Video Games: ‘Eastward’ Review

Screen capture of the characters John and Sam in ‘Eastward’. Copyright goes to Pixpil.

Hey! Hallie here!

Recently I’ve been really interested in cozier games I can casually play on my Nintendo Switch. During my search I came across ‘Eastward’ in a list that was specifically for cozy games that aren’t farming sims, and because I get very easily tired of farming sims, I really wanted to give this a shot. Especially because of the art style, which is absolutely gorgeous. After finishing the game I have a lot of thoughts, which I’ll get into below, but I want to clarify something. This game is pretty high stakes and also has an in-depth and confusing storyline. It even gets quite dark at parts. So while I might call this game’s color palette or wholesome characters “cozy”, I wouldn’t necessarily call this entire game cozy, nor would I recommend it for someone looking for a calming game to unwind with. But that misconception isn’t the fault of the game, just some of the people who’ve recommended it. So with that warning out of the way, let’s get to what I liked and didn’t like in this game!

The Good:

The Protagonists: John and Sam are both really interesting characters that are equally fun to follow. John is a completely silent protagonist which isn’t unusual for an old-fashioned RPG like this one. He’s known for being reliable and kind, though with him actions clearly speak louder than words. The game also spends a good amount of time driving home that he’s an excellent cook just to make him even more likable. But what adds most to his character is his relationship with our other protagonist, Sam. While the player takes the role of John through most of the game, Sam is still a character players will spend a lot of time playing as. Sam is a little girl who’s backstory is mysterious due to the fact that John found her in a tube in some sort of laboratory. She does speak, often on behalf of both herself and John, and constantly demonstrates a huge heart and an earnest desire to befriend everyone she meets. On top of her easily likable traits, Sam is also a badass with crazy powers that prevent her from being any sort of damsel in distress. These two act as a father/daughter duo that’s both heartwarming and heartbreaking as the events of the game unfold. While Sam is clear that John isn’t her real father, John sees himself as Sam’s parent and acts according to that role more and more as the plot goes on. The lengths these two go to to protect each other is the entire driving force of the game and it’s a very effective emotional hook for the audience.

The Side Characters: There’s a whole host of side characters in this game, and while not all of them are winners, most of them are, in my opinion, even better than the main characters. First there’s Alva, a princess and a technician who protects her city from danger with her inventions. She’s bubbly, adorable, and hilarious. And she’s also openly LGBTQ+ as she’s actively dating Isabel, a woman who was built(?) to protect her. Isabel is another great character. She’s the most skilled and feared fighter in the world of ‘Eastward’, as well as the most capable person (Aside from Sam and John) at defending her world from the darkness that’s sweeping across it. There’s also William, an inventor who left his family behind to prove that a world existed outside of the underground village he called a home. William is interesting in that he’s very obviously flawed. He travels around with a robot of his own creation named Daniel, whom he treats like a son, but his real life son named Daniel was left behind when William made to escape his hometown. William is haughty and a bit difficult to understand at first, but the ways he displays his devastation over leaving his family behind are quickly understandable. These are my favorite NPCs, but there are plenty more. There’s Jasper, the outlandish performer who shows a surprising amount of care for the protagonists at the beginning of the game. There’s also Lee, the menacing casino boss who has a soft spot for Alva that makes him endearing. The characters in this game are full of so many quirks and fun backstories that it’s hard to walk away without having at least one character you love.

The Art: I already mentioned the art above, but I’m going to take a bit more time to gush about it. This game is full of vibrant colors and gorgeous backgrounds. From lush forests to bustling cities, to strange labs, this game is breathtaking to look at. There wasn’t one frame where I wasn’t amazed by the color palette. The mix between bright colors and duller tones is eye-catching. And the character designs are all unique and satisfying to look at. They inform the character’s personalities so well that I wanted merchandise for each character even before I actually started the game. There are even pieces of art in the game that pop up towards the ending that are a completely different art style from everything else. As if the rest of the game didn’t already look like a storybook, the occasional fluid, abstract style we get towards the end elevates that storybook feeling. To be honest, I partially bought this game because of the art and I do not regret spending around 25 hours staring at it.

The Gameplay: The gameplay is very satisfying and not too complicated. While I, once again, would not call this game cozy, it’s not stressful to play gameplay-wise. You spend most of the gameplay fighting, but fighting mechanics are simple and, once you get the hang of dodging, most fights are a breeze. As long as you can button mash and you fully utilize Sam’s abilities to freeze enemies, you shouldn’t have any problems. There were very few fights that I had to restart during my time playing this game and even fewer that I had to restart multiple times. You get a few weapons you can choose from during fights, but each are straight-forward, can only be occasionally leveled up, and some are more for puzzles than fights. Speaking of puzzles, there are plenty of fun puzzles you can solve using both John and Sam. These puzzles aren’t too difficult, but they also aren’t so easy that you don’t feel you’ve accomplished anything once you figure them out. There’s also a cooking mechanic in this game that will provide you with the best healing items you can get your hands on. Cooking is as simple as mixing various kinds of ingredients together and seeing what dish you make on accident, but I did find myself enjoying putting together different ingredient combinations to see what recipe I randomly unlocked.

The Bad:

The Story: Well oof. Although I’m very character oriented when it comes to what I find enjoyment in with video games, a bad story always sours my experience regardless of how good the characters are. And this is a particularly messy story. For this section I’m going into SPOILERS! You’ve been warned! The amount of half-baked ideas it felt like were thrown at the wall and never resolved was frankly astounding. First there’s the identity of Sam, who, as far as I gathered, is one of many clones of a mysterious woman. The purpose of her creation was to help usher in a mass extinction of humans so they could be replaced with artificial “better” humans. But who’s she a clone of? Is it someone specific? Is it the person who decided that replacing humans was a good idea for no reason? Why did there need to be more than one clone? There’s also the fact that all of the characters refer to Sam as “mother” when they either praise her or blame her for ushering in the darkness that’s supposed to be the catalyst for replacing the human race. But who’s mother? What motherly role would Sam or the other clones serve? And though I do like that Sam rejects the idea of destroying the human race and puts a stop to it all herself, who’s the alternate version of Sam that keeps trying to convince her to go dark? Is she another clone? The dark side of Sam? The original creator of the clones?

Then there’s Solomon, a character who claims to work for “mother” and appears at various stages of his life throughout the game. He’s a kid when you meet him, but soon afterwards you meet him as a teen and then as an old man. Who is this guy? Why does he work for “mother”? Is he time traveling, or are the three versions of him clones like Sam? And why does it matter that he changes from a teenager to an old man if he’s just going to play the same “evil dude” role either way? And THEN there’s Isabel, who we’re told was built for Alva but then that piece of information never gets elaborated on. Is she even real? Also, why does she try to clone Alva and plug her into Sam’s human-destroying program at the end of the game? And how is Alva’s spirit able to suddenly appear and talk her out of it? I’m fine with a story leaving questions unanswered, but this many questions pertaining to this many main characters feels more like unfinished storylines rather than open-ended conclusions. I also have to complain about the tone here. It quickly switches from light shenanigans to dark themes frequently, but sometimes it’s so jarring that it’s a detriment to the story. For example, Alva dies pretty suddenly in this game. And I didn’t even realize she was dead until I left her city and came to the conclusion that Alva wouldn’t be coming back. Sure we see Isabel carrying her dead body, but she could easily be unconscious for all we know. And after the mostly humorous shenanigans right before her death, it’s hard to just immediately assume the worst there. This happens so often. One minute we’re messing around on a movie set run by monkeys, and the next Daniel the robot dies a gruesome death. Huh?

Sexism and Insensitivity: It’s undeniable. There are some unacceptable characteristics in the character design for some of the NPCs here. The ones I noticed most had to do with a few of the women in this game. While the main characters, such as Alva and Isabel, didn’t have this problem, a large amount of NPCs who happened to be women were given abnormally large breasts. To emphasize this, their breasts moved independently from their bodies during their idle animations. This is a specific trait I haven’t seen for a long time in games and it was kind of insulting to see it come back as an added trait for so many characters. Not to mention that one of these characters isn’t over-sexualized until her circus troupe, made up of men, forces her to wear a dominatrix outfit that not only gives her an abnormally sized chest, but also completely changes her personality. Then there’s the interpretation of a group of homeless people within a large city. All the designs for this population are made to be purposefully ugly and each character deliberately sounds unintelligent in their dialogue. Because that’s a great way to depict an underprivileged population. These details aren’t included in the most important parts of the story, but the fact that they’re there at all irritated me quite a bit.

I wish I liked this game more. After seeing the art and hearing the plot, I thought this would be right up my alley. And in some ways it was. I did enjoy many of the characters and I loved the art style. But the story was a mess and some of the old-fashioned ideologies made me cringe. This game needed more time and more people to look over it before its release. It’s definitely not a bad game. If you love games like ‘EarthBound’ and ‘Undertale’, you’ll absolutely enjoy this one. But don’t expect the same richness in story you get from either of those titles.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Comfort Entertainment: Jester and Fjord in ‘Critical Role’

Valentine’s Day promotional photo of Travis Willingham and Laura Bailey. Copyright goes to ‘Critical Role’ and Travis and Laura.

Hi! It’s Annie!

So I’ve talked about D&D romances, ‘Critical Role’ characters, and ‘Critical Role’ campaign comparisons. I guess it’s about time to kind of combine all of that so that I can talk about what is one of my favorite couples in all of ‘Critical Role’. And one of my favorite fictional couples I’ve ever seen in anything ever. This is also one of my favorite examples of letting things happen in D&D and it ended up so cutely! As well as the fact that, unlike some couples in ‘Critical Role’, this couple actually got their happy ending in the end. Though overall this campaign had a more wholesome feel to it than the first one (even despite the major character death), so it made sense that the ending of this campaign felt more wholesome and less tragic than the last one. Every campaign end has been pretty thematic in my opinion. There are so many things that make this couple so wonderful and give people a better understanding of romance RP that can be used in their own personal games. So I’m going to go over all of the things that make this couple absolutely amazing! MAJOR SPOILERS FOR CAMPAIGN TWO OF ‘CRITICAL ROLE’ AHEAD!!!!!

Travis and Laura:

You can’t talk about Jester and Fjord without also talking about Travis and Laura. For those of you who are unfamiliar with voice actors and ‘Critical Role’; Travis and Laura are a married couple! They are actually the only couple that are both players at the table of the ‘Critical Role’ team. There are other couples that are involved in ‘Critical Role’, but in no other instance are both player characters (unless you rightfully also count Sam and Liam). In the previous campaign Laura played a character that romanced someone else’s character at the table. Laura has said that she absolutely loves romance and really loves making it a part of her character’s storylines if she can. Travis was completely ok with this. Travis is the exact opposite of his wife in that, up until this campaign, he swore that he would never RP romance. He felt that it was really awkward and often cringed when a romantic scene would happen during the first campaign. After expressing to his wife that he entirely meant to keep with that for the second campaign; Laura decided to take this as a challenge. She swore to him that his character would end up falling for her character, which he kind of laughed at and really didn’t believe. Oh, how wrong he was. Laura Bailey, the resident badass, made the type of character that became irresistible to most everyone at the table. By the time the campaign ended, three of the six other player characters had professed that they had a crush on Jester at some point. Obviously one of those was Fjord.

The Character History:

For the people unfamiliar with these characters, I’m going to go into a brief explanation. Jester is a blue Tiefling (a devil-type humanoid with horns and a tail but is not always evil by any means) who wears adorable dresses and has a very naive and cute personality. Fjord is a green Orc (fanged humanoid that look much better than the Orcs you are probably thinking of), who has a very pirate-y backstory, loves the sea, and is the strategist of the group. When the party eventually comes together at the beginning of the campaign, Fjord and Jester have known each other for a while. They’ve already been traveling together longer than many others in the group and Jester already knows a lot more about Fjord. She already knows about Fjord’s tragic past and how he assumed the personality of his old Captain, making his southern accent not a complete truth. In fact, when Fjord eventually shows the rest of the group that his accent is actually British, Jester attempts to warn Fjord that he dropped the accent in what she perceives to be an accident. And with Jester’s more naive and lighthearted nature, and also the fact that her Mother expects her safe return, Fjord vows to protect Jester. Something that actually comes up reliably in combat during the campaign. With all this history written for Jester and Fjord, it really does make you wonder how Travis ever thought he would be immune to the charms of his wife. But you can see him making an attempt to turn the dynamic into something more older brother-younger sister towards the beginning of the campaign. Laura did not allow this to happen for long though.

Bad Timing:

One of the things I really love about this couple is that they actually took some time to develop. Both as individuals and as a couple. Though I’m sure some of it seems a bit like a hilarious troll to some, I felt that the timing that was taken was perfect. At the beginning of the campaign Jester had a huge crush on Fjord that was obvious to everyone except for maybe Fjord. Though I’m sure he was aware of it at some point. As the campaign went on, Fjord started reciprocating these feelings after seeing Jester interact with her Mother and show her deep sense of kindness and empathy towards others on multiple occasions. However, when Fjord finally realized that he also liked Jester, Jester realized that she wasn’t in a place to have a relationship. Jester realized that one of the reasons she liked Fjord was because he was the first person to show her genuine care and kindness once she had escaped her rather sheltered life. Fjord was patient as Jester actually used her own experiences and a more well-rounded world view to discover what she wanted and to set standards for herself and her life. And then when Jester had become more mature, Fjord finally made a move on Jester that was immediately reciprocated. The two remained together for the rest of the campaign and we even got to see the two tell each other that they loved each other for the first time. And what was even more shocking about this? Watching Travis essentially fall in love with his wife over again and actually instigate romance scenes. The first part isn’t shocking, but the second part…we never thought we’d see the day. Watching Travis turn bright red and bury his head in his hands after the first actual kiss scene between the two was devastatingly adorable. And watching Travis’s silly surprised grin when Laura created an incredibly deep moment between Jester and Fjord (the jellyfish scene), was almost too much to handle.

Inevitability:

Though Travis and Laura often don’t sit next to each other during games anymore, we have seen adorable interactions between Laura and Travis at the table before. Though most of them have been out of character. Laura Bailey has twice now left an award show for video games and voice actors early in order to play ‘Critical Role’. I love this because my priorities would be the same. This actually included a time when she was up for an award and left before the award was even announced. (Hell yes!!) Seeing Travis look up from the table stunned, and tell her how beautiful she looked in the middle of the game after she showed up, was heart wrenching. But watching Travis watch his wife in awe as she made it somehow impossible for Fjord to not romance Jester was just as cute. He even laughed in disbelief in the behind the scenes ‘Talks Machina’, lamenting that Laura had made it impossible for him. Poor Travis never had a chance. And Jester and Fjord really did seem to be endgame from the beginning. From the promise of protecting her, to the jellyfish scene, to Jester eventually actually healing Fjord which was easily one of the most shocking moments of the campaign. These two were inevitable. And also so incredibly cute from both the standpoint of Jester and Fjord being cute together and the standpoint of Laura making it impossible for her own husband to have any other choice with charm alone.

There’s always something about fictional couples that are also played by real life couples. One of the reasons why the K-Drama ‘Crash Landing On You’ had such good chemistry from the off was because of the actual off screen chemistry between the actors. And the chemistry always comes through with a married couple. Travis and Laura are both amazing at RP already, but I don’t think any other fictional couple will have quite the same adorable magic as this one does. It is absolute perfection and I melt into a puddle any time I look up any scenes of these two. There are so many things that came together to make this couple so great, and this is why I think they are one of my favorite fictional couples of all time. D&D made this even more personal in every way than any other form of media could have. And Laura and Travis are amazing!

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Netflix Shows: ‘Enola Holmes 2’ Review

Screenshot of Millie Bobby Brown and Helena Bonham Carter from ‘Enola Holmes 2’. Copyright goes to Netflix.

Hey! Hallie here!

The first ‘Enola Holmes’ wasn’t something we covered on this blog, but it was extremely good. I was honestly expecting something a bit cheesy when the first trailers were released, but it came across as fun and witty instead. Millie Bobby Brown really shines in the role of Enola, especially if you’re only used to watching her play Eleven in ‘Stranger Things’. She’s sharp, confident, and extremely charismatic as the lead in these films. And on top of that, Henry Cavill is Sherlock Holmes. Henry Cavill obviously makes most things better. Because the first movie was so good, I was a little worried about the second one. Good sequels are hard to come by, especially where Netflix is concerned. But ‘Enola Holmes 2’ received a lot of love the day it came out which very quickly shot my expectations from low to high. After watching it I’ll say that ‘Enola Holmes 2’ isn’t perfect, but it did ultimately live up to my expectations. Let’s get into what I liked and disliked about this sequel! SPOILERS AHEAD!

What I Liked:

Enola and Sherlock: One of the main pieces of this film that was heavily advertised was the brother/sister team up of Enola and Sherlock. They didn’t get as much time in the first one to interact as some would have liked, mainly because Enola was actively trying to avoid her brothers in her attempt to figure out where her mother was, so this was an element many people were looking forward to. Fortunately, this relationship was utilized perfectly. Sherlock has plenty of screen time, coming in pretty early in the movie and helping Enola through a good portion of her investigation. But he never overshadows her. He’s working on his own case for much of the movie, putting him on a different path than Enola. His case does wind up connecting to Enola’s, but there’s a fair amount of time beforehand for Enola to figure some things out on her own. I liked this both because Henry Cavill’s Sherlock tends to be a scene stealer which doesn’t always benefit Enola, and because it was necessary to show Enola’s capabilities both with and without her brother. Though Sherlock is definitely more skilled at deduction than Enola, Enola utilizes deception and undercover work, which works to make her come across as his equal. I also really loved the sibling relationship between these two. Sherlock’s clear anger after he isn’t able to arrange Enola’s release from prison was sweet, as was his care for her in the final battle. Similarly, Enola’s trust in him to protect her when Lestrade comes looking for her was heartwarming, as was her arrangement for Sherlock to meet Watson. They make looking out for one another a priority in ways that feel natural to their characters. I can’t wait to see these two interact more in the future!

Feminism: A huge point of the ‘Enola Holmes’ films is the emphasis on the strength of women, whether that be shown through Enola herself or the other women in Enola’s life. This movie continues on with that theming. We get more of Enola demonstrating her fighting capabilities as well as her abilities to outsmart her adversaries. We even get to see her teach Tewkesbury how to fight. Eudoria Holmes, Enola’s mother, is still shown fighting as a suffragette which is displayed as a major part of her character. Edith, an amazing character introduced in the first movie, is directly contacted by Sherlock to save Enola because of her physical capabilities. She then recruits Eudoria to help her break Enola out of prison in a venture that is not only successful, but involves the three women fending off the main villains first in a dramatic chase scene, and then in hand-to-hand combat. And the entire story of this film is focused on a real life work of feminism. In the movie, Enola’s investigation surrounds the disappearance of a red-headed girl named Sarah Chapman. Sarah Chapman was a real historical figure who staged the first walk out for better wages and conditions in a factory that hired girls to package unsafe matches. And though the real life Sarah Chapman was a little less daring than this Sarah, I think it suits the story to have Enola chasing another woman who is just as insanely intelligent and capable as she is. All of the female characters in this are badass and I adore it.

Moriarty: Speaking of badass women, let’s talk about the huge reveal at the end of the film. Throughout ‘Enola Holmes 2’ Sherlock is investigating a case that he knows he’s being led along by a new adversary, Moriarty. It’s really exciting to see Moriarty finally being brought up in the ‘Enola Holmes’ universe, but I at first worried that this would mean our main perpetrator would be an outside party, effectively eliminating the stakes. But that’s not what happened. Instead Mira Troy, a Black woman who was unappreciated by her devious employers, wound up revealing herself to be Moriarty. Not only does this play perfectly into the focus on strong women, but this reveal gives Moriarty more layers. As a Black woman, she knows better than anyone what it’s like to be ignored and underestimated. She goes as far as to express particular anger over this point to the main cast because of the way her extreme intelligence is overlooked. But that makes it easy for her to work in the shadows and much harder for her to be caught by Sherlock. It also gives her a very valid reason to shun society and seek out something more nefarious. Especially after the conversation Sherlock had with Edith in the first ‘Enola Holmes’, it’s smart to see him placed against a woman like Moriarty who experiences absolutely none of the privilege that he does. It’ll be exciting to see how they clash.

Tewkesbury: He’s not as major of a role here as he was in the last movie by any means, but his appearances are nice. I liked the scene where he taught Enola how to dance about as much as I liked Enola teaching him how to fight. His appearance at the ball otherwise wasn’t the most plot relevant, but it was still cute to see how head over heels he still is for Enola. My favorite usage of Tewkesbury occurred at the end of the film, where he finally has the courage to get his hands dirty and participate in hand-to-hand combat. Him doing so specifically for Enola was especially lovely. He’s a very good love interest, serving as the Watson to Enola’s Sherlock with just the right amount of puppy dog devotion to be adorable without feeling obnoxious. And much like Sherlock, he doesn’t overstay his welcome. Which is nice because he isn’t all that relevant to this investigation. Overall, Tewkesbury is in just the right amount of the movie to feel charming and not unnecessary.

What I Disliked:

Enola’s Character Growth: This is my only gripe with the film but it’s a pretty big gripe. Don’t get me wrong, I liked that Enola’s lesson here was to be unafraid to make real connections and to ask for help from the people who she’s made connections with. But the execution was so sloppy. At the beginning of the film Enola feels so much less competent than she was in the first film. Her deductions, when she first is hired to investigate the disappearance of Sarah Chapman, are obvious and not at all impressive. She then remains completely oblivious to getting followed on two separate occasions, and falls into a trap Sherlock is knowledgable of because of his superior deductions. Then she walks into a ball undercover after having done no preparation whatsoever. It feels like Enola is uncharacteristically fumbling through even the simplest of tasks early in the film. Of course, this is all meant to lead up to her mother suggesting that she may need the help of other people who have skills she doesn’t. After Enola accepts that she needs help, she becomes regular Enola again. When she returns to the room she was first in, her deductions are inexplicably much better. When she goes to investigate various locations with Sherlock, they’re able to bounce off of one another rather than Sherlock coming up with all the right answers himself. I understood what they were going for with the development of Enola, but they needed to demonstrate that Enola’s skills weren’t enough in some situations rather than lessening her skills in all situations.

And those were my thoughts on ‘Enola Holmes 2’! Though I wasn’t a fan of the way Enola’s character arc played out, I don’t feel the character lost any of her likability. And clearly, the things I enjoyed about this movie far outweigh the things I disliked. With the amazing setup of Watson in the very last scene, I can’t wait for the third. And the third is already being planned as I write this! ‘Enola Holmes’ has been a surprisingly masterful venture amongst a sea of Netflix’s recent failures. I think it’s wise that they keep something this entertaining going.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

ATEEZ: Post Concert Depression

Screenshot/Promotional photo of (from left) Park Seonghwa, Kang Yeosang, Kim Hongjoong, Choi Jongho, Song Mingi, Choi San, Jung Wooyoung, and Jeong Yunho. Copyright goes to KQ Entertainment and ATEEZ.

Hi! It’s Annie!

I’m sad. I think that’s pretty clear by the title. I was just at what I believe was my favorite concert I’ve ever been to for my ult group. Because, yes, this has been coming on for a while, but ATEEZ is officially my ult group and the ult group of this blog. If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you probably know that Yunho has been officially my ult bias for longer than that. And the concert from a couple days ago felt really personal to me for so many reasons. For one, this is the first time where I scored the tickets myself and it took a lot of determination because of the Ticketmaster glitch. For another, we were sitting so incredibly close. So close that we didn’t have to look at the screens if we didn’t want to because we could perfectly make out their facial features from where we were sitting. There was also the fact that I promised myself I’d go to this concert and have gotten better by the time it came around during a pretty rough time for me, and I have gotten better. But whatever way you want to slice it, the overall truth of the matter is that a couple nights ago I was in the same building as my ults, crying during “The Ring” of all songs because they were so close, and screaming “BREAK THE WALL!” and “ATEEZ PRESENT!” at the top of my lungs. I don’t know if it was the cold air, but I have never lost my voice that badly after a K-Pop concert. And it really feels like I was ripped out of a perfect day that I would love to relive over and over again. I was anticipating it for so long and it went by so fast! Even though ATEEZ performed for over two and half hours. (How do they perform for that long with that difficult choreography???) But I am feeling the familiar grip of post concert depression particularly badly this time. And I know that many people also know the hardships of post concert depression, including the idols themselves sometimes. So here are some of my tips to get through post concert depression and some of the things I’m doing this time in particular to make me feel a little better. Hopefully, some of these will help you out as well!

Concert Pictures and Videos:

This is absolutely going to hurt at first, but trust me and go through all of your pictures. I know everyone takes a ton. Even I do, though I don’t really like using my phone through most of any kind of concert. It’s honestly the most personal thing to you to recapture the magic from the night of the concert. Even better if you took live photos that show snippets of the concert. I’m pretty familiar with post concert depression at this point, so at one point I took a couple live photos of just Yunho walking across the stage. These pictures are now some of my absolute favorite pictures on my phone. I really love the badass performance shots, but I find the simple shots that just remind me that for a little while I occupied the same space as them to be more meaningful. And they are also automatically more heart-wrenching because they also feel more personal. A lot of people are going to have that shot of them striking that one cool pose, but only you are going to have the shot you took just because you’re a sentimental sap. After that the best thing to do is go to the videos either you or other people took of the concert. I was losing my mind so much during “The Ring” that I didn’t remember the choreography, so I had to look it up afterwards. This is the perfect time to refresh your memory. Because your brain going into shock during the concert will affect your memory of specifics a little bit. Again, going through concert footage will hurt, but it will at least remind you of the magic of the night. You can absolutely cry during this step; there is no judgement here. We all probably do it. Really, you can cry through any step of this process.

Variety Shows and Lives:

Inevitably, the photos and videos won’t feel as personal as you’ll want them to and you’ll miss sharing the space with your favorite idols. The best way to recapture the feeling of sharing the space with them, in my opinion, is to watch variety shows. Especially if they are the group’s personal variety shows. For this I use things like ‘FEVER Road’, ‘Salary Lupin’, and ‘WANTEEZ’. These are all shows that show the boys in action, interacting with each other, completing tasks, and just being themselves. This is why personal variety shows are better. Because the idols usually know the staff of their personal variety shows pretty well and the idols work as both hosts and contestants so you see them more in their natural environment. I find that watching them do things like this hurt less than watching their lives. Especially if one of the members went live after a concert. But their lives are also, admittedly, a great way to feel like you’re in the same space again. It usually takes me a few more days to be able to do this, but I love recapturing that feeling by watching the lives too. The binge-ability of any of these also makes it a good time to do other comforting things as well. Like hugging a plushie, drinking some tea, or burying yourself under blankets. Or all of the above.

MVs:

Want to recapture the choreography and the awe you felt watching their performances? This is where performance videos and MVs come in. Personally, I’ve been watching all of their MVs on repeat since the ending of the concert. It’s been days now and I’m still not tired of it. Though, we’re never going to recapture the chair choreography that was “Cyberpunk”; I can capture some of that feeling by re-watching the “Deja Vu” MV. And then with ATEEZ you get the added bonus of going through their storylines. Nobody does storylines like ATEEZ does. From “HALA HALA” where we were first officially introduced to HALATEEZ, to “Say My Name” where Halateez first appeared and ATEEZ attempts to release HALATEEZ from a prison like area, to “Don’t Stop” where we see Hongjoong get his eye patch and the pirate crew get their ship back, to “Guerilla” where ATEEZ takes the mantle of revolution leaders from the now deceased HALATEEZ in another universe since HALATEEZ gave their lives fighting with ATEEZ in their own universe. Their storylines are complex and masterfully done, which reminds me of the storylines that they continue into their own concerts. They had a full pirate ship setup this time and everything!

Have Hope and Write:

It’s really easy to feel like you’ve recently had one of the best nights of your life and you’ll never get it back. Sometimes you even accuse yourself of not fully appreciating it in the moment and wishing that somehow you knew how sad you would be and have appreciated it that much more for the knowledge. From experience, I can tell you that you probably appreciated it as much as you possibly could in that moment. And the best thing about touring groups is that, usually, touring is a yearly thing. Especially for K-Pop groups. So there’s a great chance that you’ll be able to see them again next year! What’s amazing about experiences like K-Pop concerts is that once you’ve gone, nobody can ever take that experience away from you. You’ll have it forever if you want it. If you can sometimes have a poor memory, like myself, write about it! I don’t care if you’re not much of a writer, I promise you’ll thank yourself later. Write how you were feeling and what happened before and the little things that you noticed. It doesn’t have to be long, but every time you read it you’ll be pulled back into the moment. Be grateful for the memory that you have and remember that this doesn’t have to be the last time you see them.

I have absolutely cried during this process. I usually do. I know some people might find reactions like this ridiculous; but I think it’s completely natural! You just had one of your favorite nights ever and it’s over now! But just because it’s over doesn’t mean it’s left you. You experienced it, so you’ll have those moments forever! It’s ok to feel sad right now, but it’s also ok to feel awesome; because yeah, that just happened to you. I miss all the members of ATEEZ already. And I miss the fact that Yunho was not that far from me. But I feel confident that I’ll experience it again sometime, and I can at least hold onto that hope! And for now, I have all of the amazing content that still gets me through every day anyways. But post concert depression will always hit so incredibly hard.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie!

ATEEZ: ‘The Fellowship: Break the Wall’ Tour

Promotional image of Park Seonghwa, Jeong Yunho, Jung Wooyoung, Choi San, Kim Hongjoong, Song Mingi, Choi Jongho, and Kang Yeosang for ‘The World Ep.1: Movement’. Copyright goes to KQ Entertainment.

Hey! Hallie here!

My sister and I have been talking about our excitement over getting tickets for this tour for a while now, and last night the concert date finally arrived! Going into this tour we were promised something a bit different. With the most recent album, ATEEZ created a level of immersion into the storyline they’ve been unfolding throughout their recent releases. With the release of ‘The World Ep.1: Movement’ we moved past the storyline they unfurled during their performances in the show ‘Kingdom: Legendary War’. During that show Halateez, the alternate universe versions of ATEEZ that were first introduced in the music video for “HALA HALA”, were killed in their fight to liberate their world. In the new album ATEEZ stepped into the role Halateez left behind and made moves to start a rebellion in the alternate universe, themselves. This concert plays out with this new storyline in mind, starting out with the audience themselves receiving the propaganda that’s enslaving the people of this alternate world. Sticking to a story in this way isn’t something we’ve seen a lot in K-Pop concerts, and this added element, along with the amount of seriously amazing songs on the new album, boosted my excitement to see the whole thing in person. And, as usual, ATEEZ delivered everything I wanted and more. Let’s get into the details!

Opener and Beginning:

Before I get to all the ATEEZ goodness I need to give a shout out to KQ Fellas 2! This is KQ Entertainment’s current rookie group made up of ten members. They only did two songs as the opening act for ATEEZ, but their vocals were incredible, as was their choreography. All of the members are extremely young, but I’m so excited to see what they do with their future careers! I will definitely be keeping my eye out for Minjae, Junmin, Sumin, Jinsik, Hyunwoo, Junghoon, Seeun, Hunter, Yujin, and Yechan in the future! I also want to talk about how immersive the concert was even before the concert started. Instead of music videos or adds being shown on the stage screens, We were treated to a metal wall with ATEEZ banners hanging from it. While we enjoyed mostly music from their newest album, searchlights could be seen moving across the wall. This effect was only aided by the start of the concert. As the lights went down, the audience received the chillingly soothing propaganda we’ve seen in the “Guerrilla” music video. Afterwards we were shown each member on the screen in their roles in the same music video as resistance fighters. Then ATEEZ came out in darkness to sing “New World”, a truly epic song to open with, only lit by bright lights held by the dancers. What made this even better was that the members came out in their “Guerrilla” cloaks with their hoods up, only taking them down as they each sang their first line and were finally illuminated by the lights. As soon as the chorus hit, the wall behind them, which we had seen all the way up until the concert started, opened into a cityscape. As the song ended with a mesmerizing vortex effect on the screens we went into “Answer”, which fit surprisingly well with the other new songs. Plus, it’s always amazing to see the choreography for this and Mingi absolutely killed his verse.

“Sector 1” finished the first set with some more energetic choreo before the first ments started. Their opening ments were short and cute, as always, and the amount of English they were all using was extremely impressive. I want to shout out Seonghwa in particular for dissing Disneyland’s new complicated reservation system by telling the story of how he went to Universal Studios instead during the last tour. By doing this he also, simultaneously caused Star Wars official twitter account (He had wanted to go to Disneyland for the Star Wars rides) to apologize and name him an official Jedi Master. Hell yeah. “The Ring” came afterwards, which I honestly almost blanked on entirely because this song was the first time ATEEZ came out onto the extended stage. I was sitting quite close to the extended stage and wound up too mesmerized by being able to actually see the members fully to completely comprehend what was happening. Still, “The Ring” is an extremely hard-hitting song and Seonghwa went full demon line for this one. “HALA HALA” was next and this was one of my favorite songs of the entire night. I love “HALA HALA” in general, especially the choreography, but the way this was performed was so clever. The colors on stage would flash between vibrant colors, to black and white as ATEEZ performed. When the colors went to black and white, the video on screen would change from ATEEZ performing the song on the stage, to an identical video of the choreography being performed with the ATEEZ members dressed as Halateez. There were even moments where dancers came out to dance the chorus dressed as Halateez for full effect. I don’t care if Halateez is technically dead in their storyline now, this was such an amazing idea and so well executed.

VCRs and Second Part:

After a large amount of energetic songs we were treated to our first videos. The VCRs throughout the night weren’t as nicely connected as I would have liked, but they were still enjoyable. The videos for the first break focused on ATEEZ talking about their love for one another, their protectiveness over the group, and their reason for doing what they do. As the night went on we also got the members dressed in their “Guerrilla” outfits, each showing off a role they play as resistance fighters. I especially liked hacker Yeosang and engineer Mingi. Last we got some really adorable VCRs of the members playing around together in a room full of flowers. All of these were excellent, but they didn’t aid the storyline much. Which brings us into the next set of songs. They came back from the brief break with “Dazzling Light”, a fun, heartfelt song that’s been a fan favorite for a long time. And just to keep on with the theme of grabbing Atiny by the heartstrings, they went straight into “Mist”, another very meaningful song to the fans.

I loved hearing both these songs, but I do have a small gripe with them coming next in the set list. The storyline basically ended at this point in the concert. The whole rebellion story halted pretty much entirely until the very end of the concert. I almost wish that they would have left these songs for last instead of pushing off “Cyberpunk” and “Guerrilla” until the end of the concert because of the immersive experience they had cultivated up until this point. It felt odd to suddenly drop the whole thing so early in the night. But that definitely didn’t diminish my experience. I loved seeing these songs performed live. We got a brief ment before the next two songs, where they made us guess what song was coming next and adorably praised Jongho for how cute he is, how talented he is, and how far he’s come. And after we heard some songs we haven’t seen them perform in a long time! We were treated to “Sunrise”, a very encouraging song from one of their first albums that was very fun to sing to, and “My Way”, a song from their very first album that feels like a self-fulfilling prophesy after all of their recent success. In the ment that happened afterwards they addressed “My Way” in particular to thank Atiny for being there for so many years and for allowing them to achieve their dreams. As they deserve.

Third and Fourth Part:

After a brief break ATEEZ came back onstage for “Illusion” and “Wave”, both of which were accompanied by a bright, cute background and were a nice mix between choreo and interacting with the crowd. We were then given another fun ment. This time they messed around with the color changing ability on the new lightinys, made the camera do an extreme close up of Wooyoung so he could flirt with the audience, and led us into a chant that’s become common on this tour, “sexy captain”. At which point Hongjoong stripped off his tie and did a full body roll onto the floor. I nearly died. I’m not even sure I’m still alive. That moment of chaos successfully distracted me from the giant set change that came afterwards. The background of the stage became a pirate ship, and the deck of the ship, complete with the wheel, was brought onstage. “WIN” brought up the energy in the room with the proper amount of hype for the pirate ship’s dramatic entry, and they even added some new choreo! And then they floored me with a song I never thought I’d be able to see live, “Horizon”. The choreo was just as crazy as I expected and led expertly by Yunho. I particularly loved the lift the dancers did with Yunho at the very end of the song. “Say My Name” marked the end of the pirate section, but this song is so iconic that I couldn’t bring myself to care. The screaming for the move that was recently stolen by another choreographer was extremely loud the night I went, as well. I hope they knew we were screaming our support for them and condemnation for the people who didn’t believe them.

We were given a brief video break for a costume change before the next part, and then we came back to “Cyberpunk”. Not only did we return to the cityscape and a bit of the story, but this song, guys. This song. You don’t have to wait long to get a feel for how “Cyberpunk” is going to go. At the very beginning San gets up on one of the many chairs that are brought on stage for this one and starts doing body roll after body roll. San really got me during this song, and Yeosang? He bias wrecked me extremely hard here. Between the chair choreography and the amazing body control, I just couldn’t look away from him. The choreo for this is something you can’t help but stare at. You should really find a video to see this for yourself if you can’t make it to a concert. After another brief ment, mostly used to catch their breath, they went into a remix of “Fireworks”. This remix has received mixed opinions from fans, especially because of the lack of choreo here, but I didn’t mind it. It wasn’t my favorite song of the night, but I loved the visual of the tree on fire that was shown on the main screen. After that was “ROCKY”, complete with its iconic choreo, and the regular version of “Wonderland”. You really can’t have an ATEEZ concert without “Wonderland”. Finally, Hongjoong declared that he was going to be the bad guy for announcing the end of the main part of the concert. They, of course, finished everything off with “Guerrilla”. The visuals on the screen brought back the motifs we saw at the beginning of the concert to round everything out and then Atiny was unwisely left to their own devices for another break.

Encore:

After Atiny chaotically started multiple waves and other random lightiny patterns, spent way too much time barking (Mingi’s fault), and screamed loudly simply because some of the lightinys started turning blue, the members appeared again. They started with “Turbulence” a song that came out at just the moment I needed to hear it and has since been very emotional to me. I fortunately succeed at not crying. Their next ment was another thank you to Atiny, as well as the crew for all the sets and effects during the concert. They also thanked choreographer Anze Skrube, who was apparently there that night! “Celebrate” was sung afterwards as another ode to Atiny. I really loved the cute feel that the flowery mic stands that were brought out gave this song. After this was the ending ment. A few members decided to say their final words to us in English, which was super impressive of them, but those that gave their final thoughts in Korean impressed me just as much. The members promised to return soon and as even better artists. Seonghwa reminded us that they’re always there to support us, because he always sets out to make me emotional. And Hongjoong left us with a very thoughtful and wonderful statement about how unstoppable people who unapologetically and bravely show their love for the things they enjoy are. He praised Atiny for their brave and unapologetic love for Ateez, and noted that Ateez has a similar love for us. After that I was understandably heartbroken that the last song had finally come. But “The Real” is a deceptively smart last song because it’s so much fun to dance along to that you easily forget how sad you are that the concert is almost over. Though I had a few gripes with the layout of the concert, it was an incredible experience I’d relive over and over again if I could. I can’t wait until I get to see ATEEZ again!

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Comfort Entertainment: ‘Critical Role’ Campaign 3 Character Changes

Promotional image of Robbie Daymond for campaign three of ‘Critical Role’. Copyright goes to ‘Critical Role’.

Hi! It’s Annie!

I started watching campaign three when it first started airing, but quickly fell off because of things getting busy in my life. I couldn’t always watch the four hours every week; but more and more has encouraged me to actually catch up and start again with this campaign. Of course, one of those reasons is absolutely the amazing Robbie Daymond. He’s been one of my favorite voice actors for a while (I fell in love with his work after he voiced Prompto in ‘Final Fantasy XV’), and I was ecstatic when I realized that he was bringing Dorian to campaign three. I loved watching him in Exandria Unlimited and thought he would be a perfect addition to the regular group. On top of that, the campaign began to blow up all over the internet for several reasons and I haven’t seen all of the actors in ‘Critical Role’ this happy with their characters and character dynamics in a while. Everything about this campaign seems to be just clicking for everyone. Including the closer connections to campaign one. So I’m going to talk about each of the characters and the differences and similarities from past campaigns that made these characters just click! LIGHT SPOILERS FOR CAMPAIGN THREE AHEAD!!!

Robbie Daymond as Dorian Storm:

I’m going to start with Dorian since this is Robbie’s first full campaign with ‘Critical Role’. Dorian Storm is an air genasi bard that comes from a rich family and, despite his love of performance, actually suffers from stage fright and social anxiety. This dichotomy makes him one of the most interesting characters as well as one of the most hilarious characters. Robbie is excellent at reactions! When anything happens or another character says something weird, I always look at Dorian for his reaction because you can rest assured that it will probably be hilarious. Dorian is also extremely charming despite his anxiety, meaning that he attracts more people than he would like to. Because of how open Robbie has been about portraying Dorian with anxiety, he received instant recognition for being an incredibly relatable character. Robbie knows how to be likable and make any character kind of adorable; Dorian Storm is no exception. Even though Dorian is only in fourteen episodes, he made a massive impact. All of us are already anxious for him to come back and hopeful that he may eventually. And Robbie officially is the longest guest appearance on ‘Critical Role!

Travis Willingham as Chetney Pock O’Pea:

So we all know that Travis had a hell of a time being the absolutely chaotic Grog; something that he hasn’t quite tried to recapture since. Fjord was the exact opposite of that. A lot of the players for campaign two decided to try out something very different from what they had been with for so long, which makes sense! Fjord was more of a leader type character who dealt mostly in strategy. On top of that, Fjord ended up in a romance thanks to the persistence of one Laura Bailey, that made it so that Fjord was so completely different from Grog that it was almost an unrecognizable change. This time, Travis seems to be wanting to get back to the non-romantic chaos that he missed. Shocking everyone, Travis decided to play a gnomish blood hunter who is very very old. He effectively has removed himself from a potential romance and made himself chaotic in a different way that’s just as endearing. It seems that Travis is having a hell of a time playing this character and he seems content to be going a bit crazy again.

Marisha Ray as Laudna:

Marisha was fairly newer to D&D than many of the others when she first started out as Keyleth and, to make up for that, created a character that felt just as nervous and insecure as she did. Keyleth was an amazing character, but towards the end of the first campaign it really did feel like Marisha was eager to break out of the Keyleth shell and try something else. Beau seemed to be right up her alley, but she quickly found playing a monk very frustrating. My sister has played a monk before and liked the experience about equally to what Marisha seemed to. It’s not a very hard hitting class when you look at it. Marisha seems to have hit her stride with Laudna. And this is even more clear now that Marisha’s talked about her persistence with Laudna in more detail. Laudna is an unknown humanoid creature that’s probably an undead and a warlock. Though she is very sweet, her mannerisms and way of talking just come off as very creepy. She’s very unsettling in the most hilarious of ways and has an incredibly protective streak. She’s become a fan favorite in not much time and, after Marisha received so much undeserved hate for Keyleth, I’m so glad that Marisha is finally getting the recognition she deserves.

Liam O’ Brien as Orym of the Air Ashari:

Liam has tried several different types of characters and has seemed very happy in whatever he plays. Vax was a more roguish character who was far less social and definitely more edgy. But as Liam comes up with more characters, it’s starting to seem like he really loves the wholesome aesthetics. Caleb had an extremely tragic backstory, but was a very kind, introverted, and wholesome caretaker of his group. Orym seems to be similar in that regard. Liam likes to be a good caretaker of his group and he does it very well! Orym is a halfling fighter from the Air Ashari, meaning that he is apart of the same group that’s currently under Keyleth. Orym was also in Exandria Unlimited and was a part of one of my favorite comedic scenes when he pretended to be the child of another character. Orym is probably one of the most wholesome characters I’ve seen and that’s coming from having already seen the super sweet Caleb. He’s just there for everyone else with his short sword and shield. One of the most loyal and the most unfathomably kind members of the group. This is right in what Liam seems to be loving playing lately and I highly appreciate it!

Laura Bailey as Imogen Temult:

Laura has been known for her characters with dramatic and entertaining personalities and they have all been very different. She seems to have enjoyed each character equally with Vex being a smooth talking badass and a fan favorite while Jester was the adorably sweet and sometimes crude absolute fan favorite of campaign two. Jester was absolutely the most popular character of the second campaign and also the common crush of almost all of the party. It was hard for anyone to resist Jester. Now Laura is trying out something completely different with the more reserved and almost geeky-intelligent Imogen. She’s interesting from the get-go because of her telepathy, but she’s also been more and more interesting as a pure heart and the seeming emerging leader. Imogen is a human sorcerer with an adorable southern accent and rapidly increasing powers that remind me a little of the Scarlet Witch. Either way, this is going to prove to be really interesting. Especially because she seems to be the current moral center of the group.

Sam Riegel as Fresh Cut Grass:

Sam always goes for the comedy in whatever role he plays. In his first campaign he went for the traditional promiscuous bard, and we can all agree that his songs are hilarious and better than most. He’s so great at improvisation! Sam admitted to getting a little tired of Scanlan for a while and even played as a different character before eventually bringing Scanlan back. Sam made Nott, a goblin woman, for the second campaign. The scratchy voice became tiring for him to do really quickly, but it was hilarious every time. This is one of my favorite Sam characters. FCG is a Aeormaton Cleric that mainly deals in empathy. They are another moral center of the group that is hilarious in their adorable innocence. They eat copper, store liquid, and even have another secret side that we’ve only recently figured out about. But otherwise, FCG is just a hilarious as all of Sam’s characters have been and Sam seems to be having just as much of a blast with this one. We all must protect FCG.

Ashley Johnson as Fearne Calloway:

This is the first campaign where Ashley has been able to be here all the time and we’re all loving it. We’ve already seen so much of her as both Pike and Yasha, but I can never get enough of Ashley. Pike was so sweet and such a comfort whenever she came in and her friendship with Grog was nothing short of adorable. Ashely expressed that she had some issues with Yasha going in because she loved Pike and had played her for so long. Yasha was a lot more reserved and Ashley couldn’t completely connect to that, which I understand. I’ve done that to myself before in my own games. I have never seen Ashley have so much fun as she seems to be having playing Fearne. Fearne is a faun druid, making our ladies in this campaign an amazing witchy trio. I love it so much! Fearne is one of the least moral of the group as she has no problem stealing or killing and often does things out of selfishness. She seems sweet on the outside but she will often say something rather startling and she is now known as the epitome of chaos. She’s one of the fan favorites in this campaign for a reason and balancing all that with a character who can still be sweet is an impressive feat!

Taliesin Jaffe as Ashton Greymoore:

Taliesin has always been masterful when creating his characters. Taliesin probably had the fan favorite of the first campaign with Percy, who everyone loved off the bat. A slightly selfish character who was also unapologetically intelligent and very cool under pressure. He barely got any time to play Mollymauk, a character that he had in the works for a long long time. But Caduceus seemed to fit him and was kind of like comfort within a character. Though the character of Ashton seems to make it clear that we got too little time with Molly. Though Ashton is different, he also has a similar charisma to him though he is a lot more people adverse. But just like Molly, Ashton is so much fun. They are a barbarian that keeps their distance at the same time they get easily attached to new people in their lives. And I absolutely love the stealing friendship between Fearne and Ashton as well as the way that Ashton looks out for FCG. Another warm and charismatic character that can be slimy sometimes, and I’m so glad to see a character like this again. I love them!

It’s interesting how this group of characters really feels like the knowledgeable experience of the group. It feels like they all know what they like now and are having so much fun together playing that out. And the characters seemed to fit perfectly together from the very beginning. It’s such a cute group from the get go and definitely one of my favorite groups to follow from any D&D show ever. Though I think Campaign Two still holds a very special place in my heart. Seriously, go check out this campaign already if you haven’t. Every character is so much fun!

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Star Wars:’Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi’ Review

Screenshot of Count Dooku and Mace Windu in episode three of ‘Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi’. Copyright goes to Walt Disney Studios and Lucasfilm.

Hey! Hallie here!

I wasn’t initially planning on reviewing this series of shorts. As a series made up only of six episodes that are each less than twenty minutes long, it didn’t feel like there would be much to talk about. But ‘Tales of the Jedi’ completely blew me away. Between the really intriguing characterization of Dooku sliding to the Dark Side and some surprisingly heart wrenching stories for Ahsoka, this feels like essential Star Wars content. Especially for fans of ‘The Clone Wars’. Some episodes are certainly better than others, but before I even start with this review I’ll say that this is definitely worth checking out. And, even better, it won’t take you much time to watch the whole thing! Let’s go over the ups and downs of ‘Tales of the Jedi’! SPOILERS AHEAD!

‘Life and Death’: This episode is definitely the most slow moving of the episodes. I really don’t think it should have been episode one, partly because of its pace and partly because of the feel of the episode. Instead of the serious angst we see in every other episode, this one is a wholesome story about Ahsoka as a baby. The focus of ‘Life and Death’ is very much the Togruta and not as much Ahsoka, herself. We get to see how a Togruta village would welcome a new baby. We get to see a hunting ritual that occurs during the first year of life of a Togruta baby. We even get to see the way a Togruta village might recognize a Jedi. It’s cute to see Ahsoka overcome death and tame a large beast, but the focus on Ahsoka isn’t really new ground they’ve decided to tread. Especially with all the baby Jedi content we’ve gotten from Grogu in ‘The Mandalorian’. The real draw is Ahsoka’s village, which might not be for everyone, but is at least interesting.

‘Justice’: ‘Justice’ starts off Dooku’s story with a bang. Here we get to see a fairly young Dooku and an even younger Qui-Gon Jinn enter a village that’s supposedly the location of the kidnapped child of a senator. I fully expected this short to demonstrate the first of Dooku being seduced by the Dark Side. But this episode fully establishes that Dooku has long already been suspicious of the senate and displays dark powers he shouldn’t possess. Though at first the episode feels like the two Jedi are there on behalf of the senator who’s looking for his son, the reveal that the townspeople all collectively kidnapped the senator’s son in protest of their mistreatment brings another reveal. Dooku isn’t there on behalf of the senate. They don’t even know he and Qui-Gon are there. From there we see Dooku sympathize with the townspeople and stand with them against the senator. He even goes as far as to force choke the senator nearly to death. Fortunately, Qui-Gon is able to trust the senator’s son to make peace and end the fight before the senator’s untimely death. You can’t help but agree with Dooku’s blatant mistrust of the very controlling senate, though. He takes his mistrust a step too far, but his ideals are valid. It showcases exactly what makes him such a compelling villain.

‘Choices’: This one further elaborates on Dooku’s mistrust of the senate, and by extension, the Jedi Order. But in this short it gets even more interesting simply because of the absence of Qui-Gon Jinn. Instead, Dooku gets paired off with Mace Windu, who is practically the face of Jedi corruption. Here the two hear of the death of a Jedi Master, and though Windu is reluctant to believe that the senator she died protecting might be suspicious, Dooku is convinced that something’s off. Throughout the entire short he presses Windu on his apparent lack of empathy for the Jedi Master due to his constant suggestion they abandon the investigation and report to the council. But when enough evidence is found to accuse the senator of lying, Dooku immediately plunges them into a fight that kills the senator. Even worse, it’s discovered that the senator isn’t the perpetrator. It’s his guards. Throughout the episode we see two Jedi’s of very opposite personalities at war. Mace Windu blindly follows the rules without empathy. But Dooku lets his empathy turn him away from even sensible rules and straight towards violence. At the end of the episode we see Dooku once again sympathizing with the underdog, the senator’s guards, who acted to protect their people from the corrupt senator. Their belief that the Jedi would blindly serve the senate hits Dooku hard because, clearly, it shows corruption in the Jedi Order. And that corruption is driven home when Windu gets the position on the council the fallen Jedi once occupied, making his reluctance to complete the investigation feel suspicious. Once again, Dooku’s clearly the most relatable party here.

‘The Sith Lord’: This is my least favorite Dooku short. When it started I thought it might be my favorite short overall. It starts with a really touching reunion between Dooku and a now grown-up Qui-Gon Jinn. They even mention Obi-Wan. And then it transitions straight to Dooku mourning Qui-Gon’s death. It’s really heartbreaking and feels like a breaking point for the character. But ultimately, they reveal Dooku already turned to the Dark Side before this. So instead of being the major character moment you think it’s going to be, the heart of the episode is Yaddle. Yaddle sees what Qui-Gon means to him and sympathizes with Dooku. She even relents that she knows he’s right about the corruption in the Jedi Order and wants to help him. But in trying to convince him to abandon the Dark Side, Yaddle is killed by Dooku. Dooku’s fall to the Dark Side feels less impactful than I wanted in this short, but it’s solid enough. And I love Bryce Dallas Howard as Yaddle.

‘Practice Makes Perfect’: I didn’t expect a short as simple as this one to be so sad, but damn does it catch you off guard. It starts with Ahsoka, early in her experience as Anakin’s Padawan judging by Obi-Wan’s mullet, completing a test. Anakin’s unsatisfied with the test though, and instead employs the help of Rex and the 501st to provide a more formidable test for Ahsoka to overcome. It’s cute to see how much Rex, the 501st, and Anakin care about Ahsoka’s training. It’s also fun to see how formidable Rex and his men can be when firing from all sides. But then we get to the point of all this lead-up. We flash forward to Ahsoka and Rex preparing to face the 501st during Order 66. It all leads up to one of the most tragic ‘Clone Wars’ episodes ever made. Damn Filoni. Just go ahead and make me cry.

‘Resolve’: This short feels the most like a full episode. I really liked that we began with Ahsoka mourning Padme at her funeral despite the potential danger to herself. We don’t get to see Ahsoka’s friendship with Padme a lot, but it was nice to see it paid tribute to. It’s also an excuse to get Bail Organa and Ahsoka in the same place so Bail can start to convince Ahsoka to continue fighting on behalf of the people standing against the emerging Empire. Ahsoka attempts to reject Bail’s offer by living a peaceful life, but it isn’t hard to see how that’s going to end. Ahsoka tries to hide that she’s a Jedi, saves someone using the force, is found out by an Empire sympathizer, the Empire sympathizer is shown through the cruelty of an Inquisitor that he’s not just wrong but also stupid, and Ahsoka has to save the day. In the end, of course, Ahsoka agrees to join the growing rebellion. It isn’t anything really special, but I still liked being able to see the moment where Ahsoka decided to join the rebellion.

Overall I felt the Dooku episodes were stronger than the Ahsoka episodes, but both were really fun to watch. And though I didn’t much like how the Dooku episodes ended, I still enjoyed everything that went into getting to that ending. These episodes detailed important moments we’ve never seen before in a way that was really enjoyable to watch. Each episode utilized its time so perfectly that none of them felt like shorts. Each felt like a full episode in its own right, and each earned its spot amongst the animated Star Wars content. I really hope Filoni does more of these with more characters. There’s so much that could be explored here and, regardless of the focus, I’m absolutely sure it’d be interesting to watch.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Comfort Entertainment: ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Unexpected Romance

Screenshot of Vax and Keyleth in ‘The Legend of Vox Machina’. Copyright goes to Critical Role and Amazon Prime.

Hi! It’s Annie!

As someone who has played D&D for only a little while now, I still don’t feel like I have a whole lot of experience. But what I will say is that between full campaigns and some partial campaigns, I actually have more experience with role playing romance in my games than I initially thought I might. I’m not the kind of person who goes in expecting my character to have a romantic relationship. I know people where romance within D&D is part of what makes the game fun for them. And that’s completely ok! Just like there are plenty of people out there who absolutely don’t want to roleplay romance at all and try to avoid it at all costs. (Ahem, Travis from ‘Critical Role’.) But I usually don’t care either way. I’ve had an even amount of characters end up in a relationship and stay single so far and I felt equally satisfied with all of the endings. Because those were the endings that felt right for those characters at the time. I honestly think that the absolute best D&D romances are the ones that nobody at the table was really expecting from the off. The ones that sort of developed out of nothing because of coincidence or a progression of a specific friendship. So I’m going to go through some of my own experiences with unexpected romantic relationships within the game and some of my favorite unexpected romances in the D&D that I watch. Specifically, ‘Critical Role’. MAJOR SPOILERS FOR CAMPAIGN ONE OF ‘CRITICAL ROLE’!!!

‘Critical Role’ Couples:

Percy and Vex (Unexpected on Both Sides)- I feel like all of the major romances in campaign one of ‘Critical Role’ were pretty unexpected from where the group started. Of course, there was a point with both where it became obvious. But I don’t feel that any of these romances were a given. Percy was absolutely set on revenge when we first meet him and was absolutely a tortured soul. And while both Vax and Vex seemed to keep to themselves in a way, Vex was definitely the more hostile of the two. It feels like we should have seen coming that the two would end up together with how distant they each kept themselves; but really nobody did. Especially not Laura and definitely not Taliesin. This reached a point where Percy had died within the game and Taliesin had already completed another character because he felt that even if they performed a resurrection on Percy, he would never consider coming back to the land of the living. The character that Taliesin actually created would eventually become Mollymauk Tealeaf in the second campaign of the show. Taliesin sat backstage while the others pleaded with Percy to come back to them, almost certain that nothing would make a difference. That was up until a crying Laura Bailey as Vex confessed her love to Percy. Not only was Taliesin not expecting the confession, but it also completely rewrote Percy’s fate.

Keyleth and Vax (Unexpected on One Side)- I think Liam knew what he was doing when Vax started really noticing Keyleth. And I think part of that was Liam attempting to give Keyleth the confidence and respect that she deserved. Vax already had something going with Gilmore that really could have been something bigger; but Keyleth was constantly undermining her own abilities while Marisha herself was still unsure of all that Keyleth could do. Which is so relatable when you’re first starting out in D&D. Liam was so sweet in trying to support Marisha and Keyleth in a way that eventually led to him suddenly realizing that Vax had feelings for Keyleth. This was such a pure, sweet, and innocent relationship that started from the absolute purest of intentions. In fact, they confirmed that Keyleth was most likely asexual and that their relationship kept with that. The progression of this relationship was also fairly slow because it was based off of how ready both characters were. Vax and Keyleth are definitely an iconic fictional couple. Very much goals! Except for the tragic ending part, of course.

My Experiences:

Unexpected Until it Wasn’t- I talked a little about this in my post about women playing support in gaming. That’s still one of my favorite posts I’ve ever written, so please go check it out if you haven’t! I had an incident where, as a healing main, my healing within the game was seen as something romantic to a male player. Not only did this make me uncomfortable, but it also put me in a love triangle (which I really dislike) because the guy who was trying to romance my character had already written himself a girlfriend in his backstory who was a major NPC within the game. While at first I wasn’t sure how to react, I eventually decided that there was no way the two female characters would not get along just because of a guy. That’s one of the worst tropes to come out of love triangles in major media. This began a huge friendship between the two female characters. Eventually as things with the guy character got more brooding and slightly frustrating; my DM (who is one of my best friends) half-jokingly suggested in a private conversation that the girls just end up together. And after a fancy party session where my character asked the NPC to dance while the guy was debating which one he would ask; that’s exactly what happened. This love triangle ended with the two girls together instead. Not only did everything seem to click together naturally after this decision was made, but it also eased my sense of uncomfortableness. I don’t think anyone could have predicted that the love triangle would end up that way, but it was glorious.

Unexpected by Pure Coincidence- In a completely different campaign, I was playing a character who was fighting her way to the throne in her own kingdom in a patriarchal society. In other words, I didn’t want her to get married or find a romance in any way partly because I didn’t want her to have a King. I was also playing a Cleric in this campaign and it was written in the story that my character would stop having contact with her goddess because of a mysterious reason. Instead of leaving it alone, she marched out of where the party were staying and visited the two major temples of other gods in the city in order to find some answers. While the first god (Death himself) wasn’t very forthcoming, she ended up having some luck in the second temple she visited. This was the temple of the god of torture and punishment in the afterlife. I ended up rolling two freak natural twenties which not only resulted in my character being able to speak with this god, but also being able to start a connection with him as she would have with her own god. After the gods started going to war in the campaign, she became worried about the only god she still had a connection to and implored him to stay safe. Somehow all of this resulted in my character, who I never wanted to romance anyone, accidentally romancing a god. This got especially complicated after she landed herself in an arranged marriage that the both of them were trying to undo. How the hell do you even romance a god?

I think anything you want to do with your character is right for you and your character. D&D is here for people to have fun. And if you feel you need a romance to have fun, or feel that a romance would ruin your fun; there is nothing wrong with putting a strong foot down. But I hope that something about this post will encourage D&D players to have an open mind. Especially new players because, as somebody with anxiety, it can be difficult to be new and just let things happen. Especially if you’ve been daydreaming of playing it for as long as I had before I started. But after watching campaigns and playing campaigns, I feel like some of the absolute best things to happen within the game will absolutely be unexpected. Whether it be an unexpected romance or a campaign you meant to be serious becoming more parody than anything else. Because that has happened to me too and it was amazing. It’s fun to see where things will go when there are multiple people telling a story and you never know what you’ll roll and when you’ll get that crit. Absolutely set firm boundaries; like how I should have by making sure my healing was seen as my party role rather than something romantic. But, definitely still have an open mind for whatever might happen at the table. Some of the best story points will be the ones that nobody, not even the DM, was expecting.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Studio Ghibli: What You Should Know After the Ghibli Park Opening

Screenshot of Mei and Satsuki’s house in ‘My Neighbor Totoro’. Copyright goes to Studio Ghibli.

Hey! Hallie here!

A while ago I made a post detailing everything we know about Ghibli Park, Studio Ghibli’s new theme park, and when everything will be open to the public. But now the park’s officially open which means we have plenty more to talk about! As I’ve said before, though the park has been opened, it isn’t completely finished. There are two large areas that aren’t complete. In fact, we won’t see the park completely open until next year. I’ll get into what that means in a little bit. That said, there are three sizable areas already open and the park’s first guests seemed to be impressed with what they saw. So let’s talk about what’s available to see now and what we can expect later.

What’s Currently Open:

There are three full areas that are completely open. These areas are Dondoko Forest, Springtime of Youth Hill, and Ghibli’s Giant Warehouse. Dondoko Forest was, at least partially, open to the public before. Guests could tour Mei and Satsuki’s house back when it was a lone fixture in Aichi Expo Memorial Park. It’s still there, and as detailed and screen-accurate as ever. Near the house you can also find their father’s bike, their water pump, and Satsuki’s hat and ear of corn sitting on a bench. Added to this area is a gorgeous staircase where acorns can be found placed around the area, all leading up to a giant, wooden Totoro statue. This area is breathtaking and, as promised, completely surrounded by trees. But be warned, it’s quite bit of a walk compared to how close the other locations are. It takes about ten minutes at a brisk pace to walk to this location, but you’re rewarded with pretty bridges and gorgeous greenery to accompany you along the way. Springtime of Youth Hill is the next. As promised, the ‘Castle in the Sky’ elevator tower is located here in all its steampunk glory. It’s also located at the entry to the park so you’ll be able to look over the entire park right when you come in thanks to the tower. Further in the Springtime of Youth Hill is the antique shop from ‘Whisper of the Heart’, which is another screen-accurate replica. Sadly, guests aren’t allowed to share what the inside looks like at the moment. Near the shop you can find the cat-sized Cat Bureau from ‘The Cat Returns’! Looking inside the windows will give you a full view of the Baron and Muta enjoying their tea inside the very cozy and extremely detailed house. Also nearby are Shizuku’s hat and book from ‘Whisper of the Heart’, as well as the tunnel she envisions in the film.

The biggest area currently open is ‘Ghibli’s Giant Warehouse’. There’s so much to see in this warehouse. There’s a theater that plays exclusive Ghibli shorts for the park. There’s a warehouse inside the warehouse full of old exhibits that were previously on display at various different locations. There’s a cafe apparently based on ‘Spirited Away’. You can sit inside the Catbus and feel its furry interior. You can visit a detailed recreation of Arrietty’s home including extremely large plants and her gorgeous bedroom. You can sit next to No-Face on the train. You can peak in on Yubaba doing some work at her desk. You can even walk up to one of the giant robots from ‘Castle In The Sky’ stuck into the wall. And, as promised, the Air Destroyer Goliath from ‘Castle in the Sky’ hovers overhead with moving elements to sell its realness. I should also note that the warehouse has by far the largest gift shop in the park, and one of the only gift shops to sell Ghibli related merchandise. The other locations in the park have merchandise with Ghibli nods, but they all focus more on selling something you’d be likely to see if you were to really visit the locations in Ghibli films. Because only the one store as of now carries the major Ghibli merchandise, the lines to check out have been hours long. Hopefully they expand the places to buy this kind of merch soon. Aside from the areas I already discussed, there’s one small area that has a ‘Spirited Away’ theming complete with the statue Chihiro encounters outside of the tunnel. But for your ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’, ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’, and ‘Princess Mononoke’ fixes, you’ll need to wait until 2023, or later if they do what many theme parks do and push it back, for ‘Witch Valley’ and ‘Princess Mononoke Village’ to open.

What to Expect Moving Forward:

At first the date given for the remaining areas in Ghibli Park was 2024, hence why I’m hesitant to believe in the newer date, but now they’re assuring us we’ll see the remaining locations by next year. In these locations we’ll see recreations of Kiki’s home, Howl’s Castle, and the entirety of Irontown. There have been some rumors that along with these we might see a teacup ride of some sort, as seen in the artist rendering, but I’m still wary about that. Which leads me to my next point. If you’re planning on visiting Ghibli Park and you’re expecting a regular theme park, I’d encourage you to approach this as if it’s a mix between a large museum and a large collection of gardens. This park isn’t going to have many rides, if any at all, because it would be against Miyazaki’s vision to tear down the already existing plant-life in the area to build Ghibli Park. To honor Miyazaki and the rest of the animation company’s loyalty to nature, every single location is surrounded by flowers and trees. It’s also why some locations take longer to walk to than others. Studio Ghibli has a strong environmentalist message in most of their movies, and as such, they weren’t going to tear anything down for guest convenience or for something as large as a theme park ride. This park instead focuses on immersion, and who wouldn’t want to be immersed in Ghibli?

That’s what we know so far! Currently you have to pay individually to get into each part of the park, but hopefully once it’s all open they’ll turn it into one payment. As more people go to the park and take videos and photos, whether allowed or not, we’ll be able to see what the park looks like more. For now I’ll dream of exploring Ghibli Park while I wait for the next two locations to open. I hope everyone who’s able to go there at the moment has a lot of fun and doesn’t have to wait too long to get their Ghibli merch. Because knowing me, I’d still wait two hours for really cute Ghibli merchandise.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

K-Pop: ONEUS Going Forward

Screenshot of (from left) Son Dongju (Xion), Kim Gunhak (Leedo), and Lee Keonhee on Vlive. Copyright goes to ONEUS, RBW, and Vlive.

Hi! It’s Annie!

Sorry for the late post! So, a lot happened to this group recently and there’s a lot that I want to talk about and a lot that I really don’t so much. But I feel that some of it needs to be talked about because this group really deserves the publicity they were getting before all of this happened. The first thing, of course, is that if you at all were considering getting ONEUS tickets, they are on sale and these boys deserve to be supported. We don’t want the five remaining members to go under or not see support because of anyone’s mistakes. Whether you’re blaming the company themselves, the accuser, or even former members; the five remaining members don’t deserve for this to affect them. My sister and I got our tickets the minute they went on sale and I can’t believe how good our seats are. This is probably the closest I’m ever going to be to a K-Pop group and the fact that I’m seeing them, never mind that close, is still blowing my mind! But, that aside, there’s a lot of arguments over who is right, who is wrong, and how we should act towards the company and the group going forward. And I don’t want to get too involved in the argument. There’s a lot of straight up fighting going on that I really don’t want to get involved in, but I am going to talk about how we got here and maybe some things to consider going forward.

Ravn Leaving:

We already have a general news post where I discussed the allegations against Ravn. I’m sure everyone already knows anyways, so I’m not going to mention them again here. What I am going to say is that we’ve gotten an update to the investigation. This update said that they were essentially still investigating, but they had found that some (not all) of the evidence was fabricated. They were not specific so we don’t know what exactly they’re saying was proven wrong, but so far they did say they found “false information and malicious editing”. Not quite sure what that exactly means yet; but we’ll probably have to wait to really figure it out. If they even say. But we also know that Ravn has left the group officially amidst the allegations in order to not hurt the other members of the group with the continuing controversy. This is what the company says anyways. We know from experience that a company saying that a member left voluntarily is not always true. Either way, this leaves ONEUS without one of their major writers and composers. They do have other members who work on writing and a full team behind them as well, so hopefully they’ll be able to continue forward with strong and unique music. Contrary to what some believe, Ravn was not the leader. ONEUS decided not to have a leader and to split the responsibilities; which is an incredibly smart move considering how many current K-Pop leaders struggle with all the responsibility.

First World Tour:

ONEUS had planned to embark on their first official world tour before any of this happened and they are continuing on as scheduled. As excited as I am to see them, I think the members should have a little bit of a break before they move forward so much. This hit them hard very quickly and I doubt any of them have finished processing. However, I’ve seen several people say that because of decisions regarding the controversy, they are planning to boycott this tour. I think that’s a mistake. I understand being upset about this and it’s difficult to figure out how to express to the company the extent of your anger no matter what side of this argument you fall on. My opinion is this; the five members who will be touring do not deserve to be negatively impacted by any of this. And if people boycott their first world tour, no matter what happens, it could mean that they don’t get to do one after this. I think that they have enough popularity to get through this, but we shouldn’t just abandon them. And if you’ve decided to not go to their concert only because Ravn isn’t there and you think the group will be awful without him; that’s solo stan behavior. Each of these members are amazing on their own and amazing together in collaboration, and each of the other five will continue to be amazing. If, for example, Namjoon were to suddenly leave BTS, I wouldn’t cease to go their concerts. Because I absolutely love the other six members! Don’t be a solo stan!

Concert Etiquette:

I already see so much fighting, and also fighting specifically about how people should and should not act at the concerts coming up. Here’s my advice. Just have fun! They are doing these concerts to have fun with us and they will probably be a good distraction for them after everything that’s happened. We want to have fun with them and show them that we’re still there for them! There are people who are planning on wearing red roses to the concerts in honor of Ravn and that sounds like a great way to pay tribute! But please do not get into fights with TOMOON who might not be wearing the roses. And, on the other side of that, do not fight with the fans who are wearing the red roses. What I think both sides of this fandom is missing, is the fact that both sides of this argument are understandable and perfectly ok. If you have chosen to wait out the investigation and are wary of Ravn right now, that’s fine. If you are devastated by this and want to continue to support Ravn, that is also ok! This is a complicated situation and I can’t say that there’s a correct way to react. I think showing a little respect to each other at the concert is the best we can do. I don’t want to see any fans fighting at any of the concerts for any reason. And also, let’s not assume how the members are feeling and shout out anything regarding this situation unless the members seem to be ok with it or start it. Mentions of Ravn could make them feel sad and (wrongly) like they are incomplete without him, or they could make them feel comforted. I don’t mind keeping his name in the fan chants (unless, perhaps, the investigation ends very badly or the members say differently), but I do mind yelling at them while they’re on stage. Which honestly isn’t a thing we should be doing in general at concerts. Just, don’t harass them or yell things at them unless prompted. This should be a general concert rule anyways.

General Etiquette:

Respect the group as five. I’m not saying you have to completely accept the group as five; but you need to at least respect the group as five. What we don’t want to do is make them think that they will be forever incomplete in their careers. Mentioning that you still love Ravn could be very comforting! But asking them about Ravn in every fan sign, or them continuing to receive harassment about him, or interview questions about him, might make them think that we don’t respect the group anymore if he’s not in it. We saw this when Wonho left Monsta X and it not only affected the members of Monsta X, but it later also affected Wonho when he started his own solo career. Wonho has discussed how he doesn’t think that Monsta X should be constantly questioned about him and how he doesn’t want to be constantly questioned about Monsta X. Again, it is perfectly ok to not fully accept this right now. But you have to respect the group as five for the sake of the members. So be careful about the wording of the signs you bring to the concert. In fact, considering the small venues, please don’t bring signs at all and if you do please make them very small. Many of us will be sitting on a flat floor and we want to be able to see.

Update: Leedo in his ending ment for a recent concert asked fans to address the group as five from now on. This is the wish of all five members. Please respect their wishes.

This is a difficult time for ONEUS and TOMOON. But we can’t give up and we can’t stop supporting our boys. Let’s all be understanding of what they might be feeling and also what each member of TOMOON might be feeling. Because there’s been a lot of misunderstanding and fighting. Right now we have a scandal and toxic fandom behavior driving away potential new TOMOON. Let’s be welcoming and try to navigate this positively and warmly. Let’s be excited about their first world tour; because the boys deserve to be excited about their tour as well! I still can’t believe I’ll be seeing them so close! Leedo, that close!! Will I even survive???

See you cross the pond!

Sincerely, Annie