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therealvinelle · 3 years

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Hi! I was reading through your meta (which is reeeeally interesting) and noticed you said you don't like Eleazar? I was wondering why that was?

Tumblr ate this ask when I had almost finished it and I hate everything. Also, thanks for the compliment, I’m really glad you like my things.

Now to try and remember what I wrote about Eleazar…

I think Eleazar is a disagreeable person whose gift wasn’t useful enough to warrant a place in the Volturi guard, and Aro jumped on the Carmen-shaped excuse to give him an honorable discharge.

To start with the gift, we see him use it twice and neither time is particularly impressive.

Siobhan Siobhan has the power of reality manipulation. Her gift is noticeable enough that Carlisle is certain she has it, so when he gets Eleazar and Siobhan in a room together he pulls Eleazar over to see if he was right. Eleazar squints at Siobhan. And he squints. Finally he says, «I’ve got nothing.» Now, gifts are an iffy, complicated matter everyone has their own theories about, but I think that at the end of the day we can all agree it’s a binary, you’re gifted or you’re not. Some gifts may be weak, but those are still gifts. And maybe someone will touch the gray zone of «is it a gift or is Johnny the vampire just really good at juggling?», but Siobhan has the power to manipulate reality, and she must do it a lot for Carlisle to have come to suspect it in the first place. She has a definitive and powerful gift. And even if I’m wrong about gifts being binary, if Eleazar wants to be useful to Aro he should still be able to say: Yes, this person has a gift, or no, this person does not have a gift. Sadly, he is not. When brought before Siobhan he says «She could have a gift, she could also not have a gift.» This means he hasn’t detected her gift, which is bad enough by itself. Being able to tell if someone has a gift or not should be a dealbreaker. The way he answers, though, that she could very well have a gift he doesn’t know about, makes it clear that people having gifts he couldn’t detect has happened enough for him to be open to the possibility that the gift there, and he can’t see it. In other words, Eleazar isn’t reliable for detecting gifts and will give Aro false negatives.

Bella This is an aside but as it’ll inevitably come up later in my blog I’ll just drop here that I think Bella’s gift is something more complex than a shield. She has prophetic dreams, hallucination!Edward, and there’s a weird inconsistency as to who is blocked by her and who isn’t. I think her gift is self-preservation, and the shield is one of its manifestations. Anyway, onto discrediting Eleazar. (I’ll be pretty closely paraphrasing what happens in chapter 31 of Breaking Dawn, but since the interaction goes on for several pages I’m not going to clutter this post by pasting all of it.) To his credit, he does notice Bella right away, and he identifies her as a shield based on the fact that he gets this sense of nothingness from her. This is all he can do, however, and I can’t stress that enough. He assumes that she can block Edward, but he’s shocked to learn that she can block Aro. He’s just as surprised that she can block Jane and Alec. He has to interview her to deduce exactly what her gift does, which again has nothing to do with his gift. Anyone could ask questions, in fact Aro found all this out two books ago, without the help of Eleazar. Eleazar then starts musing aloud about who-would-win in a Renata vs. Bella showdown (more on that later), which is as tactless as it is revealing. The guy genuinely doesn’t know, and it’s because he doesn’t understand their gifts well enough. Eleazar’s power means he can tell Bella that she has a gift, and he knows roughly what it is. He muses that usually he can’t even tell that much, which again is quite damning. He can’t tell her exactly what she does without a game of 20 questions first. She gives him more information than he gives her, which he then regurgitates back to her with slightly different wording, and everybody claps. «My god, Eleazar, you’ve done it again!» (No, really, this is pretty much what happens. Eleazar brought no new information to the table, yet he blew Bella and Edward’s minds.) It’s all fun and games to do this for Bella and Edward, as they for various reasons genuinely didn’t realize she had a gift. For Aro, who figured this one out on his own, one begins to wonder what Eleazar was bringing to the table.

Carlisle Bonus bullet point! I’ll make this one brief. I believe Carlisle in canon has a gift he’s unaware of (Yes, I have a post planned, but it will get ugly long so god knows when it’ll come), which makes him another one of Eleazar’s gift detection fails. In short, I think he’s extremely charismatic, able to win over anybody. To list a few examples - he has an extremely diverse set of friends who in Breaking Dawn are willing to lay down their lives for him, Jacob muses how his instinctive hostility around vampires doesn’t apply to Carlisle, and vampires are terrifying to humans (don’t be fooled by the movies, people) yet Carlisle is able to work as a successful doctor, meaning his patients don’t mind being exposed to a killing machine even when they’re at their most vulnerable. He’s able to keep his family of sociopaths in line. There’s not a single person in the Twilight ‘verse that dislikes him. (Billy and Caius excepted, but Billy has no direct exposure to him until late Eclipse, and Caius is responding to a coven that’s potentially threatening the Volturi) People are free to disagree with me on this one, but if I’m right (and I have a lot of book quotes as well as a theory on what gifts even are to back me up on this one. I’m right, damnit!) then Carlisle is another gifted vampire Eleazar failed to detect.

So. We’ve established that Eleazar’s gift will yield false negatives, and that he can’t tell you much about the gifts he does detect.

I think his power is to point out the obvious.

Which means that Aro’s eyelid was twitching slightly, but alright, Eleazar could still be useful.

Unfortunately, there is the matter of weighing up your pros with your cons.

The Volturi are, at the end of the day, a group of people who live in a commune together. Coven, guard, evil minions, call them what we like but they’re exposed to each other and some sense of agreeability is required. And Chelsea is not omnipotent.

More, I imagine that in a coven as large and old as the Volturi, they’ve developed a culture of their own. This means that newcomers will need social awareness and a willingness to fit in.

Eleazar, from what we see of him in Breaking Dawn, appears to lack both.

It’s in the way he speaks of the people he used to work with. It’s utterly impersonal. He tells us how their gifts work, no more and no less. When he speaks of Aro, he speaks only of actions Aro took and orders he gave, nothing about the man’s personality. Now, considering the context, he was speaking in a context where Jane’s thoughts and feelings were far from relevant, but it’s still notable.

Also notable is the fact that he has no issue contemplating a Renata vs. Bella scenario, even though this would mean the deaths of two people he worked with for years. Perhaps it’s a thought exercise, but it’s not a thought exercise I would have gotten into when it was days away from becoming reality. If Renata can’t deflect Bella’s power, she and Aro die.

I’ll put it this way - I don’t think he’d do a «who would win» like this involving Carmen.

At no point in the book does Eleazar show any concern for the eventuality that members of a guard he used to be a part of may get killed.

It seems he didn’t form personal relationships with the rest of the guard. I suspect he considered himself... if not quite above them, then still someone who could evaluate them. Their gifts is what he looked at in them. I also think it’s likely he asked Aro not to use Chelsea on him, which in turn would have made him stick out even more as there’s nothing making him and Volturi Guard Member X just click in the way I imagine Chelsea can be very helpful with. Which in turn means that the other guard members will feel close to one another in a way they’re not close to Eleazar.

Also… he’s just a douche. I’m sorry, but I don’t make the rules and the whole guy radiates douche. I can’t even point to a specific quote in the book, it’s just is.

I don’t think this guy never really fit into the Volturi guard, and his gift wasn’t useful enough to keep him. Aro was thrilled to have him at first, but as time went on and Eleazar proved to just not be all that, he eventually realized he had to get rid of him.

Because as others have pointed out before me, the Carmen excuse makes no sense. There would be no problem in one more vampire in the castle, yet Aro wouldn’t let her in and Eleazar had to choose.

It was a solution that sent Eleazar on his way with his ego intact, and no hard feelings towards the Volturi. More, Aro is on record doing this with it’s-not-you thing with at least one other vampire. Laurent wanted to join the Volturi, had nothing to bring to the table, and Aro used past association with the Romanians as an excuse for why Laurent couldn’t join rather than tell him to his face that he was useless. With Marcus, Aro, and Chelsea around, the Romanian connection isn’t a problem, meaning Aro was bullshitting.

TL;DR: Aro is the kind of person who’d lie and say his grandma died if he doesn’t want to go to your party, and Eleazar is the kind of person who’d say «My condolences».

#eleazar #aro #volturi #laurent #siobhan #bella swan #carlisle cullen #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #twilight #long post #Anonymous #ask

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w1ndrunn3rblog · 3 years

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Why Is Nobody Questioning Sylvanas’s Motives?

I believe the direct answer to this is simple – it’s because Blizzard are not questioning them. More specifically, no character that has ever known her is questioning them. I think it’s best we take a quick recap of recent events from these characters (her former allies) perspective – from the start of BFA, none of them have a clue what Sylvanas is doing or why. They start a rebellion, still with no clue as to what she is doing, lead it to Orgrimmar, then watch her disappear as Saurfang bites it, and they are still just as clueless as ever. Then out of nowhere, they are captured by winged monsters they have never seen before, taken to a barren wasteland hell in the afterlife which they have never seen before, find out Sylvanas is behind their capture, who then takes them to Torghast to be endlessly tortured, and find out she’s in league with this uber-Titan dude of Death called ‘The Jailer’ who they have never heard of before or even knew existed. They are then gradually rescued one by one by the ‘Champion’, and in all this time…nobody asks “Why is Sylvanas doing this and why is she working with this Titan we have never even heard of”?

To date, we have got precisely one line from Thrall that barely touches this question with “I never thought Sylvanas would be a part of something like this”…and that’s it. This line is practically begging to be followed up with “Maybe we should try to find out, there must be a reason” But after this one brief enquiry, not one character even questions. And the opportunities do not end there, of course. After they have all been rescued, they all sit in Oribos doing literally absolutely nothing. Despite somehow surmising that the Jailer is basically the Satan of afterlife hell, they have no idea why he was so interested in them and, therefore by extension, why Sylvanas would go to the effort of capturing them for him. Not one of them thinks to ask the question. Moreover, not one of them thinks to explore any of the other realms to find out more about what could be driving her allegiance with the Jailer. Like maybe why the Forsworn are also allied with him, why they are fighting to keep their free will with regards to their memories, and quite literally break free of the system they are brainwashed into believing is right. Or maybe that the Jailer captured the leader of the Necrolords, the military defense faction of the Shadowlands, and has brought several Houses onto his side. Or maybe that the drought is weakening the Heart of the Forest in Ardenweald which is the very force keeping the Jailer bound. Or maybe that the leader of Revendreth is in fact an ally of the Jailer, and therefore a de-facto ally of Sylvanas. That sure sounds like a lot of information out there that could give them all some insight into her plans. But no, for an entire patch cycle they sit on their asses…and do nothing.

Then there the fact that Sylvanas tells Bolvar in the intro cinematic about “This world is a prison” and that she will “Set us all free” But does he tell anybody this very rare piece of insight into Sylvanas’s plans and motivations? Of course, he keeps this piece of information entirely to himself. Does he tell anybody “Sylvanas believes she is helping Azeroth” or “Sylvanas believes she is working towards a greater good” or “Sylvanas believes she is freeing us all from a cosmological force”? Does he even bother following up on this himself? Of course not. After all, why should anybody be told this? I mean, we all know Sylvanas is constantly showing up every five minutes to drop another truth bomb monologue about what she’s trying to do, so this little tidbit doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, we’ll just find out more whenever she next drops by. Oh, wait…

Then there’s yet another opportunity for them all to ask questions, and maybe just maybe give her the benefit of the doubt, thorough Bolvar’s vision. Bolvar and the rest all see Sylvanas telling Anduin her (admittedly vague goals) but they never question why she thinks this. She talks of “a system that has always been flawed”, of replacing it “with one that is just”, of “we never had free will” and that “we couldn’t control anything” Yet what is everybody’s response? “Oh no we must save Anduin!” and “She must be stopped”…and once again, that is it. Let us remember again that nobody here has a single clue how the Shadowlands works. They are quite literally total aliens to this realm and do not know the first thing about it. By comparison, it sure sounds like Sylvanas knows a lot about the Shadowlands and how it functions, so much so that she has sought to bring about a cosmos-sized change to it all. Faced with such revelatory information, one would like to imagine the would ask questions – “What system is she talking about?”, “Why does she believe it is broken?”, “Why does she believe free will is an illusion?”, “Is she saying our lives are predetermined?”, “Does she feel she is trying to liberate all souls in the Shadowlands?” Once again though, nobody thinks to ask the most common sense questions. Questions that would occur to practically anybody faced with such an insightful vision. Alas though, none of the major characters care. The extent of their thought process in this completely alien realm they know zero about is simply “We don’t care or understand what Sylvanas is doing. It must be bad”

With all of these major insights into Sylvanas’s motivations completely overlooked, and the entire Shadowlands at their disposal containing a metric shit ton of valuable information they are just sitting on their asses ignoring, let us remind ourselves that all of these characters, with the exception of Bolvar, have known Sylvanas for many years and, in most cases, are former allies – many from the days of Warcraft III. Assuming that Azeroth years are the same as our own, that is about 18 years of this character they have worked alongside. They may have not ever wholeheartedly trusted her, but they nonetheless know her motivations and they know her character regardless. As such, for the sake of realism and continuity, in the context of all that they know about her, we should all be expecting them to think that her alliance with the Jailer is highly unusual and makes absolutely no sense, ultimately leading to a million and one questions. But they do not. Sylvanas is somebody who they have seen defend and fight for the Horde and bolster its strength by welcoming in other allied races, over the course of many years. They know that she has saved them personally, and the Horde as a whole, at the Broken Shore. They know who she is, they have known for many years that the preservation of her Forsaken people is her greatest priority, and that their role in the Horde is integral to that. As it turns out, Blizzard is telling us through these characters complete disinterest and total radio silence – all of that history counts for nothing, not even a single question.

The characters in World of Warcraft are simply a reflection, or personification, of Blizzard’s personal views they want the rest of the playerbase to have. By having the characters we follow and interact not show any care or devote any time into carefully considering Sylvanas’s plans or motivations or even try to understand them, they are telling us we as players therefore should not care about Sylvanas’s reasons either. Blizzard have set Sylvanas up to be villain-batted so badly that whatever she does now everybody just accepts what she does without questions. This happened all through BFA and now continues in Shadowlands, and when you think back to when this villain-batting started all the way back to ‘Before the Storm’ and then carried all the way through BFA, it becomes so sickeningly crystal clear that this was part of their endgame state with Sylvanas’s character.

If nobody in-game questions her, then nobody playing does either. We as players follow the leads of the in-game characters as to how we should view and feel about others. So if none of the in-game characters are questioning Sylvanas’s motives, what anything she has said might mean, or what events might have led to her current beliefs and allegiances, then Blizzard are telling us that we should not be questioning it either. Blizzard are telling us that we should just accept that whatever she is doing is bad, evil, incomprehensibly monstrous, and that she has to be stopped. It does not matter if we actually understand why she is doing this or not, or if we don’t even understand the first thing about the realm we are in – all we need to know is that what she is doing is bad and we have to stop her, end of discussion. It’s as bland and as predictable as that. There is no nuance. There is no attempt to have some seeds of doubt or alternative perspectives offered or questions asked by anybody, to make us consider that maybe not everything is as it seems, or that maybe just maybe has a valid reason. Blizzard cannot have this because that would introduce a narrative space for people to sympathise with their most-loved character, a character they have worked tirelessly over the past three years to systematically and relentless hammer with the villain-bat beyond all recognition. They cannot introduce complexity to her motivations, or have the characters – and by extension, us the players – asking legitimate questions, because they risk her being seen as ‘right’ or as a ‘sympathetic anti-hero’ rather than the simple 2D villain they have worked so hard to mold her into, and therefore have the entire plot backfire on them (just like it did in BFA with the laughably biased Saurfang quest chain which they were forced to change). To introduce such freedom of thought would be to plant a seed of doubt, a seed that could grow into a significant portion of the playerbase relating to Sylvanas and understanding what she thinks she is trying to do (even if they do not agree with her actual methods). And that would be a disaster from Blizzard’s point of view. You can almost imagine Ion raging “What’s this? We’ve given character’s dialogue that explores why Sylvanas is doing what she’s doing and now people are starting to get on her side?! This is not what’s supposed to happen, Steve!”

Besides Blizzard having the balls to pull the most blatantly transparently deceptive long-term plan to shaft every devoted fan of Sylvanas over the past 18 years, what frustrates me just as much is the amount of people who fall for it and believe everything Blizzard is telling them at face value. And we all know, that is exactly where they want everybody – because then they do not have to ever accept or apologise for screwing over their single-biggest most popular character and writing themselves into a corner they cannot get out of.

#sylvanas deserved better

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samdotdocx · 3 years

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A very long-winded essay about why I love Night in the Woods and The Ramayana makes me Big Mad ft. Lets Talk About Mental Illness™

So I was in this class called 'The Ecology of Language". Excellent class, 10/10 would recommend - and especially relevant in the Indian context in particular, but that's a topic for another day.

One of the things we talked about was the concept of 'relatibality' in media, which, I'm sure we can all agree is a large component of contemporary character or story-line development. Considering the context of modern readers, what that sometimes ends up looking like (in our society that is built on constantly being told we are lacking, and the subsequent need to satisfy manufactured desires), is some wonderfully nuanced characters in stories stories that are three-dimensional, well rounded, and well developed and written. It's pretty great. And sometimes, what that means is that we have excellent characters that don't conform to the standard 'protagonist' stereotype. They might not even be 'good' (this is NOT a villain-apologist post). In fact, they might be complete idiots. They might be the people in stories who make all the wrong choices.

One such relatable character is Mae, and it's because she's an unmitigated train-wreck.

Anyone who knows the game probably knows what I'm talking about when I say the illustration style and character designs are gorgeous. Anyone who's ever dissociated probably knows what I'm talking about when I say that illustration style and character design were excellently used to create the sort of subliminal, surreal state of Mae's mind. And as you play the game, you see how that state of mind plays with the other characters, and - spoiler - it isn't great.

This is the first of the relatable aspects of Mae’s character; there are people around her who love her and are worried about her, but at the same time, are angry and irritated about her behaviour. At what point does it become too much to ask of those around you to forgive all your continuous and repetitive mistakes? Even if you have a good reason for it, mental illness is not an excuse for being exploitative, even if it is unintentional. Mae is not trying to hurt the people around her, but she constantly needs emotional labour from them – it’s exhausting, and people’s patience is going to run out eventually, as is their right.

Another aspect of this behaviour is the lack of reciprocity, an example of this being when Bea’s mother died of cancer – and Mae didn’t even notice.

There are several instances of Mae’s thoughtless behaviour throughout the game; she gets completely wasted and makes a scene at the party, gets jealous of of Greg and Angus because they’re leaving the town without her, and ends up destroying the radiator Bea was supposed to fix, getting her in trouble.

The thing is though, that Mae is given the opportunity to fix her mistakes.

A large part of relatability is the want so see yourself in a character. Mae is relatable to me because there are several circumstances and events in our lives that match up, but more than that; the game is an interactive visualization of her healing process. Her nine steps, if you will. She is given a second chance – and that chance is hard won, particularly in the context of the game.

Mae talks about feeling like she’s falling behind, of knowing that she is, in a way, wasting an opportunity that was a privilege in the first place, especially considering her family’s financial situation – but at the same time, being literally unable to help herself. And the aspects of the gameplay that hint at the supernatural elements of the story possibly being a figment of Mae’s imagination – well. All us depressed losers know what it's like to not be able to trust your own judgement and point of view. She talks about why she dropped out of college, and her description of the dissociation, and the mental and emotional deadening that it causes is spot on and so well represented.

It underscores the point that the logical brain knows that mental illness is an illness like any other – but the emotional brain doesn’t care.

The game does a brilliant job of laying bare the realities of middle class life, and makes painfully clear the fact that, at that level, it doesn’t matter how difficult things are for you. The world isn’t going to wait for you to get back on your feet.

Mae’s mental state and the limitations it imposes on her cultivates a state of extreme frustration. Again, relatable. It’s an understated aspect of illness of any kind; the anger at yourself, and how that anger carries over into a lot of things in your day to day life. After a point, it becomes a habit. Mae does this too; she's belligerent, and instigative, and unrepentant of consequences, because anger blinds you.

It's not how things will always be. I have the privilege of hindsight, so I can say that with authority. But, this isn’t the kind of thing that ever fully leaves you, either. If you break a kneecap, it’s going to bother you for the rest of your life, and similarly, mental illness has a ‘no return, no refund’ policy. So you grow up, and you try to adapt those habits and impulses into a more positive context. Recycling, right? Maybe you set your sights on things that actually deserve your anger, and you go from there. You find people who, for their own reasons, perhaps or perhaps not related to your own, are angry.

And you don’t understand the people who are not.

A large part of the anger and frustration surrounding mental illness is due to the stigma surrounding it. It’s frustrating to be so powerless and dependent, but this is exacerbated by the attitude of ‘it can’t be that bad’, which makes it so difficult to reach out, to be able to say, ‘I need a break’ – and actually get one. This is an attitude that carries over to a lot of other issues as well, and the worst part is – we are surrounded by people who are okay with it, who believe in and support that mentality.

The myth of Sita, for example. She is a strong female figure in Indian mythology, who overcomes her circumstances to live a ‘good’ life, and for all intents and purposes, is a hell of a role model.

But that’s the thing; her life wasn’t good, was it? She was supposed be a goddess reincarnated, she should have been powerful, and respected, but instead she is reduced to ‘wife’ – and everyone today is fine with it.

I respect her immensely for the choices she made; marrying for love was her choice, going into exile with her husband was her choice. She was the paragon of virtue, of 'wifeliness', of kindness – she chose her husband over everyone and everything else, including herself, as was expected of her. But yet – she couldn't win his trust or respect. It should not even have needed to be won.

It’s commendable the way she takes it all in stride, but why did she? She was kidnapped and held captive for years, entirely against her will, and her husband's response to that is to force her to walk through fire to prove her ‘purity’ – and she does it. And she stays with him after, and I cannot understand the depths of her patience and forgiveness, because I would have been livid, and I want her to be so too. I’m furious for her, because Ram was not just her husband, he was also the king, and his later verdict to exile her, alone, while heavily pregnant, his readiness to condemn her based on speculation and public sentiment, was not just a verdict against her, it was against every woman in his kingdom who had ever been victimised.

Sita became a martyr to the modern feminist movement – if she could not be angry on her own behalf, we will do it for her. But at the same time, she is still relatable, because we are held to a slightly lesser degree of the same expectations. There are always going to be aspects of things that you relate to. ‘Big Mood’ culture is a strong indicator of the human ability to empathise, especially with characters that you like, or respect.

Sita’s world, I imagine, was run by the expectations her society and community had of her, and maybe she didn’t even have the liberty to be angry. Who is responsible for portraying her in passive acceptance of her fate? Is that representation reliable? Would the story have been different had it been written by a woman?

I can't remember a time when I was not angry, especially about things like this. I am always ready to fight, and I think the same goes for so many other people today, sometimes to our detriment. I cannot imagine a world where that was not at the very least an option. Not necessarily the best option, - but Sita’s world was very different to ours. Even with centuries between us, we’ve just gotten over angry and depressed women being labelled as ‘hysterical’ and subsequently being locked away. What is it like, to have to be calm and careful in response to being treated like this? This care in response may not be an overt requirement anymore – though the fact remains that society will not take you seriously if you become hysterical - but shouldn't you, at the very least, be able to rely on the support of other people in the same boat?

That is the main difference in these stories, and another main point of relatability to me; Mae, like myself, had a support system. Sita did not. Mae was selfish and demanding in so many ways, and required a lot of time and patience and healing before she was able to give back, but she got there eventually because she was able to put herself first. She fought for herself, and when she couldn’t, she had other people to fight for her. Night in the Woods represents the intersection of oppressed minorities and community with their portrayal of Mae, Greg, and Angus in particular, and the importance of community support – and, the difference between geographical community, and communities formed through camaraderie and actual unity. And so does the Ramayana - except, where was Sita’s community? Where were her sisters, or her parents, when she was abandoned in the woods, and later when she committed suicide? We are well aware, in the modern day, of the state of mind that causes people to kill themselves, and yet that is a part of the story that we never talk about. Where were her people then?

What would have happened if she had been more like Mae, and put herself first instead of bleeding herself dry for people who never respected her, and would never do the same for her?

People relate to personalities. They relate to choices, and circumstances, and habits, and it is neither a good nor a bad thing, to be relatable or not. Sita will be highly relatable to people who, like her, were governed by their circumstances, and were screwed over despite their best efforts. People who felt they couldn’t, or shouldn’t exercise their power and agency. Sita’s death was at odds with her strong personality, and so was her deference to her fate on many occasions, but there are a lot of people out there who will relate to the feeling of simply wanting things to be over. Mae on the other hand; she’s a steamroller, and she doesn’t stop. There’s a reason her character is a cat, and jokingly referred to as feral in the game. She is persistent, she is growing.

[1] In Defence of Kaikeyi and Draupadi: a Note – by Fritz Blackwellhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/23334398?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/emergency-room-wait-times-sexism/410515/

#ramayana discourse #night in the woods #sita #tw suicice #tw mental illness #mae borowski #spam-by-sam

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mybg3notebook · 3 years

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Hypothesis: Gale proposes you to “cheat"

Another one in the long list of the strangest statements I've read in this fandom.

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were written up to the game version v4.1.104.3536 (Early access). As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information. Written in June 2021.

Let's proceed with the basics, because clearly, anyone saying that Gale proposes Tav to cheat has some faltering concept of the meaning of the word:

The definition of cheating depends on the terms that a couple or more members in a relationship mutually decide. In general, cheating is an act involving a third party that violates the standards or boundaries of a relationship between romantic partners. More specifically, it is a unilateral decision by one romantic partner to become involved (physically and/or emotionally) with an external party that is motivated by a perceived or real limitation in the romantic partnership.

Now that this is clear, let's see the facts.

To romance Gale, Tav needs to share the Weave, and this is a must. If Tav did not share it, there is no way to start a romance with Gale in EA. During the Weave there are 3 options that may lead to romance:

Imagine kissing him: We don't need to state that this is obviously romantic.

Imagine holding hands: At first, we can't say if this is a romantic gesture, but immediately after the Weave, Gale will describe this option as: "Amid the madness that has befallen us, it seems almost out of place to think of a romantic walk". So, clearly, it is romantic.

Imagine nothing: This is a friendship option, which in the Loss Scene unlocks a dialogue option for romancing Gale.

During the Loss Scene, if Tav chose kissing or holding hands, an option appears in which Tav can bring the moment of the Weave into the conversation: "Come, you know I care about you. I showed you when we shared that spell/The Weave". This is a reassurance from Tav. After the end of the scene, Gale will bring this concept again in his line: "I often think of that moment we shared together – one under the Weave. I'm glad to know you think about it too. " This means that ever since the moment of the Weave, Gale has been frequently thinking about it, knowing its romantic potential/intention.

If Tav uses any of the other options which don't acknowledge the event of the Weave, by the end of the scene Gale will state: "I often think of that moment we shared together – one under the Weave. I hope you think about it too." This time it is Gale who implicitly reassures that the connection had happened and had an effect on him: “it promises things to come”.

So, if Tav shared the Weave in romantic terms, the Loss scene will reinforce it. Gale and Tav are making a point that both are interested in what has transpired during the Weave.

If Tav opted the friendship option during the Weave, a unique dialogue option appears in the Loss scene: *You sense a moment of unspoken affection. You want to know where it may lead.*

Gale will subtly test the ground, carefully, to see if both of them are on the same page with the same intention. He will show somehow an “unspoken affection” that Tav can decide to pick up upon or not:

Gale: I consider myself very lucky to have found you.

Among the options Tav has, we find:

"I think perhaps we could be more than friends". Again, we can see that this is the obvious romantic option.

"I consider myself lucky too." A complete friendship-based option, in which Gale recognizes Tav as a good friend.

"Don’t get carried away imagining feelings that aren’t there." And this option allows any player to completely remove the romantic option here. It is not clear if this option can prevent friendship as well in EA.

As if this were not enough, after the Loss scene there is another confirmation of their romantic interest: the serendipity comment.

Then, the Party Scene follows. If Tav talks with Gale after arranging a one-night stand with another character, Gale will accept the situation without any reaction beyond some jealous comments. These comments are always available, even with an unromanced Gale, so I'm not sure if this is the way this scene is meant to be or it's simply there because its in EA stage. One can speculate that these comments should appear only in the particular case when Gale was romanced and Tav picks another character to spend the night with. Despite this display of jealousy after being led on, Gale still encourages Tav to follow their whims and enjoy the night with the one they picked

If anything, this seems to show that Gale would accept (even though he doesn’t like it) Tav's one-night stand, assuming that this scene, being in EA, is not meant to be in another way and we are watching an unfinished work in progress.

Once Tav sleeps with their new LI and talks with Gale about the bedtime story, Gale will propose to retake what had been left up in the air during the party. The player should remember that Gale has been explicitly informed that Tav had romantic interest in him. And if this happened in the Weave, that confirmation has been done several times. The player could have been clear with Gale and stop the romance during the party by choosing the option "Let me stop you right there. That's not something I'm interested in." But this option is sometimes not available depending if you speak with Gale first or later (again, the Party scene is very unpolished).

So far, what Gale has understood of that situation is that Tav had a one-night stand, but the commitment connection mind-to-mind and the relationship—will be established with him.

This is the reason why in the next day Gale says:

Gale: You spent the other night with someone else, and I hope it was all you wanted it to be, but… [romantic weave+ romantic loss scene] we shared a romantic moment of the mind while clocked in the Weave, didn’t we? And I seem to recall a fond allusion to that moment afterwards. [more than friends path] we had a moment, you and I, a moment in which we expressed the possibility of becoming more than friends.

Gale is accustomed to being only another name in a list of lovers.. He says it during the revelation when he explains that Mystra had many other lovers, and this fact did not intimidate him because, in his youth, "he thought himself favoured among others": he was the “special one”. So, from Gale's perspective, Tav has shown interest in a deep connection with him, so he clearly understands that the night with another companion is a simple, casual thing. There is enough context for Gale to think that he is “the special one” for Tav.

As a person who respects privacy, Gale will not use the tadpole on Tav to know exactly the degree of commitment they have with that person. He is merely assuming. As he explicitly says afterward if Tav says they will remain with the other LI:

Tav: I’m sorry, but I won’t betray *companion* Gale: I… I see. She/He ‘s a lucky woman/man. Loyalty is such a… such a very rare commodity. Dev's notes: Hurt by the player’s refusal. The reference to loyalty foreshadows Mystra leaving him. Gale: Apologies, I really did think you and I… Dev's notes: Hurt by the player’s refusal. Gale: But no. Perhaps it’s for the better. In fact, I’ll let you be the judge of that. After all, I still have a story to tell. Dev's notes: Composes himself.

From his perspective, he and Tav had been actively pursuing "a romantic connection of the mind". This rejection immediately makes him remember Mystra, so he alludes to her in the line of loyalty: he has been led on once more, similar to what Mystra did. For more details about Mystra’s style check "Mystra and her Chosen ones". If we see the datamining information gathered by pjenn, it's explained in the dev's notes that his comment of loyalty is directed to his experience with Mystra.

I don't understand people that claim that Gale wants Tav to cheat. Tav has been leading him on in many scenes and then, during the party scene, they changed their mind. Gale—like Wyll—needs a connection to engage into romance (and sex "intimacy); this means that if Tav never expressed their romantic interest towards him, Gale will not look for a romantic relationship. Considering his surprise during the Weave, we can speculate that this aspect of his life had been forgotten or at least, rejected, since he is stuck in the bad experience of Mystra and his folly with the “orb”.

For some unknown reason to me, these people love to spread the misinformation that Gale invites Tav to cheat for this situation. A plain lie.

What they think the game shows: Gale is asking Tav to cheat on their significant one.

What the game is showing: Tav led Gale on to believe they were interested in a romantic relationship. There is an option available during the party to make Gale stop the romance, but it depends on the interaction order chosen by Tav. After Tav slept with another LI, Gale will inform them that he is fine with that casual night and will propose to spend the next night together. Some people state this is Gale inviting to cheat. With the exception of Gale and Wyll, the rest of the companions state that such night is a mere casual encounter for pleasure. Shadowheart may be more obscure on that matter, though. In any case, there was never any commitment with the other companions either, so all that speech of “cheating on your significant other” is very ill-intended. The closest to a negotiation/promise we have ingame with any companions are the constant reassurances that Gale and Tav have several times along the EA and the subtle meaning for commitment during the explanation of the book of Arm.

Gale: A stolen glance- that sudden heartbeat... Sometimes the little things are worth more than kingdoms. They promise things to come.

Gale: I often think of that moment we shared together – one under the Weave. I hope you think about it too. /I'm glad to know you think about it too.

Gale: I'm not a big believer in fate, but I do believe in serendipity. Life is a tempest of events that sometimes we brace against and sometimes embrace. You're one such event that one day soon perhaps I'd like to embrace.

Gale: There is a book that circulates in Amn, detailing the first thousand nights of a newly-wed king and queen. They turned everything they did into an art. The art of conversation. The art of taste, time honoured and newly acquired. The art of the body. The exploration and acceptance of the self and the other. The art of the night itself. I say we take a page from their book.

So, if anything (if we truly want to force this concept even when nobody is in a relationship still), Tav is the one "cheating" on Gale, violating the implicit mutual interest in a potential relationship.

In conclusion, Gale seems to be very obvious in wanting a commitment that could prevent Tav from abandoning him like Mystra did. He has an immature idea that sleeping with Tav would increase his chances for acceptance (not by chance Gale talks about the book of Amn in the way he does. It's not mere poetry or euphemism in my opinion. He is indirectly saying he wants those many aspects that a married couple turned into art, he won't mind making this relationship a "prequel" of that book: one can interpret this line as a suggestion that Gale wants to end up in a deep commitment.)

When we analyse this aspect of Gale, we can see that words like promise, loyalty and abandon are a bit frequent in his speech, and it may be displaying the constant abandonment issues echoing in his mind. A final example of this can be seen during a non-romanced Gale who receives Tav’s proposition to spend the night together after arranging the same with another LI:

Gale: You are all too quick to abandon the one you promised yourself to. It’s not a quality I admire

Again, Gale’s character is strongly attached to the concepts of loyalty and abandonment. For more details, read the post about "Gale Hypotheses- Part 1", section: "Abandonment Issues"

This post was written in June 2021. → For more Gale: Analysis Series Index

#gale #bg3 meta #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale

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felassan · 3 years

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The rest of this post (quotes from the article) is under a cut due to length. [source]

(There are discussions of colonialism under the cut / in the article.)

After speaking to various devs who worked on MEA I’ve learned quite a bit about what happened here. First of all, there were several more species designed for this galaxy. One writer lists having proposed “five or six” new alien types, while another states that the ones BioWare opted for in the end were specifically chosen for being in “cosplay-safe” territory. Another dev mentions that an entire system was constructed just to facilitate communication between species who were indigenous to Andromeda and those who had arrived from the Milky Way. The “species who were indigenous to Andromeda” part is important, given that there were also different ideas for how to handle first contact - making the Pathfinder a violent colonist who shoots first and asks questions later wasn’t something that was set in stone from the get-go.

“I think it was a project that couldn't have possibly lived up to expectations,” Neil Pollner tells me. Pollner was a senior writer on Mass Effect 3 before going on to write parts of Andromeda. “Not just the high bar of the original trilogy, but the logical expectations anyone would have of Mass Effect going to a whole new galaxy. Because the scope of [the first] Mass Effect was so incredibly massive, there was an inherent promise that you'd be getting a massive new experience with a ton of new things in [what was supposed to be the first] Mass Effect Andromeda - new species, new lore, an entire new galaxy at your fingertips, etc.

“But we were only given the budget for two new species, plus the Remnant. Not to mention that we couldn't even include all the Milky Way species. And we weren't going to be able to let you travel throughout the galaxy. This meant that we had to develop the story around some pretty glaring inorganic limitations. So, not only did you get something that felt (and was) much smaller than what you got before, almost everyone playing the game probably had something that they really liked about Mass Effect that just wasn't there.”

Pollner goes on to explain something I mentioned above - that there’s an inherent disconnect between making your character an explorer in a game where the vast majority of gameplay involves killing. “Ryder the explorer should have a challenging and dynamic first contact experience,” he explains. “Instead, you're almost immediately killing kett. So, some very basic pillars just weren't lining up.”

When I ask about the fact that several species had apparently been cut from the game - something I had already learned in previous interviews - Pollner assures me that I had “no idea” of what was dropped in the early days of Andromeda. He also lamented the iconic narrative and branching complexity of earlier BioWare games, stating that he wishes the team had been able to maintain the same level of variation, options, and consequences as the revered RPGs the studio was known for.

“The other BioWare Montreal writers and I were dreaming up and developing things for Andromeda months ahead of Edmonton officially starting the project - i.e. before the budget and scope had been decided/communicated,” Pollner says. “We just knew that we were going to Andromeda, with almost nothing else established, including even when in the timeline it would happen. And we set out to brainstorm and grow ideas that could organically serve that general premise. “That first contact expectation I mentioned? We'd developed ideas for how the player would navigate that. We were working on a process for the Milky Way species to learn how to even communicate with the new alien species. We were developing several additional species for the new galaxy, as well as several different storylines for why the expedition had been undertaken. Most of that pre-development work ended up not being used.”

“I proposed five or six new alien species when Andromeda was in its infancy, and I still think they had a ton of potential,” Hepler says. “[Ex-BioWare writer] Jo Berry came up with a few, too, they were awesome.

“However, I'm pretty sure those ideas are still property of BioWare, so even though I'm 100% certain they won't be used, I can't talk about them without getting some kind of permission.”

Given that Pollner had his own ideas for new species, and that Hepler had “five or six” on top of a “few” more from Berry, it’s reasonable to conclude that concepting was done for up to ten additional species that never made it into Andromeda.

“I remember some early concepts that were pretty out there,” Dorian Kieken tells me. Kieken was a design director at BioWare Montreal for Mass Effect 2 and 3 before being promoted to franchise design director at the beginning of Andromeda’s development. “One of the strengths of the original Mass Effect trilogy is that you can actually cosplay most of the alien characters - except the Hanar, although I wouldn't underestimate the creativity of some cosplayers. The intention in Mass Effect Andromeda was to introduce new races that would still be in the realm of cosplay, which is probably why more crazy concepts were abandoned.”

I was surprised that this was even a consideration, so I followed up. Kieken assures me that after Andromeda’s two new races had been decided on, their evolution of their design gradually went into more “cosplay-safe territory,” with the team consciously steering away from “jellyfish” types of aliens. “In the early development of the game, we explored a lot of new species. I'm not sure why we settled on the specific number that were in the final game, but my guess would be a mix of production reasons and having a reasonable amount of races to deal with knowing we were already bringing quite a few from the Milky Way as well.”

As Pollner mentioned earlier, the team only had the budget for two new species plus the Remnant. On top of that, they weren’t able to bring all of the Milky Way species, which corroborates Kieken’s recollection of why so many species were cut.

Given the context of these conversations - species being cut from Andromeda, first contact being muddled with militance, and even cosplay potential governing alien design - I also ask why, in the devs’ eyes, Andromeda was poorly received in relation to the original trilogy.

“I think it’s more story-related than setting-related,” Kieken says. “Andromeda has strong core gameplay that improved a lot over the trilogy, but the story didn't feel as strong. I didn't connect with the new character cast as much as I did with the original trilogy.

“It's also not a fair comparison as the trilogy is three games, so you have a lot more exposition and time to bond with the characters. That being said, I seem to recall a stronger rollercoaster of emotions in the original trilogy, which I think led to more memorable moments. From the tension of almost blowing up Wrex with your shotgun or gathering everyone on a suicide run, to the lightness of listening to Mordin sing ‘I'm the very model of a scientist Salarian’ or shooting cans with Garrus in the Presidium.”

Pollner also explains why Andromeda was perceived so differently from the original trilogy, citing differences in the amount of time the team were given to make the game, but also noting that the core issue was more systemic in nature.

“I think the thesis statement for why is that the Mass Effect trilogy was an incredibly demanding endeavor,” Pollner says. “The checks that were written for it, the complexity of the experience was insanely massive. The team worked their asses off non-stop for so many years, on back-to-back-to-back games. The prospect of doing the same thing again was not only exhausting to imagine, but totally impractical. Some of the ‘lessons’ learned from the original trilogy are ones that are important for game development but result in the player experience being less. When you're talking about triple-A development, the original trilogy is actually the anomaly, not Andromeda.

“Because I moved on from BioWare after my work on Andromeda was complete, I have no idea what, if any, future plans there might be. At the time of my departure, there were none.”

It’s worth noting that Pollner is clear about Andromeda being better than a lot of people give it credit for. While some of the concerns people had have now been verified by people who worked on the project - that there could have been more species and that the core premise of Ryder the explorer becoming Ryder the killer is inherently flawed - the team still worked hard on delivering an ambitious game within the constraints of what they were given.

“I find the game to actually be pretty darn fun, and once the technical flaws were ironed out, and the initial reactive disappointment faded, the game does stand on its own,” Pollner says. “There's some really good stuff in there.”

[source]

#bioware #mass effect #mass effect: andromeda #video games #colonialism cw #next mass effect #long post #longpost

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mikaze-discord · 3 years

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Quartet Night: Love letters

Annnnnd these are the love letters written for Quartet Night!!!

Please enjoy under the cut~

REIJI KOTOBUKI

From Anon:

I've always been drawn to characters with complex (and fairly dark) personalities, so liking Rei-chan was honestly inevitable for me.

He looks like a very bright and cheerful character at first, which he is, but sometimes that part of him is a little misleading because, in actuality, he's a character that holds a lot of negative feelings about himself due to a past that he can't seem to move on from. He holds a lot of those feelings to himself because he doesn't want to burden anyone else with them. He's a reliable, cunning, and ultimately selfless character that chooses to shoulder a lot on his own out of his infinite care for others, and perhaps a secret sense of atonement, all hidden behind his bright demeanor and goofy smile, and it's endlessly interesting to me.

Besides the duality of his personality, he has a lot of other endearing quirks to love about him. He loves his mom a lot and is a mama's boy. His old-man jargon and catchphrases never fail to amuse (I still can't get over the way he says "my girl"). His obsession with anything even remotely British is something my APH England phase can relate to. His style of music brings a lot of pleasant feelings of nostalgia for me, and his pretty voice suits them a lot. And most of all he's just a very good boy overall. I rate 99999 out of 10 would love and support him and also maybe pay for his therapy because god knows he needs it. Happy anniversary!!

From another anon:

Would you like to hear a story? You do? Very well then, may this story be one you enjoy.

What do I like about Reiji kotobuki? A Lot of things actually!

Well, I've always really liked Reiji as a character as he seemed to be one of the more interesting characters to me, due to how complex he is with his backstory and general just personality.

I have always really enjoyed how Reiji just solves problems too? Like he is just such an outgoing person who deserves all the support!!!

Like the best word I can use for Reiji is just, unique. Everything about him is just so Reiji. From the way he talks, to his nicknames or even his texting style. Like have you seen how many people use emoticons when texting as Reiji? It's just so him.

I like his way of thinking too! I feel like some of the interactions in the games are just so interesting, just seeing Reiji’s point of view. How he deals with a sort of survivor’s guilt and all of that.

Personally, some of my most memorable roleplaying moments were watching a Reiji rper in action, like just seeing them interact and flow so seamlessly with the other characters was just so fascinating to wee baby rper me. Such a large part of playing Reiji is just how you flow with the people around you and comedic timing. I have so many funny moments where Reiji was just interacting with people and it was just so inspirational (?) like I couldn't stop the smile on my face. I had learnt alot from them. I still consider them my roleplaying senpai almost! I don't talk to them anymore but I really had an amazing time just seeing their spin on the character.

I don't find him to be a romantic partner towards me nor do I see any of the characters in that light, but I've always found Reiji as such a personal character. Not even just towards me, like even with other utapri stans. The most relatable character always seems to be Reiji.

I've always been pretty similar in many aspects to him and I often find myself relating to him in numerous ways like his vibe is just relatable! I have often found myself trying to make other people laugh and have fun that many times I'm spreading myself thin and feel unappreciated...Reiji really helped with that.

This is where i start getting into the really personal stuff LOL feel free to skip if you dont wanna hear the angsty backstory.

I had really come to love Reiji when I had just...hit a low. I had a group of friends who I enjoyed hanging out with and just talking to, but they weren't very good friends per say. I often had to schedule every activity we did and I spent days and nights trying to think of concepts that might be fun. They took it for granted.. I had spent 4 months trying to make a game for them, and they had constantly pushed back times that we would play it. Using excuses to not play it, without telling me out right what they did not like or even why. The site I used was later taken down without notice and thus I had lost all my progress. Later, they had mentioned how they would like to play it except that later ended up being two years later. I really wish I could've solved things with that friend group like Quartet Night did but that didn't happen. That is when I started seeing things Reiji’s way? Not to say that it was the same or similar scenario to Reiji but I had just associated it with him.

RANMARU KUROSAKI

From Anon:

Ran is such a fun character! He sounds like a "rough outside, soft inside" kind of character, but his roughness is more like an integral part of him and it's through it that he shows he cares rather than setting it aside. That's what made me want to rp him. I also like how he is such a strong guy who's always determined to do his best in everything he does despite so much having gone wrong in his past. And it's very satisfying to see him form bonds and start to trust people.

From @mikaze-san:

Originally, my favourite Utapri boy was Ai, and it had been the robot boy for several years upon entering the fandom. In fact, it only switched to Ranmaru sometime late last year but regardless, I would still die for this man. Part of the reason why I switched is because I’ve always been a fan of Suzuki Tatsuhisa and I have a huge bias towards any man who wears nail polish without fearing being “feminine” because fuck gender roles.

As someone who studies fashion, I think Ranmaru is very coordinated and confident when it comes to portraying himself that way. He knows he’s not very good at expressing his emotions and utilises his passion for rock and playing the bass to portray those feelings through his songs. It’s also incredibly inspiring to know that he bounces back from pretty much anything considering his backstory and the stuff he deals with in the game/anime.

But my main reason for loving Ranmaru so much stems from the fact that I admire him a lot and want to be more like him. For a long time last year, I got to roleplay as Ranmaru in a few Utapri groups and through those experiences, I gained a better understanding and appreciation of the characters that I wrote for. In some weird way, by highlighting his flaws, character progression and how he dealt with different emotions, I ended up providing insight into how I dealt with similar issues by looking at them from a 3rd person perspective.

I used to be very shy and was very shut off from friends and family, and due to this I’ve always admired people in my life or fictional characters that are so confident in being who they are. Ranmaru particularly struck that chord in me because his bluntness knows no end. He’s very opinionated and doesn’t fear confrontation, in most cases being the one to provoke it. He speaks his mind openly without being overly anxious of the consequences. This is something that I feel is especially relevant today with being your authentic/unapologetic self is such a trend.

It’s something I’ve also noticed with having met people in or outside of this fandom, the notion of idolising a fictional character containing traits that we want to see in ourselves. Which made me think about a lot of my favourite kinds of characters which at the end of the day all boil down to sharing one similar trait: Being a bitch.

And in Utapri, Ranmaru embodies that. So naturally it’s very easy for me to idolise him.

(Tldr: I like his bitchy attitude.)

AI MIKAZE

From Arashi:

It's hard to put into words why I love Ai Mikaze, perhaps it's because I'm subconsciously drawn to him, maybe it's because his hair and eyes are my favorite color, maybe it's because his voice is that of an angels, there are many reasons why I love him. I couldn't tell you a definite, "These one or two reasons are the entire reason I love him", but I'll try to sum it up.

I grew to love him by admiring his personality, his smile, his determination to reach his goals, everything about him made me happy. He's strict and a little scary at times, but when he sees people caring for him, he becomes happy and in a way, sentimental. He's not sure how to explain the way he feels, but he tries. I think I admire how he holds all the little things precious to his heart as he learns about them, and he wants to understand how to care for others and how they care for them in return. Even after six years, he still remains the most dear to me. I think that he now has a sentimental value to me, because even if I 'loved' another character more for a while, I will always come back to Ai. Ai deserves the world, and I'd give it to him if I could. He'll always be special to me, and I think that he very much deserves that.

From Maronda:

My love for Ai started after I found Shining Live by chance and started to play. At first I wasn't particularly attached to any of the characters and decided to go back and watch the anime to maybe remember some context other than who Starish was. When I got to the episode focused on Ai and his "secret" I was absolutely thrown off by it all. I ended up feeling like I had so many questions and I knew that the anime would give me little to no answers, so I frequently turned to rambling on the internet about it. Eventually, this fixation on weird things about him seemed to turn into a clear fondness for him, and friends made me realize just how much I liked him. Knowing the cold and often strange aspects of his personality was due to something out of his control was something I resonated with as someone on the autism spectrum. He reminded me of some of the ways I used to think and behave.

I also began to notice other things I loved about him. Things like how soothing I found his voice, the pleasant shade of light blue in his hair and eyes, how ridiculously pretty he is... but the best things are the endearing parts of his personality. Though he's somewhat harsh, he's still entirely genuine. His curiosity is absolutely precious and his occasional awkwardness in expressing emotion or understanding the emotions of others made me empathize with him. And if you look at the Ai in Shining Live and compare it to the Ai in the anime and games... he really has changed a lot and grown as a person. He now seems so much gentler and understanding, and he clearly values the friendships he has now too! I think he's a wonderful character and ever since friends of mine encouraged me to selfship I've essentially been in love with him, but it also makes me happy to see other people appreciate him for other reasons as well. He's just so lovable!

CAMUS

From @uta-no-fakku-sama:

At the very beginning of my UtaPri interest, Camus never really caught my attention. That is until he became my first My Only Prince UR. I’ve come to appreciate him a lot more ever since, and now he’s become my favorite QUARTET NIGHT member! Along the way, I learned more about him and realized he’s one of the more complicated characters to understand. Nonetheless, I absolutely adore him. I tend to tease and make fun of him a lot, but deep down I truly do like him a whole bunch!

From @/waddamaloooon on twt:

A little Camus appreciation post

(alternatively known as; how this guy managed to harshly take my heart and step on it like the gumin I am.)

Hello, this is Suikamaru, here to share a tiny story of why I, and eventually you, love Camus Rondo Cryzard.

At first glance, his looks appealed to me, but not his behavior (and ironically enough, his voice) so I didn't bat an eye on him. I've always been on a neutral leaning to dislike opinion on Camus, which is quite understandable because have you SEEN the way he acts. Unfathomable.

…..To a Young Suikamaru, that is.

I've grown, so naturally I've changed preferences regarding characters, ikemen, and who to stan and who to avoid like the plague. I will lie if I said that I expected to like that blonde confectionery devouring machine at any point of my life.

But it did happen so who are we fooling here.

It dawned on me that Camus is the type of character that you cannot appreciate unless you go in depth into his lore, backstory, and see him for who he really is. Because then everything else will make sense. And that never happened in my case until I started roleplaying as him.

I realized that he's not just a two faced, sweet toothed mean man. He's a perfectionist, someone who's always been raised since his childhood days to be nothing less than complete, who has locked on his heart and emotions to devote himself completely to the purpose given to him. He has the looks and brains for what though? He should be a little stupid honestly.

But his intelligence gave him the complexity that he just needed for his characteristics. Because as aforementioned, he's not someone to easily like or fall in love with. And I think that's quite rare in characters, and very much appreciated due to the fact it gives the fans a chance to not actually stay on a flat level of knowledge regarding their favorite characters.

I've slowly started to see myself in some aspects of him, which was the number one factor of liking him. Then came the Maeno magic when I realized Camus shares the same VA as another character that I love as well. (Hamelin, from SinoAlice.) From then, everything went downhill.

In a good way. I think..

Well, that is all from me, please read about this handsome man and appreciate his hard work both as an individual and as an idol. There is SO much to him that's p much overlooked and I'm getting broke from spending my money on his living expenses rent free in my head. Take him off my head.

#utapri #utanoprincesama #uta no prince sama #Reiji kotobuki #Kotobuki reiji #Ranmaru kurosaki #utapri camus #ai mikaze #mikaze ai #quartet night

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legionofpotatoes · 3 years

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we decided to watch all story cutscenes from the new resident evil village videogame on a whim, since it’s not really our cup of tea gameplay-wise but seems to be this massive zeitgeist moment that made us morbidly curious. And I know how much everyone cares about my thoughts on things I know very little about, so. let’s get into it huh gamers. and yeah spoilers?

for context, I’ve only played resident evil 4 and a small portion of 5. I also read the wikipedia entry for 7’s plot recently. all this to say I was only vaguely aware of how tonally wacky the series was going in

I also completely gave up following the plot of the mutagens’ soap opera, so that paid off in spades here as you might imagine

anyway so that baby in the intro. that baby’s head is just massive. humongous toddlerdome. when ethan finds the baby’s head in a jar later on. there is no way that head would fit into that jar. bad game design. no not even game design. basic stuff. one hundred years in prison for jar modeler

if I see a single functional hetero marriage in video games I will cry tears of joy. I understand their misery is kind of The Point irt them badly working through the hillbilly romp trauma but like. sheesh. at least set that up as an emotional story goal the plot will help resolve. but nope they start off miserable and it goes nowhere

I know I know the mia thing has a huge wrinkle in it but like. not really in terms of dramatic function?? set up a happy end to the re7 nightmare (miranda can keep up appearances for all she cares) and then take that all away from angry griffin mcelroy for manpain. it will still absolutely work to set up the dramatic forward momentum. why throw in this cliche Hollywood Tension in their marriage if you’re not going to address it oh maybe because it’s normalized as automatically interesting because nuclear families are a self-propagating pit of a very narrow chance at emotional happiness relying on social stigma to preserve their empty function oops my baggage slipped in yikes abort mission

I called him griffin mcelroy because I saw his face on twitter and. yeah. I will continue to do this occasionally. my house my rules

... fuck the reason I’m hung up on this is specifically because the rest of the game is so tonally dexterous (which is a shining point to me! more on that later!), and yet they felt weirdly compelled to create the aesthetic trapping of a family-at-odds trope without following it through too well. a sign of both the good and the bad stuff to come

but listen the real reason why I wanted to talk about any of this is to nitpick the fascinating backwards-engineered nucleus of the entire thing; in that this game essentially creates a melting pot of just SO many disparate horror tropes and then makes a no-holds-barred unhinged effort at weaving thick lore to piece them all together. it is truly a sight to behold. like straight up you got your backwoods fright night situation, your gothic castle vampires, your rural-industrial werewolves, and don’t forget your bloated swamp monsters over there, with then a hard left turn into robotic body horror, and the entire ass subgenre of Creepy Doll writ large, and the bloodborne tentacle monsters, and a hellboy angel bossfight, which rides on the coattails of a mech-on-mech pacific rim bonanza, and just jesus henry christ slow down

almost all of these are textural hijack jobs that don’t really get into the metaphor plain of any of those settings but the game sort-of makes an argument that the texture IS the point and revels in it. It is kind of admirable almost. The same reason why the intro felt boxed in and unmotivated is also why the rest of the game just blasts off of its hinges to the point of complete and self-indulgent tonal abandon. I kinda loved that about it. lady dimitrescu made sure to hold her hat down as she bent forward in mahogany doorways and then suddenly she’s a giant gore dragon and you settle in your temp role as dark souls man with Gun to take her ass down. Excellent??

this rhino rampage impulse to gobble up every horror aesthetic known to man comes to head when the game wrestles with its FPS trappings in what is the most hilarious solution in creating visceral player damage moments. Since most cinematics and the entire game is in first person, that leaves precious little real estate for the devs to work with if they really want to sell griffin’s physical crucible. To wit. This dude’s forearms. Specifically just the forearms. They are MASSACRED throughout the story. The poor man lives out the silent hill dimension of a hand model. by the end cutscene he looks like a neatly dressed desk clerk who had decided to stick both his grabbers into garbage disposal grinders just a few hours prior. like in addition to everything else it manages to rope in that tinge of slapstick violence into its general grievous genre collection except this time it IS for a lack of trying! truly incredible

but wait his miracle clawbacks from everything his poor paws go through are retroactively explained away, yes, but far too vaguely and far too late to console me as I sat and watched everyone’s favorite baby brother reattach an entirely severed hand to his wrist stump by just. placing it on there. and giving it a lil twist ‘n pop terminator-style. and then willing his fingers back into motion right in front of my bulging eyes. this game just does not care. it does not give a shit. and boy howdy will it work to make that into one of its strongest suits

cause generally speaking resident evil was THE premiere vanilla zombie content destinaysh for like a decade, right? and as the rest of the world and mainstream media started encroaching and bloodying its blue ocean it went and just exploded in every single conceivable horror trope direction like a smilodon on catnip. truly, genuinely fascinating franchise moves

yeah the big vampire milf is hot. other news; grass... green. although I do love the implication that her closet is just identical white dresses on a rack. cartoon network-level queen shit

apropos of nothing I’ve said there’s also this hobo dante-devimaycry-magneto man, and I can’t believe this sentence makes sense. anyway he made that “boulder-punching asshole” joke referring to chris redfield and it was probably the only easter egg that really landed for me and boy did it land hard. I have not seen him punch the boulder in re5, mind. I had only heard about how funny it is from friends. and here this dude was, probably in the same exact mindset as me, trying to grapple with that insane mental image. with you on that ian mckellen, loud and clear

I advocate vehemently against the shallow pursuit of hyper photorealism in art direction but I gotta admit it works really in favor of immersive horror like this. the european village shacks especially gave me super unchill flashbacks to my rural countryside retreat in western georgia. I could smell the linoleum dude. not cool

faces are weird in this game. can’t place it. nice textures, good animation, but the modeling template is... uuh strange? and the hair. it has that clustered-flat-clumpy look that harkens to something very specific and unpleasant but I just don’t know what. sue me

griffin’s mental aptitude to take all this shit in stride and end every seemingly traumatizing bossfight involving some fucking eldritch being yet unseen through mortal eyes by essentially throwing out an MCU quip is just. What the fuck dude? I mean that was funny how you casually yelled the f-word at a god damn werewolf that you considered a fairy tale an hour ago but are you like, all right?? it was swinging a sledgehammer the size of a bus at you, ethan

oh oh the vampires are afraid of cold and your last name is winters. I get it haha

Pro Gamer Nitpick: boss fights seemed a bit unnecessarily long?? idk why the youtuber we picked decided the ENTIRE propeller man fight counted towards the vital story scenes he was stitching together, but man mr big daddy lite there really had some get up and go huh??

why are they saying dimitrescu.. like that. is it really how you say that word or is the english language relapsing into its fetish for ending every single word with a consonant at all costs

I’m not saying it’s a dramatic miss of a twist in context of all that’s going on, but the “you died in the last game actually and have been DC’s clayface ever since” revelation is low-key. it’s. it’s just funny to me, I dont know what to say. century-old god-witch fails her evil plan after she mistakenly removes heart from what was definitely NOT just some white guy with eight fingers after all

chris realizing he’s about to become the player character and immediately swapping out his tsundere trenchcoat for the muscletight sex haver sweater

the little bluetooth speaker-sized pipe bomb he taped to his knife was nuclear?? really??? I must have missed something because that is just too good. I buy it though I totally buy it. chris just got them fun-sized nukes in his car trunk for, you guessed it, Situations

anyway this is all for now just wanted to briefly touch on how unexpectedly funny and tonally irreverent this seemingly serious game turned out to be. did not articulate any cathartic story beats whatsoever but my god it had fun connecting those plot points. he just fucking put his severed hand back on his stump and it Just Worked todd howard get in here

#text #another one in my bulleted review series with no rhyme or reason #sorry resident evil fans this could be a painful read pls turn away #i know almost nothing about it but i am gonna be super fake familiar and critical of this one hey ho

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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If/when they make a Joe/Nicky prequel movie, what are some of the Dos and Don’ts for them, with regards to historical accuracy. Like, what do you think they should include, and what do you think they should avoid?

Oof. This is a GREAT question, and also designed to give me a chance to ramble on in a deeply, deeply self-indulgent fashion. That is now what will proceed to happen. Consider yourself warned. So if they were miraculously to be like “well that qqueenofhades person on tumblr seems like she knows what she’s talking about, let’s hire her to consult on this production!”, here are some of the things I would tell them.

First off, a question I have in fact asked my students when teaching the crusades in class is whether you could actually show the sack of Jerusalem on screen. Like... if you’re making a film about the First Crusade, what kind of choices are you going to make? What narrative viewpoint are you going to uphold throughout the story? Are you actually going to show a slaughter of Muslim and Jewish inhabitants that some chroniclers described as causing enough blood to reach up to the knees of horses? (Whether it actually did this is beside the point; the point is that the sack went far beyond the accepted conventions of warfare and struck everybody involved in it as particularly horrific.) Because when you’re making a film about the crusades, you are also making it by nature for a modern audience that has particular understandings of Christian/Muslim conflict, religious warfare and/or tolerance, the War on Terror, the modern clash over ISIS, Trump’s Muslim ban, and so forth. The list goes on and on. So you’re never making a straight, unbiased historical adaptation, even if you’re going off the text of primary sources. You’re still constructing it and presenting it in a deliberate and curated fashion, and you can bet that whichever way you come down, your audience will pick up on that.

Let’s take the most recent example of a high-profile crusades film: Kingdom of Heaven from 2005. I’ve written a book chapter on how the narrative choices of KoH, aside from its extensive fictionalization of its subject matter to start with, make it crystal clear that it is a film made by a well-meaning Western liberal filmmaker (Ridley Scott) four years after 9/11 and two years after the invasion of Iraq, when the sympathy from 9/11 was wearing off and everyone saw America/Great Britain and the Bush/Blair coalition overreaching itself in yet another arrogant imperial adventure into the Middle East. Depending on how old you are, you may or may not remember the fact that Bush explicitly called the War on Terror a “crusade” at the start, and then was quickly forced to walk it back once it alarmed his European allies (yes, back then, as bad as America was, it still did have those) with its intellectual baggage. They KNEW exactly what images and tropes they were invoking. It is also partly why medieval crusade studies EXPLODED in popularity after 9/11. Everyone recognized that these two things had something to do with each other, or they made the connection somehow. So anyone watching KoH in 2005 wasn’t really watching a crusades film (it is set in the late 1180s and dramatizes the surrender of Jerusalem to Saladin) so much as a fictional film about the crusades made for an audience explicitly IN 2005. I have TONS to say on this subject (indeed, if you want a copy of my book chapter, DM me and I’ll be happy to send it.)

Ridley Scott basically sets it up as the Christian and Muslim secular leaders themselves aren’t evil, it’s all the religious fanatics (who are all made Templars, including Guy de Lusignan, going back to the “evil Templar” trope started by Sir Walter Scott and which we are all so very familiar with from Dan Brown and company). Orlando Bloom’s character shares a name (Balian de Ibelin) but very little else with the eponymous real-life crusader baron. One thing Scott did do very well was casting an actual and well-respected Syrian actor (Ghassan Massoud) to play Saladin and depicting him in essential fidelity to the historical figure’s reputed traits of justice, fairness, and mercy (there’s some article by a journalist who watched the film in Beirut with a Muslim audience and they LOVED the KoH Saladin). I do give him props for this, rather than making the Evil Muslim into the stock antagonist. However, Orlando Bloom’s Balian is redeemed from the religious extremist violence of the Templars (shorthand for all genuinely religious crusaders) by essentially being an atheistic/agnostic secular humanist who wants everyone to get along. As I said, this is a film about the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq made three years after 9/11 more than anything else, and you can really see that.

That said, enough about KoH, back to this presumable Joe/Nicky backstory. You would obviously run into the fact that it’s SUPER difficult to make a film about the crusades without offending SOMEBODY. The urge to paint in broad strokes and make it all about the evil Westerners invading is one route, but it would weaken the moral complexity of the story and would probably make it come off as pandering to guilty white liberal consciences. Are we gonna touch on the many decades of proto-crusading ventures in Iberia, Sicily, North Africa, and other places, and how the eleventh century, especially under Pope Gregory VII, made it even thinkable for a Christian to be a holy warrior in the first place? (It was NOT normal beforehand.) How are we going to avoid the “lololol all religion sucks and makes people do crazy things” axe to grind favoured by So Very Smart (tm) internet atheists? Yes, we have to demonstrate the ultimate horror of the crusade and the flawed premises it was based on, but we can’t do that by just showing the dirty, religiously zealot medieval people doing that because they don’t know any better and are being cynically manipulated in God’s Name. In other words (and the original TOG film did this very well) we can’t position ourselves to laugh at or mock the crusader characters or feel confident in looking down on them for being Dumb Zealots. They have to be relatable enough that we realize we could BE (and in fact already ARE) them, and THEN you slide into the horror and what compels them to do those kinds of things, and THAT’S when it hits. Because take a look at the news. This is happening around us right now.

Obviously, as I was doing in my First Crusade chapter in DVLA, a lot of this also has to spend time centering the Muslim point of view, the way they reacted to the crusade, the ways in which Yusuf as an Isma’ili Shia Muslim (Kaysani is the name of a branch of Isma’ili Shi’ites, he has a definite historical context and family lineage, and hence is almost surely, as I wrote him, a Fatimid from Egypt) is likewise not just A Stock Muslim. In this case, obviously: Get actual Muslims on the set to advise about the details. Don’t make stupid and/or obvious mistakes. Don’t necessarily make the Muslims less faithful or less virtuous than the Christians (even if this is supposed to praise them as being “less fanatic” than those bad religious Catholics). Don’t tokenize or trivialize their reaction to something as horrific as the sack of Jerusalem, and don’t just use dead brown bodies as graphic visual porn for cheap emotional points. Likewise, it goes without saying, and I don’t think they would anyway, but OH MY GOD DON’T MAKE THIS INTO GAME OF THRONES GRIMDARK!!!! OH MY GOD!!! THERE IS BEAUTY AND THERE IS LIGHT AND THERE IS POETRY AND THAT’S WHY IT HURTS SO MUCH WHEN IT’S DESTROYED! AND THE CHOICES THAT PEOPLE MAKE TO DESTROY THOSE THINGS HAVE TO BE TERRIFYINGLY PLAUSIBLE AND FAMILIAR, BECAUSE OH MY GOD!!

Next, re: Nicolo. Evidently he is a priest or a former priest or something of the sort in the graphic novel, which becomes a bit of a problem if we want him to actually FIGHT in the crusades for important and/or shallow and/or OTP purposes. (I don’t know if they address this somehow or Greg Rucka is not a medieval historian or whatever, but never mind.) It was a Major Thing that priests could not carry weapons, at least and especially bladed weapons. (In the Bayeux Tapestry, we have Odo, the bishop of Bayeux, fighting at the battle of Hastings with a truncheon because he’s a clergyman and can’t have a sword). They were super not supposed to shed blood, and a broadsword (such as the type that Nicky has and carries and is clearly very familiar with) is a knight’s weapon, not a clergyman’s. The thing about priests was that they were not supposed to get their hands dirty with physical warfare; they could (and often did) accompany crusade armies, bishops were secular overlords and important landholders, monks and hermits and other religious preachers were obviously part of a religious expedition, and yes, occasionally some priests would break the rules and fight in battle. But this was an exception FAR more than the rule. So if we’re going by accuracy, we have Nicky as a priest who doesn’t actively fight and doesn’t have a sword, we have him as a rule-breaking priest with a sword (which would have to be addressed, and the Templars, who were basically armed monks, weren’t founded until 1119 so he can’t be one of those yet if this is still 1099) or we just skip the priest part and have him as a crusader with a sword like any other soldier. If he was in fact a priest, he also wouldn’t be up to the same standard of sending into battle. Boys, especially younger sons of the nobility, often entered the church at relatively early ages (12 or 13), where it was treated as a career, and hence they stopped training in arms. So if Nicky is actually out there fighting and/or getting killed by Yusuf several times for Important Purposes, he’s... almost surely not a priest.

Iirc, they’ve already changed a few things from the graphic novel (I haven’t read it, but this is what I’ve heard) so they can also tweak things to make a new backstory or a hybrid-new backstory in film-verse. So once we’ve done all the above, we still have to decide how to handle the actual sack of Jerusalem and massacre of its inhabitants, the balance between violence comparable to the original TOG film and stopping short of being exploitative (which I think they would do well), and the aftermath of that and the founding of the new Latin Christian kingdom. It would have to, as again the original film does very well, avoid prioritizing the usual players and viewpoints in these events, and dig into presenting the experiences of the marginalized and way in which ordinary people are brought to the point of doing these things. It doesn’t (and frankly shouldn’t) preach at us that U.S. Invasions Of The Middle East Are Bad (especially since obviously none of the characters/people/places/events here are American at all). And as I said already but bears repeating: my god, don’t even THINK about making it GOT and marketing it as Gritty Dramatic Medieval History, You Know It’s Real Because They’re Dirty, Violent, and Bigoted!

Also, a couple tags I saw pop up were things like “Period-Typical Racism” and “Period-Typical Homophobia” and mmm okay obviously yes there are these elements, but what exactly is “period typical?” Does it mean “using these terms just because you figure everyone was less tolerant back then?” We know that I, with my endless pages of meta on medieval queer history, would definitely side-eye any attempts to paint these things as Worse Than Us, and the setting alone would convey a sense of the conflict without having to add on gratuitous microaggressions. I basically think the film needs to be made exactly like the original: centering the gay/queer perspectives of marginalized people and people of color, resisting the urge for crass jokes at the expense of the identity of its characters, and approaching it with an awareness of the deep complexity and personal meaning of these things to people in terms of the historical moment we’re in, while not making a film that ONLY prizes our response and our current crises. Because if we’re thinking about these historical genealogies, the least we can do (although we so often aren’t) is to be honest.

Thanks! I LOVED this question.

#history #medieval history #kingdom of heaven #joe x nicky #long post #persephone-rose-r #ask #the old guard meta

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unweavinglies · 4 years

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Gonta Gokuhara Character Analysis: When a Genius is Treated like a Child

So a quick disclaimer: Yes, I am very aware that this is most likely not canon, or at least not what the writers intended on being canon, nor am I saying that this is 100% canon and should be considered as such. This is just a fan theory/analysis I came up with for my own enjoyment and wanted to share with others, as I like coming up with theories/analysis posts and reworking canons to make enhanced stories and character development in my perspective. I firmly believe that the idea of making theories isn’t supposed to be a shouting contest to see which opinion is the most loud and correct, but should be something to share with others and find acceptance and understanding in different interpretations, even if you don’t agree with them.

Well, this has been a long time coming, hasn’t it?

I’ve been talking about wanting to do this analysis for months now to various friends and acquaintances, but I’ve only had the motivation to do as such recently, after writing a short story that dived deeper into Gonta’s mindset over the Mercy Killing Plot he and Kokichi attempted to carry out. Regardless of that, however, Gonta has been one of my favorite characters for quite some time, and I really feel like his character arc and the unfortunate tragedy behind the unintentional mistreatment of Gonta via his classmates.

So without further adieu, let’s talk about that--about what happens when a genius is treated like a child.

Warning, this does discuss some rather unfortunate topics, such as ableism, depression/self loathing, and the concept of mercy killing. Viewer discretion is advised.

The first thing we need to elaborate on, is why I am calling Gonta a “genius.” Gonta has shown difficulty in understanding simple concepts, and struggles to follow along complicated plots, such as we see in his Salmon Mode Event where he mentions that he cannot follow the plot of high fantasy stories because they tend to be so complicated. He even refers to himself as not very smart, tragically enough.

However, not is all what it seems for Gonta, as his intellect is a matter of fact, and not just an analysis, and the game’s introduction of him opens up this fact to the player in a round about way that may or may not be so subtle.

Gonta admits here that he was a wild child, lost in the forest for ten years. While the logistics are... questionable, this is a work of fiction, thus I will suspend some disbelief. Gonta being lost in the forest for ten years means that he was probably about 5-8 years old when he was lost, depending on how old he is in the game.

Touching upon this briefly, studies of wild children, specifically referencing this case here, have an extremely hard time readjusting and learning to human language, customs, and interaction. The younger a child is upon becoming a wild child and the longer they are in the wild, the less likely they will be able to learn language and certain social behaviors and skills. While it is not impossible, the likelihood of Gonta being 15 or 16 in the game is very low, and even impossible once I elaborate, and we can safely assume that with the context of him being a wild child, he is probably at least 17 years old. So a safe assumption is that Gonta was lost in the forest when he was about 7.

(Note: I am very well aware of Gonta’s potential forest family not being wolves, and instead the reptites, but these creatures Gonta speaks of very well be his own imagination spiking from the isolation from humanity, or be something else entirely. Gonta makes several references to video game characters as well, claiming he met them in real life, so I consider it highly unlikely that “reptites” are an exception to this. Either way, it won’t matter if you believe otherwise, just that it may change certain aspects of what I’m about to say in regarding education and the sort.)

What’s the point of this elaboration? Well, quite a lot, once you remember that Gonta is the Ultimate Entomologist.

Firstly, there is the fact that Gonta is a high school student at all. Gonta was lost at a very young age--it would be impossible for him to be, since not only had he spent 10 years int he wild, but he also had to rejoin human society, relearn human language and customs, and then be put back into formal education. If Gonta is still a teenager and not over 21, then Gonta would have to cram in a decade’s worth of formal education into a few months, or a few years, at most.

This makes Gonta a literal prodigy.

Had Gonta not been isolated from humanity for a decade, Gonta would have been a child prodigy, a literal genius with an intellect that couldn’t be so easily matched. Having the capacity to learn advance mathematics, language (although in the English version, he is struggling with speak (speaking with the infamous “caveman” speech pattern) scientific methods, all of it within such a short amount of time proves that Gonta is, without a shred of doubt, a genius.

Even if you take the aforementioned reptites into account, it only makes Gonta’s accomplishments slightly less impressive, depending on your interpretation of what the reptites actually are. This is because Gonta still had to engage with formal education, and even in the best case scenario where the reptites were fully advanced beings with a civilization and education (which I quite doubt, if they were, then why not give Gonta back to the human race when he was still a child? Why not guide him back to his kind? Why keep him? Even if they were afraid of humanity, it would be far, far worse for the humans to find them while looking for their lost son... I digress.) Gonta still had to learn Japan’s education. Their history, their language, their social customs--and then, Gonta had to learn how to be an entomologist.

You need to go to college to be an entomologist.

According to this website here, the basic, bare bones higher education one needs in order to apply for certain positions related to entomology is a bachelor’s degree, with most positions and places requiring a doctoral decree. There are, of course, youth clubs for students under eighteen, but from my understanding, in order to be considered an entomologist, you need a college degree.

Gonta is a high school student.

For him to be considered an Ultimate Entomologist, Gonta would have to have taken college courses and gotten some kind of degree in order to be recognized as such. Thus, Gonta is still learning a higher education within a short period of time that is incredible for any human being his age, whether it be as drastic as him having no sort of education while living in the wild, or living with the reptites.

Either way, it is safe to say that Gonta is very intelligent, whether or not he is potentially a prodigy for it.

However, this has very unfortunate implications of the way Gonta is treated by his peers in the game.

Not only does Tsumugi here reenforce that idea in everyone else’s mind...

She blatantly tells Gonta that he was being manipulated and or “tricked” into abducting everyone...

When, in actuality, not only did Gonta know exactly what he was doing:

Kokichi even elaborated on his plans quite explicitly to Gonta:

And earlier on, the rest of the class had been treating him differently than they treat one another, sort of like he was a young child they needed to guide.

For example;

Kirumi assumes Gonta is not very aware that hitting someone with such an object is dangerous... despite him being a peer to his classmates and a young man.

And when Gonta has a pretty valid concern;

He is instructed against it and/or ignored on the subject:

Even Kaede slips up a little;

And during the investigation...

Himiko is 100% convinced here that Gonta is the culprit, to the point where she is trying to trick him with this kind of phrasing.

“Are you not, not the culprit?” equates to “Are you the culprit?”

“Are you not, not, not the culprit?” equates to... I believe it would be “Are you not the culprit?”

And that’s the thing:

Like how even I was confused and unsure about the triple ‘nots’ of Himiko’s statement, Gonta is too. Very reasonably so, actually--it’s extremely awkward phrasing purposefully meant to manipulate Gonta into saying he’s the culprit of Rantaro’s murder, and it takes Kaito and Himiko to realize that it was them causing the problem when Kaede called them out on such.

And again, after Gonta explains his actions during the murder, he gets very frustrated;

Already, we are seeing the effects piling up, leading to a frustrated, angry outburst.

And by far, one of the worst examples of this sort of unintentional ableism is this:

And Himiko even just... flat out does this:

By “dumbing down” the explanation of right and left, and not noticing that Gonta is left handed, she caused him to accidentally switch the wires on the headset, causing the memory error and making this entire trial all the more worse for him. By treating him like a child, like the theme of this trial, she only made things worse for him.

And that’s the problem.

Despite Gonta trying to tell everyone that he has no idea what they’re even talking about, everyone just assumes he “can’t understand the Virtual World” and brushes him off. Again and again, Gonta was treated like a child and brushed off, and this time, it came with a heavy consequence.

These instances of “guiding” Gonta are subtle, and on their own, aren’t much to address as anything more than suggestions or words of caution. However, there is a very clear theme of “we have to tell Gonta what he should do” that starts in Chapter 1 and continues on until the end of Chapter 4. They’re unintentionally telling him that Gonta needs to be guided and needs to be reminded of pretty obvious and basic knowledge, and worst of all, that he can’t be trusted to think for himself and thus needs someone to tell him how to think and feel.

If it was one or two times, that would be a whole other story. However, these instances pile up, higher and higher throughout the entire span of Gonta’s time in the Killing Game, and the majority of the class ends up dismissing or ignoring Gonta’s concerns.

This sparks a growing desire to prove himself, to prove that he can be useful during the trials. To prove to his peers that he can do something on his own, think for himself, decide for himself, except even until his final moments;

Even after Gonta’s Alter Ego telling himself and everyone explicitly that he was not tricked into killing Miu...

... No one listens.

Instead of listening to Gonta, over and over, they continue to brush him off and treat him like a child they had to care for, and yet no one stopped to consider that Gonta is a young man. An intelligent, young man who’s socially awkward, but never the less, a peer to them. Yet they didn’t treat him like a peer, and in the end...

Gonta died thinking he was an idiot. A child. A burden who made everything worse for everyone else. They all considered him as a child, and that’s how they saw him even in his final moments.

Gonta throughout the game constantly tries to prove himself, but no one is paying attention. When he learned of the Secret of the Outside World, Gonta didn’t even have anyone else to turn to for help or comfort. His feelings of uselessness compounded by the desperation to prove himself as an equal to everyone else drove him to agreeing to mercy kill the rest of the group... because how else was a stupid, burden of a child supposed to help anyone as he was? Even though he knew killing was wrong, with Kokichi’s plan, he was able to do something “for everyone,” and even that compounded into the ultimate failure.

It’s an unfortunate reality, because had the class treated him as a fellow classmate and peer, this might have been preventable.

Either way, what do you think? Was discussing the unintentional class ableism in depth towards Gonta a bit... too much? I do believe this is the first time I’ve ever done such a post, so you’ll have to forgive me. It’s also been quite a while since I made a proper analysis, hasn’t it? I must be a little rusty...

I will say--please, do not use this post for any discourse regarding the ableism and what have you if you choose to agree with this interpretation. I will not stand for it.

Either way, I hope you at least found this post to be food for thought. See you all next time.

#gonta gokuhara #danganronpa v3 #danganronpa #analysis #theory #character analysis #ableism mention tw #self hatred mention tw

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stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland · 4 years

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Sacrifices that are worth.

There is something about the post about Camila's long-term plans that has been bothering me for a long time and I would like to make sense of it because I don't know if it has it or not. And I am going to put the details in context so that it is understood. We have Jenny and Marie as two young artists who meet on a television show, they become friends. Jenny is a teenager in the closet with a phobia of coming out of it because of her parents and Marie is a girl who has doubts about her sexuality, but knows that she likes girls and does not hide it because it is not in her nature. The two girls have a lot of chemistry and Jenny is Marie's crush since she saw her for the first time and she is beginning to feel a lot of beautiful things for her that go beyond friendship, but Marie does not say anything because she is terrified of losing friendship he has with Jenny and Marie thinks it is better to have Jenny as a friend than nothing at all. Except Jenny seems to respond to the silent signals Marie throws and she becomes confused. And she does it because she still has to watch Jenny make friends with boys and see them as Jenny's "boyfriends" even though they may not be. Marie decides that she wants to protect herself and not fall into Jenny's game of being friends with benefits (even though they already had their first kiss). Jenny loves Marie very much and she knows that if she doesn't put her shit in order she could lose her so she makes up her mind and wants to try what it is to have a relationship with Marie because they both love each other very much and take risks. Except that the people around her don't think the same. They are there to tell them that the relationship is not going to help them with their careers, that it will end up getting toxic and that they can't be together ... that kind of shit. The girls have several fights over the same situation until they both reach an agreement and promise to make it work because the love they have is stronger than the hatred that surrounds them. And they do that. They manage to have a private relationship, hidden from the eyes of the world, having to use the strategy that "they" have. Public relations. But it is not easy for any of them. It is quite the opposite. It's exhausting having to act 24/7 like you don't love the person who sleeps next to you at night. It is not easy to carry a relationship at a distance and even less to be away from each other for so long, but the love is still there and they continue to fight. They continue to love each other. But Marie has a bigger conflict than continuing to fight to be with the girl she loves, her career. She wants to live off what she does and for that she has to play their game and sacrifice herself. Jenny doesn't agree with that, because she doesn't want the same for her own career as Marie and they have a conflict, a fight. Jenny does not want to play their game and is aware that if she does not, she will not have the same success in her career as Marie, but she does not care. The fight between them is there, but so is love. They know that and because of that, they are suffering. And that is my conflict. Why fight so much and sacrifice so much for something that has no value? Knowing how they play? Surviving so much shit, so many obstacles for so many years? What if they have actually decided to sacrifice for the last time knowing that everything they are going through is going to be worth it in the end? They have risked too much, endured too much and loved too much not to know that out of all that shit you can get something good that is worth everything you suffered. Not to think like that would be ridiculous because they have been doing it for a long time and have survived. Above all knowing that they cannot get into something where there is no contract involved. They cannot get involved in what the artists have not signed and that is something that all of us who have learned a little about how the industry is managed. With this post I do not mean to say that Lauren and Camila do not have a relationship and neither that they do because I do not know. All I do know is that they seem to be the way Taylor was when Karlie announced her engagement to the criminal. Like I have said many times, folks. We may not know anything, whether or not they are together, whether Cinderella will be a success, or even whether Biden is going to beat Trump in the November election. I do not know. I am not clear about that except that Showmila is a publicity circus. It is a false relationship that has used to copy details and concepts of Camren to make the world believe that it is real when it is not. It doesn't matter what they do. The matching rings is advertising, the detail of Camila's hair makes them look like a pair of twins and more if they share details of the clothes, many confused Camila with the diva and it is not a pretty shape but creepy. I'm not sure of anything except that. What is false and Showmila always will be. Showmila is a business relationship that has been developing since 2015 and jumped to 2018 until today. How long it will last, I don't know. I have been given many possible dates, but there is really nothing that can confirm an actual end date. I think that will have to be decided over time and according to the future plans that Camila wants for her career or how she is going to develop it. I think that's the keyword for this whole mess. Developing. If Camila already has her plans outlined, what remains to be known is how she will make it happen and above all, if what she will do will be something that will benefit her in the future. To her, and to the person next to her. Because if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that she doesn't just do things for herself. If you love a person so much and you have spent your life showing it and sacrificing yourself that is because you want something for yourself that in the long run will also benefit someone else. And I know because those are the sacrifices that are worth it.

#camren #music industry #long term plans #camila cabello #lauren jauregui #sacrifice #personal thoughts #another long ass post

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warsmith-38 · 3 years

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How I would do RWBY Pt. 0

Disclaimer: It is easier to improve what already exist than it is to create something new. Boy howdy do I know that. That being said, I believe that RWBY has more than its fair share of flaws and this is how I would do it differently if I was behind the reigns. This is just a collection of my opinions and ideas which in the end will probably amount to nothing. I felt the need to do this because my brain just decided ‘nah motherfucker, you ain’t thinking of anything else from now on’ and this is the end result for nothing else would satisfy my rage.

I wouldn’t quite call this a complete re-haul, but more rather a rework with some of my own brand of polish. It’s not a compete rebuild from the ground up in a different world with different concepts and themes, but how I would go about a second go around with the series from the base that is already there. If a detail is missing from my musings then assume it is either unchanged or removed, depending on context.

If some of my complaints were addressed after I stopped watching, I honestly don’t much care. If it takes longer than 4 seasons to fix what I view as fundamental problems, then it’s far too little too late for me. I paid scant attention to the series post my stopping point and liked little to none of what I saw.

Please do not take this as a specific attack on anything other than the writing of the show itself. This is not directed or targeted against anyone, regardless of position or feelings on the topic at hand. If you ignore what I just said and decide to take this as an insult, then I say that you need to be more self-secure in your tastes and interests.

Things I would remove + reason why

Silver eyed warriors as a concept- it’s more or less the same concept as dojutsu from Naruto. It’s the fucking sharingan (rubygan). It’s not quite chosen one level, but crap like this is the blight of good protagonists. It’s fucking eugenics that makes you awesome not your own skills or training but on your bloodline. No need for personal development or life-changing hardship when you have a built in power that can be cultivated like a fucking bumper crop.

Maidens- Wasn’t intended originally and only made the overall story more cluttered with power creep and plot device. It’s a similar problem as above. No need for training or anything if people can just kill the person who has the power currently and take if from them. Which, at that point, why do you want that power if you’re already strong enough to kill and take it from the person who has it to begin with? It’s something someone just shouted out and they rolled with it because it sounded cool in the moment.

The Relics- McGuffin dragonballs that serve as plot device and little else. A story can be told without needing to monotonously race for Excalibur or the holy grail. Considering the Maidens, I doubt that the relics were intended in the first place and as such if you can’t tell a story without throwing something in after a few seasons because you realized that you didn’t have a plot, then you’re not that good at telling stories.

Oscar- The show didn’t need more main protagonists when what was already there wasn’t being given enough characterization to begin with. For that matter-

Quite a few characters- The cast is cluttered and convoluted enough as is with seemingly important characters getting the shaft in favor of yet another new character that would barely do anything. Time and effort seems to be put into one-off schmucks that would be better served making the story not need poochie the dog, let alone several. Character integration is not ‘create a character to do one thing and then pretend they don’t exist’. There’s already plenty of characters than can be used wherever.

The overt shipping bait, especially if it’s just going to be taken up or abandoned on a whim- I don’t mean relationship building, I mean the obvious baiting of a relationship that, in the end, might not even happen. All it does is dumb down characters and character arcs, draw out pointless scenes, and make the fans have conniptions one way or another. People are pissed off whenever things don’t go their way with shipping so the only winning move with these people is not to play their game. Looking at you Klance and Zutara. Either don’t do anything or have a fucking plan and stick to it and not make complete swerves when fans get uppity. If it genuinely matters to you, then pretend whatever ship happens at whatever point, I don’t care.

Changes to the world that I think would go over better-

Everyone has a level of aura with a naturally high level generally meaning that they might be able to unlock a semblance. A semblance is unlocked through some sort of specific event, typically a stressful one IE: Yang and Ruby are caught in the woods by grimm and Yang gets frustrated and scared at not being able to defend her sister before getting angry and her rage mode semblance unlocking. Not everyone who unlocks a semblance goes into combat schools but it is a requirement for acceptance into most of them. Having the potential to unlock a semblance seems entirely random but has a higher chance with genetics.

There are two types of semblances: 1 is hereditary like the Schnee glyphs, changing only slightly, if at all, through the generations. 2 is a random personal power like Yang having her rage mode as compared to Raven’s portals. Whichever you get tends to be random with the occasional exception depending on genetics and the specific semblance.

Every 1 in assumedly 10 people who have semblances have the potential to have two semblances, often times, but not necessarily, being one hereditary and one random. The process of unlocking the second semblance involves immense emotional distress and in some cases might not even happen for the individual who has the potential, period, thus skewing data. This gives an enhanced type power but isn’t protagonist exclusive. It shows a higher than average power capacity, but isn’t a gamebreaker to the same level as a fucking kekkei genkai or getting the powers of a fucking demigod. A good amount of characters would only have one semblance and be considerable badasses despite it and even be able to beat a couple of the few that have two.

Establish Menagerie as the official Fifth Kingdom, the newest of the great kingdoms. Maybe not the singularly strongest or most influential, but make it so Menagerie and its people, the faunus, have a considerable role in the world’s affairs, if even from an isolationist standpoint. Don’t have them as even a semi thriving entity that isn’t a kingdom because that only begs the question as to why the kingdoms are so important to begin with then.

Make the White Fang a faunus supremacist group that has very little support, if any, from the faunus people as a whole. Faunus right issues are history for the vast majority of the world and the White Fang as a whole is only using the problems in Atlas with the SDC as a means of trying to gain power. There are actual faunus rights groups trying to make things better for their race in Atlas and other marginalized areas but the White Fang dislikes them on the grounds that they go against their goal and it makes them look even worse.

Fucking pronounce names correctly, I mean, Christ. Weiss, the word, is pronounced like ‘Vice’. It’s an actual fucking word. It’s the German word for white. It’s like saying tor-till-uh not tor-tee-ah. Blake is Bella-doe-nah not Bella-dawn-uh. Shit like that. No you don’t need to put on a heavy accent to say these words but pronouncing things so inaccurately just makes you look like an ignorant rube (no, that was not a pun). I don’t fucking care what your reasons are. Why use these words in the first place if you’re not even going to try to say them right?

Ozpin is order to Salem’s chaos. Ancient demigods of both archetypes vying for power across the ages and the innocent peoples of the world be damned in the crossfire. Neither are entirely good nor evil but both are not exactly helpful to the free peoples on the world and the continued livelihood thereof. Their progenitor god created them to try and guide humanity in a balanced way. That seemed to work at first, but then failed like a bad marriage and they waged war ever since like a bad divorce. The grimm are a creation of Salem’s to test humanity and make then stronger through conflict. Ozpin ranges from the lawman to the fascist fairly duplicitously. The two can only be permanently killed by each other but neither wants to get too close to the other because of that exact same reason. If killed by other means, they will resurrect after a fashion no worse for wear.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Ruby Rose- It is a crime that the titular character has so little actual character beyond just being ‘Hyperactive Anime Protagonist #235’. Most of her (few) character traits are tell not show, and of course she’s got the fucking rubygan bloodline ability crap. She has next to nothing that isn’t allotted by default to most anime protags on the grounds of the stereotype. For the main character to have less character than any of the members of the fucking B-team is a travesty.

1. Give her a clear rebellious streak, a distinct problem with authority, and a headstrong attitude. Daddy doesn’t want her to be in danger, so she decides to become a huntress. She’s told to stay put, so she hunts down Roman. She’s told that she needs to stay home and recover, so she sets out on her own not thinking about the exact consequences. Make her the impetus for the team’s involvement with the problems of the world in the early seasons. Make her a driving part of the plot, not just being along for the ride or because someone else said so.

2. Give her blood knight tendencies. Make her VERY willing to get into a fight with the bad guys, not just fights in general, but fights against bad guys. Nothing over the top, but enough that she has a scene or three where she says “Shut up bad guy, skip to the part where we get to kick the crap out of you,” or something of that nature. Hyper combative characters are fun and ethical.

3. Give her more traits as a mechanic and weapon nerd. Include scenes of her fixing everyone’s weapons for fun or being able to analyze an opponent’s fighting style based on the type, design, and/or wear & tear of their weapon, make her a polyglot of weapons that can be at least proficient in using just about any weapon. Come to think of it…

4. Anything that could give her actual character traits. They don’t even have to be all that major traits, just give her enough so that we actually have a character with more definition than printer paper. She’s the main character, the titular character at that. This isn’t a video game with a blank-slate protagonist. If the main character isn’t even really a character, like, at all, then what’s the fucking point?

5. Convert silver eyes power into a second semblance for white fire vision that kills grimm like nothing else. Gotten as a hereditary semblance from Summer. Which is also why Summer was specifically targeted by Salem on the grounds that it makes her just a little too dangerous for her long-term plans. This makes it so she isn’t just the fucking chosen one, but still has a clear definitive reason to be involved against the big bad because, y’know, dead mom. Yes, this kinda goes into the whole ‘bloodline is what determines importance’ thing I wanted to be rid of, but it’s only a chance two generations instead of a massive lineage of nonsense and keeps more of the onus of involvement on Ruby herself.

6. Give her a very clear motivation that’s deeper than surface level. ‘Oh, I want to do the right thing’ is a flimsy as balls motivation especially compared to the rest of her team that has that AND an actual reason for thinking that way. Why does she want to be the good guy? What happened in her life that makes her this motivated to doing the right thing? Yang has her desire to find her mother (which, come to think of it, doesn’t necessitate being a good guy), Blake has wanting to make up for being a terrorist, Weiss has her desire to step out from under the shadow of her family’s reputation, even fucking Jaune, the b-team protagonist, who wants to live up to his family reputation, has a proper motivation to be involved in the story. WHY is Ruby involved beyond ‘I’m the main character’ level reasoning? As much as admitting it makes me wish to commit Sudoku, even SAO has better main character motivations. Good god, I need hooch after typing that.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Yang Xiao-Long- Her arc was mostly fine, barring some of the pacing. Raven being a maiden undercut the message of ‘screw that deadbeat bitch, go to your real family’ by making her important to the overall world state and confirming a measure of later relevance but that’s more a flaw with Raven than Yang.

1. Keep her motivation about getting strong enough to find her mother but add in the clear desire to kick her ass for leaving her and Tai. Of course it’s more about just getting the answers to her questions, but the ass-kicking should also be a major component.

2. Amp up the rivalry between her and Mercury. Mercury was designed as an opposite to Yang, I mean for fuck’s sake, look at him. Consider their respective backstories too; both raised in a single father home yet one was supported and loved (if a little neglected) while the other was horrifyingly maimed and abused. Punch vs kick. It works.

3. Make her more protective of her little sister, explicitly going along with her personal crusade to keep her safe (safer, rather). If she’s supposed to be the good older sister, maybe just maybe, something more than lip-service to that idea should be done. Hell, maybe she can be overprotective like their father, or even the exact opposite, not really giving a shit and then learning to give one. That might lead to a little tension and growth between the two of them.

4. Make her semblance consistent. Is she supposed to have super saiyan rage mode or is it energy buildup and dispersal? Is it supposed to be both? Just make it rage mode, for the sake of fuck, and don’t flip-flop. Speaking of…

5. Give her anger issues. Flesh out her being the kind of gal that would start a fight in a nightclub when she doesn’t get what she needed with little justification. This would stem from abandonment issues from Raven, Summer (inadvertently), and Tai and her general thrill seeking personality. This could lead to tensions and dramas until she overcomes it and learns to use her aggressive feelings and not let them use her.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Blake Belladonna- Shitty-kitty is shitty, here’s why.

1. Do something with the hypocrisy of being, more or less, princess of Menagerie, a world power albeit a minor one, and joining a band of terrorists that do more harm than good for the people they claim to represent. It’s like a trust-fund baby joining some charity organization in Africa for a few weeks, doing jack-shit to help, joining some jihadists, and then acting like she’s Mahatma Gandhi.

2. Make her arc less about running away and fighting Adam, more about realizing that running is for assholes and try to find her team to at least apologize for cutting and running like she did. Doing that and stopping Adam are not mutually exclusive. The friend thing should be the priority. As it stands she is almost rewarded for abandoning her team just to focus on her own problems.

3. Make her arc involve going from ‘There’s no such thing as pure evil’ to ‘Okay maybe some people are just too evil to work with’. Some people are too far gone and, despite still having good traits, will only ever continue to do evil things and don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. Not everyone has some sort of good motive beneath the surface and, even then, does that matter when the only action they do is objectively evil? Still, y’know, save who you can, like Ilia.

4. Have Belladonna not actually be her last name. If she’s the daughter of a the chief of Menagerie, the closest thing the faunus have to a unified racial leader, then how the unholy shit does nobody recognize her name? She is, again, princess of Menagerie, yet nobody recognizes the name in a grander context. Have ‘Belladonna’ be a cover name so she can hide her identity better so that she’s using what should be a very recognizable real name in a tournament that is broadcasted worldwide. Her real family name could be “Nightshade” or some shit like that.

5. If she’s supposed to be ‘The quiet one’ maybe actually have her be quiet and not make big speeches every season or have loud arguments with her team. Just a fucking thought. If she’s still supposed to do that, then make her ‘the opinionated one’ or ‘the kind of mean one’ or even ‘the one who doesn’t shut up’. Blake, as seen, or rather heard, is not the quiet one.

6. Have her actually fucking interact with Ruby. Maybe they have a two-person book club. Maybe Blake teaches Ruby to meditate or something. Anything, anything at all would be fine, anything more than nothing at all. Blake’s whole interaction with the team shouldn’t just be through Yang and cursory scenes with Weiss.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Weiss Schnee- You can’t solve racism with like two scenes.

1. Make the racism thing a much more gradual decay rather than more or less disappearing after a single conversation. Hell, make jokes about it, ‘oh, no, one of my best friends is a faunus,’ stuff. It’s hard to unlearn an upbringing of hate, but she’s trying type stuff.

2. Involve her at least a little with the White Fang plot. It only makes sense that the heiress of the company that still more or less has slave labor is at least semi-involved with the plotline involving terrorists that want that company destroyed. Make her subject to assassination attempts at a young age, or even have her been kidnaped at a young age and held hostage, getting her scar in the process.

3. As evident by some of the intros, her rival was supposed to be Emerald. This could be serviceable, at the very least. The street rat pickpocket that had to learn life lessons the hard way and was taken in by the baddies VS. the rich heiress born with a silver spoon but raised by a dickhead. There’s potential there and it is a crime that it is not explored in the slightest. Even Yang and Mercury had a minor fight.

4. Like Yang, make her semblance consistent. Is it supposed to be summoning or physics altering magic symbols? These are two completely different powers, it’s not like super speed also giving super reflexes or whatever. Just make it one or the other, don’t bullshit us on these things. Or, hell, make it a second semblance she gets during the course of story.

5. Emphasize her loneliness. Make the main onus of her personal arc be about how she goes from this prickly, spoiled, opinionated, brat to a warm and caring friend who only wants the best for everyone. Yes, this might be the main intention in canon, but I feel it could have used a little more refining.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Cinder Fall- If she’s supposed to be Ruby’s chief rival and foil then she needs a lot of work to even be close. She shouldn’t be nothing but the rival, but at that same time she should have that be a considerable part of her characterization and role in the series. I feel the best way to do it is to have their similarities highlight their differences in both character and design. Basically, make her the Vergil to Ruby’s Dante.

1. Make her Ruby’s age. Being the same age as Ruby while initially outclassing her, and even veteran hunters, provides risk and contrast between the two. Throw in an evil sadistic streak compared to Ruby’s happy-go-lucky personality to further the contrast and you’ve got a good little yin-yang thing for them. It also shows just how bad someone can turn out if raised to be a killing machine.

2. Keep her using the bow/twin swords as a comparably simple weapon in contrast to Ruby’s, even in universe, overcomplicated Scythe/Sniper rifle. Both weapons are long range marksmen’s weapons as well as vicious close combat weapons but are still very different in essence. Also make sure she keeps the red with black and gold color scheme is contrast with Ruby’s Black with red and silver. Even minor visual cues can work to the rival schema.

3. Make her one of the people who have two semblances. Pyromancy (pyrokinesis? Fire bending, she has fire bending) and dilated perception (bullet time) so that Ruby’s super speed and the dilated perception cancel each other out, adding a little extra tension to the fights now that both parties’ signature abilities are moot points against each other.

4. Make her competent. She kills Ozpin and Pyrrha and then she either fails or draws every fucking fight she has afterwards baring nameless jobbers here and there. Even before that, she needed help to take down Amber and even manages to fuck that up. The more failures she has and the less intimidating she is. Too much of that and she’s just a jobber that makes you wonder why she was ever seen as intimidating in the first place. When that happens then Ruby beating her is just the status quo and not a triumph of any sort.

5. Make her Ruby’s long lost fraternal twin sister. Incredibly cliché, I admit, but siblings make the best rivals, especially twins. Once again, it’s all about adding the similarities and the contrasts. In this case it creates the ‘there but for the grace of god go I’ idea with the two of them. Ruby seeing it as how evil she could have turned out and Cinder seeing it as how weak she could have been (Eventually becoming how good she could have had it because I’m a sucker for redemption arcs) Who said that?

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Team JNPR- JNPR was fine-ish but the over focus on Jaune and the underutilization of Ren + Nora early on are both issues. B-team should not get jack shit before the A-team gets the lions share.

1. Downplay Jaune’s screen time. I doubt this is a particularly controversial statement. Jaune is not the titular character. This is (technically) a shoujo not a shounen. It’s supposed to be about the girls more than the guys. It kind of undercuts that idea when the guy (the side guy at that) gets the lion’s share of characterization, attention, and growth before the girl (the main girl) does.

2. Make Ren and Nora actual characters earlier on. Comic relief is all well and good, but either extend that to the whole team or make these two characters more than just comic relief in the early parts of the story. Make them, y’know, actual characters. They ain’t gotta be all that important, but they do have to be actual characters.

3. Make Pyrrha’s deathflags less blindingly obvious. We all knew Pyrrha was going to get clipped. The self-sacrificing type, all the musical and visual cues throughout, being based on Achilles, and ‘oh she just confessed to the boy she likes’. Homegirl was waving deathflags like an insecure redneck with the confederate flag. When you foreshadow obvious things that much it’s not a surprise to the audience when it happens and the reaction of the in universe characters seems overdone. If it’s not supposed to be a surprise then, whatever, but that’s clearly not the case if you’re going for just shock value. It’s fine for a character to die, but for the love of Jaysus you got to do something with it more than ‘this character’s sole purpose is to die for the angst and to up the stakes’. Pyrrha was just a plot jobber.

4. Make them a little more independent in the overall plot. Give them their own full sub-plots, have them go on their own little adventures, have them do things completely separate from RWBY that has plot relevance but not overtaking the main story in grandeur or importance. B-team gets B-plots and are cool in it of themselves.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Qrow Branwen- Take or leave this, I just felt the need to include this because reasons.

1. Just make him Dante from Devil May Cry. Just make his personality the same as Dante from Devil May Cry. Make him stylish and cool but low-key a massive dork. He’s too cool to drink or smoke or anything harsher than PG-13. This series could use a guy like that, says I.

2. Make his semblance something that makes sense and isn’t just an angst generator. How do you even quantify ‘bad luck aura’ as a power? Make it short range teleportation as a connection to Raven’s portals. Make it so that he can direct the bad luck at will. Do SOMETHING with it that isn’t just an excuse for mostly pointless character angst.

3. This technically also counts as a Raven change but whatever. Make the Branwen family old nobility and not a loser bandit tribe from nowhere. Or at least make it so they used to rich or something. They come from a family that had a good amount of cash and even a chateau in Mistral. After the money dried up and the chateau ransacked by grimm, the Branwen twins had differing opinions on how to proceed. Qrow fully integrated into the hunter thing while Raven ran away and became a bandit, using it as further excuse to skedaddle on Tai and a recently born Yang.

#RWBY #RWDE #I guess #Ruby Rose #Weiss Schnee #Blake Belladonna #Yang Xiao Long #Ozpin #Cinder Fall #Tagging this as much as I please #Team JNPR #Jaune Arc #Rewrite #Hate if you wish #How I would do...#Pyrrha Nikos

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henlp · 3 years

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Most anime is bad.

It's fair to say anime's success in the West, starting in the 80s-90s but gaining mass recognition and appeal in the 2000s, mostly comes from a wide range of premises for stories told, and how emotional payoffs are (for the most part) earned by the writing, be it hype moments, shocking scenes, or the often-expected bittersweet finale.

However, in spite of these positives, it's very frequent that the story for an anime/manga/novel/game/etc. ends up being bad; and for the longest time, I couldn't figure out exactly why. Even a decade ago, when I was far more lenient and forgiving to the content I consumed (because I had yet to achieve the jaded, joyless state I find myself in <current year>), I could tell something was amiss.

Think I first took notice of this when the era of the Big Three was coming to an end, with One Piece carrying on as Fairy Tail instead took the shovel to the head. Alongside Bleach and Naruto, these three manga series all suffered major issues in their final arcs, so blatant that it became too difficult to accept. Something stank in Denmark Japan, and it made no sense why these (supposedly) good series where floundering as they neared the finish line.

A few years later, with more media under my belt, out came Black Clover. Both my weeb cousin and a good friend had spoken highly of the series, alongside many of the places I used to check for animus, so I watched the OVA... and hated it. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with the pilot for the story, mind you, at that point it was only the screeching from the protagonist that bothered me. When the series proper began, I made the conscious effort to try and power through in spite of the awful first impression, to see what the hype had been about... and I still wasn't seeing it. In fact, the story's erratic and hyperactive pacing, alongside its cheap animation, made it almost impossible for me to watch. Only by virtue of the previously aforementioned hype moments on occasion and the catchy OPs did I stick around long enough for the story to get interesting and for me to have any investment in the characters. It didn't get good, but it had at least become tolerable. Lucky for me AND it, I was still at a point where I wouldn't drop shows as easily.

It wasn't looking good for my outlook in regards to japanese entertainment. Even if I would end up consuming more anime than any western shows (at least animes don't fucking despise their audiences), my eye kept getting more critical, and I kept getting less adventurous, due to several shows disappointing. But I still couldn't figure out why this was. If anime and manga were appealing to me still, why was I less inclined to give 'em a pass, why was I more and more dissatisfied. And then I got my answer in 2021, thanks to two shows: Jujutsu Kaisen and the second anime adaptation of Shaman King.

A story's quality can generally be quantified based on three things: characters, world, and plot. Each informs the other two, and a good story never has one of these working against the others. But it can also happen that all three work in their own right, but not in tandem. A fourth, rarely-considered factor for evaluating story is EXECUTION. So when it comes to anime, manga, novels, games, etc, the problem usually is in execution. You could argue that there are different cultural sensibilities for storytelling in Japan, or corporate factors interjecting themselves in the process; but that would be an explanation, not an excuse. And nowadays, enough japanese creators quote some of their influences as not just being other japanese creators, but also creators from around the globe (past and present). There's not this magical bubble keeping the Land of the Rising Sun ignorant of other types of storytelling and development processes.

So how did I arrive at this conclusion thanks to Jujutsu Kaisen and Shaman King 2021? Both shows suffer terribly when it comes to execution of their stories, although in different ways:

-With Jujutsu Kaisen (at least the anime, I've not read the whole manga), there were several instances where I found myself asking "Did I miss an episode or something?", because you frequently had characters reacting and conducting themselves with one another as if there was a deluge of development between them off-screen. No better example than EmoBangs McGee, who becomes BFFs with the protagonist in less than 5min, later having a fight that was probably meant to be very heart-wrenching, except there was no development for their relation (and powers), so it made no sense for them to act in that fashion (if this is different in the manga, by all means let me know);

-With Shaman King 2021, meanwhile, I was well-familiarized with the characters, the world, and the plot. I knew the main elements of the story, I had in fact rewatched the show in the past decade, and in spite of filler content and Black Sabbath cameos, still remembered it strongly. But as I am watching the new show, the word that comes to mind is "cheap": cheap animation and rushed pacing. Maybe this is due to certain events, or the studio trying to rush past the initial stages of the story, but still. All it had to do was clear the filler, give each scene and character the love and care they needed to make their moments the best they could, and let it go from there. It's been twelve years since FMA Brotherhood, if you're going to be a greedy bitch and redo an anime adaptation, there's no excuse for it to be of such low quality.

As you can see, both failed in execution, with the latter in its new adaptation and the former (possibly) in its original format. When I realized this, suddenly the fog dissipated, and I could see why all those stories had failed: Bleach failed because its power creep and character conflicts were executed horribly; Naruto's atrocious pacing (in both manga and anime) was done solely to extend the story needlessly; Fairy Tail's final arcs (although not only that) dropped the ball because Hiro Mashima was actively trying to ensure there were no sad elements to the story or the end of his characters' arcs; Black Clover‘s poor execution came in how its first few arcs play out, trying to speed up through the world-building, which left most characters too anemic and underdeveloped until far later into the story.

But of course, this is an issue that exists in far more IPs than just the ones I’ve mentioned so far and others of the same caliber. It happens with the cream of the crop as well: Boku no Hero Academia's more recent decisions have been executed very poorly, when they were just a single step away from being done very well; post-timeskip One Piece has relied too heavily on characters having skills and forms that we aren't familiarized with, and fights that don't resolve in a smart fashion, but due to nakama power fueling Luffy; season fucking 2 of One-Punch Man is the poster child for terrible execution of anime adaptations, considering the original webcomic, the manga, and season 1. This issue is (almost) everywhere, and yeah, I get it: anime and manga are produced through such a hellish process, that a lot of times the authors or production staff don't have the time to go through their stories to make sure everything's on the up-and-up. Yusuke Murata is not exactly a common example, of someone that's allowed to go back to both redraw and rewrite entire chapters; and I am somewhat glad that, at least when it comes to JUMP, they seem to be getting slightly more lenient with the talent and their teams if it means better results in the long run.

However, the issue persists. I neither know nor think that anything can be resolved even if the extremely demanding workload of manga/anime production were to be alleviated (we've had plenty of examples in the West, of media that has all the time and money in the world, still imploding and salting the earth around it), but at the very least, it can be something that creators who are not under those retraints to take into account, so as not to make those same mistakes.

Do not try to subvert conversations that SHOULD be happening, just because in anime there's a stereotype of scenes where everything stops in its tracks just so characters can have a conversation, be it executed well or poorly (an aspect I'd wager stems from when the source material is manga or a novel). Don't think that because a character's power level let's them blow up the moon from orbit, that immersion can't be broken if you don't justify how they might struggle against another on the same tier. Be wary of the very common issue with 'Wanime' (Western animation using the anime style), where creators completely put aside depth for spectacle, to the point that it becomes indistinguishable from a parody show such as Megas XLR.

Always remember, execution is the be-all and end-all to every character development, emotional payoff, hype moment, world building, and plot progression. Think about every scene, and if it actually informs the audience of what should be happening. If it doesn't, then you'll have to try and fix it before, not after. And if you can't do it (which is fine, most of us are fucking dumbasses), now you understand why even a lot of shonen action series have a bunch of slice-of-life, semi-filler scenes interjected in-between big events, so that you can have context and weight to what will transpire.

#anime

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stones-x-bones · 3 years

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A Mother’s Touch || Morgan and Bex

TIMING: Current (Don’t @ me timelines are weird) PARTIES: @mor-beck-more-problems and @inbextween SUMMARY: Bex has more questions about her place in the world, and finds that Morgan might understand more than she thinks. CONTENT: Domestic Abuse mentions, Child abuse mentions, Transphobia mentions

Curiosity was one of Bex’s more troublesome personality traits. It had gotten her into quite a bit of trouble as a kid-- sticking her hands in places they shouldn’t go, like under rocks and through fences; or asking questions that didn’t exactly have kid friendly answers to them-- and her mother had often chastised her for it, so it had become one of the things that she had hidden and locked away inside herself. Except, lately, she was finding it harder and harder to keep that part of herself from surfacing. It was happening more and more frequently in which she found herself unable to hold back the array of questions that filled her head and toppled from her lips. But, more and more, she was finding herself wanting to be curious. And after everything that had happened to her-- from the cockatrice, to the mutant in the alley, to the dream world, to Frank acting so strange-- she could no longer hold back the questions that had flooded her mind since Nell had first tried to tell her what she was: what was a witch, and what, then, was magic all about? Clutching one of the books Morgan had gotten for her chest, Bex made her way downstairs. She knew the older woman would be in the great room, because she was always either there, at work, or in her shed, and it was late enough at night that Bex figured she wouldn’t want to be outside in her shed. Luckily, neither Mina nor Deirdre was around, so Bex had found enough confidence within herself to sidled into the great room and clear her throat. “Morgan?” she called out tentatively, staring at the older woman with wide eyes, “Can I-- come sit with you?”

Morgan was trying to write. On an impulse, she could talk in circles, for hours maybe, especially with Deirdre to ask her things, but as March gave way to April, she found her thoughts shrinking around the question of her history, her self, and suddenly even something so simple as a lesson plan took hours. Her eyes drifted toward a spot on the wall, searching for a hint, a bone to excavate, something that wouldn’t fade in the turn of another miserable year in this place.

She set down her stationary with relief when she heard Bex come in and shoved it all onto the coffee table. “Of course, honey,” she said. She craned her head around and saw her, a little brighter, a little more bursting with some secret thought or other she couldn't keep down. But her bruises were starting to fade and she didn’t look half as scared as when she’d first shown up at the door. “Grab a pillow and get cozy,” Morgan urged, refreshing her smile. “And tell me what’s on your mind.”

Bex hurried over to the couch, as if Morgan might rescind her offer. Still clutching the book to her chest, she pondered how to start the questions off. She didn’t want to burst with them, to offer too many and overwhelm her-- but she didn’t want to ask too little and end up regretting not asking more. “Well, I--” she started, shuffling the book from her chest to her lap as she settled into the couch next to her, “guess I was just curious.” Ran her hands over the cover of it. “What was it like?” she asked, looking up at her. “Growing up-- this way.” Tapped the cover, which was revealed to be about magic and the essence of God through Jewish faith. One of the Zohar texts, but it was obvious Bex meant more of the magic part and not the Kabbalah part. “Knowing that you were, you know--” she still hesitated to say the word-- “special?”

It took Morgan several seconds to understand what Bex was asking, and when she did, no answers rose immediately to her mind. “Well it was…” Fine? Except for her mother, which made up what percent of her memories? “It wasn’t any one particular thing all the time. It was still growing up with my parents.” She shifted position to face Bex better and beckoned the girl closer. “But it was wonderful, when they first told me. I was four, maybe five? My dad had been reading Matilda to me, out loud before bedtime. And it was just around my birthday when he finished. And then the next morning, he and my mother sat me down for a very serious grown up talk, and they explained that they knew what I had been getting up to on my own, floating toys, rotting vegetables, breaking glasses. At the time, I wasn’t totally sure if those things were me, or if I had a ghost--” She paused to snigger but waved it away, not wanting to bog Bex down with the depressing context. “And I still wasn’t sure what to make of what my parents were telling me, until my dad explained it. It was like Matilda, only it was real. And I loved that story so much and wanted it to be true so badly, I was ready for them to show me everything. And they did. I got a little kid friendly demonstration of what they could do, and then a very stern lecture from my mother about how magic was not a toy or a game or anything fun, and even if it was a part of me, a sacred, fundamental, inextricable part, it was still going to be a lot of work. But the lessons and everything else she had in store for me came after. That day was just for being happy, and for feeling...special. Like a girl in a book.”

Bex listened intently and wondered how her life would’ve been different had she known she had this power. Her mind hesitated to use the same words Nell and Morgan did. Magic was reserved for something unexplainable and mysterious, and this power seemed anything but. At the moment, it seemed frightening. Even as her curiosity piqued, she couldn’t help but remember only the pain it had caused her. The small joys she found in things like fixing a pot or making a plant grow slightly didn’t outweigh any of the fear that she felt. But she wanted to feel the way Morgan and Nell seemed to feel about it. She wanted it to be something more than an innate fear inside of her. But she didn’t know how to get there yet. “And you-- you said you’re Pagan. Is that-- did you grow up that way? With stories about m-magic and...stuff?” She wasn’t really sure what she was asking at this point, but she needed to work through the confusing questions before she could get to the ones she really wanted to ask. Her mind didn’t work any other way. She needed to process the small steps before the big ones.

Morgan squinted, trying to figure out where Bex was going with this. The girl was Jewish and proudly so, enough to start reading the Zohar rather than consider another faith. So where did Morgan’s religion come into anything? “Stories?” She repeated, trying to process. “The kind of paganism my family practiced had more to do with living in tandem with the flow of the earth, and the flow of the universe. There are, in other sects, deities, like the horned god and the morrigan, but we didn’t see them as beings with minds and wills that need to be appeased, but old, special names for broader forces, at best. But, there were rituals, the holy days follow the solstices and equinoxes, aligning the mind and spirit according to the seasons, growth, life, harvest, death. And we would use our magic, our power, to perform these rituals. And there were principals within this set of beliefs for how we should engage with our power. But the stories...the prayers we gave were to the earth, the stars, the elements. The story is just that...we belong here, and we should act like it. And it’s our job to remember that we have a will and an agency in our life, as a fundamental part of our existence. And we have to use that agency and work that will in a way that bends toward our highest and greatest good. But working your will isn’t always spellcasting. Sometimes it’s just being kind, or sticking up for yourself, or intervening when you see something wrong.” She sighed, unsure if this was the news Bex was hoping for or not. “I have some books on Celtic and Norse folklore and religion, if that’s something you were hoping to learn. I’m sorry if this isn’t...is there something you’re fishing for in particular, Bex?”

Bex recognized a lot of what Morgan was saying from the very text she had in her lap. Just...different. Connecting to the earth, to the flow of the universe, to the energy inside of it all. “I’ve always...struggled, to connect to my faith. I mean, I’ve been going to Temple every Sunday for as long as I can remember-- probably longer. But there was always this disconnect. I couldn’t understand what it was, I still don’t. And Judaism doesn’t really-- at least not Orthodox-- it’s not really erm, fond of...what I have. Or what...I am.” And perhaps they both knew she meant more than just magic. Her hands dug into each other, nervous peeling of nail beds. “And it’s not that our holy book doesn’t make room for people like me, or even people like you. Our God is about forgiveness and kindness and passing that on, and I always thought that, maybe, there was something inside of me that was wrong or bad, because how could I not relate to something like that? How could I not connect with something like that? And I guess I just wanted to know, if-if it was just me. If it’s just me. If-- if you ever struggled with it. With being that way while still staying faithful.” She chanced a tentative look up at Morgan. “But you...it was always a part of you. How does it work? How do you-- how do you do those things you said? Connect to the earth with your power?”

“Oh, Bex…” Morgan sighed. She had struggled, a lot. But not for any of those reasons. It was so much more awful than that, and went on for so much longer than anything she could bear to wish on Bex. She hung her head, sifting through her memories for some other excuse or rationale that wouldn’t feel dishonest. “There’s nothing inside you that’s wrong or bad, honey. How could there be? And feeling estranged or unwelcome or just disconnected--I feel like that’s more common than people realize. I believe that more people feel that than are willing to admit it. Honestly, I think it’s better to say so, than to do something you don’t mean.” But none of these assurances answered Bex’s question.

Morgan dug her hands into her skirt, tight enough that one of her fingers bent out of place. “The way I connect to everything now is different to how I did over a year ago,” she said quietly. “And even before then, I would struggle, yes. Left out. Left behind. Like everyone got a number and a place in line except for me, and whatever I did was squeezing in where I wasn’t wanted or taking something I wasn’t meant for. But I can’t…” she let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know if that’s something I can talk about without knowing you’re going to believe me. I know you’ve been reading about--my family. The things that they did. That happened to them. But do you...believe in it, Bex? Do you understand what’s in there?”

Bex gave a confused look. It hurt her heart to hear how Morgan had suffered, and how she could relate to some of the ways Morgan said she’d struggled. Left behind, left out. Placed in a line you didn’t belong in but had to stay in. She was confused because she didn’t understand what Morgan was asking her. Hadn’t Morgan herself told her her family thought they were cursed? And if magic was real, then, by extension, so were curses. The Zohar talked about curses. It was forbidden. She put her hands back on the cover and tapped her fingers on it. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly, “I think I’m still-- trying to figure it all out. I mean, I believe that your family was cursed. It’s kinda hard not to when you read...all of that. But I don’t think what I think of as a curse is maybe what...you think of as a curse. It’s--” she looked back down at her book, “I don’t understand any of it. I’m just trying to wrap my head around the idea that I’m--that I have-- I don’t even know how to do that. I don’t know how to be this way. Even reading this, I don’t know what part of the world I fit into. I-- I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I just want to know how it all works. I’m tired of being in the dark about all of this,” she said, curling her knees up to her chest, the book pressed between. “You said if I wanted to get a handle on all of this, that I needed to stop lying to myself. But I...what if I don’t know what I’m lying to myself about? I don’t know what’s my truth anymore.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Morgan said, quieter still. “You haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve told you before, I’d rather have your honesty than anything else.” She sniffled and offered a smile, though it came out sad. “And I could--” she paused to steady her voice and sighed. “I could tell you about all the things that happened to me, every three years, because of a nineteen-year-old girl’s curse of eternal suffering. And the things I ran away from, and the things I ruined, and the people I hurt, and the fear I carried, and all the times I wondered if I had done something to deserve it, and if it would make things better or worse if I had. And I could tell you about how the girl cast the spell, the Norse and Celtic sigils she cobbled together to make something more cruel than anything she had in her books. And if that is what you want, I will. Everything I know how to talk about is yours. But there is so much in this world, Bex. More than anyone can digest at once or even in two or three talks. It takes time…” She scratched at the corner of her eye, trying to check for tears leaking over the side without making a thing of it. “But I don’t know if that will give you what you want. I can tell you that it’s no more mysterious to be someone with your magic than it is to be any other part of yourself. That it’s just patience, acceptance, nurture. I can tell you that you know, your soul knows what’s true and what isn’t, but you have to bring that in, honey.” Slowly, hesitating, she reached out a hand, hovering by her hair in a silent request. “What is it that you’re afraid of being a lie? Or is there something you’re afraid of being true…?”

Bex put her chin on her knees as she listened. It wasn’t fair, everything Morgan was saying. It wasn’t fair, that Bex couldn’t understand. It wasn’t fair that the world was cruel to people who didn’t deserve it. How could she believe in a God, a power, that did that to others? She buried her face in her arms. She didn’t move when Morgan reached out to her, but she didn’t flinch away either. The fading bruises on her arms hurt. “Why didn’t anyone tell me sooner?” she asked into her own skin. “Why are there so many parts of me that feel so wrong? You keep telling me there’s nothing wrong with me, but I feel-- I feel so wrong. And I just wanna know how to not feel that way. How did you do it? Did you ever think it was bad? This power? The way you-- the way we are? How come I have to be this way? I don’t want to be this way.” She sucked in a breath. They were going in circles. She was going in circles. “I’m afraid-- I’m afraid letting myself be this is going to change me.”

Morgan combed her fingers through Bex’s hair when she didn’t flinch away and shifted closer, so she didn’t have to reach so far. She stayed like that, finger combing Bex’s hair in slow, steady strokes while she spoke. “But what parts, Bex? There is nothing about you that deserves any shame. I’ve known you this long, and I’m only more proud to know you than I was before.” She brushed the tip of her finger along the shell of the girl’s ear. “You are only and ever you, Bex. Unless you’re breaking yourself into a different shape to please someone else. But something that’s in you, that’s as much a part of you as your bones, can’t do that.” She wished that there was a way, from all her talks with Deirdre over the last year she had learned something more useful than simply denying the false story and trying to make her own more persuasive. She didn’t know how to compel someone to change their mind, or how to lift the self loathing out of a heart. “You can only become more yourself through this. And no bad came from an accessible education. It’s ignorance that hurts. But can you tell me-- maybe I could assure you better, if I knew what you were afraid of changing.” She touched her knuckles to her cheek, realizing only at the fuzzy, nothing sensation that she wouldn’t be able to tell if the girl was burning up with anxiety, or anger. With a mournful sigh, she went back to combing Bex’s hair. “I want to help,” she murmured. “Explain it to me, as best you can. It doesn’t have to be perfect or anything. Maybe I can piece it together if you tell me a little more…”

Bex couldn’t tell yet if Morgan’s touch was comforting. She felt her fingers brushing gently through her hair and wondered if there was ever a time her mother had done this for her without the malice that had usually preceded it. She couldn’t remember. Her childhood felt like a movie that she could only observe from the outside. She could remember thinking, even as young as five, that something was wrong with her. Because lightbulbs exploded or lamps toppled over or windows broke and her parents would tell her it was bad. With their words, with their hands. And if it was bad, and it was part of her, then she, too, was bad. It wasn’t something she could think her way through, not when she’d been conditioned in the opposite direction. “I’m afraid I-- what if I can’t do it? What if I’m not good enough? I-- I already failed my parents. I can’t-- if I do what you want me to, if I accept what I am, I can’t go back. They won’t let me come back. And I-- I don’t even know what kind of person I really am. My parents shaped me as a child, and then my school shaped me as a teenager, and now it feels like this place is trying to shape me into something else and I don’t know who I am or if I ever was anything, or if I can take much more. And what if I’m not enough? What if I’m not good? Where will I go then? Who will I be then? If I change again, I lose again. I’m afraid if I change again I’m just going to be alone, and I don’t want...I can’t take that again.” She decided, then, that it was comforting. She leaned into Morgan, still curled up in herself. “I want to know how me being...magic is going to make anything better.”

Morgan eased an arm around Bex’s shoulders and tucked her in with a loose grip before turning her attention back to her hair. It was easier to focus on that than anything else. “Hey, hey--” she cooed. “I don’t want you to be anyone but yourself, Bex,” she said. “Not some performance you’re putting on out of fear, not some set of made up rules to fit someone else’s idea. That’s not living. I just want to know you. And who you are, the amazing, incredible things you are capable of--” she sighed. “I don’t really believe in good and bad. But if there is anyone who might be truly good at heart, it would be you. And it is your choices, the kindness you decide to give to others, to yourself, the levity you bring to try and cheer your friends, the risks you take in the hopes of something better, that is what defines you more than anything you’re born with or born as. The choices you make that are your own, not pressured or beaten or intimidated into you. But you will always have a place here, if you want it. And the reason why accepting yourself, being kind to yourself, is going to make anything better is that you will have so much more peace, and so much more control in every other area of your life. All that energy you spend hiding and shaming yourself and repressing your light can go to good things, fun things, neutral things, whatever you want. You will have so many more choices, better choices, ones that can help other people, help the world, because you will have cleared out all the ones that are consuming and breaking and killing you. And getting to do cool stuff, live-saving stuff, just by wanting to is just as awesome as it sounds. But that’s just my two cents, Bex. I’m not going to make you do anything while you’re here.” She pulled back just far enough to look at the girl. “Am I making any sense…?”

It wasn’t fair, Bex thought. None of this was fair. Nothing she’d been born with or as was fair. She wished it would all just...go away. She wished she’d never been born the way she was. She wished she’d never found out she had magic. But wishes only went so far. And Morgan was right, because fucking hell, Morgan was always right. That also didn’t feel fair, but Bex knew that was because she was just being childish. She wanted to believe everything Morgan was saying-- really, she did!-- but those parts of her that ached so deep inside it felt like a part of her kept from accepting the reality that yes, she could choose who she wanted to be. She’d never had the choice before. She felt a silence settling over herself. Tomato, she thought. But that also wasn’t fair. She’d been the one to come down here and ask Morgan to talk. The book felt suddenly heavy in her lap. Somehow, she’d thought reading it, understanding it, would make her feel better. It didn’t. Because it wasn’t that she didn’t believe in magic, or that she didn’t believe she was-- it was that she believed her magic was bad. And no book would change that. She lifted her head enough to look over at Morgan. “Yeah,” she answered quietly. She let out a long puff of air, looking away again and resting her chin on her knees. “I need to tell you something. And I know you already know, but I need to say it out loud. So that I can make it...feel real.”

There were a lot of ‘secrets’ Bex held that Morgan had already figured out, but she wasn’t about to guess which one. She soothed Bex’s shoulders with a brush of her fingers and shifted so she could meet her eyes. “Of course. Whatever you need, honey. Okay? You’re cared about just the same.” She offered another smile, brighter now. “What is it, Bex?”

Bex wished someone else had said that to her. Why hadn’t her own parents ever told her that? Whatever she needed. She wondered if she could ever call this place home. Wondered how a woman with ice cold hands could make her feel warmer than a woman with warm hands and an ice cold heart. She met Morgan’s eyes for a brief moment before looking away. “I’m trans,” she mumbled, “and I-- I know it doesn’t change anything, obviously, but I wanted to be the one to tell you.” She shifted and held out the book to her. “None of these books tell me anything about myself. Not about being trans or a witch, or anything else. I just wanted answers.”

Morgan’s smile widened, showing only kindness. “I wanted you to be the one to tell me too,” she said. “Thank you, Bex, for trusting me with this. I hope, so very much, that you give the rest of yourself the same ease, the--relief you must have had when you looked in the mirror and finally saw someone you recognized. Someday.” She looked down at the book and set it aside on the coffee table. It had been a well-meant idea, at least. “No one can tell you how to be yourself except for you,” she said. “But there are plenty of books and media resources for trans girls that we can track down, if you want, and no shortage of material on magic and being a witch. Maybe with the right materials, when you’re ready, you’ll be able to cast your transmutation yourself.I am sorry, though, that it can’t be any easier. Truly, Bex.”

“You know,” Bex started, “I knew I was a girl when I was, like, five? Six? I remember because I saw all the other girls in my class wearing dresses and I wanted nothing more than to wear a dress, too. I also remember telling my parents and I guess, at the time, things weren’t so bad, because they just said okay. And the next thing I knew, my closet was full of dresses and skirts and I got to grow my hair out. They pulled me out of school and put me in a new one. I wasn’t allowed to start hormones until I was older, but even then, they were on top of it.” It sounded like a dream come true, really. “Except...I realize now it was because they were afraid. They told me never to tell anyone, that it was our secret, and that if anyone tried to find out, to tell them and they’d take care of it.” She looked over at Morgan. “They gave me a good life. I got to grow up as a girl because of them. Do you know how many trans kids never get anything close to that?” Her eyes fell back to the book. “I’ve been blowing things up since I was about that age, too. They never said a word about it.” If they had that much shame for her being trans but still had the gall to pretend, then what did it say about her abilities? “Books are nice. But I think I need something more. I just don’t know what that is.”

“The absence of cruelty isn’t the same thing as the presence of kindness,” Morgan muttered. Maybe it would be smarter to play along with Bex’s deluded affection for her parents. She certainly understood it, and maybe there was even something good she couldn’t perceive and understand about holding onto those scraps of ‘love’ and pouring affection and apologism on them like water, hoping they’d grow into something. But her fear that Bex would think she agreed with her parents was much stronger. If she was going to fuck this up, maybe it could at least be for trying to be a voice of reason. “...It could be that they didn’t understand what they were seeing, when you were doing what every other child witch in the world does. Or they were in denial. You’d think people would realize that willful ignorance just hurts everyone, but I’ve known at least one person who holds onto it like it’s the only thing worth keeping. Maybe it’s easier to do that, than admit you’re miles out of your depth. I don’t know. Only they do.” And she certainly wasn’t going to encourage Bex to dial them up to ask. “If you figure it out, I’ll do everything I can to bring it to you. I want that for you. Okay?”

This wasn’t the way Bex had wanted things to go tonight at all. She’d wanted to talk to Morgan and get answers to her question and maybe figure out how to feel at least a little better about herself. It wasn’t that Morgan’s reassurances weren’t helpful or nice to hear, but she felt like she was going in circles. “I don’t think my parents like being wrong about anything,” she muttered in response. She shifted, then, and laid her head on Morgan’s shoulder, arms still tight around her legs. She looked at the bruises on her arms and the bandages that were finally starting to become less and less. “I wish my mom had been more like you,” she said without thinking too much on it. She didn’t want to think anymore, she’d thought about so much today. “Do you think I’m wrong, for still loving them?”

Morgan closed her eyes at Bex’s words and held her just a little tighter. She wanted that too. Horribly. Impossibly. And what could she say in response that wouldn’t tell on herself and ruin everything? “...I’m here,” she said at last, wavering. “And you’re not wrong, no.” She brought some of Bex’s hair over her shoulder and twirled it around her finger. “Maybe it hurts us more in the end, or leads to some kind of trouble, but I don’t know how many kids can help loving their parents, even when they’re cruel. Maybe we think if we hold on, they’ll learn to love us the way we want. Maybe it’s just...how it is,for better or worse. But whatever it is, I don’t think it says anything bad about you, that you want to love and forgive them so much. I just hope… that part of you doesn’t get hurt so much that you become afraid to use it at all.”

Bex stayed quiet. She listened to Morgan and felt the truth in her words and understood that it came from experience. How else could she know so well, the way Bex longed for her mother to one day hold her gently and tell her she really did love her, and she really was proud of her? How else would she understand the pain of not having that love? Of desperately wanting a sign, any sign, that it was possible? Bex finally uncurled herself and let herself be held. It still took conscious effort to remind herself that the hands holding her would not hurt her, but she allowed enough of that part of herself to quiet, and she relaxed in Morgan’s arms. “Do you love your mom still?”

Morgan sagged with relief as Bex uncurled and wrapped her up the way she’d been aching to. She let her head come down to rest on the girl and closed her eyes and let herself be still save for the slow, steady breathing she measured out in her head. She tried to think of Ruth Beck as seldom as possible, but she was hard to forget, living in close quarters with so many haunted women. It hurt, always, but thinking about the things her mother had done was easier than answering Bex’s question. She’d had four years to get over it. She’d turned the ghost of the woman away, when the answers she got weren’t what she wanted. What was she still holding onto, if she’d already rejected her? And yet she had left the door open, for something, anything to change for so long as her mother’s soul lingered. And what the hell for?

“Yes,” she admitted at last. “Very much still. I think I’d stop if I knew how, but I don’t.”

In some strange way, it was relieving to know that Morgan still loved her mother, too. Bex knew that her mother was a cruel woman, but she also knew that her mother could be gentle. She had been the one to buy her dresses as a child, and tell her that she could be a girl if she wanted. Bex even remembered falling asleep in her lap by the fire some nights, or sitting with her on the couch while they watched movies. She remembered bedtime stories and forehead kisses and burying herself in her mother’s arms when another parent had tried to scream at her for going in the women’s bathroom. Her mother’s cruelty wasn’t always towards Bex, but when she did turn it that way, Bex always forgave her. Time and time again. Because she loved her, and all she wanted was for her mother to love her back. “Does it still hurt? To love her?”

“Yes,” Morgan said. “Sometimes it feels worse than what she did. Or didn't do. I have every reason in the world not to love her anymore, and now that she’s--gone, mostly, there’s not much chance of a better ‘someday.’ But even when I remember everything, I uh--” She hiccuped a wet laugh. “I’m still just the little girl she didn’t want, wanting her to save me from my hurt.” She swiped at the tear rolling down her cheek before it could land on Bex’s hair. “And it wasn’t all bad, which makes it worse, in a way. Maybe. I tell myself if it was all bad, I’d let her go easier, but maybe it would be more of the same.” She shrugged. “She’s the one who taught me how to cook. Made the best birthday cakes. Probably the alchemy.”

The familiarity of Morgan’s words hit Bex like a punch to the gut. Not that she’d ever been punched in the gut, but she assumed this was what it felt like. It felt a little bit like her future was being told to her, laid out in front of her. She didn’t have to hear it or see it to know there was probably a tear in Morgan’s eye. She’d pretend she didn’t know. Instead, she settled in closer and put her arm around Morgan. “Will you teach me how to cook?” she asked into the quiet.

Morgan’s next tearful laugh came out more freely and she didn’t even bother to hide her sniffles, understanding that Bex knew. This was her present. Her wounds were still raw and infected. “Absolutely, Bex.” She gave her a quick squeeze. “Besides, Deirdre’s too easily distracted to ever let me teach her, and we need to save the rest of the pots from burnt water somehow, right?”

#chatzy #wickedswriting #chatzy: morgan #a mother's touch #domestic abuse mention tw #child abuse mention tw #transphobia tw

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argentdandelion · 4 years

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The Multiverse is Terrifying: The Sans Suffering Rule

Sans doesn't have that problem, and that's a very bad thing.

The Undertale fandom has many, many works and concepts that alter the premise of the game itself. These are, loosely speaking, “AUs”, and they are so numerous in the fandom they’re practically synonymous with “Undertale fan work”. Sans is very popular across every part of the fandom, to the point many of AUs feature or even focus on Sans. He also has countless variations, outnumbering that of other characters. Indeed, it seems he’s the only character that exists in some “AUs”, and all the works the author can recall, only one doesn’t feature Sans, or an imitation or variant thereof.

Within the scope of Sans-centric work, it’s popular to have canon Sans (“Classic”) interacting with versions of himself from other timelines or universes, such as through Sans having a special machine or power that lets him travel to timelines or other universes.

If Sans were to become very familiar with the number, breadth, and details of AU Sanses and their worlds, he would conclude he’s very special and important, in a cosmic sense. And if that happened....the implications would be very, very bad.

Section 2: His suffering is disproportionate to his own lifespan.

Firstly, it is very common to make him suffer, and his suffering (averaged across popular fanworks/AUs) is disproportionate to his own lifespan, assuming he’s much younger the Asgore, Toriel, and Gerson. The ancient war veterans have lived for so long that there are many more opportunities to change the timeline within their own lives, necessarily splitting off into unique or severe suffering scenarios. Importantly, Toriel can die in many timelines, and Asgore dies in every timeline but one. (Gerson, strangely, cannot die in any canon timeline.)

Still, although people could show Asgore discovering the human killed Toriel or vice versa, and Gerson finding out the human killed Toriel or Undyne, the former is rare and the latter is unheard of. Indeed, as Asgore seems oblivious to the human’s murder spree in canon, he doesn’t face much suffering until the point he is killed in one hit.

Section 3: Sans often suffers in especially severe ways by his works’ standards.

Not only is he very popular, but it is very common to make him suffer, and frequently in ways that are unique or especially severe by the standards of the work.

Famously, his brother is often killed by a human. Although the overall number of murders in a Genocide Route is at least 101, and the human probably kills a bunch of people with close connections to later victims, the fanworks themselves don’t linger on this. Though fanworks could kill off the love interests of the RG01/RG02 and the Dogi pair, do so in horrific, prolonged ways, and make the survivor suffer, they rarely do.

In an Underfell variant (Papyrus vs. The Forces of LOVE), he’s abused by his own brother, he’s starving (PredatorTale/HorrorTale), is starving and also gets his eye ripped out and has a grotesque head injury (HorrorTale), he gets stuck in a state between life and death (AfterTale), he becomes an amalgamate with Papyrus (Sixbones)....

And he gets killed, over and over, even within ambiguous-canonical or more-or-less post-canonical works. (Canon Genocide timeline, Genocide timeline-based variants including AfterTale, and GlitchTale) Adding onto the special severity of suffering, Sans ends up having to kill a murderous or mass-murderous human in so many variants and repetitions.

Section 4. Sans Often Suffers in Unique Ways

Adding onto this, fanworks pile on extra-canonical (exaggerated mental health problems, Gaster Blaster transformation suffering) or ambiguous-canonical (e.g., Flowey Runs) types of suffering to Sans much more than anyone. After all, how many works show Flowey-Sans showdowns? How many works show him and only him (or W.D. Gaster and/or Papyrus with him) getting worn away by the resets and Flowey fights?

Additionally, across several works, he uniquely witnesses Papyrus dying first-hand (something ambiguous in canon), and picks up his scarf from the snow and cries. Only Monster Kid parallels this when witnessing Undyne get hit with a lethal blow, but they don’t actually see her turn to dust, and Monster Kid always survives afterwards. Through these things, Sans is further supported as cosmically special in his suffering.

Section 5. The Timeline Will Always Make a Sans (Eventually)

For Sans to exist, a timeline would need to allow for the decisions or phenomena that led to the point Sans could exist. Therefore, it seems that every universe will eventually conspire to create Sans, often using different methods to do so. It doesn’t matter whether he was made by resurrecting a human corpse, or by W.D. Gaster being his standard-issue father with a wife, or the same man creating him in a lab, or the same man (now a god) creating him from a black hole...he will practically always exist, in timelines that overlap with his probable creation time or not.

To be clear, a handful of works are exceptions to the trend. For example, InvertedFate actually has Sans doing slightly better than Canon Sans, nothing bad happens in LittleTale, and Sans doesn’t exist in Caretaker of the Ruins (probably because he wasn’t born yet).

Section 6: Implications

Were Sans to ever figure out the sheer breadth, commonness, severity, and uniqueness of his suffering across canon-associated and non-canon-associated timelines and universes, it would cause a lot of shock and existential terror. Any work where he doesn’t suffer a lot is an anomaly in an overall trend, or he doesn’t suffer there because he doesn’t exist there yet.

Importantly, though Flowey torments him in Flowey Runs, in some works Flowey (or his parallels) do not exist, don’t interact with Sans, or aren’t tormentors (Underfell). Therefore, since Flowey isn’t to blame in every variation, it would seem he is a favored plaything or a cruel god or gods.

Worse still, if Sans does not conclude he and all variations thereof are the playthings of deities...it is simply a natural rule of the universe, like water carving through rock, that Sans will eventually be created and suffer immensely and disproportionately. He cannot fight that, cannot argue against it, cannot befriend it.

It would have better for him to never visit other AUs at all.

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Reference

For reference, these are the AUs/fanworks the author considered, consciously or unconsciously, for this analysis. Some may be missing. Note that some don’t feature Sans, don’t feature canon-unusual levels of suffering, or don’t feature Sans yet.

Caretaker of the Ruins, LittleTale, PredatorTale, HorrorTale, Swap Out (Underswap), Kaitogirl’s Underfell (Underfell), Soulfell (Underfell), Papyrus vs. The Forces of LOVE (one chapter, fanfiction, Underfell), Handplates and Sixbones, Underlie, The Choice, Pulling a Tooth, Storyshift, InvertedFate, GlitchTale, TimeTale, ScrambleSaga, Entity Neo, Soul Dichromatism, We Need to Talk (Gasterblaster AU, though not for Sans specifically and not that focused on Sans), Spectrum (Gasterblaster AU), Trust/The Best Revenge (Gasterblaster AU), Fallen Flowers, The Anomaly (Post-Canon), They Say He Shattered (Post-Canon, Mixed Timelines), Time-Scar, Over the Void, Cost of Living, Heart and Soul, Chocoblook, Zombietale, Charatale, Mysterytale (Crossover), Unexpected Guests, Appreciate Your Bro Sans (actually happy Sans), Hard Mode, Ghost Switch, Growth Spurt AU, Deeperdown. Name the Fallen (Papyrus shouldn’t exist here; everything thinks he’s a human), Flowey is Not a Good Life Coach.

#Undertale #Analysis #Meta #Undertale AU #Undertale AUs #Undertale AU Comics #Sans Undertale #Sans the Skeleton #AU Sans #AU Sanses #Existential Terror

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