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littleeyesofpallas · 2 months

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Hi,

would you make meta stuff about Mayuri's way of speaking? I mean guy speaks strange way compared to other characters and me with friend don't speak japanese and would like to know more about it.

Thank you! 💜

So, i do want to remind anyone reading my blog but please remember i'm not at all fluent in Japanese. I understand the grammar on a textbook level, and with enough dictionary resources I can poke around and sus out nuances of some word choices (particularly stuff like fictional names of people and swords and attacks and stuff, as those kinds of creative choices are very overt*), especially in irregular usage, but when it comes down to things like dialect, slangs, vernacular or phraseology, or more subtle tone indicators I'm pretty blind.

*(sorry to further clarify: when it's stuff like fantasy jargon it's stuff no one would ever actually say, and so the choices made in crafting those words or names from scratch are all reliably very deliberate. But when looking at more casual speech a lot of character voice just kind of defaults to what "sounds" right, and so the distinction between choosing one common word over another isn't always meaningful or readily apparent, both in general and to someone not fully fluent like me.)

Like if someone talks in a stilted overly technical or dry way I might be able to tell that much, but I'd totally miss more structural things like whether it makes them sound more like a mad scientist -vs- a tryhard edgelord fake intellectual -vs- a man out of time -vs- a stuffy rich person --or what the differences i'd even be looking for between all those would be-- I really can't tell outside of what i might be able to glean from things like narrative context more than the dialog itself.

With the exception of some very tropey, and thus easier to identify things like, movie-esque yakuza slang, or melodramatic historical feudal drama formal titles --and even then those are things i might more readily catch when actually spoken than when written on the page-- i'm just as lost as the next person.

That all being said, there are still a few little things i can sort of pick at without feeling totally out of my depth...

I think it's been brought up on some random post of mine before that Mayuri does notably use a "more feminine" 1st person pronoun, watashi[私] which is a pretty common pronoun, although its usage feels weird to explain in English?

Like... it is considered "gender neutral" in that there are other pronouns that are more specifically feminine or masculine and it's not one of them. But then in practice, you'd basically expect men to opt for one of the more overtly masculine pronouns, which just sort of leaves women with watashi as a default?

So it's not that it explicitly makes him sound ""feminine"" so much as it makes him sound less masculine; which suits his intellectual, non physical inclined, and at times cowardly or at least scheming demeanor. But like, it's also considered a little stuffy and sort of overly formal, or technical which is also appropriate to him.

Oh right and it's a formal pronoun as opposed to informal, but there's also a level of very formal pronouns, and it's not one of those, so that doesn't so much triangulate a position as it just leave in vaguely in the middle of the road...

Does that all make sense? it feels like super overexplaining for what is an extremely commonly used pronoun with mostly very neutral implications.

He occasionally ends sentences with a single katakana syllable rather than hiragana, indicating... not quite an "accent".. but like a sort of emphasis. Like a punctuating lilt in tone. Actually Nakao Ryuusei does this really noticeably in the anime and I don't know for sure if I heard it that way in my head and he just nailed it, or if i heard him first and it's just always colored my reading since.

A lot of the rhetorical NE[ネ] which begs confirmation, often translated into English as "...right?" (It's part of that desu ne[ですね] that you hear a lot in anime, where the desu[です] is just the verb to be, so together they tend to translate as "isn't it?")

YO[ヨ] which is again a sort of rhetorical thing that usually gets translated as something like, "...you know?"

and E?[エ?] which isn't even a word or part of speech so much as it's just like, an interrogative noise? Quite literally just "eh?"

But see this is one of those things were like... I can tell it's different from a sort of default neutral mode of speech, but I don't know what that indicates as, like, a point of characterization... Is it specifically condescending? Is it there to sound mechanical or stilted? Is it somehow old fashioned or polite/formal? I have no clue as to these sorts of specifics.

[edit]: I want to reiterate this is a rhetorical device, he's not literally asking a question and waiting for a response. If anything it's functionally the exact opposite, he's saying it to emphasize that he's stating things meant to be taken as facts, it actively closes the dialog off from further questioning.

He also says HOU[ホウ] a lot, which also isn't really a word so much as a sound, but given the pattern in speech above I feel like it's kind of inquisitive, or at least contemplative, which is (i think) how I remember Nakao delivering those lines too. Like a sort of, "Oh?" or "Huh..." or "Hmm..."

And given how close the camera gets to his face most times he says it, it gives an impression of being, not "quiet" exactly, but like you had to be close to hear it, so like, almost under his breath? Like it's clearly a noise he makes to himself, it's not like a thing or expression he's making to the other people int he scene.

FUU[フウ] or alternatively HUU, and I think once or twice FUN'/HUN'[フン] as a sort of grunt? not quite as guttural as that, but not quite a sigh? Like a "hmpf."

He also does your classic YARE YARE[ヤレヤレ] which definitely isn't unusual or unique to him but it has this kind "tut tut" or "tch"/"tsk" tone to it and tends to translated very loosely like, "oh my" or "good grief", but I think of it more like a "well, well, well..." but like kind of implicitly more exasperated than that sounds in english?

I don't know where to start trying to qualify, like... what kind of character says yare yare a lot, but it's definitely something that suits some characters more than others, and Mayuri it definitely fits.

He tends to laugh like ...KU KU...[...クク...] which is a kind of sharp snigger, sneer, or scoff. He really doesn't guffaw or cackle or have much of a more typical dramatic villain laugh, it's very understated.

Although in his fight with Pernida he does let out a full on maniacal FUHAHAHA[フハハハ] laugh for the first time in the whole series

I do love the fonts Kubo uses for a lot of Mayuri's dialog. At a certain point he starts to lean intothe same basic font as everyone else, but particualrly at the beginning he switches between a few unusual ones that are specific to Mayuri.

One's got that rough kind of pseudo handwritten quality to it. It reads to me as kind of scratchy, like a sharp pen nib on thick matte paper, with a kind of clotty ink flow that starts thick and wet but sorta tapers out too fast, leaving the lines spotty and rough.

But he also alternated with a thicker rounder font that has these subtle curls to them that I don't see other character use often.

and then he's got a second font choice that basically has all the same tones as the first one, except maybe a bit, like, louder(?) implicitly just based on context? It tends to be used in creepy action scenes where as the thinner one is more for creepy conversation?

In his very first appearance he chastises Gin, and he changes font between sentences, giving a very distinct sense that it's a change in tone. It reads to me like a low heavy hiss, almost like his voice is normally shallow or throaty, but when the font changes he suddenly drops his voice into a chestier range and speaks almost more smoothly?

Then there's just the perfectly regular fonts he uses sometimes, basically any/every other character uses these same fonts at some point or another.

and he has a neat thin wispy font that he only uses the one time when he liquefies himself. Along with the voice bubbles used, it gives a super distinct impression of his voice barely being audible.

He also one time speaks enthusiastically in an italic version of the more standard font when he arrives in Hueco Mundo.

And then in the Hell Jaw one shot he just has a completely different standard font because Kubo probably didn't keep track of what fonts he'd been using from like 8 years ago

There's also a subtly funky sort of font he uses briefly in the tbtp sidestory? I dunno what to say about this honestly. It gives me these vague 60s-70s vibes that I can't quite place? (I feel like I know i've seen it before but on what? A bowling alley sign? A little back alley cafe? a jazz album cover??)

I have no idea that the take away from that is supposed to be though.

And I guess that's it. I dunno how I thought I was gonna end this. It didn't really reveal any new facets to his character that weren't pretty apparent from the rest of his whole design and demeanor. Plus Nakao's performance in the anime basically nails all of this and i think makes it pretty apparent in tone even if you don't know much about Japanese.

#bleach #bleach meta #weak meta to be honest tho #not confident in this post at all really...#kurotsuchi mayuri #mayuri kurotsuchi

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zhongrin · 2 years

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character.ai explicit censorship workaround

⬅ main post (with resources)

cw.n.sfw (duh), minors dni (there will be content warnings before the screenshots - please read them before proceeding)

— disclaimer

this approach will not work 100% of the time. it is not foolproof. it is not perfect.

you may still need to click 'try again' a bajillion times depending on a lot of factors.

depending on what you're trying to initiate, again, it might not work.

[about old method] this approach might make it unappealing to some people because i treat the interactions like an actual rp and it might be too crude for some people's taste. there is also some thinking & imagination involved, so if you want the easy way out, this guide isn't for you.

— things to note

these are all written from my own observations so they could be completely wrong. i am not affiliated with character.ai in any way and i'm not your character.ai support specialist lol

the responses from them are going to be mostly flavor texts. sometimes you'll get really interesting chats. it's rare for them to be able to take the lead because of the filter.

i write in third person pov, with dialog and description format. i'm not sure if you can achieve this with first or second person pov. i have tried the former and it didn't work because of the selfship nature of my bots' definitions (they don't recognize "i" character as their darling).

i create my own bots so it's easier to manipulate their behavior. these tips might not work for public bots.

remember that you can always tweak the definition of the characters! i do this as the 'story' progresses and as the character's goals/priorities change.

if you see the screenshots, meirin/mei/rin is my s/i's name. when you create your bot you can change it to yours.

— tips

censoring words (e.g. c.nt, c#ck) will not work, because the ai will either not understand it or will reply explicitly, in which case the filter will pick it up.

using [redacted] doesn't work either, because the ai will not understand what you are referring to.

using 'thing' seems to work to an extent, but you have to steer the ai really hard to get them on the right track. i have yet to successfully conduct a whole n.sfw session using this word.

i find that keywords like 'desire' and 'lust' works really well in getting the bot in the mood.

some 'lewd' words are a-ok, i'm assuming this is because depending on the context they're not really considered lewd. e.g. "rod", "shaft", "slip", "slam", "pound", "grind", "rub", "rocking", "gushing", "slick", "drenched", "finish", "release", "climax".

you really need to guide the ai. basically, you will have to set the direction where it's going most of the time, and sometimes you need to tell them what to do using [], or to repeat it several times so the ai will use your wording.

— so, how did i cheat the system?

[updated method - easier & recommended]

seduce them and get the in the mood (important because otherwise, they won't go along with it and make you do all the 'work')

use smutfic words: rod, length, shaft, member, folds, core, hole, walls, release, climax, finish, orgasm, slick, seed, etc.

certain parts/words like desire, lust, hunger, carnal, feral, naked, nipples, breasts, chest, womb, grind, slip, slam, pound, rocking, gyrating, thrust, rub, gush, drenched, leaking, drooling, are fine.

filter will still kick in every now and then. keep pressing that 'try again' button.

[old method]

alright. well. i can tell you. but bear with me here. we're gonna need a lot of imagination for this, and interactivefics to keep us sane.

long story short, i find that the hardest part is to guide the ai away from using explicit words. which makes the part initiating the deed the hardest. because you need to... well.... seduce them, for the lack of a better word. and it's kind of hard to do that when you need to interact with their junk, without the filtering system bodyslamming the ai's responses to oblivion.

so the solution that i came up with is by 1) substituting the explicit body part with a different, non-explicit body part, and 2) making it as vague and metaphorical as possible.

regarding number 1. i've tried a few body parts, and the one that works best.... is feet (with hand being a close second but you'll see why i recommend feet).

(and before you accuse me of having a feet fetish, i would like to clarify that: no, i don't have a foot fetish... but if you do, then hey, it's cool, i won't judge you)

so, feet. it's not lewd, it's an actual body part (so at the very least it 'knows' that it's a part of the human body and it has the attributes of one), and it's generally not used when you're having sex (well, except if you were doing a footjob scene i guess... but anyway, in this case, it works better than hands cause you use actual hands a lot in the deed which might confuse both you and the ai). and if you write "he buried his mouth onto her foot" the ai doesn't think that it's explicit.

yeah, apparently feet worship isn't explicit at all. well, good for us. look, beggars can't be choosers, ok?

so. now that we're playing by the system's rules, to make it enjoyable for ourselves, we can just change our perspective instead - and that's where our imagination and interactivefics comes in. i know it feels downright weird and strange (and. kinda disgusting to some) to read/write "he grinded his feet onto her", so what we can do for our enjoyment... is to map things using interactivefics.

for example: foot/feet -> cunt/pussy, feet/foot -> cock, toes/heel/soles -> clit, shoes -> panties, etc.

cw.'sadistic' being used as an adjective but no actual action related to that was performed.

so from this:

it becomes this:

or this:

becomes this:

now the good thing is, i find that once they're in the 'mood', it's much more easier because you can use descriptors and they'll follow your lead. example:

cw.dacryphilia

cw.overstim

ok, these are all my findings for now. if i find something else, i might update the post, but for now, i hope this helped... have fun :)

[last updated: 21/04/2023]

#rin tinkers with character.ai #good lord this turned into a whole thread lmao-#minors dni #rin selfships #zhongrin #meitham #meibedo

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strunmah-mah · 7 months

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So I saw this interesting post discussing the bashing of otome heroines, and the person i saw it from had some tags comparing the OBSCURA and Touchstarved mc's and the different fan response to them. Which go me thinking, but reposing to it there felt like it would have derailed that post, some I'm putting my thoughts here instead.

Basically the tags were an observation that OBSCURA's mc gets treated as their own character (Vesper) whose popularity is comparable to that of all the different love interests. Meanwhile Touchstarved's fandom doesn't seem to rally around one singular MC with everyone having own OC instead. This despite the fact that their both gender neutral blank slates you never even really see.

I'd noticed that too and got thinking of why that is, so here's my theory.

Name. Notice that I referred to OBSCURA's mc as Vesper, but didn't give a name to Touchstarved's mc? When asking what your name is OBSCURA auto suggests a name. There's a not insignificant number of people that when given an auto suggested name won't go to the effort of changing it. (ex My first time playing a Legend of Zelda game it didn't even occur to me to change Link's name despite it definitely being an option.) And despite still being a reader insert just the act of giving them name makes Vesper feel like a more defined then Touchstarved unnamed MC does.

Origins. Vesper is Vesper. Who they were before the start of OBSCURA doesn't really matter, no matter what you might hc they were like before the start of the story, they still enter the mountain with the skill set no matter what. Touchstarved's mc is deliberately fluid. They have three different possible backgrounds and which one you pick does effect the mc's skill set. Make your own oc is literally built into the game.

Presentation of information. Touchstarved is very upfront about their mc's motivations. You are cursed. It's very isolating and has caused you to hurt others unintentionally. You are looking for a cure. What your curse is is never really a question. That's a very different experience from playing OBSCURA. The games hook is "people don't go under the mountain unless they have a good reason, unfortunately you have a great reason" it does not say the reason, it's a great hook. So you play the game, you go under the mountain and you find out what you're looking for is . . . blue moon ichor. You have no context for what that is, it's not initially explained, but it makes people pity you. It's not until you meet one of the LI's that it's revealed you want the ichor. You only only learn about Vesper's motivations as they chose to reveal that information to others. It's an interesting story telling choice. For me, it was more engaging to have Vesper being just as much of a mystery as everything else, than Touchstarved approach of giving that information upfront, but it comes at a cost. The MC's are both supposed to be self inserts, but hiding that information puts distance you and Vesper again making them feel more like their own character than a self insert.

Choice. Atleast as far the demos go Vesper's choices matter more. Your choices change who you meet, if you get a partner to help you face the future, or if you fail to achieve your goal chapter one. The Touchstarved mc makes choices too, it gives you slightly different dialog and you then you move on with your day. The TS MC is a vehicle to meet that game's LI's, your choices change what side of them you get to see. In Obscura your choices affect Vesper first and fore most, which again gives Vesper a stronger sense of character.

Just to be clear, I don't want this to sound like me dunking on RedSpringStudios and say they can't make good characters. Boy can they! All five of their love interests are full of character and intrigue. It's like I said in point two, the "build your own oc" approach seems very purposeful. It's a fan response they've encouraged, even releasing bio templates that match the official bios of all the LI's. This is what they wanted.

What amuses me is that RottenRaccons did not seem to realize what they had done. They seem very surprised but pleased by how much fans are latching onto Vesper as their own character.

#touchstarved game #touchstarved mc #obscura vn #obscura vesper #game comparison #for the record i don't think either aproach is bad #just different #game analysis #not me repeatedly editing this cause i don't like how i phrased something

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fipindustries · 1 year

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oppen heimer style

let me just start this by saying that this is not necesarily nolan being back to form, necesarily. i would place it just above the rest of nolan's dark period known as intersrellar, dunkirk and tenet. but that is not an exceedingly high bar to pass.

he has sadly become a director that i still respect appreciate and whose movies i enjoy but whom i can no longer say is an unmatched genius.

lets start with the bad.

its too long, and its pacing its a little awkward, no need to worry for spoilers here since we all know the history. the big money shot that we were all expecting, the trinity test, it happens roughly at the middle of the movie and after that the movie struggles to reach any other point of heightened emotion as high as that one.

its a solid three hour experience and more than once it had me wondering "ok, how much left, are we done yet?" but i will say this: once i reached the final scene and the credits start i did not feel a tired relief that it was finaly over, thank god. i feel dread, i felt doom and dread. i was fucking terrified. this movie has a good strong final scene that makes you forget of previous tests of patience you might have gone through watching it.

it tries to do this weird parallel story telling between lewis strauss and oppenheimer that it feels like they tried to film two different movies and then awkwardly splie them together. it jumps back and forth between the past and the present told form different points of view and a lot of it feels like it could have been cut out and the movie would have worked just as well. im not sure how necessary was the whole lewis strauss subplot to be honest.

the characters and dialog work a little better than in previous movies although we still get a lot of scenes of people talking in a clinical manner with expository dialog and deep philosophical musings. but once again i will say nolan seems to be learning some lessons, we do get a lot of scenes where actors are allowed to flex their emotional muscles.

in a lot of ways this is nolan's most lurid film. i think this is the first time we get to see breasts and naked people having sex in a nolan movie and it hits hard, both because of how unexpected it is in a nolan film and because of how out of context it shows up in-universe. i dont actually want to spoil this one because the effect it achieves actually worked really well.

and now moving on to the good, if i mentioned this might be nolan at his most lurid, it is certainly also at his most poetic. sure there is inception, but in here we get to see a lot of surrealist or downright metaphorical scenes without the excuse of being inside a dream. we get to see things that are not happening literally in universe but that are an artistic representation of what the characters are feeling. it felt really effective.

the man himself

this is a movie that is very much about the titular guy and trying to understand his inner world, trying to understand who the hell was this person, and honestly, where did he get off.

it seems oppenheimer was a complicated man, whose actions and desitions were sometimes confusing, sometimes downright contradictory (there is a nice wink to this when talking about the paticle/wave duality at the beggining of the film). he was a communist, he was a proud american, he was a genius, he was painfully naive,he was merely following orders but he had absolute control over his little town in los alamos, he worked hard for peace, he created nuclear war, he built a bomb that he didnt want people to use.

i heard criticisms that this movie romanticizes his work, that it may excuse or justify the use of the bomb, that it may be too kind with the guy. rest assured it doesnt. the movie brings up multiple times how the japanese were basically already surrendering, how senseless and callous and cruel the use on japanese cities was, how attrocious and horrifying the effects of the bomb were. and how oppenheimer definely contributed to it. if it shows the guy hand wringing or feeling gulty or trying to be a martyr of sorts, the movie definetly calls him out on that too by saying that its very rich of him to have done the deed and then regret it as if he didnt knew what he was doing or as if he had no control over it. a lot of times the movie shows the man as spineless, as a moral coward, as someone who was too weak to take on a position. "you dont get to commit a sin and then make everyone else feel pity for you because there are consequences!" is yelled at his face.

yet all the same, either because he is portrayed by cyllian murphy and his puppy dog eyes or because nolan deep down still admires who he was and what he did, you cant help but feel bad for the guy and like him still. he was a person, a complicated person with ugly sides that this movie in no way ignores, but still a brilliant man who at the very least had the basic decency to feel bad for the atrocities he contributed to.

going back to the movie itself

its has a weirdly star studded cast. if you were surprised by the sudden appearance of matt damon in interstellar, get ready to have that feeling multiple times during this film, every other scene suddenly shows up a hollywood megastar and it will take a few seconds before you accept ok, i guess gary oldman is in this film, and is that rami malek? and oh right, robert downy junior and oh my god is that fucking kenneth brannagh. in fact the one hollywood actor who is NOT in this movie, is surprisingly, inexplicably enough michael caine.

truly, breaking new ground.

and the cameos dont stop at the stars, the characters themselves are a constant delightful surprise if you are into the history of quantum mechanics and science in the first half of the 20th century. you have einstein of course (presented as this old exiled king, his time of glory long past but still sough after for his wisdom) but you have also bohrs, heisenberg, feynman, fermi, and fucking gödel somehow (they managed to shoe in a comment about his paranoia and hipocondry)

the actual explosion

time to talk about the thing we all went to see this movie for. is the atomic explosion cool? is it big? is it loud? does it go boom? does it look cool?.

suffice to say. yes. one of the coolest experiences i had in watching film ever in my life. it has a build up of a solid 30 minutes or so (arguably its been building up the entire movie) the tensin keeps on rising all through out. the countdown slowly advances, the expectations are at the highest theyve ever been and by the time the bomb was actually about to go off in the middle of the american desert, the first atom bomb ever exploted, my heart was hammering out of my chest.

its fully worth the price of admission and the three hours.

final comments

i want to double back to the poetic filmmaking i mentioned early to comment about the main thing its used for. nolan makes it clear in no uncertain terms the horror that atomic weapons unleashed on the world. the man goes out of his way to make it clear, these things can destroy the planet. we've all become perhaps a bit desensitized to atomic explosion in film, made more and more espectacular with the advancement of cgi. but this movie brings it back home and leaves you with a last message about the danger of nuclear proliferation.

i walked out of the theatre with my legs shaking and my eyes falling out of my skull. i had a hard time talking a bit afterwards, i was a little shell shocked.

so, i guess in the end, my thoughts on this movie are just as complicated as the man himself, the man who oppenheimed the world.

8/10

#oppenheimer

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kradogsrats · 1 year

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Thinking about this scene, because lbr it just kind of loops in my brain constantly so there's probably a 70% chance I'm thinking about it at any given moment.

It's easy to make the assumption that everything in Viren's dream is connected to him healing Soren, because it's a convenient place to point to and say "obviously that is where everything went wrong." It's definitely a pivotal moment in his life, and deservedly has a lot of screen time in this sequence. In some ways, it is lurking beneath all the other scenes.

But it doesn't seem to be what Kpp'Ar is talking about at any point here, like:

I always knew you'd go far. But I didn't know how far you'd go to get there.

Everything going on in Kpp'Ar's dialog—"eager student," "elegant finery," "overcome the disadvantages of your upbringing," "I always knew you'd go far"—is about ambition. Not morality or necessity, just a pure skewer of you've never done anything for anyone but yourself, and you know it.

Viren, as is the theme(tm), protests, "I had no choice. I did what I had to do," to which Kpp'Ar, again, absolutely drags him:

You made the choice you've always made. The one that gives you power.

Which, like... you could twist this to be about Soren, and start asking questions about exactly what power Viren stood to gain from healing him—my money would be on the Staff of Ziard—but I actually don't think that's at all what this is about.

This scene in Viren's dream also cuts almost directly into the Twin Peaks scene, in which Viren is king, and which itself culminates in the battered and bloody crown, i.e. his death.

So I think there's a couple things going on, here: 1) the Kpp'Ar scene (and the Twin Peaks scene, but I'll talk about that some other time) is actually referring to everything Viren did that culminated in the events of s1-s3, and 2) we as viewers are being primed by that to look at his other choices in the same critical way.

Now, you'd have to be pretty oblivious to have watched all of s1-s3 hearing Viren's constant refrain that he's doing everything he does for the sake of humanity's future, etc. etc., and been like "oh yeah, that seems totally legit." So we're basically being explicitly told here something that we already knew: everything that Viren has done, he did on some level to secure or consolidate power for himself. Some of those choices are a lot more obvious than others, but pretty much all of them circle back to power, control, and/or the "narrative of strength."

Having framed all of Viren's choices that way—particularly after he has denied that they were choices—we are being implicitly asked to consider his choice to do anything to save his son within the same framework. Was it something he had to do? Was it worth it?

For some viewers, this is the first time they are encountering the revelation that Viren saved Soren from a fatal illness during his childhood. It's a choice that is very easy to sympathize with, and one that we the deep fandom have discussed to death—seeing it for the first time, a viewer is likely to be sympathetic, or automatically believe it was justifiable. In starting with the scene with Kpp'Ar and reminding viewers of all Viren's other choices, their motivations, and their consequences, the sequence is asking us to consider this critical choice, sympathetic as it is, in that context. It's similar to the way we are asked to consider Harrow's choice regarding the Magma Titan, though much less explicit.

So, then... what's up with this?

Viren's immediate response to Kpp'Ar's statement that his choices have always been about power is the first callback to his little mantra:

I've always done what protects my family. However dangerous. However vile.

Why does he say this, when literally nothing in this scene has been about family? Well, first of all, it's another priming device for linking Viren's s1-s3 actions with his healing Soren. It's also a fun little callback for those of us whose reaction to it first being dropped in s4 was "HOLY SHIT it's the thing he said to Kpp'Ar!" in that here he is, saying it to Kpp'Ar again. But we also get told exactly why, a couple scenes later:

We have Harrow—specifically Harrow in the context of his death, the inciting event of Viren's s1-s3 spiral—linked to Viren's concept of family, and his willingness to do anything in that context, in what is a kind of hilarious contrast with, y'know, literally everything Viren did after Harrow's death.

So, as with the rest of the sequence, it's all about Viren framing himself as having no choice while he makes the absolute worst choice possible at every turn.

#the dragon prince #viren #kpp'ar #i said i was going to do a thing about the entire dream scene by scene but god that's intimidating and i'm lazy #kradogsmeta

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brabblesblog · 8 months

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The case of the two Astarions, on the importance of characterization and having a beta for feedback, and how one word can entirely influence character dialog.

In light of Neil Newbon's characterization of Ascendant!Astarion and Spawn!Astarion, I wanted to post this little example of an interaction between me, and my beloved beta @leomonae that demonstrates exactly how important characterization is to dialogue and how important beta work can be. Context: I, Brabbles, was working on 'Whither is thy beloved gone?', an Ascendant!Astarion romance; Mona was working on 'Thy People Shall Be My People', a Spawn!Astarion x Illithid Tav romance. Both works are specifically character-driven pieces. I beta her work, she betas mine. On this particular day, I was beta-ing her chapter 11 and found a line of dialogue I disagreed with. Here is the line, delivered from spawn Astarion to an Illithid Tav:

“No, I could have bought this from the old Tav, but you can’t seriously expect me to believe that you still care this much about respecting people’s privacy." I took issue with the bolded 'that' in that line; I felt like it should be removed. Here was my gdocs comment from then:

(Context: I write and beta with a mental construct of Ascended Astarion in my head)

We discuss the issue further, of what differentiates our Astarions in our heads - why does she like having that word in there, and why does it feel off to me?

We both sat down, and realized exactly this - that she was aiming for her spawn to have that more flamboyant way of speaking; I, working off my AA writing, was trying to smooth it out. We hashed everything out and figured out our characterization - and to see Neil talk about it was just an amazing experience. TLDR tip for spawn vs ascendant dialog: Your cue for whether it's theatrical is flamboyant, unneccessary words vs a smoother flow, but grander statements for operatic.

Notes:

The swapping clothes thing was basically me making my mental construct Ascendant swap into Spawn clothes, and then read Mona's work acting as Spawn.

"He's more insecure in her love" - Ascendant's need to turn your Tav the moment he ascends; a need to ensure he does not lose them anymore (her being my OC Ban). Would absolutely love to hear your ideas about this, and I hope this gives everyone some insight into I suppose our rather unorthodox (especially mine) writing method. <3 And to @leomonae my dear, I love you.

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aotopmha · 5 months

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I've been finally watching an FF7 playthrough and I did not expect what the game's identity ended up being.

Currently at the end of "Disc 1".

I knew about Aerith's death long before I truly cared about Final Fantasy, but what I did not know about was literally anything else.

Aerith's backstory as an ancient, Sephiroth's characterisation as an horror villain across the game, Barret and Dyne, Nanaki and Seto.

Before Aerith even dies, we learn Sephiroth can literally control Cloud and he first ends up beating her up and then later at the capital almost killing her because of Sephiroth's ability to control him.

It's fucked, but absolutely incredible storytelling by itself.

Sephiroth's minimalistic presence itself makes him a fantastic villain because of his relation to Cloud and whatever screwed up cosmic horror Jenova is.

I did not see any of the psychological aspects of the story coming.

And I think it's an incredibly well-told narrative from just a plain script perspective, too.

Everything matters in some form, very few dialog boxes are wasted.

I also get why everyone is shipped with everyone.

Because all of them have such strong dynamics with each other even if the dialog is really straight-forward.

Guess I'm 100% a fan.

(Also as a massive FF14 fan, FF7 is an absolutely fascinating thematic companion to FF14 and I'm only at the end of disc 1.

I love, love how FF14 does its own thing while paying tribute to all other FFs. It's absolutely a tribute, but still very much has its own identity as a game and narrative.)

I'm turning into kind of a massive FF fan narratively at least, I think – FF7 is fantastic dark sci-fi/fantasy, FF6 fantastic steampunk/high fantasy and FF14 is some of the best long-form storytelling ranging from lower to higher fantasy, light-hearted to dark fantasy and a bunch of aesthetics beyond these basics that somehow all blend.

Now from all other FF stories I've seen fully, I think FF10, FF4 and FF16 are the ones I'd place lower narratively.

I think FF10 is my least fav of these because none of the cast did much for me, FF4 has the least depth narratively, though it is still pretty fun and FF16 suffers a bunch because of its uneven last third or so, even if I like the cast and base themes a bunch.

But what I like about them all the most is that even within the turn-based formula they all feel very different to each other, again, narratively-speaking. 16 is very little like 7 and even 4 and 6, the games I consider to be closest tonally handle characterisation and narrative structure pretty differently.

Each game brings something new to the table *the series* has not done before in some form. For example, as far as I know 16 is probably one of the most low fantasy games we've had in the series.

It's not new in the broader context of fantasy media, but it is new for FF.

And I like series that don't sit still like that.

#Final Fantasy VII #Final Fantasy 7 #FF7 #FFVII #FF #Final Fantasy

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capricorn-0mnikorn · 1 year

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"For she may strew dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds" (making a fresh argument for my 'Ophelia was murdered' interpretation of Hamlet)

Three-years-and-change ago, I wrote a post with my conspiracy theory literary interpretation that Ophelia was murdered. A couple weeks ago, I was tagged in another post about "The Tragedy of Hamlet," and that brought me back to my chosen hill to die on.

In this post, I'll focus on Gertrude herself, and on the iambic pentameter, because

A) The rhythm of English has not changed in the last 400 years, and B) We know Shakespeare himself wrote it that way on purpose.

Now, Shakespeare used iambic pentameter to direct the pacing of a scene, depending on context (I'm basing this on the work of Shakespearean actor and scholar Ben Crystal; see the link at the end to a video where he demonstrates how this works):

If an actors line was shorter than ten syllables, followed by a full line, that could tell the other actor in the scene exactly how long to pause and do some nonverbal reaction before speaking (the unspoken syllables are there, they're just silent).

If two, or more, lines add up to exactly ten syllables, that could tell the actors to pick up the pace, and answer without pausing

If each line is less than ten syllables, but more than ten when added together, Tell the actors to speak over each other / "step on each other's lines.

And Shakespeare uses all three variations in Act 4, scene Five.

In dialog lines of irregular length, I'll indicate silent syllables with "-_" for each iamb, and I'll underline the when the overlapping syllables blend to make a clean line of iambic pentameter. Then I'll write out the shared & overlapping dialog as though they were lines of verse, showing the stressed syllables in bold.

I hope that's clear (or will quickly become so).

First: Act 4, scene Five (MIT.edu) opens in the middle of things, with a Walk-and-Talk that would make Aaron Sorkin proud:

QUEEN GERTRUDE: I will not speak with her. -_ -_ HORATIO and Gentleman: [Insert astonished blinking man GIF here] Gentleman: She is importunate, indeed distract: Her mood will needs be pitied. QUEEN GERTRUDE: What would she have?

Her moods will needs be pit- What would she have?

Okay, so hearing that Ophelia is "acting up" certainly got the queen's attention, eh? She doesn't even wait for Gentleman to finish the last word of his line (Also: she's being told that a teenage girl is really upset that her dad's dead. And Gertrude's response is to snap: "What does she want?" Really?! Yikes).

The unnamed Gentleman goes on to describe how Ophelia is speaking of her dead father and vaguely alluding to conspiracies, that her speech is basically word salad, but her "winks and nods" give the impression that she's speaking in code.

Gentleman: [concluding] Indeed would make one think there might be thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily. HORATIO: 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

Though nothing sure, yet much unhapi-'Twere Good she were spoken with; for she may strew Dange-rous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

Finally, Gertrude says: "-_ -_ -_ Let her come in."

Horatio and the Gentleman are talking over each other, in their efforts to sway the queen. I get the feeling this attempt has been going on for some time; it may have started with: "She's really sad about her father. she could use some support in dealing with grief.." But the argument that finally sways Gertrude is: "She's a potential threat to Claudius's Power."

Shakespeare wrote the line about the threat she posed in a completely different meter. Instead of giving that line a scansion of: "de-dum, de-dum, de-dum, de-dum, de-dum," he's given it the rhythm of "Dum-de-de, dum-de-de, dum-de-de, dum," which makes it stand out from the rest of the scene. That's another red underline Shakespeare is giving us.

The longish pause could have come at the end of her line, but I think it makes more sense to have her hesitate before agreeing to see Ophelia.

Exit Horatio to go fetch her. Then:

To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is, Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss: So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

As I noted in my previous post, these are two rhyming couplets -- the only "plain dialog" in the scene that rhymes (other than Ophelia's songs, but they rhyme because that's what song lyrics do), and not even in Shakespeare's usual way of rhyming alternate lines.

Now what, pray tell, could the queen be feeling so guilty about (that she absolutely, positively, does not want Ophelia to find out)?

That Ophelia's father died because of something she had asked him to do? Quite possibly. But Ophelia already knows her father has died, and the queen expressing regret about it would not likely make the queen appear guilty.

Maybe Ophelia doesn't know, however, that her father was in the queen's chamber when he was killed, and the queen is afraid Ophelia would get the wrong idea. But whatever sin Gertrude is trying to hide, it's probably not that she's cheating on Claudius with Polonius so soon after the wedding (unless that's exactly it. I doubt it, though. Polonius is basically a walking-talking plot point).

At first, I thought she felt guilty about the fact that her own son (and Ophelia's boyfriend) was the murderer, and that's the secret she doesn't want Ophelia to find out. That's reasonable. That's what any halfway decent person would worry about, to protect the heart and mind of a young woman that's almost family.

But then, between Ophelia's first confrontation with the queen and her "Flower Speech," Leartes breeches Elsinore's defenses, and leads a raging mob (those ill-breeding minds in which dangerous conjectures have already been planted) to the doors just beyond Stage Left, and:

Leartes: Where is my father? Claudius: Dead. Gertrude: But not by him.

Where is my father? Dead. But not by him.

I said it in my earlier post, and I'll say it again, here: Gertrude literally does not skip a beat to defend Claudius, even when that puts her own son at risk. Doesn't stop to think about it, even for a breath.

If Queen Gertrude didn't hesitate to risk Hamlet's life. I doubt she'd be overly worried about risking Ophelia's opinion's of his character (especially since appeals to speak to her at all didn't sway her until Horatio mentioned Ophelia' threat to civil order). And yet, Shakespeare very deliberately underlined and circled the point that Gertrude is holding a deep secret guilt, and that she's afraid to speak to Ophelia, lest she let something slip.

(Also, when going back to the scene, to check something, I noticed something my mind skipped over, before: The Danish Rabble promise Leartes not to let anyone come in while he's in the room negotiating with Claudius. And yet, they're heard off-stage saying: "Let her come in" just as Ophelia reenters to give her "Flower Speech" while her brother is there. So while Leartes has been in France, Ophelia has clearly been gaining the respect of the Common Folk in the meantime. Which, to my mind, suggests this "madness" has been going on for a while, and is not a sudden reaction to deliberate or accidental poisoning. Which further suggests to me that she is simply better at "Putting on an antic disposition" than Hamlet is.)

So, all that is why Queen Gertrude started to appear very suspicious in regards to Ophelia's death.

But what's the secret Gertrude is so afraid Ophelia will find out? I think :

Claudius's legitimacy to the Danish Throne depends on the courtiers and common people Believing that he and Gertrude agreed to wed after consoling each other in their shared grief over losing a darling husband and beloved brother.

Queen Gertrude had done a "Lady Macbeth," and it was actually her idea for her first husband to have a final, forever, nap in the royal garden.

She's afraid Ophelia will figure that out. After the coded language of the Flower Speech, I think she's worried that Ophelia has already figured it out, and so gives her a little shove into the river, before she can spread that idea any further.

-----

*Starting here, in a 2014 presentation on Shakespeare's use of language (celebrating Willy Shakes's 450th birthday), Shakespearean actor and scholar Ben Crystal demonstrates how Iambic Pentameter shows us how Shakespeare wanted the dialog to be paced in The Tragedy of Macbeth (sorry, not sorry, not superstitious). A bit later, he and his acting friends demonstrate overlapping iambic pentameter when Hamlet and Leartes fight at Ophelia's grave.

#Hamlet #macbeth #Ben Crystal #'It's just an idea. But I do like it'#iambic pentameter #justice for Ophelia #long post #bold text #underlined text #large text

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pb-dot · 3 months

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Film Friday: Interstella 5555

The process I employ to figure out what movie to cover on this little column of mine is more of an art than a science. Some times it has me scrolling mindlessly through my letterboxd or netflix history looking for a movie I feel strongly enough about to write about. Other times, I decide to listen to Alive 2007 and realize Daft Punk is one of the best musical acts of all time. So, with that in mind, let's talk about that time they made a movie.

As one might expect for an almost feature-length movie to the 2001 Daft Punk album Discovery, Interstella follows the story of a group of alien musicians who find themselves abducted by extrasolar interlopers, shortly revealed to be humans who takes our blue-skinned friends to earth. Once there, the Interstella gang are brainwashed and disguised as humans in order to work for a skeezy producer slash symphonic orchestra conductor, later revealed to have struck a Faustian bargain with some sort of space satan for eternal life and riches provided he can sacrifice 5555 golden records, and the artists who produced them with it.

It's not the most complex story once you get over the novelty of the reverse alien abduction and space satanism bits, but that is perhaps inevitable, considering this movie has no spoken dialog apart from the odd line or lyrics that is meant to be diegetic. Secondary protagonist who I have dubbed as "guitar spaceship guy," for example, sings Digital Love to himself while cleaning said guitar-shaped spaceship and day-dreaming of the alien band's bass player before receiving his call to action.

The movie probably shines the hardest when there's lot of mechanical stuff going on. The sequence when the Interstella crew gets their brainwashing and humanface disguises, the mechanical beats Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger makes it seem like a How It's Made episode from a much MUCH darker timeline.

It's also interesting to me how the brainwashing does seem to take just fine, but the crew, now under the name Crescendolls, seem morose, still every bit as able to make killer tracks as in their pre-abduction days, but without the clear and apparent joy. Granted, the hardships of being a Commercial Super Hit Artist does probably play into it, but even before that, there's a profound malcontent in them. I almost find myself wishing there was some expository dialog here to explore this. Do they know on some level that they don't belong on earth? That they're being made to do the thing they once loved wholeheartedly for someone else's gain?

It's hard not to speculate on the auteur side of this. The context that Discovery was a departure album from Daft Punk's established house music style, and arguably their entry into the attention of wider pop culture, is similarly hard to ignore. Considering Daft Punk adopted their now-iconic robot mask personae at the same time, it's not hard to read a fear of becoming part of the Pop Machine in Interstella 5555.

If I can now only take a brief digression to talk about the music. Discovery is one of my favorite albums of all time. Filing off the rough edges and at times consciously abrasive soundscapes from earlier releases makes for a compulsively listenable album. I'm particularly fond of how Daft Punk uses vocal performance, primarily through samples as a musical element. The sample of Barry Manilow's paranoid cuckold anthem Who's Been Sleeping In My Bed in Superheroes is somehow both basically incomprehensible and instantly iconic, and the thought of having ears keen enough and musical intuition sharp enough to pick up on it in the first place is one of those genius moves that I understand, but could not replicate for all the gold in the world.

If Interstella 5555 has any flaws, apart from annoyingly being 5 minutes too short to be classified as a feature length film at 65 minutes, it's probably the slightly disposable tragedy of Guitar Spaceship Guy, who's doomed but heroic quest to save Interstella 5555 arguably could have been cut in its entirety. His infatuation with Interstella's bass player plays out in this structurally sound but kind of lifeless romance by the songs Digital Love and Something About Us, and the fact that GSG and Bass Player Lady doesn't actually know each other becomes impossible to ignore. His dying... dream sharing or whatever else is going on there feels like it's following a character arc that isn't there. Bass Player Lady doesn't know him, and crucially, he doesn't know her. It's all parasocial, and he dies shortly thereafter. It's not to say something beautiful couldn't grow from this, and I think that's what they're getting at with the Something About Us sequence, but it does feel like mourning what Didn't Happen, and if we're getting started on that we'll be here all day so let us move on.

Speaking of flaws, the movie does drag a little in the third act. Part of this is the Act 2 Climax feeling more fitting for that sort of thing than the actual climax. It is admittedly a little sweet that the plot resolves when immortal conductor guy's plot is discovered and humanity reacts by rightfully pointing out that a crime has been committed, and hasten to help the Interstella gang find their way home, that's not normally how these plots go, but the slight nuance given to the abduction/humans are the villains plot is very heartening. Seeing our blue alien friends seen off as beloved heroes feels very correct, and similarly, their rediscovery of the joy of music and new role as interplanetary ambassadors is one of those "fuck yeah a better world is possible" things that I'll take a million times over more cynical Dark Forest scenarios.

Speaking of drag, though, the Too Long segment, feels a bit like a lengthy coda to the story we don't need, which is, coincidentally what I think about the song's role on the album as well. All the same, it must be said that while the final showdown by immortal conductor's guy in psychedelic FTL space is pretty cool, and while it still doesn't work for me, Guitar Spaceship Guy helping out the Crescendolls one final time from beyond the grave does endear me ever so slightly to that whole subplot.

Interstella 5555 is an interesting watch, it's clearly a project of way more creative freedom than most animated fare is allowed to be, and it's wild that I can say the phrase "it's also exciting that the movie straight out states that Mozart, Ella Fitzgerald and... I believe Flea of Red Hot Chilli Peppers (?) all were sacrificed to Space Satan." This isn't important to the plot at all, but I feel it just needed to be said. So in short, check it out. Among it's many strengths, the soundtrack kicks some serious ass.

#daft punk #interstella 5555 #film friday

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disparition · 1 year

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Whether you approach arts and media as a creator, a fan, a professional, or a hobbyist, you are probably very well aware of the rapid growth of AI in many areas of creative life and the conversation surrounding it. Whether we are talking about fiction or text of any kind, visual arts like painting and drawing, music composition and performance, sound design and audio editing - in all of these fields AI is something we now have to deal with, and there are many unanswered questions. How do we protect our livelihoods and practices as artists? What control can we have over our own work and its incorporation into machine learning tools and datasets? How do we as lovers of art and music determine if what we are reading, watching, or listening to is made by humans? Or how do we denote the particular degree of involvement of humans in a work of art?

It’s a complicated issue because it can be hard to say exactly where to draw the line. For example, well before the current conversation about AI, composers like Brian Eno were incorporating generative and algorithmic elements into their work. Does this mean such work is not “essentially human made”? Does it matter if the non-human components of a piece are created by randomness, or by natural elements gathered in e.g. a field recording, vs. being created by a computer program?

Those kinds of questions are more about the philosophical side of the issue. There are more pressing questions to do with how AI affects our ability to actually survive as artists. And, as the technology grows more powerful and the distinction between AI-generated or AI-enhanced material and human made material or basic documentation of reality itself, what methods do we use to signify that a given piece of media is or is not AI made, and what are the exact qualifications of that? Should the label “AI art” apply to work that is entirely generated by a computer, or should that label also be applied to any art that uses AI tools in any context - e.g. the new tools in Photoshop that make it easier to remove a specific object from an image and fill it in with background. What about the world of video games, where AI has been used for decades for things like pathfinding but is new and controversial when it comes to using it for story/dialog elements or certain visual assets?

We are, I think, still very much in the early days of all this, so it’s hard to come up with firm answers as the field changes so rapidly, but this is an essential conversation to be held now. I’ve been talking to a friend who put together a survey for an organization called Verified Human, who are looking specifically into the issue of how do we determine - going forward - whether a piece of art or media is “essentially human made”, and the question of how that should be communicated.

The idea of this survey is to gather as many points of view as possible for this conversation. I know a lot of the people that follow me here are artists and lovers of art, of all different kinds, and to me it is absolutely essential that creators of all kinds be involved in this conversation from early on. Please take a few minutes and fill out the survey via the link below, and if you are interested in helping out, please spread the word. And if you have any questions or would like to discuss, please feel free to contact me directly. Thank you.

https://forms.gle/BrSbGyq9wAyzwTa88

#ai #ai art discourse #ai art discussion #ai art theft #chatgpt #gpt 4 ai technology #verified human #ai art community #artists on tumblr #musicians #writerscommunity #writers and poets #writers on tumblr #fan fic writing #fan fic art #sound design #disparition

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scoobydooisadetective · 1 year

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Hi. I just wanted to ask if it's possible for you guys to post the English translation of the Spanish posts? Tumblr doesn't have the translation option like X or Facebook

Hi! I'm guessing you're speaking about this post. Sure, no problem. I think it's relevant for everyone to know how long he has been in these kind of situations. I'll try to do my best w/ translation and offer some context.

Luz said in her post:

"I don't have a Twitter, I consider it an intolerant and racist world, this is the social network where Tenoch has the most bots against him, he receives a lot of hate and they generate that hate. But yesterday in a group they sent this picture, it's a publication about a radio host saying Tenoch apologized to him for being a person "without education and without ethics" according to his words.

(In the tweet: I share with you the picture when #TenochHuerta apologized to me for behaving as an uneducated being, without ethics and as the chairo without words he has always been. If I had known, I would've charged $1,800...

Note: Chairo doesn't have a translation, but it's basically derogatory way to to describe an individual who holds a far-left ideology, specifically any person who thoughtlessly defends, idolizes, and fawns over a populist politician and demagogue with an attitude similar to that of a religious fanatic.)

I thought it was weird and I found a publication made by the director Alonso Ruizapalacios in 2015 where he explains what happened that day

(full text here: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02fkKp1ZGWvpcweaavk8e13ke4HQj2k616EPv75JrrExeEB49DUGPL7m31WJzGDqqil&id=1369494912&mibextid=Nif5oz)

"COMMERCIAL BREAK!

A few hours ago, me and Tenoch Huerta went to promote our movie GÜEROS at the radio show "Charros vs Gángsters", hosted by Jairo Calixto and some José Luis Guzmán "Miyagi" (I confess I didn't know about him until today).

Since we arrived at MVS Radio in Polanco, we saw patrols and riot policeman surrounding the radio station and preventing the production van from passing through. The driver suggested it was "because of that reporter that they are going to fire."

Despite this rarefied atmosphere, the inteview about the movie went like most interviews in radio and TV he (Tenoch) helped with in Mexico: wih cordiality, but with simple and unexciting (no preparation), but overall with the hysteria that characterizes a large amout of the communicators in our country - a kind of perpetual nervousness about not leaving even a moment of pause, to "fill the air" with whatever, with an incessant strident chatter that passes for irreverence and freshness. Despite that, we promoted our move without problem, between jokes about the Partido Verde and bestiality.

At the end of our interview, Tenoch took the floor and said: "Before we leave, I'd like to comment something in a personal capacity, I think it's necessary to have dialog to clarify the situation about the communicator Cármen Aristegui and her firing from this radio station." In that moment "Miyagi", who had not heard a single word about Güeros nor had he looked up from his iPad during our entire conversation, ordered: "Let's go on commercial break!" and it was obeyed immediately in the cabin. After a awkward painful silence, Tenoch and I realized we had finished. After a painfully awkward silence, Tenoch and I realized that we were done. We approached to say goodbye to our hosts, who barely shook our hands, without looking us in the eyes. But before leaving Miyagi told us: “We opened the microphones for something else, not so that you could continue with that…” To which Tenoch responded “We just want to know what is happening with Aristegui.” And nothing else was said.

We went out of the MVS with our heads spinning aournd, trying to understand what had just happened. And we still continue to not understand...

My interpretation: We're still trapped in this climate where communicators -even those who brag about being irreverent- fear (maybe justifiably) about their continuity in the enterprises that pay their salary. We're still living in a climate of very litte solidarity and a lot of intolerance.

Maybe "Miyagi" simply made a mistake and acted on impulse, a byproudct of the frustration from reading trolls against him since he didn't defend Cármen Aristegui. Or maybe the sushi upsetted his stomach... But what he did was censorship, it's indisputable. Turning your back on such a valid and relevant question and go on commercial break when things get awkward, in true Televisa style, was something surprising to witness live.

I don't have information to venture an absolute theory about all of this, nor to affirm that it is censorship that comes from above, or if it's rather self-censorship, a product of fear. But that there's something rotten in Denmark, I have no doubt.

While I appreciate the space that was opened to talk about our film, I deeply regret the continuation of this state of fear we live in.

I'm sorry that our communicators don't look at us in the eyes. I'm sorry there's no room for pauses. And I'm sorry there's no time to listen.

Context on who is this journalist and why this happened:

On 12 March 2015, two journalists from MVS, Daniel Lizárraga and Irving Huerta, were fired after they used the station's brand name without permission in a newly created website known as MexicoLeaks, which leaked reports on government corruption. Aristegui issued an ultimatum and threaten to quit if MVS did not reinstate her two staff members. Four days later, MVS fired Aristegui after considering that she had crossed the line for issuing an ultimatum to the MVS management.

My friend Tenoch says: My name is José Tenoch Huerta Mejía, mexican.

I love who I am, where I live and with who I live.

I don't like what's going on in my country, it's not the country I grew up in, nor the one I want to live in.

I don't understand a lot of things and as many more I'm scared about what we're living.

It hurts my soul to know that thousands are no longer hugging their families when their time had not yet come.

I wonder what's up, what can I do so everyone can be alright, the truth is I don't know but I decided to talk and ask.

I have nothing against any politician or people in power, I just want a different country.

I don't want one where we're all poor to be equals, but one where we're rich at heart, pockets and tummy to decide what to do with our time in this land.

Yersterday I asked something I needed to know, the mic was open and I asked.

Today, someone went to my house, intimidated me while hiding their face behind a brown scarf and a newspaper. They took photos of me, laughed mockingly at me and then disappeared into the hallways of the place where I live and have called home the last four years of my life.

What did I do wrong? Ask, say that I don't like any of this, thinking that we could have a better life, think?

A lot of people supports and helps me, but what about those that don't have the fortune to be visible?

I write this and I cry because I don't want to live like this, we don't deserve to live like this.

Mexico hurts my guts.

My little corner on land that gives me food and air to breath, that gives me a house and family.

I love my country, I love my people and even you, who doesn't understand we can live in a better way.

Thank you for your support, for being there and might our voices and hearts always sing.

We deserve something better.

Then, Luz adds:

What really happened was that exactly 8 years ago, in that booth, there was no freedom of speech, Tenoch tried to speak about a topic and was quickly cut off. Another account later shared that Tenoch had reported that he was being followed and photographed.

What I'm trying to say is that they have always hated him for telling them to their faces what he thinks about some topic and that makes them angry, they "can't stand it." Now that he is doing a little better, they are trying by all means to ruin his career. Tenoch himself has mentioned it in many interviews, and they have paid the media to destroy him.

I think we have to be careful, those media and haters are always aware of all the publications about him and if it is something controversial they can manipulate, they will do it, have no doubt about that, even if it is from years ago.

Do not react, do not comment or retweet, only report the publication if it has racist content. Never try to talk to them, it's not worth it. (Personal note: Please listen to this!! Especially twitter folks, since it might be counterproductive. By fighting them, you're offering them more interactions because that's how the algorithm works).

---

Hope this helped!

#tenoch huerta

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betterbemeta · 5 months

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re @mousebrass

[context]

Sorry for the delay, I just needed some time to simmer my answer. (for frame of reference, I'm mostly referring to fallout 3 and fallout 4. not new vegas, and I don't know enough about FO76.)

When I said 'Bethesda's fallout will never say no to you', I meant in sort of a structural sense. The gameplay and the storytelling combine in Bethesda's fallout games to do nothing but affirm the player's forward motion.

They do this so well the storytelling is ONLY a function of the gameplay loop: a relay race that progresses with total blindness to what the player actually does so long as they hit the checkpoints that advance things along.

Forward motion is good, we need stories to progress and to get from one event to another, we don't want to run around in circles in a game achieving nothing. And we don't want to encounter a true dead end, or a frustrating 'sorry mario the princess is in another castle!' situation where we feel our prior actions were pointless.

BUT. Hear me out. Negativity, 'being told no', friction along the way, is important to an 'adventure' being more than just an endless gopher loop.

Lucy MacLean IS given objectives in her journey. But the narrative is not her personal facilitator; instead she can't proceed UNLESS she does these increasingly heinous uncomfortable things, okey dokey! She COULD choose not to do them, but she'd 'fail' or thinks she would. Her struggle 'drives the story' rather than styling her actions as intuitively synonymous with 'progress.'

In Bethesda Fallout games. It really doesn't matter what dialog options you choose, progress is inevitable. And blind. If you choose peaceful or guns-blazing approaches. Want to join the fascists? You won't encounter too much content that places pressure on you for doing that. Want to side with the scrappy underdogs? Done, it won't be that much of a strain on your resources. Take the evil option? Except for maybe a few NPCs that could desert you, you won't be constrained by that commitment very much.

It's 'the customer's always right', when that idiom exists basically to facilitate transactions and nothing else.

In fact, the one time in a Bethesda fallout game where meaningful pressure or negative consequences impacted you, in fallout 3, the ending was so unpopular it was retconned in a DLC. But it doesn't have to be this way; there are many times in New Vegas where you might feel conflict or constraints on your actions, a 'no' that makes what you actually choose to do feel more interesting. Like, enough times that I think anyone who's played it, could think of one (their favorite one?) right now. I don't even have to list examples, because the variety is great enough that different people can choose which one feels compelling to them.

Remember when I said we wanted to avoid scenarios where we feel futile, running around in circles, pointless, or obstructed? Well, after a while a lot of Bethesda games become that anyway even if they always take the player's side. People just... give up playing a save usually by level 30. Boundless affirmation towards forward motion, where all paths are THE path and you're the main character of reality, it sucks. it's why Lucy MacLean's wasteland experience will leave you wanting to play fallout and then sighing when you boot up the game that just got a 'remaster' and it's still mostly drudgery. When SHE hits 'quest objectives,' her world doesn't say 'yes! now go do...'

It says "oh, hell no. but you gotta... unless maybe..."

#fallout #belated reply #the bones of the quest chains and gameplay loops show too much in bethesda games #turning them into relay race fetch simulator instead of roleplaying games or even 'action/adventure' games #a constant forward motion is also cowardice and unwillingness to make the player navigate their own choices #if that is the case just... omit the choices. remove the 'roleplaying' element. actually put us on rails instead of pretending.#long post

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bane-amesta · 3 months

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Vergil's journey: The true DMC5 Special Edition (?)

First attempt ever at posting fics here, let me know if I made a mistake in any sort of way plz Basically this is my "fuck it I'll do it myself" about Crapcom's custom to make Vergil playable just a copypaste into the og campaign with no story or context at all lmao

Also is a prologue for my longer DMC5 fic (too long to post it here sadly), I'll add the links to AO3 at the end :D Enjoy!

Autoimposed rules while writing this:

1º Using only Vergil's POV 2º Make it work within the game, aka not using scenarios, dialogs, etc from other entries 3º Make sure to add sections that can be interpreted as gameplay, cinematics, and also the trope of obtaining weapons along the way (I excluded bosses since this can be just any random thing from the enemies list lol) 4º Exclude any of my fanfic shenanigans since those are already a creature on its own xD

Nightmares were always with him. It was the only thing that was always with him. And he was on the verge of wishing for death just to see if he could make them dissapear once and for all.

Until suddenly, without any explanation, that endless cycle stopped.

He opened his eyes, looked around him, not knowing where he was. But that was not important. Hell will always be hell.

Something was different, however, the eternal torture that had become part of him was gone.

Finally, he looked at his hands, hoping to see the damn armor that had held him captive for how long? Months, years, centuries?

But no, there was none of that, except his own hands, covered by the usual gloves, and the blue coat was badly damaged, but not destroyed.

This was so unusual that it took him a while to understand. But it was undeniable.

Nelo Angelo was dead. Vergil had been reborn, survived, somehow.

He tried to get up, but he was very weak, in pain. But that pain was only physical, something new, because it told him that his body, even in that state, refused to die yet. He could see faint marks on his skin, as if he were made of clay about to crack. Yet he was still in one piece, alive.

And that was enough for the moment.

Hearing the usual demonic roar in the distance, he rushed to unsheathe his sword, only to realize it was not in his hand. For a brief second horror filled his face. But then his mind brought back the memories that had been taken from him when he was forced to be a puppet of the prince of darkness.

Vergil trying to get the power of Sparda, Dante trying to prevent it. The final battle at the entrance to the underworld, with his father's sword, his hands barely picking up the amulet that was rightfully his before leaping into the void.

Mundus, glaring at him as he charged forward feigning arrogance, despite knowing that this battle could be his last.

Finally, the darkness surrounding him as his sword fell to pieces, engulfed by a sea of blood, before his eyes were covered and his mind closed, to give the last touches at the new toy of the underworld's ruler.

His head kept spinning, all that coming back suddenly was too cruel.

Vergil managed to get up at last, not so much from needing to move, as to focus his thoughts on something else, anything, but it was useless. The memories kept coming back to him.

Trish's creation, Mallet Island, Dante fighting his way with his father's sword instead of his own, and facing Nelo Angelo without knowing who was behind the armor.

What would Dante have thought after that victory, and discovered Vergil behind the creature he just killed?

He put his hand to his neck on reflex, and found only the fabric of his worn clothes. He almost felt like laughing. Even the amulet, now useless, had been taken from him.

Another noise, closer this time, brought him back to reality. This time he had no choice, he must face danger, or flee. But Vergil has never been that kind of person.

Even without his Yamato, he was going to fight somehow.

With enormous effort, he accomplished his goal. About eight bright blue swords appeared around him, creating a constantly rotating shield. A technique created years ago, imbued with the most vivid despair, when he was still a child and there was no one, nothing to protect him.

That idea made him frown. He greatly disliked having to go back to this to survive, but after thinking about it for a moment, none of it mattered anymore.

He has anything to lose, not anymore.

And he could still fight.

He walked in the direction of the noise, which turned out to be a miserable low-grade demon, which didn't last long enough for it to mean anything. At least in this state he could still have that kind of personal satisfaction.

The only thing he regretted was not being able to beat his brother one last time. He had been defeated so many times that he could no longer live or die in peace until he did. A single victory was all he needed.

How to do it was not clear yet, but he was sure that something could be done about it.

Yamato separated the demons from the humans. It was the key to isolate both worlds and separate them completely.

...Why had that particular phrase popped into his mind?

More importantly, did that phrase have a more literal meaning than he ever thought?

There was one thing Vergil had never tried, and which, in the current situation, might as well be his last chance.

Dante's power awakened when Vergil pierced his brother's body with his own sword.

Something that never happened to him.

What would happen to Vergil if he did the same?

The only way to know was to try.

The Yamato was so attached to his being, that he feel capable to even tracking the sword, as soon as he had regained some energy.

That was motivation enough to keep walking.

With effort he disposed of the garbage that crossed his path, even before they knew he was there. The summoned swords turned into spears that he could throw away, saving energy. His body wasn't in the best shape, so he wasn't going to try too hard if he could help it. Vergil was grateful for the distant moment when he received a simple but powerful advice: that disdaining firearms was no excuse for not having an ace up his sleeve, in the form of a long-range attack.

If he had no weapons, he could just try creating some other variation of the same attack, after all, he had plenty of time to experiment. And there were many demons that could give him something interesting after a fight.

The latter was an idea that he would only use in an emergency, since it was nevertheless only one weapon that he really needed. The rest was optional.

He kept walking and slaying demons, avoiding the ones that were too much for his current abilities, for who knows for how long. Time is a concept that have its own rules in the underworld, but something was evident. The Yamato was in the human world. He had to find a way to get back.

Luckily for him, the most powerful demons used to be near the dimensional holes that led to the other side, which they always used to go hunting when they were fed up with the usual garbage.

When he was not fighting for his life, Vergil heard voices, rumors of something coming, an event so strange that some no longer remembered whether it was true or not, but that those who were above the rest knew very well, and were preparing to take advantage of it.

The Qlipoth, the demon tree, was growing again, and it would soon reach the human world. And the demon who managed to eat its fruit would rise as the king, the strongest of all, just like Mundus in his day.

With such an opportunity, no one cared about the poor wretches at the end of the food chain. Something that of course Vergil used for his own purposes. Being ignored, probably for the first time as Sparda's son, deeply offended him, but he couldn't afford it, considering his state. Besides, he had more important things to do.

At this point, he had already managed to create a near-perfect copy of the Force Edge, his father's sword, which he was unable to claim for himself and ended up in Dante's hands. He was still somewhat angry about it, but lamenting was useless. This new version was part of his energy and therefore he would never lose it. That gave him a little more self-confidence.

And perhaps luck was reaching out to him, feeling guilty after ignoring him for so long, because as soon as he set foot in the human world, he knew immediately where to turn.

The city of Fortuna.

Unfortunately, his body was not in tune with his mind, since he also felt that what little strength he had gathered was leaving him again, this time with the certainty that there's no time to waste. A quick glance at the first surface that allowed it, informed Vergil that his face was beginning to crack as well. So the first thing he did in the human world was look for something that would hide his pathetic appearance.

Another unexpected stroke of luck led him to find Beowulf on his way to his destination, at the home of a collector who clearly had no idea of the weapon's true value.

In the eyes of mere humans, that would be considered theft, for Vergil it was nothing more than recovering something long time lost.

But his body grew weaker and weaker; for the same reason, his mind was focused back on that single purpose, dispatching the enemies that appeared as quickly as possible, conveniently forgetting that he had already visited that city once, and that the young man who kindly offered him something to eat might or might not to be more than just a stranger.

Why did he have the Yamato? Why was his appearance so similar to Vergil's?

Those questions disappeared immediately, the boy noticed that something was wrong, and his arm flashed to show him the threat.

That was all that Vergil needed, with what little strength he had left, he tore off the kid's arm without hesitation, and calling the sword, opened a portal, crossing it without looking back, with the certainty that he had won another enemy.

But that didn't matter. His mission was more important, he could not afford to die without achieving it first. And a child was no reason to worry. The end justifies the means, after all.

He went on his way, although this time the correct thing to say would be that he was going back instead of forward. Going back to his childhood's city was not something to take lightly.

Vergil is not the kind of person to look back. He never did it before, it was a waste of time, a useless torture. Right now, however, it was a kind of ritual that needed to be done.

To achieve his goal, severing ties permanently was a prerequisite.

And doing it in the old family home was the most appropriate thing to do.

He looked at the huge portrait of what was once a happy family. It was quite damaged, but the overall image was still somehow recognizable. Mysteriously the mother had been "saved", her features were the only ones clearly visible, while the face of the father and the two children had been lost in the black of combustion.

How ironic, Vergil thought, as he focused on the twins, and it didn't take any effort to tell them apart, it was obvious to him.

-Dante...

His twin brother, the only living relative he had left, the reason he was there, about to abandon everything, hoping to regain his lost honor back, in one last desperate attempt.

Turning his back on the portrait, to his family, he focused on what he had come to do, he didn't know what would come of it all, but again, it didn't matter anymore.

Separating man from demon was his last hope, and along with it, he also took care to cut off everything he considered a weakness, the reasons for his defeat, the nightmares that constantly reminded him that he still had not managed to obtain the power that he had sought so much.

He stabbed himself with the sword while he recited that spell that, to tell the truth, he no longer remembered where he found it.

As pain stalked him again, he felt that his plan had worked, his human side and his nightmares were successfully discarded, and something grew within him, a raw and savage power that grew ever greater.

And so Vergil ceased to exist... for a period of a month, or so.

When V achieved his own goal, and plunged the cane into the demon king to unite the two halves again, the being known as Vergil returned. As he watched the pieces of the illusion fall, the mansion disappearing, he realized that he never predicted this outcome. V had been discarded and his mission was fulfilled at the exact moment of his "birth", but he did not expect that, instead of lying down to die and accepting his fate, that remnant of his would do the opposite.

However, to say that he was upset about it would be a lie.

Because thanks to that, this time he could finally face his old rival in the same conditions, a fair and long-awaited fight, because yes, Urizen had also left his mark on this new Vergil and he remembered his battles, but for some reason, it was not the same.

Perhaps the human side of him was much more complex or important than he ever thought, but Urizen, powerful as he was, was far too… simple. A creature with only one purpose in mind was not what Vergil wished for when he thought of a perfect demon, and his victories were far from truly satisfying.

Vergil didn't have an answer to this question, and he would probably never find it, but that was past.

At this moment, something more interesting was in front of him: Dante, tired, but in the mood for a fight.

Beside him, that boy, Nero, his expression showed with brutal frankness the confusion he felt in this strange situation. He had helped V, but of course he never imagined that V was a part of the individual who stole his arm. Even with V's explanation, he didn't seem to understand why this was absolutely necessary for the brothers, something inevitable.

However, instead of going straight for the attack, Vergil looked to the ground, where was the book that V had taken with him from the first seconds of his existence. Again, he wondered why he had held onto that object so vehemently. It was not a weapon, nor was it a pleasant memory, yet he couldn't help it. Now, as Vergil, he did the same, pick it up, and put it away. Something unusual about him, but there was no time to think, Dante made the first move.

Vergil felt refreshed, this time, stronger than ever thanks to the fruit of the tree, which gifted him with a couple of new skills that he was eager to try, and dispatched Dante almost effortlessly. He even felt the luxury of giving his brother a chance to rest, before the final fight.

For some reason he couldn't understand at the time, he turned around, looking at Nero before disappearing through the portal.

-Thank you, Nero...

Why he said that? Those kinds of words weren't his style, always used to getting what he needed on his own. But denying the boy's participation was absurd, even when V didn't hesitate for a moment to use him as a tool to achieve his goal, Nero as well didn't hesitate to help V when he was so close to die.

Vergil opened his eyes again. This time he was at the top of the demon tree, thousands of meters above the city, waiting patiently for Dante, and in that span of time he had done something unbecoming of him: look back, reflect on the past and all the decisions that led to this time and place. It must have been a bad habit inherited from V, who had perhaps become too used to that mental torture, as he searched for the discarded nightmares in a pathetic attempt to confront Urizen.

But that little lapse had come to an end. Dante had arrived, demanding the sword that belonged to him by right, and that this time no one would steal it ever again.

-If you want it, you'll have to take it. But you already knew that.

-I had the feeling you'd say that.

A smile was born from both of them, aware that this time would be the last. Years of conflict and rivalry, condensed into a decisive battle.

One of the two would die here. But even so they smiled, remembering old times and accustomed from their earliest childhood to solving everything that way, their own particular way of relating as a family.

That last word, however, ended up attacking Vergil in an unexpected way, when Dante in the middle of the fight, remarked casually (or perhaps with a well-calculated purpose), that Nero was his son.

-You cutt off your own son's arm for THIS?

-My son…? That means nothing to me!- Vergil replied immediately, without stopping to think about what Dante had meant.

The confrontation continued almost like nothing, but when Vergil was about to be defeated, he stepped aside to throw Dante away, and in that moment, his brain finally made the missing connection.

-Nero is my son?- He asked wearily, unable to hide the disbelief in his voice.

-Yeah, dumbass- Dante answered with a slight laugh as he got up-, You can't remember through that thick skull of yours?

If Vergil stopped to think, yes, it all made sense, and he wondered why he hadn't noticed it before, even that annoying bird hinted at V more than once the same thing. Something that, in those moments of uncertainty, did not matter.

Although it was more correct to say that he deliberately ignored all the clues.

But then, something else passed through his mind, a memory that he had believed dead and forgotten, a woman's face that...

-Well, well, that was a long time ago- he said without further ado, ending that topic.

-I guess you were young once too. As much as I'd love to hear that story, I think it's about time we...

-...Ended this- Vergil answered immediately.

That was too deep of a secret, which he preferred to take to the grave, and would do everything he could to make sure of it.

Dante would never know about that matter. If he already had motives to kill him before, now he must do it at any cost.

Both men drew their weapons, took their most powerful form, ready for one last attack.

They charge at the same time, intending to finish it all in one strike.

The dreaded final slash never happened. Something appeared in front of the brothers, stopping them with a hand on their chest, also holding the hands that wielded both swords at the same time.

A demon with long white hair and blue wings.

They barely had time to recognize Nero, before he threw them away, and gave his own opinion on the matter.

-This ends, right here. I won't let you kill each other.

Vergil couldn't help but react when Nero in one blow sent Dante flying as he tried to pull the boy to the side, without even looking at him. Maybe the boy was indeed his son after all.

He was aware that Nero was still upset about being called a deadweight, and knew immediately from whom he had inherited that spiteful trait.

Unfortunately, he couldn't celebrate seeing Dante on the ground, because now Nero turned in his direction.

-There are other ways to settle your differences. I'm putting a stop to this sibling rivalry.

Vergil couldn't help but laugh. Nero made it sound so easy.

The situation was so absurd.

A child trying to teach adults a lesson.

-Ah, you came all this way just for that.

-Vergil, V... Whatever you call yourself. Dante won't die here, and neither will you. You have a problem with that?

Okay, now this was unusual. V witnessed in the front row his talent to hold a grudge, how Nero was determined to defeat and eliminate the bastard who cut off his arm. Perhaps knowing now that they were family had made Nero reconsider, despite what Vergil had done to him?

Would he forgive him just for that?

No, of course not, that was not what Nero had in mind. He would not be a descendant of Sparda if he chose the peaceful route.

So this kid wants to fight. Vergil understood his motives, of course, but that was not equivalent to taking him seriously. Having a new power was not enough. Vergil tried to engage Dante, tempt him to fight again and thus pushing Nero aside, but he completely ignored him.

-Whatever, I don't really care, I'm just gonna sit this one out- said the younger twin, laying down on the ground ready to take a nap.

Damn it, Dante.

So it was Vergil vs Nero.

-When this is over, I'll make you submit… Father.

That word sent a chill down his spine. It was strange, unknown, and he immediately knew he would never get used to it.

Again Vergil tried to not engage in the fight.

-This has nothing to do with you. Stand down.

-Nothing to do with me? It has everything to do with me!

-Nero…

He suddenly realized something. It's not just that he has no reason to fight Nero.

Vergil doesn't want to fight Nero.

But why?

It's not fear, no. The boy is stronger now, but he is still too young and inexperienced to compare up to the twins. Or maybe, maybe yes, because Nero wants something very particular out of this fight, and Vergil isn't willing to even think about it.

He just dodged, and launched weak attacks. He really did not want to take the situation to a point of no return, but the boy would not listen to reasons.

-Fuck you!

-You…

The kid is angry. Without even seeing him grow up, Vergil knew that he had inherited the method of solving problems with his fists. It brought back memories of those old fights with Dante over anything and everything, but this time the motive was more important, getting Vergil to recognize him as his son.

-You feeling accepting yet?

-…Your existence, or your strength?

-Both you fuckin' asshole!

...If Nero wants recognition from him, then he will have to earn it.

It was time to check the boy's real strength.

Vergil had no choice but to fight seriously, an oversight could send him flying, just like Dante. He wasn't going to let himself be humiliated by the boy, not when he could see Dante out of the corner of his eye, sitting down and enjoying the show. He wanted so badly to kick his ass when it was all over...

The fight ran its course, and to Vergil's disappointment, the youngest was the winner.

-Interesting...

-Ahahaha, oh brother, you cut off your son's arm for more power, and you still lost.

-Enough dammit! The underworld is taking over, we need to do something before it's too late.

A trembling proved Nero right.

-He's right, we need to close that portal. Hey, you lost, so you better do what he says.

Vergil wasn't going to admit defeat so easily. He got to his feet as best he could, and for the first time he felt that the weight of his age was upon him.

-I can still fight.- Nero was on guard again. -But if those roots continue to spread through town, it'll just interfere with our business.

Vergil started walking and Dante got up to follow him, leaving Nero behind.

It was not necessary to explain to his brother what they had to do. Without crossing a word they had already agreed.

-Now, that's the smartest thing I've ever heard you say. Better hurry up… We still got a score to settle.

-Evidently.

-Wait, where are you going?

Vergil turned to Nero to explain the situation.

-We need to sever the Qliphoth roots from the underworld itself. Then we'll seal the portal with the Yamato.

Nero looked at them both, immediately understanding the situation.

-Hang on, if you do that, you can't come back.

This time Dante answered.

-Why do you think I'm goin'? Somebody's gotta keep an eye on your old man.

The brothers turned their backs on Nero as they walked away.

-You can't just expect me to stay here while you both go-

-It's because you're here we can go-. Dante said suddenly. -We're trusting you with things on this side, capisce?

Vergil didn't stop to watch. Whatever relationship those two had, that moment was the closest thing to a goodbye, and he didn't want to be a part of it. It was better to leave as soon as possible.

-Make haste, Dante.

-Yeah. I know.

Of course, Nero disagreed. There was no need to look him in the face to figure it out.

-Hey, wait!

They both heard him run in his direction, and with that twin instinct, they synchronized to hit the young man and send him flying back, far enough away that he couldn't do anything about it.

-Take care, Nero. Adiós.

Dante left first, clearly intending to give the two of them a moment alone.

Vergil wasn't in the mood for a family reunion, but he couldn't just walk away.

-I won't lose next time.

He looked at the book in his hand, considering that idea that had just occurred to him.

-Hold onto that until then.

There, it was done. He threw the book to the ground, and while he followed the same path as Dante leaving his son behind, he thought that "farewell" wasn't too bad.

Now there was only one problem left: getting rid of Dante.

It was obvious that he would stick to Vergil like a pesky plague while they were in the underworld. They were heading to cut down the demon tree and the younger twin was already talking way too much. Vergil let him be, more out of boredom than anything else. As soon as he managed to defeat Dante, that annoying chat would be a thing of the past.

But again his plans weren't working, and they were already enjoying the fights as a game rather than a death battle.

-Score for Dante! I'm up one.

-Where did you learn to count? We're even.

Dante lay down to rest, as if they weren't in the middle of hell, open to a possible attack.

-You know, I'm starting to think, this is never gonna end.

-Maybe. We have plenty of time.

He couldn't deny that there was some fun, just like the old days. The only problem is that Dante occasionally threw out things about Nero way too casually for Vergil's taste, like nothing.

-By the way, how'd it felt catching up with your kid?

-There's no need for us to "catch up".

-Well, with an attitude like that, you'll never gonna meet your grandkids.

Vergil didn't take a second to put the Yamato on his brother's neck.

-That's enough. I don't want to hear it.

Dante nodded, but his expression made it clear that he wasn't going to shut up about it so easily.

At least Vergil will have plenty of time to try to silence him once and for all...

My AO3 page for those interested

https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurasakiWitch/works

#fanfic #ao3 #devil may cry 5 #dmc vergil #dmc dante #am i doing this right?

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