#the gay-coding is obvious and in context really shitty

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

having a lot of inarticulate thoughts about pericles' genderousness this evening, in particular how i imagine/interpret his expression of it having changed over time, but they will not coalesce. when will my one brain cell for queer readings return from the war

[thesuperiorlokiseries]

(1/2) You guys have renewed some of the hope I had lost in storytelling and people taking stories and characters like this seriously (thanks Marvel, Disney). The more time that passes and the more I hear people praising the Show in one breath and either ignoring or dismissing or sneering at Loki's characterization in Thor 1/Avengers/Thor 2 in the next breath, I can't help but feel that the Loki we got in those three films was a happy accident almost. Because it's obvious that outside of our

(2/3) outside of our (apparently) small corner of the fandom nobody actually cares about him or what he went through or that characterization, and it's disheartening. It just feels, every time I am reminded of the absolute retcon Loki's character went through and people just going along with it and the assholes who have shown just blatant disrespect and maliciousness towards him and his fandom get rewarded, (3/3) it feels like the universe is saying, "This thing that you have become so deeply emotionally invested in, and that you love, and you connect with on a fundamental level, this thing that has given you comfort and has been a source of strength and identity for years, yeah this thing is actually garbage and if you like it then you're wrong." It's just super hard so the fact that you're doing this project is amazing and... thank you. (okay im done)

Thank you so much for the support, sorry that it took us this long to answer, and by the gods do we all feel you. All I can really say, though is this: welcome to the hellscape that is late-stage capitalism.

There are a thousand tumblr posts that talk about this in detail and in multiple different contexts, but it probably cannot be illustrated any more poignantly than with the Loki Series: what we're getting in the name of movies/shows aren't stories, but content, and shitty content at that. Disney and the MCU simply do not care about character arcs or narratives - the sole motive that keeps them churning out project after soulless project is how much money they can squeeze out of each. And since it's the MCU - the most popular film franchise out there, and owned by Disney on top - they can and do pay critics to praise their trash relentlessly, and even if they didn't, there's always going to be far too many people blindly willing to eat up whatever garbage they produce.

They knew how massive and dedicated Loki's fanbase is, they knew exactly how willing far too many fans were to accept even the barest scraps of Loki content, and they knew exactly what to do to keep us willing to watch it - the sheer amount of manipulation that occurred in the trailers and the interviews is frankly insane, and most certainly very, very deliberate. Moreover, Loki is a queer, heavily-other coded, abused character whose most dedicated fanbase consists of women, queer people, neurodivergent people, and other minority groups - it is not a new phenomenon that showrunners actively go out of their way to sabotage characters whose fanbases don't consist primarily of NT cishet men, and are we really surprised the megacorporation still funding Florida's Don't Say Gay bill might torture, dehumanize, and humiliate a queer character on his own show?

In retrospect, it's ridiculous that so many of us - me included, I will admit - actually hoped that the MCU of all possible franchises might give us a decent show about a queer, traumatized, othered victim of abuse who's always represented deviance and rebellion against the status quo. Nobody could have expected the Larry Show to be this nightmarish, but a decent Loki Series... realistically wasn't going to happen in the hellscape that was the year of our lord 2021, not one made by Disney.

Of course, this isn't nearly limited to Disney - Amazon's recent Rings of Power series immediately comes to mind. The Peter Jackson movies had their flaws, but the LOTR fandom almost unanimously loves them because it's evident how much care was poured into the project. The Amazon series, though? HAH.

So while the universe isn't telling us anything, Disney - and Amazon and Netflix and every other corporation you can think of, really - and their bootlickers most certainly are. "Oh, so you want characters and narratives that represent and resonate with you? You want arcs that are satisfying and meaningful? You're dissatisfied with consuming and paying for our garbage content and actually want something that's fulfilling and impactful and made out of any motive beyond relentless profit? Hah, lol no."

Does that mean that they're right?

Hell no. What we all desire and deserve are not products but stories - ones where character arcs and themes actually matter, ones with messages and characters that truly resonate with us, ones crafted and told with love - because stories have connected us all since way before the dawn of human civilization, because stories are inherently a part of humanity, and because capitalism has no right to destroy that, especially not the story of the god of them.

This project is, and always will be, a gigantic fuck you to them all.

[tkrr]

Some thoughts on the utter shitshow that went down.

First and foremost, if you feel even the slightest need to defend attacking the Gaylor fandom, you are one of the people YNTCD was about. You are shit. You are exactly the kinds of fans she has been trying to shed.

Second, regardless of speculation on who Taylor is dating, sapphic fans have taken her as queer for a number of reasons that boil down to this: she speaks our language like a native. She may not have explicitly spelled it out in Modern Standard Straightish, but she’s made her queerness abundantly clear in her music and public persona. We know our own. We also know that it can be dangerous for even someone as powerful as her to come out. In any case, she very low key, very obliquely came out in “Miss Americana” by pointing out that gay pride is something that defines her; it isn’t clear whether she’s gay or bi, but she has made it clear she isn’t straight. As I said, she speaks our language, and in our language, she’s yelling it from the rooftops. As David Hyde Pierce once said before he officially came out, “My life is an open book. I just choose not to read it to you.”

Anyway, as far as speculation goes, Kaylor is public record as of August 2018. I do not believe E! News is the sort of outfit that would out them without permission; their business model relies too much on access to celebrities. What has happened since then is unclear, though whether or not they’re still together I believe they’re still close. I get the sense at this point that she and Joe Alwyn are also good friends at this point, but they are not and have never really been together behind the scenes. I’m not going to get into my speculation on the relationship between her and Halsey; you can go back through my posts if you want to know how I feel about that.

If there’s any one thing to take away from “Miss Americana”, it’s that Taylor struggles with a feeling of needing to be a people pleaser. She probably had to straightwash “betty” for country radio, but it is still unmistakably a queer narrative, and James is definitely a girl because of who they’re named after. It is also a fictional narrative that as far as we know isn’t based on any particular experience in her life. So here’s the takeaway:

You are not defending Taylor by insisting she or her song narratives are straight. There is nothing here to defend her from. She is telling two stories about her life, one straightwashed for public consumption, one coded for her queer fans to let us know she’s one of us and supports us even if, for whatever reason, she can’t fully come out. It’s called dogwhistling. You usually hear that term in the context of right-wing propaganda, but non-shitty people do it too sometimes. Especially if they have a lot to lose by being explicit about something.

I don’t know if Taylor will ever make a statement on the harassment and doxxing, but she shouldn’t need to. She has been so vocal about her liberal politics and support for the LGBT community that it should be obvious that anyone who takes actions of that nature is no true fan of hers.

GET THE FUCK OVER IT. We have receipts by the bucket. We have every reason to believe that she is deliberately putting this out there. We. Know. Our. Own.

[colorisbyshe]

Talking about fandom entitlement, what do you think about the concept of qu**rcoding?

Coding characters as gay and “queerbaiting” (or I just call it gaybaiting because we need to be frank, it is same gender attraction that is being baited, not transness) are two different things.

Coding, accidental subtext, and baiting are all three very different things.

I like two and... sometimes can appreciate the third semi-ironically.

Coding is what happens when a creator is being censored in some form (explicitly or implicitly) and is trying to provide vague representation and they’re great for trying. I am less into coding when I have reason to believe there is no external force keeping them in coding because that veers on bait territory.

90% of things accused of “queerbaiting” or gaybaiting are... accidental subtext. I happen to think a lot of the best “bait” fall into this category. It is enjoyable. Of course, gay content by gay people often (not always) beats this by a fucking mile but of the “Straight people made this” content, this is the best.

Often, it sours when the straight creator catches on to what they did and the following they have created and makes it bait.

This is where we breach the tough precipice of “Everyone Sucks Here” as they say on Am I the Asshole. The authors suck for baiting if they don’t intend on paying off (even if it can be fun in the moment, see: Sk8 the anime appeals to me as bait) and the fans suck if they then go rabid and turn to harassment to get what they want.

Of course, the basis of bait is coding, just with a bit of a greedier spin of dragging people in for no pay off. But how can we know the intentions? Is it bait because the creators literally cannot create this content and can only heavily pander? Where is the line? What is the reason they can’t do it? Is it just a fear of a loss of profit? Cause then that’s shitty. “I will make your content until it loses me money” is shit.

And then... are fans bad for wanting it if it was deliberately implied that it’s possible? If LGBT fans lash out for being used to bring in profits until it’s too risky... at what point do they go too far?

It really, really gets context specific. Fans going rabid on accidental subtext (like.. Sasuke and Naruto) is bad if they’re like... threatening people but fans.... expressing hurt at what could have been is fine.

So long as they aren’t creating conspiracy theories or hurting people.

And the lines get blurry here. What one person may see is deliberate coding may seem like obvious bait which may all... just be by accident.

For me, personally, it’s a “I know it when I see it” things and it’s also a “I will enjoy it unless I don’t enjoy it...t hen it’s bad” type thing.

I was prepared to watch and love YOI as a bait anime until it actually became gay and then was no longer bait. I enjoy accidental homoerotic tension in lots of ships. I have enjoyed bait knowing the creators were intentionally creating it AND saying no homo to my face, spiting them all the way for it.

I’ll criticize people for baiting or for problematic coding but... unless it’s some evil shit (like baiting pedophilic content, which is done... more often than it should be) I won’t harass peopel over it.

It’s a weird space of fandom behaviour.

And one I will be a BIT more sympathetic to because mainstream LGBT content *by actual LGBT people* is harder to find. And, because a lot of LGBT content by LGBT creators comes from less regulated spaces (ie self publishing), a lot of it can be sketchy in other ways or harder to find gems in.

So, of course, I would endeavor everyone to just... look for actual gay content by actual LGBT people... but I get how sometimes it’s easier to just go “I wish this was gay!” instead of scrolling through “Read this EXTREMELY random assortment of gay books I found that includes cishet ace leads as gay rep, is half YA/half adult fiction and no I won’t tell you which is which, contains every genre known to man, half of which read like fanfiction with the names changed, and also I will not put descriptions for any of them besides vague fanfic terms like “Sports AU Lesbians in SPACE!””

Which is shit people need to stop doing like please just give me a two sentence description of the book and tell me if it’s for and about adults please god

[reeeyachi]

W-HELLO I AM dropping in both ur askboxes to ask if u guys think that there's a possibility that killugon could always stay one-sided (killua never confessing, aro gon, or any scenario tbh)? - im asking u girls because u can provide an artistic/writer point of view - as an artist, wouldn't it feel wrong/incomplete to make a character fall in love with another only to be rejected and be told that they wanna stay platonic friends, when they have such a deep relationship and potential for romance?

HELLO DON’T MIND IF I DO. allow me put my "writer" hat on so that i can give you a very subjective yet creative short answer and a super long answer to this one. Short answer is, unfortunately (it breaks my heart), yes it is possible. Long answer is also yes but with explanation below:

ok i want to slice this ask piece by piece. let’s check possible endings to this relationship and try to fit them in hxh’s concept/context and togashi’s style of storytelling:

purely platonic / just friends;

one-sided love (vice versa killua & gon);

both in love, but won’t confess and will stay platonic;

both in love and will be together forever; and lastly

both in love and will be together for a long time but will break up

i know most of these sound disheartening for us but for me, as a writer, i like to have as many options as possible. especially for romance. because there’s so much character growth potential in this genre -- as what it would let you experience in real life. people learn so many lessons when and after falling in and out love and i like to think of this as one of togashi’s main considerations in writing a romance. most esp a romance that developed at a very young age between two boys.

explanation after the cut:

purely platonic / just friends - let’s just get this out of the way. the answer is a solid no. if i were to strip off my fangirl mask and put myself in togashi’s shoes, an author who goes out of his way to write about the LGBTQ+, it’s not possible. forget about this. i have your metas to back me up on this.

one-sided love (vice versa killua & gon) - ok this one’s interesting because it is possible. @sincerelysamedt has this amazing headcanon (that i can’t stop thinking about bcos it is so damned possible) about killua confessing to gon and gon rejecting him because, while he does love him, he thinks he doesn’t love in the same way killua does (which is romantically). if we are to put it in hxh canon context, it might actually fit in, but with a different scenario. okay so, after separating, togashi gives us the ���little detours“ scene between gon and ging, and throws gon back to whale island basically back to square one -- suggesting that gon will ponder and will realize his feelings for killua in his time alone. but it also suggests that killua might take this chance to move on from gon, and that by the time they meet again, by the time gon finally tells him about how he feels about the both of them, killua’s feelings for him are long gone, and they mutually agree to stay just friends.

both in love, but won’t confess and will stay platonic - talk about funny and frustrating. slow burn gives me physical pain, but hiding of feelings when it’s too fucking obvious kills me. and i am certain togashi knows this. if you are a writer, you would know what your reader wants. you would know what they think of your characters. and sometimes, most of the time, to break the norm and stereotypes (and to break hearts and laugh evil laughs), writers will tend to NOT give you what you want. in this scenario, he gives us BOTH. and it just blows my mind how he already does it in the manga. i really like how togashi tells a story because he doesn’t really “tell“ per se. he “shows“ it. like, he doesn’t tell us that killua has feelings for gon but we SEE it. he doesn’t tell us that gon’s best detour is killua but we KNOW it. he gives readers the power to interpret his contexts without being evasive. so i think it is possible he might pull this shitty yet brilliant strategy until the end. an open-ended conclusion, an “it’s for me to know and for you to find out“, a giving the benefit of the doubt, something that will make you stare into the distance and feel complete and incomplete at the same damn time -- really, the best and worst kind of ending

both in love and will be together forever - YES. this will fit right in the hxh storyline because of the BUILD UP we’ve witness at the start of the story. i repeat, not in the middle, not at the latter episodes of the anime, but AT THE START of the freaking manga. if i were to just pull out manga panel’s of gon and killua from the moment they met, without the side quests, focusing only on their relationship, and arrange them in chronological order, i’ll have myself a good-written slow-burn romance. i don’t think togashi would want to throw the idea of them finally being together out of the window after all the build up he wrote between them. this is the ending that we want. and it’s likely togashi will give it to us BUT, as mentioned, as a writer of his caliber, he might just go apeshit and give us more after this which my last scenario suggests...

both in love and will be together for a long time but will break up in the end - thinking about this makes me sad. but it is possible that this can happen. gon and killua were 12y/o when they met. they’re 13-14y/o when they developed their feelings for each other. while yes, they may realize that being together would be the best decision to make when they meet again, given that they are growing boys with maturing emotional and intellectual capacities, they might later on decide that they’re better off as friends. being in a relationship is not all fluff and games. they will have problems, they will disagree and they will fight. through and through, they will develop their understanding of the world and of the people around them. heck, they might even meet new people they’re interested in. and togashi might give us this. before and after being together. he might code it as character growth, similar to what he showed us after CAA, but as adults. it’s a loop -- like how real-life romantic relationships play out. i personally like this idea because it suggests that there is more to their reach than just each other, and that they can grow on their own without depending on each other. BUT BUT BUT i strongly believe that togashi doesn’t intend this to happen given what i said about the build up and all. he MIGHT make this happen BUT in the end, gon and killua would still end up coming home to each other.

i’m not really sure of i answered your ask right because i said so many things and presented so many scenarios HAHA but to summarize, killua and gon are gay coded and they definitely have feelings for each other, however, it’s togashi’s thought process as a novelist that i’m not really sure how to decode. the way a good writer thinks is amazing. they’re crazy genius yet so, so unpredictable and fucking poetic. he might give us what we want, but he might also fuck around and explore all possible scenarios of a slow-burn relationship before they actually get together, like the true shoujo mangaka that he is

it’s just a matter of time, really :3

[shima-draws]

dude i love you as a person but the bestiality and self shipping with a 12 y/o is... christ man there are lines that shouldn't be crossed

LMAO okay

Since apparently people are failing to read the comments of that post and have concerns—

That post is about a shitty OC ship fic I wrote when I was 12. I was a child at the time, shipping my character with another child. You know, like most children tend to do at that age, it’s a valid self expression and creative thing. The fic was absolutely terrible and cringey and that’s why all my pals roasted me when I brought it up. It was also just funny in general—that entire post was a joke p much poking at me being a cringey kid who wrote OC/canon ship fics. Also!! That isn’t even me, technically—I have an OC named Shima who is separate from my online persona, and she’s the one I put into the fic and wrote about. Even if it were an actual self-insert, it would still be fine because I was just a stupid kid when I wrote it initially??And like I said. The entire post was a joke;; Not even genuine lmao. Obviously now I wouldn’t even consider doing that sort of thing, I would never ever ship myself with a child (ew), and I don’t even ship myself with anyone normally anyway!!

Also you clearly haven’t been on my blog at all recently lmao and I really don’t feel like explaining this a second time since it’s been brought up already but;; I ship Perry and Doof together with Perry as a human! I’m not super keen on the whole animal/human ship part of it. It doesn’t even count as bestiality anyway because 1. Perry is fully sentient and capable of making his own decisions about his relationships. Bestiality happens when the animal cannot consent or isn’t conscious enough to. 2. This is a universe where animal/human relationships are NORMAL. Doof’s girlfriend left him for a WHALE, who she is still dating. Doof is legally an ocelot. Much weirder relationships have been hinted at in this universe before (Looks at Scott. And Milo’s teacher. And Bradley.) 3. Perry and Doof’s entire relationship is symbolism for homosexuality LOL and it’s very obvious;; there was an episode where Doof was found “cheating” on Perry with another nemesis and they broke up. I mean I don’t really know what else to say, it’s not even me taking this out of context, Dan and Swampy literally make it so plainly obvious that their relationship is gay coded. Take that as you will—a lot of the fandom ships Perryshmirtz, and while I’m not really into the canon version of it where Perry’s a platypus, I really enjoy AUs where Perry’s a human and is with Doof

I get you guys are concerned about this but PLEASE. You’re jumping to insane conclusions and my head is spinning I’m just trying to have a good time out here lmao

[quidfree]

Hi! Thinking of Dumbledore + Sirius, do you think Sirius would feel sympathy for Dumbledore if he knew about how torn he was btw his siblings + feeling trapped? I judged him harshly at first, but now I think about the difficulty about losing both parents + sibling, but not wanting to sacrifice everything to step in as parent + guilt that comes with that. I do think Dumbledore loved his siblings + I was happy when his bro said he did a good job with their sis before her death.

hi! this is an interesting one hm

the thing abt dumbledore is that i’m pretty sympathetic to him all things considered- i’ve never really taken the time to explain my feelings about him on here but i definitely don’t think he’s snape levels of “fandom should see he’s irredeemably terrible!”, though i have a lot of qualms about him. he’s certainly not the hero rowling thinks he is, but he’s also not the guy rita skeeter says he is, to put it succintly.

on the one hand, i do think canon mostly fails to acknowledge that he was very manipulative/calculating and made a lot of very cold (or just plain terrible) choices- everything to do with sirius, for one, as well as the whole dursley situation. i know there’s a couple of reasons harry had to live with them (supposedly...) and i can’t be bothered to go into them, but even then i never understood why he couldn’t have done to petunia what he does in OOTP (?) sooner- send a letter to scare the shit out of her and remind her to treat harry decently or at least leave him to his own devices. like, there was so much he could have done in the years between the potters’ deaths and hogwarts- that squib neighbour was already spying/reporting for him, so he was fully aware of it all, idk. i just find that whole thing exemplary of his callousness. it’s more unforgivable to me than raising harry knowing he might need to die for the cause- because that was necessary to defeat voldemort, but giving harry an escape from abuse was so avoidable. his handling of other characters also doesn’t paint him in the best light, sirius as most obvious suspect- there’s a good piece on tumblr about sirius being a liability in his eyes because he’s not loyal to dumbledore or his cause above all else, but to the potters (and ultimately harry) and his own code, and i really think it’s the best reading of dumbledore’s handling of sirius in OOTP, because i always found that kind of insane. it’s brain-dead obvious that the worst thing to do with sirius (especially if you were worried about his unhinged state and whatnot) would be sticking him in grimmauld place- even if they had to keep him hidden, they could have let him floo between order hideouts! see other people! prowl london as a dog! it’s insane that dumbledore of all people would be that dumb about it, so it makes the most sense to me as him locking sirius up where he’s the most contained.

on the other hand, dumbledore was both a quirky schoolmaster and a wartime militia leader, and i think a lot of the weirdness in his character is bc rowling set out to write a much more child-like series than she ended up writing. dumbledore is a pretty iconic guy in the books, manipulations included- he’s such a chessmaster, and he has flair, as kingsley would put it. most importantly he clearly tries very hard to orchestrate the best possible outcome for the entire world- not based on arbitrary beliefs or personal whims, but because he’s sort of the main bastion of hope in the wizarding world. i don’t necessarily think his actions in this context are all excusable, but he’s a war-time leader, and pretty much knows it’s all down to him- although the order is certainly competent, it’s a very ragtag group of people dumbledore holds together, and in terms of skill, knowledge and aura he’s their biggest asset. he’s already been through a wizarding war where he probably set out to murder the love of his life, another wizard supremacist wackjob! we know he’s long past egoism- he’s genuinely For The Greater Good, and he clearly cares about harry; his choices are undoubtedly not made lightly. it’s also important to note just how bad wizarding society as a whole is on these issues- even the most muggle-friendly wizards are remarkably ignorant about them (arthur weasley), and everyone else is at least marginally bigoted; bigotry is built into the fabric of their society, and their government is extemely complacent/corrupt, so the order and their ilk are very much on their own, while people like the malfoys are tolerated despite the open secret of their wartime alliances. dumbledore has a tough job, and he doesn’t know all the things the reader knows. so i think the op-eds calling him Just As Bad As Voldemort or whatever are missing any nuance.

then we get into dumbledore’s backstory. it explains a lot about him, i think. it’s interesting to me that he’s so consistent as a character- he has always been about The Greater Good, and he’s always had an ego, but as a child he let the latter dictate the former and as an adult he forever attempted to substract it from himself lest he repeat the same mistakes. some more questionable rep from ms rowling in having her (1) gay character be the guy literally seduced into wizard supremacy by his evil boyfriend, but i always liked that beat of a very isolated extremely intelligent character drawn into a warped sense of righteousness- it’s also very consistent of dumbledore to believe he’s doing the best for someone when he’s not really thinking about that at all, which is the case with his sister. obviously his family’s story is tragic, and then he gets pulled into this fake vision of a better world, validated in his brilliance, and then there’s his mother’s death, and then his sister, and suddenly it’s all come crashing down and he spends the next years of his life slowly realizing he’s the only one who can stop a project he might have been overseeing once. aberforth lays into him for it, and fair enough, but jesus, what a shitty spot to be in fresh out of hogwarts. i don’t know if it’s because i’m an older sibling, but i can understand the horrible burden of knowing that it’s always on you to think of yourself second, even when you’re inches away from the best thing in your life.

getting sidetracked- the question was about sirius and dumbledore. the thing abt LMV is that i try to keep my own opinions out of it; the marauders-dumbledore dynamic is a difficult one. they all respect him endlessly, and in school i think they adored him, but as a wartime leader it gets complicated. i think in canon their relationship was better, just a little strained (and a little more for others) bc of his style of leadership- you know, keeping secrets, playing games etc. in LMV, though, his machinations got them personally into some shit, so i wagered things would be more terse. james i think thinks most positively of him, as he is wont to do so, except where he is somehow at odds with sirius, because his loyalties there are clear and he is far more violently protective of sirius than he lets on. lily is a close second, because she’s a big picture thinker and gets how hard his job is, but she tends to be wary of his reasoning. remus is a more distrustful person by nature, and dumbledore using him for werewolf stuff wears him down. sirius is not a fan of authority, does not like secrets, and hates people using him as a pawn, so things are most strained for him, obviously. i think a lot of dumbledore introspection in LMV is from sirius’ POV, somewhat accidentally, so he gets a harsh rep.

to finally get to the specifics of your question: would dumbledore’s backstory get sirius to sympathise? arguably not much. sirius is a tricky guy, esp because i write him in a period that we know nothing about. he’s not a cocky slightly feral 15 year old, and he’s not a traumatised 30 something prison escapee; i try to get a plausible balance, so i don’t lend sirius in LMV so much of OOTP sirius’ world-weary wisdom. he’s 21, and in a war where the other side are wizard nazis he’s mostly related to somehow; he sees things in blacks and whites almost necessarily. so either you’re good or bad, trustworthy or not. peter crossed the threshold, so he’s dead to him; regulus turned himself in, but he’s one of them, so sirius doesn’t know what to do with him. sirius might understand how hard it is to have younger siblings you love fiercely who don’t understand your commitment to a higher goal, but dumbledore was on the wrong side of things that time, so i don’t think he would draw any sympathetic parallels- i don’t see why he of all people would feel bad for where dumbledore’s youthful aspirations of wizarding supremacy lead him, despite his good intentions. he’s not very forgiving of bigotry, i think especially because he’s cut all ties with his own background so harshly.

tldr; i feel for the guy, and his life was fucked, but sirius probably would not, and dumbledore got enough unwarranted hero worship considering his dodgy actions that i don’t resent sirius for holding that grudge.

[the-cryptographer]

I’m actually replaying Tales of the Abyss now instead of just thinking about replaying it as I become randomly taken over by Dist-related feelings. So under the cut is my experience with the first third of the game (everything up to the haircut).

- Imma just start with the character stuff and then move onto the gameplay stuff bc nobody cares about gameplay.

- Yeah, I started playing this like - “I wonder if I’ll still like the same shitty ships I liked when I was playing this ten years ago.” And the answer is FUCKING YES - they are apparently permanently ingrained in my psyche.

- On the subject of Luke... I didn’t actually remember how much of a douche he is for the first third of the game, since it’s been a while and I’m more accustomed to seeing portrayals of the better rounded and kinder character he eventually became. I’m going to say, I’m really glad he grew out of it on both a narrative and personal level, but I also really did enjoy and love long-hair douchey Luke. He’s insufferable and I adore him.

- That being said, I think this kind of puts an interesting spin on Luke/Tear. I do genuinely like this ship and am happy with where it ended up, but a lot of what seems to keep their early interactions from going even more poorly than they do is that Luke is... very used to bossing people around. And Tear is very used to being bossed around. Like, she’ll obviously talk back to him, but even so- Tear kind of falling into this servile protective bodyguard role is kind of what ends up endearing her to Luke and it’s kind of bad and good at the same time. Especially combined with things like her thinking the Baticul maid outfit his servants wear is cute... This idea could be taken places... I’m glad the relationship didn’t stay like this in the larger context of things, but I’m also kind of enjoying where it’s at so~

- That being said I feel like the party starts making lovebird jokes way too early. Like, I like this ship a lot, but I also have bad taste, and this isn’t the kind of thing I feel should be encouraged irl/in-universe. Not as their relationship exists during this part of the game, at least. ubb.

- More generally I do like Tear a lot tho. I think having her be a bit more serious and stoic and emotionally withdrawn are things that speak a lot to me, with regards to female characters and heroines especially. I also like that she is genuinely competent as a fighter and protector. And that the more traditional damsel role is occupied by a man, Ion.

- I’m also surprised that Tear’s boobs are as modestly proportioned as they are. Maybe it’s because of doujin content, or a couple of tactless jokes later on in the game(?) but I always thought they were HUGE instead of, well, buxom and hourglassy in the vein that you might find on a real woman. This game in general isn’t super fanservice-y in its character designs (although there’s something to be said about a few of the scenarios). There’s some Zettai Ryouki on the girls, but that’s about it. I guess the fact that this game's age is showing.

- The different iterations of ships involving Anise, Arietta, and the Ions are also something that are still appealing to me a lot. Part of me feels bad for being okay with Anise/Florian, since Florian’s a kind of an obvious replacement character. But then I start thinking about how conflicting and upsetting it would be for Anise and then - whoops - I’m interested again.

- Luke and Ion crush on each other so hard though. This was not a ship from when I first played but, god, it’s so cute how much Ion seems to genuinely like Luke, and how Luke gets so tsun and blushy about protecting him. Excuse me while I try and figure out a way to write this that isn’t heartbreaking, and fail.

- me: I wonder if I’ll like Jade as much as I did the first time. Since I seem to have come to a realisation that he’s an emotionally manipulative asshole with a very limited capacity for empathy on any non-abstract level. Jade’s disembodied voice *hasn’t even shown up on screen yet* : Move out of the way or it’s not my problem if you get run over by this tank I’m driving. me: I was a complete fool. He’s a total asshole and I love him so much.

- Naw, yeah, for real tho: one of the first things Jade does upon meeting Natalia is try and establish that she’ll be easy to emotionally manipulate and control. He rather easily brushes over watching the suffering of others in favour of more goal oriented behavior. That, in addition to what happens when he extracts information from Dist at the Keterburg Hotel... I don’t really think I was off the mark about Jade potentially negging his boyfriend or exacting physical torture on his ex, especially insofar as his ex is a criminal anyhow. Like, obviously Jade has some kind of moral code by the time the game begins. And overall I think it’s admirable that he’s concerned about things like minimising the world’s death toll and human suffering. But he’s certainly not above breaking a few eggs to make and omelette, even if those eggs include visiting long-term physical and psychological damage on others. I would... hope that he could restrain himself from taking that kind of route with things. But I don’t think I’m exactly wrong in thinking he’s not a person I would trust not to, and thus not someone I’d want to invite within a mile of my personal life. Although he’s probably going to continue being a character I really cherish. He might still be my favourite playable character in the game - although Tear and Anise come close.

- Actual favourite character is Dist, of course. I mean, he’s hammy and awful and terribly written, but I love him so much. ‘Everyone is jealous of my intelligence and beauty.’ (Which is even funnier considering the post-battle dialogue where Anise and Jade tell Luke to write about their beauty and intelligence respectively in his diary. Birds of a feather.) idk, it’s just really strange, because I don’t really like when fanon iterations of characters are made more femme and flamboyant than they are in canon. But you have actual femme and flamboyant men in canon (Dist, Wallace from pkmn, etc) and somehow I love them so much, omg. (Dist also has a lot of grief stuff I like tho - v relatable with regards to Nebilim.) idk, I just count my lucky stars every day. Because five of the six God Generals die in this game, so the odds were definitely not in my favour, but somehow my favourite is the one that makes it out alive?! I’m dying at how blessed I am. Dist is basically the opposite of the Bury Your Gays trope, and I love it.

- On that note, when Jade and Dist are snarking and Luke and Guy share the look(tm) and are like ‘they’re off in their own little world’ asdfghjkl;

- me: I wonder if I’ll like Natalia more this time. Since I’m more aware now of the baggage and misogyny that goes into female character creation, and am more likely to blame authors than the characters themselves. Natalia: *to Luke, after taking one look at Tear* Are you fucking the servant girl? me: YIKES(tm)

- Naw, she’s okay. I mean... she’s not less okay than Anise or Tear, really, in terms of poor (stereotypical) writing and poor (catty) behaviour. I certainly think her commitment to being a kind ruler and acting towards the public good with her own hands and own feet is quite touching. But she appeals to me the least out of the three girls on a personal level. And, also, I think there are several issues with her introduction-

- Well... first off, that we hear about Natalia from Luke and Guy earlier in the game - and we’re told she’s high maintenance and clingy before we’ve even met her. And then we meet her and her introduction ends up immediately corroborating what Luke says about her. So... it’s a very bad first impression in a way. In general it’s kind of interesting seeing how the narrative feeds out information, now that I know all the characters and all the twists. Some of it is info-dumpy, and some of it is unintuitive, but it’s interesting to watch how it drops out hints and evidence for you to try and piece together before the reveals come.

- But I digress, the other thing is Natalia is, after her disastrous first impression, set up as a foil for Luke. Her kindness and selfless concern for others, and how seriously she takes her responsibility as a state leader, are both immediately cast against Luke’s self-absorption. Which... is in some ways ineffective for me tbh.

- Idk, just, like- An adult man spends seven years building up trust with a child that’s been isolated and emotionally neglected by design, and then manipulates and uses him as part of a murderous rampage. (two children, if we’re including Ion) And somehow this is Luke’s fault? Yeah, I don’t... buy that.

- I mean, Luke is obviously rude, callous, selfish, and arrogant. And I think all of those things are problems. All of those things are Luke’s fault and responsibility. I do think it’s upsetting that Luke is more concerned with dodging blame regarding Akzeriuth than he is concerned about... everyone who just died. And I’m certainly glad that Luke makes a decision to change. But... none of those things are really related to him feeling he can trust Van, and it’s pretty monstrously unfair to blame him for being manipulated by the only adult he really felt took his interests and concerns seriously as a kid. (I mean, obviously his parents love him, and he them. But there’s also a definite feeling that his concerns are not being prioritised by them. And that he can’t even advocate his concerns with regards to his mother, whose emotional and physical health could be endanger if Luke burdened her with his upsets.) As the player, we don’t really have a reason to trust Luke, and Luke’s loyalty to Van, more than Tear’s (and the rest of the party’s) distrust of her brother. We’ve known Luke and Tear approximately the same amount of time. But... Luke has known Van for seven years. And Luke has known Tear and Jade and Anise for a couple of weeks and has little reason to trust them. Tear spirited him away from the safety of his manor and into a dangerous world. Jade and Anise had him restrained and arrested and made no secret they were using his status for their political goals (good goals, but still...) They’re all openly disparaging of Luke. It seems pretty natural that Luke would trust Van over them, and the fact that Van was counting on that when he betrayed Luke and everyone... I mean... I also don’t blame the rest of the party for blaming Luke in the heat of the moment, but I think the game and narrative itself takes the ��it’s your fault’ stuff a bit too seriously and uncritically. It’s also super obvious that they ramped up Luke’s unlikable qualities in preparation for what happens at Akzeriuth - pride cometh before the fall. And, even if it’s emotionally effective, it still don’t really go from point A to point B that being selfish and rude and arrogant makes you at fault for being susceptible to emotional manipulation. Which is kind of frustrating.

- Also, yeah, zol was right. You could’ve saved that kid with stalagmite or smthn, Jade.

- There’s a lot of weird bullshit along the lines of gameplay vs plot dissonance. Like trying to light barrels of oil on fire in the Abandoned Factory. I’m surprised none of them blew up in Luke’s face. Did nobody think to bring a candle? Or just have Mieu light up the dark with fire near the switch? That would have been a lot more expedient and a lot less dangerous.

- Ion: The seventh fonon was recently discovered. Jade: And thirty years ago, when I was a young lad, I was upset I couldn’t use the seventh fonon and blew up my teacher by mistake (whoopsie). me: what the flippity fuck, Ion? that’s not recent. I thought you were supposed to be better than Luke about this shit. What could possibly be responsible for this mistake - OH!

- In general, since Ion’s four years old and somehow knows a shitton about the world, it kind of takes some of the wind out of Luke’s sails when he’s had a three year lead on Ion ‘but i had more important stuff to learn, like my parent’s faces’. Luke’s amnesia and subsequent isolation are pretty well integrated into the story for the most part, but parts of it are obviously exaggerated for the sake of having a character that needs the relevant info about the game world infodumped on them.

- Mieu... is a thing. I don’t really like mascot characters as a concept in general. But I think some authors, like CLAMP, have done a good job integrating them into their stories. I can’t really say the same for Mieu though. That he kind of is Luke’s chew toy for the beginning part of the story is interesting. And that he fucked things over for his people and the Ligers due to this random accident (much like Luke) is kind of interesting. But... overall he’s just a very annoying cute thing that’s following you around for no reason. I wonder if his voice is less grating in Japanese, but the PS2 version of this game at least didn’t come with JP audio, which was kind of a bummer. I like the dub for the most part (Anise especially is really good) but I would have liked to hear the JP version this time.

- I think I still prefer platonic Guy/Luke to romantic Guy/Luke. (Although I don’t dislike it, the way I dislike Asch/Luke) but I am super charmed by the drama with Guy having all this resentment towards Asch that then becomes easier to move past once Asch gets switched out for Luke. Like, I think in some ways it’s more about Guy being in a different place looking after this helpless newly replicated Luke at age 14 compared to looking after the better-realised Asch when he was younger, rather than because of a stark difference between Luke and Asch themselves. But I can’t help but love Guy a little for seeing them so differently and feeling certain that Luke is the one that’s his friend. It’s really sweet and cute x’)

- And last thing - the hyperresonance stuff was super poorly explained. Particularly the first one between Luke and Tear. We’re told that this is something that can randomly happen when two seventh fonists interact, and Tear’s like ‘i should have been more careful’ like this is something that happens periodically that you can predict and avoid. but... how? What are the conditions that lead to this? Is this scientifically replicatable at all? Or is it something that can happen completely at random whenever Luke and Tear touch each other? Whenever Natalia and Asch touch each other? they’re just going to be having sex one day and randomly teleport out into an open field or smthn. This is so dumb. Except I know that the teleportation thing was actually 100% convenient plot bullshit, so I shouldn’t even pretend it can be made sense of in any real way, smh.

- New Game Plus! I debated quite a bit, but in the end EXP x10 was the only thing I purchased from the grade shop. I wanted to have the experience of gathering all the items and bonuses myself, since I forgot what happened the first playthrough. But I’m regretting the decision a bit now since I did all the sidequests and ultimate weapons and stuff the first time around and had a very full inventory, and I’ve already missed at least one thing on my current playthrough when a combination of not saving and forgetting how to walk lost me Barrelow X’s Capacity Core. (Not saving also made me not have a save to go back to to win against Asch at Yulia City- boo) But, regardless, even without all the other perks, I figured EXP x10 would basically mean breezing through the story, which was what in theory I wanted. But then I decided to combine this with the Unknown Difficulty Mode (enemy stats x3.5) which effectively made the game even more slow than the first runthrough, EXP x10 be damned. I spent a lot of the first part of the game crowding around Engeve, frantically trying not to die before I gathered 100 gald to stay at the Inn. I was completely outmatched on the Tartarus when it gets overrun with Griffins and Ligers. And I made about a dozen trips between the Fubras River and Engeve before I finally made it to Arietta without my characters dying. After getting my party to level 40, spamming Mystic Cage, and still getting absolutely crushed by Arietta at Coral Castle, I finally gave up. I lowered it down to Very Hard mode instead and defeated her in two minutes. After a quick search, I learned that this is considered one of the hardest battles with the hard mode stat multipliers, and it gets easier from there. So I technically could have kept going to level 50 or smthn but... it also seemed like a lot of these people were doing this challenge with the capacity cores and equipment rollover, and without them I’d most certainly have to grind more (and grind without good capacity core stat bonuses). And the simple truth of the matter is I wasn’t having fun anymore. So... if I do a third playthrough in another ten years, I’ll rollover everything properly to do Unknown properly, but in the meantime I’ll stick to whatever mode lets me farm grade the most easily.

- On that note, it became very clear that the defense stat in this game is very broken. All the characters (including your own characters, pretty much regardless of level) have /lots of HP/ and are meant to take /a lot/ of small hits - this is just the play style. So, as long as you have full TP and a way to heal, taking on characters with multiple times their usual attack and HP stats is doable. On the other hand, characters with high defense, like Arietta, Golems, etc... Even small differences between your attack stats and the opponent’s defense stats can result in your own attacks doing half/quarter/tenth of their usual damage, which means a battle taking two/four/ten times longer than usual (and you’re way more likely to run out of TP and healing items this way). I think this essentially means that high fonic/phys attack (respective of whether the character has a mage vs melee move set) are the most important stats for the player character. It would be cool if you could replicate Arietta’s defense effect with your own characters but... the truth is the bosses in these types of games are built very differently than the player characters (unlike something like pkmn)... so I’m not sure you can(?)

- Pet peeves currently include the Tales Of series’s multi-part cutscenes. It’s started already and I know it will get worse (i distinctly recall latter parts of this game where I had to fly between characters in different cities collecting cutscenes before I could move onto the next dungeon) But, yeah- I’m at a bit of a loss here because, while I like open exploration game worlds where you walk between different locations and vastly prefer this to games that teleport you between battle stages (ie Sonic Adventure 2, Disgaea) there is a lot of retreading old pathways in Abyss (as there was in Legendia) trying to negotiate between different talking heads. Like... I saved my game going up the tower at Coral Castle, intending to walk into a boss fight. And then a cutscene happened, during which I was teleported three loadscreens back in the direction I came from for another cutscene. And then I had to manually walk back the same exact route and save again, before another cutscene and finally the battle. What’s the rationale behind not just making that one big pre-battle cutscene with the travel included/implied? Maybe the fact that they DON’T HAVE A CUTSCENE/SKIT SKIP BUTTON which is another pet peeve, mind you. Another example is when you get to Luke’s home in Baticul and have to run back down to the port to retrieve the scrolls that the maids threw out, and then climb back up to his house again. It’s not like anything exciting happened on the three different elevators I took between those two points. It’s not like I don’t know what the trip between those points looked like - I just came from the port. There’s no reason not to just have it be automatic. Even attempts to reduce this - the wing bottle - are frustrating in their setup. By requiring me to spend money and keep inventory in order to use the teleport function, they are incentivising me to /not/ use the teleport function. They’re requiring me to spend money to /avoid/ doing something boring. And that’s, idk, kind of unnecessary and shitty? Like, usually in a game I want to be spending money in order to unlock new features and content and have more fun. Not to, like, avoid playing parts that I’ve played already. idk, because i do realise that streamlining some of these moments would require alterations to cut down some of the movement in the plot - and ultimately I think flying between cities to talk with different people before acting isn’t bad or unrealistic plot wise. buuuut, even if some of the multi-part cutscenes need to stay for this effect, even if not all of them could have been streamlined into a more direct line of action and travel, even if not any specific moment of this travel is unbearably awful, it still frustrates me that this clearly wasn’t even a priority for the devs.