#but i think it could be at least tangentally related to the game's themes of justice and whether the law can effectively protect its people

[hungrydolphin91]

@magicmetslogic well since you asked so nicely ^^ I have to warn you though, it's mostly just a messy outline:

Tales of Vesperia and Evasive Language:

A while back I was feeling nostalgic and started watching an old stream archive of Vesperia Definitive Edition from back when that came out out, and I noticed how the three guys playing it for the first time didn’t always understand what was happening in a scene until halfway through it because the characters were speaking evasively. The more I noticed it, the more I realized just how often Vesperia in particular uses this type of language to add drama and depth to the story and characters, and even support the game’s themes of justice in regards to compliance versus disobedience. Specifically, that evasive language is used in this game to get around laws, for better or for worse, and even by characters that are otherwise lawful (looking at you, Flynn).

I’m not talking about lying or deceptive language, but more of a roundabout, masked language. The characters in this game tell half-truths or speak about a subject without ever saying directly what they mean, but leave enough context for the others to figure it out. Sometimes the "others" refers to other characters, but it can also mean only the audience, creating drama and foreshadowing. For example, lines like Yuri’s ominous “He will get what he deserves” in Capua Torim after Cumore escapes or Judith promise “I will uphold the guild’s laws. But in my own way,” are not lies, but they’re certainly dodging the character’s true intentions– imagine if they had just said “I’m going to murder that guy” or “My reasons for destroying blastia are actually good, but society isn’t ready for that conversation yet.” These examples, though, are more like writing tools meant to be understood by only the audience to keep them curious rather than covertly communicating with another character. Most of the evasive language is used in a less meta context.

The characters most notable for using this language are Yuri and Judith as mentioned before, but also Flynn, Rita, and Raven. Conversations between these characters often require a lot of reading between the lines, like Yuri and Flynn’s early arguments and Yuri and Judith’s one-on-one nighttime chats. The game even seems to encourage the player to look closely at their lines by calling out their evasive personalities, like Estelle saying several times that “Yuri isn’t very good at expressing his feelings” or Judith claiming she’s “not very good at lying” when they actually are, just in a more coded way.

Sometimes they speak this way to protect a secret, like Judith’s reasons for destroying blastia

Judith doesn’t REALLY lie, she just dodges targeted subjects. In a way she’s even more suspicious than Raven, but I think maybe her charisma helps keep the party (minus Yuri, who knows her background) from suspecting her to be up to something

Other times they talk like this to conceal their own feelings, like Yuri, Rita, and sometimes Flynn. Eg. Yuri’s “Catch up to him? Easy for him to say” or Rita’s tsundere-isms to hide that she just wants to travel more/be with Estelle

And of course there’s Raven, hiding his assigned agenda with evasive language but usually doing such a poor job of it that every party member finds him suspicious as hell. Once he’s actually in the party he straight up lies convincingly rather than beating around the bush

(Though part of his successful deception may rely on him being SO suspicious that he couldn't ACTUALLY be as sus as he seems 😅)

But the most prominent example of evasive language being used to advance the themes of the story is the frequent fluctuation between following the letter of the law vs the spirit of the law, used as both constraints and loopholes, by parties under both the Empire and the Guilds. (Eg. Flynn's 'If I don't return you'll have to take my place' vs. Karol's 'everyone in the guild should be punished because technically we're all kinda responsible' etc.)

The streamers and I both were relishing that scene in Capua Nor where Yuri’s party agrees to break the law and sneak into Ragou’s manor in order to give Flynn’s unit the authority to enter under emergency protocol because all of this is established in evasive language-- no one is admitting to the plan verbally but it's established anyway via loopholes and coincidences. It’s definitely illegal by Imperial law, the Knights shouldn’t be collaborating with a known criminal in order to achieve their ends, but since their enemy (also under the Empire) has twisted the laws to suit him perfectly, they all have to bend the rules a little to enforce justice. This ties in marvelously with the themes of the game, that sometimes in order to stop corruption you have to resort to some underhanded methods yourself, yet also exemplifies how this corruption happens in the first place, with Ragou only being able to run his wicked schemes because he has the authority to go above the law.

The guilds actually operate under the same principles as the Empire, maybe even more so. A guild’s laws are its pride, as karol says, and this is shown to be true with how the Don was executed because “eye for an eye” is ingrained in guild law. But shortly after Brave Vesperia is formed, they’re already looking for loopholes to do things like take on more than one job. The scene at the Atherum employs more of that evasive language, this time with Rita deciding to deliver the clear ciel crystal for Estelle’s sake since the guild can’t take another job. 

It’s just interesting to me how quickly they’ve all started finding loopholes to their own rules even though creating their own guild outside of the Empire's laws was so important to them. What they’re doing isn’t wrong or underhanded, but it is illegal, and thus they resort to hypothetical suggestions and coincidences.

[transflynnscifo]

Tell me about ur Flynn Scifo thoughts

HI sorry for taking a bit! I decided to take the tangent I caused in my friend's DM's and structure it more coherently

Choc's original question: “Do you think Flynn might get touch starved while hes in the knights? […] I don’t have context, I was just thinking about how Yuri probably gets to casually touch ppl all the time, but Flynn has duties.”

DISCLAIMER this is headcanon-y and self-indulgent. While I give specific examples to support certain ideas, I by no mean intend to act like this is gospel.

This has spoilers for the game too

I assume that because Flynn and Yuri grew up together, they definitely were able to hold hands/hug/nap (and obviously sparred together). The former things probably got dropped as they entered adolescence as a lot of teens tend to be mortified over showing they have any feelings. This is to establish that they have likely always been comfortable around each other. Regardless of how much one may consider side content canon, it is enough to infer from in-game that Yuri’s leaving the knights resulted in their relationship becoming strained. Though Flynn pre-game is stated to have dropped by often enough in the lower quarter, it still shows that they probably barely interacted normally until Capua Nor in Act 1. (and even Capua Nor interactions are something, to say the least)

In my opinion, by the start of the game, Flynn had become good at suppressing a lot of different thoughts and feelings. I’ve already mentioned it in a previous post, but Flynn has a tendency to be quieter in group skits where he isn’t the topic of discussion. Though there is a subtle characterization I enjoy there-- he does react with his portrait changing even whilst not speaking. But even when prompted for an opinion, he struggles to express it, defaulting to saying a general statement that ultimately results in a non-answer on at least one occasion.

This suppression would behave like a sleeper agent. As the game progresses, the player is able to see more of Flynn. His banters get more known, his flaws stick out more, he becomes more closer to a regular man VS the knight paragon that he is expected to be. Those walls could have subtly started crashing around the time he and Yuri started speaking again. Now, I also look at it through a fluri lens. After not having spoken for years, feelings would naturally reignite, and Flynn would become stuck with feelings of longing for more.

That’s where it gets trickier for Flynn. Though he shows signs of opening to the other party members, we are dealing with years’ worth of repression. Though Flynn’s primary character conflict is about where one would draw the lie between crime and justice, there is another that is strongly related to another important theme of the game: choices, and being able to make them on one’s own. This part of Flynn’s character development is most apparent in the second act of the game, especially notable during the part of the game where Estelle is absent. It’s about what he wants to do himself, as opposed to what he should do as a knight. I won’t go too much into it, but the Baction and Heracles dungeons, as well as the scenes before Zaphias castle exemplify what Flynn ends up operating on. Ultimately, he is stuck doing the job he has vowed to take up, as there is no one else to do it. (Much like Yuri choosing things of his own volition, but only because no one else wants to.)

But going back to touch starvation and yearning, this would all come to a head for Flynn until, I presume, post-game. This is because by Aurnion, Yuri and Flynn are finally able to patch things through. The game strongly implies in certain ways that their repaired bond (regardless of whether one sees it as romantic or not) would be stronger than ever, and harder to damage. But even as they become on good terms again, they aren’t able to often see each other. This part is apparent even throughout the game, as Flynn and Yuri are pulled in different directions until their paths cross again. This could be like an odd repeat of the few years they barely interacted, but this would be not because they would be avoiding each other. Rather, this is because they’re finally maintaining the promise over protecting the smiles of people, and making the world a better place.

It could make the times they spend together both a relief and an incredible pain for Flynn, who is able to spend time with his best friend, but the nature of their roles now means that they are ever so slightly out of reach from one another. Flynn would be happy to be in Yuri’s life again, but would he allow himself the selfish wish of having Yuri around always? When he has knights to lead, and Yuri is free to travel and do as he pleases? (in the “Feelings regarding the knights” skit, Flynn, albeit jokingly, wishes Yuri could still be in the knights, while acknowledging that the freedom he has now suits him better.)

And Flynn’s duties matter too much, that much is true. However, Yuri matters even more. Remember how he used his knightly authority to use ships to look for Yuri’s body post-Zaude?

The worst part of Flynn’s touch starvation is if he is actively pining for Yuri in the romantic sense. Imagine wanting to take Yuri’s hand in the same way like you used to, except you are both too busy and important as people to indulge so simply. That isn’t even acknowledging Yuri’s complexes against Flynn and the manner of which he puts Flynn on a pedestal by the end of the game. I don’t think Flynn would worry that he doesn’t deserve Yuri, though I myself like to entertain the idea that if Flynn had insecurities about being good for Yuri, they would definitely manifest differently. The issue for Flynn would be essentially choosing between his happiness as a person or to jeopardize that because he is the Commandant. And Flynn tends to be characterized as a workaholic due to how serious and dedicated he is to his tasks.

Interestingly, Baction (which is the earliest dungeon of the three), has Flynn behave selfishly in his wish to help save Estelle and inquire Alexei for his motifs. But when Flynn wanted to go with Yuri and the others in Heracles and Deidon hold, he went against those wishes in order to lead the knights who needed a leader. Ultimately, it all ties back to the fact that his duties as a knight, and as a leader, mean that he has to jeopardize his desires. He expresses that he missed traveling in the “Battle maniacs” skit. He enjoys fighting, but he also doesn’t get to do it as much when he isn’t in the party. By extension, he would also miss spending time with Yuri like how they used to. He would be biting down leather with his teeth over this, in private. Unable to have time for what he loves.

Though there is warranted criticisms over certain aspects over Vesperia’s comedy, Flynn is, admittedly, definitely repressing certain thoughts. In skits, if a dialogue/topic with a more suggestive tone comes on, Flynn tends to become embarrassed and quiet about it. Though this is intended with a humorous effect, given Flynn is the designated “spoilsport” in many aspects, it does leave an interesting implication: the one most against suggestive topics gets the most embarrassed about them. I tend to see it as Flynn’s imagination running rampant enough to go down the gutter by itself. So it’s worth to assume that Flynn’s self-imposed repression isn’t even doing that well, given it is fairly easy to generally fluster him. Applying that to the fact he already is strongly guarded, he would probably short-circuit if he received a hug from anyone (and for the sake of this post, likely from Yuri too). It’s a metaphorical imagining of Flynn’s very armor. Does it protect him from attacks? Yes. Does it make it harder to see him under the bulk and to touch the skin of his hand? Absolutely.

Even if he took Yuri’s hand, he wouldn’t feel it under his glove, and Yuri, in turn, wouldn’t feel Flynn through it either.

Yuri acting skittish about his insecurities wouldn’t help either. And that’s what makes it even more compelling for me! In many pairings where one character is a knight, it’s usually the other party that wants to push the knight to accept selfishness. In fluri’s case, Yuri first has to stop thinking he’s going to hell in order to consider wanting to push Flynn into indulging his own wishes!

And then Choc told me they meant general touch deprivation, like even with friends, to which I put my clown nose and honked.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Goodbye Emmanuelle (Letterier, 1977)

In Goodbye Emmanuelle: Her Last Game of Death... Okay, that’s not the actual title, but I just can’t resist making a Bruceploitation joke. Technically Emmanuelle is a character in The Dragon Lives Again, even if she isn’t played by Sylvia Kristel there, so one could argue that Kristel is a Bruceploitation star by proxy. (No, the character does not kung fu fight in that movie, but does try to give somebody a sex-induced heart attack.) Normally this is the part where I go into a long-winded anecdote only tangentally related to the movie, but I’m just settling for Bruceploitation jokes this time. We’re having fun, right? Why is everybody leaving? Fine, I’ll talk about the actual movie.

This entry finds Emmanuelle and her husband living the good life in the Seychelles. One day when they’re gettin’ it on on the beach, she makes eye contact with a hunky director cruising by shirtless on a boat while filming something or other, and becomes hopelessly attracted to him. This causes Emmanuelle to reexamine her lifestyle choices and creates tension in her marriage. Will their (free) love survive the presence of this hunky shirtless director? Or is it doomed to fail like his shirt presumably was at keeping him clothed? I guess the biggest problem I have with this one is that it has the characters behave fundamentally differently than the previous movies. The second entry especially defines the relationship between Emmanuelle and her husband as being open, honest and encouraging of each others’ extracurricular activities. Having them suddenly grow jealous, possessive and monogamously inclined feels like a betrayal of who these characters are. Now obviously people can change and experience different emotions, but there needs to be a convincing instigating factor to sell this change, and this director fella, hunky as he is, ain’t it. He’s just a big pile of nothing, and it’s hard to see why Emmanuelle would go for him when his competition is the significantly more charismatic Umberto Orsini.

The featurette on the Kino Blu-ray has Kristel and others talking about this movie taking a more intellectual approach, and I don’t think the movie is better off, as what we get here is pretty rote stuff. In contrast, while the second movie is an almost plotless progression of softcore sex scenes, those help you feel the dynamic of their relationship much better than this one tells you about it. (The second movie is also substantially better smut, as this one has fewer and less imaginative sex scenes.) The movie does share some of the non-skeevy pleasures of the previous movies, in that it’s handsomely shot and takes place in an attractive setting, meaning it’s not unpleasant to veg out to even if the actual proceedings aren’t terribly interesting. Yet Seychelles is essentially a vacation spot here, as the movie fails to mine it for the kind of erotic charge that Bangkok and Hong Kong provided in the previous entries. (I guess that makes it less problematic, and but also less interesting. These movies are all about white people having sexual adventures in exotic locales, but this one seems least eager to own up to it.) There’s also the music by Serge Gainsbourg, who I imagine brought some of the same energy to composing this as Michael Scott did in that one episode when he wore the one braid in his hair after a Caribbean vacation. His main theme, replete with seductively breathy vocals by Jane Birkin, did get stuck in my head for the rest of the day, so I guess I liked it.

As you can deduce from the title, this marked the last entry where Kristel played the lead role. I don’t know how good the later entries are supposed to be, but I see one of them is directed by Walerian Borowczyk, so perhaps further exploration is warranted. (She admits she took cameos in the later entries because she needed money, which is refreshing in its honesty.) Now, aside from the resolution of her relationship troubles, the movie also waves goodbye to her in fairly literal terms. Or rather, she waves to us, multiple times, in slow motion. I don’t know, I thought it was cute.

[anghraine]

I’ve been getting sucked deeply back into GW2 and it honestly really tickles and pleases me that the game has enough depth that you and I get completely different things out of it, story and lore and even mechanics wise 😄 I love reading your Ascalonian blogging while I am just getting deep in my feels about Sylvari and the post core game dragon lore and trying to get my Sylvari and Asura the sparkliest outfits possible. I just realized the last 2% of the map I need for completion is actually in Ascalon because it’s on the other side of the world from all the stuff I’m obsessed with, haha. And there’s a fun meta layer to you with your human and GW1 interests and me who never played gw1 with my very young and unconnected Sylvari!

I've been meaning to answer this for a couple of days, because I really appreciated receiving it, esp from someone who understands wtf I'm going on about, lol.

Just before I saw it, I was actually thinking a bit about this—I'd been playing the original GW1 with my dad, and spent months in Ascalon before the Searing and we just finished leading our people to Kryta as refugees, and then would switch to playing GW2, and I was just thinking of what a different game it is for different people. Like, my mother has a sylvari thief and what snippets I've seen of her personal story are just wildly dissimilar, and in some ways, it feels like sylvari characters are ... not better, but that there are ways the game seems structured to reward playing them (Trahearne being integrated more organically[...as it were], the whole Mordremoth stuff, the theme song basically being directed at them) and creates a very different experience.

But it's something I don't actually mind, for all my human-related gripes, because it is cool that even though the storylines mostly converge, there's just so much to the game in terms of direct content and then even more that's hinted at etc that makes it a very rewarding setting for the imagination that can vary enormously from character to character. Even a single different choice with the same species and order can lead to at least a feeling of being very different people, with or without mechanical consequences.

Also, I recently ran into some sylvari NPCs who were talking about the ancient wisdom of the human queen and how she's older than even the very eldest of their kind—30! And that reminded me of this message and how cool it is that it's kind of created this experience that can mirror something of the player differences as well.

Also-also, I'm just really glad you're getting into it again! It doesn't have, like, D:OS2 level agency/personalization, but there's a lot of room for imagination, and it's always fun to talk about it. When we were talking about Logan's tragic beigeness vs Caithe, I was about to go on a rant about how Logan's ancestress, my eternally beloved Gwen who suffered 10 years of trauma from the Charr and relentlessly sought vengeance for the rest of her life, gets this blah obligatory het romance in the last GW1 expac that mostly seems to exist in order to lead to Logan's existence in GW2 and then he's Like That (likable but). I figured it was a bit of a niche tangent but also, it's nice that there's someone who could understand that very specific annoyance!

Have fun (if you can, haha) in Ascalon, and I hope you get all the sparkly gear you can! <3

[azzy-the-christian-furry]

What’s your opinion on the theory about Deltarune’s secret bosses representing the seven deadly sins with Gaster representing Old Scratch himself?

I haven’t heard that one before. But now that I’ve got a captive audience, I’m gonna address this ask and apparently go off on a tangent (whoops).

I have heard that the normal final bosses so far have represented bad and overbearing parents for Susie and Noelle, respectively. I can see that. If I had to guess, Spamton is greed because he’s a scummy salesman? Maybe lust, considering the thing he kinda advertises. Jevil… I don’t think wrath fits exactly, but it could be. Maaaybe envy? He doesn’t seem proud, gluttonous, or sloth like. Dude bounces all over the place.

Now that Toriel is probably going to be in chapter 3- possibly with Undyne or even Blooky, I wonder if there might be some pent up Kris frustration. What with the divorce and whatnot. I’d imagine Kris is probably feeling kind of stuck in his brother’s shadow. If the guess that Asriel’s incomplete form/OC is to be the secret boss, I’d guess wrath or pride. Probably wrath. But that’s just going off of UnderTale, which may or may not have the same rules and ideas as DeltaRune.

Could also have a childhood theme for chapter 3? Like, Super Smashing Fighters or some other video game. Kris does seem to miss his childhood a bit. What with feelings of relief in the kid zone at the library (when you read “where a teen can be a kid”)- only real negative feels are from the town hall janitor telling Kris to ask cops to change his (Kris’s) diaper. Dude was kind of a jerk and using being called a kid as an insult on that one, though? So fair not to want to be called a kid on this one.

… yes, that’s real dialogue. Yes, I did the King fight again specifically to not look crazy. Same dude offers them in Ch2, iirc. Mentioned a school for it, too. It was a weird two days.

My two best guesses for the next boss are Asriel’s OC, who is totally not just edgy and is super cool in every way, Asriel’s main in Definitely Not Smash Bros, or Kris’s main in the same game. I think creepy TV smile might be the final boss, possibly as a manifestation of Kris’s issues.

Speaking of Ch2…

Noelle. We see Noelle as a child in Chapter 2 when you finish spelling “December”. If I had to guess, this is a similar thing with Kris. Missing their childhood because, I mean… has anyone ever enjoyed being an adult in the last 10 years? 20, even?

Dess went missing sometime between them being in the woods together- maybe even on that very night, or in relation to the bunker that Kris is creeped out by. This was when they were kids. Could be a kind of coping mechanism of sorts, or a trauma response.

In Undertale, Asriel swaps between his adult form (it’s called that in the art book) and child form. I don’t think I need to point out the massive trauma going on there. Losing your sibling is traumatic. Losing your sibling and then dying and being resurrected without love is even more. So this kind of thing wouldn’t be unusual.

Going from memory, I don’t think anyone except Kris, MK, and Susie wear stripes in DR. Which is seen as childish by UT monsters.

Yeah, I know I kinda diverted from “how about those secret bosses?” to “the kids want to be kids again or need some serious therapy”, but… whoops.

Kris wanting to be a kid again just doubles perfectly with my “Ralsei is Kris’s fursona” head canon. Which I will also talk about if you want

At least I answered the question :p

[rallamajoop]

How (not) to say ‘fuck’ in Etruscan (and other things I cannot believe I spent so much time tracking down for a throwaway joke in a Witcher slash-fic)

Buried in chapter 4 of my fic Something Nice is a joke which, as much as it amused me, no-one else is going to get unless I explain it. So here we go.

For the last few people in this fandom who haven't heard yet: The Witcher 3's vampire-language is Etruscan. To my knowledge, there's never been an official statement from CDPR to confirm this, but the evidence (ie. that basically all the vampire vocab can be found in online Etruscan sources) seems pretty solid. To explain why this made me go oooooh that's so NEAT, we need a little context.

Context!

The Etruscans (in my admittedly far-from-expert understanding) were a people who lived in Italy back before the Romans got around to conquering-slash-assimilating the rest of the peninsula, and the language they spoke is one of the most frustratingly mysterious of the ancient world. Most dead languages are at least related to something modern linguists have a decent handle on, but Etruscan seems to have been related to almost nothing else spoken – it may even have pre-Indo-European roots (a whoooole other tangent I am in no way qualified to cover).

Surprisingly, we do owe our modern Latin alphabet in part to the Etruscans, since the earliest Roman alphabets were adapted from the Etruscan (who got it from the Greeks, who got it from from the Phoneticians, and so on). The Etruscans may even be the reason we're stuck with so many weirdly redundant K-sounds (not only K and C, but X and Q, which are really just 'ks' and 'kw' with an overblown sense of superiority).

But being able to sound out every surplus K-word from an Etruscan inscription isn't much help nowadays when there are no surviving Etruscan dictionaries to tell us what it actually means – not even a decent Etruscan Rosetta stone to give us a push-start. So while modern linguists may rattle off Ancient Greek fluently or puzzle out Egyptian hieroglyphs from thousands of years before the Etruscans even had an alphabet, the Etruscan vocabulary available to us nowadays remains embarrassingly limited. Bits have been figured out from context or thanks to loanword exchanges with their neighbours (plenty of ancient Greeks and Romans certainly spoke Etruscan, even if they failed to write it down), but a lot is still as mysterious to the experts as it would be to you and me.

So why to I love the idea of using Etruscan as the Witcher’s vampire-language so much? Basically, if you want a language that will sound both old and reliably alien to anyone listening to it – be they the mainstream English-speaking market or the original Polish-language audience – Etruscan is a damn good call. You're not going to have much vocabulary to draw from, but it's not like there's a lot of vampire-chatter in the game anyway. It's a cool little easter egg for fans nerdy enough to try and figure out what they're saying.

Translations and Sources

You aren’t going to find a lot of great Etruscan language sources on the web – few of the easily-discovered online sources on Etruscan vocab appear to have been updated within the last ten years, and lord knows how consistent some of these are with current scholarship (let alone how sure linguists can be about anything with a task like this). All the same, have some links you may find useful:

Etruscology – Brief, but more readable than most

Lexicons.ru Etruscan Glossary – Probably one of the best collections of many terms in one place

Maravot.com Etruscan Language pages – Hard to navigate, but gosh there are a lot of vocab here I have not seen elsewhere

Old, Tripod-hosted Etruscan Glossary – I think these are mostly just the same terms from the Lexicons page, but in harder-to-use format

Etruscan word search – Decent, but not the most extensive vocab

Introduction to the Etruscan Language – Looks to be from Maravot.com, but in pdf format

Paleoglot.com’s Etruscan tag – Blog by an actual linguist who regularly discusses Etruscan material, and who even created their own translation applet! – which was, unfortunately, in flash, and is thus no longer usable. (There is a certain irony that even the tools available online to help you understand Etruscan are written in a language that is now no longer supported or understood by any modern browser.)

Not that translating what’s in the game is going to be easy, oh no. Take, for example, the oh-god-please-don't-kill-me ceremonial greeting Geralt has to offer to the Unseen Elder to survive that meeting – "Eclthi, lautni ama".

'Eclthi' is apparently a "demonstrative (locative)" (’here’, ‘there’, etc). "Lautni" is trickier – it means a freed slave, but may also imply a familial relationship or a client of sorts, while the root “lautn” apparently designates simply “possession.” House slaves in the ancient world were often considered part of the family, and freed slaves were an important class in many ancient cultures, who often maintained relationships with their former masters, so you can see the internal logic, but what sense was the Witcher using it in? It’s hard to know.

"Ama" is possibly worse – most translations seem to have taken it as "to be", but sometimes also “to love”, or even "now" or  "meanwhile." Then you hit the question of Etruscan grammar, and I have no idea where I’d even start. So, with a little creativity, you could probably translate that phrase as anything from "take this and consider me a friend" to "meanwhile, this is family" to "a demonstration of love from your slave." I mean, you've got the same general theme going there regardless, but there's a lot of ambiguity in the inflection.

For what it's worth, I feel garasham's translation efforts are easily the most convincing I've seen – they have the above line as “Here I am a slave / a friend / kindred” FWIW. (Mind you, given the wiki doesn't even try to do more than offer you one possible meaning for each word, there's not exactly much competition out there).

So, bringing this all back to that fic and how to say ‘fuck’ in Etruscan...

I've already gone to the web's Etruscan dictionaries once while I was writing Forget-Me-Not, seeking inspiration for a 'real' name for "the Queen of the Night" from the first Witcher game. Neither 'queen' or 'night' got me far, but the Etruscans did apparently have a goddess of the moon called 'Aritimi, Artume or Artames', which worked pretty well. If anything it's almost too close to the better-known Greek goddess Artimis, who was obviously a relative (ancient cultures bleed into each other even when they're not bleeding all over each other, nothing new there), but I'm not going to be picky.

However, being a) a giant nerd, who b) writes a lot of smut, and c) is no more mature deep down inside than the rest of us, I couldn't resist seeing if I could find some slightly more obscene vocabulary. Did the Etruscans have a word for, say, 'fuck'?

Alas, if they did (and I mean, they totally did, c'mon), the web wouldn't tell me about it. Nor could I find much else relating to sex or genitalia (male or female), or even a decent word for 'thrust'.

On the flipside, there were a couple of different terms meaning 'plough'. And anyone who's played – well, any of the games, but especially Witcher 2 – would probably realise exactly why that filled me with so much glee.

Speaking of which, here, have a picture which is in no way related:

The fact that the various Etruscan terms meaning ‘plough’ could also apparently be translated as things like “to worship“ or “to act through movement, including ritual acts,” or that an important mythological figure was “a prophetic child who sprang from a freshly plowed furrow” was in no way discouraging.

The word I ultimately picked was 'esari'. Admittedly, variations on the prefix ‘ar-’/‘ara-’/’aras’ were much more consistently attested to throughout the various online Etruscan dictionaries as ‘terms meaning plow’, but figuring out how to convert an Etruscan prefix into a satisfying word is officially where even my enthusiasm for all this nonsense gives out. Esari was, by comparison, already a much more solid-sounding term, so let’s go with that.

Why go to all this trouble anyway? Well, the honest answer is “entirely for my own amusement”, but the nominal excuse comes right back to “so I could give Regis and Geralt this little exchange during a sex scene.”

"Unless you have any particular objection," said Regis, moving to straddle Geralt's body, "I thought we might engage in some esari... hm, what was the equivalent term in your language again?" The vampire leaned in close to Geralt's ear as he made a show of remembering his answer, "Ah, yes—I thought I'd fuck you."

Never let anyone tell you you never learnt anything from porn!

[citrusityy]

Pride & Prejudice Chapter 8 : Proud & Prejudiced

Each week, Catherine reads through an annotated chapter of Pride & Prejudice and shares her thoughts with the interweb until it’s done. Or until she gets sick of Jane Austen. Whichever comes first. This week : Chapter 8.

“I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.”

After Jane fell ill on a visit last chapter, she and Lizzy have been staying in Bingley’s home with his sisters, Mr Darcy and Mr Hurst. Curiously, Bingley is yet to appear, but Mr Darcy made sure to get his appearance in.

The next day, Lizzy continues to attend to Jane whenever possible, and spends her mealtimes in a duel of wits with Bingley’s sisters. Almost all of this chapter entails one of these debates, which is a nice change from the parties.

At any given opportunity Mrs Louisa Hurst (It’s upon reading this name that I realise the dreary Mr Hurst from the last chapter is her husband. Silly me.) and her sister express the most dramatic and surely most sincere concerns for Jane as Elizabeth, still tired from her walk and her fear for Jane’s condition, gives little answer to their flood of questions. In no time at all, they drop back out of her good books, which sets the tone of the chapter nicely.

When she dares to quit the room to get back to her sister, the only reason she’s there, the Bingley sisters waste no time in talking behind Lizzy’s back for her poor manners, “pride* and impertinence”, “wild” appearance the day before and filthy petticoat. What do you expect her to look like after walking across the countryside in clothing in no way designed for it?

It’s here that Bingley pops up to defend Lizzy’s honour, stating that he did not notice the mud on her petticoat when she arrived. In all fairness, I did not notice him at the time either. But his choice of thing to defend Lizzy on suggests that his sisters are trying to downplay the eligibility of the Bennets somewhat, especially seeing as they try to broach the idea that Darcy’s interest in Lizzy’s eyes has faded thanks to the wild gleam the exercise brought them. He thinks quite the reverse, but stops mid-sentence and does not continue, so we are denied his reasoning.

The gossip then turns to the wider Bennet family, and the fact that they have an uncle living near Cheapsake (which does not conjure up the grandest of images, I admit) is cause for laughter from the sisters. Bingley, again, steps up to defend the Bennets and Darcy points out in his usual way that having family in such a poor place must hamper their relationship avenues somewhat, to which Bingley falls quiet. I do wonder if Charles (that’s his name) would join in with the elitist mockery if he was not trying to marry one of them.

With dinner out of the way, the Hursts and Miss Bingley decide to mock Lizzy with faint praise for preferring to read over playing the dull card games Mr Hurst delights in, and Mr Bingley, yet again, steps in to defend her. This is starting to feel chivalrous. Anyway, he offers her all the books in the house, which, considering she probably won’t be staying for more than a week at most, shows that he really does read as little as he says. Or maybe Ms Bennet is quite the voracious reader, in which case I envy her. 

Scant details about Mr Darcy’s life are shared next : his family library at Pemberley (I did not think he actually lived in Bingley’s house full-time! Really.) is forever being stocked with more and more books by him (Is this Austen the author’s depiction of the ideal man? Probably not, but I too admire his interest in literature.) and his sister is about Lizzy’s height and is skilled with the piano “for her age”. How short is Lizzy to be compared to someone young enough for “for her age” to be in any way a viable compliment?

This prompts Mr Bingley to go on a tangent about the skills and accomplishments that every woman he meets is said to possess, revealing that the only women he knows that he isn’t related to are those introduced to him as potential wives who “paint tables” and similar nonsense thanks to the limitations of Regency era society on women. Darcy disagrees with him, if only to say that though many women have these talents, very few are “accomplished” in an intellectual capacity to be worth his time.

Lizzy, his “faithful assistant” (?) agrees with him and goes on to list all the qualities a woman like her “must have” to deserve anything, including singing, dancing and foreign languages. These poor rich girls! So much pressure around landing a husband! At least they don’t have to worry about mortal concerns too much.

Which leads nicely to Lizzy leaving the room again to check on Jane. Ms Bingley talks yet again behind her back to make Mr Darcy lose interest in her for reasons that I rather hope will be expanded on later on, because it could make for an interesting arc. He will have none of this and turns her comment on “meanness” back on her, decrying all underhanded tactics people used as “despicable”. Lizzy comes back in racked with concern for Jane and the household decide to send for the doctor again tomorrow. Bingley also takes the step of instructing his staff to care for “the sick lady” above all else, which I must say is a rather impersonal way to refer to the woman he’s meant to be courting.

Thoughts

Good little look at society’s perception and treatment of women here

Darcy has a life outside Bingley, or so I’ve heard

Why are they all so formal amongst friends and family? Always “Mr Darcy” and never ‘Chuck’ or whatever his name is

Jane has barely interacted with Bingley the whole time. What will her mother say?

*I have to admit, with every passing chapter, I grow more impressed with how Austen weaves in her eponymous themes so smoothly.

If you liked what you read, don’t be afraid to tell me, or anyone you think would like it. Maybe grab a copy from World of Books or somewhere to read along with me. If you didn’t like it, let me know that too. I’m not in this for validation or anything. Come back next week for Chapter 9, where Mrs Bennet joins her daughters in Mr Bingley’s house (it’s okay - he has room to spare).

[kaypeace21]

Byler hints in the background of s1-3

Honestly, this should just be called- ‘my autistic brain casually (and without even trying) notices shit in the background, but never mentioned it- because I thought it sounded too crazy to talk about’ XD. But the symbolism and Easter eggs give my byler-shipping heart so much life. So I thought, since you guys prob. didn’t notice it- I’ll mention it anyways.  So here goes.

Drawings/rainbows

There has been a theme in s3 about how Mike equates ‘falling for girls’ as a part of growing up, and his feelings for Will as something childish that he has to has to grow out of. 

- confessing to El : “A feeling … yeah, like, something… like OLD PEOPLE say it sometimes”.

- “And Will too. I was thinking we could all have new presents to play with and *scoffs* Sorry, that made me sound like a 7 year old... (apologizing to El)

- Mike getting in a fight with Will (after d&d), and saying they can’t be close anymore: 

Mike says, “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!”, and then he tries to ½ apologize only to say, “I’m not trying to be a jerk. Ok? But We’re not kids anymore.” Explaining, this is just the way things are-boys fall in love with girls, get girlfriends, and this is just a part of growing up (heteronormativity).  He tells Will “I mean, what did you think, really? That we were never gonna get girlfriends? We were just gonna sit in my basement all day and play games for the rest of our lives?” And poor Will who is probably more aware of his feelings just responds. “Yeah, I guess I did. I really did.” And of course Mike immediately apologizes for being an “ asshole”, after this.

But here’s the thing! Mike actually does wish he didn’t have to grow up and that he could play games with Will (without girlfriends) for the rest of their lives. His room, in s3, SCREAMS that he’s trying to grow up/act straight... but he can’t let go of his feelings for Will. 

He literally takes down his old childhood poster from s1-2 for a more mature/adult poster. But on the same wall (where the old poster used to be) he hasn’t removed a single d&d drawing Will has given him. He’s pretending that he’s grown out of d&d when Lucas is around- because he’s emulating how (the straight) Lucas acted, all season. But Mike has it BAD (and is seriously pinning) for Will! Like, I love Will but his art at 11 years old isn’t so great to justify it still be on Mike’s wall at age 14.  He’s just that whipped (and literally can’t part with a single drawing Will has ever given him) XD

Like... it’s cannon that Mike caresses Will’s drawings 

He’s that ‘ dumbass blinded by love’ who thinks anything Will’s draws is a perfect- masterpiece. Mike could literally see Will draw scribbles and think it’s amazing! Like in s2 he just guides his hands through the scribbles he drew on the wall- no joke! XD

However, what’s interesting though is the one other things he took down from his wall. In S1 Mike (before he even met El)  has a heart sign, with a red heart being propelled by a rainbow. Yet in s3 , the season where he’s ‘obsessing’ about El- it mysteriously disappears. However, in the first ep of s3 when Mike is making-out with El we see a emergence of the heart being propelled by a rainbow (in El’s room) as a drawing. Probably signifying Mike participating in compulsory-heterosexuality and that no matter how hard he tries- he’s not straight!

So given the fact he can’t part with any of the pictures on the wall...you better believe Mike still has that giant binder filled with every drawing Will has given him . And he’s probably hidden it away , with the rainbow heart sign (because he knows it would look suspicious to have laying around). 

-Also, Mike literally has more rainbow symbolism than Will (and has had it through every season) XD

-the s2 ref being the most on the nose) Forbidden fruit + rainbow = queer forbidden romance. And during the 80s, that rainbow-apple poster in the AV Club was suspected to be in reference to Alan Turning (the gay ‘father of computers’).

Animal easter eggs that relate to byler and the upside down/supernatural-plot .

tigers- Mike keeps a tiger poster (which was right next to that rainbow-heart sign) in his basement through s1-3. In s1 we see Will also has a tiger drawing, which is later put on the wall (like a poster) in s2.  Sara Hopper (like Will ) had her death faked by the government (and had a tiger plushie in s1)- and Kali probably had something to do with it since in the prequel novel ‘suspicious minds’ had Kali talk non stop about her fav animal , tigers.  Theory  here. But again, Jancy is also connected to tigers as a romantic symbol (just like byler).

sharks- The Duffer brothers themselves said they based the s1 demorgorgan off of sharks, which Nancy even references in s1. Mike and Will have shark iconography in their room/basement. Will has a jaws poster shown in s1-2, and Mike has shark toys visible in s2. The shark (and bear) symbolism hint at the fact that Will created the upside down/demorgorgans/mind-flayer using his powers- theory here.

bears- Will since s1 has had bear symbolism around him. Bears symbolically represent  “wisdom” like ‘Will the wise’ and were associated with the demorgorgan/upside down in s1 and 2 as well . Max and Nancy compared demogorgans to bears- and Nancy and Jonathan used a bear-trap to capture a demorgorgan in s1 . 

But s3 made bears a romantic symbol- Mike was going to buy a golden teddy bear for El as a romantic gesture. The golden bear had a bowtie (it’s male). And the gray bear that Mike gives to her, was originally Will’s (as shown in s1 &2). This gray bear is coming right in between Mike and El (at the end of s3). They even kiss , while El presses the bear right in between them.  In conclusion these romantic bears represent Will. * I mean that whole awkward kiss (where Mike’s eyes are open and he doesn’t kiss back- happens in Will’s room, in front of Will’s open closet,  with Will’s bear smushed between them (pretty blatant foreshadowing).

dinosaurs- This one is probably a stretch but we see this boy has tons of dinosaurs (at least 6). He starts to info-dump on El about how much he loves them. But, she has no interest. And if the wtf look didn’t make this obvious.

She even gets up and walks away, ignoring his tangent about dinosaurs. 

She literally couldn’t care less about his interest in them. 

But in spite of this, we see Mike gave her Rory in s3 (since it’s in her bedroom). And in s2 we see him sadly look at Rory, with 2 other dinosaurs in frame. This, along with s1 implies he has a huge collection of various dinosaurs .But his collection is missing one of the most popular dinosaur species... the brachiosaurus (the long necked dinosaur).

And right after this scene in s2 scene, we go to Will’s room. And he has a huge brachiosaurus! This boy couldn’t even afford a halloween costume and had to have his hand-made by his mom... but he could afford this huge -fancy dinosaur replica? I bet Mike bragged about his dinosaur collection to Will (like he did with El). But Will being a nerd, was actually impressed. So Mike actually gave him his best/fav toy in his collection- kind of like what he did with Rory.

frogs- This is the most hilarious thing to me. I laughed for like 20 minutes on my rewatch. In s1 Will has a GIANT stuffed plushie of a frog next to his jaws poster and teddy bear. I’m dead! Will doesn’t even disagree with the “frog face“ insult. 

He’s just like ‘well, he’s my frog face’ . Time to snuggle with this frog that looks just like Mike . Will is so in love but also low key savage dragging Mike like that. I can only imagine Dustin and Lucas saying “nah, you don’t look like a frog”. And poor baby-Mike asking Will what he thinks, and Will not being able to lie, just saying “ Well... some people like frogs.”  XD

We also see that in s2 the frog is missing but the Jaws-poster, coin jar, and the bear (we later see El holding in s3) remain .Probably to indicate this is when Will started to subconsciously suppress his feelings for Mike. Although @theclericwill pointed out -that , instead, Mike may have used the frog-plushie as a pillow... for his frog-face XD

Throwing shade at Mileven/mileven shippers in s2 

In the Montauk pitch (later named Stranger things) they describe the Mike and El dynamic by saying “ If Mike is the Eliot of our show,Eleven is our Et.” (AKA they’re from different planets)

-In s2 , Erica  is forcing He-man and barbie to make out. Lucas angrily separates the two. And then this discussion happens.

Erica: “Hey , They’re in love!”

Lucas (livid- and standing right next to a rainbow): “No, actually,  they’re not. They don’t even exist on the same planet.”

Not to mention I doubt it was a coincident they had a (bratty) pre-pubescent girl be the proxy for most mileven shippers.Like not all mileven shippers are bad, but almost all the toxic ones (that the Duffers have to deal with) are tween girls. And to the Duffers, only a child could think 2 people are ‘in love’ after a week of knowing each other. Or that El could understand such things like romance- given the fact that her and Mike are from different planets (given how El has no experience with the outside world).Mike even says in s2,  he can’t hate Max because he ‘doesn’t know’ her (despite knowing her as long as he knew El). Meaning he doesn’t love El since he doesn’t know her. 

Plus, El told Mike, he treats her like ‘garbage’ and ‘a pet’ . And Finn after s1, said that the Duffers told him Mike thought of El as a puppy, and she is even compared to Dart (a demo-dog in s2). Mike asking Dustin, angrily “What, You have a bond? Just cause he likes nougat (eggos)?” Being a  blatant dig at people obsessing over this shallow aspect of their relationship.

Mileven was also compared to that  of family members. In s1, right before they kissed, she asks “will you be like my brother?” (while wearing Nancy’s dress). And Mike also referred to her as his ‘cousin’ . Not to mention, El loved ted’s laz-eboy chair (and Nancy said Karen and Ted “never loved each other” ). And right before Karen is about to cheat on Ted - she looks at him sleeping in the chair (and the lyrics are ‘I should have walked away’). 

It’s pretty hilarious, since so many people try to ‘no-homo’ byler by saying Mike thinks of Will as a brother/or family- yet, their relationship has never been directly compared to a sibling (unlike mileven).

People also seem to not realize Mike lied in s2 (just like he did in s3). He thought El was dead in s2. He told Max it “got her like it did bob” and then he made a spectacle in front of everyone saying “I never gave up on you”. Which was a blatant lie (since he just told Max a few minutes earlier, she was dead -_-). Mike simply blamed himself for her death (he said they needed her to save Will and even referred to her as a “weapon”). So when she died he felt the most responsible- and was hoping she was alive (and would answer his call) to alleviate his own guilt. Not because he loved her (that was an act). When he saw Will’s dead body, but heard his voice, he went on a rescue mission to save Will (from another dimension). But, Mike didn’t even bother going into the woods after seeing El outside his window (something he did for Will in ep 1, during a storm). And then in s3 Mike couldn’t even bother to call El and apologize- but ran to apologize to Will in the woods during a storm (bringing that whole parallel -full circle).

Plus, El told Mike, he treats her like ‘garbage’ and ‘a pet’ . And Finn after s1, said that the Duffers told him Mike thought of El as a puppy, and she is even compared to Dart (a demo-dog in s2). Mike asking Dustin, angrily “What, You have a bond? Just cause he likes nougat (eggos)?” A blatant dig at people obsessing over this shallow aspect of their relationship.

Bob and Mike parallels- the Rubik cube

Both are unathletic, smart, love comics, the only 2 to not treat Will ‘different’- and would do anything to protect their loved ones. And they also had crushes on Byers in childhood, and tried to give their Byers normalcy (despite them not being a ‘normal family’). They purposely display, and have Will -mirror Joyce- and Mike -mirror Bob- in multiple shots, throughout s2.

And both Mike and Bob are AV club leaders. Bob mentioned in one of the  earlier episodes  that he founded the Hawkins Middle AV club . And Mike later grabs Bob’s Rubik cube, and mentions this after his death (to solidify the connection- even if subconscious in our minds. He even proclaims after this “we can’t let him die in vain” . And this is when Mike makes the plan to help Will (before El shows up). 

gif credit: cath-avery, dailystrangerthings

[latin-dr-robotnik]

Closing thoughts on Sonic Unleashed’s character presentation and development

The year is coming to a close, and so it means my year-long adventure with Sonic World Adventure has come to an end aswell. Since April of this year I started taking notes on some of the underlying themes going on in the game, and it seems I struck a vein of interest in the fandom by doing so, so I kept digging and documenting each optional dialog from Amy till we reached this point, and now I would like to offer some closing words.

Edit: Buckle up, folks, turns out it’s a long post below.

Sonic Unleashed did a lot of things well with its characters, but I can’t shake off the feeling that it also was the first symptom of something that is a real issue nowadays: Tails gets the short end of the stick constantly in this game, not only because of Chip -the “sidekick of the week” if you like-, but also because of Professor Pickle. The way he flew away from Dark Gaia’s monsters at the start of the game gave me war flashbacks of Forces!Tails (not to the same extreme, of course), and after reaching Spagonia he just vanishes from the plot in favor of Pickle taking the helm as Sonic’s guide to each Gaia Temple. By the end of the game, Tails served only as a mean to Sonic and Chip’s end (fly them to each country), and he gets wiped from the climax of the game in an unceremoniously way, as he is shot down while flying over Eggmanland by what I believe was the Egg Dragoon. Only at the very end the game remembers “Oh, hey! Tails was always supposed to be Sonic’s best friend!” and gives him that closing moment when he finds Sonic in Apotos and they both blast away as credits roll.

Then there’s Chip. As a disclaimer, I want to say that I don’t think Chip is a bad character, but he didn’t grow on me like it happened for other fans. 

My biggest gripe with Chip is that, since he doesn’t remember anything about his real self until the Adabat temple is restored, he’s just a clean slate for 4/5 of the game, and the game itself does a weird thing with this: on one hand, it relegates all Sonic and Chip’s bonding moments to optional stuff (you have to feed Chip things he likes to raise the hidden friendship meter and get some of his more heartfelt lines and questions, or even those sweet CG clips), something that I did experience (since that’s how I like to play RPGs in general, get the sidequests first then the main one) but many others won’t bother; and on the other hand, the game puts all focus during the main campaign on what little we know of Chip and how he reacts to each location he visits with Sonic as they look for the Gaia Temples. 

This mess ended up leaving me with two feelings: a good one, since I can sit back and enjoy the world adventure at my own pace and without having to constantly follow a potentially convoluted plot (I can lose myself for 20 minutes in a night stage and have fun); and a bad one, since I was going through the game with this lingering feeling on the back of my head that Chip was just an egotistical prick that only cared about his journey through the world, and not at all about Sonic and that monster form he’s getting used to at least until the second half, or what the rest of his friends are doing (which is, by the way, the main reason why I play a Sonic game in the first place, my order of priorities goes as follows: Sonic -> Eggman -> Amy -> Tails & Knux -> Team Dark -> everyone else). 

By the end those thoughts kinda dissapeared so I can safely say I don’t hate Chip at all, it’s just that the game gave me a wrong message about him. Though the best thing I can extract from his relation with Sonic is the following quote, perfectly summarizing what Sonic is all about.

Finally, there’s Amy. I’ve talked a lot about her in my other two posts, but I still have some things to say. First of all, just like @skull001​ pointed out a while ago, she’s the only one that does not lose hope on Sonic when Perfect Dark Gaia is fully unleashed, as everyone else thought the world was doomed, even Professor Pickle himself. This is because of two reasons: 1) she’s Amy, so she’s always the optimistic one (duh); 2) Amy knows Sonic better than everyone else, and also she was there for him all along, checking on his progress and encouraging him to keep going (even lamenting she couldn’t go adventuring with him). Amy does understand how dire the situation actually is, but she knows Sonic always has a plan, y’all just need to have some goddamn faith (+1 for that RDR2 reference, amirite?). She even looks at the sky as the cutscene jumps back to Sonic’s perspective, like when two characters are telepathically communicating (something this series isn’t a stranger to, I remember reading a post here on Tumblr about Sonic X doing that stuff some time ago)

Sidenote: Also, another funny thing I just realized is that, if you as Sonic refuse to go on a date in the final optional dialog just before Eggmanland, Amy will exclaim: “Give a gal a little hope here, Sonic!” She’s willing to put all her hopes that Sonic will end up saving the world (insert the obvious “If I have to choose between the world and Sonic, I’d choose Sonic!” ‘06 line), how hard could it be for Sonic to give her just a little hope? It’s kinda interesting when making the comparison, Amy just asks for the smallest hint and she’ll keep going strong, pretty much like every shipper out there lol.

(Back on topic.) The beautiful part is that Amy actually gets her “I told you so!” moment with Professor Pickle in the very end of the game, and just as he’s being exposed, the old prick goes on a tangent about how darkness and light are part of the world’s balance, and that the cycle of Dark Gaia vs Light Gaia will keep repeating itself. What does Amy think about this?

Yeah, fuck off, Pickle. This is low-key one of my favorite Amy moments ever. She doesn’t care about the balance of the world or any of that philosophical bullshit Pickle was saying, she knew Sonic was there saving the world’s ass, she knew he was the one that made all the difference down there in the Earth’s core, and that is all it matters in the end. Now let’s go and wait till Sonic’s return so we can have a welcoming party and chill since this plot is over. Perfect ending.

So, that’s Sonic Unleashed for ya. Certainly one of the most interesting cases for me to talk about all year, and top 3 favorite 3D Sonic games for sure. There are lots of flaws and scary things that later would become actual issues with the Sonic franchise present in this game, but it also did so many things right I can’t help but applaud Sonic Team for the effort they put. For all intents and purposes, I’ll be thinking on this game a lot when it comes to character presentation and development in future Sonic games, now fully knowing what’s on display, and what lies beyond, deep in optional stuff. I hope you enjoyed reading or even taking part in the discussions I’ve had along this path, and I hope that, just like me, you might have learned something interesting.

[muzzleroars]

So i read the word datamines and it made me wonder if youve seen somethig about goro or kasumi bc after the ending for p5r and how liked goro is and how popular kasumi seems to be getting i refuse to believe atlus is just gonna ignore all of that, and maybe p5s plotwist will be that it is in fact a sequell to p5r? Or maybe we will get a remaster for p5s in the future and that will be the sequel for p5r but i dread that timeline

P5R SPOILERS AND (POSSIBLE) P5S SPOILERS UNDER THE READ MORE! (also i. i got on a tangent. i’m so sorry)

unfortunately, i didn’t find anything myself and one of the dataminers on twitter reported that there was nothing to do with goro or kasumi found :( there is a file that’s related to a ray gun, so that’s a SMALL something, but i’m not going to lose hope just yet!! this is only the data that was found in the demo version, and the dataminers stated a LOT of the data had been scrubbed from these files. i have heard that the development of p5s was begun very soon after the development of the original p5 started....but i’ve also heard the ideas for p5r were relatively concrete even before p5 was released, so it’s very up in the air as of right now (although it would be difficult to work on a sequel based only on the ideas they had for the royal, since no one could know what would make it into the finalized version we have now. it’s looking more and more like this is a sequel to vanilla p5, and the best we might be able to hope for is goro and kasumi as dlc, but i’m going to hope that’s not the case and they’re both just in spoiler jail. it seems unlikely given their popularity (particularly goro, who atlus has begun to market quite heavily), and so p5s may actually just be a vanilla sequel that was too late to modify given how early on its production began, and so they had no way of knowing goro would be the most popular character of the game. i’ve already seen some talk on twitter (just fan conjecture, nothing confirmed at all!!) that royal may get its own unique sequel and so basically p5 will have two “timelines”. tbh i wouldn’t mind that, it gives me more p5 to play, but i agree that i wouldn’t just want scramble remastered and updated - doing it with p5r was fine by me, but to do that AGAIN with a sequel??? it would feel super redundant and i would hope p5r gets its own post-canon follow-up completely separate from p5s. 

tangent time!!! honestly too...i would HOPE atlus would just confirm or deny goro’s death. i think it’s ridiculous that they refuse to do it - it’s like story-wise they sort of want him gone but since he’s so popular, they refuse to commit to it. i understand the idea of it being that akira can’t save everyone and that there are victims of society, many of them, that pay the ultimate price (and imo they are going for the starcrossed lovers archetype with akira and goro BUT I DIGRESS), so they want to convey that tragedy. and it does suit the themes of the story, it makes villains like shido and yaldabaoth wholly unforgivable in the eyes of the audience (or it should but there’s a lot of bad goro takes), and it should absolutely be a punch in the gut to make the player know the society can and will twist and harm a child like that without remorse (given that no one spoke of him after his death - that’s the point of it. goro’s life was nothing more than entertainment despite his suffering). but as it stands it feels CHEAP because they refuse to actually commit to that character death, to the entire tragedy they set up with him. and it continues to be difficult in royal - here we get a more fleshed out goro, one that ultimately sacrifices himself because he knows his life is a lie and is being used as a nothing more than a bargaining chip for maruki to try to break akira’s will. this shows us goro did truly die in vanilla p5 (at least in the p5r timeline), but here he’s brought back and used AGAIN against his will in a game he never consented to. he stands with akira in this to decide his own fate and, once again, we come to the conclusion that there’s no way to save him. goro is tragic because he is fated to die in this story (again, super starcrossed lovers vibes - no matter what changes, goro always dies)...but he’s then hinted at in the closing animation of p5r (there is the version without him, but i think the one with him is meant to be canon) but STILL with doubt as his face is not shown. SO LIKE??? it ruins the impact of what atlus is trying to do because they want to have it both ways. they want the tragedy of the character, but they want to string his fans along in hopes that he’ll show up in later p5 games. and i’m not making a case that he should be canonically dead - he could totally be written as a severely battered victim that was twisted into becoming a perpetrator, to see how he heals and how he makes amends, to show what happens to people thrown away by the system and how they start over. that would be a GREAT character for p5, but as it stands, goro is in limbo.

THIS IS ALL TO SAY i just wish a sequel would confirm what happened to him. as a fan, i would want him to be alive, but in the same vein, as a fan, if he is gone, i would want his death concrete so that his message and his tragedy are impactful. so i hope he is in p5s as more than dlc, as a full character with a different message about moving forward after your life is so thoroughly decimated and how important a support network is to that, but if not please don’t just??? ignore him???? alternatively, if royal gets its own sequel, maybe he would be alive there instead of in scramble. goro has a powerful story to tell within the themes of p5 whether he lives or dies, but atlus refuses actually allow him to do so....thank you for coming to my ted talk

[lyendith]

Ciconia no Naku Koro ni Phase 1 : To You, The Replaceable Ones

I had planned to write this… review? analysis? of Ciconia Phase 1 right after finishing the game about two weeks after its release, but since then I've had trouble organizing my thoughts. The reason is that this first installment alone tackles a lot of themes: war, nationalism, technoscientism, media consumption and manipulation, the blurring limits between physical and virtual reality, education systems, generational gaps induced by technology, artificial procreation, old people robbing the youth of their dreams, the meaning of family and interpersonal bonds, and even transidentity (albeit briefly). And it is quite remarkable that almost all of those themes are represented by one object: the Gauntlet and the idea of “parallel processing” associated with it.

It's gonna be a long and messy review, I'll probably forget to mention some aspects of the story or overlook others, and I won't talk about every single character, but I'll try to cover the essential parts. Not easy considering how densely-packed the story is, but let's go!

So to start, I should probably focus on this VN's protagonist, Mitake Miyao. On a surface level, he's a bit of what you'd call a “tsundere”: harsh, a little irritable and sarcastic with his pals, but always well-meaning and easy to befriend in the end. One of the running threads of the story so far is that he's too well-meaning in fact, idealistic to a fault, which contributes to his odd charisma but also makes the increasing realization of his powerlessness all the more depressing. You don't want to see this guy fail, but because of the way the story is framed, you know he inevitably will.

For a while, the narration and dialogue like to repeat that “youngsters are each generation's main characters”, but that's a sentiment I couldn't quite share − in our real world, youngsters may be the ones will all the dreams, but they sure as hell aren't the ones making the decisions. The climate change crisis, for example, wouldn't be left unaddressed if that was the case. And sure enough, Ciconia isn't so naïve as to ignore that reality. Every single step of the way, Miyao thinks he can use his power to overturn the situation. Every single step of the way, he's reminded that in the end he's just a pawn moving however his higher-ups or other nebulous forces wish him to. That's a really powerful and relatable theme in this day and age, which raises the question of how far you can oppose a system you're an essential part of.

One thing that makes Miyao special, at least compared to his pals from the AOU, is that he's “ciconia-born” − born from natural procreation. Which means that unlike Jayden or Gunhild, he has bilogical family bonds but also hasn't been subjected to a genetic selection that would predetermine his path in life. At least supposedly, but we gradually learn that that may not quite be the case. In fact, that biological link to Toujirou ends up acting as a tether that robs Miyao of even more control on his own life than he thought, leading to the final tragedy of this first Phase.

There also lies this story's commentary on technology and man's increasing dependence on it − technology makes the kids' life easier, but it's also their undoing. One technology prevented an apocalypse that another caused, and the loss of the former brings about a new apocalypse. Humans created the 8MS but only a handful of scientists have a full understanding of how it works, just like today's technology are only fully understood by a small elite of technicians. We are increasingly dependent on tools whose principles are increasingly out of our grasp. Again, the Gauntlet is another reflection of that.

But back to Miyao and the Gauntlet Knights. In retrospect, it is clear that the way both the characters and readers learn about most dramatic developments through disincarnated news reports (with a goofy “news flash” alert by the frog AI Keropoyo to make it worse) is meant to build up that feeling of powerlessness, and also of disconnect. We should be alarmed that war is approaching, that terrible things are happening… but it all feels distant. After all, do you cry or tremble in fear when you learn that an eathquake killed a thousand people on the other side of the globe? No, you'll think “it's terrible” for a minute and then move on, because what can you do about it? Reading the second half of Ciconia felt a lot like that. And while that's part of the message, it is also to the detriment of the reading experience a lot of the time.

For a while (around the 60-to-80% portion of the game, roughly) we get a lot of redundant dialogue about commenting the news and Miyao rambling on about how they're all COMRADES MAINTAINING THE WALLS OF PEACE, again and again and again, to the point it becomes annoying. That's my only real gripe with the game − the feeling that, at times, Ryukishi forgot he was writing a story and went into political or philosophical essays about its themes instead. Maybe a manga or anime adaptation could help make these parts more… show-don't-telly. But as it is, it could have used some serious trimming down. That's hardly something entirely new − who can forget Krauss' tangent about 1986 Japan's economic situation or Beatrice's explanation of Hempel's crow? But in Ciconia the narration doesn't seem to come from any specific point of view except that of the author (and even on that front, the opening disclaimer warns us that the views expressed don't necessarily reflect the author's opinions), so those parts become all the more conspicuous. Unless this all turns out to be part of a Witch's game, which wouldn't be surprising.

Where Ciconia shines however, is at weaving a web of connections between the characters, one by one, to make you care about some and suspicious of others, sometimes both, and deliberately confuse you about who really controls whom. First we have the kids, with Warcat and Grave Mole which instantly grew on me (the slice-of-life TIPS focused on them had some of my favorite scenes actually), then the other kette with their own quirky charms… then the “villains”, with Toujirou and Seshat, then the Three Kings and Jestress who has a delightful dynamic with Toujirou, and then Toujirou is revealed to be Miyao's father, etc... It's a testament to how well all of those characters are established that I could remember almost all of them very quickly despite their massive number. Save for the Cairo Squad maybe. They're just kinda there. The (mostly) gorgeous character designs certainly help, even if Ryukishi still has a somewhat loose grasp of body proportions and of the… number of fingers on human hands. There's some improvement even in that department though.

While Miyao is for the most part the center of the cast, at least on the kids' side, that doesn't mean the others aren't interesting in their own right. Jayden is your classic “best buddy dudebro” whose easygoingness lets him bounce off Miyao's more strait-laced personality in a fun way, but his relationship with Meow, Miyao's “little sister” who shares the same body, allows him to show more sensitivity and shyness he would otherwise have. Speaking of Meow, she brings about another interesting element of worldbuilding − the existence of “Congenital Parallel Processors”, or CPPs, i.e. people born with multiple personalities, who are not considered mentally ill but a full-fledged minority with its own issues and “coming outs”. Although that aspect isn't developped much (Meow herself kind of disappears from the radar in the second half), we do get other examples of how it can manifest, notably with the character of Naima, whose unnamed alter-ego is violently protective of her, or Rukshana who's prone to abrupt personality changes when she laughs. The way Jayden kinda walks on eggs but genuinely tris to to treat Meow as her as her own person while respecting her and Miyao's privacy is frankly adorable, and I almost wish we got more of that at least in the TIPs!

The kette I found the most interesting, though, was Grave Mole, composed of Chloe, Lilja and Koshka. While a lot of characters have issues, all three of these girls are complete mental wrecks to some degree. Koshka spends her time between grumpily taking part in Kizuna chat rooms and horrific body experiments (usually simultaneously) when she's not training, Lilja has to take drugs to pretend like she's a happy, cute and mischievous cat-girl for the sake of making Koshka a more-or-less functional human being, and Chloe has to constantly deal with unfair punishments and a constantly battered self-esteem. As comedic as Okonogi's angry rants and karate-chops are played (and as much as I like this version of Okonogi, strangely enough), that scene where she gleefully lets Lilja be killed in battle makes it clear that her mental state is just as unstable as the other two's.

On the antagonists' side, things are a lot more blurry: a lot of them utter the arc phrase “All is in the name of guiding humanity down the right path.” However, what the right path is seems to vary depending on who says it. That's where a lot of the mystery lies − be it with Jestress, Seshat or Toushirou, their goals seem contradictory, and Tak… I mean Vier Dreissig doesn't even seem to have a goal beyond SCIENCE. But a big part of Phase 1's hook is that constant uncertainty as to who is playing whom and for what purpose. Even the Three Kings, who seem like your bog standard Illuminati knock-offs, might not be as much in control as they seem − hell, one of the big catastrophes (the fatal damage to the atmospheric 8MS) happens completely outside of their control, in an almost comically sudden way.

Speaking of comical… let's get to what I found personally fascinating but what other readers might have gripes with: the brutal tonal shifts and dissonances throughout the story. A cheery scene to announce the big success of a plan for the Order of the Public Bath? Keropoyo pops up to gleefully announce… an avalanche of terrible news that make the success from a minute ago meaningless. A big conference for peace where World War IV will most certainly be stopped? All of its participant die in an “accidental” explosion. Not to mention characters that are walking balls of tone dissonance like Chloe (who has many comical scenes but is clearly broken beyond repair) or the Yeladot Shavit girls (who by the end are forced to spew out fanatical bullshit with the same sparkly smile they sport when gushing about yuri ships).

This is of course embodied by the incredible climax where all the Gauntlet Knights celebrate their comraderie together in a virtual room… while their real selves are busy killing each other lest they're court-martialed for treason. The moment where all of Miyao's ideals are brutally trashed and scattered in a battle we don't even know the purpose of. The moment where the kids' taent for “parallel processing” becomes their sole mean of escaping the horror of their situation. The moment where all the absurdity, all the unfairness explodes in a depressing flourish. The moment also where the thematic resonance with Umineko becomes fully apparent − how can we not be reminded of Sayo and Maria escaping their shitty lives through their magic? Though of course Rose Guns Days also constantly came to mind, with the focus on war and nationalism, Japan being divided between a union led by the US and one led by China, and two of Miyao's closest friends being the American Jayden and the Chinese Lingji; as well as Miyao being an idealistic and charismatic leader-by-circumstance whose dreams crash into a wall much like Rose's in RGD.

So…

All in all, Ciconia might not entirely be what I expected from a When They Cry game, but it is certainly what I expect from a 07th Expansion game: a thought-provoking experience. Again, I finished my reading shocked and confused. Although it might seem like it shows its cards more explicitly than the openers of Higurashi and Umineko, deception still plays a big part in the story, even if the interaction with the reader is less direct.

Now there might be no murder mystery for the reader to solve, but that won't stop me from speculating! The invisible turning point to me is the “Proof of a Program” chapter, where Blue Miyao tells Miyao that he'll show him someone's face, and that that will activate Miyao's murder program instantly. Miyao first laughs it off, but then the scene brutally cuts to something that might be a flashback, a flash-forward or a nightmare, maybe all of that at once… The most graphically horrifying scene of the entire game, to the point it's almost at odds with the rest. And then… it's never mentioned again. Not even when Miyao meets again with Blue Miyao. Like it never happened. My theory is that everything Miyao experiences from that point onward is some kind of simulation, and that's where the obligatory When They Cry time loop will come from this time. See you in May for the answer?

That is all for today, folks!

[anchoredtether]

Title: The Ghost in the Machine

Chapter: 1/13  

Series: Another Way to Die

Author: AnchoredTether

Rating: M [graphic depictions of violence, dark themes, slight horror]

Pairings: Pidge | Katie Holt / Lance [Plance]

Tags: Danny Phantom AU, Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters (kinda), ghost!Lance, Pidge is slightly goth, Keith is also half-ghost, angst, heavy angst, hurt/comfort, slow burn, disturbing themes, slight horror elements, dark, claustrophobia, implied/referenced torture, double life, angst and humor, body horror, graphic description

Summary: “So this is how I die. In some Holt laboratory device when ALL I WANTED WAS STRING CHEESE!"

Artwork: The lovely @numbah34 made several arts for this work and they are fantastic! Check out her art here! She also has more concept art which I will link once it’s posted~

A/N: Here is my contribution for the @planceminibang​! A special thank you to @amicuscordis​ for beta-ing! Vague summary is vague.

Read below the cut or over here at Ao3 >>

001 || THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE

---

“We should probably get back to studying,” Pidge announced after both their characters died on the retro gaming system and the eight-bit funeral dirge played. “Since, you know, you came over here to study.”

“Yeah yeah, I know…” Lance sighed. He currently had a D in his physics class and Pidge happened to be a genius at anything related to science, so they started study sessions at her place a few weeks ago. “I needed a break though! All this talk of kinetics and energy was putting my head for a spin.”

“Killbot has killed us seven times in a row so I think that’s as good a time as any to quit while we’re ahead.”

“Seven times the charm?” Lance put down the controller and pulled his textbook back onto his lap, stretching his legs out onto the coffee table. “Maaaan, who studies on a Friday night??”

“Smart people who want all day Saturday and Sunday to themselves.”

He snapped his book shut again and stood up. “You know what? I’m starving. I’ll be right back with some snacks.”

She sighed. “You have the attention span of a magpie, Lance.” After five good minutes of studying he’d go on some tangent and she had to redirect his attention, or he’d want to do a video game break or a snack break or a bathroom break and she swore that boy drank water like an alcoholic downs free shots because he was constantly needing to relieve himself. When she called him out on ‘faking’ bathroom breaks to get out of studying he simply lifted up his massive water bottle and told her he drank six of them a day. He progressed on a long spiel about how great water was and she couldn’t decide whether she was impressed by how much science he had to back up his arguments or annoyed by the fact that he couldn’t shut up about water.

She called out to him as he started down the hallway. “Can you bring me some peanut butter cookies? They’re on the top shelf of the fridge.” He held up a hand to indicate he heard and she pulled out homework from one of her advanced placement classes to work on while she waited for his return.

The Holt house was confusing. The whole family was geniuses - Sam was a revered engineer and Colleen a brilliant chemist and botanist. Half the rooms in the house were labs or conservatories (or a combination) and so many parts of the house were added on or obscure extensions that made it a strange maze of plants and machinery. Lance usually had to ask Pidge to remind him which way was to the bathroom or kitchen but he didn’t want to bother her this time. It shouldn’t have been too hard to figure out, right? He had an innate sense of direction.

The other issue was the fact that Sam upgraded all their normal appliances. Their washer and dryer did not look like the standard because he invented ones that worked better. Lance found a room that might possibly be a kitchen but just as easily a lab. There were a few black knives left on one of the counters and some strange looking vegetables. Knives and vegetables were found together in kitchens, right? Then again, half the rooms had vegetables, but he figured a kitchen utensil and an edible looking plant had to be a good indicator.

He walked up to what looked like could be a fridge and tried pulling the giant red lever that could have been the door handle. When nothing opened for him, Lance let out a dissatisfied hum and walked over to some double doors that might have been a pantry or fridge and pulled them open. They were heavy and made a hissing and whirring sound as they slowly opened. The area inside was well lit and the walls looked like they were lined with drawers, but when he walked up and tried pulling on one of the panels it wouldn’t budge.

“Pidge distinctly said ‘shelf.’ So obviously whatever this is, it’s not the refrigerator.” He took one last look before turning to leave, but the doors just barely finished closing on their own without a sound. He let out a short yelp before rushing over and pushing on the thick metal doors but there were no handles and they weren’t budging against his weight. Suddenly the lights in the room snapped into an electric green and he could hear an ominous whirring of something powering up gradually increase in volume.

He pounded on the door, yelling Pidge and her parents’ names in a vain attempt to grab someone’s attention. He started to panic, looking around frantically for some escape latch or emergency button within the walls of the room. When he exhausted all his options he backed up into a corner and braced himself for whatever was about to happen, his limbs plastered against the walls.

“So this is how I die.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “In some Holt laboratory device when ALL I WANTED WAS STRING CHEESE!”

The lights turned off and he screamed, but his scream slowly died out as he realized he wasn’t being evaporated. Nothing happened except for a sudden nausea that overcame him and then his senses quickly faded into blackness.

---

When Lance came to, he was lying on the ground of the fridge-not-fridge, the hospital-white lights were back on, and the double doors were left open. He looked over his body and patted himself in random spots and let out a sigh of relief. He seemed to be alright and figured he simply passed out from fear and adrenaline. He stood up and quickly left the room, finding his way back to Pidge.

“You can’t find the fridge, can you?” she asked in a dour tone.

She didn’t seem concerned that he was gone for a long time, so Lance figured he was only passed out for a minute or so. It would have been logical to tell her what had just happened but a part of him hesitated. Nothing happened and he didn’t want to get in trouble with her parents. He didn’t want her to get in trouble with her parents when he was being an idiot. He’d seen the way Colleen and Pidge interacted and Mrs. Holt was a scary woman when she wanted to be. He let out a nervous laugh before answering. “No, it appears I’m helpless at your house.”

Pidge stood up as she finished typing something on her phone, her green-painted nails clacking against the touch screen as she led the way without having to look up. “Follow me, goofball.”

They acquired the snacks from the strangely designed fridge - which he could have sworn it did not look like that two weeks ago - and returned to the living room (and he tried to make a mental note of the directions they took through the hallways to get there). They resumed their study of kinetic motion but the only motion Lance could focus on was the swaying of the room.

“I think I need to go home,” he said in the middle of Pidge’s explanation.

“Really, Lance? We haven’t studied five min-” She frowned a moment as she looked him over. “You’re… actually really pale. Are you alright?”

“Um… I think… yeah. I think so.” His voice was starting to slur ever so slightly and he had a feeling it would only get worse. “I just need to… to lie down, or something.”

“You can lie down on the couch or I’ll get you a bed! I don’t think you should be walking home in the state you’re in.”

“No really, I’ll… I should go home.” He stood up and swayed, but Pidge quickly stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

“At least let me walk you there,” she insisted.

His house was just a few blocks down from hers so the walk wasn’t long, but they still had to take a few rest stops for Lance to catch his breath and steady his nausea. Mrs. Villanueva kindly greeted them and took Lance in, thanking Pidge for her help (and referring to her as ‘Katie’). Pidge walked back home and wondered what could have overcome her friend. His constitution had gone from perfectly fine to on his deathbed within minutes. She made it a note to check in on him tomorrow if she didn’t hear from him.

---

Mama Villanueva put Lance immediately to bed, completely tucking the blankets around him and leaving him with bottles of water, a sleeve of saltines, and a throw-up bowl. He had a feeling that whatever was wrong with him wasn’t some kind of flu or virus, and a dread gained weight in his chest that he’d have to tell the Holts what happened to him in their lab if he ever wanted to get better.

What if he never got better?

What if he was dying?

After several runs of overthinking, Lance eventually passed out from mere exhaustion. Not even his worried, rambling brain could keep him from the fatigue that soon overtook his body. He had stressful dreams of things chasing him, as if the mysterious sickness was something he could not run from or escape. When he awoke in the middle of the night, he was fairly sure it was a false awakening and he was still in a dream.

Because he was floating above his bed.

It wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened in his dreams but it started to get freaky when he saw his whole body was slightly translucent. And for whatever reason, instead of his sleepwear he was dressed in what he wore yesterday and his clothes were inverted in color. His jacket was now a pale frosted gray, the orange bands around his sleeves now a vibrant blue. His jeans became a light tan while his shirt and shoes darkened into a charcoal gray.

“Of course I’d dream myself as a ghost after worrying about dying,” he muttered to himself as he looked at his hands with a calm fascination. He also knew he was dreaming because the sickness that consumed his body before was magically gone. He knew if he had woken for real, he would have felt like death.

He tried moving to the ground and floated on down with ease, his feet touching the floor without a sound. He started to walk out of his room but then decided to try floating instead because if he was a ghost why bother using the energy to walk? He discovered he could do it without much thought, his feet hovering a few inches from the ground with knees relaxed as if he were making his way through zero gravity.

Lance was about to open his door but his hand phased through it, causing him to let out a startled yelp. He covered his mouth with his hand that wasn't halfway through the door and waited, listening to hear if he woke anyone up. He shook his head, realizing this was a dream and it didn't matter if he woke up his parents or siblings. Although for all he knew, in this dream world there might have been monsters or something equally as terrifying he did not want to awaken.

He returned his focus to his hand in the door. It didn't hurt but he could feel where the doorknob began through his wrist and where the door ended halfway through his fingers like a precise singeing upon his skin. It didn’t burn, exactly, but Lance didn’t want to linger through a solid object for too long.

"This is the weirdest thing…" He experimented by moving his hand in and out through the door through various parts, testing how it felt at different angles. He slowly made his way phasing his whole body through the door, pausing here and there with curiosity. It wasn't long after he passed through the door that a chilling sensation passed up his spine and caused him to let out a squeaky wheeze. Some strange feeling overcame him, urging him to go outside.

Now knowing he could phase through solid objects, he passed through the bathroom in the hall and straight to the outside of his house. He turned towards the street, completely silent and serene in the middle of the night, and saw a figure in the distance. Normally a stranger out in the street at three in the morning was a major red flag but Lance could afford to follow his dangerously unhealthy curiosity when it was only a dream. He might get chased and murdered by a serial killer with an axe, but he could phase through walls now so it might not be nearly as scary (at least that's how he justified it).

Upon hovering closer, he saw that the figure was semi-translucent as well, although the stranger had his feet planted on the ground like a normal person. Perhaps everyone in this particular alternate universe were ghostly. Lance must have spent way too long staring at the stranger because when he spoke it completely startled him.

"What are you doing out here?"

Lance struggled for a moment as his mouth worked but only sputtering came out. "B-bold of you to say that when you're out in the middle of the street in the middle of the night… in the middle of my dream," he added for emphasis, as if that mattered. "So what are you doing out here?"

"It's not safe out here, you should go back to your home," the stranger said in a kind but cautious tone. He was interesting looking and perhaps that's why Lance was staring so intensely before. The stranger had purple skin with darker stripes curving up his cheeks, his eyes an electric yellow with bright purple irises. Lance had to wonder if he looked just as strange but the color of his skin was its usual warm tone.

"My home is right there," he jabbed a thumb behind him. "So I might as well see what's going on."

"No, really." The stranger almost looked nervous. "You should go."

"Aww come on, do I really look that pathetic?" Lance scoffed, confident that he could handle whatever this dream verse would throw at him. He had played enough video games to improvise and figure out how to survive.

"Considering you no longer have legs, yes."

He stared at him in confusion for a moment, then dared to look down to see his legs were gone, a translucent ghostly tail curling down from his waist instead. "Oh! Wha… what does that mean?" This dream is turning out weirder by the minute.

"Either you're an emotional wreck or you have no control over your ghost powers. Or both," he answered flatly. "Don't you know you don't need your tail unless you're traveling at high speeds or maneuvering quickly through solid objects?"

Lance lowered his brows. "I- wh?- No. I have no idea how to be a ghost."

The stranger looked a hundred percent done. "You are a ghost."

"Yeah, just for right now in this weird dream. I always have weird dreams when I'm sick."

"This is real life. It's not a dream."

"See? That's exactly what someone in my dream would say!"

The stranger rolled his bright eyes. "Fine. Whatever. Die for all I care."

"Aren't we already dead? We're ghosts."

His eyes narrowed, his expression intense. "You… you aren't normally human, are you?"

"Of course I'm 'normally' human," he answered with air quotes. "What kind of a question is that?"

The stranger suddenly looked apprehensive. "You really need to go home. And stay there."

Lance placed his hands on his hips, his face turning into a frustrated pout. "You're not the boss of me."

He turned on him, his face only inches away as his voice tugged an urgency from Lance's chest. "Your kind are rare and there is a hunter out on the loose looking for ghosts like you. Believe me when I say you do not want to be caught. If you care at all about your own self-preservation you will run and hide. I can mislead him from your home but only if you promise to stay there."

Lance was silent a moment, his eyes wide as he tried to process the severity of his words, but something stuck out to him more than the imminent danger or the implication that he was no longer human. "Why would you want to help me?"

The other ghost hesitated but his answer felt sincere. "Because we're more similar than you think." His golden eyes moved to the house and back to Lance to indicate he should go back, and with that, he gave him one last look and flew away, out of the streetlight and into the darkness.

"… I guess that's one way for my dream to wake me up." He shrugged and hovered back towards his house, phased through the walls and went back to his room. As soon as he approached the bed, the same chill from earlier traveled up his spine except this time he felt it worse.

He had a feeling that whatever the stranger was running from had arrived.

And whatever it was, it felt like a horribly bad omen.

[cannibal-wings]

As per usual I have failed to stick to one question lmfao! In regards to the ask thing the numbers I have chosen are 1,3,5,6 and 19. Fandoms are Venom and Outlast.

Venom:1: What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?This one is hard right off the bat because I ship most everything in Venom RIP. I guess for movie verse Venom/Riot. I suppose it has the whole leader/subordinate thing going on, which could be appealing to some. And obviously there’s a power imbalance which some people like. I’d much prefer Drake/Riot. I guess in a similar vein, Eddie/Drake? Again, I can see the appeal but it’s not my appeal, at least not with these two.3.Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? Not for Venom, mostly because I only follow a handful of people and we all have similar tastes. HOWEVER I’ve def not followed someone because of posts I see in the tags. Usually people who bash Flash Thompson too much, or go on huge tangents about how Venom was “ruined” by being made an anti hero, or people who praise the current writer Donny Cates writing as amazing. I will also unfollow or refuse to follow anyone who gate keeps, especially in comics. 5.  Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you? Not yet! Not Venom at least. Fandom has ruined ships for me in the past in other fandoms. But Venom seems to be mostly ship drama free. 6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?Because I came into Venom so late and speed read everything so quickly I never got a chance to formally create ships before joining a fandom. I suppose I was never huge on like Eddie/Peter or Venom/Peter until I joined a Venom server and people were talking about it. 19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?I’d say Cates but he’s not in the fandom so he doesn’t count. I think with Venom the thing I hate the most is when people are unable to see the context of shipping Eddie/Venom through the years. When people label all of us “crazy shipping fangirls” (wow as a queer man that sure does feel great lmao) for speaking up for a ship that was canon and has had years and years queer coding and subtext. There is a small subset of people in the fandom, mostly on Twitter, who will disregard any opinion you have on the story if you ship Symbrock. As if a ship somehow makes it so you can’t formulate opinions or have reading comprehension. There are a few vocal people who claim that the shippers ruined Venom, ha, we’ve heard that before right? Or the people who claim we only ship it because of the movie. That it was somehow our fault retroactively that they made Eddie and Venom anti-heroes and that he was better off a one note character villain for Spider-Man to beat up. Outlast1: What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?I want to say Eddie/Way soooo bad but I get why people ship that. Silky variant ships always amused me. Usually it’s Silky/Pyro. Both of the characters have so little to go on that it’s hard to imagine any shipping that doesn’t involve 95% headcanon. WAIT NO I JUST CHANGED MY MIND. I saw Blaire/Lisa once and BOY I DO NOT GET THAT ONE. hahaha. 3.Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? Again, nope. Not really. I’ve avoided following people when I see their opinions in the tags. I’m very selective with who I follow to begin with. I will rarely follow multiple people in a fandom, and instead prefer to just tag dive and select content from there to like or reblog. 5.  Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you? I used to be ok with Eddie/Waylon but after the fandom ran it into the ground for a few years as the only pair being written about I developed an aversion to it. It also doesn’t help that much of the fic and fanart were on the same themes, same plots, and most of those plots were things I just didn’t care for. 6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?Most of the ships I hate in Outlast I continue to hate and I’m not sure fandom will ever make me swing in the other direction for them. You’d have to have give me some damn good evidence or like, a really nice fic.19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom? The Outlast game series tackles a lot of tough topics. It touches on a lot of really terrible shit. And I think if I had to pick a thing I hate the most about the fandom, besides all the people who used to or still say “yaoi” all the time... I guess I’d say the amount of people who don’t treat the subject matter of the games and their fic with the kind of respect they deserve. I could elaborate more on this later if anyone wants, but I feel very strongly that when you write taboos in fiction you have to give them the respect that they deserve. When you write darkfic you have to really understand the underlying messages in what your fiction is saying. So much thought should be put into some of the issues this game has. And I think as a fandom it’s out duty to do better than Red Barrels did at conveying and depicting these attributes. This is one reason I really, really, REALLY, hated when the fandom JUMPED to assign Val as a transwomen, because I don’t think many of the people thought through what that implies. And whenever you try to start discussion on it, or at least when you did, the fandom is dead now so I’d be hard pressed to find anyone actually starting “discourse” anymore, but people would jump in with a bunch of opinions that didn’t really relate back to how that headcanon could be bad in today’s current society.

[pcurrytravels]

Las Vegas - A Love Hate Thang (Chapter II: The Ultimate Paradox)

Something I’ve noticed about my hometown: This place really thrives off of paradoxes and oxymorons. 

Our outlook? Perpetually stuck in the future (*points at the innumerable mothballed construction sites dotting our local landscape*). Our attitude? Perpetually stuck in the past (You know, it would have been a good idea to start diversifying our local economy after how hard we were hit by the recession, but instead we went right back to putting all of our eggs in the tourism, gaming, nightlife and real estate industries)

Our demographics (in just about every area imaginable) look like gumbo these days. But don’t hold your breath on that explosion of flavors you were expecting, because culture-wise? We still taste like chicken noodle soup. 

“Minors are not to be anywhere near the slots, alcohol, nightclubs or any of the other sinful stuff!” Is that right? Then explain why all of the movie theaters, bowling alleys, video arcades and even high school graduations are located within casinos please.

“We have so much love for our local community!” Yeah, you speak so highly of us when the “needs” of tourists, conventioneers, celebrities and, well, literally everyone except the city’s residents are fulfilled first, effectively rendering us as second-class citizens within our own city. 

None of these things sound like they make any sense, do they? Welcome to Las Vegas baby!

I could come up with numerous examples to be honest. I mean, I have lived here for nearly my whole life, so I think I can talk, but the paradox I personally find the most disturbing is this: We love to act like we’re this world class, progressive and forward-thinking metropolitan area on par with places like NYC and L.A. when the truth of that matter is, we’re essentially an overgrown Western hick town that just so happens to have a giant theme park for adults in the middle, a lot of traffic, some fancy houses and more diversity than usual. 

When I first went to San Francisco back in 2011, I was in awe. There were so many things that shocked and caught me off guard.....in a good way. I won’t go into detail, but let’s just say they were all things that I KNOW would never fly here in Vegas, and yet we’re supposed to be “Sin City.” (And, although I didn’t see much of it myself during my excursions to these places, some of the people in this thread from Quora are saying that even NYC and LA are more lenient about a lot of these “sinful” things than we are these days. Can’t say I’d doubt it)

Yes, we are Sin City in terms of gambling and sports betting, alcohol, tobacco and now marijuana consumption, sex-related entertainment and services (and even then it’s all so sanitized and PG-13 these days it barely even qualifies), quickie marriage/divorce and a history with organized crime. Beyond that, however? Let’s just say we have a lot more in common with Arizona and Mississippi than we do with Amsterdam. 

Remember how in the first chapter of this series I told you all that I felt it was best to keep my thoughts and feelings about Las Vegans in general to myself? Okay, let me give you a tiny little sample: When talking to the typical Las Vegan, you’re more likely to be treated to the stereotypical thought process of either a flyover country redneck, a resident of a southern small town or a suburban high school student than you are that of someone who resides in a city with a global presence. Odd as it may seem, especially when this place’s international influence is taken into account, believe me, tis’ true. 

Having to constantly deal with such a smug, judgmental, provincial, insular and occasionally, dare I say it, behind the times populace is already exasperating enough on its own, but this is only further complicated by the relentless insistence that we aren’t. Not at all to say such a mindset is ever okay (nor am I saying that EVERYONE in these types of locales thinks and/or behaves in this manner), but at least towns and cities in flyover country, the old west and the deep south are HONEST about being stuck in their narrow-minded and prejudicial ways. 

Vegas on the other hand takes part in a charade wherein an image of being a forward-thinking and cosmopolitan metropolis is played up only to turn around and gag at the thought of actually embracing those same progressive ideals and values when no one’s looking. (Meta-Tangent: Mind you, we actually do have most of the ingredients to be that type of city already. The things we’re missing come as a result of having a populace that’s insistent on talking the talk but not walking the walk) Although I certainly don’t agree with it, I can at least respect the former to a point, compared to the latter which is just annoying, frustrating, and doesn’t make any damn sense. In layman’s terms, we’re total latte liberals. 

.......okay, maybe it’s not THAT bad. (Hey, this is called a “Love Hate Thang,” remember?)

There are certain pockets that are slowly evolving into the sort of environment that reminds me of SF and LA where things are more laid back and “free” if you will. See: DTLV/East Fremont, 18b Arts District, The Naked City, Huntridge, Winchester, the “Central” East Side if that makes sense, Charleston Heights, West Sahara (for the Las Vegans reading this: sounds general AF, I know), the Fruit Loop/Harmon Corridor, the University District, Paradise Palms/Maryland Parkway Corridor and (to a lesser extent) Chinatown/Asiatown. 

The rest of the city and the suburbs on the other hand leave quite a bit to be desired in the department of open-mindedness in my not so humble opinion. So it should be no surprise that I spend nearly all of my time in the aforementioned neighborhoods these days. I feel much closer to my element in these places than I do even in my home neighborhood/suburb of Spring Valley, most of which I don’t even touch with a ten foot pole ever since moving away. 

Meta-Tangent: Having grown up in Spring Valley and the Western suburbs, I know from experience that most people out there are DEATHLY afraid of venturing into any of these areas. A lot of it has to do with the perceived danger of them, despite all the evidence to the contrary (I know, I know, pretty general article, but given that I live here, I can tell ya: these murders, robberies, violent and sexual assaults have been occurring EVERYWHERE. However, a large amount of residents as well as our local media would be insistent in having you believe it’s all taking place Downtown or in the long-maligned northern, eastern and central portions of the city/metro area).

On the other hand, there’s also a lot of people who condescendingly put these parts of the city down just because they’re old, even though those horrible old houses they’re talking about are actually of far better aesthetic quality and much more structurally sound. Meanwhile, these same snobs are living in cheaply-built, cookie-cutter homes that were probably slapped together in a week and will likely start falling apart in five years. 

As for my honest opinion? These are only half-truths. I know for a fact that a lot of them are just being low-key racist and high-key classist/elitist. I also have a pretty strong theory that the strong hatred, fear and/or disdain people in the western suburbs have for these areas is because they know it’s a different world from the provincial, suburban bubbles they choose to live in. Oh well, that’s fine by me. Let those of us who actually are forward-thinking and progressive have all the fun. /tangent over.

Truth be told, none of this should really come as a surprise if you take a deeper look into this city’s history. Although, eschewing the thousand year legacy of the Paiutes, the modern-day origins of Las Vegas can be traced to Spaniards; being along the Old Spanish Trail and even being named “The Meadows” in Spanish due to the abundance of grassy meadows, hot springs and rivers in the area back then (all of which have long disappeared thanks to urbanization), the first permanent settlement here was a fort built by Mormon missionaries. 

That’s right, “Sin City” owes it’s existence to the same people with a stance on women that’s perpetually stuck in the 19th century, have beliefs that not-so-subtly imply black people are afflicted by the curse of Cain and wear very prudish undergarments (although the whole polygamy thing is probably what we have to thank for our quickie marriage/divorce culture). On top of that, while hidden from the naked eye, Mormons still have an active influence on the politics and overall society of this city with some very vocal moral guardians, always letting themselves be heard when things get “too” sinful. 

Oh, another thing: In the early/mid-20th century there was a place that was known as the Mississippi of The West. Where do you think it was? Utah? Arizona? Nope! It was right here in Nevada. They really did go hard with the Jim Crow thing here back in the day. Why, Sammy Davis Jr. couldn’t even walk through or have a drink in the same casinos where he performed to rave audiences for goodness sake. Now, that level of injustice and segregation is unheard of nowadays, but there’s many lingering signs of this era that can still be felt. They’re subtle, but they’re there. (Psst! The mascot of our local university was originally a confederate soldier. Seriously. In more recent years he’s been made to look like a cowboy instead but still)

Lastly, we grew from a small town in the desert where people from California and the Midwest came to gamble and watch showgirls to a rapidly growing metro area which plays host to a world-renowned resort, nightlife and fine dining destination that attracts people from all over the world. Almost literally overnight. Just about any Vegas native born before the late nineties can tell you stories of playing in the desert as a kid, including yours truly. All of us can remember when that housing development, Walmart, school, park, or whatever was a vacant lot. In turn, despite the growth, this leads to a fairly large portion of natives who are very much stubbornly stuck in their small town ways, many of whom are insistent on teaching their ways to their offspring unfortunately. 

The ingredients and the potential. We already have it. In terms of demographics, we’re a total melting pot. We’re located in one of the nine states where recreational cannabis use is legal and the only one where prostitution is legal (even though it’s not allowed in our county for whatever strange, puritanical reason). We have all the makings of a sexually-liberated, alternative/counterculture/subculture/generally non-conformist paradise. There is a growing and active community of creatives. And yet, a lot of this growth in the realm of free-thinking is borderline stunted thanks to the Mormon influence, the Mississippi-esque history and the small town attitude.

Alas, even though Vegas may be living proof that a  physical city can grow and change overnight, culture and community are two things that can’t change overnight, no matter how you slice or dice it. I regularly find myself pining for the Vegas of my childhood during the nineties; when it was far larger than a town but barely a city. I’d also love to experience Vegas during the 60s, 70s and 80s (minus the racism part, obviously), but at the end of the day, these are just frivolous ideologies. A more substantial wish would be that the local attitude and mindset finally catches up with the rapid population growth, urban development and all of the related side effects. My fondness for the neighborhoods listed above is a direct result of this desire I have. They represent what I wish all of Vegas could be.

As a new age and generation comes into play, perhaps this wish will be reality one day soon. Until next time. 

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles about Symphogear

AKA Allen’s Ramblings XXVI. Yes I know I still need to do the Seinen ramblings, they’re coming I swear.

Ah, Symphogear, probably one the most memorable anime I’ve watched… and one of the few series I’ve kept up with throughout these last few years. I… don’t really know where to begin with this. To explain the plot of Symphogear is… like trying to explain the plot of Blazblue to a certain extent… okay, not really, but it’s still hard. In a nutshell, it’s a magical show featuring idols, singing, dancing, guns, kung fu, and over the top shounen action. As for the plot itself… at least for season 1, destructive creatures called Noise exist in the world, destroying and corrupting everything they touch. It’s up the idol duo Zwei Wing to fight them off with mysterious relics known as Symphogears, magical/ancient technology that grants its users the strength to fight back the Noise with the power of song. Literally. These girls need to sing while simultaneously fighting, and they don’t just play some pre-recorded tracks of these voice-actors singing, you can hear the grunts, growls, and forced breaths as they sing and beat up bad guys and I just find that detail cool. Anyway, that tangent aside, the plot takes off from there. Going into further detail would be spoilers, and I personally don’t like spoiling shows and games when I do these tagged Ramblings, so… moving on.

Now, I got into Symphogear right around the time season 3 was wrapping up. I think I was seeing some gifs of the main character, Hibiki, doing kung fu moves against some Noise and I was still on my martial arts girls high from finishing up Nanoha Vivid at the time, so I checked it out. Then… then I found out the show had 3 seasons. And with shows that have that much of a backlong I tend to worry about how long it’ll take for me to get to the stuff I wanna’ see, being all the cool martial arts stuff. I had the same experience when I saw a gif of that Rin vs Luvia from UBW, only to marathon all Fate-related anime material. What can I say, I like context for my fight scenes. So I marathon all the original Fate/Stay Night anime, Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA ILLYA, and Unlimited Blade Works just to learn that fight scene was in an epilogue episode… then again, that turned me into a fan of the Fate universe and made Prisma Illya one of my favorite magical girl shows yet, so… I took a chance on Symphogear, praying that I got to see kung fu, singing, magical girls in season 1 and not suffer through three seasons of magical girl tropes and monster-of-week style battles before I got there.

Thankfully, I didn’t. In fact, I was really invested into the plot after episode 1. The stakes were raised from the get go and I was hooked. Throughout the first season I actually found Tsubasa to be the more interesting character at the time between her and Hibiki. She was a battle-hardened warrior that had closed her heart to others, even to her love of singing, to become a weapon that could destroy all the Noise that faced her after she witnessed her partner’s death. She was surprisingly antagonistic at first, wanting more to ground Hibiki into the dirt more than even talk to her due to her involve in said partner’s death. Well, I there go my lack of spoilers. What really hooked me though was the fact that this wasn’t a monster-of-the-week kind of magical girl show like I was expecting. I’ve said this before, but I tend to lose interest in monster-of-the-week shows very quick unless I’m really attached to the characters do the fighting. Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of tropes with a lesson-of-the-day at the end of each episode. Symphogear didn’t do this, instead giving a clear antagonist, being Fine, and making the show about learning her plans and eventually stopping her. Now, I know a few other magical girl shows that do this, but most those shows tend to be a bit darker than typical magical girl shows, and Symphogear was more or less playing it straight with the magical girl stuff. It was something I appreciated.

I’d talk about Chris at this point, doing that would really spoil the first season, so I’ll just say I liked her as a villain and foil to the main duo of Hibiki and Tsubasa. The show had subverted a lot of what I had expected, and it only got crazier from there after season 1. To this day Hibiki is still my favorite character in the show, perhaps one of my favorite female characters of all time, right up there with Mikoto Misaka and Cecily Campbell. She reminds me a lot of Asuka from Senran Kagura in a wau. She’d rather not fight any battles, goes out of her way to try and resolve things peacefully, but she won’t hesitate to defend herself or fight against what she believes is wrong and evil if pushed to do so. And I have a soft spot in my heart for Kirika after season 3, but… again, spoilers, plus I’d need to rewatch the show to go into more detail and I’m already keeping up with season 4.

Speaking of, I’m hyped to be watching season 4, it’s been real good so far, and I seeing some possible development for Chris and Team Neopolitan (thank you for giving us that name AXZ). I’ve got high hopes, but… I’m curious where things go from here.

…

…

…

Y’know, I’d usually end this little essay here, but… whenever I make an “Allen Rambles about X” ramblings and tag it I tend to break down things into what I specifically like and dislike, and it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t that, so… this’ll my first time do that for anime, but let’s talk about…

The Good

The Music

When I was talking about my musical taste in my Persona 5 rambling I said anything with brass and jazz would get me to [RETRACTED] all over the soundtrack. However, a good rock song has the same effect, and all of Chris’s songs just get me pumped up. I really like how every Symphogear has they’re own kind of theme and genre. Hibiki’s has a celtic/rock/pop sort of vibe, Tsubasa’s is traditional Japanese instruments with some rock elements, Chris’s has some borderline Daisuke Ishiwatari hard rock in them (just listen to Bye-Bye Lullaby for an example), and the other Symphogears are spoilers, but Shirabe is my favorite out of the newer ones, so I’ll just leave it at that.

The Action

Seriously, this anime just does all the crazy shounen action I love so well, especially all the kung fu stuff Hibiki does in later seasons. Again, Tsubasa is probably my favorite character in season 1 not only for her interest personality and story arc, but her fighting style was so cool in season 1. A samurai that can summon swords, do demon fangs, manipulate her sword’s size, it was all so cool. And that fact that she was probably the only trained fighter up until Hibiki got training in just made watching her fight a spectacle.

The Writing

I’m not really going to go in depth about the write of a show I watch for its action, but I like how Hibiki has stayed firm on her attempts at trying to settle things peacefully before nailing people with tetsuzankos and other moves she ripped from Akira Yuki.

The Not So Good

I usually do the flaws in more of a list since I don’t like being in depth about them unless they’re really big flaws so…

Season 3 was... a little lacking, and I didn’t really care for Hibiki’s character arc when [RETRACTED DUE TO SPOILERS].

Really... season 3 is the only season I had issues with. Nothing big, but just some small holes I could poke at since season 2 was just going to be real hard to top.

Uh... I guess season 1 pails in comparison to the production values of the later seasons, but... eh, that’s like saying Sonic 1 is worse than Sonic 3, kind of an obvious thing, and even Sonic 1 wasn’t that bad to begin with.

So yeah, Symphogear is just a good action show that subverted my expectations and continues to grip me. Again, got some high hopes for Season 4 as it continues, and I hope you all get a chance to enjoy too.

[spicynbachili1]

Review: Mid90s

A fairly good coming-of-age film that you have most likely seen earlier than

I’ve very distinct reminiscences of my twelve years attending an all-boys college within the Philadelphia suburban space and although it is a radically totally different state of affairs than what’s introduced in Jonah Hill’s directorial debut Mid90s, I could not assist however suppose again to that have. For that lengthy chunk of my life, I used to be surrounded by younger boys aspiring to be masculine in a fairly short-sighted method. That’s one in every of a number of themes and throughlines in Mid90s, which acts as Hill’s ode to 1990’s Los Angeles, skate tradition, hip-hop, and the struggles of adolescence.

It is a acquainted story, and anybody who’s ever adopted the indie film scene for nonetheless lengthy has undoubtedly seen movies of its ilk earlier than. Regardless of its familiarity, and what I felt was an abrupt ending, I discovered myself drawn to the way it depicted dynamics between youths, familial dysfunction, and abusive relationships. Mid90s can also be a wonderful showcase for 13-year outdated lead actor Sunny Suljic, who the gaming neighborhood will acknowledge as Atreus from God of Struggle. The boy’s obtained a vibrant future forward.

Mid90s Director: Jonah Hill Launch Date: October 19, 2018 (Restricted) Score: R

Stevie (Suljic) is not in one of the best household surroundings. Whereas he has an affectionate relationship along with his single mom Dabney (Katherine Waterston), he’s continuously subjected to bodily and verbal abuse from his hot-headed older brother Ian (Lucas Hedges). It is not till he observes a bunch of skater children that Stevie is impressed to go a distinct course, away from his unsatisfactory home life.

Regardless of the prominence of 90s L.A. skating tradition within the movie’s plot, it is not the first focus of the story. It is a car for Stevie’s coming of age story and an incredible and handy visible method to monitor his progress as he weaves his means deeper into the social circles of this sub-culture. Hill shot the movie in 16mm, with the picture having a grainy high quality to it and the facet ration being a boxy four:three, which at first looks as if a way-too-obvious technique to make the movie look “classic,” however is justified by the ultimate scene.

Lengthy story quick, Jonah Hill proves that he is aware of direct a movie with Mid90s. The visuals and modifying have been deliberate punchy, and complimented decently with a well-curated soundtrack and a musical rating composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross; it is a brighter and optimistic rating from their typical darker David Fincher fare. Regardless of the story itself delving into some acquainted tropes, the performing, dialogue, and general characterization as written and directed by Hill is what gave this movie some added texture.

I am prepared to guess that the majority People, no matter East Coast or West Coast, will discover no less than a number of the loosest and fundamental parallels with their childhood buddy teams and the group of skater boys in Mid90s. Stevie is introduced on by Ruben (Gio Galicia), who comes throughout as probably the most guarded and insecure one of many group. “I smoke, I fuck bitches,” this little child tells Stevie. We see his exterior start to peel off when Stevie goes towards a few of his items of recommendation and wins the approval of his friends, just like the timid filmmaker “Fourth Grade” (Ryder McLaughlin), the impulsive (and infrequently self-destructive) “Fuckshit” (Olan Prenatt), and Ray (Na-kel Smith), the de facto chief, who just isn’t solely probably the most expert skater of all of them, however probably the most mature of the group.

We liken adolescence to a time the place “issues have been easier” with fewer cares on the earth, however this movie actually goes into the center of advanced social dynamics between youthful people. I felt like each mixture of the characters amongst the skater group had a definite relationship to trace via the movie, and Hill crafts them with a subtlety that enables them to organically evolve. It felt extra restrained than one thing you’d see from a Concord Korine movie, however the unfastened, pure dialogue did have shades of Youngsters and Gummo. I did not understand this till studying up on the movie after watching it, however Korine did certainly make a cameo as a one-night stand for Stevie’s mom.

Talking of, my touch upon each mixture having their very own little arc additionally applies to Stevie’s household. Waterston comparatively would not have an excessive amount of display time as Dabney, however there was nonetheless a lot to extrapolate from our time together with her. We see Stevie mendacity down on his flooring, his mom on his mattress, as the 2 are proven to have common, presumably satisfying and profound conversations; she seems to be the opposite means although she is unsure of her son’s new crowd, which is all principally silently conveyed, and he or she solely intervenes when a sure threshold is crossed. With Hedges as Ian, there may be all the time a storytelling issue in portray abusive characters as too sympathetic, however the best way Ian is dealt with feels sensible, and the character is extra multi-faceted than I anticipated.

Below the layer of the coming-of-age story is one other throughline of a cycle of abuse. It is not precisely stated per se, however Dabney was not all the time the motherly determine she presents herself now, in response to Ian—there’s an implied abuse, or on the very least, dangerous negligence in direction of Ian by Dabney earlier than Stevie was born. It is evident that Ian’s aggressiveness in direction of his youthful brother stems from each the harm introduced on by their mom and a resentment for the higher remedy that Stevie is receiving. However regardless of his powerful exterior and his shows of machismo, there’s a temporary and stunning second of vulnerability, the place verbal jabs from Stevie have a significant impact. I am somebody who thinks that we have seen an excessive amount of Lucas Hedges recently, however I used to be welcoming in direction of this very totally different efficiency.

Mid90s depicted abusive relationships fairly realistically—regardless of some stunning photos (to not point out the sound results each time Ian might beat his brother), you see that their relationship nonetheless forces a co-dependency on one another. Stevie continues to be obligated to present a birthday present to his older brother, he nonetheless asks him for assist (although the recommendation is commonly questionable), and also you watch the 2 play PlayStation and Tremendous Nintendo video games collectively. Going with my earlier declare that the ending felt too abrupt, likewise, I additionally felt that this story thread wrapped up too cleanly.

On the heart, the movie is in regards to the want for acceptance, and Sunny Suljic shows a lot maturity in his efficiency as a child maneuvering his means into this skate group—it begins off as remark, then nervousness and uncertainty when he makes it into the circle. There are an entire lot of close-ups of his face, and I do not bear in mind the final time I noticed a younger performer specific glee, confusion, strife, and generally a sure darkness as effortlessly as Suljic. He undoubtedly has much less to say than he does in God of Struggle, and it’s clear from the get-go simply how helpful a software his facial expressions are for conveying emotion. It helps that the remainder of the performers for this skater group, who I discovered later have been principally composed of real-life skaters and non-professional actors, add a particular sort of authenticity and genuineness.

Regardless of my reward, I am not sure precisely rating this movie. Having gone to some unbiased movie festivals, notably Sundance two years in a row, there was some extent the place I felt like I used to be watching too-similar movies repeatedly, and the inner reviewer in my head ended up frizzled as a result of I had a tough time distinguishing totally different indies with overlapping themes. Though I am unable to spout too many titles off the highest of my head that provoke this sense of deja vu (the one ones I can consider is one known as As You Are, and possibly even Dope) I felt like I would seen such a film earlier than.

Heck, I really feel like I’ve even seen 90s nostalgia like this too. The aforementioned Dope, whereas it had a distinct vitality and did not truly happen within the 90s, was stuffed with 90s-ness. This movie is stuffed with acquainted posters, classic recreation consoles, CD circumstances and covers, and a scene the place Ian is straight-up sporting a Invoice Clinton rubber masks, in case you by some means forgot what decade you have been in. Should you’re already affected by 1980s fatigue, no less than the last decade after is ripe for the choosing. Fairly quickly, we’ll have a resurgence of mainstream movies like The To-Do Checklist.

However that is an excessive amount of of a tangent, I suppose. I hesitate to present the movie too excessive a rating as a result of I do not suppose it should relate to everybody who will see it—I discovered it very particular and relatable primarily primarily based by myself experiences grappling and battling ideas involving masculinity, abuse, and social acceptance. It is a male-dominated movie, and whereas there are characters who really feel very actual, their relatability will fluctuate in several levels relying on who you ask and what experiences that they had. I’ll say, nonetheless, that the film is entertaining and humorous at occasions, and even so, Jonah Hill exhibits promise as a storyteller—he is undoubtedly matured from Superbad.

You’re logged out. Login | Enroll

      Mid90s reviewed by Chris Compendio

7.5

GOOD

Strong and undoubtedly has an viewers. There may very well be some hard-to-ignore faults, however the expertise is enjoyable. How we rating:  The destructoid opinions information

        from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/review-mid90s/