#(this is more fucked up when you think about the fact that Angelina created/wrote the original one too when she was a kid)

[sovamurka]

The way the current “Nightingale/Соловей” is basically a child of the original Nightingale and Angelina since he was created out of the former’s ink/blood and latter’s unconditional love for the original...

[maxwell-grant]

So I saw that Street Fighter tier list, and I noticed that C. Viper was near dead last. I'm not too familiar with her, but I was under the impression she was pretty well-liked by SFIV standards--any reason why you dislike her so much?

I don't actually dislike her much as a character, I put her at the bottom because of how much I hate Viper's playstyle. That wasn't really a tier list for the series in general, more so about the prospecting of those characters returning (ex: I don't hate Necalli, I wrote the biggest semi-defense the dude is ever gonna get, and I still know he needs to fuck off). In Viper's case, I find her uniquely grating to watch because she spends so much time spamming feint Seismic Hammer to condition control over the opponent's jumps or canceling Burning Kick in the air to mix up her landings, and it makes it she's always doing that ringing sound all the goddamn time, at least El Fuerte's squeaky shoes and running animation are funny. Yes, it kind of is sublimely perfect that the CIA agent's playstyle consists of overtly psychologically conditioning and electrically torturing your opponent into opening up, but that lands her into a firm "fuck off forever" for me because I never want to sit through a Viper match in SFIV and MvC3 alike, or ever again. So unless they did something about that, I don't consider it a loss if she's never playable again. She probably will though, if not in 6 then in 7, but that's a headache for later.

I mean, SFIV standards were abysmally low so you could say Viper was comparatively well-received next to the other new characters, but she was never really that popular. In fact even at the game's launch Ono was surprised that players weren't latching onto Viper, despite Viper being custom-made for Western audiences

“With all due to respect to him (Abel), he’s a great character, but honestly we thought Crimson Viper would be a big hit here,” said Ono. “We got a lot of marketing data and a lot of advice from our US branch in creating that character. She was kind of custom tailored for the States and we thought people would like her.”

People did start playing her a lot more overtime because she turned out to be a competitive scene monster, but I mostly remember people being baffled and cynical when she got picked for MvC3. C.Viper was a popular moveset, but not so much a popular character, and it wasn't at all difficult for Juri to completely eclipse her, despite how hard they were trying to push Viper at first. I think you can very easily point to what Ono said as a reason why she didn't catch on that much. She is blatantly designed to appeal to American audiences and that made her more of a gimmick than a character. She is Angelina Jolie as a secret agent spy in an extremely tight-fitting pantsuit who also has superhero powers that nobody else has and that she achieves with technology. I already don't give much of a damn about most of the military/government affiliated characters in the series, but they tend to have other things going on that Viper really doesn't.

The KOF ladies she's ripping off have distinct fighting styles (and those games get to play much more loose with character design) they get to provide an interesting take on by doing it while dressing fashionably, but Viper is defined by her reliance on gadgets and gimmicks. She is a very generic videogame protagonist lady who plays like one of those hodpedodge World Tour characters, and she's not even a bad design on her own, she's just not really pulling her weight as a Street Fighter character. She represents nothing, and I don't think she has anything going on really justifies her inclusion over another character.

All that said, I actually do think Viper is a useful character to have around. I'm against her ever being playable again but, like I said, she probably will, and fine, she has a allright enough niche as a character. I am exceedingly generous to a lot of SF characters I'm otherwise not a fan of and she's a character I can talk myself into appreciating more, as I'm doing now. She's a decent POV character to drive stories around in her IV and V appearences, given her job forces her to play detective around the characters, but she actively doesn't want to fight, so she's always going to run when the going gets rough and leave the fighting to the actual main characters. Her priority is to do her job so she can go home and be with her daughter and that's all she cares about, she has neither time nor patience to care about this and she finds it frankly ridiculous that people call her gadgets unfair, when she's just trying to get the fight done as quickly as possible.

They get some good mileage out of the fact that she stands for nothing and that she is intruding somewhere she doesn't belong, that she's just punching the clock on a job she was given, that she really doesn't have any kind of beef with these people and just needs them to get out of her way and really has no stake other than survival for her family's sake, and that all the fighters detest her, whether it's because she is blatantly cheating, or because she's a pain in the ass, or because of how viciously she brutalized Cammy (not sure if that whole movie is canon still), that kind of thing.

It could be very possible that Juri ls lying, and the illustration is definitely exaggerated, but I enjoyed the reveal in SF6 that she and Viper have basically become partners in crime, that Juri considers them "cut from the same cloth", and that she has the same goal as a greedy career criminal who kidnaps people for evil organizations (which was the same thing C.Viper was doing undercover). I enjoy them mostly dispensing with the pretense that Viper is supposed to be a good person and I enjoy the series letting one of it's government/military agent characters be a bastard/ honest about the job they have.

She can love her daughter as much as she wants and even have decent enough interactions with other characters, it's not going to make her not a CIA spook who beats up and tortures people with electric gauntlets on the clock. It isn't even that unbelievable that she would wind up on good terms with Juri, not just because they're both cheating with technological assets, or because they were both working for the same guy and biding their time to backstab him, but because they both exist to break the rules everyone else is mostly abiding by, neither strong enough to attrack too much attention as villains nor weak enough that they can't match the heroes when push to comes to shove. They both had personal revenge stakes to get through (Juri with her parents, Viper with her fallen partners), and with both of their targets gone, they get to just be themselves: cockroaches trying to make off with the prize / turn a profit in a space they view as largely dominated by suckers.

Much like Mel Masters in the 6 comic, I think it's good for Street Fighter to have characters that have an agnostic/adverse relationship to the concept of street fighting, and to her credit, there is something really funny about her position. She is a James Bond in a world full of evil organizations and villains to fight, but the only way to get to them is through fighting tournaments, and all the actual heroes of the world fighting said people hate her guts for cheating and refusing to put in the work they did in martial arts that are, apparently, the most important thing in the world I guess??? She is a hypercompetent superspy who wishes she could be out there doing regular espionage stuff, and instead has to deal with superpowered fighting bozos flushing years of careful investigative work down the toilet. Born to blow up islands full of henchmen and arm South American coups, forced to step into the ring with Ryu from the Streets who doesn't even pay taxes.

[onestowatch]

Support the Magic of PRIDE Year-Round with CLAY’s “project 5 (demo)” [Q&A]

Photo Credit: Angelina Papageorge

As the summer comes to a close and with it the commercialized “Pride Season,” CLAY, along with partner and fellow creative Maisie Richardson-Sellers, seek to establish an enduring reminder of love and celebration for the community by the community in “project 5 (demo).”    

An ode to love in its truest form, the single’s visual companion (released Aug. 28) and directed by Maisie herself, is shot from a home video perspective with the primary medium being cell phone cameras. Self shot footage of members of the LGBTQI+ community feature the colorful members in all their glory, along with a personal and artistic portrayal of Maisie and CLAY’s love. 

The video begins by playing with shadows, first CLAY moves alone to be joined by Maisie’s shadow in a fluid dance sequence. A serene chord progression on an organ accompanied by images of water flood the screen. A West Coast sunset into an intimate moment in the shower, leads to CLAY’s lament “I don’t want to die for loving you.” The powerful statement in its own right, only strengthened by the love the viewer sees in Maisie and CLAY, triggers a pickup in the beat and bass. As the groove manifests, so do the real stars of this story. With every musical measure we a see another LGBTQI+ person, representing every spectrum of the rainbow with individualism and pride. 

We had a chance to catch up with CLAY on everything from growing up in the “one of the gayest cities in the world,” resisting MAGA culture, and the wealth of inspiration behind “project 5 (demo)”.     

OTW: How old were you when you wrote your first song? Do you remember the title or what it was about? 

CLAY: “I’m flying” when I was seven years old. I believe the lyrics were “I’m flying, over the hills and mountains, I’m soaring over the deep blue sea. I’m flying, I’m soaring, don’t you know how good this feels to me? My heart is, my soul is free.” Not much has changed! Ha! Seven year old clay was hella on brand!

OTW: Your sound is deeply rooted in jazz, who was the first person to introduce you to the genre?   

CLAY: I mostly grew up in a very soul, R&B, Motown, funk and disco heavy household. I would say my music is more influenced by those genres than jazz. However, I fell in love with Ella Fitzgerald age 13, mostly replaying her songs over and over and trying to attempt copying her scatting. My (very limited) jazz self-education started there.

OTW: How did growing up in San Francisco help shape your dedication to social justice?  

CLAY: I owe a lot to the city that raised me. So many social justice movements were born and cultivated in the bay area. It’s an inherent part of the culture, so it heavily seeped into my upbringing as well as my formal education. Many of my childhood friends have built their lives and careers around serving the community, either working in or adjacent to social justice spaces. For me, it doesn’t make sense to do anything in my life that doesn’t have the goal of ultimately serving others, uplifting, empowering and building community for marginalized people. Period. I attest that to my being raised in such a (more so back then) culturally rich and diverse city (and family). 

OTW: What prompted the shift from social justice to pursuing music as a career? How do you blend the two? 

CLAY: I’m not sure there was a shift, it was more so that music was the route I had to take to achieve a larger goal. The thing that wakes me up in the morning, the need, the “so what?” is that fact that so many people on this planet feel alone, like no one understands, loves, or cares about them. Music chose me. I’ve been singing since before I could talk, and somehow I have this voice! I try to be as honest as I can, to practice radical vulnerability in hopes that I can free someone, somewhere of the shame, the weight the confusion or the isolation they feel. 

OTW: In today’s political climate, what do you think is the most important thing we can do as a society to resist MAGA culture?    

CLAY: Use your voice and use your vote. While I think it’s essential to use your platform to share and spread awareness via social media, I think that we need to learn as a generation how to put our money where our mouths are, to really learn how to show up. I have been really disappointed in myself lately and my lack of connection with people on the ground doing the work day to day. An idea of how to change this disconnect, and how to activate and build community was birthed from that shame, which I am working on and will hopefully be able to share soon…

Photo Credit: Angelina Papageorge

OTW: Can you expand on the inspiration on “project 5 (demo)”? 

CLAY: Yes! This song just flowed out of me in the session with the producer, Dylan Brady. We were honestly just messing around and I was singing into a performance mic (vs a typical recording mic) and I loved what came out so much I decided not to change a thing. Not even mix it! I was inspired by my love, and by my community. The pride and the shame. The moments where we get to say “fuck you, I’m still here, still queer” and the moments when we lose precious souls to the violence that our community so often faces.   

OTW: Your partner, Maisie Richardson-Sellers edited and directed the video for “project 5 (demo).” Can you tell us about your story together?

CLAY: Yes she did! She’s the best! I am honestly inspired by her every single day and feel so grateful to have her in my life. Hmm, well the short version is that we met at a party that neither of us particularly wanted to be at. It’s always the case, I suppose, to encounter something/someone amazing when you’re least expecting it…  

OTW: What inspired using real LGBTQI+ individuals in the message? Do you know each person personally featured?   

CLAY: Everyone in the video is either a friend of a friend of a friend. It felt special to start out by reaching out to our own community first and letting it grow organically from there. 

OTW: Can you tell us about your coming out story? How did you find the security to live your life and express your love freely?  

CLAY: I don’t really have a conventional coming out story. I’m immensely privileged to be in a family that has supported me throughout my entire life, and my loving women was no different. However, I will say that despite my supportive family and growing up in arguably one of the gayest cities in the world, I still felt soooo much shame around being queer, (and still often do). We live in an incredibly heteronormative society and constantly swimming upstream can get exhausting and feel isolating. Community is essential to survival, for those of us that can find it! I seek to create spaces by creating art for people to feel like they too have community, that they are not alone. 

OTW: Who are your Ones to Watch?  

CLAY: Easy! Manu Manzo- a Latin Grammy nominated, Miami-based, Venezuelan artist fusing all of her influences together to make her own lil sub-genre, en español & Ora the Molecule- an exceptionally talented, eccentric, fearless trailblazer.