The plot of Dragon's Dogma has never been its main appeal, this we know.
But DD2's "bad guy" in Disa is so laughable.
Your man really pulls the Arisen aside and is like "This lady who has been running everything this whole time doesn't want to surrender her authority to some random asshole from the sticks."
"You weren't killed by a dragon, clearly you're a better choice to rule than the highly competent baddie who's currently in charge."
"She's conspiring to put her son on the throne in your place, Arisen!" Then, five seconds later, you bump into her son and he's actually chill. Then at the end of the game, the son ends up taking over the kingdom anyway.
Arisen x Disa is the OTP, let me wife up a grumpy milf. I don't give a fuck about being king.
Since I'm ascending to nowhere and essentially bedridden today I have chosen To watch all 3 Riddick movies on Netflix. Yes, I do mean in a row! Pitch black is still my favourite Riddick movie. It's the one that is actually more gritty than all the others. The one that needed you to like it so desperately that the 3rd one tried to repeat the formula! And I'm not saying anything bad or Derogatory in any way because I love the 3rd one to pieces as well. I want 1 of them dogs! We need a new Riddick movie! my boy needs to find furia. Anyway, that'll eat up a Little bit of my morning suffering the horrors and convalescing from my run in with that Skywalker kid again. I don't know where he gets his ideas from. I'm definitely not that kids dad. no way.
Pitch Black/Riddick 3 is in the same spiritual camp as Dances With Wolves/Waterworld/The Postman which is best described as "Actor likes an idea so much that they push several movies into existence until they get it exactly right" and I love them both for it.
I'm gonna find the person who first started making mobile game ads where they fail to solve very easy puzzles in an attempt to frustrate you into downloading the game and doing it yourself.
I'm gonna find them and sneak into their house and turn the volume on every single speaker and TV to the maximum setting. I'm gonna cancel all their auto renewal subscriptions and re-up all their cancelled subscriptions. I'm gonna pee in the space under the seats of their car. I'm gonna take a shit and leave it on top of one of their kitchen cupboards and see if they can solve the fucking puzzle then.
The reveal of the appearance of the planet beneath the torus is such a cutting and excellent bit of world building.
This immense space station, which is full of technical marvels and something like artistic vision, required the near total consumption of a planet to produce. The materials used to build the thing were pulled from the planet itself.
And what is it, anyway? What is the point?
The imitation of nature is palpably false. Navigating the station is inconvenient. It's still unsafe. It's still awash with dead space and poverty.
But it does provide control. You need to pay for everything. Your every movement is tracked. You're bombarded by advertisement. You are only guaranteed an amount of safety when you stay where your employer wants you to be.
Had the corps set up shop on the planet's surface, one could always try to run away and make a living in the wild. But on these stations, even those who try must still rely on some part of corporate infrastructure. The people living in the maintenance tunnels or in abandoned sections likely aren't able to sustain themselves without buying or stealing the machines used to produce food, clothes, power.
I don't think it's an accident that living space in Corporation Space is largely limited to either these space stations or shitty little asteroids.
The torus is the ultimate example of this. It deprives its victims of even the opportunity to abandon comfort.
The torus is wasteful, opulent, inconvenient, and violent. It's a perfect setting for a capitalist dystopia.
on the subject of it often being out of character for characters to be having carefully negotiated bdsm sex in smut fics: 90% of metal gear ships are insane toxic yaoi and would definitely be having sex that is neither safe nor sane and only borderline consensual HOWEVER otacon and snavid would be thoroughly negotiating kinks before during and after sex like theyre doing mission briefings on a codec call
One of my favorite historical deepdive topics is the friendship between CS Lewis (the author for The Chronicles of Narnia) and JRR Tolkien (the author for The Lord of the Rings).
There's so much good stuff to talk about like how Tolkien nearly broke off his friendship with Lewis because he wanted to put Santa Claus in his books, or how Tolkien got pissed about CS Lewis being called an "ascetic writer" in an interview because he watched him sling back 4 beers at lunch the day before. Plus the fact that Tolkien famously hated his work being taken as an allegory or metaphor, meanwhile Lewis was like "if one person doesn't understand that the lion is Jesus I'll shoot myself"
But I think my favorite piece of their history together is the letter CS Lewis sent to JRR Tolkien describing Aslan.
Because you think back on this time period and go "everyone was so stuffy and uptight and miserable, they're nothing like us"... but then the first ever drawing of Aslan by CS Lewis was this
I fully admit I did this to myself. I voluntarily went HEY you know what animates me like a vengeful eidolon to the point where I could chew solid stone while laughing? Ragging on the history of Christianity in America! Oh look! A cute gay show about disabled witches sticking it to Puritan Cult-Peddling Murder Grandpa (also known as Ash's personal bugbear)? SIGN ME UP? Lets dissect this dreadful son of a bitch in the context of his theological bullshit!
But then I get to the parts where I have to think about Belos and all the Grimwalkers and its sicker the more I think about it. Everyone knows of course its just. The depth of the violation and desecration and depravity in its own context is Beyond Grotesque.
I'll elaborate more on this later, but Puritans were obsessed with how a person's remains were kept. This scabrous donkey's bastard was mutilating the unburied remains of the brother he murdered for 400 years. The thing that makes me insane is that any attempts to tell himself "I'm saving your soul, Caleb" had to have petered out pretty quick in that process. He discards the Christian name. Starts calling them all Hunter. Witch Hunter, a title, a job description, a fucking factory tag. He even started branding them after a while, which we know now is a death sentence no matter how perfectly obedient they could have hoped to be. He knows he's not saving Caleb. He's farming the experience of his death.
"I'm starting to think you make those things just to destroy them."
Belos demurs, "Of course I don't, Collector. It hurts every time he chooses to betray me."
The fact they included this line from the Collector--someone who has observed and gleefully enabled this sick fuck for centuries--seems to suggest Belos' denial here is a weak one.
He does enjoy it! They show us! As soon as Luz and Hunter enter the mindscape, he goes out of his way to sabotage Hunter's loyalty. He gleefully drags the kids around, building up the reveals that will make Luz crumple to her knees and destroy Hunter's entire world. The timing. The showmanship of it all. He smiles when he flicks Hunter's little forelock.
"What a shame. Of all the Grimwalkers, you looked the most like him :)"
These are the words he intends to kill this kid by. The dude has been playing this game for CENTURIES and still enjoys the process of torturing them before he slaughters them. How many Grimwalkers died with some variation of "What? Who is Caleb?" on their lips--but the part that haunts me are the ones who lived long enough to say "Sorry" before they were killed. Phillip isn't saving Caleb's soul, he's punishing him over and over.
So why does he do this? How does the Puritan part factor into it? Other than the pleasure of murder that is. It makes me think of how the main purpose of missionaries is to experience rejection. Particularly when it comes to sending kids out from the church. The purpose of the whole affair there is to reinforce that The World Bad, and Rejects the Word of God, and the Only REAL community you have is the Church. They understand you. This creates not just the insulation that gives them a chance to practice the script of the Rejected Religious Warrior, but create distance from reality.
Belos has been working on the worlds most horrible DIY project. He's been doing it for 400 years. What on earth can sustain that laser focus, him working while his body monsterizes and turns to evil Ghibli goo around him? Man hasn't eaten real food in 400 years.
His brother's death! The point of no return in Phillips villain origin (inciting incident: the moment Caleb fell for Evelyn). Each incarnation is going to to have a witch's pointed ears and the Grimwalkers pink eyes, wear different scars that Belos himself stuck there, but it's still his face. Sure it's a younger face than Caleb had when HE died, but at this point it hardly matters. Phillip is farming Caleb's death to re-inspire the moment where genocide entered his heart. These witches have taken you from me, Caleb. I'll make them all pay.
But first, I'll make YOU pay.
This bitch was going to take time out of the Day of Unity to kill Hunter if he got him. My god. Given that he was pressed for time I like to think it would have been quick but god if this is any indication...ugh.
As an aside, Belos predates the first Giraffes brought to America. I like the idea that he might just be totally unaware of their presence on Earth. It gives me a chuckle.
Witch From Mercury is a great anime and probably the best Gundam series in a long time but I can’t help but compare the experience of watching it to watching a court jester perform for his king while a knight stands ready to cut him down if he fails to do it correctly. Because, like, the show has to end with Suletta and Miorine married and in love and smooching on the lips. It just has to, it has gone too hard onto “these girls are in love and engaged” to pull back now.
If it goes the “bait and switch lesbians” route or even just leaves things open ended, it will get fucking eviscerated. The rage will be ceaseless. It will go from “best anime of the season/year” and a massive newbie boom for Gundam as a franchise to being condemned as one of the worst endings in anime ever. Or at least that’s the vibe I’m getting. So it’s got a gun labeled “let the lesbians be lesbians” pointed at its head as it does its thing.
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