Arrow: "Time of Death" Review

Heck yeah folks, the CW's Arrow is back after a three-week hiatus due to the Olympics.

USA!

But, now that we have the best show on television back, it's time to talk about it! And I'll get rid of the elephant in the room here:

WHERE THE HECK IS ROY?

I'll say that before we get into spoiler territory. Which is right...now here is your spoiler warning if you are not caught up on Arrow season 2 but you should because it is an amazing TV show and is the best show on television by a very long shot

Top 10 "Attack on Titan" (Anime) Moments

Even though it's been a little while since I last watched Attack on Titan and have watched a whole heck of a lot of Sword Art Online, Hellsing Ultimate, and started Blue Exorcist (whose main character I can't unsee as Kirito seeing as the voice actors are the same and they look oddly similar), Attack on Titan is always fresh on my mind.

Why?

Because it's a beautiful anime, an even more beautiful story and has some of the most memorable moments in a television series I have ever seen. People always say, "characters aren't safe on this show," and while for some (Game of Thrones looking at you) that may be true, most of the time people overexaggerate this. But not Attack on Titan, as literally thousands of people and one particularly important character dies in the first five episodes!

Survival of the Supernatural

It's pretty much official now that vampires have been slain as being cool and demonic in the wake of the Twilight series, and with zombies being shown in a variety of ways (i.e. The Walking Dead, Resident Evil, World War Z, and Warm Bodies), it's tough to imagine they'll last very much longer as well. By that I mean in the mainstream, popular form they have now. Zombies have been around for a very long time, as have vampires. But the problem with vampires is that now whenever someone mentions them, they have to also add in at the end, "Oh, and they don't sparkle." I should know, as a human being, vampires don't naturally sparkle, you don't have to tell me. But as of late, one would have a reason to.

Strongest Disney Characters

You would think that most of the villains on this list would be villains. In fact, only two of them are. It seems that Disney villains are so OP (over-powered) all of the time, but really, it's just that an odd circumstance worked in their favor. The evil Step-Mother is nothing is Cinderella's father never died. The Evil Queen wouldn't know a thing about Snow White if not for the Mirror.

Plus, I'm not talking about strength of character, or strength of story arc. I mean power, like if you can build a giant castle or break a planet in half. I know Disney would never break a planet in half, but, I also never through they would make a princess movie where a prince is not the plot line. Funny how that works.

Goku vs. Superman--Who wins?

 I'll give my answer at the end, because, what good is an answer without an explanation?

I figured I would answer the age-old question mostly because I have been playing a lot of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z lately and that gets me to thinking. I'll give my thoughts on that game soon, too, don't you worry.

Most people always wonder who would win in a fight: Batman or Superman? That answer is easier than it looks, it's obviously Batman. But, that's important right now. Right now we get down to the most famous super hero and anime's poster boy: Superman and Goku.

Hero Rulers in Yu-Gi-Oh!

On September 1st, 2013, there was a deck that was officially killed off by the ban-hammer. A fan favorite, even: Heroes. Heores (be it Evil, Destiny, Elemental, etc.) died due to their main man, Stratos, going. Stratos was the only reason the deck still had a pulse, let alone saw people playing it. Heroes, for the longest time, was just a for-fun deck in Yu-Gi-Oh! anyway, due to more powerful decks stepping up.

And on January 1st, 2014 in the TCG world of Yu-Gi-Oh! (so basically everywhere except like Japan and a few other Asian nations), there another deck, unanimously, died in the community. Dragon Rulers were slain and I rejoiced for days.

Faith in conflict

Look, I know what you're thinking:

"This guy gon' preach me 'bout Jesus today NO SIRREE."

I'm not talking about that kind of faith. Well, okay, I will a little, but that's not the point.

In every story, there is a struggle. Either two people, two forces, a people and a force, whatever, are at a struggle with each other. And one has to lose, that is simply how it is. There is a winner and a loser in life. Sorry participation medals, I'm just making a point.

Top 7 Most Chilling moments I've seen

Because I couldn't come up with a Top 10, I decided to go with the seven that came to mind.

And yes, you may come up with some that are not on this list. And no, I have not seen every single show made on God's Earth, so this list will be very tailored to my own thoughts.

The reason behind me making this list was because of a nice little car ride home I was having the other night after watching The Great Gatsby. Classic. Anyway, Hotel California by The Eagles came on and I was like, "Huh. This song is not the ideal driving song right now because if I die I would go there." So that was not a pleasing thought.

Assassin's Creed 5: Where we go next

This has to be a rather quick post, so, I chose to write about a rather quick topic, one that is almost always one my mind, the next location of the console and canon Assassin's Creed 5 game. Now, we have had almost not hints or indications about where this place could be, considering how Ubisoft debunked that list from Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag that we all saw.

We all saw that, right?

My inner fan-boy is crying out for Watch Dogs to tie into Assassin's Creed V, but, should all else fail and Ubisoft really be pulling our legs, I have a suggestion as to where to take the series next.

Julius Caesar's Rome.

Rogue decks are liked unranked teams

It seems that the past two summer formats, the March 2012 and March 2013, were two of the worst formats anyone has ever seen in the game of Yu-Gi-Oh! You had two decks to run, and those were really your only options. Dino Rabbit and Wind-Ups plowed through everything until the banlist came around and Mermails had their time to shine. Then the March 2013 banlist saw the ridiculousness that was Dragon Rulers and Prophecy. The 2012 one wasn't that bad because there were still a lot of key staple cards to be hit, so a rogue deck could peep in every now and again, but, 2013 was miserable. You either played Dragon Ruler or Prophecy, or you basically lost. Whatever had the potential to defeat Dragon Rulers or Prophecy was demolished by Evilswarm, which has yet to be hit by the ban hammer.

Symbolism: Not everything has meaning

I'm sure you've been there. You're in English class, reading a book, you know, something's going on. Let's say, for an example, that a female character is standing by a window looking out of it, just looking out to her front lawn. And you're reading it as it is, a lady looking out her front window.

"Actually her standing just before the window with the light shining on her face is symbolic of her desire for her husband to return home which is why she's looking out the front window from the back window."

Wait, what? Um...you sure?

"Yes why else would the walls be painted red, which obviously stands for love?"

No, wait, that's just the color they preferred? Maybe it does symbolize love but does that have anything to do with the window?

"It has everything to do with the window. Now write me a paper on it."

How can I write a paper on a window?

Night Angel trilogy: the step beyond

Today is just Night Angel day for me and thus it is a happy day for me. Now this morning/ afternoon/ brunch-time, I posted about why Night Angel trilogy seemed to click because of what the story was about. It was a political thriller with magic assassins and a sewer dragon. Sewer Dragon. I'll let that sink in for a second, see if you really still don't care for the series after that.

Fantasy done RIGHT: The Night Angel Trilogy

Magic. Dragons. Kingdoms. Conspiracy. Assassins. Betrayal. Love. Climbing out of a hole. Cliffhangers

Each of these things are elements of fantasy, whether it be dark fantasy, science-fiction fantasy, magical fantasy, what have you. You've seen all of these things before, whether it be an evil sorceress turning into a dragon (Maleficent) or a man looking through memories of his ancestors (Desmond Miles) or two characters finally meeting after two years (Kirito and Asuna).

Inner Demons pt. 2: The struggle is real

Last time, on Dragon Ball Z: we discussed the inner workings of a character struggling to cope with his good and bad, raring to finish the battle on the side of good.

And today, here we are!

Now, I'll start by saying that I completely blanked the realistic elements on the inner demons of a character. We all have them, literally. Psychologically speaking, they exist, if you choose to believe in the profession of psychology or anything Sigmund Freud said. Freud explained that in our unconscious, an area of our mind completely inaccessible to us, we have three separate entities: id, ego, superego. Our id (not our ID), is essentially that inner demon I've been talking about, it's the desires that we try to repress. The cool used to repress this is our superego, the thing that keeps us from being completely barbaric and basically evil. And our ego is just the mediator, where the two meet up. Thus, the "devil" on our shoulder is our id while the "angel" on our shoulder is our superego.

Inner Demons pt 1: From good to bad!

Last week I touched on the dark fantasy genre and what a broken hero usually entails and why both are so cool and so popular as of late. There was something, though, that I was clearly beating around the bush and finally, I figured it out.

The inner conflict of a character in a story.

Duh. It's so obvious. But I'd completely forgotten about such a specific thing when trying to look at the big picture. There's a lesson to be learned, people.

Of course, tonight's post will be drawn on inspiration from tonight's episode of Teen Wolf, "Riddled" because Teen Wolf has just been kicking it when it comes to awesome character arcs. Yet unlike my best-friend conundrum, it won't focus entirely around Teen Wolf. But you can never have enough Stiles.


Inner demons are something that most characters struggle with, and when taken a certain way, can lead to a damaged character, so, this could sort of serve as a prequel to my broken hero post. We shall see.

These inner demons can come in all sorts, though. They can be literal demons that have become like a virus and found a host, they can come from an event that happened in one's life, or it can be the struggle of doing something good versus doing something bad. In the latter sense, it's almost as if there are two different characters in one body: a good one and a bad one. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

Inner demons can cause conflict in a character, which is good. It adds depth. I'd much rather see a character struggling to pull the trigger than be like, "BANG ha I'm awesome love me but I suck."

Inner demons always make their presence known, it seems at two critical points: just before the rising action and right at the climax. Just before the rising action is just before the journey starts. If a character is struggling with something, say like alcoholism or they have a secret they're keeping from the group, this is the time that they will either spout it out or it will stay with them and haunt them. By the climax, the inner demon has worked itself well into the character's story and usually shows itself. The secret gets revealed, the drunk gets severe alcohol poisoning. Something happens that was caused by a lack of action.

That is, of course, given that the inner demon is not an actual demon itself, like it is in Teen Wolf with a certain character. Arguably, there is a literal demon inside Harry Potter in the Harry Potter series of novels. From books 5-7 he struggles with a certain entity that is trying to take over his mind, fighting it whenever it creeps up, even trying to learn to control it. Again, at the climax of the novel, Harry's oversight and even reliance on this fact gets people hurt and killed in heartbreaking fashion that makes you re-read the page five times just to make sure you read it right.

Yes. I did that. Judge me for wanting a character to live. You did it to in books 6 and 7!

From a personal note, the actual demon approach is one of my favorites. First of all because I've incorporated it into my story more times than I can count (yes...one was also with werewolves) but also because it makes the world of the characters seem larger. It adds a question of "how did that happen?" to the story, it gives me more to explore in the world. This can also be the same for a questionable backstory, because it begs the question, "why is this character like that?" and, as a writer, I get to explore this struggle and as a reader, you/ we get to see how it develops and advances the story as a whole.

The whole good versus evil thing is the most typical yet it is always effective, because the struggle of good and evil has been going on since before even Adam and Eve. The story of the Fall is the ultimate good and evil story, actually, because it is the ultimate good versus the ultimate evil. The Book of Revelation (favorite one, by the way) explores this more with fake evil and fake good and it's confusing when you're reading it for the first time but it's still an interesting thing to see envelop before John's eyes.

So to see that same concept happening within a person is great. Of course, everyone's seen the devil and angel on the shoulder routine before.

"No, no...he's got a point."

That's essentially what an inner struggle is. The guy on the left, then, is obviously an inner demon working to make a character bend to a way he is not supposed to, eventually breaking him and creating a broken hero.

Getting to that point, though, is interesting beyond belief. Either the demon takes host or an event happens and things just spiral out of control. The broken hero is essentially the embodiment of that inner demon because what he does shows what the inner demon would be doing. Again, it's like a virus. The hero becomes a shell for a much darker force to take control of.

Sometimes the inner demon doesn't win, though, which will be touched on in a later posting. When the inner demon does win, though, there are shockwaves that effect even the minor characters. Because the story has to adapt to its new changes. In Shadow's Edge, we see Kylar longing for the thrill of a fight, so he goes out, against the wishes of Elene, to stop some punks from messing with innocent people. Is that an inner conflict? Yes it is! He's going against the wishes of his one true love in order to satisfy his own desire for killing! He's thirsty for blood, people, and the only thing to quell it is a river (love the story, highly recommend the Night Angel trilogy).

For now that's all I have to say about inner demons. When they win, big changes come. Yet it seems like they can also never lose. In The Dark Knight (spoiler, not really), Batman obviously wins. But what about the effects of the Joker and Two-Face, what effects do they leave on Batman and Gordon? We see those at play in The Dark Knight Rises. Even though the Joker may have lost the battle, he won the game. He broke Batman out of being himself. He didn't lose, but he didn't win either. Inner demons, that's what they are.

Eternal.

Unless you're Darth Vader. Then you get closure.

See you next time!

Links to images:
"One does not simply" meme:
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/4d/4d03e9a7f0324c9c02a29b866f12664f265f22fc3507e1f638fd8c51e225f165.jpg

Joffrey FREAKIN Lannister: http://cdn.memegenerator.net/images/300x/4938065.jpg

Kronk meme: https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQoBMq2b4qnf8BysRAHWvBzQYZCK9HHxeKjOWFAZpseiSODotLq

Darth Vader meme:https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT3b48_IKEB2cQ8xC4pNd7sy1b7m47nOtNkn6bn3wsd9rX7kgQQ

Sword Art Online: Defy the system

I said I would talk SAO "next week" last Saturday. Well, it is now the Monday after and that constitutes next week. So it's time for some SAO (YES I AM SO EXCITED).

Of course, there will be tons and tons of spoilers for Sword Art Online (the TV show) so if you're either thinking of watching it or you are currently watching it, I wouldn't recommend reading this. But if you don't care and want to know how something can be unoriginal, yet, original, and also one of my favorite shows ever, then read along!

Disney's next best move

While I'm sure that Disney is already planning their next major hit after the remarkable success of Frozen, it's always fun to throw in my two cents about what they should do next. And by that I mean what I would like to see.

Before Frozen, Disney's standout movie was Tangled. Or, okay, Toy Story 3, but as far as adventure-princess stories go, Tangled was the cream of the crop. When Frozen came along, it blew everyone away because it was never advertised as a princess movie nor was it advertised, really, as a musical. Luckily, it was the best of both. 

Broken hero = better hero

More recently than not, we've seen our share of heroes who have horrifying backstories. Well, by that I mean they have become more exposed than others. Heroes, I'm talking of, like Batman, Spider-Man, Harry Potter, and heck, even Eren Yeager if you want to go there with his mother. This creates a deeper character story, and as a result will make the story more interesting.

Dragon Ball Z: Incredible, powerful, beautiful

You've seen Dragon Ball Z. Probably not the entire show, maybe not even an entire episode. Heck, even if I showed you a picture of a scene from Dragon Ball Z you might not be able to recognize it. But you have, at some point or another, seen it. Who hasn't seen the iconic image of Son Goku as a Super Saiyan? It's practically plastered all over the world.

Why you should watch "Attack on Titan"

Well, okay, maybe some of you shouldn't. It's not for the faint of heart. This is a very intense show, and at some points it can be a little gory. Not like The Walking Dead where they smear zombie goo all over them (heh...he was an organ donor) or anything like that, but, it's what you would expect out of an anime.

"ANIME?!" *leaves blog post, moves to Carribean islands*

"Halt citizen!" I shout as I rope you in with my Lasso of Truth. "Anime is good, it's better than most live-action television, but that is for another day!"

"It's a cartoon and they don't even speak English!" *struggles*

"It's not a cartoon! You spoke no language until you were three!" I shout, tugging on the Lasso.

*stops struggling* "Fair enough. Explain to me this...'anime'...you so seem to enjoy."

"Thank you," I say, releasing you from my Lasso of Truth I have to give back to Wonder Woman.

The Necessary Evil of Dragon Rulers in Yu-Gi-Oh!

You know who they are. Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. Long ago the Yu-Gi-Oh! world was settling back into a world of balance, where Wind-Ups and Inzectors were losing their brokenness and rogue decks could see play (even Harpie's were looking to be a viable deck). Then, everything changed when the Dragon Rulers attacked. Only Konami, master of all ban-lists, could stop them. But when the world needed them most, they hit other cards. 

Disney's "Frozen" and how it's like going to college

You're gonna have to work with me on this one, or pay attention and take a few notes. Listen the soundtrack if you want...that's what I'm doing...

I know it's a little bizarre to see me not posting about dark things like dark fantasy or best friends fighting. I figured I would shake things up with one of the best things 2013 gave all of us (along with, you know, the announcement of a Batman vs Superman movie): Disney's Frozen! And of course, there are SPOILERS for the movie if you've not seen it yet (why haven't you?), but much less than usual! I'm learning control, guys, I promise.

Arrow: "Heir to the Demon" Review

*spoilers if you are not caught up to Arrow Season 2 ep. 13*

I had extremely high expectations for this week's episode of the CW's Arrow. How could you not? It was advertised as a League of Assassins episode. Ra's al Ghul was name dropped in the promo for Pete's sake (hey, it's better than just plopping his name in an episode). Though when I first heard that the "daughter of Ra's al Ghul" would be making an appearance, my instant thought was: TALIA! I was mistaken, but, it was not an unfortunate mistake. In fact, I now preferred to have seen Nyssa rather than Talia (though I'm sure that if either died, the wrath of the demon would not be good, as Oliver so intelligently points out).

The Submarine Genre of Dark Fantasy

Sort of going off of the darker tone of last night's best-friend vs best-friend topic, I will be discussing a new, on-the-rise "genre:" dark fantasy. And of course, there will be spoilers for certain TV shows, books, or movies I've seen/ watched, but, I'll prepare you for them to skip.

However, I'm not sure if I really consider it a genre. Considering how fantasy is sort of a sub-genre of fiction, and dark-fantasy is a sub-genre of dark fantasy, I won't call dark fantasy a "sub-sub-genre;" instead, I'll consider it a submarine genre because that makes it sound fun. And dark fantasy is fun, trust me I know, it's my submarine genre. I won't say I was writing in it before it was cool because then I sound like a hipster and frankly I'm not a hipster.

The Best Friend Conundrum

I'm going to try to post twice a day--once in the afternoon and once at night--unless I for some reason run out of topics, but, I do not foresee that in the future.

This evening, though, I figure I would discuss a topic at the forefront of my thoughts following last night's episode of MTV's Teen Wolf, "Silverfinger." It was a good episode to say the least, and of course, there will be spoilers for it, as well as for season 1 of the CW's Arrow, so, I'll let you guys know when they start and when they end. 

It is 3:10 and is anyone thinking of 3:10 to Yuma but me?

Well that was a fun title. Irrelevant, but, fun. If it says it was posted at a time that isn't 3:10, that's because I wrote the title at 3:10--time is a man-made thing, don't blame me, guys.