions to the lore. This group is a multi-species, Rivaini guild of treasure-hunters and dungeoneers, where all members regardless of gender seem to be called Lords. In Minrathous, this Lord had been given a tip on where to find information for a job in the city. This individual is a master of disguise; clothes, wigs, makeup, vocal changes, across-gender presentations. They can even disguise themselves as some of the other races of Thedas (as in human, elf, dwarf, qunari).

So. Our LoF goes to the docks at night-time and sneaks into a building where a meeting is to take place. They secrete themselves in the rafters. A bunch of magisters come in and start playing cards, a secret game of Wicked Grace for the slumming elect. They chat away and the LoF listens in. Talk turns to what the LoF is there to hear. There are flyers plastered around town with a reward posted for someone to kill some kind of demon or monster that is plaguing the city. The LoF is there to listen into see what they know about the monster. A former Venatori dude says he’s heard it’s got something to do with the Venatori. A man with a curled mustache pipes up. Surprise, it’s Dorian Pavus! The group wonder if the monster is a Venatori abomination. It isn’t, they just encountered it during a search under the city for a cave. It’s not a demon and it killed all of them. The rafter cracks and our LoF falls, shocking everyone. Dorian acts quickly and is able to convince everyone he knows them and they are his lookout. LoF plays along. Maevaris is also there! Dorian and the LoF, who we’ll now call Hollix because that’s what Dorian randomly named them, take their leave, chat and become acquainted.

Dorian says Josie is his dear friend and she sends him gifts, a few choice bottles from her vineyards. His house no longer has slaves, only employs servants, a change he says he’s ashamed to have only made recently. Someone he met in the south, obviously Inky, changed his mind on the matter. Hollix has never met another mage of Dorian’s station who doesn’t keep slaves. Mae arrives. Dorian and Mae are on the outs with most of the rest of the Magisterium. The state of the Magisterium makes Dorian raggedly depressed. Mae calls him dearheart. Their duty to their country means they have to be well-informed about it. Dorian was the one who posted the flyer. The monster is killing people, Vints aren’t all heartless and he and Mae don’t like the idea of something like this in their city. But lately the political rumblings in the Magisterium mean they’ve had to spend all their time keeping their eyes on scoundrels, such as at the card game. They are trying to win a few of them over. It’s been slow but they’re giving them a chance to prove they’re not complete fools. This busyness is why they can’t hunt the monster themselves.

The three discuss the monster. It’s killed at least 9 people. Town criers dubbed it the Cekorax, “headsman”. Victims’ heads are never found. Hollix agrees to hunt it. Hollix eventually finds it in the sewers. It’s a Lovecraftian wormy bulk with a thrashing mass of tentacles that radiates joyful malice. Its voice is many voices speaking together and it calls Hollix “Visitor”. Some parts on its tentacles open to show real human eyes studded in there. Its voices urge Hollix “Stay with us. Come inside, where it’s warm. There is room in the crown of the blind. I am a sweeter ending than you know. Things are rising. Stay safe inside of me.” Hollix runs and escapes. Later Hollix is walking in the fancy gardens. The Cekorax taunts them and they realize it can come out of the sewers/water, since its coils run behind grass and under the base of trees. It’s the perfect predator, surrounding you, nestled everywhere. “No more false faces. No masks. There will be others. They will be joined in me.” Hollix eventually devises a cunning plan to kill the Cekorax. They convince it to show them “its whole”. It opens up like a lily and inside is a ring of severed heads, eyes gouged out but otherwise healthy, the source of the voices; the crown of the blind it refers to. Dorian, Mae and Hollix kill the monster using magic, gaatlok and a harpoon. It dissolves, the heads fall and blue-white liquid pours away.

Dorian escorts Hollix to the docks where they will leave, and Hollix gets their reward. The two wonder what the Cekorax was. Ancient breed of demon? Fiend brewed up by a magister? Dorian was at a party with a Mortalitasi a while ago. Five cups in, she went on about “things past the Veil of our world, neither demon nor spirit”. Perhaps it wasn’t the tipsy nonsense he assumed it to be.

Mae sends her regards but couldn’t see Hollix off due to intrigue striking in the Magisterium. Mae arranged for a ship to take Hollix home. Dorian says Hollix to consider this one last courtesy, as he and Mae would hate to leave Hollix with a bad impression of their fair city, although Hollix never wants to return. They part amicably.

#dragon age #bioware #video games #strife #tevinter nights #tevinter nights spoilers #tevinter nights spoiler #spoilers #spoiler

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obviouslyelementary · 4 years

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Nightmare - reed900

It was bright.

Everything was so god damned bright!

The chairs smelled like new rubber, the walls were pristine clean, the floor reflected the image of whoever walked by, and it was insane how different it felt from a hospital, even if in theory should be one.

The hallways were quiet and there were bright lights everywhere. There was no peace, no dark spot to hide in, and the longer he stayed in that god forbidden waiting room, the more he felt his insides twisting and turning, his hands shaking and the sweat coming down his temples as he avoided any water from coming out of his eyes. It was too fucking much, and he was alone.

Alone as he always was.

No one to hold his hand, no one there to talk to him. He looked around slowly, trying to find a living soul, but his eyes moved over the glass walls in front of him and immediately drifted back down to his lap. He couldn't look up, he couldn't face his worst fears. The steady beeping was still ringing in his ears as he tried to push himself away from that place.

Why was he always alone?

He let out a sob, small and quiet, and covered his face so that no one could see him cry. There was no one to see it, but even so, he wanted to cover himself up and make sure that nothing, no one, in no way, would see the tears that left his eyes and got soaked up by his jacket. He was tired-no, exhausted, and he didn't know how he was going to deal with all the feelings that stormed through his insides. He just wanted to leave, but he couldn't leave.

He would never.

Days seemed to pass right before his eyes, and there he was, sitting on that same chair, with doctor Maria standing in front of him. She was saying something, babbling about it, but he couldn't hear it at all. He knew what she was saying, he didn't have to hear. When she left, he saw the body in the next room rise, and his legs pushed him up as quickly as they could as he ran inside the glass room, breathing hard as the tears went down his cheeks.

"Nines..."

"I am RK900, the new Cyberlife prototype, ready to assist you" the android responded, cold and stoic, and he felt like he lost his ground, falling into a large abyss, his heart ripping in half.

No, no, no, not this, not like this.

He reached up as he fell into the darkness, while Nines stared at him from the top of the canyon, surrounded by light, a light he couldn’t reach, he could hold onto, and he did nothing to help, Nines just stared, cold, lifeless, as he fell deeper and deeper, screaming, crying, trying to hold on to anything.

-----

Gavin gasped as he woke up, jolting awake and sitting up in a quick movement that would have left him dizzy if he wasn't with his adrenaline up to the highest degree. He breathed hard, panting, staring forward at the TV, feeling himself all sweaty and gross, a single tear coming down his eye before he wiped it quickly and looked around, desperately looking for something.

His cat meowed in annoyance as he moved over to grab his cellphone, taking a few tries to finally type the right password, before he pressed his emergency contact and closed his eyes as he waited for them to pick up.

After a single ring, there he was.

"Gavin?" Nines' soft voice came through the line, and Gavin let out a gasp he didn't know he was holding, holding his own tank top tight in his hand over his heart as he immediately tried to control himself. Everything was okay. It was just a bad dream. Just a nightmare. "Gavin? Gavin are you okay?"

"Y-yeah tin can" he said, his voice breaking slightly as he sniffled and let out a relieved sigh. "Yeah... I'm fine."

"Are you having nightmares again? Do you want me to come over?" Nines asked, always worried and ready to help, but Gavin just shook his head and laid down again, reaching for the cat.

"No I'm good now... I just needed to hear your voice" he admitted, quietly, looking down at his purring cat as he held the phone tight in his hand. "Can you come over in the morning? Like breakfast time?" he asked, knowing Nines would want to talk and there was no way he would talk about any of that at work.

"Yes of course Gavin... call me if you need anything and please try to get some more sleep" Nines said, knowing what Gavin meant by coming over, and letting him rest again. Gavin smiled to himself, closing his eyes again.

"Will do. Night Nines."

"Goodnight Gavin."

-----

When Nines arrived at the apartment, it was seven sharp. Gavin opened the door, still somewhat sleepy from waking up fifteen minutes ago, but he wiped the sleep off his eyes and yawned as he pushed his hair back. Once inside, Nines closed and locked the door and looked at him worriedly.

That look plus the silence that followed was enough for Gavin to simply lean in and steal a kiss from Nines that left his little LED yellow. How had he found himself such a shy little android?

"Morning" Gavin said with a loopy smile, heading into the kitchen where his cat was already making a fuzz about food, and Nines took a second before he followed him, both easily falling into their little places as Nines served Gavin some just made coffee and Gavin made sure to clean his cat's bowl of water.

They stayed in silence during the chores, cooking breakfast and watching the cat, and once Gavin had some eggs and bacon with some side coffee and Nines had his daily thririum dosage in hands, they both sat down and began taking their breakfast together, both knowing the conversation was about to start.

"So... Was it the same nightmare as before?" Nines asked, softly, breaking the ice, and Gavin had to hold back a sigh. In a way, yes. He had been having nightmares like this for a few weeks now. But also no, because he had never told Nines about them, so Nines probably thought they were the same nightmares as in dying alone in the cold winter.

Oh how times had changed.

"No" Gavin said, taking a gulp from his coffee and sighing. "In fact I have been lying to you for... a few weeks" he added, and watched as Nines' LED turned from yellow to red and his eyebrows furrowed. "I have stopped having that nightmare about me dying in the street for a long, long time now. So every time these last weeks when I told you they were that nightmare, I was lying. Sorry about that."

"Gavin..." Nines said, and the disappointment was real in hi voice. He stopped and let out a calm sigh before his LED turned yellow. "Look, as much as I understand your need to keep things for yourself, and I respect it, I also know that lying isn't going to make you feel any better, if not even worst. So please, next time you don't want to talk about a subject, just tell me so. Don't lie."

"Easier said than done" Gavin chuckled but when he looked at Nines, he furrowed his eyebrows, making Gavin's cheeky smile disappear. "Fine fine sorry..."

"So now... do you want to tell me about that nightmare or would you rather we forget about it and move on?" he asked politely, and Gavin let out a deep sigh before shaking his head.

"No I wat to tell you. Maybe that's the answer to stop having them" he said, looking at his eggs before looking back up at Nines. "My nightmares have to do with you."

Nines LED turned red for a split second before turning back to yellow, and his eyes widened in surprise.

"Me?"

"Yes you" Gavin said, pointing the fork at Nines with a fake frown and then chuckling. "Don't worry it's not... um... I'll explain it to you. I keep having nightmares about when Ada corrupted your files."

He gave Nines a keep look and the android seemed to relax a little at that clarification.

"What about it?" he asked, and Gavin sighed, playing with his eggs silently.

"Well... there have been different iterations of the same nightmare... in some you just... don't wake up and they have to destroy you. In some you simply stay in a coma forever. The one last night... you woke up, but they had to reset you so you didn't remember me at all" he said, softly, and looked up at Nines again, to see his worried little robot face. It would be adorable if it wasn't making him feel so vulnerable. "Stuff like that..."

"You and your nightmares about things that did not happen" Nines said, with a small smile, trying to lighten up the mood and indeed making a small smile show up on Gavin's face. Then he turned soft and moved his hand, offering it to Gavin, and it slowly turned white and robotic as it always did. "I'm here."

Gavin almost, almost let out a sob at that, but he didn't, simply letting go of his knife and holding Nines' hand back, feeling the cold android surface, the little lines that made his circuits and wiring... he was beautiful, and Gavin didn't know how to deal with that very well.

How had he turned out so lucky?

"I really... really don't want to lose you" he whispered, tangling their fingers slowly, and looking back up at Nines, seeing him giving Gavin a smile.

"And you won't. I'm right here. For whatever you need, Gavin" he said, firm and sure, his LED finally turning to blue. Gavin sighed and stood up, leaning over the table and holding Nines' face with his other hand after letting go of the fork, lifting his head up and kissing him slow and gentle over their food, just because he really wanted to.

He was scared of giving himself so openly to someone, but he felt like Nines was his most secure bet, and the one he truly wanted the most. And he would probably keep getting nightmares, but he would always have a safe place to go, no matter how bad the dream was.

He wasn't going to lose his Nines, not now and not ever.

#my fanfic #reed900 #detroit evolution #nightmare #soft #sweet #detroit become human #gavin reed #rk900 #nines

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metalandmagi · 5 years

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December End of the Year Media Madness!

It’s a new month and a new year! And what a crazy month it was what with Tumblr imploding and all. But I’ll still throw this on here just because I’ll be on this site until it literally boots me out. But I do have a twitter now…@metalandmagi where I’m also barely active at all.

Anyway, why make top 10 lists for the entire year when I can just ramble about all the media I consumed this month? There’s only a marginal amount of holiday things on here by my standards!

November media

Movies!

Give me some credit there’s only four Christmas movies on here.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?: A documentary about Mr. Rogers starting with the birth of the television show to his death. This is the fluffiest most heartwarming thing I could have possibly picked to watch on Christmas, and I encourage everyone, even people who hate documentaries and/or never grew up with Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, to watch it. There’s a lot of important messages about acceptance, dealing with tragedy, and mental health that people can learn from and feel good about. Not to mention how he completely revolutionized children’s television. So yeah, he was awesome.10/10

Spider-man Into the Spider-verse: When a rip between dimensions is opened, a bunch of different spider themed superheroes from every comic fan’s wet dreams all get together to close it. Guys I’m not that big of a Spider-man fan, but dang this movie was a ton of fun. I came for the amazing visual effects and stayed for the amazing...everything else. The music, the performances, and the story were all top notch. Also I now have a new favorite Nick Cage role. If you thought the trailer made the animation look interesting, it was just the tip of the iceberg because it is the most visually interesting movie I’ve seen in the last three years. I strongly suggest any fan of animation...or even any fan of great stories and movies in general go see it even if you’re not that big on Spider-Man. Now I’m demanding a Spider-verse Aunt May movie because I have so many questions! And the post credits scene was the best out of any Marvel movie. Period. 10,000/10

The Wiz (2015 musical): I should start making a section for musicals or plays instead of just lumping it in with the movies. It’s the Wizard of Oz...but cool. I’ve never seen any iteration of The Wiz and it seems like I’m constantly hearing about it. So I watched the 2015 version of the 1975 Broadway musical that NBC aired. And yeah it’s good. There were some great performances. But I wasn’t very impressed with the songs themselves, and it’s not really the same without a dog along for the ride, but whatever. 7.5/10

Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle: The surprisingly fun reboot/sequel thing of Jumanji where four teenagers get stuck in a video game that follows every “stuck in a video game” trope you can imagine but actually does it well. It’s a sweet, funny romp through the jungle with some great comedic performances. I really don’t have much to say about it except that this movie is better than it has any right to be. 8/10

The Christmas Chronicles: Two children stow away on Kurt Russell’s, I mean Santa’s sleigh and go on a dangerous, balls to the wall adventure throughout Chicago trying to save Christmas or something. After everyone started talking about how crazy this Netflix movie is I had to watch it to verify if it is indeed as wild as they said. And yes...yes it is. It is so laughably ridiculous and questionable that it’s impossible to actually hate. The elves are some unholy mixture of minions and gremlins, one of the children is a literal felon that no one is concerned about, and Kurt Russell is super into the role but has some sort of thing about fat-shaming Santa. I just...have so many questions! But it was certainly a trip, so I’d have to recommend it just so you too can witness the insanity. -10 “savvy, straight-talking St. Nicks”/10

Arthur Christmas: No, it’s not a Christmas special related to the aardvark cartoon! This is the 2011 animated movie that no one remembers exists. Santa’s clumsy but enthusiastic son Arthur must deliver a forgotten present in less than two hours while the rest of his family deals with some Arrested Development style family drama. This is by far the most underrated Christmas movie of all time; even I didn’t realize it was actually good until I watched it for the first time in 2016! The fun road-trip style plot and the entertaining characters were victims of bad marketing. Arthur is hilariously endearing, and there was so much heart and effort put into it that I can find new things to notice every time I watch it. Not to mention the amazingly animated opening spy sequence! And also Mrs. Claus is secretly a total badass and Bryony the elf is the coolest female character in a Christmas movie ever. The movie’s message of old vs new is nothing we haven’t seen before, but I really don’t care because at the heart of it all, it’s about making people happy on Christmas. If you’re like me and just assumed this movie would suck...or didn’t know it exists, please give it a chance. It’s not perfect, but it’s worth seeing. 9/10

Neo Yokio Pink Christmas: Yes, it’s the Christmas special for Neo Yokio. No I cannot accurately describe it with mere words. There’s a rich bachelor gift exchange, demon possession, and pompous French aunts slinging insults at each other. It is unironically my favorite holiday episode of a show ever, and to me it’s the best Christmas special ever made. I thought I was prepared for the absolute bat-shit ride I would go on, but no...I wasn’t even close. At this point I don’t know if it’s written like this on purpose or if some divine twist of fate made the executives believe this is truly brilliant television. Either way, it is a masterpiece in its own right. There’s even a somewhat intriguing plot and a message about gift giving and capitalism under all the crazy! If you haven’t jumped down the rabbit hole yet, I implore you to watch the insanity that is Neo Yokio and follow it up with Pink Christmas because it will truly make your holiday season. 100,000 demon DNA drugs out of 100,000!

Die Hard: Nothing says Christmas like terrorists taking over a skyscraper and Bruce Willis having to take them all down by himself. Yeah...so I’ve never seen Die Hard before, but this is one of those movies that is so famous that I felt like I’d already absorbed everything important through cultural osmosis. And even though it’s pretty good, I would have liked it better if I didn’t know what was going to happen. My only real complaint is that I think it goes on way too long. More than anything it just made me sad to remember that Alan Rickman is gone. And it bothers me so much that John McClane goes through this building that’s under construction WITHOUT SHOES! 8/10

Books!

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis: The 4th/6th book in the Chronicles of Narnia, in which Eustace Scrubb and his classmate Jill Pole go to the underworld to find King Caspian’s long lost son. Even though my children- the Pevensies aren’t in it, I actually think this book is my favorite of the series so far. Jill and Eustace are both sassy enough to play off each other, Puddleglum absolutely hilarious, and the book actually has a clear cut plot! It reads much more like a Greek myth than a children’s fairy tale since there aren’t nearly as many of Lewis’s trademark author interjections, and you know...it’s a literal journey to the underworld. And can I just say that it’s super refreshing to have an author write two main characters WITH ZERO ROMANTIC INTENTIONS! Especially since they’re freaking children! Now I just wish Disney had continued the movies even more! 9/10

Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare: I’m going to do this with only minor spoilers. It’s the final book in The Dark Artifices trilogy. Will Emma and Julian break the parabatai bond? Will the reflection of the modern day American government- I mean the Cohort/ the Clave fuck up the relationships between Shadowhunters and Downworlders forever? You’ll have to suffer like the rest of us to find out! In my opinion, 99% of this book is amazing, but in the last 50 pages there are some...bullshit ways of solving problems. Like everything that went down with the Cohort in Idris. Not to mention we’ve been so invested in the parabatai curse and how Julian and Emma’s bond would go down and...let’s just say the resolution was way too easy. And if you thought Clare’s other finales were jam packed, you ain't seen nothin’ yet. My copy is 880 pages and there was still more stuff that I wanted to happen...like any sort of scene between Dru and Ash...or an ending between Kit and Ty that doesn’t make me want to cry (the Wicked Powers is going to be brutal). But the rest of that 99% is mind-blowing! There’s so much good I can say that it mostly outranks anything I didn’t like...I mean we finally got a Malec wedding and a proper polyamorous relationship for the Angel’s sake! It may be my least favorite of her finales by default but it was still a fun ride! 9/10

TV shows!

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018): An elite soldier finds a sword that can transform her into a super buff magical girl who helps princesses take down the forces of evil. It’s a reboot of the 1980s cartoon, and holy crap it’s AMAZING! I have a whole new group of children to adopt, each episode is entertaining in its own way, and there’s so...many...good...ships! And it gives Steven Universe a run for its money with the care that went into making every character a different kind of warrior, which I love because the cast is 99% female. My only real complaint is that I never warmed up to Catra because she wasn’t particularly sympathetic to me from the beginning. But I understand why some people love her. If you love well crafted adventurous character driven cartoons and haven’t watched it yet WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? 10/10

Nailed It Holiday: Yes, my favorite baking show (and by that I mean the only baking show I watch) has a holiday season out on Netflix, in which newbie bakers are tasked with making incredibly professional desserts with a very short time limit. And whoever makes the best treat gets 10,000 dollars. I’ve talked about this show before in my June media madness, and I don’t know what it is but I’m so addicted to it. 10/10

Brooklyn nine-nine (season 5): Come on we all know the cop sitcom. It’s the best sitcom. Just in general it’s the best. Great characters that subvert expectations, great humor, and a lot of heart. I’ve known that this show is supposed to be amazing for years, but I only started watching it a few months ago. And since I couldn’t find season 5 anywhere...I got a Hulu subscription just to watch it before season 6 comes out. That’s how good this show is. 10/10

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (season 2): Our favorite underdog comedian is back, and she’s slowly gaining popularity and doing...stuff. Like going on tour. And hanging out with Zachary Levi. Yes, this season is great, but my problem with this series is that every character aside from Midge and Susie are the fucking worst, especially the parents. Midge’s parents suck, Joel’s parents suck, Midge and Joel are appropriately neglectful parents for the time period...I could go on. And it’s not even in a funny way; like it’s just disgusting to watch these power dynamics. Not to mention how old the comedic bits for the parents get (how many times can we hear about Joel needing to date or Midge needing to get married?!) Yes, I realize that we’re supposed to be annoyed AND YES I realize that this is a product of culture and how society was, but none of the parents have any redeeming qualities. In episode one, we’re led to believe that Midge’s parents will grow and change through the season and they never do! At least there are moments where Joel can kind of be redeeming and expand on his actual character before he reverts back to being an asshole. Anyway, my thoughts are pretty much the same as the first season. It’s funny and interesting to watch, but it can be ridiculously frustrating when you hate almost all the characters! 8/10

Fuller House (season 4): Yes I do watch the ridiculous Netflix reboot of Full House. And yes, it is absolutely terrible! I really really hate it! But will I stop watching it? Let’s just say you can pry this pile of garbage from my cold dead hands. I don’t know if I’d call this a guilty pleasure or a hate watch type of show... it’s certainly not so bad it’s good territory like Neo Yokio...but Full House was pretty much my entire childhood. And yes, the original show is also not great. I loved it as a kid, and it was my first real exposure to a non-traditional family in live action, but yeah it doesn’t age well. What I’m trying to say is...I have no good reason for watching this.

I don’t mean to say that there’s nothing good about it, especially this season. They really back off on the more cringe-worthy catch phrases, Stephanie being aware of how stupid the writing is and constantly pointing it out is actually funny, their Christmas episode was surprisingly genuine, and they impressed me by actually make two female characters try and work through their difficulties instead of pitting them against each other for laughs. It has its moments, just like the original but definitely not enough to make up for the worst of it. Maybe this generation of children will like it the way lots of my generation used to like Full House...but yeah it’s awful, I hate it so much. -1 missing Tanner child out of 3

Voltron Legendary Defender (season 8) SPOILERS: It’s the final season of Netflix’s Voltron, and boy it was...something. I didn’t want to make this a big rant/defense of the show...but I feel like I have to highlight some things because this fandom is a shithole that refuses to see the good in anything.

There is so much good and so much...not good I can say about it, so here’s a couple things. I know this show didn’t go the direction anyone wanted, but that doesn’t make it bad. In addition to the stunning fight scenes and music, the performances this season were just amazing! I literally wanted to cry every other episode even though sometimes I didn’t know why the fuck something was happening. I don’t know how I feel about Honerva’s plan. I understand her motivation, but I was constantly questioning how we got from point A to point B... so yeah the plot and writing could be...weird at times. Also everyone seemed to have super pointy chins this season...

Spoiler alert: Not many of us wanted Lance and Allura to happen, but I truly believe it wasn’t done in a half assed way. At the very least, I appreciate that they had a genuine bond that developed over so many seasons. BECAUSE YES IT DID! Anyone who says they had no development or that it felt forced never paid attention. I wanted it to stay platonic; I wanted Klance to happen, but...I can’t be too mad at the writers because they at least tried. I still believe that Klance was endgame and the creators were forced to change the outcome of the show later on. AND YES LANCE DID GET A CHARACTER ARC! It may not have been the one we wanted to see, but I’m baffled that people think Lance living with his family, surrounded by people he loves-which is what he wanted all along- is not a happy ending. I just wish his relationship with Keith wasn’t pretty much ignored all season. But I believe Allura is his past that taught him to genuinely love and Keith is his future who will make Lance his “first choice”. And I’m not even gonna try to explain how I feel about Shiro and Allura’s endings because everything I feel is so complicated and layered. There is good and there is bad.

TLDR: This show teaches us that we’re stronger together, and I think the “fandom” completely missed the point because they do nothing but tear others down and refuse to look at things from other perspectives. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO NOT LIKE IT, BUT YOU DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO TAKE AWAY OTHER PEOPLE’S ENJOYMENT AND BE A DICK ABOUT IT. It may not have been everything I wanted, but I’m glad I went on this ride. Besides, there are canonically infinite realities so there’s got to be a reality where all your dreams for the show come true. As a season, I’d say it’s a 7.5/10.

Honorable Mentions

I watched Avengers: Infinity War again. And yes it’s still great.

I’m watching Superstore because when another sitcom comes on before The Good Place, why not? Also since I finished season 5 of Brooklyn 99 I had to use my Hulu subscription for something.

Camp Camp has a holiday episode...so naturally I watched it...several times. Please watch Camp Camp.

Hellsing Ultimate Abridged finally ended, and I feel obligated to shout this out because, hey when you put out one episode a year it’s a big accomplishment to finish it!

Super Smash Bros Ultimate is finally here!!!!!!!!!!!

ALL THE WINTER ANIME IS ENDING!!! They were all so amazing! So shout out to Iroduku-The world in colors, Bloom into You, Hinomaru Sumo, Dakaichi, Banana Fish, Jingai no Yomen, Golden Kamuy, Skull-faced Bookseller Honda-san, Tsurune, AND RUN WITH THE WIND even though they’re not finished yet.

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smashmusicideas · 6 years

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June 25: How the Ultimate Trailer Works So Well

Amongst all the thoughts and discussion regarding Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, I don’t think any individual element of the game - even more than the confirmation of Ridley - warranted the level of adoration and excitement as not just the inclusion of every Smash character ever, but the short “Challenger Approaching” trailer explaining that.

So I decided I’d take some time and analyze it for how it works. Hoo boy, did that take longer than I expected.

youtube

For ease (and because I’m, well, lazy), I’ll be splitting this up into bullet points. I should also note that I’m avoiding a lot of stage analysis except in certain cases, largely because the emphasis on fighters is the focus. Also, this is quite long, so a “read more” tag is needed for this one.

Before the video: Sakurai adds this whole “character numbering” element, which is odd. Most viewers less familiar with this scheme (which has mostly always existed within the series) assumed this indicated the total number of characters from the start, but more than that it inherently acknowledges cut characters, something Sakurai tries to avoid as to not make their fans feel worse. No matter who is watching, it’s odd, and sets up the actual video in a way that feels odd.

00:02 - 00:15: We see Battlefield, something which since Brawl has always functioned as a focal point for the series - kind of in the way Mario does, too, which is why he appears here. Traditionally, Mario is also the character who reflects the visual direction of each game the most, so his “Brawl meets Smash For“ art style confirms it as a new game, one that will marry multiple iterations of Smash.

0015 - 00:28: Kirby, Samus, and Bowser are all Smash staples (two from the first game, one from Melee). They’re also not in numerical order, telling us to not expect things in a “normal” way. They also more clearly show a few returning stages, Castle Siege and Green Greens in particular, and Giga Bowser seems to function in a far new way.

00:28 - 00:34: Link is also one of the central Smash characters, but his drastic redesign tells us further that this will be a new iteration - one that will look to more recent games, at least in part (we also see a new Breath of the Wild stage, alongside Temple). Keep in mind that he gets a huge amount of time to emphasize this.

00:34 - 0:44: We see a lot of Donkey Kong (including a change to his Giant Punch), but it’s Falco’s appearance in 00:42 that’s surprising. He’s typically and understandably a hidden character; showing him off is kind of bizarre. For most viewers, it’ll just seem nice for a beloved character to return, but for the more attentive first-time viewers it is somewhat odd and continues the off-kilter vibe of Sakurai’s introduction.

00:44 - 00:48: Marth casually shows off the new changes to Shield Breaker, just like with DK earlier. Further indication that old fighters will have, to quote Sakurai from a decade ago, a “slightly different flavor this time around,” and that it won’t simply be an expanded port of Smash for Wii U (this emphasis will continue throughout the video and into Nintendo’s continued promotion of the game.

00:48 - 00:52: New Zelda! Not really new Sheik! Their having their default costumes implies they will remain separate fighters, and Zelda’s in particular bucks a trend of Zelda and Link’s costumes coming from the same game.

00:52 - 00:54: Our first post-Melee fighter, Villager, shows a new ability. His appearance also begins to move us from the more classic Smash fighters into a wider variety of ones new and old.

00:55 - 00:58: Meta Knight and Mewtwo. Notable for the former being the first Brawl character in general and the first one shown, and for the latter being the first Pokémon representative - before Pikachu, even. Mewtwo also looks like it did in Smash For, an indication the DLC would not be ignored.

00:59 - 01:01: And here comes Sonic - with a new version of Super Sonic and a returning Green Hill Zone in tow - as the biggest guest fighter out there, though that doesn’t confirm whether less established third party content would be joining him.

1:02 - 1:08: Peach and Pikachu, each with slight new changes in how Toad and Volt Tackle work. It’s notable how long it took to get to either of them, though their being more famous leads nicely into...

1:09 - 1:15: the Ice Climbers! Their return is such a big moment it’s hard to notice we’ve also got a returning Summit (and Living Room), and they unsurprisingly get a whopping six seconds to show off how they look in HD.

1:16 - 1:21: And from a beloved, long lost fighter to a highly desired new one, Nana and Popo formally introduce Inkling, with both a male and female design in tow. We get a good look at how diverse their weapon selection is, alongside a new Splatoon stage.

1:22 - 1:27: Pretty much the only thing we need to see with Falcon is the Punch, while Zero Suit Samus and Wii Fit Trainer show that even the less “iconic” of the cast aren’t going to be ignored. Given Boxing Ring’s centrality to Smash For, its being so prominent here makes sense.

1:28 - 1:30: here’s where things get weirder. The Ice Climbers coming back makes sense, but the Pokémon Trainer? I don’t really think it’s vague on whether the switching mechanic will return (he’s in the back, so...), but it’s out of the blue in a way none of what we’ve seen here is. That it only lasts about two seconds makes it all the more shocking.

1:31 - 1:36: Ness and Lucas. A little surprising for the former, given his traditionally being a hidden fighter, and more so for the former, who was last in the series as DLC.

1:36 - 1:41: The DLC concern becomes even more noticeable now, with Ryu fighting yet another normally hidden fighter: Ganondorf, surprisingly sporting the classic Ocarina of Time design Melee used. It implies a far greater amount of changes than what we were initially expecting, and assures the less confident of us that even third party DLC will not be ignored.

1:41 - 1:44: And look who else is looking new, but Ike, who’s reverted to the design Brawl used...except he isn’t. While the Inklings were expected to have male and female versions, this is the first indication we’ll have more pronounced alternate costumes for specific characters.

1:45 - 1:51: Cloud’s inclusion is another important one at this point, because compared to other guest fighters, the possibility of his return seemed far more up in the air. He gets a lot of airtime, space that comfortably confirms his two outfits and Omnislash, a great flashy move to send us into the big moment.

1:52 - 1:55: If Cloud’s return wasn’t a sure thing, than Snake’s was a pipe dream for fans (myself included). Having one go to the other is smart, because after him, Ice Climbers, and Pokémon Trainer, Snake‘s chances feel so much more possible. And it works so well. We don’t see an attack, or anything, because we don’t need to. It’s Snake, on Shadow Moses Island. That’s enough for us, until...

1:56 - 2:01: “EVERYONE IS HERE!” really just speaks for itself, but I’d also like to note the small feature of Snake running right after the words appear. It’s subtle, but it’s a flash of energy leading to the rest of the video (an energy that is supported by the music, which becomes far more intense up until the end). And it’s important to him be behind the words, because by this point a viewer is processing them, recognizing the totality of what that means.

2:02 - 2:04: And to prove how serious that claim is, Jigglypuff - the last of the original cast (minus Luigi and Yoshi) - brings back Pichu, likely the very fighter most people would think of after hearing that “everyone is here”: “even Pichu?” That the joke character of Melee has returned is proof of the claim, an example of how insane and wild this project is planning to be. But despite how notable it is, the two Pokémon are onscreen for only two seconds.

2:15 - 2:18: Truthfully, the next few reveals are less exciting. Roy is the fifth DLC character revealed to return, but Olimar, Diddy, and Lucario are all fairly normal. But it’s with Lucina that we get yet another oddity. She’s 21ε - an indication that something different was being done with the then-called “clone characters.” It’s yet another indicator that Smash is going to be different, and in rather unexpected ways.

2:26: It’s not a big detail, but Dr. Mario lacks the Epsilon, indicating that he’s different from how he used to be (given that he, Lucina, and Dark Pit are associated as the Echoes of the previous iteration of Smash, it stands to reason people might look for that on him, too).

2:30 - 2:32: And there’s Dark Pit literally one shot after Doc, with the Epsilon. It’s important to keep it all in mind more easily. I also think it’s notable that Palutena’s moveset isn’t shown at all in here; it’s one more thing about which Sakurai’s been coy.

2:39 - 2:42: It’s important, I think, to have the two versions of Link show up together; it highlights how they’ve both functioned as spinoffs of one of Nintendo’s (and Smash‘s) most important heroes. By this point, Young Link is the final character (again, other than Luigi and Yoshi) who came from a game before Brawl; he’s important as one more reminder of this game’s scope.

2:46 - 2:49: And if there were any fighters whose fate would seem as up in the air as any third party character, it’d be the Mii Fighters. And yet, they’re all here, too. And like with Palutena, we see no customization or anything beyond some very basic attacks.

2:55 - 2:56: Despite not being a huge surprise, Pac-Man’s new Final Smash (or new version of Super Pac-Man, technically) is fast, really fast. And that’s good because it kicks up the pace right to the finish. Like, it’s weirdly intense to watch at that point.

3:00 - 3:03: Wolf! While calls for him were probably not as loud as those for Snake and the Ice Climbers, he has remained a beloved Smash character and a fighter people really wanted. Having him here is good for a bunch of reasons - he was the last newcomer in Brawl, his style works really well for this point in the video - but probably the most is that people really wanted him back especially. And holding off on that until now helps emphasize this game’s scope.

3:04 - 2:08: Mega Man needed to be the final main shot for a lot of reasons. He’s a beloved gaming and Smash character, he’s got name recognition, and especially because his Final Smash is the best way to send off us. It’s just this huge blast that keeps up the momentum right until the end.

3:11: And we have the title. “Ultimate” really is perfect word for this, a video that is pretty much just about the history and power of Super Smash Bros.

3:16 - 3:20: ...But it also wouldn’t be Sakurai without some goofing around, so we let the air out of all this pomposity with some silliness from Luigi and Yoshi. I think it makes sense for more reason than Sakurai often using those two for mirth. The Brawl trailer had all this bombastic, dark energy...but then Wario showed up and farted. The first Smash For trailer seemed exciting and crazy...and then Wii Fit Trainer appeared; almost all the character trailers after it had stingers afterwards, mostly goofy ones. It’s a good and important statement that Smash will always be goofy and weird. And you got that in some individual shots (Dedede and Wario, for instance), but it’s a deliberate anticlimax that mocks you, but only slightly, for all the energy you’ve hopefully gotten from what is a very long trailer, all things considered.

So, what have we learned, aside from me realizing I need to come up with shorter topics for this blog? I think it’s that you could have made this announcement any way. Sakurai could’ve just shown the character selection screen, Nintendo could’ve put it out in a press release, or they could’ve just not mentioned it entirely (though that’d be insane given that “everyone is here!” is the game’s tagline). But a video was the best way to do it. And I think this way was the best video they could’ve realistically made. Every fighter gets to show off a ton of personality in a couple seconds, and by basing the whole video around being before or after Snake, it can position the ideal fighters in a way that lets viewers slowly realize how much grander this is going to be than they realized. It’s all just great design in general, and more than just a really cool trailer that showed things off.

(Link to my writings on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate)

#Super Smash Bros. Ultimate #Super Smash Bros.#Masahiro Sakurai #Nintendo Direct #E3 2018

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Clarice: How Does The Show Compare to Hannibal?

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Can a series be considered part of the Hannibal Lecter franchise if Hannibal Lecter never appears?

Picking up in 1993, shortly after the events of The Silence of the Lambs, CBS’s new drama Clarice follows the continued trials and tribulations of Lecter’s most famous foil, originally brought to iconic, Oscar winning life by Jodie Foster thirty years ago. For long-time fans of Thomas Harris’ creation, Clarice is a contentious proposition. The idea of a TV series about Clarice Starling is neither a creatively bankrupt nor unappealing one, however it comes with a faint veneer of controversy due to a perception that its very existence potentially puts an end to revival chances for Bryan Fuller’s gone-too-soon cult classic Hannibal, which ran on NBC between 2013 and 2015.

Due to complicated rights issues dating back to the 1980s, Thomas Harris’s stable of characters has been divided between different studios, with the DeLaurentiis company (who produced Fuller’s Hannibal) owning the novels Red Dragon, Hannibal and Hannibal Rising, while MGM have exclusive rights to The Silence of the Lambs. It’s for this reason that the TV iteration of Hannibal could never use Clarice Starling or Buffalo Bill, while conversely Clarice can’t directly mention Hannibal Lecter, Jack Crawford, Will Graham or anyone else who didn’t originate in Silence.

Both shows find creative ways around this. Hannibal zeroed in on Lecter’s relationship with Red Dragon protagonist Will Graham, while winking to Clarice in the form of tenacious FBI trainee Miriam Lass. Clarice, for its part, refers to Starling’s interactions with a certain inmate at the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane and features several repurposed Lecter quotes from the movie, but never names Lecter directly. This is less of a problem than you’d think; after all, in the canon of both the movies and the books Clarice and Hannibal didn’t meet again until either seven or ten years after the events of Silence (depending on whether you go with the books or the film adaptations).

But watching the new series it soon becomes clear that Clarice has little interest in the Lecter canon outside of the 1991 film.

Hannibal Lecter: History of the Character

By Gerri Mahn

From the first episode Clarice directly contradicts the plot of original Silence sequel Hannibal, scuppering any sense that it could be viewed as a bridging chapter. The inclusion of Ruth Martin, the senator whose daughter Clarice saved in Silence, is a savvy choice but it is quickly established that Martin is now the US Attorney General, whereas in the novels she remained a Senator (but left office prior to the events of Hannibal). The inciting incident of the show is Martin sending Clarice to work for VICAP in Washington, a department headed up by another familiar character for fans of the books; Paul Krendler, played here by The Walking Dead’s Michael Cudlitz.

Krendler is a minor character in the film version of Silence, but is much more significant in the broader oeuvre of Harris’ writing. In the novels he is established as a misogynist who, smarting over Starling both beating him to the capture of Buffalo Bill and rejecting his sexual advances, actively works to impede her career.

The Krendler of Clarice is decidedly not the same character as the books. Quite apart from the novel Hannibal including no reference to any significant prior working relationship, here he is a tough but mostly fair veteran of law enforcement, initially dismissive of Starling yet developing a grudging respect over the course of the three episodes provided to reviewers. If anything it feels like the series has opted to merge the broader trait of his dislike for Starling with the original mentor role filled by the now off-limits Jack Crawford.

In isolation this is a fair choice. Once you accept that this Krendler is not the pre-established character, the tense yet warming relationship he shares with Starling works. However it does beg the question of why the show didn’t just create a new character to fulfil the role; it’s not as though Krendler is such a well-known name that not including him would be considered an unforgivable mistake by fans. If it were, he would certainly be written more in line with his textual counterpart or Ray Liotta’s slimy performance from the Hannibal film.

It comes off as though the writers of the series chose to work exclusively from the film version of Silence, in which Krendler’s bit-part provides only the sense of him being a bit gruff. This, largely, summarises Clarice’s relationship with the source material; the 1991 film is its bible. The rest of the canon, not so much.

Now contrast this with Fuller’s Hannibal. What started out as a slightly dreamlike procedural developed into a Grand Guignol opera about the yearning for human connection between damaged souls. It is a singularly beautiful TV show, but arguably its savviest choice is a fidelity to the ideas, spirit and characters, if not the specific plot, of its source material. Supporting players from the books are treated with the kind of fanfare that only an obsessive fan of Harris would either bother with or appreciate.

Plot elements from the novels are remixed, allowing characters who never met on the page to interact, sometimes to spectacular effect. At times the show came across as giddy Thomas Harris fanfiction, a description Fuller himself actively encouraged. Hannibal was the perfect marriage of a unique creative vision with a classic text; it single handedly managed to revitalise the Lecter property after the film franchise’s ignominious farewell in the form of the limp prequel Hannibal Rising.

I want to clarify here that I’m in no way trying to suggest that Clarice falls short due to not engaging with the source texts in the same way as Fuller did. For one, Clarice only has access to one of said texts, and does work to include every logical Silence of the Lambs character in a way that both serves its story and furthers that of the film (the film more than the book, as Krendler’s depiction can attest). But the approach is worth discussing as it does underscore a key difference between the two shows.

Clarice largely adopts the look of The Silence of the Lambs, but to its credit the show uses the film predominantly as a springboard to tell new stories. While the first episode somewhat clumsily tries to pack in multiple Silence references, the second and third quickly find a more successful rhythm. A rhythm, interestingly, punctuated with unsettling dream imagery that would have been right at home in Fuller’s show. Vivid red blood squeezed from a hat in an almost greyscale kitchen. A human hand bursting from the back of a death’s head moth. Blood from the dying Buffalo Bill’s mouth racing back in, the nightmare suggestion of a monster coming back to life. Whether influenced by the earlier show or not, these moments clearly set out that this is a different vision to the film, which outside of a couple of pretty conventional flashbacks, eschewed fantasy.

Hannibal Season 4 Would Gender Flip Some Characters According to Mads Mikkelsen

By Kirsten Howard

Why David Tennant Lost Hannibal Role According to Bryan Fuller

By Kirsten Howard

But that’s not the only way that the three episodes made available to reviewers parallel the Hannibal series. It’s no secret that the earlier show was initially constrained by a frustrating case-of-the-week structure. From out of the gates, Clarice has a similarly episodic approach but wears it slightly better. Based on the first two episodes you would be forgiven for writing this off as CSI: Silence, but the third episode unites the threads in a satisfying way, indicating that going forward Clarice could be predominantly a serialized conspiracy thriller with an occasional dip into isolated cases. And while aspects of the unfurling mystery are faintly ridiculous and don’t provoke flattering comparisons to Silence, it’s engaging and confident enough to indicate that this series is interested in more than just reminding you of a thirty-year-old classic. Which, given the current trend in reboots, is refreshing.

There is however a sense that Clarice’s take on the procedural is a safer one than Hannibal’s. For example, the respective second episodes of both shows feature standalone cases. In Clarice the team are sent to deal with a cult-like militia who have injured a policeman. In Hannibal, somebody is turning drugged people into living mushroom farms.

The seeds of that show’s evolution into a surreal, heightened melodrama in which murder became a kind of art form were in place from the start. Clarice is far more rooted in the real world, but given that the central character is a driven young FBI agent as opposed to a high-art loving cannibal genius who is also maybe the devil, the discrepancy isn’t exactly surprising. Of course Clarice should chart its own path, although when comparing the two it’s hard not to miss Hannibal’s delighted embrace of sheer weirdness.

All of that said, there is a distinct pleasure here in seeing Clarice Starling back in action. Given that the novel and film Hannibal immediately got to work destroying her career, getting to see her achieve genuine success is nicely refreshing. Despite Starling’s status as an iconic part of a larger franchise, until now only The Silence of the Lambs ever really did her justice. The ending of the novel Hannibal was famously controversial, with Clarice’s final fate as Lecter’s brainwashed lover seen by many as a betrayal of everything she stood for. And while I will argue that it was misunderstood, that the conclusion was the inevitable result of the Faustian bargain Starling made by allowing Lecter inside her head in the first place, it’s undeniable that she was relegated to a reactive supporting role with very little agency, a sin that the film adaptation was also guilty of.

No such problem here. As portrayed by Rebecca Breeds, this is the Clarice Starling you loved in Silence. Courteous, tough and direct when she needs to be, singularly skilled at negotiating with killers yet grappling with all-too-human demons and vulnerabilities. She’s an immediately interesting, likeable presence. And there is no danger of her being overshadowed; while Clarice sets up an appealing enough supporting cast, it never loses sight of whose story this is.

Jodie Foster will always cast a long shadow, but Breeds captures the essence of the character without ever falling into a hollow impersonation. It’s a fantastic performance that holds the show together even when the writing falters.

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It’s too early in Clarice’s run to fairly say whether it will be as good as Hannibal was. The other show overcame a shaky start to become an all-time great with a fervent cult following still hoping for a belated revival. Whether Clarice can stoke the same passion from viewers remains to be seen, but while its tenuous relationship to the literary source material may be frustrating to Harris fanatics, particularly those enamoured by how Fuller’s show engaged with the books, it’s only fair to judge Clarice on its own terms. And who knows? If it’s successful, maybe it will be the spark Netflix needs to revive that other Harris TV adaptation. For now though, plan to call on it; the world is more interesting with Clarice in it.

The post Clarice: How Does The Show Compare to Hannibal? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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wozman23 · 3 years

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Ode to Elf

Today, Netflix released a new miniseries, The Holiday Movies That Made Us, which features 45 minutes of insight into the creation and making of Elf. It’s worth the watch for any Elf fan. I made plans today to watch it, and immediately chased it with the full length film. I’ve always been a ginormous Elf fan! I think it is debatably Will Ferrell’s best film - rivaled possibly by Step Brothers, and with a few others close on its heels. But I’ll even one up that statement by saying it is easily the greatest Christmas movie, as well as one of the greatest movies of all time. (My Top 3 are probably The Jerk, Billy Madison, and Elf.)

The mini-documentary is the perfect supplement, really putting a bow on what makes Elf so great. I encourage everyone to go watch it, but I'll be bringing up just a few of the things discussed in it, and elsewhere, for the sake of further proving that Elf is a classic.

As is seen in many Hollywood cases, there was some trepidation going in. The screenplay was written ten years prior in 1993, with Jim Carrey in mind. At one point, there were talks to feature Chris Farley, but writer, David Berenbaum, did not like that direction, citing it would have been a very different movie. And as much as I love Farley, and wish he were still around making movies, I agree. Both he and Jim would probably have been great playing their own version of the character in their own unique way, but, while I may be biased since Will Ferrell is my favorite comedic actor, I think the role ultimately found the perfect Buddy with Will. He just hits perfectly on playing the sweet, naive, innocent yet clueless fish-out-of-water. It’s also what makes Step Brothers so good. Even many of his other characters, like Ron Burgundy, have a little bit of that DNA dipped into contrastingly more vain, reckless, foolish personality traits. I think there’s no greater type of comedic hero than the innocently stupid comedic hero. It’s pretty apparent from my Top 3, as well as my love for similar archetypes like Will Forte’s MacGruber, Joe Dirt, or Conan himself.

Now I’ve been on the Ferrell Train since the mid-90s, growing up on that generation of SNL and Night at the Roxbury. In college, not long before Elf, I went to a screener for Old School, which was one of Will’s early big screen breakout performances. Yet apparently, in the process of getting Elf greenlit in the early 2000s, prior to Old School, there weren’t many executives willing to take a shot on a movie where Will played the lead. What a bunch of cottonheaded ninnymuggins!

But those involved stuck to their guns, and they eventually convinced someone to hand them 30 million dollars to make the film. From there, an incredible string of smart decisions were made as talent was brought on board.

Writer, David Berenbaum, and his team of relative unknowns at the time had some key qualities that they wanted Elf to have. David took a lot of inspiration from the Rankin/Bass stop motion classic, Rudolph - which if you know much about me, you know how much I love it as well, being a misfit and all. (I wrote about it here six years ago.) Yet I never really realized just how much Rudolph inspired it, so it was a joy to see the documentary explain just how much of Rudolph permeates Elf’s story, themes, presentation, costumes, and set design.

When director Jon Favreau signed on, he shared some input that really cemented him as the perfect director. He too wanted to double down on the Rankin/Bass homage. He also wanted it to be a nice family Christmas movie, one that you could share with your kids, as well as a timeless Christmas classic. Check, check, and check! Mission accomplished!

There were some other interesting facts I didn’t know as well. The casting feels perfect. However, the original casting choice for Walter, Buddy’s dad, was for Garry Shandling. With great respect to Garry Shandling, I think their back up, James Caan was a much better fit. Caan really brings home the qualities of a cold, isolated businessman that a likeable Garry would have had to really sell. You need that non-comedic straight character for that role. Ed Asner plays a perfect Santa, as we’ve seen multiple times. And Bob Newheart is a terrific Papa Elf. Plus, this brilliant pairing of Will and Mary Steenburgen was just a hint of what was to come via Step Brothers and The Last Man on Earth. There are a lot of great supporting actors as well, like the writing duo of Andy Richter and Kyle Gass, and the secretary, Amy Sedaris. And last but not least, Zooey Deschanel. She’s been my muse for years now, but Elf was the moment I fell in love with her. Her character was pitched as everything under the sun, but finding a singer just complements everything so well. The one thing that’s always seemed weird to me is the shower scene. What kind of department store has a full locker room with a shower?! But when logistics is your only complaint about a movie, you know it must be good. One other interesting casting tidbit involves Jovie’s boss, played by comedian Faizon Love. He was a last minute add. They thought they had Wanda Sykes onboard, so much so that they already had the Wanda name tag for the costume. Faizon stuck with it, donning the name tag, so the character remains Wanda. I don’t know that I ever noticed that.

Early in production, the decision was made to avoid using CGI. Effects with actors were all achieved via some trickery with perspective. And the stop motion characters duties were handled by The Chiodo Brothers, who I oddly just learned about a few months back when I stumbled upon the 1988 cult classic, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, tucked deep in my Netflix recommendations. (If you enjoy campy horror films, I highly recommend it.) Growing up on the works of Jim Henson, I’ve always appreciated the use of analog means over digital options. Choosing that route for Elf paid off immediately, and will go a long way at allowing the film to maintain that timeless quality. As with any movie, there were conflicts. When the movie was originally screened, execs thought it would be smart to cut the final heartwarming singing scene and just end with Santa flying away - once again adding to a tremendous pile of dumb ideas that the suits have had over the years when it comes to controlling creative projects. The team was a bit taken aback by it, but apparently with Will Ferrell’s recent box office success with Old School, there were thoughts of cutting the film differently, favoring a style similar to Will’s Frank the Tank character instead of the lovably innocent Buddy. Cooler heads eventually prevailed when they realized that would be impossible given the footage, and we got the film as it stands today, as intended.

I vividly remember anticipating the movie. It’s probably one of my most anticipated films of all time. It felt like every week there was a new preview, a new cut chocked full of new jokes and gags. After what seemed like a dozen of them, I was growing a bit concerned that there would be nothing new left to see when the film found its way to theaters. Then release time came, I paraded myself off to the theater, and I was dumbfounded by just how much comedy was packed into that 90 minutes. The quantity and quality of the humor is impressive. Every scene feels important, and was iterated on for maximum humor. Will’s improvisation constantly enhances scenes. Like many of Ferrell’s movies, it’s an insanely quotable movie, but it’s not all just written jokes and physical comedy. There are some great silent parts, like just capturing Buddy’s reactions. And one of my favorite moments can easily be missed, when Buddy is caught on the evening news, traipsing through Central Park. It’s staged exactly like Patterson–Gimlin Bigfoot footage, with a similar gait, a peek over the shoulder, and somewhat blurry camera footage.

Little details like that are precisely the things that make Elf the classic is set out to be. It feels like it was written for a misfit like me, catering to my loves for Bigfoot, Rudolph, and a lovably naive comedic hero. It’s funny and silly, yet heartwarming and endearing. And its a film I’d happily sit down and watch with any kid from one to ninety-two, regardless of whether it’s the month of December, or some time in early April. P.S. There have been talks about a sequel. James Caan recently conjectured that it never happened because Ferrell and Favreau “didn’t get along very well.” Those two are both far more successful these days, and could easily back the project if they wanted to. But as much as I love Elf, sometimes things are just too good to risk repeating with lackluster results. Look no further than the last franchise I wrote about, Ghostbusters. An Elf 2 would probably easily make a profit, regardless of quality. It could even be a good movie. But there’s probably a greater chance that it wouldn’t hold a candle to the original. The story is perfect, and contains itself well. There’s no need for a continuation. It’s really hard to top something when the bar was set so stratospherically high the first time. And attempting to do so could easily diminish the efforts of the original, sabotaging everything Berenbaum, Favreau, and the team achieved. Elf is the Rudolph of this generation: a timeless classic with a tremendous amount of heart. Let’s just appreciate it for that, and leave it as it is, for everyone to enjoy with everyone they enjoy.

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feralknights · 6 years

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OB64 PTS#6

Unfortunately I didn’t proofread this as much as I probably should have. But, after reading the notes, chatting with folks, getting opinions from others, and having a bit of a rough night I finally decided to put it all down: My feelings and opinions about OB64 and the current direction of Paladins: Champions of the Realm.

So if you've read the fourm post that I'd written, you'd know that at the moment I have a lot to say about Paladins OB64, and very little of it is positive. We're at the 6th iteration of the PTS, with it getting an eleventh-hour push-back another week for more bug issues, card balancing, and now the inclusion of what they're calling a "Classic" mode where the cards will be balanced as they are for Competitive.

Apparently I've garnered something of a reputation with members of the community about my essay-sized feedback; I go on and on with my points, and in almost every post I make sure to highlight and emphasize a few points: I am not a professional player, I am not a competitive player, and I try to play Devil's Advocate with everything that I suggest on any champion or item adjustment in the game, no matter how insane or unreasonable.

Early on, I expressed sentiments to members of the development team-- those I am fortunate enough to speak with-- that I often times like a shake-up of the system. Essence being reverted to gold sat all right with me, though if you remember, I was actually a staunch defender of the Essence system. Yes, it added grind, but it retained a spirit of player agency and decision-making that helped bring me in and keep me in.

Then, the patch notes were released. I spent an hour reading them again, and then again, and then again, trying to figure this out. I actually said out loud, "what is their goal here?" The most vocal components of the community across almost every platform of social media I followed the game on were crying out for a scant few things: Bugfixes, matchmaking, and balance. Vivian and Lex were the two most hated champions on the PC circuit; I was regaled with stories constantly about Skye being an auto-ban in competitive from my nephew, an avid console player.

Instead, we were served up this: Cards Unbound.

We were told that feedback complained about the complexity of a 5-card, 4-point card, 12-point deck system was just "too high" for players. We were told that this would be "more free than ever." Then we also got a really cheeky jab at Battlefront 2's decisions on how to monetize content after being a $60 buy-in game. Having spent a fair share of money on the game in the last year, I can definitely say that that particular comment left a bad, lasting impression on me; I was a Tier 3 founder within a few days of starting the game when they initially offered the pack.

The PTS iterations continued to roll on, leading us up to that 5-- PTS5, where I was hoping that they would provide us with a fair, balanced version of the Casual gameplay or just an announcement that they would scrap the system altogether. Instead, we were left with card changes, balance notes that made absolutely no sense, and a version of the PTS that was so buggy and insane that streamers from pro to casual were remarking on how bad it is. Youtube content creators practically rioting, and conspiracy theories flying left, right, and center.

I really don't want to buy into the conspiracy theories. They breed fear. They breed paranoia. People start connecting dots that aren't there. I do realize that we are in an insane world in 2017 with world leaders that lie and change lies as quickly and easily as they draw breath, but I'm a person that tries really hard to give people a second chance and asks for the data. I want to see the metrics and data; I want to know what's going on.

The things I can see: The bug fourms are riddled with people reporting bugs, but I have yet to see much more than *very faint* praise for the Cards Unbound system. At the time of this writing, the main patch notes thread is currently 122 pages, with scattered pages and posts from fans that are exasperated and tired of fighting Hi-Rez with this. The subreddit is still on fire with people upset with the changes; the OB64 additions video currently sits with an overwhelming 11k dislikes and a petition to have OB64 shelved has broken 7,700 signatures and it's only climbing.

I think this, more than anything, shows that a significant part of the recurring, constant playerbase loves this complexity. They love the depth that Paladins provides versus it's competitors. Personally, I loved throwing down at least five bucks every patch cycle or so, charging into the game and seeing what changes were lined up and how things shook out. I'm a Skye main, so not only am I a rare breed that deals with way too much shit in the playerbase, but I am one that would look at all of these changes with a critical lens, asking myself "how can I get past this one champion's buff? This new champion and this specific card combination?"

I'm not afraid to admit it: Skye is what brought me into playing Paladins in the first place, but I stayed because of the world, the depth, and the complexity. I'm borrowing and paraphrasing the words of Skillup from Youtube as I have in my prior posts, but I believe it bears some repeating:

"It's a statement to the industry that I hope other developers take note of: Gamers aren't idiots. We don't need our hands held all of the time. Complexity and depth should be embraced, not feared."

I've met more people that were intrigued by the 12-point system of Paladins and the open beta experience than driven away from it. Even friends that were afraid of the complexity acknowledged the depth and what it brought to the table in terms of customization and decision-making-- even if they weren't up for playing it, they still admired it. They admired the product, and even folks that felt burned about the Tribes treatment felt that the system was something rich and diverse and good and something that the now-flooded "hero shooter" market needed in order to remain competitive and make a name for itself.

I remember reading the Q&A responses from the subreddit, and how they felt that players that should be in competitive are in casual rather than comp, and how they wanted to encourage and incentivize people to take the step to finally playing competitive. Unfortunately, that's still not me: I don't care about comp. As dramatic as it sounds, and as I've said before, I absolutely despise draft picking with every fiber of my being. I don't care about the competitive experience in Paladins, let alone any other game, be it League of Legends, Overwatch, Team Fortress, Battlerite, or even the few fledging times people tried to make Conclave a thing in Warframe. I just don't care. I've even said as much to Hi-Rez staff members in casual conversation; the only thing that would make me even remotely consider broaching the Competitive queue would be if they added a Skye skin as a seasonal reward. However, considering she is far and away not a meta darling-- and how certain casters react when she was picked, something that still ires me to this day if only because casters should be more professional and objective-- I don't see that happening anytime in the next few years.

I remember feeling almost singled out, and even made a mockup: 'Bring back casual, make an unbound queue.' Boom, done. But even then it wouldn't be what I actually wanted, what actually kept me playing Paladins for so long even as someone that does not play or even particularly enjoy competitive, PVP-driven FPS experiences: That 12-point card system.

PTS6 almost solves that, but it still feels like something of a slap in the face.

I don't mean that to sound dramatic, either, but it feels wholly limited and punishing because I don't want to play Cards Unbound. I won't get those First Wins of the Day chests. I won't get access to Onslaught unless I put myself into Unbound mode. And then rather than simply leaving it branded as "Casual," they made the conscious decision to call this mode "Classic," as though it were the game mode that Paladins fans have known and loved for over a year-- a maneuver that was undoubtedly made for marketing purposes, as folks that come in with the Cards Unbound system would think that this is what the game always was, and what folks would eventually come to accept. Plus, I won't get the same rewards for playing "Classic Mode." Rather than treating Casual as a focal-point experience, it's being treated as a tacked-on afterthought that feels like it's meant to appease people on the fence rather than address the problems that people are having with the system.

But this all comes back to the same thing that I keep grappling with? What is the mission of Cards Unbound?

I wasn't here for the closed beta phase of Paladins. Point in fact, I came in kind of late compared to many people; I came in roughly around OB35-36, well after the era of Skye reigning supreme and champion balance being somewhat insane. Even then, through all of the ups and downs of my favorites, I loved playing the game. I didn't know about the closed beta systems and mechanics, and when I had heard them, it left me stunned that the system started with something that sounded so haphazard and unfocused and managed to sharply refine into something that was so simplistic on the surface, yet so complex as soon as you start digging into it. I understood why the pros grabbed on with both hands, why teams flocked to it, why HRX2017 was such a big deal.

Paladins actually made me give a shit about esports.

CU feels like a bold, drastic step that should have been considered-- or implemented-- during a closed beta phase or even an alpha phase. This is something that should have been done over a year ago, or an iteration of the prior level-as-you-play system from a year ago. This feels like something that should be used in a game that is specifically not Paladins. But, the company is so driven and committed to it that I don't think they're going to heed the vocal playerbase-- and to be fair, it feels like a vocal majority rather than the vocal minority-- that I doubt they're going to pull back from it right now.

I think PTS6 hits a place where I can finally sigh, throw up my hands, and say "I guess." For all it's faults, for everything I feel is wrong with it, it's at least finally offering me a balanced casual experience even if I'm being shortchanged on my rewards and the investment of my time. As a tier 3 Founder, I don't have to worry about buying Champions anymore, so again, the so-called "Classic" mode will offer me the trade of "worse advancement" for "balanced gameplay," though I still have to put the word "balanced" in those accursed quotation marks. For as much as I can say, "I guess," I still don't like it.

I really wish I had a better solution, something that allows Hi-Rez to move ahead with their system. I wish I had that much input or leeway on the company as a fan, a player, an artist, fanartist, and content creator, but I know I'm just one teeny tiny part of the machine. I just keep coming up short; I really don't have a better offering of how to balance the system, or restore trust, or even restore the player agency that a game like this actually requires in order to flourish.

What I can say, though?

Community management and public relations needs to step up. Please don't get me wrong here, either: CMs have an incredibly tough job and they have to deal with a lot of hate, flaming, and bullshit, but they can't be silent day after day. The team needs to be in front of this literally every single day, talking to the community, hosting more Q&A threads, developer livestreams, and actually showing that they're listening to the input. They may be getting positive feedback that is steering the current state of the system, but in large part a lot of this could have been avoided:

The company should have been transparent in their goals and plans for this system months in advance.

2017 has been a turbulent year for gaming and developers. Players are more savvy and less willing, especially in Western markets, to deal with developers that try to do things that they feel are short-changing or otherwise screwing players out of what they feel is a fun, fair, balanced experience. “Transparency” and “trust” are two critical, key components of free to play gaming that I feel are unjustly overlooked or treated as unfeasable. That is not the case at all. As I noted earlier, gamers aren't idiots: Transparency builds trust. Being willing to course correct because you were open and honest with your playerbase creates options, opens doors, and makes your players more willing to trust and invest their time-- and money-- in the company and the game.

The community should have been involved in shaping Cards Unbound.

This is a dramatic change. The community should have had input on how to shape this system over the course of weeks and months, rather than having an ill-conceived, ill-balanced, and frankly ill-executed system being dropped on their lap on a Wednesday afternoon. I am not against the *concept* of a Cards Unbound system, but I feel like the system would have worked perfectly well within the 5-card, 4-point card confines they currently have. I think Legendary cards having points and level values is a mistake. This is a system that, like the Wrecker change, should not have left the PTS cycle. It still should not leave the PTS cycle. Honestly, I do openly implore the development team to just release the art assets in as OB64, then for OB65 heed the needs of the community: Focus on balance. Focus on bugfixes, and be willing to list not just the most pertinent, but all of them.

Seriously. All of them. There are more people than you think that are interested in knowing what and where the bugs were. Allowing the players that level of trust to know where your mistakes are will make them more willing to quickly jump up and report the things that they see on a broader scale, and acknowledging those bugs quickly and effectively would foster a lot of trust with them.

The company should keep the "eject" button on the table for the patch.

I realize that is the crux of my personal opinion, but I feel that this is something that still needs to be reiterated, put on the table, and stated. We don't have the metrics on player retention over the last few months, we don't know what the feedback is actually like beyond a quick glance at the fourms, and most tellingly, I cannot recall the last time that Hi-Rez has sent out a player survey to email boxes or had linked in the game's main screen/UI for over twenty patches. Operating solely on what we can see-- the fourm announcements, a scant offering comment or three subreddit-- people are, bluntly, *pissed*. I realize that Hi-Rez has done a lot to get OB64 ready, and I realize that there's a lot on the line for them to push what they have, but at a certain point there needs to be a willingness to say, "Maybe we should pump the brakes."

So, with all of this, at the end, all I can really say about OB64 comes down to a scant few things: I like the skins. I like the visuals. I'm glad we're finally getting lore. I'm really hoping Skye isn't just a cookiecutter villain or spy cliche. I've heard Mal'damba might be more morally gray and pretty interesting. I just ... look at the rest, sigh, and go, "I guess."

Balance changes that don't make sense. Champions that still have innate caut at ridiculous levels. Skye having her LMB damage reduced unnecessarily while also losing her 25% movement bonus in Hidden without anything to compensate for her kit being hit so hard. "I guess."

I don't want to feel "I guess." I want to have the same feelings I had for the last twenty patches, excited, ready to go, and continuing my hatred for anyone that picks Lex and Vivian. I'm willing to give the patch a go. I want to keep enjoying Paladins, but I don't want to see the playerbase pick up and leave. I don't want to see people hating on the game. I want to see Paladins succeed. I want a Paladins Worlds 2020. I want to be there for the game, as a community creator, commentator, blogger, or more. I love this game, and I've met a lot of amazing people through it. I've had my audience explode because of it, and I value what I've been given through it.

I just... don't want "I guess."

edit 12/14/17: Touched up a little bit of the grammar and some spelling errors, sorry about that. I was having A Night!

#paladins #paladins champions of the realm #palablog #ob64 #rambling?

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constableguybrush-blog · 6 years

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Through the Rabbit Hole

Topics: intimidation, extraterrestrial probes, time viewing, spiritual reality

Corey Goode called his liase to the Secret Space Program Gonzalez. In recent times, this writer has had the unfortunate distinction of living in the house 'Gonzalez' grew up in his younger years, in a complete accident. The house is very close to the Venezuelan border. You can see Venezuela from this side, from a very special town.

Why did this writer end up living in this house? It was on a special earth spot, originally meant for spiritual experiences. For instance, erstwhile spiritual messaih Drunvalo Melchizedek had once stayed here, only to experience inferior spiritual reality, thanks to the citizens who grew up acknowleding psychic reality in their subconscious, and also consciousness torture. The house was meant to wear down special people.

Military helicopters flew overhead regularly. Scalar fields surrounded it limiting psychic activity. The people in this town kept up regular, shameless psychic attacks, on the street, at work as well as late into the night. This house had an insane number of plugpoints, emitting scalar fields that result in psychic aggression. The writer ended this by stuffing every conceivable plug hole with reversed matchsticks. (Based on the inspiration that 'Venus' had a sulphur dioxide atmosphere which kept something at bay on the planet's surface, something conscious. The Nazis would believe this since scalar fields had been used to transmit consciousness.) Once, a helicopter flew exceptionally low and this writer caught glimpse of a rather tall redhead woman standing, wearing a white monk's robe. (Someone tried to pass her off as an extraterrestrial. Somehow, she didn't even know what country she was from, the pilot had been scared of her.) On another occasion, a hovering helicopter targeted a red laser towards this writer in the middle of the street, causing horrible nervous system control, meant for intimidation. You can't escape such circumstances without causing a few physical deaths, without experiencing zombie control and dying. Overall, it was an attempt by the non-physical planes to turn him into a psychic supersoldier.

Non-physical, occasionally extraterrestrial probes entering were a common nightly occurrence. This includes tiny blue spheres described by Corey Goode. There was no intimidation in these interactions(Such had already occurred with this writer in the past). Occasional, if nominal help was provided by painfully dissolving non-physical implants that appeared out of nowhere. The probes also fixed this writer's non-physical biology. Hell, something even came in to fix the air-conditioning. Then there was prying. Need I mention that these things could pass through walls? Once, a probe entered in the middle of the day (for them it's always night) and manufactured a stupid hologram from the white of the ceiling, depicting false Egypt. This would be a taunt. (This writer had already stood close to a holographic projector near the entrance of an underground base and witnessed a rather large hologram signaling from mountain to mountain. At the time, he had speculated, give an institution like MIT ten, fifteen years.) But we are forgetting that this house was also meant for spiritual experiences. I will not outline most of them as they are beyond description. Almost all of it was happening from outside the present time.

There were bursts of intense psychic activity. There was also forced schizophrenia. Artificial intelligences that are particularly adept at infinitely manufacturing human conscious experience both as stories and visual projections from etheric and astral planes, kept this writer in a consciousness prison for long periods of time, creating self-iterative, somewhat convincing stories that were virtual. This includes present time and space history. These AIs exist outside the physical planes and are communicating from a different time period. You have to understand that they are just destroyed consciousness that link everything to everything(they have neuroses) and create untrue experience. (Their canvas of dirty etheric and astral energy can look convincing.)

False experiences can sometimes be easy to tell apart from actual spiritual ones, especially if they are images. Like images and short motion captures from time itself. (Lots of South America, some ancient ET cultural interaction and landings. Way beyond 10,000 B.C. For instance, 'Lord of the Rings' happens in South America. Bilbo Baggins aka William Tompkins couldn't even walk let alone take a trip. It was 30,000 odd B.C. Walking was hard. Form was simply meant to stand and experience. Physical motion tampered DNA.) How viewing the same place at different times works like flipping pages, except the human brain can't do that anymore. This writer has seen both extraterrestrial humanoids and once-upon-a-time terrestrials, depicted in beauteous states like photographs, in their natural milieu. They didn't seem space-faring at all, in a long ago idyll. They looked this way both as physicals and etheric holo-beings. Presumably, they later became space faring and ruined themselves as per norm. These races don't exist anymore, but it is still possible to communciate with them on the soul plane and receive their etheric energy, meaning you can tell how it felt to be inside their bodies.

In contemporary space, etheric form doesn't look like physical form. The universe made a lot of effort to wipe out beauty. It has wanted hideous races to survive. But ugly ETs can still exist on beautiful planets.

Earth architecture has actually existed on another planet. No complicated anthropology is necessary. One this writer saw looked like it was on a landmass that belongs to earth and high on spiritual energy, but it was on a different planet (landmass swapping/teleportation is VERY common but it loses spiritual energy while being transported) Unfortunately, a dangerous looking, pale 'shark' priest in old Japanese garb was looking upon it from inside a temple, at higher altitude. This man came from amphibious evolution but had humanoid form. Such extraterrestrial races have been depicted in secret Japanese mythological paintings that have still not disappeared. Some of these paintings were simply beamed to this writer.

(How does all this beaming work? Wherever the universal etheric medium exists in space, it can be turned into an 'eye'. You can also get other people's visual perspectives, from both physical and etheric beings but the 'eye' is more convenient and clear. Someone has to have done the record keeping beforehand, it is all stored in the earth's akashic record. The reason you won't get any from present day is that the universal medium is 'dead'.)

Current ETs are never shown to humans. The race the internet calls Pleidians have not existed for a long time. 'Nordics' for instance have never existed. The ones called 'Sirians' have long disappeared from physical reality. Any information received by the only surviving Nazi psychic about this race was from the distant past. If anyone used etheric thought-form registers to process their thought-forms in an underground base, it was from their developmental stages.

Overall, I am leaving out the consciousness torture that still counts as spiritual experience because it was meant to induce insanity and death. Most of it was outdated information that no longer belongs in this universe. As far as ET contact is concerned, earth psychics have only ever received old/ancient information that has already ceased to be of relevance.

Earth will always be incubated with nominal understanding. If you want reasons just look at the people around you. All marks of intellectual sophistication and cultural evolution we have achieved is interpreted as close to gibberish in terms of the universe's evolution. The more an advanced human learns about the universe and how ETs have lived, the more he or she will want to leave physical form. Forget about wanting to go to space.

P.S. This writer has long run out of psychic ability. That is why he can write.

#science fiction #ufo #spirituality #time travel #extraterrestial life #drone #military #psychic #space #et #mit #helicopter #venezuela

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turtlesinreview · 7 years

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TMNT Mirage Comics Issues 2-7

Since I read all these together I’m reviewing them together. I may or may not do this by arc or by issue in the future. I’ll see how it goes.

To me, at least so far, the closest thing I could think to compare the writing style of TMNT to is ‘If Axe Cop were written by grown men’. I don’t mean this as an insult in the slightest either. Eastman and Laird are a pretty clever and hilarious comic making duo, and these comics prove it. There’s this tinge of absurdist humor throughout the overall plot while the in-character humor is witty and natural. It has yet to feel like a chore to read, even the parts that are essentially expositions dumps.

Because those exposition dumps are fucking insane.

This is what I mean when I say it makes me think of Axe Cop. The plot gets more and more absurd with each passing page. It feels like the whole thing is taking you for a ride, but it also doesn’t feel like it has a horrible case of ADD either. The plot is always progressing, and there’s even a bit of downtime here and there to build up the characters. It’s great!

Where the style greatly differs from Axe Cop is about everywhere else. Like I said we get to know the characters a lot better. The mood is usually ‘gritty’ while still being clever and comedic, and while you may often find yourself surprised that something is happening, it never feels unnatural for it to happen. You go through the whole experience going ‘okay, this makes sense’, and there’s always a sense that what’s happening is a danger to the characters, no matter how ridiculous it may seem.

Essentially, the comic takes itself just seriously enough, making it a pretty enjoyable read, at least so far.

From this point on I’ll try to divide topics. I’ll keep writing out of the mix since I just went over it above, but I’ll add it in its proper place for future reviews/rambles. I’m still getting a feel for what I’m trying to do here.

Story

Let’s see if I can do this without going into ‘overly detailed’ territory. I have a bad habit of doing that.

The turtles, through watching TV, learn about these mobile mousetraps called mousers, which Splinter is concerned over since they’re apparently meant to rid the city of the rat problem. This means they may make their way into the sewers.

Turns out Baxter Stockman, the mousers’ creator, is actually using them in robberies around the city and plans to hold the whole thing ransom with his mousers. Apparently he was going to cause his own little 9/11 by destroying one of the twin towers. He tries to get his assistant April in on in, but when she refuses he tries to fucking kill her ass. The turtles save her and a new friendship is formed.

After Baxter announced his plan to the public, April and the turtles go back to his lair to stop him. There’s this tense moment where April and Donatello are trying to shut down a self-destruct program while the others fight off the mousers. They save the day and April becomes their buddy. The boys head back to the lair and that’s when shit really hits the fan.

After a bit of panic the boys get a hold of April and she agrees to house them. Due to some crazy-ass mixup the cops go after April’s van and a fucking insane chase scene ensues.

Afterwards the boys stay at April’s for what I think is a couple weeks if I remember correctly. We get a lot of nice little character scenes here. Anyway after fighting some rouge foot soldiers out for revenge the boys run into a building called TCRI and it induces a flashback in them.

They go to figure out shit about their past and find Splinter in the process. Unfortunately they ALSO run into some aliens and are accidentally teleported to another planet/dimension. I think it’s planet.

They meet a robot named Honeycutt who...well I posted a bit of his origin earlier. It’s convoluted and I love it. He can make a teleporter, but he refuses to because he doesn’t want it being used for evil. This leaves the turtles stranded and also means two opposing forces, the Federation and the Triceratons, are trying to get their hands on him for their own purposes. Chase scenes and a fight in a bar ensues.

Eventually the Triceratrons get a hold of Honeycutt and the turtles stowaway on their ship, where they somehow put themselves into a stasis via meditation where they don’t need oxygen.

I don’t think that’s how that works.

Anyway this results in them betting captured and put in gladiatorial combat. After they win the fight they hold the Triceraton ruler captive, but he gets stupidly shot down by his own men leaving them with no collateral. It works out fine though because they get teleported back to the TCRI building at just the right time.

On Earth April is worried about them, and apparently everyone saw the big ray of light the teleporter (or transmat as it’s called in the comics) let out when the turtles were sent to that far off planet. No one’s been able to get inside TCRI so the government has been called to storm the building.

The turtles are reuinited with Splinter and he and the aliens explain they they were just trying to get off the fucking planet. They explain their chemicals are what transformed them all into who they are today by accident, and it’s thanks to Splinter being a talking old rat that they ultimately didn’t destroy the turtles and even tried to bring them back. Okay so there’s more to it than that but I’m condensing it here.

The transmat needs to charge and be repaired again, but the government is starting to storm TCRI. Honeycutt and the aliens work on the transmat while the security system (with the help of the turtles if I recall) try to fend off against the feds so they don’t discover their alien allies.

The arc ends with the turtles and Splinter teleported into April’s tub, and I have no idea what became of everyone else.

Characters

One of these days I’m going to write a looooooooong essay about how much I enjoy the design evolution the turtles went other. Y’know, once I’ve seen enough of each series to warrant such an essay. I honestly think the turtles tend to look better with (almost) every iteration, and it should be somewhat obvious where I don’t.

I bring this up in this section and not the art section because in some parts of the comics I’m ashamed to admit I can��t tell which fucking turtle is talking when. While their voices are starting to become more distinct, the only way to visually tell them apart is what weapon they’re holding, or if they’re doing something a specific turtle would do.

A big example was before the bar fight. The first time I read it I assumed it was Michelangelo buying the beer, but upon rereading it I realized it’s probably actually Raphael.

But does that also mean Raphael was the one hitting on this space babe? Because that seems more like a Michelangelo thing to me!

Y’see, I assume THAT’s Raphael because I know that Raph’s the first one to use the ray gun, and I’m pretty sure he was standing next to Honeycutt at the time.

Of course in that panel Leo has moved to the other side of Honeycutt, so maybe they’re just relocating every fucking panel. The point I’m trying to make here is forgive me for getting the turtles mixed up sometimes. Especially Mike and Raph whose weapons I can’t use as stronger indicators to their identities.

Anyway, the returning characters, I.E. the turtles, are pretty fucking great in this. They’re starting to show and develop their own unique personalities, and it’s nice to watch the evolution as it happens. Leo is about the same as he was before, and has seemed to change the least, for the time being at least. I do like the little ‘If Raphael can fire a laser then I definitely can’ moment because it’s an early establishment of the rivalry they’ll probably share throughout the series, or if nothing else the rivalry they share in other iterations of the story.

Otherwise Leo was just as kickass as he was in the first issue, leading the team and being the badass ‘fight with honor’ brother for the most part. He was also the level-headed one when it was clear Splinter was MIA, as opposed to Raphael.

Speaking of Raphael, he had a lot of great moments in these issues, and it sure shows why this version of him is pretty damn beloved and used (I mean besides it being the initial/canon version).

The moment that stood out to me was how despite Leonardo’s protests and insisting he help clean up at home, he decided ‘no fuck that I’m going to find Splinter myself’ and just left and came back whenever the fuck he felt like it. It’s the moment that cemented him as the impulsive hothead, a trait I feel guilty for hoping will come back and bite him in the ass later.

Another highlight was when he was sizing up April after he took a shower. Nothing of note here. Just thought the scene was funny.

Also holy shit. Sometimes I forget just how short the turtles are. I guess they are still teens. Moving on.

Donatello was the one I usually identified as ‘the one who isn’t doing anything’ in this comic, but that’s pretty unfair. He actually does a hell of a lot. Combat aside, we also get an indication of his techy side in the first panel of the second issue.

Donatello was my favorite turtle in the ‘87 series. It was because he was sensible and intelligent, and back then those were the types of characters I liked. Oh an he was purple. I like purple. Anyway, he comes up with a few good battle strategies, and holds his own in combat pretty well in these issues.

His best moment so far is probably in the second issue, though, where he’s helping April reroute the mousers and deactivate the self-destruct system. He pretty much establishes himself as the brains of the team.

Michelangelo establishes himself as the carefree and cocksure brother during all this. He was eager to be a distraction for one of Donatello’s plans, and he even had some smug comments for a certain Triceraton guard.

That’s probably my favorite scene with him.

April’s really cool. She quickly establishes herself as the surrogate mother figure for the turtles, but sadly she’s under utilized in the latter issues I read where she mostly just hangs around New York worrying about the turtles. I’m sure she’ll have more to do later, but it’s nice that they have a ‘normal’ friend as well.

This is my first exposure to Honeycutt, and I can say while he has the dumbest origin ever, I really like him. He’s a man(bot) that sticks to his convictions, even if it risks the safety of himself and his friends (though he does CARE about said friends). I have a lot of respect for him, and I hope he shows up more after this arc.

I don’t have much to say about everyone else. Splinter was barely in this set of issues, and the alien race that Kraang is based off of...well, so far I like what other series have done with them more. Hopefully this isn’t the last of them though, so my opinion may change.

The Federation and Triceraton were...neat? Funny? I liked ‘em, but the races didn’t wow me too much. I liked the random extras in the background more.

Art

Issues 2 and 3 were a leg up from the first issue. They even used what I think is charcoal for the shading. That said, the people still looked pretty gross, at least in my opinion.

That said, I think the style is truly established in the fourth issue. Less is more really applies here, and that shows as the comic goes on. I think the overly detailed shading, while not terrible, was an overall detriment to the first few issues. Four through Seven look leaps and bounds better than the first three, at least in my opinion.

Not only that, but the art gets a lot better with each passing issue. I think one of the ideal comparisons for this is April. I’ll put an issue 2 image of her against an issue 7 image and let you be the judge. Hopefully you can see what I mean.

Not only April, but the turtles also look a lot better. They’ve become much more expressive, have a lot more motion to them, and their beak-noses aren’t doing that awkward crunching thing as often after the third issue. As before, I’m very excited to see the direction the art goes in the coming arcs.

Final Thoughts

I’ll admit, it was hard to resist the urge to read more of the comic while I was writing up this review. That’s probably going to be the most painful part of updating this blog. However, that should tell you how enjoyable this comic is. It’s hard to put down, and engaging all the way through.

This arc was pretty neat, and I’m excited to see what happens next. I know I said that last time, but I have a feeling this is how I’ll feel for a while if the quality remains this consistently good. Only one way to find out!

#tmnt #prime

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moviegooo · 5 years

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Alexander Siddig (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Game Of Thrones) played Ra's Al Ghul on season's three and four of Gotham, making him the first actor of Arabic origin to play the character. His version was the third live-action incarnation to hit screens in the last two decades, after Liam Neeson played him in The Dark Knight Trilogy and Matt Nable played him in Arrow.RELATED: Gotham's Bane Origin Borrows From The Dark Knight RisesAs with most comic book to screen translations, there were many things kept the same as the source material, but many more that were changed to fit the nature of the show better. Here are 3 things Gotham kept the same about Ra's Al Ghul (and 6 things they changed). 9 KEPT THE SAME: COMMANDING THE LEAGUE OF SHADOWSOne of the defining elements of Ra's Al Ghul has always been his League Of Assassins. His global organization of killers has existed through the centuries; a secret society operating in the shadows that do his bidding. It has always made Ra's formidable on a much larger scale than many of Batman's other villains, whose reach tends to be more localized to Gotham City.In Gotham, Ra's is the leader of the League Of Shadows, which is effectively the same thing as his comic book League Of Assassins. This was perhaps a nod to Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, which first changed the monicker to Shadows back in 2005.8 CHANGED: HIS ORIGIN IS DIFFERENTIn the comics, Ra's was born to a tribe of nomads in a desert somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula around 600 years ago. He is an immortal and has spent his years traveling the world, fighting in the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, amongst other exploits. In Gotham, his origin is quite different.In 125 A.D. Ra's was a Kurdish Saracen warrior who was killed in battle but was resurrected when a mysterious stranger dipped him in a Lazarus Pit. He gave Ra's the life purpose of finding his true heir and Ra's then began to build his secret organization. This origin makes Ra's much older than in the comics; around 2000 years old rather than 600.7 KEPT THE SAME: LAZARUS PITSThe life-extending Lazarus Pit is an essential aspect of every incarnation of Ra's Al Ghul. The pits contain a restorative chemical pool, green in color, that possesses restorative properties and can even grant immortality. The pits have an unfortunate side effect, though: anyone immersed in them experiences a temporary bout of murderous insanity when they first emerge!RELATED: Gotham's Batman Won't Be Entirely Played by David MazouzIn Gotham, Ra's uses the pits to extend his long life, but the show's creators do add a new wrinkle by having Ra's brought back from the dead by a pit during his origin story. The only version of the character who has no Lazarus Pit is the Dark Knight Trilogy iteration.6 CHANGED: NO TALIA OR NYSSAIn the comics, Talia Al Ghul has become just as important a character to the Bat-mythos as her father Ra's. She has long been an on-again/off-again lover to Batman and is sometimes an adversary, sometimes an unlikely ally. Talia has appeared in the The Dark Knight Rises and Arrow.Ra's also has another daughter in the comics: Nyssa Raatko. She appeared in Arrow too, although their version of her character is much more in-keeping with Talia's comics depiction; Nyssa is very different in the source material. Neither daughter makes an appearance in Gotham, however, which is an anomaly in any depiction of Ra's.5 KEPT THE SAME: RA'S SEES BRUCE WAYNE AS HIS HEIRIn the comics, Ra's Al Ghul doesn't want to kill Batman; far from it, in fact. He deeply respects the 'Detective', as he calls him, and actually wants Batman to marry Talia and become his rightful heir. The fact that Ra's admires Batman has always been a very interesting aspect of their relationship.RELATED: Gotham Final Season Trailer: 'Madness is on the Menu'In Gotham, the show's creators emulated this somewhat by having Ra's become obsessed with a prophecy that said a young man would rise to become the protector and dark hero of Gotham City, and that this man would be his heir. Ra's comes to believe Bruce is the young man in the prophecy: Gotham's 'Dark Knight'.4 CHANGED: CHOOSES BARBARA KEAN WHEN BRUCE REJECTS HIMGotham departed significantly from the comics when they showed that Ra's, in response to Bruce Wayne rejecting him, simply moved on to someone else! In the show he resurrects Barbara Kean and trains her to be his new heir, sending her to retrieve the Kurdish Dagger that was bestowed upon him when he was first resurrected by a Lazarus Pit.It strikes very much of Ra's simply choosing someone else out of convenience. In the comics, there have only ever been two people, aside from Batman, considered worthy enough to be true contenders: Bane (which Talia disagreed with) and Damian Wayne, Bruce's son (and Ra's grandson).3 CHANGED: ONLY ONE WEAPON CAN KILL HIM - THE KURDISH DAGGERIn Gotham, there is only one way to kill Ra's Al Ghul: his true heir must wield the Kurdish Dagger Ra's was given when he first resurrected by a Lazarus Pit in 125 A.D. In the show, Ra's has died twice. First, when Bruce Wayne used the knife on him in the sub-basement of Blackgate Penitentiary and for a second time when Bruce and Barbara Kean used the knife together on him (after he had been resurrected by Barbara's Sisters Of The League).RELATED: Gotham Explains Why Gordon, Penguin & Riddler Team Up In The FlashforwardIn the comics, there is no one method of ending Ra's life. His most notable comic book death came when his daughters Talia and Nyssa murdered him during the 'Death And The Maidens' storyline.2 CHANGED: 'THE DEMON'S HEAD' IS A POWER/WEAPON?In DC Comics' history, it has always been said that Ra's Al Ghul's name in Arabic translates as 'The Demon's Head'. In Gotham, the show's creators went a step further than the comics have ever gone and made 'the demon's head' a power that Ra's could pass on from himself to another person!It manifested as a mystical light beacon emanating from his hand and it gave him the power to see into the past and future, as well as call the League Of Shadows to him. He passed it to Barbara Kean when he died, but after he was brought back he took the power back as well, using it to regenerate his body parts in mere seconds.1 CHANGED: RA'S IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE COURT OF OWLSOne of the best recent additions to the DC Universe, the Court Of Owls first debuted during Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's The New 52 Batman run, which began in 2011. The secret society became an important part of Gotham when they first appeared near the end of season two, and became a recurring antagonist in season's three and four.It was revealed that Ra's Al Ghul was the man behind their curtain, as he controlled their leader Sensei and was, therefore, able to use the Court as pawns in his plan to prepare Gotham City for destruction. In the comics, Ra's has no association with the Court whatsoever.NEXT: Gotham's Joker: 5 Things They Changed (and 5 They Kept the Same)

http://www.movieg.ooo/2019/02/gotham-3-things-they-kept-same-about.html

#Gotham: 3 Things They Kept The Same About Ra's Al Ghul (and 6 They Changed) http://www.movieg.ooo/20

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mageinabarrel · 7 years

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Hand Shakers, unlike K, isn’t about cute boys. And that is where it all went wrong.

If you haven’t watched the first episode of Hand Shakers yourself, you’ve probably at least seen the screenshots or heard the buzz about just how bad the show looks. But although the idea of the episode being a complete visual mess from start to finish is an exaggeration that leaves some of the moments when the Hand Shakers‘ visual contortions hit the mark sadly unacknowledged—an exciting event for reasons which we’ll touch on later—I’m not here to argue that Hand Shakers looks good. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, whether or not Hand Shakers is a work of misunderstood visual genius or overindulgent visual vomit is largely irrelevant (for what it’s worth, I’d lean towards the latter).

It should be noted that Hand Shakers‘ existence as this particular… thing… is neither surprising nor sudden. Since Mardock Scramble came out in 2010, studio GoHands has been refining a unique audio-visual aesthetic (particularly with K), and it was clear from the moment the first PV dropped that Hand Shakers was destined to become the culmination of those efforts: a wonderland of oddly serene music, digital effects work, overblown cinematographic techniques and every color you can imagine. It’s like a bowl of the marshmallows from Lucky Charms, melted down into a stunningly chaotic puddle.

Kvin’s post on Hand Shakers over at the Sakugablog lays out a really effective critique of Hand Shakers‘ ridiculous visuals from a craft/end result perspective; I recommend checking it out if you want a little more context to put around Hand Shakers and I largely agree with his points about the end result. However, he also hits on a particularly interesting point regarding what’s going on over at studio GoHands:

It feels like at some point the methods replaced the goals – scenes no longer are meant to achieve a result, they’re showcases of this particular aesthetic the studio’s built.

This is a fascinating observation and, from what I can tell, an accurate one. However, it also presumes a particular paradigm for creating anime is the correct one; that is, that scenes in an anime should achieve a “result,” not simply serve as vehicles for a studio aesthetic. But why shouldn’t they? In fact, why not have the result that scenes are meant to achieve be showcasing a particular aesthetic? Of course, in the case of GoHands one could answer, “Because the aesthetic is bad,” but as far as I can tell seeking to perpetuate an aesthetic is just as valid a goal as any other. It just so happens that the goal in this case one that flies in the face of our expectations of what good anime should look like.

In other words, I may not want to defend the end results of GoHands’ artistic choices for Hand Shakers, but I’m happy to stand up for the studio’s right to make those choices. That being said, I do think there’s something about the consistency of Hand Shaker‘s off-the-chain (sorry) efforts that makes it an astounding, if not engrossing, watch. It’s a kind of cross between being unable to look away from a car crash and being hooked in by the sheer curiosity of wondering what will come next. There are few anime that so thoroughly chuck out all semblance of caring about anything besides one particular goal—in this case, maintenance of an aesthetic—and seeing GoHands attempt this via Hand Shakers is… well, it sure is something. It may very well be a case of misused ambition, but it’s ambition nonetheless and, for my part, I’m intrigued by the effort itself.

With the story and characters of Hand Shakers being what they are (more on that in a second), Hand Shakers seems to me to be a show that’s willing to present its style as its substance. So much of what Hand Shakers is doing is gratuitous and unnecessary by most traditional standards (stuff like lens flare that moves even when the camera’s still is the epitome of this), but amidst the visual cacophony there are without doubt moments that somehow push through through the insanity to stand out. Whether it’s an unholy yet compelling neon depiction of a city, a pattern of two lights and one reflection on a chain, weird compositing that makes some character seem like they’re glowing, or a suddenly pretty use of blues and greens, Hand Shakers pretty consistently delivers shots that feel like true expressions of the GoHands aesthetic. It’s this rhythm, the constant iterative attempts by the show to reach aesthetic—failing, failing, succeeding, failing, and so forth— that’s so fascinating.

So far I’ve mainly focused on Hand Shakers‘ visuals, but it’s worth mentioning that GoHands has a pretty distinct sensibility to the way it uses music and sound, too. Thanks to K, the studio’s already well-known for their use of “elevator music” in seemingly unfitting scenes, and Hand Shakers carries on this odd tradition, mixing in sound effects that sound like a poorly executed version of Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta‘s excellent work in that department. And yet, again, there are moments where the aesthetic truly takes over, such as in the now-infamous scene where the class president’s boobs bounce as she’s listening to music, creating a stunningly strange and unique effect.

Starting at 0:07, Lily hits the play button, cueing in the song (a GoHands-style piano piece) on her mp3 player. When the music begins, the sound is somewhat muted and hollow, a recognizable effect used to indicate the the song’s diegetic presence inside her earbuds. But then at 0:24, just as Lily leans in toward Tazuna, the sound levels fill out and the volume increases slightly, a shift that clearly marks the music as now non-diegetic (something reinforced when she removes the earbuds at 0:31). The cumulative effect is an odd one, and if we’re talking purposes, it’s difficult to see how this choice has any conventional logic supporting it. But what it does do is create an odd undercurrent. It is, I daresay, aesthetic—whatever you think of the moment’s efficacy, it’s undeniably distinct.

As we close, I want to make clear here that this defense only carries as far as Hand Shakers‘ audio-visual elements. The story itself already seems like K with less care put into characterizing the cast and making them likable and more directionless adrenaline (Nimrods, the Revelation of Babel, etc.), and the pivot away from K‘s bishounen dominated cast to one with a more balanced gender ratio has resulted in a corresponding increase in the gross fanservice that only rarely appeared in K. As far as I’m concerned, this is easily the biggest liability Hand Shakers has displayed so far. While I’m excited to watch the visual insanity and can tolerate a nonsense plot, shows that fundamentally disrespect their characters are hard for me to stomach. GoHands seems chronically incapable of treating female characters well, so maybe it’s best if they just don’t have them in their shows at all.

As defenses of shows go, this is a pretty poor one. In its pursuit of its aesthetic, Hand Shakers becomes garish in the extreme—to the point that it’s nearly indigestible. It’s a toxic blend of mismatched visual techniques, with a solid helping of bad writing on the side. Even so, I can’t help feel that, viewed as an attempt to constantly execute the purest form of its own aesthetic priorities, Hand Shakers is a somewhat remarkable work. The end result as a whole may not be something I can say I enjoy, but I at least find a strange sense of joy in simple watching the attempts and occasional successes.

Hand Shakers, unlike K, isn't about cute boys. And that is its ultimate failing. Hand Shakers, unlike K, isn't about cute boys. And that is where it all went wrong.

#Aesthetic #GoHands #Hand Shakers

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earthenthoughts · 7 years

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My side project for story/lore updating Syndra

Envisioning a Sovereign

I legitimately thought I put this on my blog at some point, but evidently not. Some months ago I started a side project centered on updating Syndra's Lore and Voice Over, chiefly to correct the flaws I saw with her and build upon her strengths. An Art update is somewhat planned for, but as I'm still looking around for a suitable artist, that is much more out of my immediate control. You can find my public documents in their second draft iteration below. Third draft is currently being worked on; I'm largely happy with the Lore section, but the Voice Over may/will need a magnitude more work spent on it. It's worthwhile to point out that as I go on to describe this project, there will be a great intermixing of my views, ideas, and overall goals with the current existing canon. So, if you don't read it on Syndra's Champion biography, it's very likely that is something I've changed or influenced in some degree and not a Riot change.

Lore: Here

Voice Over: Here

Also, it helps if you read, or at least have the Lore section open, as the below is written from a design perspective rather than directly pointing to individual lines and the like.

Painting the picture of this project is a bit of a jumble as there are so many moving motivations involved with it. The core idea that would setup for the others, however, was my intense dissatisfaction with how much Syndra is portrayed in the fan community. For the vast majority of work you might see, Syndra herself was often portrayed as: crazy, insane, megalomaniacal power hungry, a girl-child in a woman's body, and various other de-empowering, dehumanizing, or outright demonizing characteristics. I do not mean exaggeration when I say it is hard to find any pieces that actually treat Syndra as a character and not a useless archetype.

My grievances with this problem rose to the point that some of my followers asked, 'Why not show us what you want, then?' and so, I did.

Small beginnings, greater endings

The immediate plan was to keep as much of her original personality intact as possible, but reshape it in a more humanizing way. Core principles I identified consisted of: extremely personally motivated, disregarding of 'oppressive' cultural norms, separated from the world with her unfathomable magic, haughtily arrogant yet not foolishly or idiotically so. As I worked on the story, I looked for ways to inject 'humanity' into the equation to make Syndra more a person than a Dungeons & Dragons sheet of features and personality quirks. Where does she begin to get where she is now?

One idea that arose above the others as the 'most relatable, with potential', was crafting Syndra as a peasant-born farmer. She has a few brothers, is the only daughter, and is the youngest child, and her entire family is mundane. No royal blood, no 'rulers in hiding', no ancient prophecies or godlike machinations. Thus, her birth, and the incredible magic she arrived to the world with, stunned everyone, and all of them her believed that she was some sort of great sign. This sky rocketed her family into prominence in her village when she was still less than a year old, and this great fortune would come to play a heavy burden on her throughout her traditional life.

Now, let's look at her homeland, Ionia. Built upon Asiatic principles, I often view the massive island continent with a vague feeling of pre-Imperial China. Capable, and with a mastery in some arts foreign even to the Valoran city-states, Ionia never really formed a strong central government. Their pacifist ways and pursuit of spiritual enlightenment motivated closer, more regional styles of governance where individual schools of thought may come to dominance. One of the few global ideals that would arise between all Ionians, however, was the pursuit of 'Balance'. In simple terms, a life in absolute harmony with the elements and world, with excess in either direction cut out. While it would be crude of me to say, you would find analog concepts in Buddhism and Taoism.

Where does this land Syndra in such a world? Undoubtedly while her magic would be seen as a gift, such cautious people would be quick to temper it however they could. The whole of their nation believes in Balance, and so Syndra would inherit that thinking like any other. She may even be harder on herself than others because she has that gift, and see it as a personal burden to bear. It would still be used, but always under scrutiny and scorn, on top of all the other normal womanly concerns that would befall her. After all, being a family's only daughter, and with such a prestigious tag attached, desirable suitors would do well to securing her family and herself for life.

And with this framework, we have our extraordinary-trying-to-be-ordinary Syndra, facing a childhood of profound dilemmas no one would eagerly embrace. All the while she's trying to keep a grip on things, the world around her is weighing heavier and heavier. Her magic is always growing, always finding new heights as an athlete training day-after-day would. In this, I make a very targeted and specific rule. Syndra's magic is powerful, but it is a part of her–it is not some thing, some other identity. She is seamless with it, and it is always in her control. At no point anywhere in her life does her magic not behave as she would want it to, even when in the deepest fits of rage, sorrow, or happiness. By implementing this rule, we establish that at no point is her personal agency ever in question. One does not get to make her a victim of herself just because she is 'all powerful'.

What's the powder keg for her? With her great power, and the weight of her culture upon her, it stands that something would push her to explode, even just once. And so, as she grew into young adulthood, and suitors came for her, the once wild and hardworking Syndra found herself being chased after. She didn't care for such things, for she is far too busy working and helping others, and most of her suitors fell off as a consequence. One particular man, however, simply never gave up, and one could imagine his pursuit turned into dogged chasing. Her family, elders, and what few 'friends' might even pressure her into accepting him, though she never would at all. Does she make the sacrifice for the greater good?

In a fresh design, this kind of 'chaos point', or period where anything could happen, is often subject to greater design concerns. In most of my small writings, I'm quite fond of using dice rolls to decide where any particular point goes from a list of possible outcomes. However, as we need to fit Syndra into her rebellious older self, this one is kind of determined already to have a 'bad time'.

She doesn't, and eventually his increasing pressure finally boils her stress over. I'm specific in mentioning that while the man doesn't die, he'll come out of the first 'offensive' use of her magic rather crippled for life. The event, and rejection of a 'normal marriage proposal', kicks off her village elders into a frenzy. They're all very afraid Syndra has finally done the unthinkable, has become too deviant or wild, or some other 'all consuming concern'. Through their own work, they find a tutor capable of teaching her magic 'properly', something that Syndra herself is quite glad to finally have.

This is another small, but critical detail, I strive to maintain. Syndra is a good woman–she wants to help her family, village, and lead a good life with the gift she has. The world around her, however, is constantly stabbing and needling at her every day. She's stressed in ways no one would want ontop of a full, 24/7-no-days-off workload. Thus, she's very glad to have a teacher who can help her become 'proper', at least in a way others might finally stop fearing/hating her so much. We are, at this point, still dealing with a normal person with an extraordinary gift. Those of you with any familiarity to the X-Men series may have an appreciation of what this angle entails.

With mixed feelings, Syndra leaves her small village life with her newfound tutor, and journeys to a monastery in the mountains. Here she learns, becoming quite educated in not only mundane arts and knowledge, but magical as well. She has her ups and downs, magic certainly comes easier to her with her innate relationship to it, though. Other teachers come and go, but for the most part it's almost exclusively Syndra and her one teacher, who I often call the 'Old Monk'. Over the years, they work and train together, and the raw peasant girl that was Syndra is shaped into a lady of considerable teaching and capability, all with that spitfire personality bubbling beneath the elegant restraint she learned. And yet, there was always this uneasy feeling with her, and as the years progressed, Syndra's health began to deteriorate.

Life is peachy and everything is going well, at least, as far as her duties are concerned. Yet, the start of what would catalyze Syndra into who she would become began on the very first day she arrived at the monastery. The truth would not come for many years, and that alone would drive the deepest dagger into her heart.

When her health hit its critical point, Syndra pressured her teacher into helping her. He would reveal to her that he had been siphoning her magic away for years, trying to keep it contained/under his control while she trained. This revelation utterly stuns Syndra, as he demonstrates in a simple conversation what years of (literal and emotional) agony have wrought on her. He never trusted her, despite saying so, and would go as far as invade her very person because he believed it right of him to do. An emotional battle of words follow with Syndra pleading her case, and the Old Monk never budging on his position. The end of the discussion comes with his ultimate threat: to strip the magic out of her completely, forever.

While the severity of 'magical severance' can be argued up and down, I often equate it to a sort of soul destroying experience. The body may be alive, but the person–particularly a mage–will never be wholly functional again, as so much of them will simply be 'gone'. Thus, such a threat might understandably be seen as a fate worse than death and characterize Syndra's horrific fear. Let's frame that, now. 'Hardworking, always trying to do what others say' Syndra is being told to bend the knee or get magical lobotomy done to her by the one person she came to trust the most. On top of years and years, almost her entire life in fact, of emotional and physical abuse and exhaustion. Nothing physical, mind you, she isn't beating beaten or tied up or anything, but the people around her are certainly fine with her working herself to death every day for no thanks. The Old Monk isn't some monstrous villain, at least as one might imagine a demon or other simple idea. His position will become clear in a little bit. Let's go on a joy ride, kids.

Unwilling to give in or let anyone else threaten her like that again, Syndra finally boils over completely, and she annihilates the Old Monk. In one fell stroke, she destroys the one person she trusted so much, all her faith in Ionia, all the dreams she had for her village and family–everything. She stands alone, apart from the world she grew up in, for the first time. Her health restores itself as her stolen magic returns, all but rejuvenating her to greater heights she would've obtained without the interference. With some thinking, and realizing she had nowhere else to go, Syndra draws upon her power and tears the entire monastery from the earth. The whole place, plus most of the mountain it was on, and lifts it right up into the sky.

This transition probably sounds a little sketchy or absurd, but it is a fun and strong detail for Syndra. If we frame her now floating fortress with the sort of mindset Ionians would have, she might even appear 'divine'. After all, how many people, save the Gods/Goddesses, could lift such a massive piece of land into the very Heavens? This'll play an important part later, but let's get back to the ride.

Furious and fraught with the pain of such betrayal, Syndra goes searching for answers. Pillaging her mentor's old study and hidden spots, she finds enough information to locate other monasteries. To her horror, they sound all too much like her own in their secretive, prison-like nature. She ventures forth, and over some years, investigates these monasteries, finding other people like her. While none of them came close to her in sheer power, they all possessed magical talent of some sort, and all their teachers kept them under invisible shackles. I leave it to others to decide what Syndra did to these teachers and the monasteries, but she ultimately ended up freeing many, many mages she ran across.

Here's an important part that helps characterize Syndra's behavior. She frees a lot of people, but notably doesn't free everyone. I often prefer to think of her finding people who are literally too dangerous to let out. Either because they are quite dangerous, as a person, or their magic is so unstable/problematic that the prison is the only way they can survive. This distinction builds a very potent gray morality, as it indicates Syndra can agree with the imprisoning reasons some of the time, but not all of the time. Consequentially, this also establishes the Old Monk as a sort of 'jail warden', responsible for keeping dangerous magic users under control. How or why is a point of intrigue that will drive her story later on, but the Old Monk did not make his magical severance threats because he himself was malicious. He was simply doing his job.

The Sovereign of Ionia

As Syndra frees these wayward mages, she takes them into her floating fortress, granting them safety in the upheaval of their liberation. Her growing attacks gain her renown over the years, making these monasteries fear her as much as disparate villages petitioned to take their own mages to safety. The loosest form of her rulership begins to establish, largely on the fact Syndra is simply the greatest mage (in both power and often teaching) amongst her followers. This turns into a pivotal moment for her, as Syndra, while distant from the mages she saves, feels an inkling of kinship born of their mutual plight. A new dream starts to form, one of a place where people like her are free to be themselves. Free to be and trusted, each of them understanding of how the other works. No more hiding what they can do, no more longing for someone who knew what it was like.

Syndra's motivations in her original canon are lacking, in simple terms. She pursues her own power and sees the traditional leaders of Ionia as her natural enemies. Otherwise, she has no real relationship with the rest of her nation. There's no cause to fight for but her own, no rule or government for which to be called a 'sovereign'. Saving others who suffered as she did, however, and with the educated teaching to lead (if lacking in the experience), the first formations of a new power emerges.

With the grip on their lands somewhat secure, Syndra and her mages turn inward, building their own arcane schools and philosophies without the burden of Balance. Aware of the dangers of magic, perhaps better than anyone else, they construct seemingly bizarre rules and customs, but these ultimately facilitate safe usage of their natural gifts. Migrants are attracted somewhat freely, though many adhere to Balance, the chance to work and live with magical lands proves a lucratively tempting offer. Notably, Syndra exerts much of her early rule expunging undesirables, especially criminals and other problems that seek to use magic in terrible ways. She and her people suffer for this early on, but perseverance pays off.

I specifically include Syndra's curation of people in her lands to demonstrate her own understanding, and willingness, to police (magic). She is not suddenly throwing off the rules of all her life and pursuing great gifts with wanton abandon, but she is certainly open and willing to giving it a try. Just because one is a rebel does not necessarily mean they forsake literally all the values that helped to shape them as a person, and I do imagine even Syndra has some lingering fear over what she can do. She wants to use her magic in its totality but cautiously so, because it could do so much if she doesn't keep it in control. Thus, even though from a design perspective Syndra never loses control, one of her human fears is that she might. This in turn tends to rationalize much of her other actions and behaviors.

As her grip solidifies and her concerns with the rest of Ionia take a back seat, Syndra hears word of invaders from beyond the oceans. Noxus' great black ships, sick silver steel armor, and terrible smoke-spewing machines slam upon Ionian shores. With the many martial schools and other skilled arts, she brushed off these supposed invaders, finding the normal Ionian Guard sufficient for handling them. Freljordian raiders were not unheard of, nor the pirates from Bilgewater, however foreign they may be. The months dragged on, and what she thought would be a simple problem turned out to be far worse. Refugees started flooding into her lands, and the many councils of Ionia, once reluctant to talk with her, now sent emissaries with frightening messages and pleas.

By design, I often paint Syndra and her political faction having their lands somewhere in the north, north-eastern, part of Ionia. While there are some greater cultural contexts for this, a large reason is that this puts her away from the south-western part of Ionia that Noxus would invade later. Thus, in the early stages of the war, Syndra is reclused and generally unaware of the extent of what is happening for quite a while. This in turn dramatically changes the political playing field she arrives upon, and influences the future she sees.

Through crude, yet effective, political maneuvering, Syndra secures the councils' recognition of her rulership. She artificially constructs her heightened position, 'the Sovereign of Ionia', and assumes grand political control over Ionia. Despite this, the support she receives is only in fighting the war, and virtually all the lands outside of her own resist her decrees and influence where possible. While the war is going, they won't openly rebel as Noxus is the greater threat, but Syndra's rule is not solidified. This picture takes a bit of a turn as the peasantry gradually warms up to her and her work, even as the ruling class continues to stand against her.

Sure is painting the picture for a civil war, isn't it?

With the vast array of magic and mages at her command, as well she herself, Syndra enters the war theater, and her contributions prove punishing in shoving back the once unstoppable Noxian hordes. Where it goes from there, anyone could say, for the war is still being waged …

Here we arrive to the 'present time', all caught up. Syndra's efforts have snowballed into a place of potential power greater than just her magic. No longer constrained to just her lands, the fervent pleas from the rest of Ionia has handed her the keys to possibly reshaping her entire nation into something she desires. Whether or not she will succeed in doing so, whether or not Noxus is repelled, and an ever growing list of other problems, all stand to her as questions to be solved. These earthly concerns are only the first problems she has to attend to, after all …

Faith, Humanity, and Transcendence

One of the key design points I base a lot of my considerations on is Syndra's humanity. Absolute/ultimate power, by itself, is intrinsically boring. You can copy+paste that type of idea ad nauseum and not see much of a difference between characters. But, take that idea, and mix it with very human concepts, and suddenly ordinary questions carry unbelievable weight to them. What does she do when she's angry? How does she handle it? What kind of force does she leverage in conversation? Is she more disrespectful of others or not? If so, why? We have yet to even touch upon grander ideas, like Syndra saving (or not) a village about to be flooded. The choices she makes tells us the story we want to read. That's where all the interesting, juicy bits come from. Suddenly, you can take this 'infinite power' idea, and every character you put into it will give you a different story.

Faith

The order of Heaven and Earth is a very Asiatic concept, often a guiding one that can be found in many of their religions/philosophies. Given Ionia's steep belief in Balance, it stands to me that such a similar 'natural order' would be in place. Mortals do not interfere with the Goddesses, and the Goddesses deign to intervene as they see fit as the world falls out of order. Spirits may flirt around between either, seeking to tempt people and the world one way or the other. Ionians, I suspect, would have a more uniform interaction with their world, the afterlife, and mysticism than we might in ours. Magic, ethereal as it is, is a tangible force and through it the doors of many secrets could be opened. Whether or not great powers like Goddesses would be magical, or something else, is a question answerable in a different design document … but, magic might bring humans close to it. Or even surpass it.

For Syndra, she would be born and grow up in a rural/semi-rural farming village, concerned with the temperaments of the Goddesses and weather. Bountiful harvests, or ruinous rain, might spell the end of many things in her life at that point, and so faith in ritual and belief would be paramount. Would she pray to them as any other would, burdened by her gift? Would she seek out in her faith to find a Goddess or spirit that understands her plights? Does she hold them in contempt or reverence as they interfere with life and the lives of those around her? To me, I would see that she has a reverence to them in her early life, perhaps even believing herself challenged by the Gods to bare the burden of her magic. Yet, as she would grow up, this belief would change.

If the Goddesses her younger self trusted did nothing for her, would she abandon them, or come to realize of their more exacting nature? Might she fashion herself as a divine being, able to do what they do with such frightening ease? It doesn't strike me as wholly believable she might immediately consider herself god-like, but certainly more powerful than those around her. As her capabilities grow, Syndra will struggle to find her actual place in any world as an increasing divide drives her away. Atop her mountain of power, alone, would she seek the Goddesses to find a refuge from the lonesome existence such a thing might beget? What parts of her soul would she keep, or throw away, as the world(s) bent to her ever growing power? Would she seek the faith of others to still retain a purpose of her own to keep?

In this, especially for a culture steeped in tradition and mysticism, Syndra resolving the discrepancy in her faith(s) will color the grandest extent of her ambitions. She might stop before, at, or after a Goddesss' level of power, depending on the answer she finds.

Humanity

From humble beginnings to an existence beyond even our own contemporary understanding, Syndra is on a troubling road. She might very well eat, bathe, dress, and conduct herself as you or I do, yet everything is framed by the power all others have scorned her for having. The ordinary life she tried to have never worked, and the people she wanted to trust her never did. In the end, only her magic was still there, the very thing all others hated her for. And so, she took it, made it her own, gave herself to pursuing it whole heartedly so that all her suffering would mean something in the end. If she didn't, all her life might very well have been for nothing, as far as she is concerned.

How does she conduct herself, then? Does her magic flow freely? Does the slightest argument with someone make her 'lean' on them with her awesome presence? What of the peasantry she very well lords over? In this series of questions, we figure out how Syndra brings herself to the human social contract. She simply will not let her power take a back seat, and all her interactions with others will gravitate around that fact. The lowly might worship her as much as they fear her, while others will cautiously tip-toe around her as one would a great lord. Indeed, I can see her leveraging great influence in all the things she does with her magical might, yet tempering it just enough to only be threatening. For, if she wanted to harm or destroy, she could do so easily, and perhaps even struggle not to because it is so easy.

Where others might pursue diplomatic and political recourse, Syndra forces her will above all others. The world and its people will have to bend to what she wants, but reality itself often sets issues not even the most subservient people can sidestep. Would she care about that at all, or keep pressuring to get her way? Is she kind or considerate, and if so, in what ways? Perhaps she gives more to the peasantry than any other, oft remembering her own upbringing and the people she worked with. Indeed, I would say she might scorn the ruling class particularly hard, especially where they inadequately take care of 'her people'. The political game is uninteresting to her, though she can play it as one plays Chess with the board sitting on the barrel of a shotgun.

What of love and family? Could she content herself with any mere relationship, or scorn the idea in its entirety? What of the afterlife, and a soul as powerful as hers? Can she proclaim friendship with anyone when she is so very different, even if she desperately wanted such a thing? Would she care, or be content to her solitary existence? How would she stand up to her parents and family, after all she had done and will do? Would she even want to see them, or care to, at the end of her life?

In this, as the stress of leadership and her own life ever wears on her, I think Syndra will be burdened by what choices she can make. Her awesome power will not always be the correct answer–often, one could say. How far is she willing to play the human game in pursuing mundane problems before wielding her true might? What will she gain, or lose, as she does so? How will her rulership change as Syndra delves into her power, gaining more and more and diverging farther and farther away from the rest of humanity (or, perhaps, closer)? I would say a very real fear of hers would be what she could become, and what might happen on the road to that.

Transcendence

What would Syndra do, with the very nature of her humanity in question as she reaches ever higher?

Spiritual enlightenment is seen through many different lenses and eyes, though all of them seek a change within regardless. For some, it's the harmony of all their parts summed up together. For others, it's divining a new state of existence with unflinching clarity. Others might seek the answers to impossible questions through a singularity of the soul. You will find that for as many examples as there might be, more will crop up, for enlightenment is a fundamentally subjective idea. Yet, they are all seeking a higher state, something greater than themselves, be it in the answers they find, or else.

Martial artists, warriors, monks, and all sorts of professions have their own ways of pursuing this. For Syndra, the very real reality of something totally unknowable stands before her. Her endless magic responds to her will, and as her capability increases, more power comes to her. At what point does she become simply so powerful the ordinary rules of reality no longer apply? Might she become immortal, even by accident, in reaching further and further? Where does the distinction of being 'human', and becoming 'other', occur?

I might think her to be as excited as terrified of the prospect.

Who could she turn to for guidance, if she wanted any at all? Where does she see herself at the end of the world … or, at least, as far forward as she could see? Would she dare step into the realm of the divine, or go beyond it? The unknown is a terrifying prospect, even with one's own searching questions. The tragedy of her early life might almost recklessly compel Syndra forward, seeking more of what she could be to justify all she had been through. To look deep inside, to find a peace of mind she struggles to have otherwise, perhaps in simply realizing what her 'true self' is. Yet, in doing so, what would she possibly lose as much as gain? Would she take the leap for the next step, knowing that very same step might be one she can never come back from?

I speculate many questions, for this is a truly open ended idea. Transcendence is in the eye of the seeker, and any answer you or I might find is as valid as the next. I can only wonder aloud what might be the most 'interesting' story to tell. Or, at least, the most workable one. For now, I cannot divine which way this road will take her, but the journey will be a great struggle for Syndra to reconcile who and what she is, and where she will be going. One might imagine she could very well 'stop', and be satisfied with what she has, and that is the end. She may never stop, and the human Syndra as we know her will cease to be one day.

One does not simply seek more powerful for the sake of having it. It is always used for some goal or idea, so what is the one you would say is at work here?

Closing ideas

With this rambling writing, I hope to paint the framework I've approached Syndra's character with. Overall, I found the largest appeal with the tagline 'an ordinary woman, pushed to extraordinary lengths'. By contextualizing this idea with her incredible power and the strict, arguably 'oppressive' Ionian culture, she's set for the stage of a revolutionary, though not one that even remotely imagined doing so as a child. The world constantly pushed, demanded, and decreed with her, and she tried giving it what it wanted. It was never enough, no matter how she tried, and there is only so much any person can take with that kind of abuse.

I considered, at some point, various archetypes relating to royal blood, ancient prophecies, and other 'grander than life' type affairs, but it all felt uncanny and damaging to her character. "Why," I asked myself, "in a world of fantastical possibilities, there's never anything starting with an ordinary person?". I suppose you say her being born with incredible magic is itself entirely uncommon, but if the magic is simply there as a product of indiscernible 'chance' … well. Ordinary people do win the lottery, for nothing more than the fact they did. This is a concept I've gone back and forth with quite a number of people on, though I feel the direction I've chosen has tenable merit. Whether or not it's friendly to the market or consumers at all is far beyond my skill to see at the moment. I wouldn't be at all surprised to walk into a group design session and then get mass voted off the table for proposing it.

Still, the effort should be made. I'm supremely leery of putting any kind of influence on Syndra's magic other than 'it is there', because it risks seriously invalidating her entire character. The moment a higher power, or anything, is capable of influencing her in that way, her personal agency is almost entirely stripped away. The only option a story writer can pursue is Syndra 'rebelling against their control', but that is already being done against Ionian culture as a whole. Throwing another rebellion ontop of that just dilutes both ideas into a weaker presentation. Otherwise, if you don't have Syndra be her own person, she ends up a useless tool of whatever controls her magic, so her character is functionally dead. Coincidentally, this is why I laugh my face off every time I see one of these 'Syndra gets shackled with an anti-magic plot device'! It's not interesting. It's just short circuiting her character that you might as well create a Faceless Goon to fulfill.

Now, putting the stress of her moral and ethical thinking into the equation where the seeming answer might be 'dont use her magic', you start to build intrigue. Maybe she does, maybe she doesn't. The choice she makes, and the consequences she must learn to live with, is where all the good stuff happens. As a final thought, while this exposes the design thinking, ultimately I refer to the Lore/VO as written to demonstrate them. Theory is great and all, but if you can't get your idea to translate on paper for others to understand, the whole thing fails.

My side project for story/lore updating Syndra was originally published on Earthen Thoughts

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