#This is certainly a problem in a lot of fanbases but it seems more prevalent amongst boobers

[unhookedcandles]

I literally don’t have anything against ranboo fans bc I know that most of them are just kids that don’t know better but I truly think their fan base would be less toxic if everyone just removed the phrase kys from their lexicon

[luckgods]

Why all the white guys in whump?

I got Inspired by a post asking that question, and here we are. Warning: long post ahead.

I think it’s due to a combination of factors, as things frequently are.

The preference for / prevalence of white male characters in fandom is well-known and has been examined pretty thoroughly by people already.

What’s worth noting for discussing this tendency in whump in particular is that the ‘whump fandom’ itself is not a ‘fandom’ in the traditional sense of being made of fans of one single source narrative (or source setting, like a particular comics fandom, or the Star Wars extended universe) with pre-existing characters. Although subsets of traditional fandoms certainly exist within the larger whump fandom, a lot of whump is based on original, ‘fan’-created characters.

So, given the tendency of ‘traditional’ fandoms to create stories disproportionately centered on white male characters due to the source material itself being centered on white male characters (and giving more narrative weight to them, characterizing them better, etc), if we say hypothetically that the whump fandom is split say 50/50 between ‘traditional’ fandom works and original whump works, you’d expect to see a higher number of works focused on white men than the demographics of the ‘traditional’ fandom’s source work would predict, but not as extreme of a divergence between the source material & the fanworks as the one you’d see if whump fandom were 100% based on popular media.

However, that doesn’t quite seem to be the case. Whump stories and art remain focused on overwhelmingly male and frequently white characters, which means that the tendency of the fandom to create stories disproportionately centered on white male characters cannot be ONLY explained by the source material itself being centered on white male characters (and giving more narrative weight to them, characterizing them better, etc).

And, having established the fact that whump writers & artists presumably have MORE control over the design of their characters than writers & artists in ‘traditional’ fandoms, we have to wonder why the proportions remain biased towards men, & white men in particular.

—

The race thing is pretty simple in my opinion. Mostly, it’s just another extension of the fanbase’s tendency to reflect the (predominantly US-American, on tumblr) culture it exists in, which means that, in a white-centric culture, people make artworks featuring white people.

There’s also the issue of artists being hesitant to write works that dwell heavily on violence towards people of color due to the (US-American) history of people of color being violently mistreated. I’ve actually seen a couple of posts arguing that white people SHOULDN’T write whump of nonwhite characters (particularly Black characters) because of the history of actual violence against Black bodies being used as entertainment, which means that fictional violence against Black people, written by white people, for a (presumed) white audience, still feels exploitative and demeaning.

I'm not going to get into all my thoughts on this discussion here but suffice to say that there's probably an impact on the demographics of whump works from authors of color who simply... don't want to see violence against people of color, even non-explicitly-racialized violence, and then another impact from white authors who choose not to write non-white characters either due to the reasons stated above, or simply due to their personal discomfort with how to go about writing non-white characters in a genre that is heavily focused on interpersonal violence.

Interestingly enough, there’s also a decent proportion of Japanese manga & anime being used as source material for whump, and manga-styled original works being created. The particular relationship between US-American and Japanese pop culture could take up a whole essay just by itself so I’ll just say, there’s a long history of US-Japanese cultural exchange which means that this tendency is also not all that surprising.

—

GENDER though. If someone had the time and the energy they could make a fucking CAREER out of examining gender in whump, gender dynamics in whump, and why there seems to be a fandom-wide preference for male whumpees that cannot be fully explained by the emphasis on male characters in the source text.

I have several different theories about factors which impact gender preference in whump, and anyone who has other theories (or disagrees with mine) is free to jump in and add on.

THEORY 1: AUTHOR GENDER AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
 Fandom in general is predominantly female, although these days it might be more accurate to say that fandom is predominantly composed of cis women and trans people of all genders. However, pretty much everyone who isn't a cis man has had to contend with the specter of gendered violence in their real personal life. Thus, if we posit whump (and fandom more generally) as a sort of escapist setup, it's not hard to see why whump authors & artists might willfully eschew writing female whumpees (especially in the case of inflicted whump), because (as in the discussion of people of color in whump above), even violence towards women that is explicitly non-gender-based may still hit too close to home for people whose lives have been saturated with the awareness of gender-based violence.

THEORY 2: SICK OF SEXY SUFFERING.
 Something of an addendum to theory 1, it's worth noting that depictions of female suffering in popular media are extremely gendered (in that they specifically reflect real-life gender-based violence, and that said real-life violence is almost exclusively referenced in relation to female characters) and frequently sexualized as well. There's only so many times you can see female characters having their clothes Strategically Ripped while they're held captive, being sexually menaced (overtly or implicitly) to demonstrate How Evil the villain is, or just getting outright sexually assaulted for the Drama of it all before it gets exhausting, especially when the narratives typically either brush any consequences under the rug, or dwell on them in a way that feels more voyeuristic and gratuitous than realistic and meaningful. All this may result in authors who, given the chance to write their own depictions of suffering, may decide simply to remove the possibility of gendered violence by removing the female gender.

THEORY 3: AUTHOR ATTRACTION. 
I'll admit that this one is more a matter of conjecture, as I haven't seen any good demographic breakdowns of attraction in general fandom or whump fandom. That said, my own experience talking to fellow whump fans does indicate that attraction to the characters (whether whumpers, or whumpees) is part of the draw of whump for some people. This one partially ties into theory 1 as well, in that people who are attracted to multiple genders may not derive the same enjoyment out of seeing a female character in a whumpy situation as they might seeing a male character in that situation, simply because of the experience of gendered violence in their lives.

THEORY 4: ACCEPTABLE TARGETS.
 The female history of fandom means that there's been a lot more discussion of the impacts of depicting pain & suffering (especially female suffering) for personal amusement. Thus, in some ways, you could say that there is a mild taboo on putting female characters through suffering if you can't "justify" it as meaningful to the narrative, not just titillating, which whump fandom rarely tries or requires anyone to do. This fan-cultural 'rule' may impact whump writers' and artists' decisions in choosing the gender of their characters.

THEORY 5: AN ALTERNATIVE TO MAINSTREAM MASCULINITY.
 Whump fandom may like whumping men because by and large, mainstream/pop culture doesn't let men be vulnerable, doesn't let them cry, doesn't let them have long-term health issues due to constantly getting beat up even when they really SHOULD, doesn't let them have mental health issues period. Female characters, as discussed in theory 2, get to ("get to") go through suffering and be affected by it (however poorly written those effects are), but typically, male characters' suffering is treated as a temporary problem, minimized, and sublimated into anger if at all possible. (For an example, see: every scene in a movie where something terrible happens and the male lead character screams instead of crying). So, as nature abhors a vacuum, whump fandom "over-produces" whump of men so as to fill in that gap in content.

THEORY 6: AMPLIFIED BIAS.
 While it's true that whump fandom doesn't have a source text, it's also true that whump fans frequently find their way into the fandom via other 'traditional' fandoms, and continue participating in 'traditional' fandoms as part of their whump fandom activity. Bias begets bias; fandom as a whole has a massive problem with focusing on white male characters, and fans who are used to the bias towards certain types of characters in derivative works absolutely reproduce that bias in their own original whump works.

—

I honestly think that there is greater bias in the whump fandom than anyone would like to admit. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems as though whump fans avoid introspection and discussion of the issue by bringing up the points I talked about in my previous theories, particularly discomfort with depictions of female suffering for amusement.

However, I think that, as artists, we owe it to ourselves and one another to engage in at least a small amount of self-interrogation over our preferences, and see what unconscious or unacknowledged biases we possess. It's a little absurd to argue that depictions of women as whumpees are universally too distressing to even discuss when a male character in the exact same position would be fine and even gratifying to the person making that argument; while obviously, people have a right to their own boundaries, those boundaries should not be used to shut down discussion of any topics, even sensitive ones.

Furthermore, engaging in personal reflection allows artists to make more deliberate (and meaningful) art. For people whose goal is simply to have fun, that may not seem all that appealing, but having greater understanding of one's own preferences can be very helpful towards deciding what works to create, what to focus on when creating, and what works to seek out.

—

GENDER ADDENDUM: NONBINARY CHARACTERS, NONBINARY AUTHORS. 
Of course, this whole discussion so far has been exclusively based on a male-female binary, which is reductive. (I will note, though, that many binary people do effectively sort all nonbinary people they know of into 'female-aligned' and 'male-aligned' categories and then proceed to treat the nonbinary people and characters they have categorized a 'female-aligned' the same way as they treat people & characters who are actually female, and ditto for 'male-aligned'. That tendency is very frustrating for me, as a nonbinary person whose gender has NOTHING to do with any part of the binary, and reveals that even 'progressive' fandom culture has quite a ways to go in its understanding of gender.)

Anyways, nonbinary characters in whump are still VERY rare and typically written by nonbinary authors. (I have no clue whether nonbinary whump fans have, as a demographic group, different gender preferences than binary fans, but I'd be interested in seeing that data.)

As noted above with female characters, it's similarly difficult to have a discussion about representation and treatment of nonbinary characters in whump fandom, and frankly in fandom in general. Frequently, people regard attempts to open discussions on difficult topics as a call for conflict. This defensive stance once again reveals the distaste for requests of meaningful self-examination that is so frequent in fandom spaces, and online more generally.

—

TL;DR: Whump is not immune to the same gender & racial biases that are prevalent in fandom and (US-American) culture. If you enjoy whump: ask yourself why you dislike the things you dislike— the answer may surprise you. If you create whump: ask yourself whose stories you tell, and what stories you refuse to tell— then ask yourself why.

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

M*A*S*H: A Product of the Times

At first, it doesn’t really seem all that obvious like M*A*S*H was a show of the 1970s.

Being set in the 1950s in a military hospital gave some leeway when it came to hairstyles and clothing (Mostly military uniforms).  Even the discussion of the news and pop culture (although occasionally inaccurate for individual years) that happened around camp placed the show firmly in a period past, another in a string of television shows and films made in the 1970s that were set in the 1950s.  Even some things, like attitudes towards women and the minority of non-white cast members seems to place the show so firmly in the 1950s, it might be hard to pick out that this is a ‘70s show.

But in reality, M*A*S*H might not have been made if not for the 1970s.

Coming on the heels of the 1960s, the ‘70s were quite a period of change.  Following the Civil Rights movement, American culture was beginning to be more integrated.  Disco was big on the scene, and styles were quickly becoming…a lot.  The digital revolution began as video games and personal computers began to become a little more prevalent, and thanks to movie directors like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, the blockbuster became a staple of every movie season.  As for television, edutainment shows like Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street took off while Star Trek experienced its first reruns, gaining the audience it’d never had during it’s runtime.  Game-shows experienced a comeback, and cop shows replaced the westerns as the most-watched action shows of the decade, and family dramas took up another chunk of the airwaves, while variety shows and increasingly daring sketch comedy filled up the rest.

Throughout all this, sitcoms like Happy Days enjoyed incredible success, along with more ‘issue based’ sitcoms like All in the Family, Good Times, and even The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  And it is here that M*A*S*H sits, filling in a slot as one of the ‘issue’ based sitcoms…but why here?  Why in the 1970s, could this show work the best?

As wild and crazy as American culture was becoming after the unrest of the 1960s, one thing held over that had not yet been resolved: America’s involvement in the Vietnam war.

Starting in November of 1955, and ending in April of 1975, the Vietnam conflict was one that occupied much of the world, and much of the American population’s minds.  Between the protestors and people who genuinely supported the effort, the country was torn in two by people who thought we shouldn’t have gotten involved, and people who thought the opposite.

Why does this matter?

Because when the characters on M*A*S*H talk about war, they aren’t just talking about Korea.  Indeed, they aren’t even just talking about Vietnam.  They’re talking about all wars.

But it was very important that this was a show made during Vietnam, rather than before.

Before shows like The A-Team and Magnum P.I. began using the Vietnam conflict as part of backstories of characters, shows like M*A*S*H were still processing the American attitude during the war.  Much like Korea, Vietnam was never officially declared ‘a war’, and was regarded as a ‘police action’.  Much like Korea, a draft recruited soldiers, some just out of high school, into a conflict that blew up into a political struggle.

The difference was, in 1951, Americans were all for Korea.  In 1972, the enthusiasm had waned.  America turned against the war effort, and there lies exactly why M*A*S*H could not have been anything but a ‘70s ‘topical’ sitcom.

When you watch M*A*S*H and listen to the characters speak about the war, the attitude isn’t hard to pick out: anti-war, anti-US involvement, anti-military.  They shouldn’t be here.  They want to go home.  They tried to duck the draft.  One character spends almost all of his time on the show attempting to get discharged due to insanity.  The only characters who are for this war are treated as antagonists.

This wasn’t the attitude of the Korean war.  This was an attitude that could only have existed after Vietnam, if not specifically about Vietnam.

So, the show isn’t dated from a 1950s sense…but that does leave the question of whether or not it’s dated in a 1970s sense.

Ironically, being set in a decade not your own can actually help a series (or film) in the long run.  By not showing contemporary life and creating a world that had already ‘disappeared’, these shows were able to not become relics of the time they were made.  However, in the case of M*A*S*H, some might argue that the show, while groundbreaking and revolutionary in the 1970s, may not hold up so well today.

While not having the traditional troubles of hairstyles, technology and pop culture dating it, M*A*S*H does have a few different, more important issues that might render it a little uncomfortable to modern audiences.  Let’s start with the women.

At first, it may seem almost impossible from a modern standpoint to approach a show where the only major female character is nicknamed Hot Lips, and even if you get past that enough to start the show from the beginning, it doesn’t get much better.

In early seasons of the show, Margaret Houlihan existed primarily as a woman defined by the men she had been with, her attractiveness to her male coworkers, and her stickler army attitude.  Mostly serving as a partner-in-crime to her lover, Frank Burns (who was married), Margaret’s past involvements with many members of high-ranking army brass was a bit of a running joke, as was her level of desirability to her coworkers.

Thankfully, as the show matured, so did the writing for Margaret’s character.  As time went on, Margaret ended up losing not only the nickname, but her intimate relationship with Frank Burns, and even the jokes about her previous relationships disappeared.  After her marriage to Donald Penobscott, and subsequent divorce, Margaret remained unattached for the remainder of the series, as well as the only major female character in the show.  (Pun intended.)

The other female characters appeared in small doses, most notably Nurse Kealani Kellye, a relatively prominent Japanese-Hawaiian nurse.  Most of the nurses tended to be interchangeable, with small parts that (in early seasons especially) tended to rely on the men of the episode.  While there were exceptions (notably “The Nurses”), especially as the show went on, for the most part, the focus of the show tended to be on the male characters.

And it was even worse for characters of color.

Of the main cast, only Klinger (Lebonese) and the aforementioned Nurse Kelleye were not Caucasian.  Early on in the show, a black character by the name of Spearchucker Jones was omitted by the end of the second season (due to writers mistakenly believing that there were no black doctors in the Korean war.

There are other things that date the show: Klinger’s cross-dressing as a gag would likely be looked upon more unfavorably today, as would a few instances of sexual harassment looked over for comedy’s sake.  Korean characters were often portrayed (especially in early season) in rather stereotypical fashions, and were never played by actors of actual Korean descent (though admittedly, there were not many Korean actors in Hollywood at the time).  

In other words, the show wasn’t perfect.  And it certainly was a product of the 1970s.

But, the good news is, it’s not all bad.

M*A*S*H was, overall, a fairly progressive show for its day.  Despite its problems writing women, by the end of the show, Margaret Houlihan was one of the best-developed female characters on television.  The writing for Korean characters improved drastically by the eleventh season, and Klinger’s ‘crossdressing’ gag was never played at his own expense.

And, more importantly?  The characters, attitudes, and interactions, for the most part, ring just as truly now as they did then.

M*A*S*H was definitely fair for its day.  For the 1970s, it was up-to-date, discussing attitudes and problems that were prevalent for the time, and slowly improving in the areas it was somewhat lacking in.  It’s not really a surprise that the show still has a fanbase (and a young one, at that) to this day, full of fans who can recognize the problematic elements of the show, appreciate it’s growth, and enjoy its characters and situations to this day.  These characters still captivate people just as well as they did in 1972, a primary reason that this show, despite its occasional differences from modern ideas, remains so beloved even today.

Thank you guys so much for reading!  If you have a thought, suggestion, or question, don’t be afraid to leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you.  Please join us next time as we look at the facets of M*A*S*H.  I hope to see you there!

[shinystarfishpenguin]

An Explanation Not Due

So, I just wanted to rant about why I hate Dirk.  Now, a lot will probably come up later because I just got to the Alpha Kids in my latest HS reread, and nobody is reading this nor cares, but why the hell not write this, what’d to be lost?  Also, it’s been a looong time since I’ve been this far in the comic, let alone beyond, so I’m probably going to get things wrong, or forget things, or whatever.

Now, another clarification: Post-canon doesn’t exist and if it did, it would be utterly garbage.  I read the epilogues, and at some point I’ll probably get around to reading HS^2, but based on the Epilogues and everything I gather from Tumblr, it’s not for me, and despite what it may sound like based on how many times I’ve embarrassingly read Homestuck proper, I’m not a complete masochist.

Now on to Dirk proper.  What’s wrong with him?  Let’s start with the attitude.  He’s a narcissist, plain and simple.  Does it make sense?  Yes, for someone in his position that’s totally reasonable.  Is it still annoying af?  Absolutely.  He doesn’t himself actually feel all that important so he overcompensates to an extreme degree with several layers of “irony” involved.  He’s the epitome of the “you wouldn’t get it” stereotype that thinks that all his shit is so far above everyone and instead of being all cool about it he hangs that above everyone’s head to not only put himself up, but also push everyone down.  And it’s not like an occasional thing that we could shrug off as not being socially adept due to his upbringing, it’s constantly happening, and he seems to get off from it.  It’s like that idyllic hipster attitude that everyone claims to hate, but also seems to love when it’s them holding the attitude.  And certainly, I’m guilty of that myself.  I love having my own little bits that other people don’t/wouldn’t understand.  But I don’t, or at least try not to, constantly hold that above others’ heads.

And he’s jealous, too.  If I recall correctly, when he and Jake were together, he was suffocating Jake with his attention, while still maintaining the attitude of superiority, which is abusive af.  And sure, this is another thing we can attribute to his upbringing of, you know, literally being alone for his entire life.  It’s not unreasonable to assume that someone whose entire communication was composed of online chats, that when they came to meet in person and got in a relationship, boundaries would be very difficult for them.  That’s fair, I’ll cede that.  My issue isn’t necessarily that he was like that, but he’s the first openly gay human (I’m pretty sure his sexuality came to light before Rosemary became canon, but I may be wrong about that) and he’s super aggressive to his partner, and if I remember kind of guilted Jake either into the relationship to begin with, or guilted him into staying in the relationship.  Again, that’s beyond the scope of what I’ve read this time around and it’s been a long time since I read that portion of the comic.  So he’s the first openly LGBT+ character, and he’s abusive to his romantic partner.  Great representation there, Hussie and Co.

Now let’s talk about the community for a sec.  The Homestuck fandom is not historically remembered for being the best fandom in the land.  I’m glad I was never part of the cosplaying or the cons, but I was part of it and I was part of the problem.  That said, how the community treated the Striders as a whole was that they were soooo cooool and could do no wrong.  So when Dirk was portrayed in fan media, all his problems were ignored.  Now, this problem certainly extended beyond the Striders, let’s not be coy, but I felt it was most prevalent with the Striders, and considering my previous point about Dirk being gay and his status as an abuser, he kept the good and the community just...ignored the bad.  Now this is a problem that’s also prevalent with Vriska, whom I adore as a character now.  But I take the bad with the good with her, and let’s be honest, the community has gotten a lot better with acknowledging her faults, at least since I’ve gotten back on Tumblr.  And that may be true for Dirk, I go on Tumblr to see content I want to see, so a lot of Dirk stuff is not in my periphery.  It was just very frustrating to see a character that could have been so good and could have been presented so well just have his characterization butchered by the fanbase.  All that said, this was not so much a problem with Dirk himself, so much as the fanbase at that time as a whole.

Now, side note: I used to feel the same way with Dave and Vriska, and I’ve certainly come around on Dave AND Vriska, and if during this reread I come back around on Dirk, that would be great.  I want to like all the characters, I just don’t.  And Dirk is the one that just so happens to be harboring the brunt of my ire right now.

One of the biggest problems with how I see Dirk as written, is that I see Hussie in Dirk.  And I don’t know anything about Hussie.  But Dirk seems to be another one of his “splinters” in the story.  There’s his self-insert and Doc Scratch and Lord English and they’re all kind of traditionally villainous in their own right, but there’s just something about Dirk being one, that he’s one of the kids, albeit Alpha kids, and he plays this part of Hussie’s splinter that just seems...gross?  I don’t really know what it is about it it just doesn’t seem right, doesn’t seem like a natural character in the world/universe/multiverse that is the Homestuck canon.  And yes, I get that every character of any written work is by their very nature a kind of splinter of the author, my point is that Dirk just seems a little too on the nose for being one of the kids.

And I think my final point is that I know someone in real life who is very much like Dirk.  Always lording how much better they are and how much better their taste is and their opinion is always right and my opinion, if it differs, is just wrong, and not a different opinion.  It’s exhausting.  I lived with this guy for a while, we’d been friends for a long time and even though it was exhausting, I still liked him before I lived with him.  And, granted, so many of the problems that we had were my fault.  I was going through a really difficult time and myself brought a lot of problems into the house.  The thing is, though, the part that probably hurts the most and connects the best between him and Dirk, is when my roommate and friend, a cis-man, hit on me, a transwoman, and I rejected him, and he managed to subtly turn it around on me and caused problems and eventually kicked me out of the house.  Just the connection with the psychological abuse that Dirk literally commits in the comic and the abuse that I went through, and that just goes completely gets ignored.

Everything above notwithstanding, I think Dirk is fine as a character.  He’s kind of lazily written, tbh I think his Autoresponder was written better and had a better arc, at least before...You know.  But Dirk proper is fine.  Not great, not necessarily poorly written.  Milquetoast is how I would describe him, if I’m being honest.  But I don’t like him.  I hope that changes as I read his character arc as a more mature adult (”mature adult” reading Homestuck), maybe I’ll be able to see something more that I glossed over previously.  I want to like him, and a lot of my own issues are personal if I’m being really honest about it.  But I can’t look at him and see a cool guy like the fan media oft portrays him as.  I do see a guy that was destined to be fucked up and is hurting.  But pain and hurt and abuse can’t excuse all behavior.  It doesn’t work that way.

Thank you, this has been my TED Talk.

[merilly-chan]

I am so done with a part of this fandom.

I’ve had it and I’m getting more frustrated by the second to the point where I simply stopped engaging in discussions.

First of all, before there are any misunderstandings, Kingdom Hearts 3 is far from perfect. I have quite a few gripes with it, especially with the pacing, and I am not denying anyone the right to voice their criticism in a civil manner.

But what is happening in a part of this fandom is not civil nor is it criticism, it is something I’d consider flaming. And worst of it all, it is so hypocritical that I want to smack my head repeatedly against a wall so I may forget I ever saw it.

Over the course of the last few days and weeks, I’ve continuously come across people saying that fans should not accept KH3’s faults and demand them to be addressed. Demand.

First of all, neither SE nor Disney owe us anything, no matter how much we wished for things to be different. We have no right to demand anything since they delivered a game that was not falsely advertising anything. Betrayed expectations are our problem alone and not theirs.

But what upsets me about all those entitled comments isn’t that they completely disregard the positive aspects of the game but that they completely neglect the circumstances of KH3’s development.

Some of the following is based on speculation but it’s a very good reason why some things are not satisfactory and why people are so hypocritical.

●To start it off, this game has been in development for a little more than 4 years after the engine was switched in 2014. Now some might argue that it’s a long time but it’s actually not. I’m not a game developer but some of this is just common sense.

The team working on KH3 had to deal with a completely new engine. They had to build everything from scratch when they’ve only worked with their in-house engines before. Previous KH games (except for KH1and perhaps the original CoM) had the luxury of being able to recycle a lot of assets and just polish it and change/add new components. With an engine they were familiar with. Now some might say that other games also manage to be made in such a short amount of time but let’s face reality here: most of them are copy and pasting lots of their previous work and, once again, are already familiar with the engine they’re working with.

I think we all noticed how much they struggled with the new engine up to the final year where it finally started to stabilize a little. It’s impressive what they managed in that time where they had to focus on lots of different things. And it’s also the reason why some may think the combat isn’t as smooth as in KH2FM.

●Disney/Pixar were much more involved in KH3 than in any other title. This may just be an assumption but judging by the interviews regarding their work together, they weren’t easy to please and hung up on the details more than the overall integrity or the original plot. Disney seemed to care more about its own properties (although KH technically also is) than the original plot which was written by someone else. But since they own the franchise, they decide where the focus is and I dare assume the developers didn’t have as much time as they would have liked to add more original content and the stuff die-hard fans actually wanted.

It stands to reason that a certain song we’re all way too familiar with likely wouldn’t have made its way into the game in the quality that it had without Disney demanding it. (Because they actually have the right to demand stuff.) All that nit-picking and the focus on ridiculous details may be pleasing in the end but not anymore when something else has to suffer in return.

●There is only so much you can add if you take all these factors into account with the team they had at their disposal. KH3 doesn’t actually have that big of a development team compared to other game franchises. They can only do so much in 4 years while still adjusting to new technology and trying to keep gameplay, story and graphics somehow balanced.

Of course that doesn’t excuse every mistake or every decision they’ve made. (I certainly could have done without all those mini games for example.) But let’s be realistic here. If we take all “demands” from all the fans into account, add to that the demands of SE and Disney/Pixar, the game simply couldn’t become all that with the time/money/developers they had at their disposal.

Please get real, people. Not everything is SE’s/Nomura’s fault.

Which is where the hypocrisy comes in and I want to call some of the fanbase out on that.

People demanded this game the moment it was announced. Demanded a release date without them daring to delay the game, regardless of whether the game was even in a state to plan a set release date, and the prevalent emotion in a lot of comment sections beneath official statements/accounts was “finally release the damn game” and “what’s taking you so long?”.

Those very same people are now demanding that the game should have been everything they desired and much more than it actually could manage in 4 years. Some even claim now that they should have taken more time. A lot of them are in the faction that views that game extremely negatively due to exaggerated expectations. It doesn’t work that way. You cannot complain about a lack of content while demanding that they should hurry up before its release.

And this frustrates me. This utter sense of entitlement that SE should be thankful to them and their overblown demands. But sure, that is legitimate. Because they want the game, they want it perfect and within a year of its announcement. Who cares about how many people they would actually need for that and how much money that would consume? Because all companies who want to make money are evil!

I’ve got news for those folks: We can’t have everything. It’s impossible. If everything is so terrible, try creating your perfect KH3 in 4 years with limited resources and demands all over from those actually owning the franchise and the fans without wanting to lift a finger themselves. Kingdom Hearts may have become a fairly big franchise, but it can’t compare to extremely large franchises (yet) and the financial situation likely didn’t allow for more money to be spent.

Jeez, I’m so annoyed by a large faction of this fandom right now. It’s not even about legitimate criticism but rather that it’s the only thing you see from some without them even looking past the product. The gameplay should be perfect, the graphics better than ever, the story should be everything they ever desired and more (who cares what other people think as long as my own are fulfilled, right?), bigger worlds, more to do, livelier worlds, more endgame content, more riddles, more cutscenes (and less for others), more of this character, more playable characters in general, more worlds, etc. Do people even register the things they demand and whether that’s all possible in 4 years with a completely new engine and Disney meddling as well?

Seriously. So many fans only know how to demand things nowadays without actually sparing a thought on the people working on these games. But sure, let’s continue thinking all of them owe us for spending 70$ on their game and that we can demand them to cater to all our individual needs. That’s so much easier than actually showing at least a little appreciation toward what the developers managed to achieve.

I’m not saying to glorify everything with a fanfare, chanting how perfect it is. It’s far from that actually. But you can criticize a game without coming across as an entitled fan who did nothing more than buy and play the game and suddenly thinks that their headcanons and their believes are all that matter. There’s more to see than the final product, even if it comes down to that in the end.

The game isn’t all negative. If someone really thinks that then there’s no helping them.

[sg2tiger]

Analyzed the fuck out of all meta/magic scenes and whatnot in the prior Episodes (especially EP2) and if i were a person who experienced Umineko as it released, I can see how that would be a little too much of a task to ask your readers to undergo. You can't exactly ask people to spend 10-20 hours of their lives analyzing a novel just to figure out what it really means. Its much easier to do that when its done. (cont)

“You can’t exactly ask people to spend 10-20 hours of their lives analyzing a novel just to figure out what it really means.”

*sweats nervously*

Well, I honestly don’t agree with this, and hope this isn’t what it seems like I’ve been trying to imply when I talk about how upset the sentiment about Ryukishi and EP8 was at the time. In fact, it’s the opposite - people did spend countless hours of their lives trying to analyze the novel. Like, I’ve mentioned this before, but I was only on the Umineko Train for 2 years before it ended because I got in between EP4 and 5. If you think of the people who got into Umineko from the start (mostly people who already loved Higurashi), that’s four years of their lives. And when I say years…I do mean years. Because speaking from experience, I literally did devote multiple hours, every day, over those two years, to doing Umineko stuff. It could be dumb shit like all the Umineko Hell videos I made, or it could be all the times I sat down and wrote up huge pages of notes about various theories, or all the time I spent on the AnimeSuki forums and in more threads on /a/ and /jp/ than I could possibly count. Far, far beyond 10-20 hours, I think most Umineko fans would tell you that all the time spent analyzing the story is where the fun came from to begin with.

The problem was the lack of payoff, and the fact that it felt like our efforts were invalidated. I went into more detail on those issues in this post (the stuff under the Read More that was in response to yasuda-yoshiya), though, if you’re interested, because I’d rather just link that than writing another 10-page essay repeating the same sentiments :P But the TL;DR of it is that the problem wasn’t that making the readers analyze it was ‘asking too much’ - that analysis is what drove most people to the series in the first place. It was the fact that we felt like we came away with nothing to show for the countless hours we did spend analyzing it. 

I think ‘waiting to do that when it’s done’ is the very thing Ryukishi didn’t want fans to do, because that means you’re not actually thinking for yourself and trying to reach an answer - you’re just a goat who wants the truth handed to you on a silver platter. And people like that, who aren’t actually reasoning and trying to understand the story on their own, don’t deserve the truth because they didn’t put in any effort to searching for it. I don’t disagree with Ryukishi on that at all. My problem lies with how dismissive he was to all fans who were upset with the lack of answers, as though all fans were waiting until they could see the answers without even trying to find it. It’s the fact that fans like me, who indeed I feel were the majority (at least in the western fanbase), who actually did struggle our asses off searching for the truth. We definitely weren’t saying ‘thinking is a pain just tell us the answers’, at all. All we wanted from the end was the ability to check the answers we reached after struggling for so long, to have some form of validation that said ‘you got it right’ or ‘you got it way wrong’, so we didn’t feel like everything was a waste of time.

I also think it’s a bit problematic to say that Ryukishi is somehow hindered by being Japanese, and that’s a dangerous line of thinking. I’m sure you didn’t mean anything negative by it, but realistically that’s like saying ‘Japanese authors are not nearly as good as western ones, Ryukishi’s talent is wasted because he wasn’t born in the west’. And well, I don’t think I have to explain why that starts to sound a bit…wrong. 

Ryukishi is Japanese. First and foremost, he’s writing for fellow Japanese. His stories were always aimed at his own culture, and I remember how surprised he was to find out about Witch-Hunt and that Umineko was so hugely popular in the west to begin with. He’s not trying to look down on his peers and say ‘I’m better than you, and because you’re all Japanese, you’d never understand the COMPLEX topics in my stories’. In fact, I’d say it’s very much the opposite - Ryukishi would not be writing these stories at all if he wasn’t writing them for his fellow Japanese. 

If you’ve read the Higurashi VN, you’ll know that the Kai arcs all had a personal afterword written by Ryukishi to the readers (the question arcs had Otsukaresama-kai, which was what Umineko’s EP1 tea party is supposed to remind you of). At the end of…I wanna say it was Minagoroshi-hen? He left a note about the importance of talking to people about your problems, and how this was something he wished could become a more widespread concept in Japan. Because it took so much effort just to get Satoko into child protective services because of Japan’s general ‘mind your business’ attitude, and because of Satoko’s own belief that her brother would come back if she shouldered all of this herself…it showed just how prevalent that sort of idea is in Japanese culture. Rika, too, is a huge example of that, and one of the main messages of the story (and Minagoroshi-hen specifically) was how Rika could have gotten so much further if she had actually talked to her friends about what troubled her sooner. Rena, too, in Tsumihoroboshi-hen. A big theme of Higurashi was trust and friendship, and talking to people instead of bottling up your problems. And it was also to be the one to talk to a friend, and help them, if you felt they needed it, rather than doing the standard Japanese thing of ‘it’s not my business’. Ryukishi was writing about these themes to try and send a message to his own people, to his own culture, and to maybe, if just a little, influence the thinking of his readers to help foster a new generation to break through some of these cultural taboos.

Higurashi would not work as a story if it wasn’t written by a Japanese man, to the Japanese people, as a story about Japanese characters…because these concepts are so important to understanding a lot of the major themes. Let’s say, instead, that Ryukishi had moved to the US and started writing Higurashi here. We don’t have a doujin industry, but let’s say he just published it as a fanfiction online, and it got a bit of a popular following. What do you think the reception would have been about the inherent themes of Minagoroshi-hen? Because I can absolutely envision a western comment section for it. “Why didn’t they just bust into her house and see that her uncle was lying?!” “If I were Keiichi and the others I’d have gone and kicked his ass” “Why would Rika rather keep quiet about Satoko than try to help her? I thought they were best friends?” And so on and so forth. I think a lot of people wouldn’t get why Minagoroshi-hen was such a long, dragged out process…because the western mindset for this sort of thing is so different. We can’t imagine that child protective services would be so passive!! The meaning of their struggle in that arc would just be totally lost - Hell, for all I know, that’s exactly what happened for western readers not super familiar with Japanese culture reading Higurashi for the first time (I say reading because if I recall, like most things, the anime sorta streamlined the whole thing for the sake of time and it didn’t seem like nearly as long of a process as it does in the VN and manga). I bet there were a lot of western fans who genuinely didn’t understand a lot of Higurashi’s themes, and this is no fault of their own. This is because Higurashi was written specifically with a Japanese audience in mind, an audience that wouldn’t need to have this attitude explained to them because it’s an inherent part of their culture.

I won’t pretend to be an expert on Japanese culture myself, of course, but I absolutely don’t think Ryukishi’s stories would work if they were actually written for a western market. Of course they both have a strong western fanbase, but I’d wager that only a small fraction of that fanbase is made up of people who weren’t already anime/manga fans. IE, people who already know a bit about Japanese culture because they’re already exposed to a lot of Japanese media. And while I think Umineko has a bit more western appeal in its themes than Higurashi (which is a very Japanese story in more ways than one), it was still clearly written for a Japanese audience, with a Japanese mindset. Again I go back to the fact that a big part of the issues in Umineko is that the family members never liked to talk about their personal problems. If they had come together and tried to talk and help each other, the tragedy could absolutely have been prevented. Yasu would have been able to come to terms with herself and not be pushed to the brink feeling like her life was hopeless. Battler and Rudolf could have made up much sooner, rather than waiting for 6 whole years. Rosa and Maria could have healed their mother-daughter relationship and try to come to terms with their own psychoses. The list goes on. So much of Umineko could have been prevented if the characters didn’t bottle up their personal problems…which, yeah, is something westerners can relate to and appreciate, but I think would be received much more strongly by a Japanese audience.

Ryukishi is Japanese. He writes for the Japanese. The fact that westerners latch onto that quality of his stories so much is certainly interesting, but to insinuate that somehow his own culture and the very mindset that drives him to write these stories is somehow hindering him…I can’t agree with that at all. I think it’s awesome that his stories are identifiable enough to reach a much wider audience than he could have ever expected…but to think that somehow his work would be better off if he wasn’t Japanese, or writing stories to appeal to his own culture? I think that’s a very mistaken viewpoint, myself.

[phlestang-blog1]

Pokemon

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  In Sunlight and also Moon, you play as an 11-year old boy or lady that relocates from Kanto, the area of the initial games, to an exotic heaven referred to as Alola. It’s a tiny yet informing narrative choice that lights up the pitch Game Fanatic is making towards O.G. followers: exactly what you liked isn’t really being disposed of; it’s simply obtaining a spin.

Sunlight and also Moon additionally present a couple of brand-new asides, though I was let down by their absence of consequence. You could currently take pictures of wild beasts, a la Pokémon Break, however the range is minimal and also the racking up for imagination is horrible. All the photo attribute desires you to do is to take close-up photos where the animal is. Brief computer animation loopholes suggests that as soon as you have actually broken a couple of photos, there’s very little to do any longer. Uninteresting! Worse, regardless of proactively searching for digital photography areas, I just discovered a couple of in my lots of hrs of play.

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“Event Plaza” presents a social center where actual instructors could buy products as well as communicate with each other, Miitomo-style. While the discussion behaves, there isn’t really much to do. “Pokémon Pelago” will likely confirm to be one of the most helpful of the number, as it gives gamers with personal islands where Pokemon Unblocked could hang around, gather products, train, or even come across wild beasts. Pelago Island growth is connected to the variety of pokemon hacked roms you possess, which is a sharp means of inspiring gamers to record even more animals. However, I located myself consistently attempting these attributes for testimonial, and also none really felt enjoyable. Also the hyped Z-Moves included in much of the advertising and marketing left me chilly: sure, they’re fancy, yet they’re simply souped-up relocations. Absolutely nothing groundbreaking.

The test plan makes Sunlight as well as Moon extra structured, as well. You constantly have actually a plainly specified course as well as objective throughout your journeys. In practice, Sunlight as well as Moon go with even more routine fights of note versus crucial personalities, instead of constantly tossing arbitrary combative NPCs versus you. The beats you involve anticipate from a pokemon hacked rom download game, like the unpreventable face-off versus a bad cumulative, still occur– yet Sunlight as well as Moon specify quicker, as well as with even more beauty. The brand-new games exude a certain personal appeal that’s recognizable in everything, from rainbow-colored message, to the jokester Pokedex with a mind of its very own.

The Alola area provides Pokémon-training as part of deeply-rooted practice. In older games, it never ever rather made good sense for youngsters to become dog-fighting wanderers. In Sunlight as well as Moon, that trip is clearly a maturing routine, and also it has actually been done with generations of individuals. Selecting a starter beast and also obtaining a competing feeling much less like a pokemon hacked android convention as well as even more like a social method based in history.

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On a smaller sized range, I constantly really felt encouraged to find even more pokemon hacked roms download, interested to see if any one of my faves had actually been spruced up. Alolan types such as Dugtrio with long, delicious hair, or an Exeggutor with a happily lengthy neck program Game Fanatic plainly enjoying with Pokémon styles. The fully-new Alola-exclusive Pokémon are likewise properly designed. Animals like haunted sandcastles as well as toucan-inspired pokemon go take Alola’s setup seriously, however couple of obtained me thrilled similarly the local variations did. I captured myself maintaining groups of mainly old Pokémon till I made an initiative to concentrate on the brand-new staff. To Alola’s debt, I have actually discovered how to enjoy them, also. Proclaim to Rockruff and also Bewear, 2 Pokémon that are cuter compared to they have any type of right to be. I have actually invested even more time compared to I like confess aiming to synthetic a group that’s both proficient and also remarkable.

I have actually played Pokémon games considering that Red as well as Blue as well as have never ever had my group pale or resemble collapse as usually as I performed in Sunlight and also Moon. The brand-new games required me to make use of real techniques versus the computer system. For as soon as, the single-player in a Pokémon game made me care much more concerning movesets, turn order, as well as group makeup. It’s an exhilarating modification that highlights the intricacy underlying a collection that is amusingly described as a kids’s game.

While the systems at the heart of Pokémon are mainly acquainted, Sunlight and also Moon stimulate lots of intrigue. After discovering an unidentified beast from a various measurement, you laid out to figure out even more concerning where it comes from. This is exactly how Sunlight as well as Moon present the raw as well as mystical ultra monsters, whose objectives or even nature– are they Pokémon?– are uncertain. Sunlight and also Moon are the unusual Pokémon games where I appreciated discovering the tale, and also I state this in spite of the simple and also mawkish writing.

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Rather, the enhancements I valued one of the most were refined, lifestyle information. Pokémon currently cautions you when you will aggro an NPC right into fight. Rather than being pointless irreversible relocations, HMs have actually been changed with “costs” that allow you call a Pokémon to help you with things like browsing and also flying. If your pal obtains a condition disorder throughout fight, rather than losing a product you could simply execute some fight aftercare to treat their health problem. While none of these additions are advanced, they collaborate to strengthen the strong fight technicians.

The substantial appeal of 1996’s Pokémon Red as well as Blue has actually cast a lengthy darkness over the Pokémon collection. Much of the fanbase relies on the prevalence of the initial 151 beasts, and also offered 2016’s Pokémon Go sensation– which just had the preliminary actors– that can say? With the most recent Pokémon games, Sunlight and also Moon, Game Fanatic plays wonderful with that said fact, welcoming followers on a getaway that commemorates (yet likewise changes) what individuals enjoy regarding pocket beasts.

As constantly, the mass of these brand-new Pokémon games is invested hammering out turn-based fights. Some begin with arbitrary experiences. Others you launch versus fitness instructors such as on your own. In the wild, you could catch a lot more animals to join your starter, with approximately 6 beasts comprising a group. Each animal has staminas, weak points, and also a moveset, in addition to an overarching important fondness. With over 700 Pokémon in the lineup, thousands of possible actions, as well as 18 important kinds, also experts could have a tough time keeping an eye on everything. Sunlight as well as Moon offer an assisting hand below: as soon as you make use of an action versus an opponent, the game’s food selection will certainly advise you of efficiency prior to you choose anything.

Sunlight and also Moon are structured around “tests” spread throughout 4 islands, as well as these obstacles may need you to do anything from digital photography to acing a test. Unavoidably all tests integrate fights, however retreating from the normal health club structure rejuvenates Pokémon. Rather than increasing down on the severity of a significant fight at the end of an onslaught, as previous games did, tests usually entertained as well as amused me with their shenanigans. I never ever recognized just what to anticipate, makings tests definitely much more unforgettable compared to fitness centers.

That based facility, paired with Pokémon Sunlight as well as Moon’s focus on information, makes the globe really feel to life. You could listen to Pokémon chirp as well as croak. They hang from trees and also scutter regarding as you make your means with high lawn. Some computer-controlled personalities still laid out bowls, beds, and also playthings for their very own house-bound family pets. The even more expert ones make use of a selection of beasts to assist them with everyday tasks, like building and construction or authorities job. Pokémon do not really feel implanted on below. They seem like a purposeful part of a real culture.

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In various other games, the best “method” versus AI was to grind your pokemon revolution online, so regarding bewilder via large statistics. In Sunlight and also Moon, it is not nearly enough to over degree your animals, and even to make use of the right relocation kind. Fitness instructors utilize even more things that recover HP or condition problems, as well as in the wild, beasts typically ask for “aid,” to make sure that even more Pokémon could join them throughout fight.

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The Alola area is made up of islands with various atmospheres as well as environments, enabling numerous traditional pokemon characters to currently have ‘local versions.’ That fire pokemon type chart you enjoyed as a child? It’s an ice Pokémon currently, with a method cooler style too. Keep in mind that impressive beast that utilized a bone as a tool? It’s a GHOST currently. And also if you aren’t sure the initial 151? That’s all right, you still obtain the even more incredible variations of precious animals from the start, all while checking out a digital eden. It’s a wise concession that makes the old brand-new once again.[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs][/vc_column][/vc_row]