Manga Mondays: Lament of the Lamb

This is one of those series that I forgot existed, until, at a loss for what to write, I went scrounging around my house for ideas, and lo and behold, there it was shoved into the back of my closet. I wouldn’t say Lament of the Lamb by Kei Toume is entirely forgettable, but it’s been nearly ten years since its debut and it’s not particularly memorable in terms of plot. What initially drew me to it is its art—which is probably the most notable part of the series. It has a very distinctive style, especially on the covers, and even after coming across my forgotten collection, while just one look at the cover wasn’t enough to make me remember the story and characters—except in the most basic sense—my thoughts were immediately flooded with the visuals before even turning the first page.

Ace plays Final Fantasy VII: The Plot Thickens

So I’ve already given an overall review on the plot of this game, but for any of you who either didn’t read that or didn’t play the game, here’s what the plot boils down to in its simplest form: some asshole’s mother tells said asshole to summon a meteor to murder the Planet, so he does it without question. Of course, that doesn’t really do the plot justice, because as I said last time, Final Fantasy VII can become really complex, especially when we take into account the setting and character backstories.

Furthermore, VII did something completely unexpected and shocking: It killed off a main character.

This is not something that often happened in games at this point in time. The death of Aerith has to be one of the most memorable moments in video game-dom. Unfortunately, though FFVII did succeed in giving Aerith’s death meaning, her passing is still surrounded by plot holes.

They also made her Jesus.

Ace plays Final Fantasy VII: The Plot

I probably shouldn’t be starting another series for this game, but I gave X a series, and VII is a much more well-known story. Not only that, it’s much more loved, and between the two, I think it’s the better game. It certainly has less ginormous gaping plot holes, and it didn’t dedicate one-third of its story to something that has entirely nothing to do with the plot. I do, however, still think there are some problems with the way the story is told.

When I first played, I always wondered things like: how does Cloud not lose this battle instantly? He brought a sword to a gun fight! Plot hole?

Other than X, I’ve already reviewed IX, XII, X-2, and XIII-2, but VII is my favorite Final Fantasy game. I’m going to warn all the hardcore fans right now that the downside of this being my favorite in the franchise means that I’m going to be a lot more critical of it. And like X, there’s a lot to talk about. But first, let’s begin with the plot.

Fanfiction Fridays: A Villain State of Mind by Mikkeneko

Hey, have any of you wondered what would happen if, after the events in The Avengers, some sort of shenanigans ensued, in which Loki is somehow ejected from Asgard and left in the capable yet frustrated hands of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Well, considering just how many fics there are about Loki being taken in by the Avengers and becoming friends with them, chances are that some of you have.

I don’t want to say that those stories are bad—they’re more numerous than anything—so much as they’re a little repetitive. Though each of these fics give a different take on going about Loki’s reformation and can be very insightful, they can get old really fast. Because there’s just that many of them. Mikkeneko, however, puts a really different spin on it, and her story A Villain State of Mind is by far one of the best character studies I’ve read about Loki. The summary goes as follows:

To no one’s pleasure, Loki ends up stranded in SHIELD custody after the events of The Avengers. Wary of Loki’s dangerous abilities, Nick Fury calls in the favor of an old friend to help him keep this new threat under control—but can even the formidable Professor X save Loki from himself?

Probably one of the reasons A Villain State of Mind is so insightful is because it’s literally about a telepath helping Loki deal with his issues. My biggest complaint about this is that because Loki doesn’t consent to Xavier reading his mind, the story does have mind rape. At the very least, Loki is not happy about such a violation, but that’s all the more credit I can give the fic on that issue.

Throughout the course of the nine chapters, Loki starts to form a bond with Xavier and even begins to regard him as a father figure, going so far to wish that Xavier had been the one to find him as an infant. Xavier, in turn, is reminded by his own failings with Mystique when confronted with Loki’s issues. This comes to light when Xavier sees Loki in his true Frost Giant form and remarks on how similar the two look. Xavier tells Loki about how it was wrong that he acted ashamed of Mystique’s true form and that she is beautiful. He uses this analogy to tell Loki that he doesn’t think being a Frost Giant automatically makes Loki a monster.

Xavier only has around a week or so of helping Loki overcome his internal conflict and attempt to rehabilitate him. As such, when the story concludes, we never find out whether or not Loki changes his ways. It ends with a very possible chance of redemption for Loki, but as Xavier says, he and the Trickster only knew each other for about a week and that the threat of a relapse is nowhere near gone.

While the story does have a plot and many subplots going on, the majority of it is just Loki and Xavier sitting in a room talking to each other. That said, it is still a fascinating read. Be sure to check it out on ff.net here or on AO3 here.

Trailer Tuesdays: Thor 2: The Dark World

Well, it’s finally here, the trailer for Thor: The Dark World! Aren’t you excited?! I know I am! Let’s take a look.

Oh… okay…

That really wasn’t what I had been expecting.

Sexualized Saturdays: Star Wars and Interspecies Relations

So quite a while back, I did a post on the Jedi and their sexual relations, but I feel the need to revisit this world. One nice thing about the prequel universe—depending on how you look at it—is that nothing is developed at all. Characters are personality-free vehicles going through the motions George Lucas wanted them to, and the universe itself certainly isn’t portrayed that well either. In some ways, this is a good thing, because it gave the Clone Wars a lot of space to work with. In fact, it gave just about anything dealing with this time period a lot of room to work with. But the Clone Wars is what I’m most familiar with, so we’re going to use it almost exclusively for the purposes of this post.

One thing that I always liked about Stars Wars, especially on the planet of Coruscant, is that there are a bunch of different sentient species all intermingling with each other. However, it doesn’t often appear that they are engaging in interspecies relations. We know that there has been and probably still are sexual relationships between people of different species going on in the universe. Every once in a while, characters will be revealed as being bispecies, and the Twi’leks in particular have a long history of being sold into slavery, with their women usually ending up as sex slaves. (The Wookieepedia article says that they usually were dancers or entertainers for their owners, because of how attractive people found them, but let’s be realistic: they’re used as sex slaves.)

However, the fact that there are interspecies relationships—outside of slavery—makes the Star Wars universe much more interesting.

Manga Mondays: Fruits Basket

I think this is the first shoujo I got into, and like many manga, Fruits Basket just seemed to go on for way too long, though it never quite reached Naruto and Bleach levels in terms of length. (Then again, not many things can.) At the very least, Fruits Basket had a set ending and a more or less cohesive plot, and though it also has a fair number of characters, it never actually deviated too far from its plot to develop them separately from what was actually happening in the story. What I’m trying to say is that it never punishes the reader with more filler than actual plot. It only punishes them with fluff, which is almost just as bad. It is twenty-three volumes, which is a pretty decent length, and if the story’s decent as well, there’s definitely nothing wrong with that.

Fanfiction Fridays: Pokélight

This fanfiction is the most amazing fanfiction I have ever read. Unfortunately, I cannot find the original tumblr page it was posted on. What I do have, however, is a screenshot of the entire fic. Of course, I’m using the term fic rather loosely. It’s more a spoof on Twilight, using the Pokémon universe to both make fun of and show what’s exactly so ridiculous about the original Twilight story. It’s rather simple, but highly creative.

This Pokélight story is very short. I could sit here and tell all of you what it’s about, or what happens in it, but, like Twilight, that wouldn’t be much. Pokélight just does the decent thing by at least being entertaining. And to be honest, it would take less time for you guys to just read the fic and be amazed by it than for me to talk about it. So go ahead and hit the jump, and if any of you have a link to the actual tumblr post, please let me know so I can credit it.

Trailer Tuesdays: Catching Fire

It’s finally here, the long-awaited trailer to the long-awaited movie Catching Fire. I think I watched this trailer four times before I finally stopped being giddy enough to read the release date, which is still so many months away. It’s going to be a while until November rolls around, and I suppose we’ll just have to find something else to watch in the meantime.

This trailer, oh man. This trailer is epic. It doesn’t focus on the 75^th annual Hunger Games at all, and instead pays attention to the time leading up to that in the first part of the book. This means that the only victors we see in this trailer are Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch. (Unfortunate, because I would have really liked to see Johanna, Finnick, or even Mags.) Katniss herself, however, is still a badass, and I don’t know of many people willing to stare down a man holding a gun and tell him to go ahead and still look like she’s in charge of this situation, even if she doesn’t feel in charge. Katniss now has to come to terms with the fact that, by surviving the Hunger Games, the Capitol pretty much owns her and Peeta. This is not something she accepts.

President Snow doesn’t like that Katniss managed to show up the Capitol during the previous installment and now she has become a “beacon of hope” to the districts, who are rallying behind her in rebellion. This is a problem that Snow now has to deal with.

I think what really captured my attention is what Snow says at the end of the trailer. He says that “her entire species must be eradicated” in reference to Katniss and the other victors. The people of the Capitol don’t view the people of districts as being the same as them. The districts are little more than slaves to the Capitol, and because slaves don’t matter, no one cares that their children are forced to murder each other year after year. Snow takes it a step further and actually thinks of the victors as an entirely separate species from human beings. In some ways, this is probably what the Capitol thinks of them as well.

This is certainly one movie I’ll be waiting impatiently for.

Teen Wolf and Feminism Part 3: Rape Culture and the Female Gaze

MadameAce: If there was one thing to praise Teen Wolf for, it would be its treatment of rape culture, and this can be shown through the actions of Matt, Kate, and Peter. The show doesn’t condone their actions, though it doesn’t try to draw a large amount of attention to them either. Teen Wolf doesn’t do those annoying specials that other shows do, where they present a serious topic and devote the entire episode to giving a lecture on it. Teen Wolf instead presents rape culture as something that not only exists but often happens that people have to deal with.

Warning: Discussion of Rape and Sexual Assault Below!!!