ok i know theres no animation of it but ive got this idea of sequence of events in my head for the Ithaca Saga
like with The Challenge, right? when it gets to her issuing the challenge, the image in my head shows her standing at the end of the axes- so if any of them had managed it and their aim was true, the arrow would sail through the axes and kill her. because 'i'd rather die than be without the best of you'
And in that image, there's Ody- waiting in the shadows. smiling to himself because that's his queen. thats his love. and he knows none of them can string his bow, so he sneaks away to prepare
and then the next image in my head is him checking in on the Suitors during Hold Them Down. and Penelope's words echo in his mind; 'let the arrow fly, once you know your aim is true'
so he goes to the bow- abandoned by the wall.. and strings it. and lets it fly.
like if i ever have the motivation/artistic ability to draw this i might but the visual has been stuck in my head- especially a soft, echoing reprise of 'let the arrow fly' moments before he shoots.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
And I’ve finally figured out the main thing that was bugging me about this show, and it’s come to a head in this series right here. So here goes...
SPOILERS BTW
I don’t hate Meiko. She had potential, and was different enough from the other eight children. But all through the first few parts she just felt extra and detached, which I guess was supposed to be her character, but it’s hard to get immensely invested in her when we’re actually getting excited about seeing our childhood characters all grown up.
But here’s the thing. Meiko herself isn’t really a problem. What is a problem is her story arc.
She’s shy, detached, and depends on Meicoomon, who it turns out is an anomalous existence which is hazardous to the Digital World
(first off, hi Guilmon, nice to see your concept being shamefully ripped off)
but Meiko’s presence helps to dampen it down. but when Evil!Gennai!
(who spends most of this episode upside down for god knows what reason)
decides to shake things up, Meicoomon goes bananas and starts wrecking shit, to the point where the kids’ partners are rebooted. Meiko is understandably freaking out and blaming herself, and feels constantly like she doesn’t deserve to be a partner. The others are supportive, but especially Tai, who starts to build a relationship with her and tries to support her as best he can, while going through his own struggles, culminating in him sacrificing himself, Kari giving into the darkness and the world reaching its ultimate peril (i.e. smashing the Digital World into the human world hi Savers nice to see your plotpoints being shamefully ripped off here)
(All the while this is happening, Yggdrasil is trying to help the kids only its not, Hackmon is actually Jesmon and is actually Homeostasis which is kind of Yggdrasil only its not, Gennai is...still hanging upside down, and Himekawa is gallavanting around in the Dark Ocean in a far more interesting story than the one we’re watching)
And Agumon makes a boobs joke.
Oh and I guess we see Ophanimon Falldown Mode which is cool. For about 10 seconds. Before she fuses with Meicoomon and becomes this...charming thing...
by which point I was about ready to give up.
It’s not a bad story arc. I like the idea of the ‘tamer’s dark side’, and while it’s not quite the way I’m doing I’d do it myself, it has potential, and can lead to interesting development.
The problem is, this story arc in its entirety doesn’t belong to Meiko.
It belongs to Kari.
Let’s go through this arc again, but instead of Meiko, let’s put Kari in her shoes as the ‘central’ character:
- Kari came into the group late, and was forced into her role really due to her relationship with Tai. She never really had any growth in the original series, only showing her value as a Digidestined after Wizardmon’s sacrifice.
- Even in 02, there’s a distinct lack of presence to her, partly due to having little development...but if you watch the Dark Ocean episode, its clear she has anxieties that can lead to her being detached and easily corrupted.
- Even her Crest, Light, seems to have no real dark side on the outset, so wouldn’t it make sense for her to feel inadequate in wielding it? She is, and will always be, the ‘eighth child’; while she may have been chosen at the beginning, she didn’t go through the hardships and relationships the others did. And given that she’s always so quiet and polite, to the point where she collapsed as a child because she didn’t want to let her brother down, there are clearly some self-destructive tendencies there.
- Gatomon was also an outsider, and actually started off as a villain. While holy in nature, she spent a lot of her life alone, and I could imagine her gaining some resentment towards the Digital World for keeping her and Kari apart. Again, more openings for a corruption to dwell inside her, rather than Meicoomon. When the real-world attacks begin again, causing mroe damage and threatening the people she knows and loves, those feelings come back and trigger the corruption, unlocking her Falldown Mode (or Ultimate equivalent)
- Kari was also very in tune with the Digital World to the point of becoming its proxy; yet another thing influencing her and rejecting her own being. That would have been quite fascinating; trying to deal with Gennai and the dark influences through her partner, while trying to fend off Yggdrasil and the ‘justice’ of the Digital world through her own mind.
- If it was Kari who was central to all this, then Tai’s own arc would make a lot more sense; just replace the potential-romantic relationship they’re pushing with a familial one - one that’s already present - and suddenly his own fears of powerlessness make a lot more sense; they call back to the arc he went through during the Machinedramon battle. Now Tai and Kari are both adults, both fighting very different demons, and both are willing to give up far more than they should to keep the other, and their Digimon, safe. So when given the choice between saving himself and saving Matt and his sister, Tai goes for the latter, trusting in Matt, and having the courage to make the choices he couldn’t earlier in the story.
- By which point Kari sees all this, and finally loses hope, the corruption taking her over as well as her partner, who then morphs into Evangelimon up there, and that’s where we leave off.
I’m not saying it’s perfect - I’m only a fan writer after all - but I feel it would solve an awful lot of Tri’s problems if it had made use of the characters it had rather than focusing all this attention into a new tamer.
Kari needed this story arc, not Meiko.
Kari has, and always shall, deserve better.
Can’t wait to see the end of this implosion of frustration, wasted potential and whatthefuckery in part 6. If nothing else, it’s been enjoyable.
Hi, im going to ramble about my oldest, most special of interests and its going to be long so i'll be hiding it under a cut but just know i have been enabled by internet strangers and the fact that tumblr (to my knowledge) does not have a word limit. and if it does, i will be finding it.
So i'll try to organize the ramblings?? maybe?? we'll see how organized it is but honestly i just want to talk about Phantom of the Opera.
------------------
So to start my ramblings i will be talking about the musical and book; mostly because i think about the differences almost all the time (it is my roman empire)
For example; to my understanding there are those who don't like the book because they think it says she's 15 which.. isn't true. it came from the line of 'she was as pure as that of a 15 yr old' but if she was that old during the events of the book, then the childhood friendship with Raoul would be impossible since he'd be 5 yrs older than her- an 10yr old and a 5 yr old basically if the 15 thing was right.
Another example is the shifting roles.. if memory serves me right, Madame Giry didn't have much of an impactful or big role in the book, but the musical pretty much just cut out the Daroga and split his roles between her and the music box. and even then it changes- in the 2005 movie version, there;s the flashback to show madame Giry as a little girl, helping the Phantom (my mans Erik) escape- but in the 25th anniversary recording, she says that he vanished (presumably without her help)
(Complete side note but why did we even have Daroga erasure in the musical?? justice for the man who put up with Erik's shit for so long..)
-------------------
Another thing i wanna kinda ramble on is how Erik is almost always being exploited or used and its fascinating to analyze cause like.. i mean:
he was born with a deformity; he was shunned for it and cast aside and mocked openly
but he was a prodigy. mastermind in many different ways
and yet people took advantage of him- of his desperation as he grew cause no one wanted to be near or associated with what they considered a freak
they benefited and he was used because what else was there for him?
in the 2005 edition he kills because he was pushed to it!! to protect himself!! he was a child then!! a child shown as a freak and abused for people to laugh at!! ofc he was gonna snap! and since no one taught him right and wrong ofc he'd fall back on that defense mechanism whenever he wanted or needed something. its the safest thing he has!!
and in the other variations, its still similar. iirc he was highly under paid and unaccredited for his work. cause no one wanted to admit he was behind the success they benefited from.
and then he finds an orphan girl, come to live in the opera house. a soul broken as he was. and she longs for guidance, and he longs to teach someone. so they find solace in one another.
in my mind they both have delusions and dissonance with one another. he mistakes her friendship for love because no one told him the difference. and she mistakes him as the ghost of her father. its unhealthy yeah but they're both unhealthy people.
and then Raoul comes into her life once more. a reminder of the good in her childhood and the phantom panics cause hes about to lose something he hasn't had before. so he begins to lash out because he doesn't know better
and then.. and then!! because she goes to Raoul, its a betrayal all over again
even if she doesn't mean it the way he sees, she's still benefiting from his work. benefiting from his time in teaching her without credit. without praise or recognition.
in leaving him behind, she's become like the rest of them in his eyes- exploiting him for his talents while rejecting him for how he looks
Honestly i have more thoughts but i think this is really long already and the brain is wanting to over brain so like.. yeah. i love this story and i want to blorb about it all the damn time this is my roman empire
Over the past week since Made in Abyss’s debut I’ve seen a lot of positive response, a lot of confusion from new fans (I don’t get it, what’s so wrong with this?), and a lot of uuuuuuuuhing from people who’ve read the manga, or who’ve read a few pages of the manga and (quite understandably) noped the heck outta there.
There’s still potential for this adaptation to go tits up (and if it does, it’s going to fail hard. Really hard. Like...’nice boat’ level hard). But I’m optimistic, though having caught up with the manga I’m biased. I also have a high tolerance for a lot of objectionable stuff.
There’s a lot I could say about the world, the characters, the fact that the adaptation will be being forced to cut out explicit objectionable stuff due to being a PG-13 TV anime, or the fact that the adaptive staff seem to be doing the sensible thing and actually adapting the material rather than copy-pasting, but there’s one thing that gives me hope that this will make for an incredible anime. And it’s kind of a response to a certain comparison I’ve seen popping up all around.
Warning: Manga spoilers ahead
As more people are checking out the Made in Abyss manga or warning other people against checking out the Made in Abyss manga, I’ve seen a fair few people comparing this to a Mohiro Kitoh work. For those who don’t know, Mohiro Kitoh was the mangaka behind Narutaru and Bokurano, two series revolving around kid characters and putting them through ridiculously dark and brutal scenarios. The mangas are praised for having brilliant storytelling, concepts and worldbuilding, but it is tinged by some truly horrific, and borderline fetishistic imagery and concepts, combined with a very definite nihilistic streak throughout both stories.
You can see the comparison.
I’ve read the entirety of Narutaru, and a couple of chapters of Bokurano (as well as reading the plot synopsis), and I’ve seen the anime versions of both. Narutaru is a fairly straight adaptation of the first half of the manga, and consequently ends up alienating and really quite disturbing, even with half the gore blurred out. Bokurano, on the other hand, diverges from the manga and gives it a whole different ending that goes completely against the original intent.
It’s also my second favourite anime series as of yet. So, yeah. That’s a good thing.
I would agree, while Mohiro Kitoh has some incredible talent, his clear worldview, particularly when applied to child characters really is offputting. It’s fascinating but there’s only so much character torture you can undergo before a great concept just isn’t enough to get you through it; it’s the same reason why I despise Evangelion and noped out after one episode of Game of Thrones. If you go too dark, it’s very easily to outright reject your audience, which is the one thing as a writer you absolutely must not do. Combine that with underage nudity and gore and there’s no wonder people freak out about it.
But when comparing it to Made in Abyss, there is one clear difference, which is the reason I find the latter vastly better. And that is: intent.
People are obviously going to react differently to different intents; that’s the way stories go. I know people who love Evangelion because it speaks to them, and I know people who can’t stand WATAMOTE or Gatchaman Crowds because they just can’t relate. So obviously this is just going to be personal opinion, but Made in Abyss’s intent is the complete opposite of a Kitoh work, as well as the complete opposite of far better presented works like Texhnolyze, Now and Then, Here and There, or even Attack on Titan (a mainstream hit with a very up-and-down intent even in the anime).
For as dark as it gets, Made in Abyss is one of the most optimistic stories I’ve seen.
(So far. We are only halfway down the hole, after all)
Yes, there’s gore, maiming, death, horrific experiments and brutal moments, all of which aren’t helped by the mangaka’s desire to show us everything (that’s a whole different issue), but it’s not to the detriment of the characters. They are realistic, and react realistically, but it’s one of the cases where having a child character works to the shows advantage.
In a Kitoh work, he takes childish morals and ideals, and promptly uses the harsh reality of the world to smash them into submission, leaving nihilism as the only option.
In Made in Abyss, the mangaka takes childish morals and ideals, but desptie the harsh reality of the world, he raises them up. Through encounters with others in the Abyss, both good, bad and best dad, they are tested again and again, but they never yield.
And as much human experimentation and bleeding orifices as we see, there’s always room set aside for some good food, gorgeous landscapes and the childish wonder that is prevalent since the very start of the book.
A Kitoh work treats the child’s viewpoint as a restriction. Made in Abyss depends on it as a destination. Optimism in the face of overwhelming darkness; something which we all probably need in this day and age.
Obviously, I can’t pretend like that makes all the problems with the manga go away; the horrific imagery doesn’t enhance the intent of the story but more betrays it, which is why my go to answer for ‘should I read this series’ will probably remain ‘watch the anime, leave the manga be unless you reaaaaally like the anime’, no matter how the anime turns out.
And of course, I could be entirely wrong, and the planned ending for this series could just be a massive fuck-you to all the optimism and hope that’s carried on throughout this journey. This whole story could just be a massive, fetishistic problematic waste of time
That said, I find it difficult to write this series off as entirely pointless schlock when it gives us moments like this:
Bonus:
No matter how shitty life gets, there’s always room for a good meal.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Unrelated to anyone and anything but i want to share the highlights (so far) of the Curse of Strahd game im in (after never being able to get past death house due to one reason or another)
Our party consists of a grave domain aasimar, a reclusive anime-obsessed paladin, a gnome wizard (names Gnomez), a 60+yr old half orc barbarian/druid, a nervous elf rouge and me; the Teifling Divine Soul Sorcerer (18 in game- so youngest of the whole group)
any time said old man orc rages, he's just having an spike in his blood pressure.
He also is addicted to the dream pastries, despite our best efforts.
he also developed Kleptomania and thinks the gods are sending him visions (yet to be proven false, much to my girl's dismay)
When we first met Strahd, the Paladin tried turn undead and failed. he was then charmed and started showing Strahd his (canonically) shitty manga drawings and explaining the plot.
he was then promptly told to stop embarrassing himself
My teilfing is constantly on edge about her apperance and forgets the main thing for her isn't the fact she wears a mask, but is a fucking teifling.
My girl also has a crush on Issmark. it has not been stated in game yet.
We were recruited by a weird old lady to kill a guy
Said old lady invited my girl to a "book club"
it was a cult
she asked my character THIS SESSION to temporarily take over the cult so now my poor DIVINE SOUL girl is maybe a cult leader
Ok this is unrelenting to anything i've been posing about but i just gotta say.. i get why people will pay a godawful amount of money for furry art. I've been trying for weeks to draw something animal-like (not anthro) and its so god damn hard.
and using real animals as refs?? yeah good luck me- from a cute ass animal to something that probably belongs in the deepest pits of artist hell.
so i get it because i have found wits end and its in drawing animals as i've fallen to my own hubris.
"i can do that, no biggie." except that it was, in fact, "a biggie" because i forgot its so freaking hard.
Thinking of opening flash experimental commissions? Maybe finally do it via kofi? Like £20 and you get something fully coloured but I can just go ham and do something funky? Just get what you get. Idk been wanting an excuse to make more band posters, poetic posing and stuff like that, but I also need to fill my cupboards with more than just soup.
