#ask gundam wing fans

[lurkingteapot]

Every now and then I think about how subtitles (or dubs), and thus translation choices, shape our perception of the media we consume. It's so interesting. I'd wager anyone who speaks two (or more) languages knows the feeling of "yeah, that's what it literally translates to, but that's not what it means" or has answered a question like "how do you say _____ in (language)?" with "you don't, it's just … not a thing, we don't say that."

I've had my fair share of "[SHIP] are [married/soulmates/fated/FANCY TERM], it's text!" "[CHARACTER A] calls [CHARACTER B] [ENDEARMENT/NICKNAME], it's text!" and every time. Every time I'm just like. Do they though. Is it though. And a lot of the time, this means seeking out alternative translations, or translation meta from fluent or native speakers, or sometimes from language learners of the language the piece of media is originally in.

Why does it matter? Maybe it doesn't. To lots of people, it doesn't. People have different interests and priorities in fiction and the way they interact with it. It's great. It matters to me because back in the early 2000s, I had dial-up internet. Video or audio media that wasn't available through my local library very much wasn't available, but fanfiction was. So I started to read English language Gundam Wing fanfic before I ever had a chance to watch the show. When I did get around to watching Gundam Wing, it was the original Japanese dub. Some of the characters were almost unrecognisable to me, and first I doubted my Japanese language ability, then, after checking some bits with friends, I wondered why even my favourite writers, writers I knew to be consistent in other things, had made these characters seem so different … until I had the chance to watch the US-English dub a few years later. Going by that adaptation, the characterisation from all those stories suddenly made a lot more sense. And the thing is, that interpretation is also valid! They just took it a direction that was a larger leap for me to make.

Loose adaptations and very free translations have become less frequent since, or maybe my taste just hasn't led me their way, but the issue at the core is still a thing: Supernatural fandom got different nuances of endings for their show depending on the language they watched it in. CQL and MDZS fandom and the never-ending discussions about 知己 vs soulmate vs Other Options. A subset of VLD fans looking at a specific clip in all the different languages to see what was being said/implied in which dub, and how different translators interpreted the same English original line. The list is pretty much endless.

And that's … idk if it's fine, but it's what happens! A lot of the time, concepts -- expressed in language -- don't translate 1:1. The larger the cultural gap, the larger the gaps between the way concepts are expressed or understood also tend to be. Other times, there is a literal translation that works but isn't very idiomatic because there's a register mismatch or worse. And that's even before cultural assumptions come in. It's normal to have those. It's also important to remember that things like "thanks I hate it" as a sentiment of praise/affection, while the words translate literally quite easily, emphatically isn't easy to translate in the sense anglophone internet users the phrase.

Every translation is, at some level, a transformative work. Sometimes expressions or concepts or even single words simply don't have an exact equivalent in the target language and need to be interpreted at the translator's discretion, especially when going from a high-context/listener-responsible source language to a low-context/speaker-responsible target language (where high-context/listener responsible roughly means a large amount of contextual information can be omitted by the speaker because it's the listener's responsibility to infer it and ask for clarification if needed, and low-context/speaker-responsible roughly means a lot of information needs to be codified in speech, i.e. the speaker is responsible for providing sufficiently explicit context and will be blamed if it's lacking).

Is this a mouse or a rat? Guess based on context clues! High-context languages can and frequently do omit entire parts of speech that lower-context/speaker-responsible languages like English regard as essential, such as the grammatical subject of a sentence: the equivalent of "Go?" - "Go." does largely the same amount of heavy lifting as "is he/she/it/are you/they/we going?" - "yes, I am/he/she/it is/we/you/they are" in several listener-responsible languages, but tends to seem clumsy or incomplete in more speaker-responsible ones. This does NOT mean the listener-responsible language is clumsy. It's arguably more efficient! And reversely, saying "Are you going?" - "I am (going)" might seem unnecessarily convoluted and clumsy in a listener-responsible language. All depending on context.

This gets tricky both when the ambiguity of the missing subject of the sentence is clearly important (is speaker A asking "are you going" or "is she going"? wait until next chapter and find out!) AND when it's important that the translator assign an explicit subject in order for the sentence to make sense in the target language. For our example, depending on context, something like "are we all going?" - "yes" or "they going, too?" might work. Context!

As a consequence of this, sometimes, translation adds things – we gain things in translation, so to speak. Sometimes, it's because the target language needs the extra information (like the subject in the examples above), sometimes it's because the target language actually differentiates between mouse and rat even though the source language doesn't. However, because in most cases translators don't have access to the original authors, or even the original authors' agencies to ask for clarification (and in most cases wouldn't get paid for the time to put in this extra work even if they did), this kind of addition is almost always an interpretation. Sometimes made with a lot of certainty, sometimes it's more of a "fuck it, I've got to put something and hope it doesn't get proven wrong next episode/chapter/ten seasons down" (especially fun when you're working on a series that's in progress).

For the vast majority of cases, several translations are valid. Some may be more far-fetched than others, and there'll always be subjectivity to whether something was translated effectively, what "effectively" even means …

ANYWAY. I think my point is … how interesting, how cool is it that engaging with media in multiple languages will always yield multiple, often equally valid but just sliiiiightly different versions of that piece of media? And that I'd love more conversations about how, the second we (as folks who don't speak the material's original language) start picking the subtitle or dub wording apart for meta, we're basically working from a secondary source, and if we're doing due diligence, to which extent do we need to check there's nothing substantial being (literally) lost -- or added! -- in translation?

[carnelianwings]

I keep seeing Bad Kira Yamato Takes on Twitter and I keep asking myself why do I bother with the For You page except I’ve got it mostly trained to show me fan art of my favorite ships and such so I guess that’s the trade off.

Anyway, just venting because I happen to think Kira, for all the accusations the haters like to throw at him, is a very reasonable and human Gundam Protagonist. Also unlike Amuro Ray he never actually runs away from fighting … until Seed Freedom (but that’s more like “there’s multiple people to pick up where he left off and there’s plenty of reasons why he should just retire”).

I really don’t get the hate towards Kira in Seed. There is nothing he does that any previous Gundam protagonist hasn’t done. Survive improbable situations thanks to the power of Plot Armor? Heero Yuy’s done that at least three between Wing and Endless Waltz - the most egregious one in Wing when he self destructed his Gundam while standing on the cockpit hatch. I mean sure there was also the time he set his own broken leg but that’s also besides the point. Improbable speed at learning to pilot a Gundam? Amuro Ray did that and that was the original.

At the same time, people like to say Kira didn’t suffer and just coasted through Seed. As though he didn’t have to helpless watch as Tolle dies, nearly kills a childhood best friend over it, gets PTSD just from fighting a war, and then more PTSD from dealing with Durandal, and also general trauma of being in an abusive relationship with Flay (that has repercussions into his relationship with Lacus well into Seed Freedom). Kira might not have started Seed traumatized the way both Athrun (Junius Seven/Bloody Valentine) and Shinn (First Battle of Orb) were, but he still had personal trauma nonetheless. And even though it’s not explicitly shown on screen, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kira feels guilty about what happened to Shinn even if Kira himself wasn’t directly at fault for it.

And to say that Kira’s goal isn’t the same as Lacus’s (world peace) along with basically with everyone else he’s teamed up with is just terrible comprehension because everyone involved with Cagalli (and Athrun, by extension) and COMPASS wants world peace and the wars to just stop.

Honestly, I think the best damned thing that happened to Kira ever since he got drop kicked into the cockpit by Murrue (not her fault, it was either that or let the civilian kid die and she wasn’t about to do that either) is being able to just fuck off and fly to Akatsuki Island at the end of Seed Freedom and have victory sex on the beach with Lacus, because he really hasn’t had time to do what he wants for himself since then. Because every time there’s a chance of it happening, he was either getting manipulated by Flay, working (as a programmer), or recovering from trauma. Like he’s been at this for 4 years with hardly a break because (by Seed Freedom) he feels like he has to, both as the Ultimate Coordinator (as in, he has the ability to so he must), and as part of what he said to Durandal at the end of the Battle of Messiah. And because he is so busy and being part of COMPASS has actually meant he and Lacus spend more time apart, he can’t really lean on her the way he used to during the First and Second Earth Alliance-PLANT wars.

Really if I were being honest I’d actually say the only reason Kira’s been “okay” during both Seed and Seed Destiny is because Lacus has been there to be something of a therapist for him (especially during Seed Destiny with how he very obviously has PTSD from the first war). But the reason Lacus is willing to do this for him is because she’s got shades of philosopher-therapist to begin with, and she knows he’s actually very kind and caring underneath it all and isn’t a soldier at all, and doesn’t belong on the battlefield (from how he treated her during her time as a prisoner on the Archangel early on before he got really traumatized by the war).

And also Kira’s a crybaby? Okay so crying because a friend died is a bad thing? Crying because you’re suddenly thrown into a war you never wanted to be a part of and having to kill people because it’s kill or be killed even though you don’t want to kill anyone is a bad thing? Crying because you’re scared but you have to go out and fight anyway because if you don’t, you, your friends, a whole bunch of civilians, and other people (even if they’re military and they signed up for this, but some of them have been really nice and tried to be caring given the situation and aren’t actually bad people at all) will die is a bad thing? To me those are just reasonable, human responses to the situation he’s suddenly thrust in. Like yeah sure the Strike is a cool robot and all that, but to quote Athrun, it’s not like Kira can just “go fight a war with a smile” you know?

[yuurei20]

Lilia Info Compilation part 4: Lilia, Fighting and More

Lilia seems quite physically capable even without magic—as demonstrated, repeatedly, during Beanfest—taking on three much larger students that were bullying Epel in a physical fight, and winning.

He gives Epel tips for fighting large opponents, saying “an absolute refusal to lose…and a willingness to play a little dirty!” because “fights aren’t like sports. Winning is all that matters here.” Epel asks for training, and Lilia says “If I feel inclined, I may indulge you”.

In a PE vignette we get Trey and Rook narrating a game of soccer between Leona and a sun-weakened Lilia—one of the rare times we see the two interact outside of Book 2 when Lilia antagonized Leona into over blotting.

Lilia tells the second-prince that “the collar suits you far better than a crown ever could”, “the idea of you ever contending with a REAL king like our Malleus is absolutely laughable” and “you would never be fit to rule”.

This results in the excess of “negative energy” that takes down Leona. Riddle asks Lilia to go to the faculty for help and Lilia says "stay strong until I return", but he never comes back; we do not see Lilia again in the main story until the end of Book 4.

There is a fan theory that the Savanaclaw chapter of the game was, originally, planned to be Book 6—directly before the Diasomnia chapter to give us a struggle between two princes—but was moved to Book 2 during development.

This would explain the curious timing of the introduction of the Diasomnia students, why Azul and Riddle are featured so prominently in the prologue (as Octavinelle would have been Book 2), why it had to be Lilia who drove Leona over the edge and why—on the official event website—Savaclaw was originally promoted in between Ignihyde and Diasomnia, back in 2019.

But we may never know :>

Like Malleus Lilia can teleport, but it is not specified if this is a fae-specific ability or a talent that anyone can have. He also seems to have unusually acute hearing which does get specified as a something all faeries have, with Ortho explaining directional mic he has been equipped with and Lilia responding, “not even the fae and beastmen have many capable of that”.

Lilia is also capable of flying unaided, saying “Think to yourself, ‘I want to fly', and you will", and that flying equipment like brooms and rugs actually get in his way.

He appears suddenly and upside down multiple times in the game, but this may be less so a fae-habit and more so a personal preference.

In a move characteristic of Azul we see him attempt multiple times to get a member of Diasomnia indebted to him in order to try and extend his business network into Briar Valley.

Lilia seems entirely aware of this and not at all intimidated, saying, “He knows better than to make an enemy out of Diasomnia.”

In voice lines we learn Lilia also knows a lot about botany and practices astrology.

Lilia is voiced by Midorikawa Hikaru. More information here:

[lifeaftermeteor]

INCOMING: HIATUS

I debated whether to say anything here, but given the proximity to the @gundamzine’s 2023 release, I think it’s probably wise. 

TL;DR—yours truly is taking a break, which I haven’t done in earnest since April 2019.  Might lurk a bit, but before I do, I wanted to share some parting words.

Some additional thoughts under the cut.

It’s a common refrain in these parts that fandom should be fun—once it becomes not fun, it’s a sign that you’re dealing with something and need to step away.  Maybe it’s personal life, work life, or some health matter; maybe it’s creative burnout; maybe it’s the fandom spaces you’re occupying.  If fandom isn’t fun, you need to be able to step away to figure out why.

I can confess that fandom hasn’t been fun for some time now for me.  Instead, it’s been work, it’s been a service.  I’ve taken two big steps this year to address this. 

I decided to close the so-called “Big” / “OG” Gundam Wing server and relinquish ownership. This came as a surprise for many, and I myself went through the five stages of grief over it.  I had envisioned the server being a general open space, like a town square or some other central meeting place; but the bigger it grew, the more our members wanted and needed it to be something different.  That disconnect spelled its eventual doom, because it would’ve meant building a bigger team…which we were never able to do.

I also decided to end my tenure as the head of the Rhythm Generation zine project this year (2023) instead of pushing for one final fifth year as I had originally planned.  We ran a tight project for four years on the premise that all fandom creations were welcome regardless of medium, shipping preferences, or personal creative voice.  I’m proud of the work the Zine Crews did (both moderators and contributors) and am so grateful for our times together.  

But heading into this year’s project, I had had a long conversation with another fan about misinformation that had been spread about the zine—specifically that we did not allow certain ships or would force creators’ hands.  This was the very antithesis of the entire endeavor, so I engaged in good faith to explain the behind-the-scenes management that isn’t widely advertised (i.e. OTPs were always respected, no one was ever asked to create something they didn’t volunteer to do in the first place, and spreading the love around across fandom interests and ships was important).  I spent hours in tears over the whole situation, and looking back that is what spelled the end of the project…at least with me at the head.  

I feel like I’ve lost my North Star—that fandom to me was above all else a community, a neighborhood of sorts.  You didn’t necessarily like all of your neighbors, but you always waved to them in passing at the very least and empathized when they were dealing with something.

So I leave you with this: It is always important to make space for fellow fans whose interests do not align with yours.  It is always important to encourage one another to create, to build, to make space, to join, to organize, to share, to try.  That’s how fandoms survive; that’s how this fandom has survived.  

I’m hoping that an extended hiatus will help me reset, and by taking care of myself I can figure out what I need in my fandom experience going forward.  And when I come back, I hope I can be part of building that. 

[tj-dragonblade]

Shipper Tag Game

Tagged by the delightful @seiya-starsniper @zzoomacroom and @carnelianmeluha, thank you!

What ship were you completely obsessed with as a teenager, but now you don’t care about anymore? I...hm. Am I willing to publicly admit to the self-insert daydreaming I did as a teen, long before my days in internet fandom? Okay I guess I kind of just did but I refuse to elaborate. I have long since moved on and I ship him with an in-universe partner at this point.

Which ship would you consider your first one? You ask a lot of my poor aging memory. I'm gonna say...before internet-accessible fandom? I was very keen on Rogue and Gambit in high school, when the 90s XMen animated series was one of my primary interests. After acquiring internet access and discovering communal fandom? 2x5, Gundam Wing. Duo and Wufei.

Your first fanfic was about which couple? Duo and Wufei

Do you remember the first couple you saw fan art of? It was probably Heero x Duo since that was the big popular ship in GW

Have you ever gotten into ship discourse? I don't think so. I am not exempt from having spoken ill of ships over the years but it's been about my opinion, not some kind of value/morality judgement and I have never gotten into fights with anyone

Did you used to have a NOTP or have one currently? There is one ship that I will class as a NOTP and it only became that after it went unexpectedly canon. I'm still willing to incorporate their canon kid into things and I have no interest in demonizing her, but I absolutely Do Not Want to see/read/hear about them having a genuine romantic attachment because the canonization pissed me off so bad. It's SaiIno from Naruto, for the curious.

Who were the last couple in the last fanfic you read? Dreamling

Currently, do you have any OTPs? Depends on your definition of OTP I suppose. To me it means 'favorite couple' more than 'can't stomach seeing them with anyone else'. Currently that's Dreamling. Currently I'm not really interested in reading about either of them with anyone else but historically as I spend longer in a fandom my tastes grow more willing to branch out, so who knows what the future holds. And I still have OTPs from each fandom I've been in (some of which predate the common use of the term 'OTP') even if they're no longer my reading/writing focus.

Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting into? Not...really? Not mad about? This is such a weird question, if I was truly taken with a ship I would have explored it? Are we asking if I'm mad about getting into a ship after the fandom has passed its peak of popularity maybe? IDK? I mean, there are occasionally characters from properties that are in formats that I don't tend to invest my time in (Podcasts, video games, long-ass long-running animes that I did not get in on the ground floor with) that catch my interest, and then I have next to no canon framework for exploring my interest, but it's not a thing I'd ever get mad about. If I really want to know more about Gale and his potential matches I'll find somewhere to read BG3 lore, y'know?

Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they’re kind of interesting? Mmmmmno. But I do have more than one that's gone the other way.

Do you have any ship that, in the past, would have been considered normal but now you would be cancelled over? Mmmyep. I remain unapologetic about it; that is my ship, tirelessly built with my own two hands and almost nothing predating me to influence interpretation, lovingly crafted exactly as I see it and convincingly enough to interest a handful of other folks. Thankfully none of the people leaving occasional kudos on those fics these days are raising a stink about the 'problematic' elements.

What is your favourite crack ship? Lord of the Lost's Judas album gave me serious serious Jesus/Judas vibes, but that's not really crack so much as quote-unquote blasphemy. I am going to steal Seiya's answer of Tony the Tiger x The Grinch, because I am hard-pressed to think of anything else that would qualify.

What is the couple you read the most fanfics about? Currently? Dreamling. I tend to hyper-focus on one fandom at a time and when I'm lucky enough to ship the popular pairing, there is Far Too Much to spend my limited free time on and little reason to invest any of it elsewhere.

What do most of your ships have in common? I think the broadest way to sum up the widest swathe of similarities is that I generally enjoy a dynamic of Reserved x Exuberant, or to pull back a little further still, of Complementary Opposites.

What do you absolutely hate in a ship? Hate very rarely enters into it. Lack of chemistry, I guess? But that is a very subjective criterion. For every 'But why would you ship them?' I can ask, someone will have an answer.

Tagging, no obligation, tag me in your existing post if you've just done it: @danikatze, @zalia, @esperata, @staroftheendless, @rooftopwreck, @aquilathefighter, @chaosheadspace, @ginoeh, @macavitykitsune

[rad-ramenkingles]

A Multiverse Versus

"Father and Son, 1v1!!"

Well hey there everyone, managed to get this finished and done a bit sooner than I thought I would. (To be real though it's not like I did too much new, just had to repurpose some side bits I was already working on for hopeful later posts.)

I have high hopes to do more things like this, a capturing of a moment in time. Whether it be a headcanon/fanfic moment, or a fan favourite reinterpretation from the manga or anime.

I shall call posts of this specific nature “MUSCLE Moments”, because Muscle you see. It's fitting right? Beefy Beef dudes, just slinging their Beefy muscles to beat down on each other. Definitely works for my liking.

To start this trend off here is something I would have wanted to see, and did do a lot in “Galactic Wrestling” on my PS2. - Kid Muscle Vs his Father in his Prime in a one on one match. Both with their respective Meat Sidekicks for guidance.

So I've had Kid Muscle/Mantaro revamped for a decent time, just sitting in the wings for a post of him mid face off against Kevin Mask. But I unfortunately never started Kevin and I wasn't going to be doing that task with a Trackpad. So rather than sitting on him further. Have him here head to head against his dear old dad, but younger.

The rest of what you see on display was heavily altered work of a really old bg I found from some old wrestling pixel game. Don't ask what it was called, I genuinely don't know. I saved it as “Wrasslin Pixel Ring” back in my youth. So who knows what it was from. Maybe I'll throw up the original at some point and you all can let me know. It was a really fun undertaking to do back a couple months ago, was doing it for this purpose of making in ring moments. (Something I had done a tiny bit of back in 2011) Bonus Points to whoever can figure out what moment in the classic Kinnikuman anime the ring's specific colors are based off.

With this text dump done, and these sprites and inaugural “Muscle Moment” shared. I shall now get back to my Ramen consumption, Kinnikuman reading, and anime watching. (Currently burning through “Mobile Fighter G Gundam” and “Ultimate Muscle”, enjoying the nostalgia) Expect some Kinniku Text thoughts in the near future, and I'll try doing more of these “Muscle Moments” again as soon as I can.

Ramen… Out! ✌🏼🍜

[aroacegundamalex]

Hello again! Last time we spoke, you mentioned that you and a friend were working on a SRW fan roster. Would you be interested in talking about which series you're using (so far)?

Thank you for asking! Since we’re still in the planning phase, the roster is still subject to change. So far, it’s largely comprised of series the both of us like, with a few entries that I love but they haven’t seen (because they’re still new to mecha).

The current roster is:

- Mobile Suit Gundam

- Mobile Suit Gundam 0080

- Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

- Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack

- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

- Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

- Space Knight Tekkaman Blade

- Mazinkaiser (OVA)

- Shin Getter Robo vs. Neo Getter Robo

- Getter Robo Saga

- King of Braves GaoGaiGar

- Chōdenji Robo Combattler V

- Chōdenji Machine Voltes V

- Blue Comet SPT Layzner

- Beast King GoLion

- UFO Robot Grendizer

- Two of our own Original Generations casts

These are series that are tentatively included or under consideration:

- Super Dimension Fortress Macross

- Brave Raideen

- Aim for the Top! Gunbuster

- Mobile Suit Gundam Crossbone

- Aura Battler Dunbine

- Super Robot Wars W Original Generation cast

- Super Robot Wars T Original Generation cast

I’m the reason the current roster is so super-heavy (seven reals, eleven supers, including our two Original Generation casts). I am, in fact, quite biased! The series in the latter section are pretty much all series I haven’t shown my friend so we’re still debating whether they should be included, as well as two SRW casts we both love and are considering including.

If you’re wondering how we’re fitting in so many Gundam series that take place over the course of decades, some of these appear in flashbacks, side stories set in the past, or are post-canon. Time travel is also involved. Possibly alternate universes, should I succeed in my mission to get as many friends as possible to watch Dunbine.

This little project was born out of the conversations my friend and I have had over the course of me streaming as many Super Robot Wars titles as I can get my hands on. We’d made predictions for future entries, talk about crossovers we’d like to see, or how certain series would make for a good game. We then realized that one of us knows how to code, one of us is an artist, and the both of us can write.

Then a GitHub repository and Discord category were made. This isn’t anything we’re planning to make public (even if we could without risking a billion cease and desists) and is just a fun project between two friends.

Because this is essentially just a friend and I’s fanfiction, and thanks to that, it can be as long as we want it to with no concern for budget or licensing. The only limiting factor is how much we’re willing to write.

[gear-project]

Annon-Guy: I'm currently making a new crossover game idea video involving Mechas (the giant ones) based of Gundam Battle Asuult 3.

Curious, outside of a gameplay battle, how would a fight between Burning Gundam (Domon) and Evangalion Unit 2 (Asuka) play out?

You know, since you're a fan of both 😊.

To be honest, I've been meaning to remind people that Gundam Battle Assault 2 is actually a "spinoff port" of the Arcade game Gundam: The Battle Master.

And also that the guys at Natsume Atari who did Gundam Wing Endless Duel on the Super Nintendo were the ones who developed Battle Assault 2.

Gundam Battle Assault 3 was also handled by Natsume, though I don't know the full circumstances by what made the game different, since the focus of that game was Gundam Seed at the time.

It's actually been a long time since the heydey of those games, though I still find Gundam Battle Assault 2 particularly appealing where visuals are involved (reminds me of the Rumble Fish games, actually.)

It'd be nice if we got a new game one day, though I'm not sure if Evangelion would ever do a Gundam crossover, since battle games involving EVA are even more rare than Gundam games.

Gundam is also not so common in the West, either, so I please humbly ask fans to support games like Gundam Breaker 4 coming out this August!

Still, to answer your question:

The Evangelion Unit would probably win assuming they weren't using traditional "Gundam Fight" regulation rules.

Under Gundam Fight rules though, most EVA Units are too advanced and too complex for a single pilot to manage, so the whole "Only the Gundam Pilot can manage the Gundam" rule would be too difficult to apply to an Evangelion Unit.

I don't think Domon would be capable of blowing an EVA Unit's head off in a permanent state if the Mass Production EVA Units are any indication. They'd just regenerate back, much like GEARS.

Also, the scale of EVA Units are somewhat larger than a Gundam, so Domon would have to use terrain and lots of jumping to reach an EVA Unit's head.

And that's all presuming he could get close or even breach the thing's A.T. Field.

By the way, A.T. stands for Absolute Terror, which is a psychobabble term for a person's "personal space", only difference being A.T. Fields are a physical manifestation of a person's desire to be an individual.

EVA Unit A.T. Fields could probably out-pace even GaoGaiGar's Protect Shade/Protect Wall barriers... this is borderline something akin to Guilty Gear's Absolute Barrier Felion (which the Cradle/Justice can generate via Magic).

ANYWAY, Domon's gotta surpass his human limits if he wants to take out an EVA.

By the way, most EVA Pilots are trained in self-defense, despite Shinji Ikari's um.... limitations... so it's not like they don't know basic Martial Arts... most of what they know is Government Issue, though, so it's not anything complicated.

By the way, if Potemkin were to fight Domon in his Mobile Armor, it'd probably a bit more in Potemkin's favor, since the thing has giant hands much like Potemkin does, easy for grabbing and "Bustering".

Domon, if you don't want to get grabbed, I suggest keeping your distance~

[ikuzeminna]

Who are your top 5 favorite atla characters

This might surprise you, anon, but this is a difficult question for me. By the way, I hope you’re a Gundam Wing fan who noticed me in the ATLA tag and not someone from the ATLA fandom just asking me a question because boy, is this gonna be an introduction to my blog.

I can tell you my favorite character right off the bat, which is Toph. She’s cool, and badass, and sarcastic, and wise, and self-deprecating, and saving the day left and right, and just all around awesome. That is to say, she is a joy to watch and there isn’t a single scene in the series where I’m annoyed by her. What is also in stark contrast to Aang is her commitment to improving herself. Toph is introduced as one of the strongest benders in the series, but does that stop her from evolving? No. She confronts and masters her weaknesses, sandbending and metalbending, going so far as to invent the latter to do so. This is what keeps her from being an obnoxious Mary Sue, even though she can take down armies by herself; Toph earns her strength. Unlike a certain someone who is only the strongest because he has the glowy uber mode.

Number 2 would be Katara, who provides a very nice example of a rich and complex character, who also gets to have a very unique relationship with the former villain, Zuko. She gets a lot of really good writing, which is the reason I like her so much. The contrast between her Book 1 self and her Book 2 self and onward is also very interesting to observe, as we get to see what a healthy serving of self-confidence can do for Katara as a character and for her personality. She isn’t exactly different, but there is a noticeable level of maturity added with her mastery of waterbending. She also gets the most emotionally intense episodes. A Katara episode is always a good episode.

From here on though, it gets difficult.

Zuko is somewhere on the list of favorites, too, but only if I ignore the annoying parts, the greatest being the obsession with Iroh. I’m not gonna launch into a rant, because that would be a 20 pages long essay on its own, but know that no other character in the history of media has ever held my ire to the level Iroh does, not just on his own, but for the way he ruins other characters, too. Seeing him gets the same response from me the way mentioning the British Museum does to every culture the Brits looted.

Aside from that, one thing that has always gotten on my nerves with Zuko is how we see nothing of his supposed princely background. Running around and throwing temper tantrums to get his way is how a brat acts, not necessarily a prince. Weirdly, they get it right with Azula. You can tell from a mile away that she’s nobility. Zuko? Zuko oscillates between ridiculously crafty and effin’ annoying. There is only one tiny hint I can identify that speaks to a higher standing and that is the way he sits straight. Other than that, nothing. No impressive vocab or signs of higher education or flowery language or sense of perfection and finesse. So another point for bad writing.

I just need two more, right?

Hmm. I’m gonna cheat with those and pick Piandao and Ursa. lol

Piandao, because he is the poster boy for a proper master. He is insanely skilled and seemingly eccentric because he abhors over-inflated egos, being a humble and open-minded person. He teaches Sokka because of his own morality and conviction and seems like someone who genuinely wants to help people. He doesn’t troll people like Bumi, nor does he abandon his nephew to go on a glory crusade. He’s also not a drama queen like Jeong Jeong. He’s a good role model and should have been the sole leader of the White Lotus, seeing as his house is plastered with lotus symbols. And he never should have accepted Iroh and Pakku. >_>

Here is where I run out of truly favorite characters. Ursa is not so much a favorite as she is interesting to me because I’m digging the family dynamics the series hints at. One NATLA picked up, too. It’s not the abuse victim/hostage nonsense the comics threw at us, which is offensive beyond belief, but a wonderfully complex mess that, if added to correctly, can turn Ozai from a flat pancake into a fully rounded character while enriching Zuko and Azula, and provide a parallel to Katara’s and Sokka’s family, too. But I’m gonna spare everyone a lengthy explanation for this, as that could be another post on its own.

Suffice it to say that while Ursa looks like the angel to Ozai’s monster and the series, for whatever reason, tried to paint one bloodline as good while the other is eeevul, it’s her who killed Azulon. Give me all the gray characters.

This should answer your question, anon. Now to blather about the stuff you didn’t ask me for.

~Part deux~

As I said in the beginning, picking five favorite characters in ATLA is difficult for me because I don’t have that many characters I truly like. It’s not that I necessarily hate them, I just don’t care about most characters.

Like, I don’t care for Sokka. He's the comedic relief, okay, whatever. If he gets a moment of awesome, it feels unearned. Him being touted as a great leader makes me laugh since the series implies it’s because he’s suddenly the only one who can read a map. He’s horribly written. Everything is rushed, from his romance with Yue to his one-day mastery of swordsmanship. That crap takes years. Never mind him getting a super special awesome space sword that’s practically a lightsaber. So it’s not even his own skill?

Same thing with Suki. I’m not bothered by her character the way Sokka annoys me (I do, in fact, dislike him when the series over-inflates his worth) but she’s just not interesting enough for me to care about her. Her being tethered to Sokka does her no favors in my book either. If you remove every scene where she interacts with him, is there any screen time left for her?

Aang is a can of worms. I like goofy Book 1 Aang. I absolutely loathe Bryke’s self-insert Book 3 Aang. And don’t even get me started on the shipping. It’s like pairing kid Goku with teen Bulma. Just, no.

So do I like Ozai then? No. Unless I make him interesting, he’s boring. Azula started out very strong, but then fell apart because the show decided to strangle itself with binaries. She’s also incredibly isolated, having only pancakes and her brother in her orbit. Mai and Ty Lee are flat. Jet got killed off before he had the chance to develop layers. That leaves me liking blank slates like Kanna. Yes, I will prefer the stock character over the badly written, flat ones.

This may all sound like I don’t like the series or, at the very least, don’t enjoy it, but that’s not the case. I have plenty of episodes I watch and rewatch because it is a fun show and I don’t need to like all the characters to enjoy an episode’s story. Being flat or inconsistent doesn’t bother me when they can manage to be consistent for an episode at least. And the bending battles are cool to look at. The trouble starts when we take all the series into account because the wasted potential through shoddy writing becomes more apparent, especially towards the end.

When you compare the characters and their writing to the likes of the Gundam Wing cast –and now we swerve to my blog’s main theme– the difference couldn’t be more glaring. This blog is dedicated to one single series, with me writing meta upon meta, sometimes about the most minute detail in one of the first episodes because it’s a hint for something that happens after the series, in the movie following the show, because the level of care to get the characters not just consistent but also massively layered is utterly insane in this show. If you were to make a character relation sheet, you’d just end up connecting everyone because every character gets a unique dynamic with everyone else. And this series doesn’t even focus on the characters. It’s plot-driven. It’s about politics and war.

Ironically, I have a harder time picking a favorite episode in Wing than I would in ATLA because I enjoy the characters in their entirety, which is reflected in the entirety of the series. Wing is hard to watch because it’s not episodic. Some of the coolest moments happen without fanfare. But I’d have no problem listing five favorite characters. Duo at the top because he’s the best, hands down, then Relena, then Wufei, then- wait no, first Meilan, then Wufei. And then it’s a battle between Trowa and Noin, with Dorothy being close behind.

[vvatchword]

Reading BioShock: Rapture (Part 5: Three Old Men Jerking Their Milk Sticks)

<- Part 4: Going Down || Back to the Beginning || Part 6: Frank Fontaine: Funny He-He Clown Man ->

I think the “going up is like going down” line snapped me.

Initially, I tried to be fair about John Shirley’s intentions and work. I don’t know this man. I have read some interviews and I am reading a book he wrote—all fractions of a fully-lived life. But when I shared Part 4 of this rant with Salty, she popped out with a good point.

“You can TELL he thinks himself above Video Game Writing,” she said. “You can just TELL.”

I realized then that I had been allowing that suspicion to fester in the back of my mind, unacknowledged. But it must be acknowledged. It must be acknowledged that Shirley probably doesn’t think well of any of us. Remember that quote—“I did more [research] than most readers needed”? And the obvious, obvious signs that he barely did any research at all? How about when he bunched BioShock into a list of “other tie-ins,” or described it as “basically” “at least in large part” “science-fiction horror”?

No, I think I can definitely settle my suspicions and say it: this man has absolutely no respect for the game—and by extension, no respect for us as fans.

What a fucking joke.

A Necessary Digression

Let me tell you something, friend. Let me tell you right the fuck now. You will come to choice points every now and then that ask you to appeal to either a Normie or a Weirdo. Perhaps someone is pointing out furries with a hardy-har, or mocking an involved Dungeons and Dragons game that is too passionately played, or aghast that an adult has an enormous collection of Gundam Wing figurines, or tee-hee-heeing about how horny some piece of fanart is.

You will be tempted to throw the Weirdos under the bus. You may even agree at first. Why, those people are Weird, but not you! You are not Weird! You are a balanced and intelligent adult who just happens to be a little quirky every now and then. Quickly, appeal to the Normie before they arrow in on your own weird traits!

Guess what.

You are a fucking Weirdo. That is what you are. And more than that, you know those other Weirdos? They’re your tribe. They may not be in the exact same ballpark, but they are still your people, through and through. They possess all the same traits that make you “you”—they’re just dialed in different directions. When the chips are down, they will understand you. There is a high chance they will support you when the Normie world is confused, disdainful, and thirsty for your blood.

The Weirdos are your allies. They understand the Truth: that human beings are inherently the weirdest, dumbest, cringiest motherfuckers on Earth, and to deny that is to deny reality. Embrace it, for it is true.

You should never, ever, ever throw your Weirdo family under the bus for Normie Points. Never. Never. Never. You’re Weird and you should own it. Own it and support your fucking family, you fucking cowards.

Normies will turn on you in an instant. You will never be acceptable enough for them—not unless you destroy everything you adore—and that is a sacrifice you should never make. Normies have either spent their lives squelching what is weird about them to such a degree that they are functionally husks, or they are actually Normal, which is a fate worse than death.

John Shirley is throwing us under the bus. John Shirley thinks so little about you and me that he farted out a disconnected series of vignettes that barely qualify as literature. He gave us his absolute least effort and took most of his time in interviews to elevate himself. There is fanfiction out there that towers over this pathetic garbage.

John Shirley is a man who wrote a short story about “a girl who dies from cum.” John Shirley wants to be spoken of in the same breath as Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert. Do you know who those people were?

They were fucking Weirdos. They were Weirdos in an age when it was culturally acceptable to beat them up. Keep in mind—right now it’s cool to be a nerd, but that sentiment is maybe 20 years old. When I talk to my therapist, I still have a knee-jerk reaction to protect my beloveds: I can tell her about all my peccadilloes without hesitation, but it takes me a herculean effort to mention the things I love. It’s not that I’m ashamed of it: it’s because I know there can be severe social repercussions for doing something a-Normie, and there is a not insignificant population who will take out their insecurities on me. There is no reason to inspire needless antagonism.

But when someone puts down a Weirdo in front of me?

Friend, it’s on. I will go for a throat. Weirdos are my people. They’re my family. To protect a fellow Weirdo is to protect yourself. I will not suffer an environment where it is okay to hurt someone for harmlessly enjoying themselves.

John Shirley is a fucking Weirdo, too—but he thinks some Weirdos are more acceptable than others. He thinks it’s possible to be Acceptably Weird. When he gets in front of an interviewer, he allies with the fucking Normies. He thinks he's humoring us and that he earned value because he won some no-name award 20 years ago.

Bitch. Get on my fucking level… if you can even see it.

Back to Chapter 1

I guess it’s time to go back to BioShock: Rapture and finish vivisecting Chapter 1. You may have noticed I only touched the first page of Chapter 1. That’s because it had the worst sentence of all time. Let’s see if I can get past Chapter 2 without making a big deal about something.

I suspect you can see the places where Shirley planned or was given information because he includes absolutely all of it, and in detail. For example, he discusses the layout and interior decorating of Andrew Ryan’s apartment to excess.

This is how I used to win NaNoWriMo.

The door clicked within itself—and to Bill’s amazement it didn’t swing inward but slid into the wall up to the knob. He saw there was a metal runner in the floor and, at the edge of the door, a band of steel. It was wood on the outside, steel inside. Like this man was worried someone might try to fire a bullet through it. No one was visible on the other side of the open doorway. He saw another hallway, carpeted, with some rather fine old paintings, one of which might be a Dutch master, if he remembered anything from his trips to the British Museum. A Tiffany lamp stood on an inlaid table, glowing like a gem. He walked down the hall, into a large, plush sitting room…

Why is there a knob at all? Oh, never mind.

I’m cutting out some extra description of the rooms, but it’s all like this, and very little of it is terribly interesting. Most of it is for this purpose: “Andrew Ryan is loaded!” Some of it, like the “Dutch master” bit, is to emphasize McDonagh’s background (he went to the British Museum! Because he’s British!). The story continues in this vein for a while and it’s fucking boring. It doesn’t say anything about Ryan or McDonagh after a while—it just pedals in place, squawking: “Ryan is rich! Ryan is rich! Ryan is rich!”

You know what is interesting?

Like this man was worried someone might try to fire a bullet through it.

That, my friends, is character-building. That’s something worth talking about. The reader already knows that Andrew Ryan is rich; let’s give them a little something extra about the man himself, right? I love the little hint that McDonagh should take as a warning—the paranoia, the lack of grace, the possibility of violence. Delicious. Omnomnom.

Too bad this kind of shit only appears once every 2,000 words.

It’s also interesting that McDonagh is attentive enough to pick out a painting as a Dutch master’s—I couldn’t do that and I love art dearly—but I don’t think that’s actually character building so much as it’s an extra “Ryan is rich!”

In any case, static descriptions mean the plot has staggered to a halt. They should be avoided or minimized for that reason. Here, we describe the contents of a room and the layout of an apartment over the course of five straight paragraphs, perhaps about 300 words, saying the same thing over and over and over and over and over.

It’s not particularly well-described, either. The Tiffany lamp “shines like a gem”, a table is “intricately carved,” and a piano shines like a mirror. Yeah, sure, that’s all flavor, but it’s not remarkable. It sounds like my grandma’s house. I feel like a rich person’s house should be amped up by 3000%.

Also, does it all need to be here? Can you say this with fewer words, or in such a way that it says something about Ryan’s character? Does any of this propel the plot in any way?

Not really, no.

All that said, now I think I could find Ryan’s restroom blindfolded, because for some reason, it is exceedingly important that you know how to maneuver Andrew Ryan’s apartment. Pretty sure that Shirley drew it out on a piece of notebook paper and, refusing to waste one iota of labor, shared it outright.

Maybe he was trying to win NaNoWriMo, too.

I Hate It When I’m Right

A lot of my observations from Part 1 are all coming together here, and I hate how right I was. Shirley is visual to the detriment of the plot; it’s arguable that “visual” is all Shirley is. Shirley does not understand tension and undercuts it constantly. Shirley does not often understand what he’s talking about, and is probably a spectacularly stupid person who has gotten by on connections, personality, and confidence alone.

Take, for example, Shirley’s love of lists. When he doesn’t particularly understand something, he just starts listing adjacent qualities. I’m not sure he understands anything. I think he mistakes lists for comprehension. I read three different interviews spanning ten years, and in every single one, he answers questions by babbling a bunch of quasi-related elements. Everyone moves on because what else are they supposed to do? He technically answered them.

Shirley isn’t a liar, but he also doesn’t describe the actual subject at hand. He just dances wildly around the point, and then dances away a little at a time until you forget what you were talking about. It’s like someone who’s not quite fluent focusing more on their words than on what they are trying to say. It’s peak chatbot behavior. And it’s all done completely confidently—brazenly, even. He thinks he’s good at this.

Maybe you can fool a 20-year-old blogger by bullshitting your way through their interview, but I’m a crusty old superfan with an endless fascination for the video game you’re denigrating and I want to punch you in the dick.

Salty and I agonized about what to call “the act of describing a subject accurately in a way that suggests comprehension.” It’s not “extrapolation” or “expansion,” and “description” is far too vague. Whatever it is, Shirley does not have it.

Salty — Today at 12:25 PM It’s like he heard you like fish so he slides a glass of water at you like ;)

So, stranger on the internet: you don’t think you can write?

Friend. Beloved. You absolutely can. You can do anything. Just march into a publisher’s office and be like LOOK HERE MOTHERFUCKERS,

You’ll be kicked out, for you do not have one ounce of the self-assuredness of John Shirley.

How does a human being get this way. How does a creatively-defunct person like this become a writer. There absolutely was a witch’s curse at some point. “Your books will make mooooneeeey, John Shirley! But you will be a filthy scum-sucking haaaaaaaack!”

At Least Nobody Knows What They’re Doing

Bill went through the archway as the man in the suit answered a chiming gold and ivory telephone on a table in front of a big window displaying the heroic spires of Manhattan. Opposite the window was a mural, done in the sweeping modern-industrial style, of burly men building a tower that rose up out of the sea. Overseeing the workers in the mural was a slim dark-haired man with blueprints in his hand.

I love the idea of Andrew Ryan mythologizing himself. This mural is somehow the stupidest and best detail so far. This description puttered halfway toward what Ryan is, then veered sharply to the left and fell off of a cliff.

“I’ve got to be really secretive about my plans,” Andrew Ryan says. “Also I’ve got to commission this art piece for the foyer in my apartment, where I will only live for the next year at most. Hey artist stranger, here’s what I want explicitly. Paint it where all my visitors can see it.”

I need a new word for the feelings this book gives me. Like I hate it and disagree vehemently with almost every single choice for every single reason, but I’m also kinda laughing and doing that little sideways nod thing. “Stunned” and “shocked” are just not complicated enough.

The buff guys are a great choice btw.

That’s my destination, Bill thought bitterly. The crapper. A fine crapper it might be, one of three. My destiny is to keep their WCs in working order.

I feel you, bro. That’s my whole life.

Speaking of crap, here’s how Shirley writes Ryan dialogue.

“Eisley, you will not make excuses! If you cannot deal with these people I will find someone who has the courage! I’ll find someone brave enough to scare away this pack of hungry dogs! They will not find my campfire undefended!”

Nope.

Shirley just said, “If you cannot deal with [x], then” three times in a row, just in different colors and with slightly different hairstyles.

Andrew Ryan’s dialogue should be punchy. He says just what he needs to say, just when he needs to say it. He says what he thinks the truth is, and he knows explicitly what he thinks and why he thinks it. He doesn’t throw in a lot of colorful language for no reason—it’s all utilized for a purpose. He’s a skilled rhetorician and orator—that’s how he got thousands of people to abandon their lives on the surface world. Most importantly: every new sentence is a new idea. Andrew Ryan does not repeat himself. Git gud or git fucked, scrub.

Shirley is not the only one bad at writing Andrew Ryan. As it turns out, almost nobody can do it right. The writers for BioShock 2 were equally fucking horrible. Here’s an audio diary I particularly loathe.

White is not black, Dr. Lamb—down is not up, and straw is not gold. Look around you. Rapture is no miracle—it is a product of reason, impossible unless one and one are two, and A equates to A. —“Ryan vs Lamb: Reality,” Andrew Ryan, BioShock 2

Andrew Ryan repeats the same thought over. And over. And over. And over.

This writer is fumbling around for how Ryan might sound because they don’t understand the subject they’re trying to explain. They end right where they started. This speech is a creative exercise at best, bullshittery at worst. It should have been thrown in the trash. It ended up in a finished product because the writer (rightly) knew that nobody else understood Objectivism, either. It just sort of sounds right. If you’re a fucking moron, that’s enough.

It’s worse than that, though: this merely repeats the basic tenets of Objectivism as found in every Ayn Rand novel ever. “A Is A” is literally the title of Part 3 in Atlas Shrugged. I’m pretty sure that “one and one are two” come from an essay she wrote, but I can’t remember where I read it and I don’t care right now.

Why are these Andrew Ryans shitty? Simple: these writers only understand Objectivism on a surface level. And to understand how to write Andrew Ryan, you’ve got to understand Objectivism. You can’t just parrot aspects of the dialogue. There are ideological and psychological underpinnings. If you don’t understand why someone would give their lives to something this fucked up, you can’t understand how Ryan is going to talk.

More than that, you’ve kinda gotta be a good writer. I mean sorry to all the hacks out there but part of why Ryan works is that he’s written well. For illustration, here are some transcripts sampling Andrew Ryan’s speech, all by Ken Levine, who can actually write, probably because he’s a big reader. (No, he does not return my calls.)

While you read these, consider the following:

Who is the audience?

What is the purpose of the speech?

What is the purpose in-story?

What makes good writing good?

So dark in here. If only your friend could look up and see you. Maybe you could warn him. If only you could do something… anything… except just stand here and watch him die. — “Watch Him Die,” Radio Transcript from Smuggler’s Hideout, Andrew Ryan, BioShock

Here Ryan taunts you as you helplessly watch splicers crawl down to murderize Atlas in the Smuggler’s Hideout level. God it’s so fucking good. Gives me chills even separated from the game. I remember beating my wrench on the window and yelling at the monitor.

Are there any huge words or concepts here? No. But look at how much delight Ryan takes in tormenting you. He makes this shit personal. He’s very dramatic, but he’s got a knife to your neck. He knows he can afford it.

This is all just flavor. This is to escalate the tension. And I love every second of it.

You ooze in like an assassin and then you try to sneak out like a thief. You're no CIA spook. Who are you? Why have you come here? There's two ways to deal with a mystery: uncover it or eliminate it. — “Like an Assassin,” Radio Transcript from Smuggler’s Hideout, Andrew Ryan, BioShock

Here, you’re leaving the Smuggler’s Hideout and heading to the Arcadia level. You’ve just seen Atlas’ family get blowed the fuck up. If you’re new and unbesmirched by spoilers, you are probably 1000% on Atlas’ side and want to kick Ryan in the nuts.

I think what I like best about BioShock is how personal it feels. You end up feeling special, like a part of the game itself. Let’s face it: that’s part of its design.

When you best Ryan—even if it’s a fractional win—he feels personally affronted. It’s also delicious that Ryan keeps trying to figure you out. I remember yelling at the monitor about how I just crashed here buddy would u PLEASE calm the fuck down

Levine does not throw in “CIA spook” to ground you in the era or to flex about how he did research. I mean, it certainly does ground you in the era, and it says something about what Ryan thinks of government, but these lines are mostly about Andrew Ryan’s process of elimination and intent. He’s asking completely reasonable human questions.

Why are you here?

What do you want?

Why did you act the way you did?

Also note the effective use of verbs and the elevation of the tension. You just pissed Andrew Ryan off. He’s coming for your fucking blood now. You gon die.

I came to this place to build the impossible. You came to rob what you could never build—a Hun gaping at the gates of Rome. Even the air you breathe is sponged from my account. Well, breathe deep… so later you might remember the taste. — “A Hun at Rome’s Gates,” Radio Transcript from Arcadia, Andrew Ryan, BioShock

Ryan does invoke some history here, but the Hun v. Rome image stands on its own, and it’s for a purpose. He’s classically educated, intelligent, and capable. He sees himself as an exclamation point in a history book. He knows he’s done something not everyone can do. He’s got weight and he knows he can swing it. What the fuck are you?

To go a little further, he’s proved all these things. He’s not blowing hot air. He really did some pretty incredible shit and you aren’t very much in comparison. You can believe him.

Look. This is just good writing. “You came to rob what you could never build.” What did you feel as a new player when he said that to you? I was mostly befuddled, sometimes arguing back to the screen (“Motherfucker I just crashed here!”). The way he belittles you—you’re not just a leech dependent on its host, but part of an ancient play as old as time, a force of entropy to be heroically overcome.

Eventually, you’ll find out he was right.

What is the difference between a Man and a Parasite? A Man builds. A Parasite asks, "Where is my share?" A Man creates. A Parasite says, "What will the neighbors think?" A Man invents. A Parasite says, "Watch out, or you might tread on the toes of God…” — “A Man or a Parasite,” Audio Diary, Andrew Ryan, BioShock

This is perhaps the most bombastic of the Ryan speeches, but that’s for a reason. This is Ryan preaching to his followers. He’s spelling out a difficult concept to make it as accessible as possible. He says, “Here’s Goofus, here’s Gallant.” This is the ideal, this is the dumbass. Here’s what we want, here’s what we hate. Simultaneously, he educates you—the ignorant player—about the weird, convoluted subject you’re engaging with.

Ryan tends to be at his most bombastic during audio diaries because he’s talking to the people he’s already sold his ideal to. He doesn’t just vomit a thousand words out of the thesaurus.

Look. I think as writers we start out feeling our ways through prose, just nosing along until we find whatever makes us feel good. Not all of us are going to take that next step up—when we don’t just write to feel, but choose our words with logical intent. Each word, sentence, paragraph, chapter, and part has to have a purpose.

This is especially important in video game writing, when most of the content is in gameplay, not prose. Levine had to say a lot with a little. And Jesus Christ, does he DELIVER.

It’s kind of hard to miss because of the number of audio diaries, but Ryan really doesn’t talk that much to the player. Atlas has that honor. Ryan only speaks when he has a purpose or has been emotionally compromised. He gets more bizarre the closer you get to his hidey-hole, but that makes sense: he’s losing. And he has a lot to lose.

And then you return to fucking BioShock: Rapture and you have to read this hot fucking garbage.

“But by ascending,” Ryan went on, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets and taking a pensive turn about the room, “one makes one’s own class, do you see? Eh? One classes oneself!”

“Pensive” does not belong anywhere near Ryan. Ryan preaching out of the blue to a stranger, also no. Ryan pretentious? Absolutely not. There is no pretense with Ryan. He is what he is. It’s both his strength and his ultimate weakness.

These scrubs confuse “bombastic” with “redundant” and attempt what they think sounds intelligent. They’re not actually intelligent and they don’t actually know what’s going on. What makes Ryan magical is that he’s not only fucking intense, he’s substantial. There’s thought and intelligence and capability behind all of the rhetoric. He’s a villain you can respect because he doesn’t just do bad things to be bad—he ignores his social and emotional and psychological needs, and every conceivable need of other people, to do what he feels is logical. That’s fucking terrifying. It’s worse than madness. Anybody can do this. Anybody for any ideology. You could do this. I have done this.

Well. I guess I didn’t build a personal utopia and kill thousands of people. That’s one point for Team Watchword.

Meanwhile, the only things these hack writers know to do is go over the top. They throw in a couple of historical references to make it look like they researched, add some dramatic flair, talk far too long, then pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

No wonder Ken Levine didn’t write anything extra for this novel—it would have put his name next to John Shirley’s. If I were Levine I would be like “ohhhh nooooo” and just leave. No, it’s okay, you can put your whole name on it. I’m fine. You’re fine. It’s fine. Bye. Forever. No, no, it’s okay. Own it. I’m changing my name. I’m moving to another country.

Bill + Andrew, Sitting in a Tree

Bill was kneeling to one side of the toilet, using a spanner to tighten a pipe joint, when he became aware of a looming presence. He looked up to see Andrew Ryan standing near him. “Didn’t intend to startle you.” Ryan flashed his teeth in the barest smile and went on, “Just curious how you’re getting along.”

Andrew Ryan? Smiling?

It is so, so hard to return to this book after reading transcripts from the game. I hadn’t touched the original material for a while. Fuck, I want to play it all over again.

Half of why BioShock: Rapture hurts is that Shirley often gets so, so close to what Andrew Ryan would probably do.

Salty — Yesterday at 9:53 AM [It’s] like watching someone leap confidently for a slam dunk and then slam the basketball into the face of a little old lady sitting in the stands

One thing that made Andrew Ryan so effective was that he’s a great “realistic” Randian Ubermensch. And Randian Ubermensch behave in very specific ways. They do not give a single solitary shit what other people are doing with their lives. They are so self-centered they can’t understand anyone else, and according to their belief system, they shouldn’t even try.

That said, they are processes people. They do find technology and labor interesting. They don’t judge you for what kind of labor you do—they judge you for the quality of that labor. Multiple “good” characters in Rand fiction have blue-collar jobs. So it makes sense that Andrew Ryan would be interested in the work being done in his apartment. Whatever man must do to survive is not below him.

If you don’t know, this chapter is based on the following audio diary:

I met Ryan the day me and the lads were installing the bathroom plumbing up in his posh Park Avenue digs. "Oi!" says he, "What's with all the brass fittings? General contractor had me down for the tin." "Well," I says, "I supposed it's the contractor then who'll be bailing out your loo once a fortnight, is it? If it's price you're worried about, I'll be picking up the brass, so not to worry, squire." "And why would you be doing that?" says he. "Well, Mr. Ryan, profit or not, no man bails water out of privies built by Bill McDonagh." The next day I finds out, I'm Ryan's new general contractor. — “Meeting Ryan,” Bill McDonagh, BioShock

This diary made me realize a few things. First, they’re not fixing something—they’re building something. Why the hell would Shirley change that? Maybe it’s because he needed them to meet each other for the first time.

When I heard this audio diary, I envisioned it as, “McDonagh has worked for Ryan for a while, because building a new bathroom would be work-intensive and might take a few days. It’s just that McDonagh didn’t stand out until he had to see the bill or the construction, whichever came first.”

But Shirley wanted a mutual first-time impression, I guess. Seems a bit limited, but what do I know.

Second, how did Levine pull this dialogue off where Shirley fell on his face? I’d have to confer with someone from the UK to know how accurate it is. Its success is probably due to the voice actor. I wouldn’t feel confident writing it, I’ll just say that.

Third, look how vivid and strong these characters are. We’re barely in this scene and you know exactly who they are, what they value, and how many fucks they give.

Meanwhile, Shirley is like: “What if I write Andrew Ryan like that creepy uncle your parents told you never to be alone with”

I was going to write more about how that Andrew Ryan characterization pisses me off but I think I’ll just let the audio diary do all the explaining for me.

On another note, why are there so many goddamn typos? I’m talking about the period that should follow “went on.” Look, copy-editors miss shit all the time—it’s the human condition—but this is excessive. I’m not even a quarter through this book and I think there’s been at least one typo per page, if not two or three. This is embarrassing.

Every time you edit a story, you have to pass it by the author to get their okay, and you pass it back and forth until everyone is happy. I suspect time was a major factor, but the errors are so egregious—even in sections that should, by all rights, be older and therefore cleaner—that I’m starting to wonder if Shirley was an ass on top of everything else.

One of Shirley’s interviews supports this guess. He mentioned “bitching” about inserting new details to correspond with BioShock 2, and described himself as an “independent-minded breed.” Except unlike Ken Levine, he is utterly incompetent. What a fucking nightmare.

I’m coming back around to liking Levine, you guys. He was right about how shitty the John Logan BioShock script was, and he was right not to involve himself with this thing, either.

You should’ve stopped him, Levine. You should’ve told him to go home and lube up his Bram Stoker Award.

I wish I could be cool enough to be Levine’s friend, but he’d probably mace me and shoot me into space with his mind.

Ryan looked at him with narrowed eyes, rubbing his chin. Bill shrugged and focused on the pipes, feeling strangely disconcerted. He could almost feel the heat from the intensity of Ryan’s personality. He could smell his cologne, pricey and subtle.

Well, damn. I’ve read enough fanfiction to see where this is going.

Ryan’s sexuality is kinda questionable—he may be bi, but the only relationships we can tell for sure are those he had with women. Fort Frolic is full of lurid possibilities, but they may just as easily be rumor.

But McDonagh’s sexuality is never brought up. And this is from McDonagh’s POV.

Hmm. HMM. This is kinda special.

Shirley is dumb as a stack of logs, but he stumbles into a good paragraph every now and then. Do you think he meant to do this or not?

Contact me with your opinion. Make it explicit.

[Bill] took the receipt book from his pocket, scribbled out the cost. There’d been no time for an estimate, so he had a free hand. He wished he were the sort to pad the bill, since he gave a percentage to Chinowski and Ryan was rich, but he wasn’t made that way.

That last sentence helped me put a finger on why I hate the McDonagh characterization.

Levine has stated repeatedly that McDonagh represents Ryan’s conscience. Remember that audio diary up there? McDonagh wouldn’t even think of padding the bill. It simply would never occur to him. He’s just going to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Most likely he’s acted on his principles so long that it’s just second nature to him.

But Shirley writes him so full of misgivings. It’s like he’s never met a person like this before. Go ahead, let him be firm and principled. I mean, that’s what he is. You’ve even said as much. Stop babbling and let the man’s deeds stand.

Also did that second sentence throw you for a loop, too? What does it even fucking mean? That McDonagh is free to determine the cost? How awkward.

“Thank you, sir.” Bill took [the check], tucked it into a pocket, nodded to the man—was he mad, staring at him like that?—and started hastily for the front door.

Kiss him Bill. He wants it Bill. Kiss him full on the lips. Give him a little tongue bill

What makes this particularly interesting is that Bill McDonagh is the one giving off the gay vibes, not Andrew Ryan. I’m okay with it, but I don’t know what Shirley does and doesn’t intend because he’s fucking awful at everything. Remember: he wrote that sentence that put “limey grease monkey” in the mouths of Americans, so he might just be super shitty at POV on top of everything else. I guess it’s possible that Shirley only intends for Ryan to be interested in his principled nature.

The problem is, Shirley is generally so fucking obvious, and so literal, that this feels far too subtle for him. Like I wouldn’t put it past Shirley to add a couple of notes about how Bill feels about the Gays.

[Bill had] just gotten to the sitting room when Ryan called to him from the archway. “Mind if I ask you a question?” Bill paused. Hoping it didn’t turn out that Andrew Ryan was a poof. He’d had enough of upper-class poofs trying to pick him up.

THERE IT IS

“What if they don’t understand me?” Shirley asks himself.

Then they should git gud, asshole.

Also, just in case you forgot, this is what Bill McDonagh looks like.

wolf whistle

When I first saw this picture back in 2009, I thought McDonagh was in his mid-sixties. I figured that heart-shaped blotch was a liver spot, which you develop as you grow older. However, it’s equally possible that this is just a tuft of hair or a birthmark. Even considering this, I wouldn’t gauge him as anything less than his fifties. I figure he’s around Ryan’s age—which is fitting, given his status as conscience.

Unfortunately, as this is a tiny scrap of game art that you only see for five seconds at a time when an audio diary plays, we can’t count on it being completely accurate. First, it’s art, not a photo, so there’s a certain level of stylization. Second, it’s not high-definition. Finally, there are the specific needs of a video game. BioShock did not need to be especially clear about how old this guy was. There’s even some benefit in keeping his background kinda malleable.

Also, if this photo were “taken” in 1946, and McDonagh died somewhere in 1959-60, that would put him in his late thirties to mid-forties during the events of this book. And even that isn’t a given. When was this picture taken? Were photo IDs customary in 1946, or were they issued when smuggling became a problem? That would make him yet younger in the book.

Long story short, McDonagh’s age is highly variable and depends on a combination of factors, including game development and the necessities thereof. However, I think I can make a pretty good case that he’s an old fuck when he dies, and he’s at least middle-aged when he first talks to Ryan.

I think you’ll see what I do, eventually—that this McDonagh reads as a young man. Low twenties, maybe. He’s unsure of himself. He’s looking for romance so he can start a family. His schooling comes up front and center. This is not the McDonagh that stands up laughing at the idea of padding a bill. This is a McDonagh that doesn’t fully know himself.

This may not be a huge problem, but cognitive dissonance hits me every time I read about him having Youngun Problems. All I can think of is that liver spot.

Also: exactly how many high-class poofs were trying to fuck him? Is that really a common thing or is this the only way that Shirley knew how to bring up The Gays (tm)? Because McDonagh does not strike me as a handsome person.

Granted, I’m ace as hell. There are people out there who think Augustus Sinclair is handsome. I don’t get it but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

“Where do you think a man’s rights should end?” Ryan asked.

Oh, god.

On one hand, this is Randian as fuck—her characters ask each other pretentious loaded questions all the time. On another, BioShock is a more “realistic” take on the Randian mythos. If there’s one thing you should never, ever do, it’s laugh at Andrew Ryan. You should take him seriously at all times. That’s where he shines.

Wrong time, wrong place, wrong person. Wrong.

God this writing makes me tired.

“His rights, sir?” … “Rights are rights. That’s like asking which fingers a man should do without. I need all ten, me.” “I like that. Now—just suppose you lose one or two fingers? What would you do? You’d think yourself unable to work, and you’d have a right to a handout, as it were, eh?”

oh HA kill me

Please imagine me—a small, pasty, lumpy ball with legs—running in from the side and kneecapping Ryan with that undressed satyr statue. Because that’s what I desperately want to do.

So. You should be able to read this paragraph on two levels and both should make sense.

Let’s say you physically lose some of your physical fingers off of your physical hand.

Let’s say you lose some of your rights, and must go on without them.

The first one works. The second one, though…

“So if you had your rights taken away, you’d think yourself unable to work” is how this translates, and… what

There’s a “good” character in The Fountainhead who is a labor organizer. Company presidents are very often Rand’s villains. Role will not save you in Rand-Land: a man is defined by what he does, not by his title. A huge sin in Objectivism—arguably The Biggest—is taking advantage of someone’s labor without paying for it.

Andrew Ryan establishes Rapture with the hope of leaving everyone their figurative fingers.

I mean, he fails, and we know why it doesn’t work, but that’s his goal. I doubt he’d be like, “Aw yeah, fuck your rights!”

I mean. Yes. He’s technically a walking human rights violation, but he has a very different concept of what they are, just according to the most hideous life philosophy ever penned. The Objectivist says, “A man should be free from other people, and they should be free from him in equal measure.” They consider it a right not to be imposed upon. To create without someone waltzing in and trying to take it from you.

Long story short, I think Shirley confused himself. I told you he doesn’t know how to focus completely on a single point—he only knows how to say what might be involved with it. He also doesn’t know how to access an idea by itself without its tethers to the real world. I’m sure he thinks he’s being very smart here but a little smoke is coming out of his right ear and a couple gears have slipped.

These paragraphs—and the following scene, where Andrew Ryan susses McDonagh out—didn’t need to happen. You see it in the audio diary, don’t you? You see how it works? How snappy it is, how much it says with so little? McDonagh was stunned that his simple act resulted in such a big reward.

I’d expect that Ryan’s behavior in prose wouldn’t be any different. McDonagh’s personality and actions were enough for Ryan. That’s 100% Rand.

I don’t think Shirley understood this. I think he felt like there needed to be more explanation. That alone means he doesn’t get shit.

God I hate this book. And I’m so tired. And I just realized I haven’t gotten to Chapter 2 yet. Dear fuckin baby jesus I’m just now there how the hell has this happened to me?

bye

<- Part 4: Going Down || Back to the Beginning || Part 6: Frank Fontaine: Funny He-He Clown Man ->

[lemontrash]

NEW FIC!

Bao Zai Fan (2477 words) by Odamaki Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Gundam Wing Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Chang Wufei/Quatre Raberba Winner Characters: Chang Wufei, Quatre Raberba Winner Additional Tags: Food as a Metaphor for Love, Food, Friends With Benefits, Developing Relationship, Awkward Romance Summary: Never open the pot. The instructions had been absolute. No prodding and checking; seal the lid and wait in the uncertainty of if it’s cooking or burning. Not knowing if the first bite will be perfect or chalky. It squats on Wufei’s stove; a fat, unanswered question that shouldn’t have been asked. ___ I wrote this for the @gundamzine 2023 :)

[carnelianwings]

Finished Mobile Suit Gundam: the Witch from Mercury and oh my god that series finale. One of the best I’ve seen in a while, probably the only one where I feel satisfied by the ending for the main ship.

(Spoilers behind the cut, plus some rambling as a casual Gundam fan - mostly of Wing/SEED/00 for comparison)

First off - explicit confirmation that SuleMio got married during the time skip? Can’t believe Bamco really said “Finale airs close enough to the end of June, let’s not only have both of them survive, but we’ll have them get married.”

I know there’s some people who think it wasn’t overt enough but if you ask me, this is the sort of ending Gundam does for their main ships. Like yeah Kira/Flay got pretty explicit but she wasn’t the End Game girl for him, that was Lacus and Kira/Lacus is super chaste in comparison (and we’re not going to get into the potential Unfortunate Implications of that here). But even then, in the SEED Destiny remaster finale all we get is a Big Damn Hug for them. The most we ever got for Heero/Relena was the moment where Heero tells her he’ll take out the leaders of both the Earth and Space Colony factions to lay the world at Relena’s feet for her to lead into a new era of peace. (There’s a reason the BL ships are way more popular in Wing fic than the canonical one! 😂) And as for 00’s Setsuna? He merged with an alien consciousness and essentially gets Put On A Bus for 50 years and reunites with his Princess when she’s 81 and blind.

Which brings me to my next point - because the lead writer for G Witch worked on Valvrave (trigger warning for sexual assault if you want to watch Valvrave - it was a late night anime and it showed), I was worried they’d either kill off Miorine in the series finale or put Suletta in a coma (highly possible with how Gundam technology works in universe, plus all the warning signs around Calibarn) to keep things “nebulous” between them and give the writers an out for not having a F/F ship final couple. And it’s not like Gundam doesn’t have precedent for that either - see the Zeta Gundam finale and what happened with Kamille (not sure if that ending got changed with the movies).

But no, we get an “and they lived happily ever after, making their dreams a reality one step at a time” for both girls. I couldn’t believe my ears when Eri referred to herself as Miorine’s sister in law. I started crying when I saw the rings, not just because that was Suletta’s dream, but also the fact that it meant they got married, and that they’ve just been put on a level above most other (Straight) canonical Gundam ships. (Seriously I can’t name another canonical Gundam ship where the characters met, dated, and got married in the course of their own series.) It also meant all the times Miorine reached out to Prospera by saying they’ll be family wasn’t just lip service but had some very real weight behind it. That the Ship Tease moments were meant to be real romantic relationship development beyond the sort of “fake engagement” set up they had in the beginning. And somehow just by doing that it also means they had a much stronger and better fleshed out relationship than what I’m used to for on screen main Gundam ships.

So there you have it. My (not so) hot take on the G Witch finale.

Final rating: 🌈/10, thank you for not Fridging/Coma-ing either Suletta nor Miorine, would watch again, would definitely buy and play their Super Robot Taisen debut game (assuming I have a platform to play it on). Second season could’ve been better with an extra ep in there especially with all the rapid fire politics and side switching, but at the same time I feel like it might’ve slowed things down a bit much so I’m happy with what we got. Also, Super Robot Taisen debut when, Bamco?

[sodasa-was-taken]

Hey there, I'm curious about your thoughts on this. If the Gundam fandom particularly the English part isn't very fanfic-heavy, what's up with Gundam Wing having 50000 fanfics from FF dot Net and AO3 combined? And many of them still being updated. They even had a zine last year and I think you can agree that that's admirable for an old fandom. Compared to Gundam Witch, I'm only aware of 2, and one is even dead. Meanwhile, other M/M heavy fandoms have released more than a number of zines already.

I guess I can't help but compare the English fandom with the Japanese fandom which is releasing countless anthologies and events across the board to this day. Like many, I've read that fanfiction is the gage that people care about a fandom so I can't help but wonder if that is an old way of thinking and unlike Gundam Wing fans who are older, the fans of Gundam Witch are younger and just don't care about fanfiction anymore.

This is the first time someone has pointed out a flaw in one of my arguments. It's been a long time coming if you ask me.

I think I might not have expressed myself in quite the right way. I didn't mean to say that the English speaking part of the Gundam fandom isn't into fanfiction but that it has a proportionally small amount of people whose main thing is writing fanfic. I think it's silly to only use the amount of fanfiction to determine the size of a fandom because the skill sets and passions people within a fandom can have vary greatly. Some fandoms are huge on fan songs some barely have any or not at all. Some ships have more animatics dedicated to them than others and while popularity does play a role it's rarely if ever perfectly proportional. That's what I was trying to get at. The only way the output of a specific type of fan work would be a reliable way to determine the size of a fandom is if the ratio of that type of fan work to the amount of people in the fandom was at least somewhat consistent. In most cases it's anything but.

The disparities between Gundam Wing and g-witch makes perfect sense to me, but it doesn't have anything to do with young people not caring about fanfiction. Believe they absolutely do. The thing is Gundam Wing aired on Toonami back in 2000 as the first Gundam show to ever premiere on American television. It was a straight-up phenomenon in the way anime just isn't anymore in the west due to anime becoming a lot more mainstream within the last decade. The way it was distributed meant that a lot of people could stumble into it without already being in certain circles watch a few seconds while skipping between channels and decide to give it a try. This had the potential to bring in people with very varying interest because a lot of those who became fans hadn't actively been seeking out the show.

Compare that to a show like g-witch that came out in a time where streaming wars and algorithms mean you most likely wouldn't have just stumbled upon it unless you were already watching similar shows. People in the west had to main ways of learning about the show: either through someone they know or through the internet. There's basically no way anyone got into the show out of pure curiosity and this is pretty much true for any Gundam show since Unicorn. Anyway, my point is we've gotten more picky because we can be and it makes fandoms more homogeneous when it comes to taste than in the past.

When it comes to what kinda people do choose to watch g-witch there's three main points I've seen people bring up when recommending the show. It's a new take on Gundam. It's well produced. It's gay, I swear. These three things respectively appeal to existing Gundam fans, people who are passionate about the medium of animation, and fans of sapphic media especially those who like animated shows. If they are to join the fandom they're likely more than one of them. Without knowing for sure through what I have been able to observe I would guess it's people falling under the third category who are the most prolific Sulemio shipfic authors. In terms of the amount of fics that is as I'm almost certain it's a bunch of Gundam veterans who are responsible for the 300000+ words ongoing fics.

That was a longer answer than I would've predicted. Thank you for the ask.

[bitofthisandthat]

Mentioning mutants made me remember something and I gotta ask; have you ever heard of a cartoon called "X-Men Evolution"?

{ Yes, because I am an old and I remember everything.

And I know when it first aired lots of X fans hated it, but I liked it, so Pffft. The only thing I didn't like was how annoying Kitty & (sometimes) Jean were in that iteration. (Kitty was SO like so um like like LIkE ahhhh like ANNOYING) And, "Spyke" was an unnecessary character. Haven't seen it in YEARS.

But don't ask me to go deep and analyze the series, because eh. It did lack in depth compared to all the other iterations.

I just remember the entire NA cast of Gundam Wing did voices on Evo!, so I think the majority of my good opinions on Evo! stem from the fact I was fresh off my GW obsession high when it ended, and I loved hearing the actors all return to do another show together. Yes, for me, sometimes I like stuff simply because of the VA's and nothing else.

Not all AU versions of a beloved media are good, but they can still be fun. And the animation in Evo! was good, too. }

[silencedrowns]

Hello hello! I started watching Witch from Mercury and I'm 5 episodes in but fully entraced by the show. I've never watched any Gundam before but would like to give it a go. I've taken some of your suggestions before for things (like Nier!) and have never been disappointed. Do you have a recommendation on what to start with for Gundam? Do you have strong opinions on sub v dub?

Thanks much Diana and give your cats a pet for me

omg thank you so much

if you like Gwitch, well, it’s very different from every other Gundam but you can’t go entirely wrong with giving yourself brain worms by consuming the main plot line UC series (original/0079, Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam, Char’s Counterattack), since every other series is taking heavy inspiration from these and it’ll give you a strong foundation even if ZZ is. well. It’s ZZ. Gwitch took a lot of cues from Zeta in particular. Try watching the original and if you’re struggling to get through it, the movie compilations are a good primer. Honestly I think almost every fan of anime in general should watch Mobile Suit Gundam (1979), whether in the original TV or the movies. It’s one of the most heavily riffed on and referenced series to ever exist. A Western equivalent is it’s like watching sci-fi without having seen Star Wars, watching detective media without seeing any film noir movies, or watching horror without having seen Halloween or Psycho. You’re missing part of the storytelling language.

The other thing about asking me in particular is that I had one of the most insane Gundam viewing orders of all time and still turned out okay, in that my first was Wing (disliked) and my second was Turn A (adored to an impossible level, changed my life, top favorite anime of all time). Ideally Turn A should not be your first. However. It is a masterpiece. And unlike almost every other fan I genuinely believe if you can’t connect to the others, but Turn A turns out to be your shit, just watch Turn A. Something I believe about Gundam that is NOT the mainstream opinion is that while a lot of the series are best watched after others, you probably can pick any Gundam that speaks to you and start there, even if some of the grognard type fans will yell at you for it. Even if some of the series are objectively kinda terrible starting points (please don’t pick Narrative as a starting point because even if they tried to market it as such you’ll get nothing out of it without Unicorn first and also it sucks ass), what’s most important is that you enjoy what you’re watching!

Oh yeah, side note. Since you mentioned you like Nier, I’d do 0079 and then add in 0080. It’s six episodes! It’s heart breaking! You’ll have a miserable time (positive)!!!

For Gundam in particular, as a franchise, I tend to vastly prefer the subs except for Wing because that’s what I watched since I am a seiyuu fan and you have NO IDEA how many other series will be riffing off any major Gundam actors’ roles, especially if they cast the people who played Char and Amuro.

bonus side note: you won’t get as much out of it unless you’ve seen the UC stuff I don’t think but Build Fighters (first season) is an absolute love letter to the fandom as a whole and delighted me for the whole show. highly recommended but like, as a fandom celebration sort of show.

ps here’s a Mishka

[the-spoopy-ghost-of-raejin99]

Because you seem fairly knowledgeable on the subject: where would you recommend newcomers to Gundam start?

Oof, that is a very complicated question. There's lots of places you can start, but they depend on what you're really interested in.

Personally, I feel like G-witch is a great standalone place to start for someone who is just interested in dipping their toes in the water. It's got a lot of what people love about Gundam without needing any prior knowledge.

If you want to get into Gundam *as a whole*, though, I recommend watching the main UC Gundam series. Start with the original Mobile Suit Gundam and go from there. There's a *lot* of UC stuff, so my suggestion is if you really want to do that, go MSG -> Zeta -> ZZ -> Char's Counterattack. You can go back and watch things like 08th MS Team, 0080, 0083, and other stuff later. Just be warned that Zeta can get a little dark, and then ZZ starts off kinda goofy before going back to a more standard Gundam tone, so there's some mood whiplash if you're watching back to back.

That being said, almost any of the other Gundam timelines are fairly standalone, so you can start at the beginning of any of them and get into it. Like lots of US Gundam fans, I started with Wing, though I don't really recommend starting with Wing in particular because the writing is inconsistent in the main series.

Honestly, though, find an entry you think you'll like and go for it. If you're not sure, you can always ask other fans about a specific entry and whether or not it's newcomer friendly. I'm definitely always willing to give specific recommendations.