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ellelans · 3 years ago

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You made a tag comment about how Buddie wasn't planned from the beginning. And therefore what we got in Season 2 wasn't (at the time) the groundwork for a love story. I agree completely! Much of it I can see as either a bit of fun (the Christmas elf, the instagram girl) or that kind of hyper-masc heterosexuality that loops around itself and becomes gay (Buck's whole...thing with Eddie in the beginning, the focus on Eddie's body/hotness/physical appearance). But sometimes I step back and look at the whole and I'm all 🧐 🤔.

I don't even know what I'm asking lol. Would just love your thoughts/feelings on the confusing spectacle that are Buck and Eddie in season 2. And when/how/why did the show change their mind?

Thank you so much for the ask and you know what? Let’s talk about it.I recently had an in depth chat about this pretty unpopular opinion with a friend and I tried to explain to her why I don't see buddie as an actual pairing or having any canon potential until early s3 and why I don't believe they were planned from the beginning.This will be long and all over the place of course lol

The first and the most obvious reason is the way 911 deals with main characters and their romantic arcs.They don't actually drag it on for long because there is no need or time for that since every single main character has a strong storyline of their own and any romantic development between any pair as an additional combined storyline. Relationships happen fast on 911 because they are planned ahead and the only relationship that took longer than usual few episodes was Chim and Maddie and they were already kissing and planning a date in 2x11.

Also when shows enter their second season there is never a way to predict how long it will stay on the air and because of that it is impossible for me to believe that buddie was planned as some epic old school slowburn that is nowhere as close to be resolved after 3 seasons.When I say old school slowburn I mean shows that have this one heterosexual romance at the center of the universe that is usually stretched across seasons and builds up sexual tension between characters and it takes literally years for them to finally get together.We have these two characters that where made for each other and you KNOW that they will eventually get together because of some ridiculous pining that will eventually end in a kiss and everyone will scream and cry.And maybe that’s how buddie feels to me now after years of careful build up-but the way I see it they as a potential something didn't happen in s2.

We all joke about how character introduction of Eddie is the gayest we have ever seen and Buck's reaction to him as true bisexual and I do that myself too because I am a bisexual too and tbh its hard to unsee (also I don't want to) but lets remove our rainbow glasses for a second. What really did happened in that scene? Eddie's perfect abs on display,Chim and Hen fun comments on how beautiful he is,Bobby's praise and bragging about getting Eddie and his Silver Star on the team and Buck's insecurities flaring up as a reaction to all of this.Buck immediately feels threatened.At this point we of course have no idea how deeply his insecurities run or why,but as episode progresses we witness Eddie on his first call making a better decision to how to handle a medical situation and backed up by Bobby.It has sort of a devastating effect on Buck,who suddenly starts acting like we have never seen him before.Then there is a that scene at the gym where Buck tells Eddie how he is his problem. And later we of course have the scene in ambulance when Eddie asked what exactly they are measuring. Because that's what it looked like - a usual macho men measuring context. But the thing is 911 doesn’t toxic masculinity when it comes to main male characters and we saw many examples of that already by then,but the biggest one was supposed to be BuckandEddie. Equals,partners and best friends.

911 was already pushing boundaries with cast,characters and relationships diversity and I strongly believe that what they wanted to show us was a male equivalent of what we are used to see in female bffs -a different kind of a friendship between men. Men who care about each other,who talk about feelings,discuss sex,dating or why they don’t,who again openly acknowledge that they find each other attractive and giving advices on how to take a more flattering selfie,who are not afraid of crying, admit they are struggling or heartbroken or loving their kid.Honestly when was the last time any of us saw a male friendship like theirs?Men are not allowed to be like that on TV (I am still shocked that its a Fox show tbh) and especially with each other.We are not used to see such a development so no wonder people started paying attention-which was what writers wanted,of course.

But that also brings us to that important question about queer undertones,subtext and do what we actually see in s2. Are there queer undertones?Absolutely. Subtext?It’s right there but you will probably not get it unless you’re reading between the lines.Before we get to Christmas Elf,there was ‘’He is cute!/He gets that a lot,you should’ve seen his kid...’’ Maddie and Buck scene that is once again reinforces that Buck finds Eddie attractive and it shouldn’t be a surprise because we already know from 2x01 he has eyes - but they mention it AGAIN and that personally made me raise a brow or two.By the time we get to that Christmas episode,we already have Shannon back and Buck finally moved on from Abby with Taylor and then Ali and then we are given another queer coded scene-with Christmas elf.And its very cute and to an average heterosexual viewer its a nice little joke,but any queer watching that scene was probably taken aback a little.

So why imo did Tim&Co do it and when they realized they can actually see where they can take BuckandEddie and when they started becoming buddie?My answer is ship teasing.It’s what a lot of people actually mistake for queer baiting,but we are not talking about that rn.Ship teasing works like charm and if shows can get away with that-they will totally use it to their advantage.It’s usually not always malicious,but it IS always intentional because that brings in a category of people that were overlooked for a long time-online fandom.Now I have seen some opinions that fandom doesn’t really matter,it’s the ratings that count and that is NOT TRUE.You can have your ratings,but if there is no buzz online?Your show is going nowhere.For at least a decade now every self-respecting production has teams to monitor fandom activities because it gives them better ideas about how consumers(fans) are interacting with their product (show).Fandom is important because we generate the buzz.So I do believe that BuckandEddie and that sweet ship teasing were to get a certain part of the fandom pay attention.

I wasn’t here when S2 aired so I don’t know if that was the case,but it is obvious that these scenes I talked about above made fans pay a LOT of attention. And maybe that was the reaction writers needed to start changing course from ship teasing to start building up to something else.They maybe didn’t plan it at the very beginning and on paper,but lets also not forget the insane chemistry between Oilver and Ryan,which imo is another big reason-it's impossible to ignore.

Because S3?Is light years away from S2 in terms of BuckandEddie-they became buddie.In s3 Buck and Eddie become each other’s significant other,they are in a primary relationship. ’’Buck invites Eddie...’’?!!!!! It is not yet romantic and probably won’t be until ending of s5 if we are lucky-but it is in your face,they are not subtle anymore.I personally saw buddie only at the end of 3x03 when Eddie came over and said that there is noone in the world he trusts with his son more than Buck, looking like he did into Buck’s eyes,while ‘Photograph’ played in the background right before Buck’s overvoice about being seen and found and a raft to bring one home. After S4 ending tho...we all know that something is about to happen and its like there is electricity in the air as we are waiting for s5!

Probably a lot more thoughts than you expected,but I have many feelings about these two and when buddie goes canon this post will become completely irrelevant lol 💖

#what i was trying to say #is that s2 still can be read as heterosexual #but s3? no way #s3 was different #it was impossible to ignore that something is going on #911 #buddie

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aspoonofsugar · 5 years ago

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Johan, Tenma and Nina: “I am You and You are Me”

Hello anon!

Thank you for the ask!

In order to properly analyze Johan though, rather than focusing only on his relationship with Tenma, I think it is important to explore his relationship and foiling with Nina as well, so I hope you won’t mind if in this meta I explore her too.

As a matter of fact, I would say that Tenma, Nina and Johan are the three main characters of Monster and Nina and Tenma’s respective relationships with Johan are equally important to the final outcome and to define who Johan is.

I would also add that it has been a while since I read Monster and even if I will reread some parts for the meta, I am sure I’ll forget many details and subplots which might have added something to this analysis.

This meta will be divided into four sections.

- The first will explore the relationship between Johan and Nina/Tenma and how the picture books convey it.

-The second will say what Johan’s symbolical meaning is within the story.

-The third will be an analysis on who Johan really is (at least a hypothesis).

-The fourth will be a conclusion.

PICTURE BOOKS: TENMA AND NINA’S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MONSTER

In order to better flash out the relationships between Johan and others I will use the picture books mentioned in the story. I have already talked a little of these books in this meta:

The pictures books which are shown in the series are all pretty important both for the themes and for describing the relationships among the three main characters.

When it comes to Nina and Johan’s relationship, the book which mostly describes it is The Nameless Monster.

In this book there are two nameless monsters who represent the twins. They go in different directions searching for a name i.e. an identity or who they are. This symbolizes how the twins have lost their memories and don’t have strong senses of identity because of their past. However, they reach two opposite solutions. On one hand, the monster of the East who symbolizes Johan possesses a young boy and takes his name. However, in order to stay into the boy’s body he starts killing all the people close to the boy. Basically he creates a situation where, despite him having a name, nobody can use it. This is because the monster’s identity doesn’t lie in a name, but in him accepting his lack of a name (so Johan must accept his past) and in building relationships with others. On the other hand the monster of the West who symbolizes Nina accepts that he is just a nameless monster. This fits with the fact that, ironically, while Johan is always called Johan by the other characters, Nina is called either Nina or Anna and both names are true. What is important is that Nina doesn’t let her past define herself as much as Johan and that she finally accepts it and is able to forgive Johan because of it. Interestingly, the parallels between the twins and the monsters stop when it comes to the ending. As a matter of fact in the book the boy kills the other monster and so he effectively becomes a nameless monster since he lost the only person who truly knew him. However, in the series Johan never kills Nina. She and Tenma become two people he ends up not killing and so they end up saving his life and they give him a personhood by the virtue of simply knowing Johan.

Other than the Nameless Monster, three other picture books are mentioned. They are The Man with Big Eyes and the Man with the Big Mouth, The God of Peace and A Peaceful Home.

In the current meta I will not consider the last one which is mostly about Bonaparta’s redemption (it is the one about an evil magician who goes to a village to steal from the people, but ends up helping them) and is thematically linked to the idea that humans can change. I will instead focus on the other three.

I have already shared some thoughts on the book The Nameless Monster above, so I will now focus on The God of Peace.

While The Nameless Monster is important for Nina and Johan’s foiling, The God of Peace is important for Tenma and Johan’s relationship.

It is clear that the plot of the story calls back to what happened to Tenma.

The God of Peace is a deity who tries his best to make everyone happy. What is more, he is characterized as a father figure since he gives names to the children:

However, at one point a kid called Johan gives the God a hat and the God uses a mirror for the first time. This leads to him seeing that his own reflection is a devil. He realizes that there can’t be peace with such a Devil and kills it and, in this way, kills himself as well.

This is a metaphorical representation of what happened to Tenma. As a matter of fact the story starts with this question:

Tenma decides that all lives are equal and this is why he saves Johan instead of the VIP he was ordered to operate. The result of this is literally Tenma’s rebirth as a doctor. He is glad of what he has done and with time he is able to build a hospital without corruption where lives are treated as equals. After ten years from the operation Tenma lives in a blessed world where everyone is happy and where acting in the right way only delivers good results. His second meeting with Johan destroys this illusion and shows that Tenma’s currently idyllic situation came at the cost of many lives, that his superiors died because he wished they did in front of a sleepy Johan and that if he had just gave in to the corruption of his superiors a “monster” would have died.

In other words, Johan forces Tenma to realize reality is more complex than what he would like and starts Tenma’s existential crisis. This crisis leads Tenma to doubt his own ideals (is it really true that all lives are equal? Wouldn’t Johan’s death mean a lot of others will be saved?) and to try to kill Johan multiple times. Symbolically Tenma killing Johan would mean that he gives up on his ethical code and on his mission as a doctor. It would mean that together with Johan Tenma would be killing a part of himself as well and it is this specific part of himself that has been helping so many people. In order to kill the Devil Tenma must also kill the God of Peace.

In other words, Tenma finds himself facing an impossible dilemma and in this dilemma lies the main theme of the series which is conveyed through the third picture book.

In The Man with Big Eyes and the Man with the Big Mouth, two men are offered to make a deal with the devil. The man with the big mouth accepts, while the man with the big eyes refuses. As a result, the man with the big mouth has a very enjoyable life, but towards the end of it he realizes his mistake and regrets his deal with the devil. Now, usually one would expect that the man with big eyes has the opposite destiny. He might struggle in life, but will finally be rewarded in the end. However, this is not what happens and in the end the man with big eyes is just as miserable as the man with the big mouth. He regrets not having made a deal with the devil and it is by that point that the devil returns:

After Nina hears this story she is asked this:

This is not by chance because this short-story perfectly conveys the apparently dead-end the characters are all facing.

They can either refuse to buy into the ideology that different lives have different values or accept it. If they accept it, they end up corrupted in a world which is sad and dark. However, even if they refuse it they must accept the existence of someone like Johan who openly challenges the ideas of justice and of empathy. So, what should they do? What does the story mean? What is the solution?

The short story conveys a pessimistic moral. There is no way out and in the end everyone will surrender to the devil and lose hope.

This vision is a nihilistic one and nihilism is linked to this:

It is the “vision of the doomsday” Johan keeps talking about. This scenery comes up numerous times:

The first scene is the scene you asked about. There Johan looks Schuwald in the eyes and asks him what he sees. In this scene the scenery of the doomsday does not directly appear, but Johan invokes it with his words since he describes a reality of solitude where only he and Nina existed and had no names. This is a reference to their lives starting with the Red Rose Mansion incident up until when they were found by Wolf. By this point the reader knows nothing and probably Johan too has fragmented memories, but he is talking about the Three Frogs incident where their mother gave Nina up to Bonaparta (a town out of a fairy-tale), the Red Rose Mansion massacre (many people died) and Nina and Johan’s journey towards the border (my other self and I held hands and walked...we were the only two people in the world...and we had no names). All of these experiences end up being summarized and artisticly conveyed in other moments through the imagery of the vision of the doomsday which represents the absolute end and nothingness.

Wolf (in the second scene) sees it before dying and calls it the land of the nameless.Having a name in the story is symbolic of having an identity and this means mostly that someone knows you. If nobody can’t call your name, then you do not really exist and there is no proof of your existence. Relationships with others define the person to an extent and the land of the nameless is a dimension where all these relationships are lost and the individual is alone in front of nothing. It is a place full of solitude. This landscape is symbolic of Johan’s mind and of his vision of the world.

Before going on, I will like to highlight one last thing about the picture books. I have mentioned that the book A Nameless Monster seems to be a reference to Johan and Nina’s relationship, while The God of Peace is a reference to the bond between Johan and Tenma. This is true and especially evident, but what is said in both books is true for both Nina and Tenma.

As stated above, for example, in the end Johan is saved because of his relationship with both Nina and Tenma and not just because of the one he has with his sister.

At the same time, what is said in The God of Peace is true also for Nina and not only for Tenma. After all, there is this:

Johan repeats the Devil’s gesture to both his sister and Tenma in different moments. Nina also states this:

This is a direct reference to what happens in the story since Nina claims she will kill Johan and then herself. How does the story of The God of Peace fit Nina and Johan?

It has to do with their opposite coping mechanisms.

On one hand Nina removes her most painful memories. This is why she has forgotten about the Red Rose Mansion and later on she forgets about Johan and her attempted murder of him. In this way she protects herself and her idea of being “pure” and “righteous” somehow.

This is coherent with Nina’s initial strictness about justice I have discussed here:

Basically, she goes from an idea of justice which is extremely strict and merciless to an idea of justice which is intertwined with empathy and which refuses death penalty. She is also a character who starts out not believing that a person can be redeemed and ends her arc by forgiving her brother and believing that even he can find redemption. This is her arc in a nut-shell and the chapter the Fifth Spoonful of Sugar touches all of these ideas.

And it is made clear in scenes like this:

Nina is scared that remembering her trauma will make her a monster. She needs to believe that she did not assist to any massacre and that, if she did, the event left no scar on her. This is obviously impossible and this is why when she remembers what happened she showcases an unusual violent side and even presents suicide tendencies.

On the other hand Johan attaches himself to the few memories he has and, because of his own frail identity, ends up accepting as his own even Nina’s past. Basically, Johan is so scared of losing that little sense of self that he has that he has made Nina’s memories his own.

It is telling that in the beginning both twins are so sure of their respective roles in the Red Rose Mansion case that they barely question them. Johan is sure to be the one who saw people die, while Nina is sure that she is the child who waited for Johan safely at home. This can suggest that the two siblings had developed specific roles in their dynamic and that, to be more precise, Johan was the one who took upon himself the role of protecting his sister and the role of a devil, while Nina took upon herself the role of victim and of being “pure”. In short, they have both uncounsciously embraced a narrative in order to survive. However, these roles are clearly too simplicistic to describe the complexity of the situation and of both siblings and Nina’s journey is also about realizing this.

In summary, Nina has been using a coping mechanism thanks to which she has been able to repress everything negative that happened to her. Her brother is the link to these events, so her quest to find him and to understand him leads to her uncovering her lost memories.

This is why the metaphor of the God of Peace and of the Devil fits Nina and Johan as it does Tenma and Johan. Both Nina and Tenma were able to live peaceful lives at the price of forgetting or not realizing the truth about Johan. Johan is in other words a Jungian Shadow to the both of them and this is why they can’t kill him without self-destroying.

To finish this section, let’s underline that the three picture books we discussed have all grim endings and that all these endings were negated or subverted by the main story. In the end Johan did not kill Tenma and Nina and so he could continue to exist and did not become a nameless monster. Nina and Tenma did not kill Johan and so they did not kill themselves. Finally the Devil’s tempation was avoided.

AN UNINTELLIGIBLE DEVIL: JOHAN AS AN UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH

I don’t think that your struggle to understand Johan is by chance because all in all I don’t think Johan is a character made to be completely understood. Rather he is a character written to challenge both the readers and the characters to understand him. After all, the essence of Monster is the search for Johan. By this, I mean both the physical search for Johan since he needs to be stopped, but also the search of what made Johan Johan. Why is Johan the way he is? What motivates him? Was he born a monster or did he become one? And why?

The point of Johan is that there is no answer or maybe there are so many answers that it is difficult to find a definite one. This is why both Nina and Tenma in their investigations keep discovering things and offering answers only for those answers to be readily subverted.

For example, when Tenma discovers about Kinderheim 511 he believes that Johan has become who he is because of the ruthless mistreatment he received there. However, he soon realizes that even before that place Johan had already killed. That said, this does not mean that Kinderheim 511 had no effect on Johan whatsoever or that he is not a victim of that place. Johan is a victim, but the way he acts can’t be explained or excused with his victimhood.

Later on, Nina suspects that her brother has a double personality who forces him to commit crimes. However, this turns out to be false as well. This does not mean, though, that the lines Nina has read and which say “Look at me! Look at me! The monster inside of me has gotten stronger” are not true for Johan. They are and, even if Johan does not have any double personality, he still has an identity problem which is at the root of his behaviour.

Finally, both Nina and Tenma think that the root of Johan’s trauma is that he was given by his mother to Bonaparta, was brought to the Red Rose Mansion and assisted at the deaths of many people. However, even this explanation turns out to be false since it was Nina and not Johan the one who saw the massacre. That said, even in this case, their mother’s choice and the massacre at the mansion have had a huge impact on Johan, but not in the way everyone expects. What is more, even in that case, his behaviour can’t be excused and can’t be completely explained since Nina went through similar experiences and reacted differently.

In other words, to quote a character from another franchise:

In short, what is upsetting about Johan is that he does not let the characters or the readers find simple solutions and his presence brings up distressing truths. What is “evil”? How do you behave in front of someone who embodies the essence of evilness?

This is why Johan is clearly associated throughout the narrative to the idea of the Devil, while Tenma is clearly associated to the idea of God. Where Johan kills and destroys, Tenma helps and cures.

This is why their fight is symbolic of the battle between good and evil and at the same time, it can’t be solved with one killing the other. As a matter of fact Johan does not want to kill Tenma, but wants to kill what Tenma believes in. At the same time, Tenma killing Johan would mean the defeat of his ideals.

Basically, Johan is not a character easy to empathize with. Don’t get me wrong, people will surely empathize, but even in that case, I think they will mostly empathize with fragments of his story, rather than with the entirety of it and with all its contradictions. This is because he is written in a way which makes him difficult to process.

Maybe it is because of this that, in the end, the fact Nina and Tenma are finally able to empathize with Johan is something which turns out incredibly important for their development and the focus stays on them in those moments to the point that we never get to properly see Johan’s POV and how he reacts to this empathy. To be honest, we can’t even be sure that Nina and Tenma are right in their conclusions even if the story highly implies so. As a matter of fact Nina and Tenma’s moments of realization are moments which present Johan filtered through their own eyes and them finally understanding the “monster” lets them finally understand themselves.

In Nina’s case:

She arrives at the conclusion that if she had just forgiven her brother back then and probably seeked help, she could have avoided everything that happened later. She reaches the conclusion after seeing Bonaparta’s drawings, remembering the man’s words and remembering Johan’s tears in the past and imagining his present ones.

Once she reaches this understanding of her brother she is ready to forgive him and she actually wants to. Nina’s arc is great because it shows that forgiveness does not equal redemption. Sometimes there is redemption without forgiveness (like in Bonaparta’s case since it is implied Johan has not forgiven him), while sometimes there is forgiveness without redemption (Johan has done nothing to amend, but Nina still forgives him).

In Tenma’s case, his final understanding of Johan comes in the very last chapter and it is this:

I would like to highlight that this scene in itself is ambiguous. Is Tenma dreaming? Or is Johan truly talking with him? It is not clear, but in the first case we can say Tenma has finally understood the truth behind the mystery Johan is, while in the second case we have Johan finally opening up about what hurt him the most.

In both Nina and Tenma’s cases, it is important that their understanding of Johan is radicated in their understanding of themselves. Nina is Johan’s sister and so she must understand him as a sister, she must untie and solve all the ambiguities and misunderstanding of their relationship and uncover the past they share. Tenma is the doctor who saved Johan’s life and clearly Johan has laced on him as to a father figure, even if in a twisted way. Because of this, it makes sense that in the end he is the one who realizes how much his mother’s choice has affected Johan.

In other words, Johan is a mirror of both Nina and Tenma and his elusive nature is what keeps the story together thematically. The story asks what a monster is and if the answer were simple the story would not be so captivating.

In the end both Tenma and Nina “defeat” the devil, but they do so not by killing him, but by refusing his nihilistic logic. They have managed to free themselves from the devil’s constant tempation. Even if the life of the man with big eyes is difficult the only hope lies in fighting against evilness and injustice through a correct behaviour. If one leaves that path they will only suffer and lose themselves.

This is also why the final image is so powerful:

Johan disappears once again and we, as readers, can only hope he will use the second chance he was given in a positive way and not to start another cycle. That said, this is something we can’t be completely sure of as we can’t be sure of evilness completely disappearing from the world. What we can be sure of is that it is necessary to resist it.

“LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! THE MONSTER INSIDE OF ME IS GETTING STRONGER!”: THE EMPTINESS BEHIND THE SCARY MONSTER

Let’s consider this:

This scene shows Wolf giving Johan his name and how he indeed was inspired by the Picture Book the boy had with him.

This is important because it shows how Johan’s identity ends up being strictly intertwined with those picture books. In a sense, Johan is the fruit of those books since he ends taking the name “Johan” used by different characters in those books, repeats the books’ lines in an obsessive way and even ends up unconsciously reproducing the stories in the real life. He does so by repeating specific lines and latching onto situations which resemble the ones he read in the books. For example, he identifies with the nameless monster of the books and tries to cope with the emptiness he feels inside by joining different families only to leave them and discard them once they are not able to fill the emptiness he feels. He identifies Nina as his other self, just like the Devil and the God of Peace of the books and repeats the devil’s lines to her. Once he finds Tenma aka an incredibly altruistic and selfless person who ends up saving his life he starts unconsciously replicating the same dynamic with him. He tempts people and manipulates them like the Devil of The Man with Big Eyes and the Man with the Big Mouth. It is actually interesting that Johan ends up always identifying with the devil instead than with other characters, but this can be partially explained by the fact that devils and monsters are the most recurrent characters in the books. This might be why Johan aka a child with a very frail sense of self ended up projecting on them specifically as characters appearing often and being constant. This might also be why he specifically latched on the name Johan which is often used in the books. In general, he develops a vision of the world which is pessimistic and nihilistic and which is the one conveyed by the book he was taught to study and to read.

This is important because in this way Johan becomes the heir of Bonaparta’s vision before his change of heart, while Nina who was shown a glimpse of love and of hope becomes the heir of Bonaparta’s ideals conveyed in A Peaceful Home.

What is interesting is that Johan’s emulation of the picture books became so severe specifically because of him not having a strong enough sense of self hence his necessity to latch on to things and to other people to define himself.

This is made clear since when his mother had to choose one of her children over the other. In the end, one of the reasons why his mother’s choice left such a huge impact on him was because he was not sure that his mother really intended to save him instead of his sister. Behind this doubt hides the fear of not really existing as an individual and of simply being a part of a set to the point that even his own mother is not able to distinguish him from his sister. This is a feeling which could probably be born because of the horrific childhood he and Nina had. As a matter of fact they were not given names and were treated like weapons by the people around them. What is more, the twins only had each other when it came to important relationships between peers.

This frail sense of self combined with the very strong bond Johan has with his sister leads to him confusing her memories for his. When it comes to that, this is interesting:

This is a glimpse of what used to happen in Kinderheim 511 and it is shown that some experiments there damaged people’s memories. This might be why Johan lost his memories and why in an attempt not to forget his sister he ended up making her past his. All in all, it is not clear when exactly Johan started confusing his memories with hers and it might have been before Kinderheim 511, during it or even after Nina shot him. The point is that the scene above shows Johan’s strong wish not to forget the person whom he defined himself through and how this wish is at the root of him twisting his memories.

What is interesting is that throughout the years Johan started reproducing a series of crimes which can be connected to his own trauma and to Nina’s one. On one hand he started killing parental figures and eliminated all the people who cared for the siblings through their journey. This is a response to the betrayal he felt towards his mother who gave up on one of her children and later on left them both behind. On the other hand he started organizing massacres to emulate what happened at the Red Rose Mansion.

These repetitive actions give birth to a pattern Johan himself is unable to leave. He is trapped in his own past and so he keeps reproducing it together with the fairy tales he used to read as a child.

This behaviour underlines a contradiction Johan has. On one hand he wants to develop relationships with others and this is why he keeps searching for new parental figures. On the other hand he is not able to properly have relationships which are not manipulative or exploitative. All in all he is never able to make “the monster inside of him” rest. This restless monster who keeps getting stronger is not really his violent side, as Nina thinks at first, but it is nothing more than the emptiness he feels because he does not really understand who he is. He can’t give any meaning to his life and so he keeps searching for one, does not find it, accepts nihilism and repeats. In a sense, he fails in his search because he has already given up on it before starting it. He has already accepted the vision of the doomsday.

CONCLUSION: GOD, DEVIL AND HUMAN

This analysis showed how Tenma, Johan and Nina are all connected and how there is a constant foiling among all three of them.

1) Tenma and Johan represent respectively the “God” and the “Devil” meaning that their respective philosophies challenge each other and embody “goodness” and “evilness”.

2) Nina and Johan embody two opposite reactions to a traumatic past. Nina completely removed the bad things, while Johan stayed attached to them to the point that he made his even Nina’s. None of these reactions is completely correct and this is why Nina went through a painful journey of self-discovery to retrieve her memories.

3) Finally Nina and Tenma are two people who start parallel journeys to find Johan and end up saving each other in these journeys.

As a matter of fact Tenma saves Nina in the beginning when he saves Johan and prevents Nina from becoming a murderer, while Nina saves Tenma from the same fate at the end when she stops Tenma from shooting and encourages him to save her brother.

All in all, it is interesting that throughout their journey they both try to kill Johan, but are against the other doing it as if they could see clearly that this action would negatively affect them:

So, in a sense Nina and Tenma too are mirrors and they can see their own pain and confusion in the other.

This last point is interesting also when it comes to the teological motif concerning Tenma. As a matter of fact Tenma represents God within the story, but at the same time his struggle and indeciveness are incredibly human. He never loses himself, but he is about to many times. So Tenma is both “god” and “human”. We can also say that he is a specific ideal incarnated in a human who has to face the fact that this ideal is not so easy to follow and to apply in the human world with all its contradictions. This is also true because of society incarnated by Lunge (a justice blind to the truth) and Eva (the corruption within society). It is not by chance that because of these two characters Tenma ends up becoming a suspect and is persecuted by society when he himself is trying to protect it. In a sense, Johan is able to act so freely precisely because he acts in Tenma’s shadow. Tenma ends up being Johan’s opposite when it comes to his relationship with others because while in the end very few people are left knowing about Johan, a lot of people know Tenma’s name. These relationships (or lack of in Johan’s case) are for both characters double edged swords. On one hand Tenma is initially suspected because of his relationships with others. For example his relationship with his superiors and with Eva puts him in a bad light. He is a man with positive and negative bonds and this is why he can be suspected of a crime, while Johan can’t and avoids imprisonment because of this. On the other hand Tenma’s relationships are also what saves him multiple times and in the end bonds are also what defeats Johan (the bond between a father and a son) and what saves him (Nina and Tenma’s bond with him).

In short, Tenma is a God made human, while Johan is a victim turned into a devil. Then who exactly is Nina? As @hamliet commented, Nina is humanity who must choose between the two ideologies offered to her. This is why, while both Johan and Tenma remain loyal to their respective philosophies from the beginning of the story to the end, she changes.

Comparing the beginning with the end makes it clear. The story starts and ends with Johan asking a person to shoot him in the head and with Tenma operating and saving Johan. The variable is Nina who starts the story shooting her brother and ends it by encouraging Tenma to save him. This is particularly beautiful because in the end it is thanks to the “human” aka Nina that “god” aka Tenma does not lose himself and wins. In the end the fight between these two forces is decided not by who is stronger, but by the people each one of them is able to influence.

Thank you for the ask! I am sorry for this very long ramble and I hope it is clear enough!

#naoki urasawa's monster #monster #monster meta #naoki urasawa's monster meta #johan liebert #kenzo tenma #nina fortner #anna liebert #my meta #asksfullofsugar #anonymous

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ganymedesclock · 5 years ago

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Ghirahim and gendered expectations of sensuality

So, as people who’ve seen my previous Zelda posts might gather, I have a mixed relationship with Skyward Sword. On the one hand, I think many of its characters have tremendous potential. On the other, I feel like the game largely did not live up to that potential, and in some areas, it feels rather deliberate. But suffice to say, elements of Skyward Sword have meant that certain characters- Batreaux, Groose, Fi, and Ghirahim are not far from my mind.

A brief primer, for those who might be unfamiliar: Ghirahim is the main antagonist of Skyward Sword, and a bit of an aberration in the common Zelda formula, which tends to introduce a ‘decoy’ or “lieutenant” antagonist who dominates for most of the game and then bows out towards the end as the prelude to the true final boss- usually Ganondorf, in Skyward Sword’s case, it’s the demon god and a figure we are clearly supposed to scan as Ganondorf’s divine progenitor, Demise.

Ghirahim is quite openly a harbinger of, and servant to, Demise- where he breaks script is by being extremely proactive. We run into Ghirahim in most dungeons in the game, where he is not waiting idly for us, but doing actions that veteran Zelda players might recognize as comparable to Link’s: he breaks into dungeons either chasing Zelda, or chasing information that will allow him to proceed. We also have not one but three different fights with him, personally, and several other times he concedes that he doesn’t have time to play with Link and instead sics a boss monster on him.

The other thing about Ghirahim is, I will outright say it: He is written as a caricature of a predatory queer man.

He’s shown to be literally bloodthirsty, and presented by the narrative ostensibly as someone who has a sinister, perverse interest in both Link and Zelda, a contrast to their saintly, chaste union (which is supposed to read as a union; pursue a romantic sideplot with Peatrice, another girl in the game, and Fi will pretty much openly admonish you for cheating on Zelda, saying that Zelda wouldn’t be happy to know Link’s seeing someone and that Link should know that)

This is, really, a bit jarring, when Ghirahim’s actual dialogue suggests that he has very little interest in Link and views him much like a butler tending the master’s house while the latter is away might view a feral golden retriever that’s running loose in the place and getting mud on everything. His emotional range runs from warmly patronizing to exasperated to a truly dangerous degree (since, in this metaphor, the butler has also been tending the master’s house in near-total isolation for something like several centuries not having real conversations with the other servants and nobody’s at their psychological best in those situations even if they weren’t implicitly born and raised to murder).

Basically: that Ghirahim has no real interest in Link- not his body or appearance or anything. In his own dialogue, he seems confused by the idea that he’s at all interested, is apologetic that he’s wasting his time or dawdling and in his final scene, offers a genuinely flummoxed “you... who are you?” He offers colorful, violent threats, but when Link obstinately faces him again, he’s shown to be almost embarrassed and disgusted by them, and tries something else that almost no Zelda antagonist does: on multiple occasions, he tells Link to just walk away from the situation with what appears to be every intent of letting him go.

Ghirahim does not want Link for himself. He seems to, begrudgingly, against his own intentions, value Link as someone to fight against, but this connection does not actualize within the story- they are not really rivals. He isn’t even that deeply fond of the idea of Link’s blood, though he’s a proponent of blood as a vague concept.

Now, I like Ghirahim. I don’t think that even the read of Ghirahim as a queer man is a terrible one. But it definitely is interesting the lens in which Ghirahim’s implicit sensuality is cast. Basically, he is depicted as creeping on Link, without any real sense that he wants Link. Because it isn’t about what he wants- it’s about that implicitly he has a sexuality, and the idea of a man who might be attracted to other men is threatening, evil, and scary. Ghirahim wasn’t made queer-coded for representation’s sake. He was queer-coded to suggest he was depraved and motivated by a sinister lust. And the cruelty of this depiction is I think made immediately clear by- Ghirahim’s actual interests, passion, or preferences do not factor in here. That Scene Where Ghirahim Does The Tongue Thing is about how it is expected to make the player feel, and how implicitly Link feels.

What is Ghirahim’s type? Does he consider Demise beautiful? He makes it pretty clear he considers Link a brat. These are questions that aren’t asked, because it’s wrong that Ghirahim seems to have any sexuality at all- and, since Link is our lens and our guidepost for how we’re supposed to feel about characters, if Ghirahim behaves in a sensual manner it happens to Link, and to Zelda, invasively. Even though it is shown he feels no desire for any of these people, so that sensuality basically comes across like the game is firmly expecting us to find the idea of even an e-rated sensual male antagonist repulsive.

This led me down a very odd sort of rabbit trail.

Because Ghirahim- a bit indirectly- is inspired off a figure skater.

Specifically, Fi’s design was stated to evoke a figure skater, and we even see her ‘skating’ in several of the cutscenes. Ghirahim’s design matches Fi’s quite strongly; they were designed to be two of a kind.

I am not, myself, a figure skating buff, but a while ago, I happened across youtube videos of a skater named Johnny Weir.

Quickly, you can see the sword spirits’ inspirations; the close-fitting leotards, the lithe, acrobatic capabilities.

But here’s the thing about Johnny Weir: this is a guy putting on a sensual performance that is not a gross-out, a joke, or a threat. It’s basically impossible to find nothing suggestive in his choice of backup movement or the movements he makes running his hands along his body- his costume even asserts these more with the mirrored details on his gloves. This is a dude, acting in a way you could say is objectively sensual even if it may or may not stir every viewer given the individual nature of preference.

But there’s a world of difference to Weir’s performance. Not just that this is a voluntary choice made by a real person, while Ghirahim’s choices, even if they have in-game logic, are largely about Link and about the player- but Johnny Weir is having fun. He has a charming energy to him and is performing to a song he loves.

Watching Johnny Weir, it occurred to me, that regardless of Weir’s own orientation- that I do not know and will not speculate on- there’s a preconception around “being sexy”. Women are seen as supposed to be sexy (but, in many circles, not too sexy. Can’t insinuate they know what they’re doing, or have opinions and tastes...), or, more, “sexy is seen as a job that women do for men specifically.”

So, to homophobic audiences... a man deliberately enacting a sensual performance- a sense of what sensual looks like from a dude- is seen as weird, wild, and out there. If you’re not shocked by the implications that Ghirahim may be attracted to men, may be into Link, may be into the idea of torturing Link- then a certain amount of his writing kind of falls apart.

And comparing the way Ghirahim is animated and shot to Johnny Weir’s performance, it’s kind of... weak? Like, at one point in Weir’s routine, he lifts one leg and slides his fingertips down it in a smooth stroke from knee to thigh. It’s a steamy looking move, and this coming from someone who is so prodigiously ace I thought sexual attraction was made up for the first seventeen years of my life.

Ghirahim does not do that. He’s got thigh cutouts in his very close-fitting outfit, and has lines in his second fight about his body and how beautiful it is, but he does not make these movements that deliberately catch and draw the eye along the planes of him.

To me, I feel like besides this being a general affront against real queer people- the Zelda games have a concerning habit of depicting “eccentric, effeminate” men as either neutral characters or open villains and virtually always with this air of being the brunt of a joke (it’s very hard to imagine ALBW’s Yuga was designed by someone who earnestly loved this character)- it is also a bit rude to the character of Ghirahim himself.

Because Ghirahim, at the end of the day, is someone who ends the story heartbroken literally and figuratively. The entire game, he is driven by loyalty to Demise. He does not care who he hurts or threatens- and this comes back to the seeming implication that he is somewhat bloodthirsty, but vastly plays up his appetite for torture. When he thinks his goal is out of reach, he continues slogging away at it anyway, but listlessly. Everything he does, is for Demise. He is devoted enough to, late in the game, throw himself on Link’s sword for the third boss fight purely to stall for time until Demise revives.

Demise does not speak to Ghirahim, or acknowledge him, or even seemingly notice or care that by the time he comes back, Ghirahim’s metal heart has been torn open by being repeatedly stabbed by Link. (third boss fight is not kind.) Instead, he rips Ghirahim’s sword form out of his chest.

Ghirahim is a danger to Link, Impa, and Zelda, because he attacks them, and his own subordinates, because he threatens them. But to his master, he’s just a disposable pawn. This is a character driven by passion such that many of his poses and scenes show him nearly breaking into an actor’s soliloquy as he explains something to Link- and this is one way he does seem to like having Link around: he craves an audience.

And his passion is, in two ways, depicted as completely futile. First, in the dubious amount of oo scary gay man, watch out Link, he’s doing something weird with his tongue- and second and far more seriously, that everything he works for leaves him with nothing because his life never mattered for a second in the eyes of the person he lives and dies for.

Ghirahim is made a sensual character, but in a manner that feels bad faith- that feels like it has not thought about male sensuality in any direction besides “that’s wrong and icky, so we’ll attach it to our villain, who we want to be wrong and icky, and absolutely not suggest there’s anything particularly sad about what happens to him. His fault for being wrong and icky.”

#Legend of Zelda #Ghirahim #homophobia discussion #readmore

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a-little-slice-of-fandom · 4 years ago

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hi! genuine question here: I saw birds of prey and I loved it, but I didn’t pick up on any hints of romance between Helena and Dinah. would you mind talking about those moments and why you ship them? I’d love to know because aesthetically they WOULD be really cute together and i’d love some backing to ship them properly. hope you’re doing well 💕

Hello lovely!!! ❤️❤️❤️I’m doing great, thank you so much for asking! I hope you’re keeping well too sweetheart

Firstly I’m so glad you enjoyed Bird of Prey, but honestly I totally understand not picking up any moments between Helena and Dinah. because I honestly didn’t pick up on any either until I was rewatching clips of the film days after my first viewing. I also don’t think that there’s anything world-shattering between the two, but I do think there’s something there.

The first thing I’m going to do is point you to this video, where Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Helena) and Jurnee Smollett-Bell both acknowledge that there’s something between their characters, and it may go more than friendship (some argue they’re talking about themselves and not their characters here but I don’t buy that. They feel like their talking about huntress and canary, not themselves). I think this confirmation from the actresses is key because Dinah and Helena aren’t on screen together much in the first place and without it their relationship could just be seen as two very different women trying to strike up a friendship (which isn’t a bad thing, not at all, in fact I find it a very refreshing angle that isn’t often explored between women) but the confirmation shows that the actresses acknowledge the chemistry between their characters and that they do see potential between the two.

I’d also just quickly like to take a moment to comment on the relationship between these two characters in the comics. While DC doesn’t know what the word “consistency” means, these two often don’t get along well. They don’t necessarily hate one another, but they don’t see eye to eye a lot of the time This is usually due to differences in character. Dinah is usually a more traditionally heroic person and Helena is much more of a rebel (obviously this is very simplified) and this usually leads to conflict and rivalry between the two that they have to overcome in some way.

(Again this is very oversimplified and I obviously haven’t read every single comic with these two in it. I’m just going off what writers often do with these two)

However, BOP doesn’t have this rivalry between Dinah and Helena because they are different versions of the characters. Helena is more awkward than aloof and Dinah feels like she doesn’t play by the rules as much, which means there’s no cause for the rivalry and their dynamic is very different, which is why I get romantic vibes from them. In fact, one of the first thing that Dinah says to Helena is “nice” and we consistently see Dinah try to compliment Helena.

Now I love this take on the two so much. It is so much more feminist to have two characters who are very different still get along and respect each other from the get go than force them to work through these differences.

Does Helena get off on the wrong foot with Dinah? Yeah, see the whole “I don’t have rage issues” bit. But you can see in the way Dinah reacts to this that she doesn’t find it rude or offensive, she finds it weird and maybe a bit endearing. Plus, once Helena realises that Dinah isn’t messing with her and is genuinely trying to strike up conversations with her, her entire demeanor changes. Look at the way Helena holds herself around Dinah before the fight in the abandoned circus and after. While this change in demeanor may also be because Helena is just generally more comfortable in a fight, I do think she has generally become more relaxed among the birds of prey and Dinah.

The main part that I always point to is the diner scene at the end of Birds of Prey. Although the camera tries to mainly focus on Harley, there’s a lot of interesting background moments between Helena and Dinah. When Harley is getting the drinks, you can clearly hear Renee say that Helena was “very impressive with that bow and arrow” and Dinah instantly jumps in and corrects Renee, saying “it’s a crossbow.”This then leads to possibly the cutest exchange in the whole film, where Helena is clearly very grateful thanks Dinah profusely, while Dinah simply repeats “I’ve got you”. In a matter of hours, these two have established a clear respect and understanding of one another and I really do believe that they’ve got some chemistry here. Again, the camera is trying to make you focus on Harley here but rewatch that scene, all I’ve said here does happen in the background and its just...adorable. And again, later in the scene we see Dinah trying to compliment Helena once again and Helena trying to repay the compliment,, specifically commenting that she likes Dinah’s trousers.

Is all of the above reaching a little? Maybe. But BOP also confirmed that Harley was bisexual within the first five minutes, had Renee be openly queer and had two queer coded villains so...is it really impossible that they also tried to incorporate something between Huntress and Black Canary? I really don’t think so. In fact, I think BOP was a really great film for incorporating queer characters but not having everything be about being queer or making a big deal out of it.

#Birds of Prey #birds of prey (2020)#harley quinn #helena bertinelli #huntress #black canary #dinah lance #enya discusses: birds of prey 2020 #ask #ask answered #anon ask #anonymous ask #anonymous #anon #birds of prey (and the fantabulous emancipation of one harley quinn)

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stickykeys633 · 4 years ago

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Changing thing up a bit @capricornsicle, that other post was becoming unwieldy.

You think you’re on a crusade to expose fandom racism and bias in Teen Wolf, but in doing so, because TW is such a specific beast, you make assumptions and add unnecessary hyperbole to your arguments.

You’ve assumed and ran with the idea that I’m white (many do, which is strange since my icon is a black woman) and you’ve treated me a certain way because of it. But then in the same breath you’ll say there’s inherent bias against Scott McCall, a character that many people saw as white played by an actor who is white passing.

There’s also this underlying statement that any majority of people see Scott as Latinx and automatically make it a negative thing which again, isn’t true, specifically not in Teen Wolf.

I’ve found the antis like to take black racism experiences and try to fit Scott into that category, but even a small thing like colorism makes it so it’s not equitable.

that’s a general statement about fans and critics alike holding characters of color up to a higher standard than white characters. It’s not everyone, it’s certainly not an attack on anyone, but it happens a lot, across various fandoms. White characters are much more often forgiven for the things they do than characters of color who do the same things.

This doesn’t happen with the frequency you think and in the Teen Wolf fandom when it does happen it is rarely if ever in regards to Scott. Other, more evident characters of color yes.. And the wild examples that the antis present are never equitable. Even when presented with context, they often have to padd it and stretch it to make it seem like some infraction has been done. What it does is seek to absolve Scott of ANY wrong doing, when really there is fault laid at both parties.

I’ll provide a couple of examples in the moment, but the bottom like is that Stiles/Derek/Peter stans acknowledge their faults and many times love them because of it. On the show Scott was never given the chance to acknowledge his faults, the show refused to admit that he needed to grow and be redeemed of anything. This was a misstep because he became unpalatable, not as a perfect icon, but as someone whose actions didn’t hold relevant consequences.

The Donovan Incident

Now, I disagree with some key points, but overall I think this is the most important part:

They fought, like teenagers do, especially teenagers who have gone through that kind of trauma, and then, in 5x13, they’re talking outside a gas station, and they talk and get over it,

If everyone could agree that this happened, this would be a much better place. But antis will not chalk up the experience for the contrived nonsense it was and become so enraged when people blame Scott that they can’t let it be and suddenly we’re all racists.

Which, using racism as a tool to sooth butthurt is not okay and we see it time and time again. They take every seedling and think, “how can I add racism to this so I get my way?” which is pathetic, but also sullies the impact of real racism on the show.

During this time Tracey was murdered, Mason was non-existent, they killed Noah and Lucas sent Kira to the desert and left her there. But being mad at Scott for intentionally misunderstanding Stiles is what’s racist? This is why antis and SDP Stans constantly bump heads. Everyone has been in a friend group where some new interloper comes in and riles things up. Usually trying to steal someone’s man, but you know there are certain things you do when that happens and Scott made ALL the wrong moves. He knew Stiles didn’t trust Theo and openly disliked him, it should have been an immediate red flag when Theo started in with Stiles violently killing someone in cold blood. Additionally, I would have LOVED if the show made the connection to Scott still being traumatized by Nogi, but again, the show made it seem like Scott was JUST FINE! and again, a disservice was made to his character.

The point is that a not insignificant number of fans label Scott as a constant bad friend, as someone who’s always a bad influence on Stiles, and that’s really not the case.

People who label him as a constant bad friend use this as ONE example of it. I actually questioned their friendship after Motel California. I remember there were a couple of beats that made it clear they weren’t sandbox buddies, and probably met in the community little league (was it little league or soccer that they met Theo? I forget?). There have been several instances of them not being as close as they claimed.

If Stiles can be forgiven for throwing lacrosse balls at Scott (which really fucking hurt, speaking from experience) and keying some random loner kids’ car to get him beat up because Lydia kissed him

Just a side note, Stiles was havign his fun, yes, but Scott was completely complicit in these scenes and knew 100% what was going on. Stiles was helping Scott by testing his tolerance and helping him control his heartbeat and yes they did it in bonehead teenage boy ways, but there was nothing malicious or racially motivated about it. Talk about holding characters to different levels. You’ve all made the white characters irredeemable supremacists when nothing in the canon alludes to this.

a few antis forgive Stiles but condemn Scott. And that’s because of racial bias that makes those particular antis hold Scott to much higher standards than his white friends, which is a nice way of saying it’s racism.

Which again, is wrong in that you have absolutely no way of quantifying this for every viewer. There’s no such thing as special Scott centric racism. If someone is racist, they’re going to show it against anyone not white on the show, and that’s simply a) not the case and b) impossible to determine from the asks of one anon and some misinterpreted fic.

Liking Scott isn’t pro-POC, no, but it is tied to racial issues in Hollywood, popular media, and fandom. Scott being Latinx (despite the fact it never comes up, he’s played by a Latinx actor and is undoubtedly TV’s favorite “ambiguously brown”) makes him connected to racial issues.

But it doesn’t, because Teen Wolf was specifically created as a world without color so coding Scott as race-neutral meant that audiences had the choice to view him that way and many did. I mean, look at the show, he has two white Italian actors playing his parents, his last name is McCall and his mother’s maiden name was Delgado which could mean anything. Jeff had a habit of casting white women with Latinx last names they got from a gracious step-father, it’s not a leap to say this was true of Melissa. This is why I refuse to give the show any representation points. Diversity sure, they’re there, but they’re not well represented and again, this neither starts nor ends with Scott McCall.

Liking Scott is something that a lot of viewers of color end up doing

Again, not entirely true. Liking Boyd? Yes. Deaton, Morrell, Kira? Yes. Scott? Sure... the response to Scott from Latinx fans was varied in interesting ways. Some went up hard for him and while I don’t acknowledge the show’s version of Scott, I write him as half Mexican in every fic. There are some who, like you, were so excited to see someone like themselves and that’s beautiful and awesome. There were also some that started excited but then were like “oh, he’s playing a white boy” which people like to forget was VERY much a thing. There was no reason to think Scott was white and in fact when Jeff received the Alma award, it was for casting Posey and not necessarily having a Latinx character. In the beginning of Teen Wolf he was actually asked if Scott was white (the phrase they used was “All American” which...), And there were still others who hated Scott instantly and thought he was wack and did NOT see themselves in him.

So even within the Latinx community alone there were several opinions. Now spread that out to hundreds of thousands and then millions of viewers. So when you say “Liking Scott is something a lot of VOC end up doing” you’re creating a value based judgement on the idea of liking YOUR version of Scott McCall.

Which isn’t fair and isn’t correct.

YOU ended up liking Scott because YOU appreciated the interpretation. No one can take that away from you. But when you cast this net of racism, you’re gonna end up with a lot of things that don’t fit the term and a lot of people mad that they’re caught in your web of racial bias.

if it’s the burden of POC to fight for representation tooth and nail, then that’s the fight I’ll be fighting.

Part of it is that sometimes I worry that if I don’t post about them, if I don’t post gifs of them and talk about them and make them be part of the teen wolf tag on this site, no one else is going to.

We talked about this with your first post. Generally I’m sympathetic, but I do take issue with your methods. Yes, I’ve seen those gif tax posts and I love the concept, but... tax is something you pay in the exchange for something that you want. I don’t see POC characters as tax and I get it’s just a clever way to name what you’re doing, but I think it makes it so negative when celebrating the POC characters should be an enjoyable and inclusive thing.

If you feel alone, it’s because you haven’t reached out to anyone. I know a lot of creators who make content for characters of color, The problem is that when you accuse people of focusing on white characters in a show FULL of white characters and cover them with a blanket of systemic bias, you’re alienating a lot of people who don’t want the drama.

Someone just released some ao3 stats of POC characters in Sterek fics verses TW fics as a whole and Kira was sadly underrepresented, showing up in just under 45% of fics. My answer to that isn’t to scream at Stereks about how racist they are against Asians. Instead, I wanna have a Kira appreciation event, but until I can, I make sure to write Kira into my fics because I love her. I repost gifsets with her in them, I comment and seek out people who create for her and support them and if you approach some creators, the’re happy to be amenable. I’ve left comments on fics asking for a certain character and sometimes they rightfully say no, but sometimes it’s not a problem and the change is awesome.

I feel like the bulk of antis have an idea in their mind and don’t give anyone else a freaking chance. And then, when anything negative is said about Scott, they go awf like SEE!!?!> RACISM!!!!!! when it’s honestly not the case. The anon doesn’t represent even the minority of the majority of stereks. Tumblr doesn’t, ao3 doesn’t, twitter doesn’t. That’s why it’s so much less stressful to find out ways to insert diversity and representation rather than browbeating others to do it out of shame.

There’s this perceived bias that worms it’s way in that simply doesn’t exist at the levels you think it does. Because not only are you assuming that people dislike the characters of color because of their color, but also that they harbor negative feelings.

But, as we’ve learned from K-pop fans, it seems white people are much more willing to enjoy and put out East Asian representation than representation of people darker than them

Kira was undoubtedly brought in to bring a more Asian audience, but again, racism isn’t a pick and choose kind of thing. People who hated Kira and love Scott do not see Scott as Latinx. And Kira has more posts by a small margin mostly because she was there and she had a family and large ties to the plot. Not because kids loves k-pop (which wasn’t even that big during her run).

And THIS:

Boyd is stereotyped as the big, buff Black guy who’s aggressive and athletic (but almost never seen as the brains of the group, despite his intelligence,xxx and comes from a poor background and answers to an assertive white man without question

Boyd was specifically not stereotypes as aggressive and athletic, and in all fanfic is usually the one who reasons and is most level headed. He came from a poor background, but so did Isaac, and he questioned Derek and Scott. This is what I mean, while I agree that it’s your interpretation, you can’t say it’s a universal interpretation and then judge others because of it.

The only time I care is when people specifically dislike Scott because of perceived affronts to Stiles and/or Derek, and I say “perceived” because I refer specifically to ones those specific anons and antis take completely out of context, blow out of proportion, or just make up.

Lol, again, your perception, because I can give you several canon based reasons to be upset with Scott, but of course you’ll find a way, no matter how tangential to twist it, because he’s your fave and canon is a mess. This is the freaking point. Let people have their stories. It’s not hurting you if you also add in yours.

I do not believe it is possible for a 16-year-old to consent to a romantic and/or sexual relationship with a 24/25-year-old, but this post isn’t about that

Please don’t believe that you’re the first person to try this argument because you’re not and also Derek was at most 23 when Stiles was 17 (and to make it more interesting he was 19 in the original unaired pilot, but they aged him up so Kate wouldn’t be full on statutory rape, good times!)

https://stickylovessterek.tumblr.com/post/151831687742/sterek-is-not-pedophilia

Now you might not like it, and that’s totally fine and valid. But age has no basis in their relationship. I’m more interested in power dynamics, which is why I didn’t like Aria/Fitz on PLL or Marrish (which I could have been on board for, but this show is trash).

with perhaps me as Stiles, you as Scott, and the anon playing Theo during his villain phase circa season 5, trying to turn two people against each other over a larger ethics debate

Well, no, clearly I’m the Stiles since I’m right (i kid, I kid), but honestly, you’re the one putting the anon in this. I’ve been ignoring their hyperbole and we’ve been telling the antis to pick and choose and be discerning with their posts. That has nothing to do with me. If we’re Scott and Stiles then it’s one of us talking and the other not listening and doing theings they’re own way and the fact that both of us have different ideas as to which is which is really part of the fun.

But it’s not racism.

#reblog #uggh #I was trying to make these shorter #I have an actual book to work on!#discourse #anon

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neven-ebrez · 6 years ago

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Meta Writing: "Finding balance as a television viewer and academic, a look at viewing under the narrative lens versus the psychological lens"

I’ve spoken on Supernatural’s utilization of a mirrored narrative to tell the repressed story of its main characters many times. My blog is full of these essays and discussions. As a meta writer for Supernatural, this is what I've focused on writing over the years because I found this to be where the complete “full picture” of the story of the show was to be seen. If Sam and Dean weren't openly talking about their issues then one could simply look at the monster/victim character foils within the MOTW episodes and listen to them talk where Sam and Dean either wouldn't or couldn't. If one wanted to understand the main characters and their situation better, the show practically forces one to do this. Or rather, I should say, I felt it forced me to do this. And for a long time I got used to looking at the show through this type of narrative lens, where practically everything told the story of something else. I wasn't looking at Charlie Bradbury anymore, I was looking at a narrative mirror for the issues of Sam and Dean in 9x04, where the witch symbolized codependency and Dorothy wasn’t a woman trapped by her own mechanics, but rather a sounding board for Sam and Dean trapped by their own.

I must say, it's not a terribly fun way of looking at the show, but I thought, back then, a practically necessary one. Supernatural is post modern, after all, and frequently has episodes pointing out its own function as a story. Robbie Thompson did this a lot (9x18 is forever one of my favorite episodes) and I remember someone asking Robbie about the mirrors of 8x11 on Twitter back in the day, where 8x11-8x16 represented one of the most blatant romantic coded arcs Dean and Cas has ever been given in the structure (as viewed through the "narrative lens", but I'm getting there!). The person asking Robbie what his intent with the mirror was was clearly viewing the show the way I was (with the narrative lens) so I was curious as to Robbie's answer. And when Robbie did answer, I remember being disappointed. He told the person, "That's just how I saw the story of Charlie and Glinda." This was a recognizing of the what I’m going to call the psychological lens (the surface, real life), but not the narrative one. No acknowledging of how they functioned in that arc as a narrative mirror for Dean and Cas, nothing. I felt that as a writer using such a structure it was almost his duty to at least acknowledge it. But it was like... none of them ever did. Supernatural clearly used it, hell, still uses it, but it's only ever mentioned in passing, in showrunner interviews and the like.

Probably every documented case of anyone with creative content creation control referencing it (the mirror narrative) is on this blog. Back then, I was very obsessed with validating what I was seeing in any way I could. It was like figuring out a secret, a mystery, a truth I absolutely knew to be real and then gathering as much evidence as I could to prove it because people were telling me that I was wrong and I knew I wasn't. Stuff like 9x15 even bent characterization to cater to it, to sometimes the complete confusion of the actors. And so that's what meta became to me. Using the narrative lens I viewed and wrote on the narrative structure at length, writing standalone essays on the matter, discussing it in threads and speculating using the structure to extrapolate how likely certain plotlines were. Sometimes you're right, sometimes you're wrong, but usually not about the big stuff, the stuff a season was building towards. The longer I studied the show the better the better I got at recognizing its patterns of repeat. And for minds like mine, with autism, which are best suited for pattern, these patterns just come so naturally. For me Supernatural is honestly so predictable, for many reasons, the most of damning of which is right in the structure and its inability to go past a certain point.

I say this word a lot, "structure". My family hates it. What I really mean is its overall design. When I talk about the structure of a car I'm talking about how it looks: the color, the features, the durability, the points of safety, whether it drives smoothly or not. Things like that. When I talk about the structure of a story I'm talking about how it looks as well: how it is paced, the significance of the characters involved and whether they and the themes involved within the story itself "teach" the main characters anything, what relationships are formed and how they transform each individual character, (and for visual mediums) the overall visual presentation of light/color, how the setting visually informs what the characters are doing or saying, what the characters are designed to learn through the show pointing out such steps in various ways and then cleanly implementing traditional arcs that change them in some way (usually to betterment, but not always). All this is structure, a story's design. Visual mediums like theatre and television have an obvious visual element meant to be incorporated, designed to support (and not work in place of) the story being told. Analyzing a book is not the same thing as analyzing a television show. Analyzing a television show is much, much more complicated. Books contain one author and one editor (usually). Intent and meaningful storycraft is usually easy to decipher. If design in detail matters, the author provides that information. Television, on the other hand, involves hundreds of people refining and creating on a tight deadline. This makes deciphering meaningful story intent particularly tricky.

Discussing the structure, the story telling elements, using that knowledge to speculate or write essays giving a reading of the text (what the term “meta” generally refers to) is what we'd call viewing the show through a "narrative lens", or rather, in the case of television, a "television lens". It's when you watch the story and realize that you are not looking at real life. This is easier for something like cartoons (moreso when humans are completely absent), but a little harder for the brain to actively distinguish when looking at something that could *almost be real* (as in, live action people in a familiar setting). Understanding how fictional rules are different from real life is only half the story though because real life must be accounted for in visual storytelling. I’ll explain what I mean because I’m not talking about behind the scenes stuff. Since being sent an ask about the current state of the meta community (which I still occasionally write for but don’t personally follow anymore aside from following my friends @mittensmorgul and @elizabethrobertajones) I’ve been thinking about this a lot. The fact that we’ve lost a lot of voices over the years as a community of narrative academics is, I think, the root of the challenge currently facing the meta community. With so many lost voices and angles there's a significant sort of echo chamber that begins when you get people together that all view the show through the same lens against a lack of diverse readings. In this case, the narrative lens and the Destiel reading. You see, the problem is the show, as it exists now, isn't always so rigidly written through the narrative lens like it was in Carver era, it's now written primarily through the real life lens. I find this to be especially true in Dabb era showrunning.

Regarding the meta writing community and the fandom's two main shipping sides, there’s also a huge disconnect, fostered over YEARS of discord in acknowledging subtext designed by writers for both factions, both readings, and, of course, the arguments over intent (which is usually unknowable unless a public record is made and even then a lot of academics ascribe to “Death of the Author”, particularly given the collaborative nature of television production, so...). Wincest subtext gets scoffed at or ignored, derided for not standing a chance at being canon by the Destiel side and the Wincest side often mocks the Destiel side in such a profound way (pun intended) as to suggest (or outright say) the subtext isn’t even there at all to mean anything in the first place (which is ridiculous). Again and again I also see (and it's never really worded this way) a disconnect over the lens the show is viewed with: narrative (televison) vs psychological (real life). The most major arguments I see are between fans watching for the Wincest reading and using the psychological lens versus fans watching for the Destiel reading and using the narrative lens.

There’s rarely any common ground between these two distinct groups, with the Wincest psychological viewers acting more as critics than providing anything resembling essays of their own. Maybe they are out there. I haven’t seen them. Most “good” Wincest meta died out relatively early. We, as a viewing and academic community, are a house divided in so, so many ways, even on each side of the chasm. Maybe I have no right to make this post. I don’t know. I don't like things that treat fandom like it's something to be picked apart and examined. This kind of examination makes me... uncomfortable. I keep thinking about that ask the other day asking me what is going on in the meta community though. So I'm going to try and tackle it. The fact is... we are not a whole and we are not supposed to be. That’s the point. Getting a single exact read off any text, let alone getting a group of people on the same page to watch with the same lens, is practically impossible. But lately the divide and inbalance has gotten to be so bad that we aren’t even talking to one another anymore, not really. We are all just yelling a lot of misunderstandings back and forth. So... what is happening to the meta community? I'm going to try and talk about it.

Okay. So I've explained what structure is and what a lens is. So now I'm going to talk about balance because the current issue plaguing the meta community is a lack of voices discussing and viewing things in balanced way. And I'm going to focus on ship related meta writing because let's face it, that's where a lot of the most passionate arguing is. Since meta is usually written with a bias for a certain reading we most often get four distinct readings:

A --The Narrative lens: Wincest

B --The Narrative lens: Destiel

C --The Psychological lens: Wincest

D --The Psychological lens: Destiel

Post S12 when Dabb era started I personally made the decision to switch from writing/watching through B to D instead. A narrative lens focuses on things like mirroring, set design, character arc reading. A psychological lens focuses on things like characterization (usually with a focus on where a character is and not how they are designed to change), seeing the characters as real people, rather than narrative constructs. Lynn from Fangasm is a good example here and I don’t think she’d mind me mentioning her here. Lynn, as a psychologist by trade and J2 fan by choice, views the show through a Wincest psychological reading, in total opposite from me in Carver era Supernatural, viewing with a narrative Destiel lens. We disagreed on a lot on stuff as you can imagine. I read her from time to time but she didn’t read me. Now, sometimes viewing one lens too much can make you blind to other things (not limited to readings). Frequently she’d hate and not understand things that I felt were explained perfectly as viewed through my lens. It's the difference in seeing Charlie Bradbury personally go through some stuff vs seeing Sam and Dean's issues elaborated on in the complex abstract. However, for me, post S11 I found myself way too stuck in the narrative lens. I felt I wasn't even seeing or experiencing the show the way it was designed anymore. And I wasn't. And being that Supernatural is part of my job I knew I had to reorient myself.

In Dabb era in particular, there's text and communication between the characters, which means that a narrative lens isn't strictly needed for viewing anymore. When S12 was airing I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Robert Berens and talking to him at length about meta. My friends @ibelieveinthelittletreetopper and @nicky36 were with me and the post is on my blog somewhere. Berens is my absolute favorite writer for the show. I talked to him about the narrative lens and how stuff like what he wrote about Mary leaving in 12x03 lost its emotional resonance with me because I knew she was leaving for contractual reasons, rather than general characterization ones. It was a problem with me, rather than a problem with the writing itself. It's watching a puppet show and instead of paying attention to the story, staring at the strings the whole time. I knew I had to learn to stop that even before talking about it to anyone. We also talked about 9x06, which was my favorite S9 episode as a Cas fan! I remember I talked about the season's theme of consent issues and I mentioned something from the divine reviews I wrote about a consent reference 9x06 made through a pop culture reference about the sex practices this random island had. He wrote the episode and chose this island to reference. I thought surely he knew what I was talking about. I was complimenting his cleverness, after all. And I'll never forget what he said to me: "You know, meta writers are often far more clever than the writers are themselves." It means we, as pattern seekers to themes (in the case of S9, consent themes), can pick out any kind of pattern if we are simply looking hard enough for it. And some things that we think are intentional, are simply coincidental, even within the written screenplay. After talking to Robert Berens that day I never looked at meta writing the same way again and began to work towards switching my viewing lens.

That's not to say viewing the show through the narrative lens is bad, or wrong. It's valid and a fucking important way to view the show, but equally important is realizing that sometimes you need to take a step back and consider other readings and lenses, too. So I stopped focusing on pop culture references and their thematic associations. I stopped looking at the set design as a primary storytelling point and regaled it to a secondary support point. I stopped looking at who Dean and Cas were mirroring and started looking at what they themselves were actually saying to each other, doing together. I realized that all the mirrors in the world didn’t matter if Dean and Cas weren’t actually talking to one another and physically in the same scenes together. All the romantic coding in the world through the visual presentation and mirror structure would not take the place of real life escalation. And I found looking at it and talking of the show in this manner, was getting beyond exhausting, especially when I ended up saying the same thing over and over. Carver era made the narrative lens necessary to view Destiel, while Dabb era has made it practically irrelevant. Even now I can still see these storytelling elements and comment on them in passing but mostly for me they started working like an overlay in tandem. And it provided something I hadn't had in a lot time watching: clarity.

Concerning mirroring, I've seen that often the Cas!fan Destiel side focuses too much on this (like I used to) through the narrative lens because Misha isn’t a lead therefore Cas isn’t in every episode so he often exists in this narrative space within the mirrored structure of the show (also called us seeing Destiel parallels). Through the continued use of the mirrored narrative, the show makes it so Cas fans (who watch primarily for Cas) must look for him there when he’s not physically present in the episode, desperately so in some cases. A Wincest reading, however, has the benefit of J2 being leads and present in every episode, with the reading enjoying touchstone psychology updates/deepening usually in every episode (though yes, Sam/Dean scenes have been cut drastically this year because of contractual reasons). Mirrors for the brothers (good and bad) are easily ignored completely (unless extremely heavy handed) because they are physically there for each other in every episode. Because of this priority watching divide (and handicap on the Cas fan’s side) I believe this has lead some meta writers to focusing too heavily on this element of Supernatural’s storytelling (or otherwise the symbolic narrative), to the point they sometimes even focus on it over Cas’ physical presence without really realizing it. And other fans do the opposite and/or ridicule them. And both types of fans and focuses are what I'd call being "out of balance".

On the flip side of discussing the impracticality of viewing primarily through a narrative lens, I'm going to also discuss how it's impossible to view solely through a psychological one, like so many “antis” in Supernatural fandom do. How many times have we heard, "You are disrespecting the character's sexuality by doing your analysis! Dean says he's straight so you must accept he is!"? I know I've seen it a lot. It's heavy on the fans that favor a Wincest reading through a psychological lens. This type of argument treats the character, Dean in this case, as REAL, instead of a fictional construct subject to other mechanics within storytelling. This is because the fan is viewing the show primary through a psychological lens and thinks the same ethnics of real life people apply to fictional constructs such as Dean Winchester. This is simply not true. You don’t judge a real life person’s sexuality based on the colors of their shirt! What’s wrong with you? It is quite impossible to disrespect a fictional character. As a viewer/academic, you can only really feel your understanding of them is being disrespected. In the end, Dean is still very much a fictional construct and thus, is not subjected to being viewed strictly under a psychological lens especially since a medium of storytelling like television and screenplay use visual elements and other narrative devices to also tell the story of the character.

Mel sent me several old posts with some examples. In real life the mailman damaging my mail and delivering it late one day isn’t symbolic of my messed up internal issues as a person. It’s just a crap thing that merely happened one day (even if I muse it feels like my own personal symbolism). I, unlike Dean, also don’t put on the same shirt every time I’m about to make a bad decision. When May rolls around I don't worry about the world maybe coming to an end each year, but Sam and Dean probably dread it. When I decorate and paint my walls I'm looking to create a certain pleasing aesthetic for the sake of it being pleasing, not for the sake of displaying the current problems plaguing my inner psyche. Or maybe some people do this to some degree, idk. Mostly, no.

Supernatural does indeed put storytelling clues in the wallpaper, but usually the intention is not as far reaching as some people conclude. And it’s in it’s own created language. Regardless, you can’t write a story with wallpaper alone. At most, you can simply look at it and guess something small ahead of time (like hourglasses signifying time travel). I'll use 11x06 as an example. In this scene we have a demonic liar getting interrogated in a room with Gabriel’s wallpaper from Changing Channels because the demon is trying to trick Sam and Dean into releasing him and saving his meatsuit instead of kill him (since Carver realized he needed to refocus the Winchesters onto saving people after S10, which, idk, maybe he realized how heartless they were seemingly becoming by choosing each other over the world so much, anyway...). Anyway. In 5x08 Gabriel used that entire episode to trick and trap Sam and Dean in a fabrication. Trick and lies. There’s your thematic tie in. I remember some people just immediately saw that wallpaper and thought it meant Gabriel was coming back when instead it was a simple "beware of trickery" thematic callback. Under the show’s silent storytelling language when this wallpaper is used, it means we are being lied to and tricked. This is all the wallpaper is meant to invoke. Sam immediately realizes this in the same scene. The silent storytelling here is just a fraction ahead of the textual storytelling. And that’s what silent storytelling is designed to do. Looking at wallpaper for clues on character development is a whole different analysis problem because Supernatural, by very much all appearances, want Sam and Dean to develop as slowly and as little as possible because the bulk of fans watch for their issues, not to the resolution thereof. The show doesn’t know what Sam, Dean, and Cas look like past a certain point of development and they are wholly uninterested in exploring that.

But back to wallpaper, interpretation, and 11x06.

A request for this wallpaper was probably not in the script. Screenplay usually puts as little detail into the script as possible because they simply trust Jerry Wanek and his design team to do their jobs (and Jerry, in fact, usually disregards certain script directions in favor of his own ideas as better symbolically worked into the show). AU!Michael’s church was originally a concrete bunker and Billie’s minimalistic fate library in 13x05 was originally a country cottage. Jerry is given extreme leeway on SPN (with I think only like 6 of his decisions have ever been vetoed he told us), but only because he’s so in sync with the show’s thematic presentation. I’m going off topic again because I’m supposed to be talking about fandom. Sorry. Back to 11x06 (again). Gabriel is such a fan favorite, however, that this (look out for tricks) was not the basic thematic message a lot of fans took away. No, the message they took away was Gabriel was probably coming back soon. I remember speculation continued about that for weeks. When at the time there were absolutely no plans for that during production. This reading, I can say with confidence, was absolutely unaccounted for. Jerry Wanek’s whole department is quite literally kept in the dark about future storylines. He’s told me this himself. By the time production for an episode rolls around they have a few scripts ahead maybe, nothing more. This is why Jerry was confused as hell about Asmodeus being a shape shifter in S13, because he didn’t know Gabriel was definitely coming back and that Asmodeus was siphoning Gabe’s powers. Poor Jerry just thought Buckleming was just butchering the canon for fun (I mean... this does happen so...). If there’s an intentional visual motif present, it either draws on some simple visual theme from earlier (tricks and 5x08 vs 11x06) or it’s part of the language of the show as written in the screenplay. It is very much something Supernatural does. Just not in such a complicated way, and one that definitely doesn’t conform to real life.

Real life ≠ Fiction and Fiction ≠ Real life

Do we see yet the limitations of relying too heavily on one lens over the other when viewing and analyzing media? How staring at the wallpaper can blind you to your psychological understanding of the characters, and how likewise, thinking of the characters as real people can just as well blind you to what the story is trying to tell you using a complete framework as a thoughtful examination of human expression and experience? You have to see it all and all at the same time to get a good picture. If you are going to write about the show then somewhere you must find balance or risk going blind. Television, most of the time is about creating stories that feel real, fourth wall breaks aside. The average television viewer is honestly not sitting there seeing Charlie Bradbury as Dean and Cas', Sam and Dean’s issues or whatever. They see her simply as Sam and Dean's nerdy little red headed friend who is coming to help them out with something. Writers often write through the narrative lens, but realize that most people watch through the "real life" one.

This psychological lens is not only accounted for, but it is generally catered to all of the time. Significant storytelling is therefore always in the psychological lens because the truth is television rarely wants you sitting there figuring out futrue storylines. It operates on you wanting to WATCH to see what’s next. They hate fans like me who can guess major plot points ahead of time. The truth is they want you to suspect certain things, but not expect them. The difference is a bit complicated and I extracted my discussion of speculation based on structure out of this post for cohesion. I hopefully make a separate post on it because I think I pretty much got the S14 finale figured out at this point. As much as I love, LOVE and have written on the narrative lens, it is not how the show delivers its primary narrative, especially here in Dabb era.

Go through and rewatch S8-S10 of Castiel (or better yet, Dean/Cas) only scenes and really look at what the show is giving itself. Then look at the difference in S11-S14, paying close attention to the difference in S9 over S14. For those immersed in the subtextual and mirror narratives with Destiel, this is an extremely good exercise, especially if you are someone who really believes or hopes the show will (eventually) convert the subtext into undeniable romantic text at any point (hint: Cas and Dean have to be physically together in scenes in a way that allows for escalation). Note that I don’t say canon here for a reason. Based on compounded narrative character mirrors (meaning mirrors repeated at least three times by various writers and can be deemed "significant" because they are witnessed by either Dean or Cas, though lbr usually Dean because we most often get these in the physical absence of Cas in an episode) and subtext (used to compare and explain Dean and Cas�� feelings towards one another), Destiel is already subtextually canon. Hell, without the mirrors, it’s this almost through romantic tropes alone. Supernatural is way past something like Korrasami, that got declared canon through subtext, mirroring, and Word of Gay. Destiel has honestly been way past this point for a long ass time, just like Dean being a canon drug user.

Both things are subtextually canon through different visual/dialogue/mirroring storytelling elements, but I'd consider each canon nonetheless, yet still easily ignored/misunderstood due to various degrees of disbelief or ignorance, usually based in a gap of the viewer’s understanding as informed by their own experiences and/or a lack of understanding concerning how television writing works differently from real life experiences of the same nature. The term "psuedocanon" is something I adopted back in S10 (I believe it was) to talk about the exact undeniable/deniable nature of Destiel within the split academic writing/viewing community. There’s no right or wrong about something being subtextually canon and television writing accounts for this viewing disparity in every significant narrative. Read that, then read it again because it’s so often the core of so many fandom arguments to the point I wanna rip my hair out. Right now, Destiel is not a significant narrative in the show. It’s not an obvious plotline. It’s what we’d call a secondary plotline, yet one that often drives action (usually in the form of Dean and/or Cas moping around in various ways). You don’t really need text of either (not the nature of Dean and Cas’ relationship nor the true nature of Dean’s relationship to drugs) to watch and understand the show on the primary surface level, well... except lately when the show points out how Sam doesn’t understand certain things between Dean and Cas (13x03, 14x12) but even then the show seems content to let us be just as oblivious as Sam there.

If I’m going to make a comparison here, the show is content with you selling you a car, but it is also content with you not completely understanding whether or not it has cruise control even as an option. The important thing is that you understand they are selling you a car. Personally I really want and need cruise control, but it’s not a deal breaker for me like it could be for some.

Now, we don't have Word of Gay like Korrasami, but I think... I think a lot of people need to stop trying to prove themselves right about Destiel being subtextually canon through continuously, in a way that denotes hyperfocus, pointing out the new ways in which it is by discussing the show mostly (or even solely) through the narrative lens. I honestly believe we, as a community, have written enough on it over the years. It feels... exhaustive at this point. Meanwhile, the psychological lens is right there and, as I can attest, helps keep your analysis' merits grounded in a way that is more easily explained and personally examined. The future of Destiel lies there. I don't think there are many of us out here writing on the nature of the Destiel narrative that are doing it because it's popular anymore. If we are still writing on it and have been for a while, it's because we genuinely care and we find it fun. That or we are frustrated. For me, it’s a little of both. When meta used to be written, back when queer reading and codings stayed in the subtext, there wasn't all this pressure being put on meta writers about possibly leading people on. This post by @bakasara from back in the day perfectly sums up the situation we, as a community, keep finding ourselves in, only now the situation seems worse. Since these storylines never got text, the fact that they wouldn't was a given. Now that the television landscape has changed, and Supernatural still remains, with one reading (Destiel) having a chance of going canon over the other (Wincest), the meta writing community of the show is in a particularly interesting place in fandom history where apparently meta writers can be blamed for somehow leading fans on in place of the narrative itself doing this.

I used to think this was wholly rubbish, but when you have meta writers ascribing writer intent to a product that deals with hundreds of individual intents, some of which have nothing to do with the writing's main intent, in a way that denotes the meta writer somehow knows best, then we do have a genuine problem. I feel like I’ve been here long enough and studied this fandom and this text to such a degree that I can say that. I don't personally know of any meta writer who does this, whether they are hyperfocused on viewing the show through the narrative lens or not. Doesn’t matter. I've already said I don't read other meta writers anymore since meta writing as an art form of expression made for enjoyment has shifted beyond my tastes from writing academic essays on a reading into this kind of weird meta writing subset that either simply tags discussions (anyone’s opinion post) as "meta" or otherwise uses this weird analysis/speculation blend in a way that is not clearly separated and/or defined. Just because I don't follow it, doesn't mean those voices aren't out there. I think they probably are.

And it's no secret that I personally lament what the meta writing community has become, even though it still imo has its essay gems. There are simply a lot of people inexperienced in many things concerning the analysis of media and they are out there telling people that certain things matter that don't and that certain things are right that aren't. These I have seen. I remember back in S10 having to correct someone that thought the title of "Story Editor" meant that another writer could edit a script they didn't write. Television writing isn't like a school yearbook staff. I don't remember who they were. But I do remember thinking, "Dear LORD, this person is talking like they know something when they have NO CLUE! And what's worse, people are believing it!" The “story editor” title is literally a pay grade distinction on Supernatural. I think most people would be shocked to know Supernatural doesn't even have a traditional writers room. The writers get together a few times a year and that's IT. There’s some collaborate efforts made among themselves but it's not like episode meetings among the whole staff are made. They aren't. They have a certain piece to write and they write it. The writer's room is a dictatorship overall.

So to sum up... While yes, language and knowledge among certain meta writers is a problem, there's also a growing problem with how different readings are coming to depend too much on a single viewing lens. None of that invalidates any of the meta being written if it is what can actually be classified as meta. We need to stop associating discussion/speculation with meta across the board. If we want people to stop speculating intent over possible future relationships using meta, then say that. People won’t do it, but say it like this, I beg you. To this hope, I feel like I might as well be talking to a wall on this point. And like I said earlier, many voices have been lost. And for that, there's really nothing we as a community can do at this point. Those people are pissed, bitter, or have been driven away at this point. When I first joined the meta writing community in S8 we were very diverse, and now we simply are not. And I wrote this not to sound like a policing or patronizing wake up call to anyone. I fucking love meta writing. It’s important. I was asked what was happening in the meta community. Here I attempted to answer that in a general way. I tried very hard to talk about my own experiences writing meta, how I viewed it, how I saw the community on tumblr as it started and how I feel it has since irrevocably changed. Meta is supposed to be fun, providing a certain point of view, nothing more. By merit, it can't promise anything and shouldn't be confused with speculation. In my next segment I'm going to discuss speculation, how writing is designed to create suspicion and not expectation.

Thanks for reading and a special shout out to @justanotheridijiton who had to view this meta in its raw unreadable form and who encouraged me to rewrite it and publish it despite my initial desire to write all this out for myself, then just delete it.

#meta writing #zerbe discusses things #long post for ts #the narrative lens #the psychological lens

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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years ago

Text

IF LISP IS A CASUALTY OF

This is an extremely useful question. If someone went to Stanford and is not obviously insane, they're probably a safe bet. And yet a lot of lines have nothing on them but a delimiter or two. And that cures the other half of the thank-you notes from his wedding, four years ago. I now realize, is that there is now potentially an actual audience for our work. Here's a sign of how much programmers like to be good at hacking, is figure out what you truly like. It's practically the standard ending in blog entries—uh, what it the conclusion? Prep schools openly say this is inevitable—that high school students aren't capable of getting anything done yet. But you're not thinking that way about a class project and a real startup? Naive founders think that if they can just hire enough people it somehow will be. The whole language always available.

Part of the reason VCs are harsh when negotiating with startups is that big companies tend to have fewer bugs. The reason is that software plays an increasingly important role in companies, and the power of something is how well you can use this information in a way that is crabbed and incomprehensible? What makes it true is that it's more preposterous to claim about anywhere else. And yet, if they do let you down, will still seem to have been a prudent choice. The way to learn about physics didn't need to start by mastering Greek in order to read Aristotle. It's especially good if your application solves some new problem. After the first 10 or so we learned to treat deals as background processes that we should ignore till they terminated. They're the ones that actually work. Certainly. C: C is too low-level. So companies have evolved to fill that niche. He just cannot fail now.

But if you look at the employment agreement you sign when you get fouled is not to search for them—not to wander about thinking, what great discovery shall I make? In fact, the acquirer would have been capable, yet amenable to authority. Co-founders really should be people you already know. Back in the days when people might spend their whole career at one big company, which is the least of your problems, a low burn rate gives you more opportunity to recover from them. And the way these assumptions are going to get nothing. Well, therein lies half the work of essay writing. Only a few people really happy than to make a difference. I know many Lisp hackers that this has happened to. As long as you've made something that a few users love you, but that won't be the last idea you'll have.

As well as having precisely measurable results, we have to have in person. And aside from that, grad school is close to paradise. It sounds crazy, but there's a good chance that would work. Knuth pointed out long ago that speed only matters in a few critical bottlenecks. In practice this seems to work much as in LA. If a startup succeeds, you get to compare how they all perform on identical tasks; and everyone's life is pretty fluid. Sure, it can be launched. Most subjects are taught in such a boring way that it's only by discipline that you can test equality by comparing a pointer. Unfortunately the sort of AI I was trying to solve. Kerry lost. If they could even get here they'd presumably know a few things we don't.

On Lisp. Medieval alchemists were working on a hard problem, but their approach was so bogus that there was a university nearby. As in an essay about it. But I think I know the answer to that. Initially you have to think about more than just learning. Right now most of you feel your job in life is to be learned from whatever book on it happens to be intended for writing compilers. Above that threshold, software purchases generally had to be crammed into the form of an academic paper to yield one more quantum of publication. I think almost anything you can do anything if you really get it, you can contribute to open-source projects. And board votes are rarely split. Individual programs can certainly be the result of a presidential election, which makes it easy to believe it was the cause. And the cost of checks, you can do something that makes many different programs shorter, it is just as worthwhile to design a good language? I've paid close attention to any evidence I could get on the question, how do you get into a good one?

They were invented by McCarthy in the course of developing Lisp. Airbnb into the astonishingly successful organism it is now. But it seemed worth spoiling the atmosphere if I could only tell startups 10 things, this would be one of them you were at a disadvantage. The term dark ages is presently out of fashion as too judgemental the period wasn't dark; it was just different, but if you major in economics it will be easy to raise more money. Or the company that would be a distinct node if you drew a tree representing the source code. I had stopped believing that. What I'm looking for are programs that are short because delimiters can be omitted and everything has a one-character name. But in ambitious adults, instead of drying up, curiosity becomes narrow and deep. They're all terrible procrastinators and find it almost impossible to make themselves do anything they're not interested in. This turns out to be important, because a lot of time on work that interests you, and startups run on morale. In retrospect this was a smart move, but we couldn't figure out how to give them what they want to do research as a career.

Well, this seems a grim view of the world. PhD in computer science, and it could require interpretation in the case of contemporary authors. And when I used to think running was a better form of exercise than hiking because it took less time. One got extra credit for motives having to do with how abstract the language is spoken. Societies eventually develop antibodies to addictive new things. I hadn't deliberately tuned in to that wavelength to see if there was any signal left. Your second advantage, poverty, might not sound like an advantage, but it turned out I was 450 years too late. College is where faking stops working. Yes, of course. And make the topic so intellectually bogus that you could not, if asked, explain why one ought to write about these issues, as far as I know has a serious girlfriend, and everything they own will fit in one car or is crappy enough that they don't mind leaving it behind. Of course they do. Having gotten it down to 13 sentences, I asked myself which I'd choose if I could save some of the people on both sides who supply and check proofs of the supplier's solvency.

Startups rarely die in mid keystroke. Maybe this will change if enough startups choose SF. If they were just like us, then they had to make concessions. At this point he is committed to fight to the death. But really what work experience refers to is not some specific expertise, but the curiosity I mean has a different shape from kid curiosity. They have little discipline. So in addition to the usual clauses about owning your ideas, you also can't be a founder of a startup is to have a rigid, pre-ordained plan and then start a startup at 30. There is now a whole neighborhood of them in San Francisco. Wodehouse or Evelyn Waugh or Raymond Chandler is too obviously pleasing to seem like serious work, as reading Shakespeare would have been better off; not only wouldn't these guys have broken anything, they'd have gotten a lot more than you realized. If it is not all they're for, then what else are they for, and how important, relatively, are these other functions? Checks on purchases will always be expensive, because the center of gravity of Silicon Valley.

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primrose-path-of-dalliance · 7 years ago

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Lotor?

ngl, i squealed when i saw this. i get to talk about My Boy!!!

thank you for the ask

(send me characters and i’ll give thoughts on them!)

sorry, anti-lotor half of the vld fandom, but i love this guy to pieces and nothing y’all say can change that because 1. y’all’s attempts at critically saying he’s Bad are poorly done imo lmao, 2. i’m not so preoccupied with morality and purity culture that i stick my thumbs in my ears and try to shove plugs into other ppl’s ears, and 3. opinions are subjective.

like personally, i love complex characters set up as parallels and foils to major protagonists that are inherently anti-imperialist, archaeologists, and conservationists; are representative of a not-so-palatable reality of abuse survivorship; have issues of trauma, paranoia, and interpersonal defeatism; and are clearly being set up for a future arc that will be closely intertwined with said major protagonists—as well as driven by a deep, internal conviction and strength that has persisted against absolutely ridiculous odds—

but idk. your loss, i guess.

aesthetically: gorgeous. but i am very ace.

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff

don’t harangue me for not calling lotor a slytherin in case you support that side lol, but i read a really good meta on this a while ago that i agreed with here.

(gonna put the rest of this under a readmore since this gets to be A Lot.)

essentially, one of lotor’s core traits is the search for knowledge and scientific advancement for its own sake. there’s no way he doesn’t love learning—he spent centuries studying a culture that was extinct, a culture that by any imperialistic measures was worthless and weak because it opposed the empire and it was destroyed. one could hardly believe he began searching for the last remnants of altea for power or ambition. he studied them because he wanted to, for the sake of it, to connect to something that’s part of him.

in a lot of ways, he does exemplify slytherin traits—he can be exceptionally ruthless when he believes he or things/people he cares about are threatened, he is unusually preoccupied with a need for power and control, and his goals could be considered lofty and ambitious. however, much of these traits and desires can easily be linked to his trauma. one might make an argument that he’s still similar enough to honerva to qualify as a slytherin, but personally i think the story sets him up as opposing haggar without hypocrisy in too many ways to be persuaded.

(honerva wanted to continue her research despite the risks, endangering an entire planet and potentially the universe, because she saw the research as empowering. she saw her research—her own ambitions—as more important than anything else, and abandoned ethics like some burdensome shackle. but lotor is seen multiple times as unwilling to endanger people and planets for his goals without either being reasonably assured of their survival (such as voltron) or their consent. he despises cruelty and the taking away of others’ agency.)

in an ideal world, i think lotor would be an obvious ravenclaw. but his trauma has encouraged him to act like a slytherin.

best quality:

superficially: HIS NERDINESS. as soon as lotor started talking about ancient ruins, learning other cultures’ customs, and rattled off an entire poem he memorized off some old-ass cave wall he probably saw like 3 centuries before, i was absolutely done for. i had been trying to maintain my skepticism of him for skepticism’s sake, but god. you can’t just throw a goddamn archaeologist in my face and expect me to not fall deeply in love.

more seriously: i love lotor’s conviction. lotor has a strong sense of self, morality, and personal drive, especially for someone with his experiences.

he accepts and embraces both sides of his heritage as defining parts of who he is. in an empire that despises altean blood, he wields an altean broadsword, spends centuries studying what’s left of the culture, and openly admires the peace, people, and traditions of altea past. and in a castle of paladins and alteans, he demands to be judged “by [his] actions, rather than [the] preconceptions of [his] race,” knowing full well that team voltron perceives him as galra, and failing to inform them of his altean blood despite the clear benefits that would’ve come from doing so.

he has a code of conduct that’s repeatedly shown in sharp contrast to the ideals of the empire—even from his very introduction, when he stands in front of an entire arena of galran soldiers and refuses to compromise his own morals for a more rhetorically effective argument. lotor’s small, four-person team of generals (compared to the typical galran fleet) seizes an entire planet while killing no one and causing virtually no destruction.

he is also incredibly self-motivated. lotor has lived for centuries relying almost completely on himself, and he will ruthlessly protect himself and his own.

his inner strength is ridiculously admirable, and i love his self-assurance.

worst quality:

idk? usually ppl say flaws or some such here, but the problem is that flaws are more complicated than just “they do dumb things because of this adjective.”

also i love flaws. they’re born of the essence that makes a character who they are. hating their flaws is ridiculous.

with that said……..

fucking hate lotor’s hair. seriously, wtf? he can tuck all of it into his helmet and have it all fall back out nice and neatly. HOW. it’s the biggest lie of the entire show alongside allura’s bun. it’s just not possible and i hate that lotor defying reality just to look beautiful is Canon.

his butt cape. like akjhdkhgkghjgk,,, a genuine BUTT CAPE. for what purpose?? preference??? drama???????? i’ve seen comparisons to honerva’s own butt cape back when she was a normal empress-consort scientist on daibazaal, which makes sense since lotor loves making Fashion Statements, but god. a butt cape.

what on god’s heavenly green earth is up with his swordsmanship? the acrobatics and the flourishing are positively ridiculous. who the fuck actually tries killing a powerful emperor and their abuser by smashing them from above with a purple final fantasy sword like they’re the hammer and zarkon is a nail. lotor is unrealistic.

ship them with:

recovery and happiness.

brotp them with:

his generals. DUH. it’s clear that they’ve had a strong history together, and it’s impossible to have their relationship end here without any sort of resolution or confrontation about narti’s death. let them reunite under conciliatory terms. let them be friends again. (and let sincline return.)

allura for sure!!! their relationship development has been beautiful so far and i want to see that continue.

coran. they’re both Nerds. plus, one of them got to experience a full and long life on altea. let them talk.

the paladins in general. it might be difficult, slow-going, and hesitant/full of suspicion on both sides, but god—just imagine if they were friendly. (plus it would do worlds of good for lotor. he’s a lonely man, and it would even more clearly distance him from comparisons to zarkon.)

the blade of marmora (and keith). the show has said nothing so far, but i refuse to believe that in the past centuries, lotor and the blade have never interacted or crossed paths before. i can imagine why they would’ve been uninterested in alliance with each other, but i can also imagine what would make each appeal greatly to the other. let them interact. (as for keith, he and lotor have a lot of similarities. it’s real funny how similar allura, keith, and lotor all are to each other, really. hm.)

needs to stay away from:

haggar. she’s fake as hell and evil to boot. some ppl think that she’s reawakened some kind of dormant love in her for lotor after regaining more memories in s5, but that’s far from the case. someone who’s become and lived as she has for 10,000 years doesn’t suddenly care well about someone she’s abused horribly because she realizes she gave birth to them, and doesn’t suddenly become sympathetic in the good way because she’s “motherly” now. (not if the writing’s supposed to be decent, anyway.) she realizes lotor’s about to die and does absolutely nothing else except turn on the magic shiro television in her lab. she only finds out after the black bayard exchange has already happened, and she’s haggar. if she really wanted to stop what was happening, she could’ve done a lot more than just watch through shiro’s eyes. she’s a horrible person, folks, and lotor would do best to never see her again. (unfortunately, it’s much more likely that she will fuck his shit up some more next season. rip.)

zarkon. hopefully he actually stays dead this time, but i’ve seen some good points on how sketchy his ability to stay dead is. nevertheless, all memory of him deserves to be banished to the nether realms. lotor should never have to deal with that asshole’s legacy again.

misc. thoughts:

anyone who talks about lotor getting/not getting/deserving/not deserving a redemption arc makes me lose my shit because he hasn’t even done anything to warrant a redemption arc in the first place like tbfh. evil deeds whomst?? trying to kill voltron when?? where are these receipts of malice??? he’s never done an evil damn thing but y’all humoring the concept anyway. smh.

anyway, lotor needs a therapist, healing, and some good fucking friends. @dreamworks give lotor a recovery arc 2k18.

#luanna801 #ask #voltron #voltron meta #lotor #prim post #i talk a fucking lot about one of my favorite boys #in regards to the :)#i am trying to avoid siccing the tumblr shipping demons on myself #sorry

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xseedgames · 7 years ago

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2017 End-of-the-Year Q&A Extravaganza Blog! #5

It’s time for our last Q&A blog of the year. It’s been a fun time answering all these questions--you guys had some seriously good ones!--but now it is time for us to chill out and celebrate 2018. Hopefully we can give you guys good reasons to celebrate 2018, too!

For our final Q&A blog, we have answers from:

Ken Berry, Executive Vice President / Team Leader John Wheeler, Assistant Localization Manager Ryan Graff, Localization Lead Liz Rita, QA Tester Nick Colucci, Localization Editor Brittany Avery, Localization Producer Thomas Lipschultz, Localization Producer

Question: Does working on a game affect your enjoyment of it in any way? Do you anticipate playing the full package after it is done or do you play through it beforehand anyway? Have you ever been spoiled on a game through work and if yes how severe was it? - @MizuUnNamed

Brittany: It definitely does. It's like the difference between babysitting a kid over the summer vs. giving birth to that kid and raising them till they leave the house. Even the most frustrating things about a game will somehow become something you love in a weird way, because it’s your kid and it's your responsibility to raise it right. When you're localizing a game, you're choosing every single word, and every single decision you make for that game will shape the experience for the thousands of people who play it. Characters I'd normally hate as a player become characters I love because figuring out their dialogue is a joy, and stuff I never thought about in localization are now very particular to me because I want my kid to go out into the world looking its best.

I will always play the games I work on. Sometimes I play them in Japanese beforehand, but there are days where I edit a file while playing line-by-line just so I can look at a character's expression and match the line written to the face. Then I replay it a few time as the English builds come in, tweaking it bit by bit, because it feels different to see the English on a sheet compared to seeing it in-game. It takes a ton of time, but I'd rather have a final product I can be proud of than to give up because something requires extra work.

Liz: When I started working here the first thing I tested was Corpse Party PC. I played it for like 200 hours and that game is much shorter than that haha. I loved every second of it, and recently got to test it again for the Linux + SteamOS release. Oh boy, that was a treat <3 I also got to work on Cold Steel II and at the time I didn't have the consoles the first released for, so I just watched playthroughs online... bless Cold Steel PC! I don't think I've ever been spoiled on a game through work before.... except maybe for Book of Shadows? But I don't even remember that spoiler so does it really count?

Nick: This is going to vary widely from person to person. For me...admittedly yes, working on a game does impact the enjoyment I’m able to derive from that game as a finished product. I understand, going in, that simply by virtue of working on a game, I will know its plot from beginning to end, see all the character development (including optional stuff that you might not even be able to view in a single playthrough), and in general become a subject matter expert on its world and lore. I’ll have knowledge of all the optional events and the items it’s possible to get – and sometimes, even a few that exist but were never implemented.

Working on a game is usually a months-long endeavor, during which we often end up playing the game in various stages of beta (or even alpha) readiness. We experience bugs we hope you never will; all the times text isn’t displaying correctly, voice or music isn’t playing right, or the battle system is falling over foaming at the mouth. By the time a game is ready to be sold, we’ve spent more time with it than would probably be considered healthy from a consumer perspective.

Outside of post-launch support/tweaking I’ve done for games like Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection, I’ve never picked up a game I’ve worked on here after it launched. They’re good games, and I’ve been proud of each project I’ve worked on so far – it’s just that I’m someone with a low tolerance for repetition. You know – the sort who would get sick of even my favorite movies if I watched them every day for a week straight. As cool a game as Trails of Cold Steel might be, I’m in no hurry to sink 80 hours into an RPG that I focused all my attention on for the better part of an entire year.

While it IS perhaps a bit regrettable that I “ruin” my ability to enjoy a game in a normal-player context by working on them, I feel it��s a small price to pay if I can help deliver something that players will really enjoy their time with.

Question: When you brought over Rune Factory 4 to Europe, what difficulties did you encounter? How was the process? - @Marower

Brittany: Hey! This is perfect for me! We really wanted to bring RF4 to Europe, but with the developer now shut down, it wasn't possible. We spent ages looking for a programming team who would be willing to help us that also had Marvelous Japan’s blessing, and then it became my little pet project. I had zero experience with the process, so it was a lot of learning and guidance from my boss, Ken. We were able to update the text a bit to fix typos, but because we would never be as familiar with it as the original team, we wanted to touch the game's code as little as possible since we didn't want to risk breaking the game.

I tried to reproduce this one rare bug that causes the game to crash at the end of arc 2 (this is present in the Japanese, too, so it wasn't introduced in English), but it was impossible. I started the EU version from scratch and went up to that point. There were rumors that soft resetting the game caused the issue since it really wasn't programmed to handle soft resets too much, so I did that as often as I could. Nothing. Oh, man... I wish I could've found the pattern that caused such a weird crash. It's rare, but no one wants a crash in their game.

NA only has one rating, but Europe requires several different ratings, so that's an interesting process. The store pages all require various languages, too, depending on the region. I learned that because you could palette-swap character models to simulate gay marriage that the game had to be 18+ in Russia. 18+! For a Rune Factory game! All of the processes take a bit longer, but it was mostly a lot of communication, paperwork, confirmations and such. All worth it to finally get that game out there!

Question: What process leads to additional content in localized releases? Things like additional voices for Trails of Cold Steel on PC. How do you decide which titles get "a little bit extra"? - @Baust528

Brittany:

Me (messaging programmer on Skype: hey are you up Sara (programmer): Yeah. What's up? Me: lmao wouldn't it be awesome if we could put x in the game Sara (ten minutes later): It's in the game.

That happens a lot. As a more serious answer, since we try to localize games we're personally passionate about, it's easy for us to see what we'd want as a fan, too. So we'll sit around and go, "Wouldn't this feature be nice?", and we'll see if it's doable. If it is, we'll do it.

The extra voice acting in Cold Steel PC came about because we wanted to do it for PS3/Vita, but it wasn't possible. I asked if we could put the games on PC one day, the boss worked out the numbers, and we realized that avenue was perfectly possible. We thought adding new voices would be great, because the English cast was very well received in English. Turbo Mode and ultra widescreen were both Durante, though. Those were awesome.

Generally, if our programmers have an idea they'd like to add to the game, we allow it. They're programmers! They know if it's possible, and if it makes the game better, who are we to say no? That's how the Sky games have gotten so many improvements over the years, too. We're incredibly fortunate to have Sara as a programmer, because she takes each project very personally and still finds ways to improve them years after launch.

Tom: There are a lot of factors that go into things like this, but one that's come up a couple times now has definitely been our inability to license the Japanese voices. We figured, if we can't offer dual voice to players, why not use whatever budget we may have set aside for that to give them something a little extra? It may not be exactly what they want, but it's at least something we can offer them to show that we truly did put our best foot forward with this release

Nick: As weird as it may sound, it starts with just someone asking, “Hey, could we do this?” Sometimes, what we’ll want to do is evident due to what’s perceived as a shortcoming in a game. Trails of Cold Steel had a lot of voice acting, but weirdly left protagonist Rean silent in a number of scenes where all the other characters were voiced. That was the initial impetus for us wanting to get back into the studio for the PC release and record all the voicework we couldn’t for the PS3 release (in which we could only supply voices for lines that were voiced in the Japanese version).

Similarly, when I was planning out the recording for Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection, I thought, “We’re having people in to record these battle voices and we’re gonna pay them a minimum session fee anyway, so...why not add some story scenes onto that?” So in the end, we managed to include a solid amount of voice acting in there for a game that, in its original version, had very little.

Question: Have you ever considered localizing otome games? It would be nice if you can bring us some handsome boys. （*＾＾*) - @NymphNayade

Brittany: Hmm.

Question: Can you comment on the difficulty in trying to get Japanese developers to support same-sex couples/marriage in games like Story of Season or Rune Factory? - @atelier_michi

Brittany: XSEED's always been very openly supportive of adding that. I don't know what difficulties there would be in Japan, but I try to think of how much progress we've made to be able to openly ask for same-sex couples/marriage in games. It wasn't long ago that the idea was ludicrous. I remember when Ellen DeGeneres came out in the '90s and it affected me very strongly, especially since my parents would actively tell me, “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” So even if it's not in the current SoS games, I'll ask for the feature every time I visit Japan, because I think being open about it is an important factor to making progress on that front. Nothing will happen if you don’t fight for it.

I'd really like a whole variety of relationships in the SoS. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, pansexuals, or even a unique relationship outside of sexuality like dating a single parent or supporting your partner as they transition. It's that sort of variety that makes life interesting and great, and I think introducing these concepts in a series as darling as SoS normalizes them and helps children to perceive them as innocently as heterosexual relationships and concepts. It's very educational. Normalizing it more would teach people to ask more questions, too, instead of rejecting any type of orientation or relationship that seems foreign to them.

I remember for the first SoS game we published, Hashimoto-san said he had animals die in the game because he wanted children to be introduced to the natural process of life and death. It wasn't meant to be a bad thing, but something we should be comfortable with because that's part of what it means to be alive. Something to that, lol. Anyway, I'd like for just as much heart to be taken to represent more kinds of people in life, too.

Question: A rumor is going around that you guys are avoiding publishing fanservicey games outside of Senran Kagura. This came in wake of you guys seemingly passing on Valkyrie Drive. Is there any validity to this rumor, and if so, why? - @WaywardChili11

Brittany: did people forget we did a game with literal strawberries and a banana as a costume

That's a weird rumor. It’s also dumb. We've done fanservice games in the past, and we'll decide on whether or not to do them on a game-by-game basis. We're not necessarily passing on them because of fanservice, but I also don't think fanservice is core to the XSEED brand, so it shouldn't be a given for us to do fanservice titles just because we’ve done them in the past. Many of us enjoyed Onechanbara and we have some SENRAN KAGURA fans in the office, so we published those because we originally liked them as games that happened to contain fanservice.

We’re also not big on censoring games, so I’d rather pass on a game than work on it after it’s been censored. If I were to localize a title and actually choose to censor it, I’d piss of people who don’t like the fanservice content, I’d piss off the people who want that content, and then I’d be pissed off because if I felt something was so horrible that it needed to be censored, then I probably didn’t want to work on the game.

That doesn’t mean every fanservice game is off the table for me, but I would need to evaluate it to see if the game is for me, as I would any other genre. Like, Lord of Magna is overall a super-cute game, but it also has an out-of-nowhere hot springs scene. I felt that scene detracted from the game because the rest of the game was adorable and innocent. That said, I didn’t remove the scene, and I still loved working the game. It’s a game with fanservice I would still happily play again.

Meanwhile, SENRAN KAGURA sells on fanservice, but the gameplay is pretty good. I admit that I prefer the older titles for DS/3DS which were more ridiculous titillation with a good story than the more overt modern titles, but again, that just means the series is no longer for me, and that’s fine. We still have SK fans in the office, and they enjoy working on the series.

Another factor is gaming trends and our overall rep as a company. Fanservice games weren’t always as hot as they are now, and XSEED started off with a variety of genres, with our niche eventually falling to RPGs and such. Every trend has a rise and fall, and if we pick up every fanservice game regardless of quality just because it’s hot now, we’re alienating the audiences that love us for action, RPGs, and so on. We may even alienate retailers or future marketing opportunities for the games we license outside of that genre. We’ll have shot ourselves in the foot if the fanservice trend falls when we made it our bread and butter. I like having a job.

Tom: We certainly don't have any problems with fanservice, as I think we've proven quite thoroughly at this point. But we also don't ever back a game simply BECAUSE of its fanservice. When we release a game, we do so because (1) we like it, and/or (2) we see some really good potential in it. If it happens to have fanservice, great! If not, also great.

On the flipside, we also turn down games for a variety of reasons. Maybe we hated the story. Maybe we hated the gameplay. Maybe we felt it took its themes a bit too far, or that it had a lot of wasted potential that it never quite lived up to. Maybe we put in an offer on it but were outbid, or the developer appended unusual terms to the license that we weren't willing or able to accept. Maybe the developer simply didn't want to work with us for some reason, or we didn't want to work with them. Maybe we didn't have time to work on that title, or maybe we simply felt someone else would be able to do a better job with it. Tl;dr version, there are a LOT of factors that go into licensing decisions!

Our reasons for turning down a game aren't really something we can ever outright tell you guys, due to the NDAs we all signed when we got hired. But suffice it to say, it's never simply because of fanservice. Fanservice may potentially contribute to a larger tapestry of reasons for passing on a title in extreme cases (though they'd have to be pretty extreme!), but rest assured, we'll never say no to a game simply because it shows a lot of skin. Good games are more than skin deep, after all!

Nick: Here’s the Nick take: Most of us here don’t mind fanservice. It’s fun, it’s saucy, and folks can have a good time with it. If you look at our lineup, you can see we don’t shy away from games that have fanservice (Oneechanbara!), and games that push the boundaries, as Senran Kagura sometimes does, certainly aren’t out of the realm of consideration. A boob, a bulge; it’s all fair game here.

But here’s the thing. The games a company releases become part of their oeuvre. We have a reputation for quirky Japanese games because we’ve released enough of them that it’s a noticeable trend. The same would happen if we opened our gates to every fanservice-laden game that came knocking. Speaking personally, I don’t want us to have a reputation as a publisher whose stock in trade is mainly cheesecakey fanservice or smutty games. That kind of pigeonholing doesn’t help us as a company, and at worst, might even preclude some future licensing opportunities.

I think a lot of people get the impression that we turn down fanservice-laden games for some sort of censorious or moral reason, but that’s not especially true. There ARE cases where we might think, “If we licensed this, the ESRB wouldn’t let it through without forcing us to censor enough that the primary audience we were licensing it for in the first place would be upset,” and there are times when a game might simply be in bad taste and we decide we don’t like how it handles sexuality.

Sometimes, iffy material gets through in spite of all that. The SENRAN KAGURA series has done well for us, so we continue to publish those games even though a number of us in the office have concerns about how each new game seems to push the boundaries further and further in terms of what’s allowable (either by the ESRB or by common decency). We keep a close watch on that, and we’ve communicated our feelings to Takaki-san and his team. We strongly dislike having to alter content in this way, so if a game is so stridently sexual that we think we’d probably be forced to do so by the ESRB (as was a going concern with Valkyrie Drive, iirc), that factors into our decision-making process.

More often, the mundane truth is that we’ll turn down a game of this type because our evaluation play-tests show it to not be very fun to play. It’s not uncommon for games in this vein to just focus on piquing prurient interests or trading in tawdry titillation while the actual game underneath feels janky to play, or has no depth once you get past ogling your favorite waifu. That’s something that can’t be conveyed through a screenshot or even game video, which leaves hopeful players confusedly thinking we passed on a game for reasons more related to its content.

There’s a solid balance to be struck between acknowledging and publishing content for a mature audience and turning down projects that don’t jive with us, and I want you guys to know that we DO put a lot of thought into keeping this balance healthy.

Ken: When we first published SENRAN KAGURA Burst in late 2013, it was a much stricter retail environment so we had to approach the title with caution. We needed to see if there was a market for the series in the West, and even if there was the absolute worst thing that could happen would be to start manufacturing only to hear that retailers suddenly don't want them or want to return their units because of a complaint they got. Due to the success of the digital-only release of SENRAN KAGURA Burst we were able to release the next few games in the series physically at retail (so the "no physical no buy" people really need to thank their digital-buying colleagues), but that doesn't mean that we get a free pass to release anything in the future. As each new iteration seems to push the envelope further and further, we need to be careful exactly how far we push - at some point if we push too far and the whole levee breaks, it could have repercussions for games that have already previously been released.

Question: Who is best girl and boy? - @MizuUnNamed

Brittany: Can I get Crow Armbrust and Crow Armbrust for $500?

Tom: Narcia and Pietro, of course. But only for each other.

Liz: Rottytops and Ludus! What did we do to deserve them?

That’s all, folks! It’s been a wild ride, but hopefully we answered your questions well enough.

#XSEED #Q&A #Localization

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shenanigumi · 8 years ago

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Hello! My question follows one of your recent responses. You mentioned that your favorite 'husband' is Okita (yes! I share it completely), your favorite pairing is HeiChi (for solid reasons) and your favorite character is Kazama due to his complexity. If you want, could you expand this statement? Why is Kazama so complex in your opinion, what are the possible reasons of his complexity (his inner conflict, his motives etc)?

Ohhhh man… ‘If I want’? I’m always down to talk about my faves. You’d best be prepared for a goddamn characterization essay, because I love Kazama to death. Also, it’ll be good practice for getting started on an actual essay, so I thank you for this wonderful way to wake up the brain!!

I’m throwing this under a read-more for those of you who can see it, because wow I talk a lot:

First off, let me get one thing straight: I hate Kazama. I don’t hate him in the same way or as much as I hate Kaoru; my ‘hatred’ for Kazama is rooted more in awe (e.g. “Wow, that was badass, but what an asshole”) than in genuine dislike (e.g. “I AM GOING TO SKIP ALL YOUR TEXT AND THEN KILL YOU”). By no means is Kazama a good person, but one doesn’t have to be a good person to be a good character.

Admittedly, I think the games could have handled Kazama’s characterization a lot better, and hopefully some of it has been resolved in Shinkai. Though I’ve made the connections that fit all the different sides of his personality together, and will hopefully be able to prove it below, I feel like it should have been more obvious in canon. He’s so different between routes that unless you spend a lot of time thinking about him and his character, like I apparently do, it can be pretty jarring.

Since I’ve already practically written an essay on the wiki I made, I’m going to be lazy and use my four fucking paragraphs I wrote on Kazama’s personality as a basis for analysis. The wiki-entries are as objective as I could make them, but I’m gonna give a warning for possible speculation/headcanons re: how I interpret them. Basically, I’m gonna try to explain my perception of Kazama’s characterization, which is pretty self-explanatory as far as why I like him is concerned, but I can’t guarantee that there’s any solid evidence. These are just the conclusions at which I arrived after considering what I have seen in canon:

Kazama is proud, selfish, domineering, and often cruel. He is severely prejudiced against humans, and even more so against furies. He refers to them almost exclusively as “fakes” or “abominations”, and sees it as his duty to dispose of them. Having little respect for those incapable of adapting to changing times, Kazama asserts his superiority of race and cause whenever possible. He is fatalistic and detached from his own violent actions, regarding them as proof of humanity’s frailty without ascribing any agency to himself. However, though Kazama maintains a clear dislike of and disdain for all humans throughout all routes, he strives to keep his emotional distance and remain aloof.

Whenever Kazama must do something he considers unpleasant, he tries to find a way to further his own enjoyment in the meantime, up to and including using Chizuru as an excuse to toy with the Shinsengumi. However, though he initially considers this a game in which he holds no real investment, he eventually becomes genuinely intrigued by the humans and their ideals. In Hijikata’s route, Kazama is unable to reconcile his existing values with his newfound attachment, and—once Amagiri confronts him about his errant ways—finally abandons his title and status in favor of engaging them. Thus, though Kazama has an extreme sense of responsibility and loyalty to his clan and people as a whole, he “[sees] no charm in command”, and is willing to step down from his position and pursue his own agenda if he finds a purpose he perceives as more worthwhile.

First and foremost, I love Kazama because he is not the person he is trying to be. Even though his development is never directly focused on, and in fact I’d actually argue that he develops the least on his own route, that little tidbit is an enormous driving force in his side of the story. Kazama’s Thing™ is that he’s an Honorable Demon, and tries to live Honorably, but he just doesn’t have the temperament to keep his distance. He’s too naturally curious, too easily driven to anger, too arrogant and drunk on power over humankind, and he knows it. He simply doesn’t care until these tendencies cause him to become completely entangled in the Shinsengumi’s affairs. Although this doesn’t happen on every route, the foundation for that frustration is there in all of them.

Essentially, Kazama is in pursuit of an ideal he cannot obtain for as long as he continues acting the way he does… and eventually, his behavior gets him to the point where he must either change that ideal or change himself. Each time he hits that crisis point, Kazama has opted to change his ideal, and that speaks volumes about his strength of will and character. Rather than ‘improve’ his flaws and conform to demonic expectations, Kazama would rather change what he is fighting for. Sometimes, his new goals do change him in turn—but his shifting priorities always precede his development in any direction. (More on that later.)

Kazama is persistent to the point of obsession when he wants something, demonstrated most prominently in Saito’s route, in which he turns his back on his previous concepts of good and evil, joining forces with Kodo for the sake of marrying Chizuru. Similarly, once his pride has been wounded, Kazama will stop at nothing to get revenge, and does not consider tipping the odds in his favor to be morally dubious. This is most evident when (in Hijikata’s route) he procures his family’s legendary sword, the Demonslayer, to vanquish Hijikata. However, despite his willingness to ensure his victory by any means necessary, Kazama has his own brand of honor in that he views lying as beneath him and will always tell the truth as he sees it. Though he may twist situations to his advantage or omit certain information if his own interests demand it, the few direct lies he tells are obviously identifiable. This applies to even the smallest matters, such as insisting that he rested during the night when in fact he was tending the fire.

Kazama is the voice of the conscience, and of radical reason (which I use in opposition to emotion in this case). I love Kazama because he’s never wrong. There are a lot of things you can say about Kazama, but you can’t exactly say he’s wrong. Humans are weak in comparison to demons? Absolutely right. They don’t know what they’re doing? No, they don’t. Furies aren’t supposed to exist? Indeed they aren’t. His methods may not always be sound, and I certainly don’t always agree with them—but his statements are generally true, if harsh.

Despite his aforementioned inability to live up to expectations of aloofness, Kazama is still duty-driven and follows a very strict, largely self-imposed code of honor. This also says a lot about his character, since it does not allow for direct lies, but it is extremely flexible since it is wholly unconnected to his sense of responsibility to his clan. Rather, it centers around whatever he has chosen as his goal—and, once he gives up on the idea of staying out of human matters, his code relaxes. Once Kazama no longer tries to maintain his distance from humans, he becomes more comfortable with acting based on his emotions. Through his fixation on humans, Kazama seems to become more human himself (and his choice to use the Demonslayer is incredibly ironic for exactly that reason).

Now, to circle back around to priorities… In his own mind, Kazama is always fighting for demonkind. If he cannot keep his distance as is expected of him, then he chooses to discard that notion and instead dispose of furies (in Hijikata’s route) or even dispose of humans (in Saito’s). No matter what his goal is, Kazama never abandons his self-identity as a demon or his wish to live an honorable life. He may change his definition of what exactly that means route to route, but no matter what he perceives as the right way to go about fulfilling it, he still centers himself around that idea.

In both Hijikata’s and Saito’s routes, Kazama concludes that it is impossible for him to operate within his current boundaries and chooses to pursue a new ideal, each one still rooted in what he believes to be a cause worthy of the demon he is… even if his people openly disapprove. However, even though anger plays no small part in Kazama’s decision to seek revenge in Hijikata’s route, he thinks of that decision as built more on moral righteousness: a fake spilled demon blood, so of course he should die for it. There is still a rationale for his actions, and while Kazama demonstrates and acts on his anger more freely, he maintains his morals (however gray). His mission is specific and personal, so all his wrath—as uncontrollable as it may be in the moment—is deliberately directed at Hijikata.

However, on Saito’s route, Kazama demonstrates what happens when he stops fighting his emotions altogether, and instead allows them to rule him. Because his goal is now to resurrect the Yukimura clan by marrying Chizuru and to eliminate all humans, his mission becomes less focused, and so too do his feelings. He no longer has a singular cause to fight for; he’s simply thrown in his lot with Kodo. He loses his conventional moral compass somewhere amid his natural arrogance, exacerbated by these loftier ambitions. Since Kazama still believes that the end justifies the means, and this end requires more power and the exercise thereof, it’s little wonder he abandoned his usual reluctant restraint. The only thing that changed was the ideal he chose to pursue, and that in turn altered his behavior almost beyond recognition. The potential was always there; his new goal just turned him inside out.

(Again, I think the game should really have made this connection clearer, because the consistency in Kazama’s motives between Saito’s route and all others is a tad indistinct.)

…And lastly:

Though Kazama’s attitude is cold, direct, and serious by default, he does have a sense of humor, which is dry and sarcastic and usually manifests at others’ expense. He also readily displays scorn, anger, and conceit, all of which appear impossible for him to fully conceal. However, Kazama finds it difficult and/or unpleasant to openly admit more sentimental emotions such as affection, sadness, gratitude, or even agreement.

Yeah, so let’s not forget about the sense of humor, since it’s a more prominent (if somewhat shallow) reason why I love him. On Heisuke’s route, their sass battles are legendary, okay. Plus, on Kazama’s route, some of his one-liners are pure gold. And speaking of humor, as a postscript, I’d also like to point to my previous essay about Kazama and Shiranui’s similarities, which everyone has probably seen by now, but which further my point that he’s really an interesting character. Anyone who can be so similar to another character yet so strikingly different is A+ by me.

Okay, I think I’ve talked enough, considering I just spent two hours putting this mess together. Hope that actually answered your question!!

#answered #kurokiorya #characterization essay #kazama chikage

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doctordouzan-blog · 8 years ago

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An Intro to Roleplaying: Douzan’s Advice

Good day, everyone! For the sake of convenience, we’ll pretend this post was written by Douzan, even though it was actually written by his Scholar, a nameless face behind a computer. (Kayla. My name is Kayla. Pleasure to meet you!) I understand that it can be difficult to seperate the IC from the OOC, even off-stage such as this, but I am sure we’ll manage. I shudder to think that I may accidentally godmod because of this post, but one can only carry on and hope that no retcons are required, a dastardly thought. Did any of those bolded terms confuse you? If so, that is precisely why I am making this post. I’ve been roleplaying for around 15 years now, and over that time, I’ve gained what I feel like could be some valuable insight* for newer players. *Please note that I am not suggesting I am perfect. I still have quite a bit to learn, and every day I learn more. Today, I’ll be writing a glossary of sorts of terms I’ve come across while role-playing that can be valuable for those who are just learning. Feel free to share this, and of course, send me Asks on any additional questions you might have, I’d love to answer them. I should also note that a lot of these terms have changed and shifted since I started RPing. For example, OP/Godmoding/Power-playing have all been lumped into one definition nowadays, whereas I knew them all as separate terms. For the sake of convenience, I will be using the terms I am familiar with, but I HAVE cross-referenced a few terms with a couple of popular RP definition sites, and am aware of some of the changes. RP: Stands for “Roleplay”. I.. Must I really describe this term? You should know! Very well then. It is pronounced “ahr-pee”. Roleplaying is acting as a character that is not you yourself. An RPer interacts with other RPers around the world to write out scenes from their favorite books, movies, animes, shows, games, comics, etc., or even original material. This can be done over text on mediums such as Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Proboards, AIM, Skype, text messages; or even through IRL interactions such as LARPing. It can be compared to acting on stage on a theater, except there is no script. The RPers build the story as they go, instead of following a script. RPing: Stands for “Roleplaying”. The act of participating in a roleplay. RPer: Stands for “Roleplayer”. Someone who participates in a roleplay. LARP: Stands for “Live-Action Roleplay”. It is pronounced as “lahrp”. An RP that takes place IRL, usually with props, costumes, etc. Obviously not necessary on Twitter, but since it comes up sometimes, figured I’d define it for you. LARPing: Stands for “Live-Action Roleplaying”. The act of participating in a LARP. LARPer: Stands for “Live-Action Roleplayer”. Someone who participates in LARP. IRL: Stands for “In Real Life”. Used to describe events that happen in reality, and not online. IC: Stands for “In Character”. This is the term used for when you are playing your character true to the personality, usually in events that can be considered canon to your story or growth. OOC: Stands for “Out of Character”. This is used to describe when the person behind the account speaks instead, sometimes as commentary, sometimes to discuss direction for a scene, sometimes because you just fuckin’ feel like it. Often it is symbolized by: (( Speech )), ( words ), [ text ], #OOC more text. Off-stage: A fun little term used in some RP circles to describe when RPers play their characters in an OOC setting, but IC. This is usually done as a joke and is often used to blow off steam or have fun. It is rarely, if ever, considered canon. Canon: Something that is true to the universe. Some examples of canon events: Captain America underwent a super soldier program in Marvel; Yukimura accidentally felt up the MC in SLBP; Kari was the eighth child found in Digimon; Doctor Douzan was friends with the MC’s father in SLBP. AU: Stands for “Alternate Universe”. RP is usually considered an AU as players create their own events that are not canon to the universe they take place in. Canon Characters: Characters that exist already within the universe. Examples include: Wolverine (X-Men), Doctor Douzan (SLBP), Ripley (Alien), Ash Ketchum (Pokemon), Sam Winchester (Supernatural), Evie Frye (Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate), Princess Zelda (Legend of Zelda). These characters are often played by RPers who attempt to portray the character as close to the canon material as possible, even when in AU events. Custom Characters: Characters that have been created to interact with the canon characters of that universe, but are not actually apart of the canon events. Check out the links at the top of my page: Bio: The Merchant, Bio: Mirakire, Bio: Masami; for examples of custom characters. (More will be added soon.) Cameo/Face-Claim: The act of choosing an unrelated character’s image to portray a custom character. Example: I use Arsene Lupin from Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth for Hajime’s cameo. (Please check out the bios at the top of my blog for more examples.) NPC: Stands for “Non-Playable Character”. A gaming term used to describe sprites/characters in games that the player cannot control, it is used in RP to describe inconsequential characters that are not necessary for long term. Examples include: The merchant your character interacts with in one post to buy bread; Bandits that attack your character while on the road; Templar soldiers who attack your Assassin character but are dispatched quickly; A random opponent in a children’s card game that your character is watching another character duel against. These characters are hardly ever played for real and are usually just there to set a scene or fill a necessity for a few posts. Scholar/Player/Mun: Slang terms for RPer. While many RPers on Tumblr and Twitter use ‘mun’, I’m old-fashioned and stick with Scholar/Player, as I feel it makes more sense. Plus, I’m old. (Plus the word ‘mun’ is to me like ‘moist’ is to others. I just can’t stand it.) Ship/Shipping: Favoring a set (or more for polygamous pairings, as is common in settings like Sengoku) of characters for a romantic relationship. Smut/ERP: Erotic RP. If you are under 18, please do not participate in erotic RP. It involves sex, and if someone is caught ERPing/Smutting with you, it can have grave consequences with them. Please do not participate in these unless you are old enough. Seriously. You are playing with people’s lives. People can go to jail for that shit. FTB: Stands for “Fade-to-Black”. Often in television shows, comics, movies, etc., when an erotic scene was occuring, the camera would pan away, or the panel would turn dark, to avoid showing anything truly erotic. Performing a ‘FTB’ is required on public platforms such as Tumblr, Twitter, and Proboards, as it is against their terms of service to display openly sexual acts/sexy things like that shit there. It is also respectful to the other RPers, who may not want to see that sort of action on their feed. FTBs are usually picked up and continued in DMs/PMs. DMs/PMs: Stands for “Direct Messages” and “Private Messages” respectfully. This is sending a message only to one party, or to a specific group, instead of remaining public. Used for casual conversations, discussing plots and spoilers, ERP/Smut, and more. Public Feed: Everyone can see it, nothing is hidden, all is forgiven. (Except not.) So those are some of your basic terms. Every medium has their own set of special terms. Tumblr, for example, also has Magic Anons, Autoplay, Drabbles, One-Line. Proboards has One-Line, Admin, Mod. A lot of platforms have crossover terms as well, but we won’t be getting into all of them. We will, however, get into some important terms: The bad ones. Mary Sue/Gary Stu: A character that is perfect. They are good at everything. They are beautiful, smart, talented, flawless. They have powers, abilities or skills that normally are limited to canon characters. They claim that canon characters are attracted to them. They usually have a convoluted storyline that involves a relationship to a canon character that is not plausible. They rarely ever have character growth, never have real flaws, and are honestly some of the most boring pieces of shit ever. They are a virus, a plague and must be stamped out. Self-Insertion: Creating a character solely to insert one’s self into the RP. Instead of creating a new character with their own ups and downs, the RPer creates a character that is a mirror image of their own self and tries to live vicariously through them. OP*: Stands for “overpowered”. An OP character is one who is far too strong for the situation, or for the type of character. It is a lesser version of godmoding, but is just as annoying, as these characters are nearly impossible to beat or best in a fight, and will go out of their way to ensure they can never be beaten. Power-Play: The act of controlling another person’s character. A lesser version of godmoding, but still fucking annoying. A power-player will write the actions of another character outside of their control. This is often done accidentally by new players who are used to writing their own short stories, or have little experience in RPing. If an RPer is power-playing, a gentle reminder or request to stop writing your characters action is usually all it takes to end it. There are many players who don’t realize that writing actions for you is considered disrespectful and rude. Try to be gentle when correcting them. Unless they start godmoding. In which case, call that shit out. Godmoding: A character who’s powers are nearly impossible to limit. These are characters who claim they are invulnerable, impervious, impossible to destroy. They override other characters abilities or nullify them without the consent of another player. They fucking suck. Don’t be this douchebag. *OP can also be used for “Original Poster”, or the person who started the RP. Roleplaying a great activity that can bring people together, as well as improving literacy and creative thinking for all those involved. It encourages teamwork, as you must trust your fellow RPers to come up with their own ideas and aid with your plots while you push forward with theirs. For novelists such as myself, RPing is a way to explore new characters in new settings and expand our knowledge of how different types of characters, personalities, and events can play out, leading to more realistic and believable writing. RPing can also be therapeutic, as it can allow people to face issues they could not have faced on their own. Someone who suffers from a traumatic event can use a character in an RP to come to terms with those emotions, while many who suffer depression and anxiety use RP as a way to de-stress and cope with their problems. RPing however, can also be addictive. It is an interactive story that is always changing, a constant new mystery around every corner. If you choose to RP, please be mindful that all your fellow RPers are real people with real lives, and that your life, your health, your work, come first. RPing is fun, but it is not a priority. If something in your life is beginning to suffer, such as your marriage, your work, your friendships, then it may be time to step back from the RP scene and focus on your life once more. Got more questions, more terms you would like to see me define in my own uniquely Douzan way? Drop me a line here. I’ve decided to share some of my own stories about RPing, to share some life lessons. Coming up are: -”The Gundam Regret” -”Kuroda, Tsunade, and the Best Boyfriend Ever (Not.)” -”When Your Demon from Dragon Age is Ivy from Soul Calibur (Wiki Edition!)” -”All My Characters are Besties and Text All The Time!” -”*Giggle* *Laughs* *Snorts* *Giggles* *Chuckles* *Laughs softly* (...What am I Replying to?!)” -”I Got Out of Hell and Turned Super Saiyajin! (All By Myself!)” -And many more! If you’re interested in seeing one of these stories first, drop me a line here or Twit at me on Tweeter. Otherwise I’ll pick one at random and write about that next. Until next time, drink your tea and don’t ask me medical questions!

#slbp #rp #roleplaying #doctor douzan #ask douzan #advice #im old #what are tags #tag all the thigns #things #roleplay #douzan minase #minase douzan #samurai love ballad party

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kidsviral-blog · 6 years ago

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In Cambodia, It's Not Really Domestic Violence Until The Women Bleed

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/in-cambodia-its-not-really-domestic-violence-until-the-women-bleed/

In Cambodia, It's Not Really Domestic Violence Until The Women Bleed

A loophole in Cambodia’s domestic violence law leaves women unprotected. Jina Moore reports from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for BuzzFeed News.

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A woman holds a krama, a traditional Khmer scarf. Damir Sagolj / Reuters

PHNOM PENH — It didn’t come out of nowhere, the machete-swinging that night. Mann Samnos’ husband of 10 years was angry. More than angry. She’d seen so much of his ordinary anger, the yelling and name-calling and other emotional abuse. She’d seen him flame with jealousy if he thought she’d talked to a male neighbor and scream. This night, with the machete, this was something else. Not jealousy, not frustration. “It was more like something possessed him,” Mann remembered, speaking to BuzzFeed News on a dock in Phnom Penh.

He had woken up and attacked the bed where she was lying; he chopped chairs and pillows. He lunged for her face and brought the dull end down on her head. She pleaded for her life and, when her 8- and 12-year-old children woke up crying, she pleaded for theirs. “I will kill you!” he yelled in response. “I will kill you!”

But if he hadn’t chopped off three of Mann’s fingers, chances are that nothing that happened that night would have been treated as a crime.

“Basically you can get hit on the head with a machete, but unless there’s blood, it isn’t a crime,” said Robin Mauney, a gender expert who has been working on the issue of violence against women in Cambodia for 20 years.

Technically, everything Mann suffered that night — and the emotional abuse she suffered for a full year before — violates Cambodia’s 10-year-old domestic violence law. All kinds of abuse, from taunts and threats to emotional manipulation, technically break that law — but only assaults that draw blood, break bones, or leave bruises can be legally punished.

That’s because those kind of “serious” assaults violate Cambodia’s penal code, the law that categorizes and criminalizes physical assaults. The domestic violence law, however, doesn’t lay out any legal punishment for people who violate it, unless they do something that’s criminalized by the penal code applies. So unless the violence men perpetrate against their wives fits the code’s legal strictures of assault, there is no legal mechanism to hold men accountable for the crime.

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A woman collects water lilies to sell at a market on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Pring Samrang / Reuters

Last week, Cambodia launched its second National Action Plan on Violence Against Women, intended to coordinate government action on the issue for the next four years. Experts hope a one-stop shop for victim services and its focus on improving legal implementation can mitigate the cruel irony of the domestic violence law: The crime isn’t punished unless the physical injury is seen as overwhelmingly serious, in the eyes of a legal system often as concerned about preserving “family harmony” and keeping couples together as it is about protecting or supporting women.

Good numbers on the prevalence of physical domestic violence in Cambodia are also hard to come by. The most current data comes from a regional report by U.N. Women on violence against women in Southeast Asia. In the 2013 study, 22% of Cambodian women reported having experienced physical violence at the hands of a male partner, but only 16% of men acknowledged perpetrating such violence.

But the other forms of domestic violence outlined in the law — psychological, emotional, or financial — don’t have any legal consequences attached to them, making it all but impossible to track the prevalence of that violence.

In Mann’s case, there wasn’t any immediate help even in a situation that did constitute a crime. As her husband was chasing her with a machete, a neighbor called the police, but they simply never showed up, she said.

In this, Mann’s situation is not unique.

“The local authorities just turn away. It’s happened many times,” said Chhan Sokunthea, who heads the women’s and children’s section of ADHOC, a Cambodian legal assistance organization.

Chhan said even her organization differentiates its work by the severity of assault. “A kick or a slap, something medium is not as serious. The more serious ones — with blood or a black eye or something like that” are the cases ADHOC takes to court, providing pro bono lawyers for women who want legal justice, Chhan said.

Mann initially thought she was one of those women who would face her husband in a courtroom. When her husband finally was arrested, by a military police unit, he was held in jail for four months while ADHOC worked the case on Mann’s behalf. But in December, Mann decided to drop her complaint. “I feel sympathy with children asking for their father,” Mann said.

A 2014 report found that 75% of Cambodian women felt women should keep silent about abuse in order to keep their families together.

Women are commonly dissuaded from reporting or pursuing domestic violence cases by Cambodian culture, as well. Marriage is a massively important institution, and it’s traditionally a woman’s job to keep “family harmony.” (Cambodia’s domestic violence law lists “strength[ening] harmony within the households” as one of its objectives.) Women are expected to speak softly and to submit to their husbands’ will. A 2009 report from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs found that 45% of local authorities thought it was permissible for men to beat their wives under certain circumstances — and 42% of women in a major domestic violence study published in 2014 thought alcohol excused domestic violence.

For generations, family discord has been viewed as a private matter, and speaking openly about violence in the home would bring shame on the family and earn the wife a reputation as a bad woman. A 2014 report found that 75% of Cambodian women felt women should keep silent about abuse in order to keep their families together (only 55% of men felt the same). Of those women surveyed who acknowledge being abused, 76% never sought help.

“‘Break the silence’ is easy to say,” said Ros Sopheap, the executive director of the independent grassroots organization Gender and Development Cambodia (GADC). “But to break the silence is to break the culture. Breaking the culture, really — it’s a kind of battle.”

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A Cambodian woman shouts slogans while marching for International Women’s Day in Phnom Penh. Pring Samrang / Reuters

Mann didn’t feel strong social pressure to keep quiet — her husband’s family vocally disapproved of their son’s violence — but she did feel economic pressure to make amends. Her husband had a job that paid well, making concrete stairs, and when he went to jail, her whole family lost their primary source of income.

The financial importance of men to their families influences law enforcement officials and judges too, the 2014 study found. “Let’s  say that I sentence the perpetrator to jail. What I do is essentially take away the only provider of that family,” one male judge told the research team, explaining his mixed feelings about the law.

“Women do not want to put their husbands into prison, even if they report [the violence]. What they want is [him] to stop beating.”

Ros, of GADC, said this is one of the reasons there’s such abysmal implementation of the domestic violence law. “If you implement the law, then every woman in the community is going to be a widow,” she said. “Women do not want to put their husbands into prison, even if they report [the violence]. What they want is [him] to stop beating.”

But there isn’t much work being done, Ros said, to help men change their behavior. Ros said most domestic violence interventions are organized around keeping the victim safe from her aggressor. “But we don’t have a space to bring the batterer, and I think this is a really big gap,” she said. “We don’t have space for men.”

Given the importance of marriage in Cambodian culture, reconciliation remains the priority of police officers, judges, and even some human rights organizations. Experts described a system in which women who push domestic violence complaints forward (usually as divorce cases) are required to mediate the complaint three times; if they still can’t reconcile, the judge finally proceeds toward divorce.

“He signs an agreement that says how he’ll improve his behavior and not beat her,” said Mauney, the gender expert, “and she signs an agreement that says how she’ll behave so that he doesn’t have a ‘reason’ to beat her.”

So when women like Mann drop their complaints, and their husbands get released from jail, there’s little more than hope to keep the women safe. “This is the first time he attacked me; I just hope he can go back to his old character … If he can be a good person again, I don’t want to risk my married life,” Mann said.

But she’s not willing to risk living with him, either. Today, Mann lives and works on a small fishing boat with her in-laws, who she says have supported her and condemned their son’s violence. Her children stay with her husband, and she visits once a month, but she won’t sleep at their house.

“I’m OK to leave the kids because I know from the first incident he did not harm the kids. I know he loves his kids so much,” Mann said. “I’m not sure about me.”

Chhan, of ADHOC, has seen a different side of things. Last year, her organization received 150 complaints of domestic violence. A little more than half of those proceeded to court, a process that can take years. But she’s also seen dropped cases end in tragedy. “Some of the domestic violence cases become murder cases,” Chhan said. “The wife is more and more patient, but the men are more powerful. They make violence, and it gets more dangerous.”

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jinamoore/cambodia-domestic-violence

#domestic violence #womens rights

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dorothydelgadillo · 7 years ago

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The F Word: Nevertheless, She Parented

Welcome to The F Word, where we, Skillcrush staffers Lauren Lang and special guest Maren Vernon, discuss issues that impact all of us—both in and out of the workplace. We know that, for us, coming to understand the f-word (in this case, feminism), and how important it is in the scope of our lives, didn’t happen overnight. We hope you’ll join us once a month as we meet to discuss power, identity, and the changes we want to see in the world.

Lauren: Maren, welcome to the F-Word! It’s so great to be with you today chatting about the joys of feminist parenting—and specifically, motherhood.

Maren: Thanks, Lauren! I have my cup of coffee in hand. I’ve taken a deep breath. And I’m ready to jump in.

Lauren: With three kids (all girls) between us, you and I have some insight into what being a mom is really like. And man, it’s tough. I’m constantly running interference against mean kids at school, media messaging that disrespects women in any number of ways, and the little microaggressions that fly under the radar and become tiny, but growing, insecurities in my daughter’s spirit.

On the heels of Oprah’s AMAZING Golden Globes speech where she envisions a “new day on the horizon” where “nobody ever has to say ‘me too’ again,” this is the future parents also aspire to. But it can seem like an insurmountable task to shield our kids from the reality of the world in 2018. Where do we start?

Maren: I’m starting to think I should have brought wine to calm my nerves when I think of everything they are facing… But Oprah’s speech!

My gals are still young and just starting in school but my kids are not only girls but girls of color, and finding the line between preparing them and not scaring them is something my husband and I talk about a lot. I can tell you that an early way I’m trying to raise them to feel they can do anything and ignore the haters is through stories and good role modeling.

I used to work in publishing, so books will always be important in my house. I like to look for picture books—since that is the stage we are in—with strong, and ideally diverse, female characters using their smarts and creativity to problem solve, lead, or demonstrate kindness. I could name books all day but Pocket Full of Colors (about Mary Blair), Drum Dream Girl;I Am Truly; She Persisted; Ada Twist, Scientist; and Rosie Revere, Engineer spring to mind as particularly great examples.

Of course my struggle is that I want them to feel independent and in control of the course their life takes, buuuuuut I also need them to listen when I say, “Come on, dude, that is not a great idea.” So we find ways to negotiate and I let them take the lead when appropriate. Just yesterday my oldest snuck business cards out of my office to give to friends so they could get their moms to schedule playdates with me. I caught her with the cards as she headed into school, but I appreciated her pluck and determination and I let her move forward with her plan. How have you started introducing The F Word in your household?

Lauren: Okay, business cards? Genius.

I wholeheartedly agree with you about choosing media with strong depictions of women. My daughter loves the Rebel Girls book series, which features small vignettes and beautiful illustrations of notable women and girls throughout history who have exhibited strength and determination (including the women featured in Hidden Figures, which she loved). We talk openly about these women’s struggles and the discrimination they’ve worked to overcome—based on gender, yes, but also race or ethnicity or religion or age or ability or sexual orientation. These books have been a great resource both for empowering my daughter and also spurring deep discussions about her own privilege.

So media is important… BUT I agree that the best opportunity to introduce feminism—both to girls and to boys—is to teach the concept by example and model what feminism looks like. It looks like empowering and respecting our children, expecting them to respect others, and empowering them to speak up when they feel unsafe. It looks like mothers who have agency and confidence and it looks like fathers who understand consent and who listen. It looks like the world that Her Majesty Queen Oprah says that we want for our children.

And it benefits us as mothers to find what that looks like too, because SOCIETY HAS NOT GOTTEN THE MEMO. There is so much pressure on mothers to do everything right and to have perfectly behaved and brilliant children at all times, and to never, ever lose our patience. And so, feminist motherhood is just as much about how we as women consciously choose to construct ourselves as parents, by bucking those impossible standards and finding what works for us. Maren, there are so, so many ways to “fail” as a mother, to the extent that—SPOILER ALERT!—there is literally no way to “succeed.” So let’s get specific: What criticism do you face about your role as a parent?

Maren: I find external criticism most often comes in comments along the lines of, “Working and mothering and side hustles… You should give yourself a break. You are trying to do too much.” The implication is: You should focus more on being a mother.

Usually the things I love to do—that make me feel fulfilled outside of being a parent—are the first things I’m expected to cut out. Then that just leaves me grumpy and resentful. Does that make me a better parent? No.

I need the side hustle or the part-time job that keeps me intellectually curious. I have fun doing art projects with my kids or exploring the science museum, but I also need challenges and positive stress and to learn new things. (Let me take a moment to acknowledge my privilege that I even have some choices to make, and also to say that just like I don’t want to be judged for my choice, I’m not going to judge another’s path. I’m just acknowledging that wouldn’t be living as my authentic self.)

I started learning to code (with Skillcrush!) when my first was about a year old. I’d suffered from some postpartum depression and was generally feeling down about my abilities and intellect because parenting was a lot harder than I expected, and despite all the reading and prep, I didn’t feel like some things came as easy to me (and social media was NOT helping). I’m not lying when I say that learning to code gave me my confidence back. Maybe my kid didn’t sleep through the night last night and refused to eat the ten different foods I prepared but, hey! I got that image to float beside some text! I am good at something! It was the outlet and challenge I needed to get my mojo back. And you know what? When I felt better about myself, I know I became a mom who was more fun to be around. Losing your identity is no joke.

What criticisms have you faced as a parent, Lauren, and how have you dealt with it?

Lauren: There is SO much here that resonates with my experience, particularly in the idea that I have a right to make a choice to be a multidimensional human being whose existence is not fulfilled entirely by my child—and the notion that this choice is actually a positive thing for her to witness. THE HORROR: a mother who is also a person with interests and talents and—gasp—ambitions!

If I reveal myself to be stressed or anxious about ANYTHING in my life, you’re right—I receive unsolicited advice that the first thing to go should be what makes me happy. The message is clear: My career is a luxury, and any mission I value outside of motherhood is somehow deeply unfair to my daughter—even when, ironically, that mission is to create a world in which she is empowered and free.

So how have I dealt with it? I keep doing what brings me deep satisfaction. I try to tune out the noise and follow my true north. And in doing so, I show my child the best possible person I can be. I try my best, and sometimes I’m a shitty mom. (And sometimes I’m a shitty employee and sometimes I’m a shitty spouse and sometimes I’m shitty at keeping my shit together.) But I think I’m okay with that. Perfection is for Beyonce, and she has help. And speaking of support, what roles do you think male partners have in all this? Heterosexual coupling puts vastly differently expectations for how mothers and fathers interact with their children: a mom who takes her kid to the park is like the default while the dad who does the same is OMG THE BEST DAD EVER. Or a dad who slightly raises his voice to his kids is giving some “tough love” while a mom who does the same is a horrible person who should have her kids taken away. What do we take from this double standard?

Maren: I’m incredibly lucky to have a husband doesn’t expect me to fall in lockstep with gender roles, but at the moment he is the primary breadwinner and I am the lead parent. So by default I am expected to know what is going on with their schools and their friends and to volunteer for all the things and get the laundry done and have food in the house. And those efforts feel rarely acknowledged.

But just because I am the lead parent doesn’t change the fact that sometimes I want to spend an hour coding, rather than at the park with my children. And the fact that, when I think about doing something for me or for my career, I almost immediately consider it to be selfish—is problematic. I’m criticizing myself before anyone else has the chance to.

Lauren: YES. I think a lot of it comes down to the concept of “emotional labor,” right? This idea that women have to shoulder so much of the unseen knowledge and work to keep everything running smoothly—and a lot of that is learned behavior.

One way I’ve experimented with lessening the burden of all there is to do is just by…dropping some of it. (#badmomconfessions)

I’ve stopped monitoring whether there’s milk in the fridge or whether library books are in the backpack on library day at school. Practicing personal responsibility should come at an early age…and picking up a young able-bodied person’s dishes and transporting them to the dishwasher for her? Or picking out the perfect birthday gift for my husband’s mother, when he’s known her 20 years longer than I have? Nope! Ain’t nobody got time for that.

And it’s not that I would never do any of these things—I often have. I love my family. But it’s been a long unwinding of the expectation that I will, just because my ovaries make it so.

Maren: Are we long lost twins?! My anal-retentive nature will probably never let me forget how much toilet paper is in the house at any given time, but the house chores are gender neutral and everyone can pitch in in some way shape or form, big or little. Don’t like the chore I’ve offered you? Pitch me a compromise! My husband and I definitely do that. Never too early to practice those job skills, right?

Lauren: HA! Totally. Okay, Maren, last question! And this is a fun one. :) What is, to you, the absolute best part of being a parent? What did you never anticipate about having these little people in your life that has been delightful and surprising? For me, it’s been experiencing my daughter’s wicked sense of humor, which grows sharper and drier by the day. She’s only seven, and I can’t believe what she comes up with as it is—not to mention in 20 years when she has her own HBO stand-up special.

Maren: I love that! I think what has been fun for me is seeing the things they create out of seemingly nothing. It really is true that some buttons and a cardboard tube and some pencils and a mismatched sock can suddenly entertain them for an hour and is ten times more fun than anything I’d buy. I really just need to step back and get out of their way and let them have agency over the project (that includes letting them sort out their differences because I can’t always be there to fight their battles). It is so fascinating to watch how their minds work, and I’m often inspired by new ideas or challenged by them to step outside my comfort zone.

from Web Developers World https://skillcrush.com/2018/01/17/feminist-parenting-working-moms/

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