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ghostlymonade · 1 year

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Now it's Persona-l: Escapism and Freedom in Tokyo Mirage Sessions and Persona 5

On the surface, Tokyo Mirage Sessions seems about as Diet Persona™ as a game can get. With a cast of colourful teens out to save the world using their Stands Persona Performa, some critique of our society, and the same amount of clueless running around Shibuya, it would be easy to write the game off as a quick cash-grab by their respective studios. But when giving TMS another look, you might be surprised at the depth that lurks beneath the pastel-coloured waters. Today we’ll be taking a deep dive into two specific themes that persist across both games.

For those who somehow missed an originally Wii-U exclusive JRPG which didn’t include the Fire Emblem or Shin Megami Tensei tags in its title, Tokyo Mirage Sessions: FE is a collaboration between Atlas and Intelligent Systems to bring a little Fire Emblem flavour to the familiar Zio-spamming recipe of the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona series. The game follows Itsuki Aoi, a nineteen-year-old with dark blue hair who has therefore been recognised by the universe itself as the main character. He discovers his ability to summon a Performa— a Fire Emblem character turned to a Persona – and joins up with other Performa users to battle mirages (i.e Shadows), pursuing their dreams and growing stronger as they do. It’s a setup that requires no further introduction if you’ve ever picked up an Atlas game before. They have a rightful confidence in this formula that allows them to focus on refinement and improved storytelling, the benefits of which absolutely shine in Persona 5.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions predates its more successful cousin by two years, but I argue we see the same brilliant attention to detail, themes and realism across both, and nowhere is this more apparent than in how both games handle freedom and escapism. For those still working through these eighty-hour behemoths, not to worry! There are spoilers for the first few story dungeons and other aspects, but not the endings of the games.

The two player teams present an interesting dichotomy, partly because of how similar they seem on the surface. Take their publicity situation. Posters of the Phantom Thieves’ logo plaster every building in P5, and Shibuya 106 is always displaying posters of Kiria or Tsubasa’s newest production— a very nice touch for TMS’s story, considering how much focus is placed on the nitty-gritty, mechanical aspects of building a career in performing. But there is one key distinction. While neither group is recognised for their heroic work in the Metaverse or Idolasphere respectively, the names Kiria Kurono, Tsubasa Oribe and Mamori Minamoto have gathered everything from a cult following to a full-blown fan frenzy. This has fascinating ripples throughout the rest of the story that feel fully considered by the writers.

Within the P5 cast up to Okumura’s Palace, many members join the Phantom Thieves because they feel backed into a corner. In Joker’s case, the corner is very literal. For Ann and Makoto, they could, in a purely technical sense, do the bidding of the villain and escape physically unharmed, but nobody in their right mind would suggest submitting to Kamoshida or Kaneshiro is a good idea. Imagery of imprisonment is everywhere, through promotional art and cutscenes and every line of dialogue. But this imprisonment is rarely a physical thing. Even in the literal jail of the Velvet Room replaces one wall with a huge portal back to the real world, albeit obscured by the camera angle. Restrictions on the Phantom Thieves are often nebulous or even self-imposed, and I find it fascinating that their problems rarely evaporate after they awaken their Persona and gain a new outlook. While the pressures of society are given a face for each Thief, the writers never make the mistake of treating it as if these singular persons are the only issue— instead, they represent a wider imprisonment.

Conversely, the Mirage Masters don’t seem to face these same issues. Not to say they have no conflict, but there is a sense of freedom that permeates every aspect of the game. It’s an interesting approach; their lives aren’t ruined or ended by failure, but their dreams will crumble before them if they can’t push on in their professional journey, and the world will be worse off for the loss of talented creators to the mirages. The Idolasphere may not feel of much import. Obviously there are consequences to leaving it unchecked, otherwise there would be no driving plot force to have the characters enter at all. But the Idolasphere and its adventures seem to be an inconvenience to most of the TMS cast. They aren’t actively seeking out new Idolasphere locations, excitedly searching for new equipment and attempting to train their Performa in their off time, the way the Phantom Thieves do. These are driven young professionals, yes, perhaps with the exception of main character Itsuki Aoi. But not driven by anything the Idolasphere offers- they already have their career aspirations, and it isn’t to fight shadows mirages for the rest of their lives.

This is even reflected in gameplay. Where leaving the palace in Persona 5 ends your day and has you missing out on a limited timeslot, TMS allows the player to jump in and out of any Idolasphere location, at any time. You could say that this is because TMS lacks the limited time frame mechanic that appeared in all three modern Persona games, but I would say the lack of that day-by-day mechanic is, itself, another way to show the freedom the TMS cast enjoy.

For the Phantom Thieves, the metaverse is their escape. Even in official art, you can see the grins as they jump into action:

Regular life, for the Thieves, is a tedious Sisyphean battle, where they feel like they have little power and little control. The power of a Persona is one thing that elevates them, makes them special, in their minds, anyway. Right from the flash-forward at the start of the game, it’s clear that the world is hostile to them. While Joker bounces around with a grin on his face and heaps of style, crowds react to him with fear, scorn, and derision. This in spite of the fact he has seemingly done little more than nab a prize and disappear, in true phantom thief style. And when Joker is caught by the police, the prospect of the truth being discovered becomes more and more unsettling, the closer the Phantom Thieves grow to each other. Beside the criminal charges: Ryuji is separated from his single mother, Ann loses her career and support network, Morgana loses the only people who understand him, Makoto loses her best chance at individuality and self-expression. The world is out to get the Phantom Thieves, and if that happens, they lose everything. They won’t die, presumably, but their lives are likely to become hollow and empty. This again emphasises the idea of their imprisonment being a less tangible thing, hard to fight and much harder to escape from.

I could probably go on for another few pages but we’ll draw things to a close for now. Escapism has always been a less talked-about motif in Atlas games, rarely the ‘point’ of any one story, but it’s often there, an interesting compliment to the main theme. Persona 3 delves into mortality, and I believe escapism is a fascinating part of that, as a way to distract from it and try to live a happy life in spite of the inevitable end. Persona 4 focuses on finding the truth, despite a society that tries to force conformity, and they discover comfort and freedom by finding people who let them be their true selves. Persona 5 was merely the first game to push these themes into the spotlight. But let’s not forget the lesser-loved Atlas games, either! And hey, maybe if you see Tokyo Mirage Sessions on sale? Give it a go. I promise it’s pretty good.

#fire emblem #persona 5 #p5r #tokyo mirage sessions #game discussion #rambles

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sepublic · 2 years

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Post-Hoot for Edge of the World AND Labyrinth Runners!

-According to Bosook Coburn (face and namesake for Bo), they were sitting on the fact of King being a Titan “for so long” and noticed how people predicted it really early too, and they were just like “…Well COOL, sure… We’re just gonna let that lie… We’re gonna- We will confirm that eventually.” Not to brag, but I was one of those people who guessed it from the very beginning, one of the first...!

-As director of the episode, it was “interesting” because they were still figuring out a lot of the lore (I presume Bo means the animators, not the writers), so there was a lot of working with new material as they were given it. They got to design the Titan Trapper island, the general setting; Bo noted that with this episode and Hollow Mind before, they were getting into “darker territory” and thus needed to “handle it as delicately as possible”. Bo boarded the scene where King hugs Luz’s leg at the end; As she explains, “When moments like that happen, it’s such a rare thing in animation because we have so much that we’re trying to fit in, that it’s hard to get a quiet moment like that, so when you do you just want to milk it, take it for all its worth.”

-King Pecora worked on the parts where they met Tarak, entered the town and saw the different Titan Trappers, as well as the ritual with the Collector.

-Bo thinks they left this episode like over a YEAR ago (This Post-Hoot was released just before O Titan, Where Art Thou).

-Bo met Dana while working on Tangled.

-Rebecca did confirm here that they ARE on King’s dad, the Boiling Isles is his father, without a doubt.

-Luz Batista (AKA Luz Noceda’s real-world namesake and inspiration) had her first writing credit for Labyrinth Runners. She came onto TOH as a storyboard revisionist, she was a story consultant from the very beginning because of “cultural stuff” and using “references”, just input and background. From there she got to sit in the writer’s room once or twice and was nervous because she was being perceived. She eventually became a story artist and was asked to help write an episode, hence LR.

-Luz (Batista) met Dana at school, they both used to work in “the animation cage”, they would talk about what real life was like, how to prepare themselves for it. Dana would talk to students from other schools, so they can figure out what they’re learning and how this prepares them, only to realize nobody has a goddamn clue.

-Luz Batista was “not gonna say” if the Sailor Moon pose between Amity and Willow was her idea; She legitimately couldn’t remember. According to her, their work on Labyrinth Runners was in November and December of 2020.

-Cissy admits that her superpower is forgetting sessions, because she didn’t remember doing the scene where Lilith kicks the door in and says she came as soon as she heard (in Edge of the World). Similarly, Sarah has issues remembering quotes, and Bo recalls how Dana early on would sometimes ask her if she remembered a thing that would happen; Bo would give a confused no to Dana’s surprise, given it was from Bo’s episode.

-Bo explained that the glowing eyes of Willow and Gus are an “emotional response”, heightened by their emotions. As Luz Batista puts it, “You see how he deals with his anxiety, how in that moment fear, all these projections come out and he’s still not grounded yet, until later when Hunter finally grounds him down.” As someone mercilessly picked on in high school, Cissy identified with Gus’ moments so bigly.

-Bo thinks Alex Hirsch came up with “WEH” for King, “it became something that was so deeply ingrained in King’s character, like we would just add it in wherever we could, in boards, and in the script, and all that stuff,” and that just led to them deciding it was a Titan trait.

-Cissy admitted she found Bump with his hair out “hot” and Sarah agreed “He was kind of a baddie”, Luz Batista concurred “You gotta love a good adult.”

-Luz Batista confirmed Boscha wasn’t present because of animation budget, “Not everyone can be on-screen sometimes”. As she continues, “I feel like we’ve had a lot of time with Boscha before, where, it was time to kind of show where- how the other characters interplay with each other and, uh, how she also doesn’t have to dominate a moment.” Sarah adds, “No one needed her negative energy,” which Luz confirms. Cissy does reiterate that it’s really expensive to animate a face, with its blinking eyes and mouth. Bo does love Boscha, her VA Eden Riegel is so funny and sweet, which makes it so surreal to see such meanness come out of her, but that’s also part of the fun for Bo and Sarah too.

-Sarah liked that Willow “owned it,” “she knew she was a badass”. Gus “really sees her”. As Luz Batista explains, “That was something we kept in mind, when writing this episode, how Gus fits into everything, and how he feels, and what his world is like, and it was nice to kind of explore that with him, I really enjoyed Gus.” Sarah agreed, she wanted to know so much more about his illusions and needed that episode. Illusions and Oracle are Luz Batista’s favorite tracks.

-When discussing how it’s difficult to remember and keep track of so many different storylines, Luz ALMOST mentioned a spoiler, but Sarah stopped her in time.

-Luz said she can’t answer if Gus can see the memories of people he casts under his spell; But with Graye’s mirror… (Note: I feel this is relevant with S3 impending and Hunter’s anxiety over being a Grimwalker, when we saw the episode prior how Gus inflicted Belos’ memories on him and possibly got a glimpse of the creation process.)

-Rebecca confirmed, alas, that the Illusion Coven Teacher doesn’t have a name.

-If they had to pick a track; For King Pecora it was beast-keeping, because he likes spiders, and has a spider tattoo on his neck. He has pet tarantulas, Sarah has a sister-in-law who’s also fond of them; This fact has made Sarah rethink her “Everything but beastkeeping” stance. Bo would have a mix between the Plant and Healing covens. She comes from a family of doctors, which is why the character named after her is in the Healing Track. As Bo says “We got to pick our own incidentals’ tracks.” Cissy reiterates “most of the members of the crew have a character that is kind of loosely based on them in the show,” and Bo added “Especially like the people who worked on Season 1, just because that’s when we were in the very beginning of making all these incidental characters.” She said we’ll see more crew incidentals in the future!!!

-Rebecca would go for beastkeeping because animals and creatures are cool, as well as abominations because of what Amity and Darius have recently done. She also considered Oracle, “it’s like ghosts and stuff”.

-Sarah would be a wild witch, she doesn’t have the discipline to choose.

-Luz Batista reiterated her choice of Illusion and Oracle, and would totally go to school first and THEN break away.

-Bo said they’re not allowed to explain how long it takes for a Titan to grow. She also said that they had to fight to keep the scene revealing that King’s siblings had been murdered, as Disney found it too dark. Sarah retorted that she saw the new Doctor Strange that day and doesn’t want to hear anything from Disney, bewildered that “they came for US?!” Bo confirmed that yes, all those skulls belonged to Titan BABIES, the implications of a lot of these episodes are ‘kinda’ dark.

-When asked why the Collector is called the Grand Huntsman by the Titan Trappers, Bo replied “Yeah I think that’s mostly having to do with their lore and how the Collector presented themselves to them, but y’know- A lot of it has to do with Bill, and Bill, y’know…”

-Luz doesn’t want to know Eberwolf’s age and prefers to think of them as some ageless creature. Everyone at the Post-Hoot didn’t know Eberwolf’s pronouns (but we are told by Dana in another Post-Hoot).

-Bo boarded the scene where the EC surrounded the Owl House. She wouldn’t answer if King had a mother. She was on for the entire run of the show, from the first episode to the end of Season 3; Bo started working in 2017, the year before TOH was first announced. According to Bo, it took over four years to make the show. Cissy’s first audition was in 2018, and she only got called back the next year.

-King (Pecora)’s favorite thing that he personally boarded –that he could remember- was the baby King bits; It was one of his first episodes of the show, King boarded the flashback of when Eda found King. He looks really fondly back at the Raine and Eda fight too, as he doesn’t do action really often well; King really likes Raine and Eda. In general, his second-favorite moment of the show was the stuff in Hollow Mind; His favorite overall is in Season 3.

-Bo tends to board a lot of the emotions, one of her favorite scenes she boarded was the scene between Luz and Amity under the Grom tree, when they talk about Luz’s dad; It was a really personal thing they wanted to add in, so Bo was trying to do it justice. She also loved Ben’s boards for the Reaching Out fight montage (Bo explained they don’t know the titles of episodes, just production codes). She let Ben do his thing, and he did what he did best.

-Rebecca’s favorite moments are from Season 3; Bo mentioned their answers would likely be very different if they could mention S3, it was very fresh in their minds according to Sarah. That said, one of her favorite moments was when Luz, Eda, and King are looking at the Boiling Isles as a whole in Episode 2, and Eda explains to Luz how she needs to take her chance to be a chosen one by making it for herself. Bo noted the lesson was a core theme of the show. Rebecca also liked Luz and Amity’s moment in Covention where Luz reveals her light glyph; Bo boarded the cheek kiss from Through the Looking Glass Ruins, and in response to Rebecca’s confirmation of this, changed her answer to include that moment.

-Luz (Batista) confirmed that “Batata” (sweet potato) was not her idea; In fact, she didn’t know what batata was, because she’d never asked for sweet potatoes in Spanish before. Sarah also didn’t recognize the word. Luz Batista also has favorite moments from S3.

-Rebecca liked Hollow Mind, liked how the Grom tree went full circle in Reaching Out.

-Sarah liked the flashbacks and soft Eda moments of Eda’s Requiem, such as when King announced his Clawthorne adoption. She loved all of Vee’s stuff and her scenes of being out in the world and making friends. Sarah loved the “not-literal” reflection idea, Luz hyping up the human world as the worst, only for Vee to be so happy. She also liked when Camila asked if Luz’s life was so bad here, as it “exposed so many flaws”. Bo boarded that ending scene; Sarah “secretly, selfishly” loves it because it was so sad. She was very excited for Yesterday’s Lie when reading it.

-Bo said Yesterday’s Lie was the first episode they did in quarantine

-Bo said she feels Camila gets a bad rep, she loves Camila so much. “It is one of those things of like yeah we’re mostly following Eda and a few adults, but we really are in the perspective of these young adolescents, so then kind of getting the outside view of like, ‘Oh, how would an adult in our realm actually react to this’, and it was difficult. This prompted Cissy to mention the scene where Eda breaks down in Edge of the World over how Luz and King are just children; Dawn boarded that scene. As Cissy describes it, Eda looked at Lilith and looked so much like a child and she reacted “Oh, baby!”; Bo notes that Eda “IS the younger sister, she’s looking to her older sister for some comfort.”

-Luz Batista’s favorite moment of working on the show was Labyrinth Runners, it’s the happiest moment of her career so far; Boarding AND writing for an episode. She loved seeing the soft side of Hunter. Sarah praised the episode, “I liked seeing them all outside of Luz’s perspective right, because like there’s that sidekick vibe that you can be like ‘What are they really all like’, and I just feel like, we just get such round, like full characters out of all of them, and we just got so much more out of Gus especially, because he’s been Old Faithful, he’s always been there,” Cissy added “there with a joke and like, the Good Old Boi, and to have him really bare his soul was just gorgeous.”

-Bo: “I think genuinely Gus is the person who understands each of them the most”, Luz: “He’s emotionally very present, and keeping up with everyone and noticing, and aware”. Luz Batista wanted to see people talk about their feelings, she makes her friends do it all the time.

-Sarah: “That’s my mark of a true friend, if we can fight about it. Because if we can’t fight, we don’t care enough, if we can really fight –and not like a nasty way, right, I mean sometimes fights get ugly- but like yeah, if you can say ‘What was THAT’ like y’know”

-Bo: “Like you care enough to communicate, because like if you didn’t care you would just like, let it go”

-Sarah: “You have to be able to fight and be like ‘Oh you know what, I’m sorry actually’, when [Hunter] said that ‘I was horrible and I shouldn’t have done that’ it was really beautiful.”

-Sarah said god bless Hunter for finding the wherewithal to be a good friend, because he’s had NO modeling for that, no good relationships for that. Luz Batista added how it was without Luz’s help at the moment as well, “Luz is such a catalyst for everyone to change, where, these people all existed before she got there, you know and, they got around, they made friends, so this is nice that he’s able to find a community to kind of feel safe in.” Sarah liked to see Hunter get his strength back for a moment when he called out Severine as a fake Willow.

-Luz Batista boarded the bit where Hunter and Gus just sit down and talk, the intro of Labyrinth Runners, “Aah my head”, and the counting scene (Batista has to do the counting herself at times).

-Batista discussed how it was an important skill to learn to open up about feelings, not everyone has a Gus around the corner; A lot of people are like Amity with repressed feelings, Bo adds. Sarah quoted Shrek’s onion quote when mentioning how she thinks that a lot of people don’t really know that they’re repressing; A friend can help people realize those feelings.

-Luz Batista is working on Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur!

-This fact is self-indulgent for me, but on the day of this Post-Hoot the Evil Dead game came out, which is a dream come true for Cissy; Army of Darkness is one of her favorite movies, so to be a part of that game and universe is heaven for her.

#the owl house #post hoot #bosook coburn #luz batista #king clawthorne #gus porter #augustus porter #the owl house hunter

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nekropsii · 2 years

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HI ITS ME. GUY WHO HAS A LOT OF THOUGHTS ON MEAT!ROXY. despite how i. admitedly dislike how they HANDLED meat roxy, i cant help but hold a certain... appreciation? fur transmasc roxy. i dont know a lot of canon transmasc characters. most of the time the people i s33 even headcanoned as transmasc-... dont match my experiences. roxy has ALWAYS been my favorite. i love her xomplex relationship with rose and addiction and her friends. i could rel8 to being- idk if hyperfem is the word but? before i transitioned i was deff a very girly-girl. and in my early transition stages i really thought i was faking bc no one ever made content with characters like that./ i love roxy so much, and it was so nice to see my fave character being canonically transmasc, and it reely hurts to see people constantly talking aboat how much they HATE it. i get it! i get how much it sucks to have a popular hc invalidated! but... transmasc roxy has always meant a lot to me- in ways i cant explain w/o delving into some personal stuff. idk, i just. sighs. this came out a lot less coherrent than id like, but even tho i have troubles with how hs2/the epilouges were handled... i reely did like that. i think hs2 is a compilation of good ideas and wasted purrtential, and i wishmore ppl would try and explore that instead of writingmit off and criticizing efurryone who wants to engage in it

Yeah. The handling is definitely one of the biggest factors that ruins it. A lot of Post-Canon is hugely mishandled, and meat!Roxy is no exception to this. The other biggest factor that ruins it is that it was put in official material.

I obviously don't hate the idea of a hyperfeminine person realizing they're transmasculine, or a hypermasculine person realizing they're transfeminine. Those are real experiences that people have, and they deserve to be touched upon. People with those experiences get very, very little representation. I said this before, but I have no ill feelings towards people who like meat!Roxy. It lines up with some people's experiences more than some other portrayals of transition, and therefore some people will gravitate towards it because of its rare factor of relatability to them.

The thing about it is that the writers were never going to get the handling of it right. The Post-Canon writers are not good at their job, they have too much to live up to, and it really seems as though the move was made to spite that widely accepted notion that Roxy is a trans girl- something that has some very real backing within the text of canon. Transmasculine Roxy... Isn't an inherently bad idea! It really isn't. But it is a bad idea to not only confirm a character's previously up-in-the-air birth sex- something that directly goes against one of the most widely accepted transfeminine headcanons of all time- and then proceed to make that character trans in the other direction... While completely sucking the soul out of that character.

Transmasculine Roxy is a fine idea. It's just not one that's able to ever be comfortably explored in a piece of official material. It's perfectly okay for fanworks and personal interpretation, but it doesn't have a sound place in canon just due to the optics of it. It's just too contrarian. And while some people may not care, a lot more people will, and a lot more people do. Too many people care for it to be a good idea to canonize in any regard, no matter what level of eggshells the writers walk on.

And while that may seem like an apocalyptically grim statement to make... That really is just how writing for an audience works. It might suck sometimes, but it's how it is.

TL;DR: Yeah, you liking meat!Roxy is completely valid and I do not blame you whatsoever. More power to you! Major respect! It was just massively fucking mishandled, and handling it at all in official material was just a bad idea. It was a concept that was most likely born out of spite, and destined to fail. Justice for transmasc!Roxy, by the way. Why the fuck did they turn Roxy into an entirely different character? All the charm of Roxy's character was really just lost the moment they made 'em transition. That's one of my least favorite tropes ever. I hate it here.

#homestuck #homestuck analysis #homestuck meta #roxy lalonde #meat!roxy lalonde #meat!roxy.pdf #nekro.pdf #others.pdf #nekro.sms

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cloudbells · 10 months

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4, 9, 18, 38 for your mcu ask game! ILY❤️

HI THANK YOU ILY TOO MWAH MWAH <3

4. NOTP (Least favorite ship)

I have a couple answers to this that I can be normal about hating…but I fear the facade of me being not absolute bonkers coo coo crazy has long faded. So I will answer this with truth.

If I could mentally eradicate the existence of WinterIron from the minds of every single person who has contributed to its success…I’d wallow in the ethics of that for about 5 minutes and then immediately do it #mindwipingiscoolactually #giveMEthemindstone. I truly, truly, despise that ship with everything in me. And this isn’t a secret! Anyone who has ever spoken to me knows I hate this ship. Just the mere sight of it makes me sick to my stomach oh my goodness. Everyone knows to the point where I'll get disclaimers about any hint of winteriron in fic recs (also i love you guys who do this y'all are so REAL). And it’s not even for, like, morals reasons. I just hate it so much because of how I’ve seen it portrayed. I wish I could say the ship not making sense is the reason I hate it most, but it isn’t! Even though I firmly believe it makes no sense. That’s not anywhere near my main problem with it because I have plenty of ships that don’t make sense (Never ask user cloudbells what her current favorite ultra-sparkly rare pair is [the two characters aren't in the same fandom or even sister fandoms]).

I hate it for petty reasons. And I hate that it’s so popular. Why is it one of the most popular ships?! Why do people like them? Well, I know why people like them, but I wish I could live my entire life with never seeing it ever again. Every time I’ve ever saw it, it involves some weird ass Steve characterization. But also, I just hate the idea of taking Steve’s top ships and making them in love with each other and then all the weird hateful undertones when it comes to Steve? Plus, in no way are Tony and Bucky ever getting together. I can’t even stand them as besties if we’re gonna get real lmao. I can handle them becoming friendly…maybe friends eventually, but anything further than that and I need Ativan or something to chill out. Omg, I can’t think about this anymore, someone get the straightjacket. I’ll admit myself to residential. But I do always love the chance to talk about things I don’t like.

9. Favorite fight scene

Gotta say I’m a sucker for the scenes in CATWS where Steve fights Bucky. I love them so much. I love how you can clearly see the way his body twists, the way his muscles tense and release, the way his strikes flow - how sharp his jumping, punching and kicking are. UGH. It does everything for me. I loooooove Steve’s fighting choreography. He fights so clean…at least to me, someone who isn’t a trained fighter. Hm, well, maybe with this in mind, I should say I love the elevator fight. Or Hell - Natasha’s fight scenes. Side note that has nothing to do with the MCU: this just reinforced how much I love hand to hand. I remember when I watched Naruto and used to complain constantly over the lack of good taijutsu fights. I like seeing contact!!

18. Things you'd do if you're one of the MCU writers

Erm…SteveTony canon? Just kidding. But I wouldn’t say no to adding more undertones.

In all honesty, if we’re not talking about re-writes…I would absolutely give more weight to the Clint and Natasha relationship. I just mentioned this to someone, but I would do anything for a movie or mini-series or something just to see the moment where Natasha came to kill Clint and he instead decided to take her in, convince Fury to help, assisted with deprogramming her, ect. I’d love it. Seeing Natasha learn to trust again, seeing Clint struggle and being active in her healing. Natasha coping with everything she’s done, ect. Their bond forming…I need it. If any has any fic recs…

If we’re talking about Steve specifically, I would single-handedly force everyone to keep his deleted scenes and find somewhere to put them. I just wish we had more context on Steve himself. Like, I don’t need to see him having a self vs self angst we see with many other characters, because he’s not the type that needs that - but his external circumstances are fucking shitty and I’d love to see those explored more. I’d rewrite CACW to be more blatant on Steve’s motivations. I mean Hell, they were pretty damn clear to me, but apparently I can’t use myself as the leading authority on things like this (boooooo) and since it’s a CAPTAIN AMERICA movie, it should center around him. I shouldn’t have to defend Steve from the fandom concerning his own damn movie.

I have some more thoughts but this post is getting long omg, I might not have enough space.

38. Favorite and least favorite villain

Favorite? I really like the potential Kang has (though he wasn’t really…great to me in Ant Man tbh). But anyways, my favorites are Alexander Pierce and Killmonger. I’ve mentioned why I like Pierce as a villain before, but it boils down to how calmly and near seamlessly he executed his power. I’ve always loved a villain that is so outwardly calm and calculated and manages to manipulate even the most suspicious of people, precisely because from his view, his goals aren’t very different from some heroes’. And because he believes in his evil so deeply, it makes him more patient and determined to carry forward. I like that. Chills!

My like for Killmonger is more…it’s a little removed from the MCU verse. I’m a black American, so I really understood where his anger and sense of betrayal came from. I mean, we're also from the same exact city. And I grew up with all typa diaspora wars between black people and African people that felt reflected in the movie…it all just really connected with me. He’s still the villain no doubt for how he went about it, but I truly, truly got his resentment. His emotions and motivations make sense! And I love a character that makes sense.

Least favorite? The Howard guy in WandaVision. Ouuuuu, put me and him in a room for 2 minutes and he’ll be handled, permanently! I don’t even think he’s a badly written character because he (unfortunately) makes sense. But oh my goodness, I hate him so much. Now, least favorite as in boring or bad? Ultron, in my opinion. He could have been so much cooler, much more formidable, much more terrifying…but if they really dived into it, Ultron’s reign wouldn’t have started and ended in just one movie. But damn, was he disappointing.

Oh! If Namor counts as a villain (he does) I really like him. And NOT just because he's sexy and I have had a period of time where I had a very guilty and shameful crush on him.

Thank you for the ask!! <3

#INTERROGATE ME #me my mine

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wuxiaphoenix · 2 years

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On Writing: History and the Fantastic

I love fantasy and SF worlds, where weirdness abounds and there’s a new monster or alien around every labyrinth corner. But I favor grounding the fantastic in as much history, science, and biology as you can handle. It adds depth and backstory to your world, and there are plenty of readers out there hungry not just for entertainment, but for information. When they read a story, they want to learn something.

For me, learning the history of Northeast Asia started with Blockbuster and Samurai X.

Note, prior to that I’d seen some anime; Sailor Moon, Monster Rancher, a few others. But they were all dubs on TV, and I had no idea they were anything beyond “new cartoons”.

(The internet was not something I could get easy access to at the time. Or I’d have found out otherwise.)

Samurai X, though - that was something completely different. The animation was beautiful, the swordfights like nothing I had seen before, and the apparent historical details (samurai and people in late 19th century uniforms, really?) were intriguing enough that I wanted to see if they were anything close to real. And so started my poking into manga (Rurouni Kenshin first, others later) and early modern Japan.

(Blockbuster is also how I got to see Gundam Wing, Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Spirited Away. I miss that store.)

Finding out that the Bakumatsu was real, not an invention of the writer, and samurai had indeed been running around killing each other with swords (and guns) about the same time as the American Civl War was... well. World-shaking isn’t exactly accurate. But it certainly shook up my view of history.

I also admit to a deep sympathy with anyone who wants to tell the rest of the world, “get off my lawn and stop bothering me”. In the long term it doesn’t work, other humans being first-class botherers, especially if they think you might be weaker than they are. But the impulse is real, and relatable.

This led to a lot of digging. A lot, and probably pulling out every book in nearby libraries related to that place and time.

Eventually this led to the MDZS animation, and then various c-dramas and k-dramas. Unfortunately library books on Ming, Yuan, Qing, Goryeo and Joseon are... locally nonexistent. But between internet niche articles and JSTOR, I can keep digging and filling in the gaps as I get one book at a time. Because this part of the past is a foreign world, and makes everything you thought familiar take on a new light. With that you reconsider your own history, how place makes a difference, and how the past leaves ghosts of customs, foods, attitudes, and fears in its wake.

The past was different. But often it’s presented as “more of the same, people just didn’t know as much”... unless you look at the past in a foreign land, where historians are more willing to focus on “this is how it was, wasn’t it weird?”

But humans are humans. If you can see how weird that past over there was, you know your own must be equally weird. And then you can start finding the cracks and oddities that were glossed over in the history “everyone knows”.

Here’s a tame example. Cattle drives and cowboys, the quintessential image of the Old West. Except prior to the Civil War, cattle drives were a major thing in the Southeast, stock being driven to the railheads for points north. Meaning after the war a lot of Southern drovers headed west away from Reconstruction and picked up their old job in a new place. Sometimes bringing their old grudges and a fair amount of PTSD with them

(Yes, the Civil War had PTSD. They called it “heatstroke”. It was considered serious and sufficient explanation for rare lethal shooting sprees years or decades later.)

Knowing all this, you can see that while the character of Nathan Algren in The Last Samurai may not be a historical person, he is a very historically plausible character. And that makes the story so much better.

Steal from the best. Give your worlds reality. Your stories will last with the reader, long after they close the book.

#creative writing #worldbuilding #history

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anarchy-and-piglins · 2 years

Note

(I'm glad you deleted my ask that had the story end with it all being a hallucination. It was absolutely not a good ending.)

An explanation if my thought process with that ending (because I feel like I should explain myself), if you want know:

I was trying to follow more of a maladaptive daydreaming, (you know how abused kids have daydreams of being saved from their family? Like he was having a daydream about that, that he got too wrapped up in. The idea was partly brought on by me thinking about my old versions of that daydream).

Anyway! Thank you reading my explanation (or not, if you chose not to!) And for deleting my previous ask, the ending was not okay.

(Also I'm sorry if this feels awkward or off, I'm not completely sure how to apologize properly, outside of "be sincere and acknowledge what you're apologizing for")

Hope you're having a good day/night

-Star

First of all, sincerely thank you for this ask, that's very considerate of you <3

I do wanna clarify: hallucinations can definitely be an interesting thing to write about, especially in whumpy settings. I've written before about Techno being thrown into Pandora's Box and having a vivid hallucination brought on by the torture and isolation where he thought Phil was saving him.

And I honestly don't even think that your idea had a bad plot/ending per se. In fact, an abused kid getting fixated on a maladaptive daydream due to wanting to escape from trauma could make a pretty decent story if it's handled well! Which is also where the problem lies for me.

Plots that revolve around characters experiencing hallucinations are very rarely handled well (in my experience). They rarely touch on the more intricate parts of mental illness and trauma that are the underlying cause or mention any other symptoms, and they just go "ooh look, this character sees things that aren't real". They're not often written realistically, just as a vehicle for angst. Or like I said, they're portrayed in an outright ableist manner. This is the same reason why I balk at most 'Asylum AUs'.

On a personal taste level, I'm just not a big fan of stories where the fact that the character is hallucinating is like, the ENTIRE plot. Or it's the Big Plot Twist. I like (realistically portrayed) hallucinations as part of a bigger narrative about trauma or mental illness, but not so much when they're the 'main event'. I also don't like stories that try to 'trick' the reader. Stories where the point is that the readers don't know the character is hallucinating, just so it can be revealed for a cheap twist and the writer can go "wow weren't I clever? Won't you look at the rest of the story differently now?". They irritate me and are not my cup of tea. I'd be way more interested in a story that's upfront about its subject matter and addresses hallucinations realistically. Make it so your audience starts to doubt its perception as much as the character. It's so much more interesting to me when I have to question myself "is this real" as I'm reading a character with a shaky touch to reality, than it is to have a writer go "psych, it was fake". I don't like 'it was all a dream' endings for the same reason.

TLDR: - I am weary of stories that use 'it was all a hallucination' plots because I have bad experiences with them and don't see them done well very often - even if they're done well, I'm just personally not very interested in stories where the fact that the character is hallucinating is the main plot or the big plot twist Sorry for this big ramble, words got away from me xD I just wanted to write this out because I wanted to make it clear that you have NOTHING to apologize for and your idea was by no means bad! You just brought it to the wrong person ^^'

(The main reason I didn't post the initial ask was because I would have felt awkward having to post it while basically going "eh, I don't like this" as an answer lol)

#asks #star anon #I actually think the idea you shared could work in like A BIGGER narrative #like make it so the fic has more setup going into Techno's situation and trauma #and SHOW the reader how Techno gets more and more lost in his coping mechanism to an extent you can't tell if some things really happened #or if they were just wishful thinking #then have him realise the truth and have to cope with the fallout/have him confront reality

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timeisacephalopod · 5 years

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Found this and its a great sum of how I feel about Steve. With a narrative that overindulged him, a narrative that never let him be wrong even when he demonstrably was, it felt like his character had no impact on the world. His actions never had consequences and without that ripple out it left him in a completely stagnant state, or worse, a negative state that was ignored or passed as heroism. Its worse when you consider how genuinely interesting Steve Rogers is, how his trauma affected his actions, how Bucky and being dropped into an unfamiliar future led to the devolution of his character in an understandable and rather heartbreaking way, only for this characterization to be tossed aside for ‘yes, clearly he is a hero he’s Captain America.’

It got tiring and frustrating to watch, totally ruined Steve for me as an on screen character. Which is a shame, given that he would have been one of the most interesting characters in the MCU had he been allowed to realize his potential instead of being completely stagnant and lacking almost any impact as a character.

#winters ramblings #idk it was weird how his character was treated- the way his actions seemed to have zero impact #for a character who was supposed to be the moral center of the MCU he sure shit didn't seem to do anything to earn that #and i don't even mean that in a bad way per se #its just that his character didn't really impact much and never meaningfully #even the stuff that he DID affect didn't leave a profound mark so its strange that he was treated that way #with such an obvious respect- so much so that it seems like the narrative missed the point of what they wrote #its real rare to see writers write characters they handle out of character #but steve is a really good example i think of how writers not understanding a character undercuts them #which is sad considering i actually really like his development and I'm kind of salty i didn't see jack shit come of it #also the other time i saw a writer write a character ooc was in the vampire academy series #and i loved sydney ok she was a badass who expected people to listen to her #and then she got with the guy that was her love interest and she was utterly reduced to Girlfriend Role despite being the protag #made her grating to deal with not to mention boring to read #and frustrating but my frustration with Richelle Mead's inability to write romance has nothing to do with steve rogers lol

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whirlybirbs · 3 years

Text

FEVER-DREAM ; echo/reader

summary: echo is fine-tuning his new prosthesis. you have experience, you help. unspoken feelings are acted on. adoration blooms. you learn what mesh’la means.

word count: 3k

pairing: echo / f!reader

tags: mutual pining, lots of tender looks, victorian-era hand-touching sluttiness, echo is a gentle soul, reader is head over heels, a touch of ptsd mention, set on ord mantell, mention of our boy fives, in this house we love assistive devices, enough sexual tension to power the death star

a/n: this is me round-house kicking the bad batch writers in the throat because they made echo cosplay a droid — but, also because this man deserves to be treated as more than a means to a mission’s end. majority of you know i am ~bitter~ (understatement of the century) of tbb’s plot/design/writing. but echo has been a favorite from the original days... so have some very soft fic.

i reference character redesigns by @nibeul in this piece — please go peep them here, and some updated character spreads here! they’re really beautiful and add a phenomenal layer of storytelling to the existing designs that’s lacking. nibuel’s art and writing is lovely. please give them a follow — i can’t rec their work enough.

“How does it feel?”

The words are nearly whispered; it’s clear you didn’t want to startle him, and Echo can feel the pinch in his brow soften at your sudden appearence in the doorway.

His bunk, at the back of the Havoc Marauder, is small — the space itself even more so. There’s a makeshift partition, hooked together with spare parts and meant to offer a bit of privacy on the cramped vessel. Its slate grey color has faded, and the edges have become tattered in the cycles of use.

When Echo pulls his dark eyes up from his work, you’re leaning against the frame — your expression is earnest.

For a moment, the once-ARC Trooper is quiet.

He wonders if he’ll ever get used to your attention. Each and every time, it sends him into a spiral; his heart catches as he inhales and tries to push down the warm stir in his gut. The sight of you is enough, nowadays, to melt Echo’s well-maintained irritability. His attention is stolen from his ever-present pain, if only for a bit.

There are plenty of days where he misses the old him — the wide-eyed, eager ARC Trooper who had his brothers by his side. His real brothers. Hevy, Cutup, Droidbait... Fives.

Fuckin’ hell, Fives was probably staring down at him now laughing.

No matter what changes, you’re still shit with the ladies, vod’ika.

In a way he hasn’t fully admitted to himself, you make him feel like himself again. Like... Like some shiny cadet, on leave and distracted by the promises of pretty smiles passing-by. It’s good.

This makes him feel... good.

He flexes, and his right hand — the new, gunmetal durasteel cyberized-prosthesis — closes into a tight fist. It’s taken him a bit, but the feeling isn’t so foreign now. It’s still... slow. Slower than he’s used to, but you’d mentioned it may take some time. The phantom feelings get better, too. All in all, it’s a good thing.

Your own hand, your left, glimmers back in the same gunmetal color.

(Echo had never pressed you about the missing limb — not until one day, in Cid’s, you’d joined him in a quiet corner. You’d spilled your drink and a complaint about getting the star-cherry syrup out of the joints had slipped out. Echo had laughed; a real laugh, the sort that was so rare coming from him, it had you staring at him as if he’d hung ever star in the sky.

Can I ask how it happened? he’d said, breaking the heavy silence when your eyes never left his.

The Pykes, you’d said, and that was enough.)

“I haven’t, uh... Haven’t gotten the sensory calibration right yet.”

Then, his prosthesis cramps. His fingers go rigid, and Echo curses sharply as he reaches around his forearm to quickly reboot the appendage. It goes slack, then hums alive once more.

You wince.

You’re slow to move into the room — and you settle atop one of the crates Echo had stolen from the belly of the ship, an old Mantell Mix shipping container. You’re mindful to set his datapad aside, to not disturb his space too much. Before you reach for his hand, however, you lift your chin and open your hands in your lap.

“May I?” you ask, just as soft as before.

Echo feels small under your gaze.

Truth be told, you’re doing more than just... asking. You’re taking him in — appreciating him. It’s a habit that’s grown more and more apparent to not only himself, but the others.

In recent rotations, Echo has let his hair grow out — not long, but the once close buzz he’d kept has begun to curl at the top. Not entirely dissimilair to how it was before the Citadel. The dermal implants, the ones the Techno Union installed in order to parse the nuerological data in his head, stand out against his warm-colored skin.

His usual AJ^6-inspired headpiece is resting on his bunk.

That damn thing.

A neccesary tool. One that, given the amount of user data Tech had procured when working on modifying the implant, Echo found himself immediately distrusting. It wasn’t as if the AJ^6 cyborg construct had a beautiful track record, and frankly, Echo would like to keep his personality in tact, thank you very much. There were plenty of days he felt machine enough.

It wasn’t often you saw him without the headset; you knew it made linking in via his scomp easier to handle, it made the visualization of data transfers as easy as breathing. For Echo, it was a part of his vast kit, an important tool. For you, seeing him without it bubbles up a bit of a smile.

Echo catches it.

His eyes narrow playfully.

He looks... well. You — hell, are there words for it? For the way the sight of him makes you feel? It’s like there’s a world full of potential there, a thousand words unsaid, and feelings that have steeped in the warmth of longing gazes and half-there touches.

You’re still looking up at him, knees bent on the crate.

You blink, realizing you’ve been caught staring — not for the first time and certainly not for the last. In the beginning, it had left a sour taste in Echo’s mouth. But, now... Well, it stokes a sort of pride in his chest that he hangs onto.

It never gets easier to recover from — certainly not when Echo smirks. He moves to allow you to take his prosthesis into your lap. The gesture is gentle; your fingers cradle the firm yet pliable metal.

“What?” he asks. His voice, low and rough and warm, is tinted with amusement.

“Nothing,” you say vaguely with a shrug — as if that’s supposed to explain any part of your enamored stare. Your attention moves to the prosthesis.

“Nothing?” he asks, moving to thumb his left ear with his free hand with a dash of nervousness. A habit. Echo tilts his head as his fingers brush the cochlear implant there. The panel rests neatly against the side of his head, a small rounded-off square. The bite of self-consciousness has dwindled around you — but still, it creeps back up every now and again.

The Corporal’s brows knot playfully as you turn his new hand over in your lap; you’re admiring the upgraded feel, the more seamless panelling in comparison to your own. Echo watches your lashes flutter in silent thought.

Then:

“You’re a terrible liar, you know.”

You blink slowly at the hand, swallow down your sudden sheepishness and ignore his gaze. You bite back the smile digging into your cheeks. “Maybe.”

“Do I have something on my face?” he asks suddenly, and you look up.

A baited trick. He’s smiling.

The warm sort — the sort reserved for you and for Omega. The two souls that hold a piece of his heart, with all its ticking valves and electric timed pulses. There are machinisms that keep him alive, and then there is you. Your wide-eyed expression melts, giving way to the sort of smile he’s tried to memorize over and over. It’s the same smile that has warded off that reoccuring nightmare of the night on the tarmac at the Citadel, the same smile that has pulled him through the grit of phantom pains.

“What—” a sudden laugh bursts from your chest, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You were staring, mesh’la,” he rumbles out as a reminder, enjoying the fact he’s suddenly become the center of your attention. Echo leans back, his boot toeing yours. You nudge it back. Your face feels hot. You ignore his pointedly teasing look with a roll of your eyes.

The nickname started a few weeks ago. You haven’t asked what it means — no, for now it’s meaning hangs in the balance. Untouched but there. The affection the word carries makes your heart feel heavier and unbelievably full.

“Bad habit,” you chirp back, looking up at him through your lashes.

His laugh is warm.

“Maybe not.”

“No,” you say quietly; your voice is soft as your eyes bounce across his face, tracing the lines of his face with your gaze, “I don’t think it is.”

There’s a silence that slips between you — a comfortable one. It’s heavier than before. That has begun to happen recently, especially with the petal-soft utterance of mesh’la becoming more and more frequent. You hold his gaze. Echo lets out a soft, contented sigh.

Then, you remember the task at hand.

You clear your throat.

“Uh... The access panel I’m looking for,” you say slowly as your raise your finger to point to your own arm, “It’s on your bicep.”

Echo blinks. He clears his own throat before looking down — he hadn’t even noticed that access panel. That could explain the jarring miscommunication stalling the limb. This model had more bells and whistles than he initally realized.

Better than a fuckin’ scomp link, that’s for sure.

Wordlessly, Echo makes room on his bunk. You move to settle beside him, your bent leg resting aginst his hip as you half-straddle the bed; your other knee brushes his thigh — and Echo tries to sit still. You’re close, now.

“Is it okay if...?” you trail off, fingers tugging on the short sleeve of his blacks; you pause until Echo offers a curt nod. You catch him swallow. You push onward, fingers nimbly rolling the fabric up over his broad bicep.

Echo steals a glance your way as your fingers pass across a slip of his bare skin.

In his lap, both his hands twitch.

He’s no small man. Lean and athletic, Echo is built like a soldier. Omega had said once that Echo was an ARC Trooper, one of the best of the best. You believed every bit of it, and you’d hung on her words when she’d rambled on about ARC training, about Kamino, and about who Echo was before you knew him. It was all in the past, though. That Echo is a part of this Echo but... They’re different men. He’s been changed by the things that have happened.

You don’t press him on the details.

In time, they’re slipped into conversation here and there — between the here and now.

In the beginning, when you’d found yourself amongst the crew of the Havoc Marauder — be it for a simple job on Cid’s behalf — Echo had hardly paid you a moment of attention, though you admit you’d been curious from the start. It had taken three jobs for you to finally see his face. Then began the slow and gradual bonding over catching joints, grating plates, and hardware updates. His legs, your arm. Two pieces of a pair.

Now, he has this. A beautiful new upgrade — something he’s wanted for a long time. A part of his old self is back, in a way.

You liked that it was more than just a tool. That, in having this piece of his body back, he felt like more than a tool. More than a scomp link.

After all, he is a man — a... a very handsome man. One whose proximity is sort of distracting you, again, from the task at hand.

“The panel here,” you say as you slowly press on the seam that enables the settings panel to be revealed; you’re mindful to explain, “It controls sensory outputs, as well as synchonized synaptic commands. The panel on my forearm does the same to my hand, yours is just... well, you’ve got the new and improve version.”

Echo ducks his head as you work, watching you from the corner of his eye. “Feeling a bit jealous, mesh’la?”

“Maybe,” you breathe out with a smile.

Then, you lift your eyes. You intended to see that he was still comfortable, but instead you come face to face with the Corporal. His nose nearly brushes yours when you lift you chin, completely dragged in by the closeness shared.

There’s a beat of tension. Echo’s mouth goes dry.

You fingers pause. You swallow hard. “How... uh, how does it feel?”

Echo tightens his grip, then releases. His breath tickles your cheeks. His eyes, a deep, warm brown, flit from your eyes to your mouth, and then back. His voice is a croak.

“...Same as before.”

You tinker with a dial, eyes never leaving his; your voice is above a whisper. “And now?”

It’s immediate. Like a rush of cold air up his arm — and on instinct, Echo’s hand twitches. His fingers grip the fabric of his blacks, along his thigh, and... he feels it. The smooth, stretch of the material. It’s... it feels like a lot. His fingertips, metallic and cyberized, tingle. It’s distracting.

He can feel.

His hand is slow. It moves across to bridge the space between you. His pointer finger settles on the curve of your knee; the feeling of your tactical pants beneath his fingertip is ignored, instead he chases the heat of your body.

Your breath catches at the touch.

Echo’s face is turned to you, but... his attention has settled on his hand. His palm then sweeps across your thigh. He follows the curve, soaks in the feeling. You’re frozen in place, beating back the desperate sound of appreciation that threatens to be pulled from your throat. The touch is... more than welcomed.

The closeness itself is making you dizzy.

Then, Echo turns — and the warm, durasteel-plated palm finds your cheek.

Your skin is hot.

“Is this okay, mesh’la?” he whispers, words riding on a quiet exhale — the sort that make you feel... well, you don’t even have words for the way he makes you feel. Echo is... kind, honest, and loyal. Above all else, he’s gentle. Despite it all, despite every bit of horror he’d been put through, he’d never lost sight of the importance of a gentle hand. Especially now in a moment as intimate as this. It coaxes you closer.

You lean into the cybernetic attachment, cheek resting in his palm. You nod, then, with eyes eager to take in every bit of this moment.

He chuckles at the enthusiasm. Echo’s thumb, deft and smooth, then traces the line of your lower lip.

The feeling is... the gnawing pain that he’s felt for nearly a year has melted. Finally, the itch has been scratched in his brain and the hollow ache of his bones is gone. It’s relief, and comfort, and excitement and all these beautiful things — and you.

You’re stuck — you don’t want to move, you won’t move. He’s rooted you completely, and when his other hand — the calloused and warm one of flesh and blood — finds it’s spot along your thigh, you swallow a lovesick sigh that would only exaserbate your desperation.

Your mouth is moving before you realize it.

“What does it mean?”

Echo’s eyes narrow, only a bit, and he runs his thumb up your cheekbone.

“What does what mean?”

“Mesh’la,” it sounds foreign on your tongue. It’s not Hutteese or Twi’leki, not like any language you know, “Will you tell me what it means, Echo?”

The corner of his lips quirk. Your eyes jump to it.

You feel like someone’s reached right into your chest and given your heart a squeeze — and it only worsens when he laughs. He laughs, deep and quiet and warm, like a thunderstorm on a summer night. It feels cruel, to string you along like this when you’re here, lips parted, hanging off his every touch and his every word.

“Beautiful,” he says quietly as his other hand touches your jaw — it’s so damn reverent, this little moment in time, that you almost don’t believe it’s real.

It feels like a dream — like someone has come in and stolen your thoughts from you; like the unrequited yearning has finally stoked a fire large enough to burn you up entirely, a fever you never knew you wanted.

His nose brushes yours.

Your fingers wind into the fabric of his chest. You’re clinging, lost to the moment — and you can’t help wonder if this is how it feels when he catches you adoring him. He’s admiring you so tenderly that you nearly break.

You want to kiss him.

He’s thought about nothing but kissing you for the last five days at least. Longer in his dreams. Nowadays, it’s a constant pull, a constant want.

And now, it’s here — a present and current moment where it can happen. Where he can stop being a shiny cadet and he can make a move...

Enter Omega.

“Echo, we’re back—!”

The telltale hammer of a girl’s boots on the floor signals that the party is back from their supply run — but you’re so far off, spinning in a different universe, you don’t even hear her until its too late... Until Echo is yanking himself away and clearing his throat and rolling his wrist to test the prosthesis in a different way, a less intimate way.

You blink, then rattle yourself back to the present. Omega is in the doorway staring with a quizzical look. Clearly, your state does little to dissuade the assumptions she’s already making and you can see the gears turning in her head. The dark-haired girl then slowly grins.

“Hi.”

You swallow. “Hi, Omega.”

“...Whatcha guys doin’?”

Echo coughs. “Uh, just fine-tuning the new upgrade.”

“...Riiiiiight.”

You rub your cheeks and laugh — clearly forced and incredibly pained — as you stand up and nearly ram your head right into the top of Echo’s bunk. It’s met with a hiss of warning from the trooper as he jumps up to try and protect you from the impact.

“Well! Uh, thanks for letting me help, Echo,” you clap, rocking back and forth on your boots, “I, uh... Oh, Cid called. I should... I should get back—”

“Yea,” he says, straining a bit to find the words, “Yea, I’ll... I’ll comm you if it starts to, uh... If it starts to act up?”

Omega watches the exchange, big brown eyes moving from left to right.

“Good, great — yea, that’s,” you inhale as you rub your thighs and move towards the door, “Perfect. Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Bye!” Omega calls, waving.

You wave back, smiling. “Bye, Omega.”

Then, once it’s only Echo and Omega in the bunk, the tween speaks.

“...What the kriff was that?”

#HE IS A CORPORAL!!!!!#let echo say fuck #and omega #echo x reader #echo imagine #arc trooper echo x reader #echo/reader #echo/you #echo x you #tcw imagine #tbb imagine #sw imagine #the bad batch imagine #THANK YOU ANON WHO SENT ME THE UPDATED SPREADS #LOVE U ANGEL

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webcomixwastaken · 3 years

Text

Everyone I watched Tick Tick Boom last night on a total whim, just expecting to have some mild fun smirking at the Broadway references and cameos but...

I loved it.

I really loved it.

Like, even more than the original show which I've been singing to for maaaaaany years (I have even used two different songs from it for auditions!!)

I'm so overwhelmed by how much this movie hit me so hard in the heart, the feels, right in the gooey! Especially at age 31 (#finallylearningaboutcomix) when Larson's artistic anxiety still resonates strongly with me but I am already over the fact that my own Superbia (Bear Book, which I worked on for 7 years man) probably ain't it and what I need to do is keep writing the next thing, and the next thing, and the next. And keep putting yourself out there, keep taking the risks, keep laying out your soul on the table for people to poke and prod at because that's what being a writer is.

I can't stop thinking about it and why I think it just works so well:

Choosing to write a story about Larson's life around the actual Tick Tick Boom show was a smart move because it highlighted the strengths of both mediums, theatre and film: big heightened emotions for the former and the detailed intimate moments for the latter. It's a movie musical about writing a musical and it feels appropriately like BOTH things, something I think makes stage to screen adaptations work the best. Like with "Swimming" (loved the tiles turning into staff), "Sunday" (which was always meant to be a loving pastiche of Sondheim anyway) and the way they built the first emotional climax around "Come to Your Senses". I'm so relieved that they made sure Alexandra Shipp sang most of it instead of Vanessa Hudgens. No shade to Vanessa -- I'm so pleased to see her back in musicals!! -- but because you know, it is Susan's big song and she deserves to be the star of it.

...also because I watched Princess Switch 3 the night before and that movie is delightfully bad. Vanessa Hudgens is having the time of her life and my god that fictional country does not care at all about energy consumption, at least not during the month of December.

Speaking of actors, the casting was just lovely. I am always delighted to see Robin de Jesus (and now time for a brag that I met him stage door for In the Heights in 2009 and made him laugh by telling him he was amazing on Legally Brown lol uh huh yep be jealous) and Andrew Garfield was excellent! I don't think I'm raring to see him in more musicals the way I felt about Josh Groban after Great Comet, but he did wonderfully on this one and the fact that HE LOOKS SO MUCH LIKE JONATHAN LARSON IT'S SCARY was something I couldn't really get over for the first 5 minutes.

And compared to RENT, TTB handles the themes of how chasing art and dreams affects your relationships as well as the backdrop of the AIDS pandemic far better. RENT has aged extremely poorly and the enormous cast of characters make it hard to flesh any of them out so most of them remain very caricaturesque for the duration of the musical. In TTB you really only have Jon, Michael and Susan but even then, the real focus is on JON's relationships with the other two which stems from the fact that it started out as a one man show anyway. But this means that there's definitely enough space, enough attention to develop him and construct a true arc where he has goals, flaws, epiphanies and transformations that are shown and developed within two hours. The midpoint conflicts are properly resolved by the end of the film and it's way more satisfying than trying to make us forget about it due to the magical powah of Musetta's Waltz on electric guitar. My flatmate pointed out that RENT also suffers from being stuck as a 90s retelling of La Boheme instead of its own story, so that's there too.

SPOILER And/but being a theatre kid, there's the bittersweet realisation that time genuinely was ticking for Larson because we know how the rest of the 90s went for him. RENT is so obviously a rough draft that he fully intended to work on more ("Your Eyes" is by far the worst song and clearly a placeholder; I wish the team that produced it for Broadway hadn't been so precious about the show and done major tweaks) and thinking of what other things he could have written does fill me with sorrow. END SPOILER

But Tick Tick Boom is also better than RENT -- and a product of its time 30 years later in 2021 -- by not villainising the characters who decide to give up the bohemian artist's dream for whatever. It gently grimaces at the tiny cutting remarks of those who don't ~understand~ what it's like to make art, but no longer mocks those who value having support and stability. It recognises that the hustle does grind you down in mind and body, does damage the other aspects of your life, and can make you feel so small and worthless so if you can find fulfillment elsewhere, you are not bad for choosing that instead. Which also makes the determination to plough on so admirable and worth it. Everyone finds their own way. And someone else's is not necessarily the easier or better way. It's just... a way.

Anyway.

I loved Tick Tick Boom. It's on Netflix. Go watch it. Thanks LMM and the Dear Evan Hansen guy. I'm legit impressed.

I'm looking forward to watching it again, and I hope the OST blows up on Spotify.

#Tick Tick Boom #Jonathan Larson #Lin Manuel Miranda #musical #theatre #Comix rambles

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nolabballgirl · 3 years

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Im a white girl and im just learning here so forgive me if im slow on this. But i don't understand why druck is put on a pedestal with regards to how they've tackled race/developed their characters of color. Druck also tends to dismiss race entirely (Sam, David, Fatou and Abdi) or make the trauma of characher their whole character (Ava and David) or underdevelop characters when they've had space to do more (Amira, Sam & fam). So why is druck deemed better than other remakes in this area?

hi, Anon! thanks for your ask. okay, so for me to answer your questions, you have to accept two premises:

neither skam nor any of its remakes (including druck) are perfect.

when a remake acknowledges audience pain and admits that it has made mistakes, hires writers of color, and then greatly improves upon its mistakes, that has to be commended.

so, let's break down race and representation for the remakes. and as you will see below, the remakes are so egregiously bad when it comes to race and representation, that when you compare druck after jünglinge took over, it's on a separate level altogether and that's why i believe druck is deemed to be better when it comes to race and representation. (also, i'm skipping skam nl and skam austin from this analysis because who knows how those two would have ended up...and begoña owes me a heart to heart after she ruined by beloved skam españa, but let's be real, eskam had a long way to go too.)

druck -

well, from the list in your ask and from the hard work that skamofcolor put in, druck is a remake with one of the most racially diverse main cast members in both the old and new gens as well as the most characters of colors in side characters as well, so that's an improvement compared to the other remakes. but you're right, there were a lot of missed storylines they could have tackled with the old gen.

druck's sana season (amira mahmood) does not put their sana through weeks of torture or ruin the girl squad in the process. (and as a muslim, i will say their handling of islam was the best among the remakes but i digress...) however, amira did not get her full 10 weeks of screen time and the show missed a huge opportunity diving into shared microaggressions and racism that sam, abdi, etc. also faced. and druck was ripped for it! for cutting amira's time and playing it way too safe and not giving sam her fair due, among others.

now, here's where druck does something that no other remake has done and honestly, this is where i think most of the praise stems from. they listened to the criticism! wait, showrunners and writers can do that?! do you mean we are not just yelling into the avoid? not only have the writers said the ways in which they could have improved (even after s6 they discussed audience perceptions and overestimating how ava/mailin would be received, etc.) but they also hired JÜNGLINGE to bring the new gen to life. if you are unfamiliar, this is how they describe themselves:

JÜNGLINGE is a film collective of mid-twenties raised in the hybrid cultures of post-migrant Germany. We believe that young, European film needs to tell queer, diverse and most of all – specific – stories about growing up and living together in our societies.

so looking at that progress over time from druck s1 to druck s6, i can't help but give them them props for such a marked improvement. in fact, i don't think ANY single skam season covers race and ethnicity as well as s5 and s6 did. sure, they were not perfect (see point 1 above), but my god, the strides that these two seasons made. so much so that in s6, we had a non-white interracial couple as main, who were both unapologetic about their ethnicities and upbringing and culture (Gambia and Vietnam). and having fatou/ava's friendship be so prominent, listening to them talk about black hair, and referencing nazis in germany - yes to all of this!

and let's talk about ava! what an amazing character who was allowed to be angry, giggly, happy, sad, and express herself, without falling into tropes like imane from skam france, and so many people can relate to her struggles with white liberal mailin. there was a sensitivity there that's so rare in these remakes. and what druck couldn't do with amira/kiki, they were given room to explore here, and i really do feel that it was an important story to tell, especially in the age of whitesplaining, white feminist tears, and white liberals talking over women of color.

skam france -

eight seasons in and skam france is STILL mistreating its characters of colors and not given them their full due. now with bilal literally taking a back seat to jo (look at the YouTube header for crying out loud!) but ever since yann in s1, skam france has done such a horrible job with its depiction of POC, especially black characters. daphne is one of the most racist vildes and the treatment of imane (even beyond her season) has been vile and unfair.

and you would think that post s6 and after a new showrunner and writing team was hired on, that there would be improvements (similar to what druck did above), but no! look at how both aurélien and judith were treated in s7, and after a strong opening for s8, it looks like bilal is now taking a backseat to jo, and once again, skam france and its new team are prioritizing a white character over a character of color.

and has there been any acknowledgment by the skam france team of the criticism over the years? rather, david has often doubled down in the face of fan critiques - just an unwillingness to listen, and so we are left with this as a result.

skam italia -

say what you want about skam italia but when it comes to race?well, they certainly take the cake for the whitest remake, so much so that swaths of fans will refuse to watch this remake for the "wana" debacle, and rightfully so. (whitewashing of the sana casting) and remember how people tried to defend this casting decision? but don't forget that italy has a higher percentage of muslims living in the country than norway does! give me a break.

and how can i forget how hajar brown was dragged after she, as a woman of color, deemed to shade and criticize casting decisions for this remake?

wtfock -

do i even need to get into wtfock and its representation on race?! i mean s4 and s5 are arguably the two worst seasons of any skam remakes period. and the complete lack of acknowledgment from the showrunners after the torrent of criticism they received. the egregiously racist writing. i am a defense attorney by profession, and even i am struggling. there's seriously no defense for them here...

so given all this above, i hope this explains why i value the steps druck has taken, especially in s5 and s6, to tackle and improve their depiction of race and representation.

#druck #skamverse #anon #answered asks

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palmett-hoes · 3 years

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i said in this post that i have original characters and backstories for neil's extended family. it took me,, a really long time to write it all down. it's been a full month since the original post, and this is still just a run through of things, not full prose, which i might be interested in doing one day but not anytime soon

now, some things to note about what i'm writing, why, and how. methodology, basically. this might not have come through yet in my posts, because i just don't post about my half-finished ideas, but i research a LOT. i like to base what i write about on real life, even if it's just headcanons and fanfic

also, i love helping people with research, so if anyone wants help with research for a fic or just their personal headcanons or anything hit me up!!

as a white person who wants to write characters from different ethnic backgrounds, i feel i have a responsibility to really do my due diligence and research as much as possible to consider things from every angle. and part of that for me is making sure that every character of color has a backstory. they don't just appear somewhere, i have to give them a reason for being there and a story for how they got there, even if that's not what i write their STORY about. people, come from places, basically. i follow a lot of demographic census information and population averages, as well as a lot of history, from as general as transatlantic trade in the last 500 years to as specific as the changes in a single city in a certain year

talking to other writers in the fandom i know i'm a little overzealous, but this is what gives me peace of mind to feel like i am putting the effort in to get things right

so anyway, as for what that means here:

i like writing neil as mixed black/jewish. it works well thematically for his character, as well as just what FEELS right for how i visualize him in my head

only, that can't simply come from nowhere. we know who his parents are. they need to also be poc for neil to be one, and they're a complicated pair to handle in that lens

one choice i made about that, for multiple reasons, is that everything about neil's parents' backgrounds should mirror each other. it can't simply be that one if them is black and one is jewish, or even that mary is both and nathan is white, because that says something i don't want to say any way you slice it. additionally, i want both facets of his ethnicity to be important to neil, and i feel as though he would want to ignore the half of himself from his father.

so: they both have to be mixed, giving them a sort of,, ideological equal footing, as it were. that way, i can also write three different experiences, rather than accidentally implying that This is what being black is, or This is what being jewish is, or This is what being mixed is. and that's also important to me, even if it's just in my head or not even directly addressed. it's still a big consideration of mine anytime i write about any of them

now, finally, onto mary and nathan! i'll put it below a cut because this is already long enough, the under-the-cut is much longer, and i don't want to wear out your thumbs if you don't care

mary hatford

canon timeline, neil was born in 1988. as a tentative number let's say mary was around 30 when he was born, meaning she would be born in the 50s. say her parents were roughly the same age, so they were born around the 20s

like i said, what's happening where in history is very important to me for building these backstories, and major historical events tend to have a lot of influence on population shifts. and well,, jews and europeans in the early-to-mid 20th century? there's no getting around involving world war II. nothing explicit, but it is mentioned and part of the story

mary’s paternal family are the hatfords. they're from the british west indies, largely jamaica, but they've been involved with shipping and trade all over the trans-atlantic region for generations.

they have a complicated relationship with the british empire, having both worked for them and against them at various points, sometimes both at once. similarly, they've tried multiple times through the generations to relocate the family to england permanently, but have been turned away or pressured out

they associate england and the british empire with power, and they both disagree with and desire that power in degrees which vary person to person. they do have a general idea between them though that living in england is a sign of status and authenticity, and while they don't want to leave jamaica permanently they do want their center of power to be in england, and there is a deep resentment against the anglos for not allowing them to stay permanently despite their wealth and influence, the fact that their work will always be looked down on and seen as lesser

i did come into building the hatfords with the primary idea of them being black british, and looking into the organized crime connection second. them being jamaican/west indies is a reference to the jamaican posse, who have a large presence in the london crime scene, although that's really the only connection. the hatfords aren't really yardies in any sense

the hatfords' status as organized crime is a little iffy. mostly they skirt the line between legal and illegal, owning legal trading companies and doing plenty of legal shipping. their main business in the criminal underworld is being middlemen moving supplies for other groups. they have a lot of contacts, and they serve an invaluable role in international smuggling, but they rarely get their own hands dirty. they move things from one place to the other and don't question too much what it is, though they don't deal in people

mary's father is named samuel hatford (first name in reference to samuel bellamy, the gentleman pirate king of the early 18th century). he was born in England, raised largely in Jamaica, then moved back to England as a teenager/young man. he's light-hearted and a bit idealistic for someone from a crime family, seeing the best in people even when they're cold and often believing in principle over profit, which at times put him in conflict with what's best for business

he almost enlisted in world war II, but instead convinced the family to work as weapons and supplies runners supporting the Allies and guerilla resistance groups

mary's mother is named cima ben nahman (ladino/judeo-spanish/sephardic names, doesn't really reference anything or anyone in particular). She's is an algerian jew. Born in algeria (city undecided, though algiers had the largest jewish community at the time), she moved to france for a few years as a young woman, probably for education. she joined anti-fascist organizations which became resistance groups once germany invaded

she's stoic, and has a ruthless mind for strategy. like most algerian jews, she's caught between her home country and its colonizer. the french empire played the algerian muslim majority against the jewish minority as a way to create infighting and distract the algerians from uniting and turning against them, but the algerian jews also then became reliant on the french for protection. (it's a really, really complicated situation)

cima sort of hates them both, both algeria and france. her only allegiance is to being jewish

(contrast this to samuel, who feels that he is BOTH british and caribbean, even when those two identities may be in conflict)

cima and samuel met when samuel provided weapons and supplies to cima's militia group. he took particular interest in them and went out of his way to help, above and beyond the other groups the hatfords were supplying

in the waning period of the war, cima was seriously injured, i'm currently thinking a land mine accident. she survived, but her recovery was slow. she lost an arm and had burns across half her torso, neck, and face. samuel brought her to england supported her through her recovery. in the hospital, they spoke a lot about why they each chose to fight, and the ways they did because neither were formal soldiers fighting for a country. samuel was in many ways fighting for an ideal, while cima was fighting for her people. cima also talked to him a lot about judaism and religion during this time, which samuel took an interest in. eventually, cima decided to stay

they got married. samuel converted, which was somewhat controversial with his family. however, cima agreed to join the family business, where she became an integral but sometimes ruthless member. after algerian independence, she brought some of her trusted family and community into the fold as well, some moving to england and others to france

both cima and samuel believed very heavily in responsibility, though what it meant for each of them was different. cima believed in preparedness and follow-through, samuel believed in family and protection, doing what's right outside of the bounds of the law. this contributed a lot to how they raised their children

when they were born, mary and stuart were raised in england (and i like to think they have an oldest brother). the hatfords were a big family, and influential, although careful about balancing the legal and less-legal sides of their business. the ben nahmans were smaller, and most of them were in france so mary and her brothers saw them less often. they were raised very religiously and culturally jewish, though close with the caribbean side of their family too, as well as being the first generation who were born and raised in england. this put them at a cross-section of three very different cultures, and was where mary first learned about changing and blending in with different groups

mary was the youngest and a little bit spoiled by her father, aunties, and uncles. her mother however was much less tolerant of her. clearly very affected by her time in the war, cima became extremely distrustful and suspicious, and tried to instill in her children a similar sentiment of secrecy and self-sufficiency, avoiding attention and casual relationships. she could be harsh on them, especially mary, who was the most resistant to this

growing up, mary was irresponsible and fun-loving, goading her brothers and cousins, getting in trouble, and starting fights. she didn't understand the tenuous balance of being organized crime, and at times put the whole family at risk by overestimating their sway. her mistakes affected the whole family but it was usually her mother who confronted her about them first and most harshly

she resented her mother's control, and didn't understand the reasons behind it. she also couldn't differentiate between the boundaries her mother sets as a result of her own trauma, and the necessary boundaries she set for the safety of the family, viewing them as one and the same, and leading her to hate any kind of control exerted over her

really, a lot of cima's character is just who mary ends up becoming after being married to nathan and being on the run. i like the story of a child becoming the parent they once hated. rather than learn from her mother, both her failures and her successes, mary becomes her, doomed to make the same mistakes. this is also why cima is wounded by a landmine, because mary dies in fire

---

nathan wesninski

nathan was HARD to come up with a story for, mostly because,,, WHY THE FUCK DOES THIS GUY WORK FOR THE JAPANESE YAKUZA

wesninski is a VERY polish name. the japanese-polish connection is,, not super strong

so anyway, working off the idea of the wesninski family being a polish jewish one, WHERE is he going to meet a japanese crimelord to get into a multi-generation debt/business arrangement with?

turns out, the answer is brazil

brazil actually has a large jewish population (roughly 10th largest in the world). it began with its colonization by the portuguese, but the 19th century to modern population largely comes from central and eastern europe. brazil ALSO has the largest japanese population outside of japan

also this story ended up being WAY more detailed and prosaic than samuel&cima's story, which is basically just bullet points. there's no reason for this i love both stories very much just for some reason the words flowed for me here and not there

to avoid having a second jewish story where wwII is prominent, the wesninskis get a page out of my own family's book: nathan's grandfather (neil's great grandfather) came to the americas fleeing the russian pograms around the turn of the 20th century

Wesninski came to brazil (city undecided, have a lot more research to do about individual cities in brazil). he had waardenburg syndrome(a hereditary genetic condition that can affect eyes and hearing) which runs very strongly in his family (his son, nathan, and neil will all inherit it), and he is completely Deaf. while he came to brazil alone, in his new home he connected both with the local jewish community and the local deaf community, and eventually marries another Deaf Jewish woman

eventually they were able to establish a kosher deli and restaurant in the city, one which became a common hangout for the Deaf community. then one day (probably around 1915), a group of japanese men came in, and kept returning

these were the moriyamas, recently arrived from japan, in a place with very few japanese people and businesses. they liked the wesninski deli because they didn't share a language with anyone in there, couldn't even be heard by most of them, and it would also be difficult for the authorities to question them. two layers of protection for a crime family in a vulnerable place

wesninski and the moriyamas were amicable to each other, but as they didn't actually have a way to communicate that was the extent of it. but the moriyamas were polite and payed well and didn't bother the other customers. als, as a jewish establishment, they had a lot of education resources, which were helpful to the moriyamas in learning about brazilian society, including beginning to understand portuguese

now, in japan, the moriyamas were a small yakuza family. they got driven out by their bigger and stronger and more established competition around the time when japanese immigration to brazil was just starting, so that was where they went. though they had little option in where they ended up, they also had little competition in establishing their business

i still have a lot of research to do about the moriyamas. about both how the yakuza operate and about how brazilian organized crime works, and about life in brazil for early japanese immigrants. so a lot of the moriyama details are pretty vague

now the wesninskis had a son, meyer (nathan's father. name in reference to meyer lansky, famous american jewish mobster of polish descent) who was around 14 when the moriyamas arrived. he himself was not fully deaf like his parents, though was hard of hearing and raised in the Deaf community. as he goes through his rebellious teenage years, well, the gangsters are right there

in the early days the moriyamas were still more concerned with mostly the japanese enclaves, but they had aspirations of expanding. meyer wasn't japanese, but he was helpful to the moriyamas who came into the deli to study. he was perceptive and bold, could keep a secret, knew his way around knives from working in the deli, and knew the city. he was a good asset to them, and he was interested in causing some trouble

over the next ten years or so, meyer got increasingly more involved, alongside the moriyamas becoming increasingly more established throughout the city. he goes from someone who helps out occasionally and relays information beyween parties to getting involved with minor shakedowns, bribery, evidence disposal. by the time he's in his 20s he's thoroughly enmeshed

his parents were older when they had him, and his father died relatively young, leaving meyer the store and his mother to take care of. they were vaguely aware of his connections to the moriyamas and didn't approve of what he did with them but he also kept the worst from them, and was always a diligent son, and the only one they had. he assured them no matter how far he went that he wasn't "really" part of the gang

"yakuza have tattoos, and see, ima? no tattoos. i'm still a good jewish son, not a gangster"

now the problem arises when meyer falls for camara da machado, a young Deaf woman who frequents the store

(based on/inspired by/FC yaya dacosta (where the name comes from) and rutina wesley)

she was a Deaf girl born to a hearing family who struggled to give her the support she needed, maybe even just a single mother, and she'd spent a lot of time alone at the deli from a young age (12-ish?). she was shy and quiet and a little bit of a shrinking violet, but the wesninskis became very fond of her. she started tentatively helping them out around the store which became a job. she was often included in family meals and holidays, and always had a bed in their apartment above the deli if she needed one, and more than once had helped patch meyer up after he got in trouble to hide the extent of it from his parents

she was a couple years younger than him but he'd always been sweet on her. and she'd had a crush on him from basically the moment she'd layed eyes on him. they'd known each for years and camara was basically family, and then one day when they were both in their 20s it just suddenly clicked for them

so meyer and camara fell in love. meyer was head of the house, had to keep the deli running, and had his mother, camara, and possibly camara's mother (undecided at this juncture) to worry about and he decided he didn't want to continue working with the moriyamas in case it dragged his family into danger. being a gangster was a fling of youth and he was ready to grow up

when he informed the moriyamas of this though, they,,, did not agree.

while MEYER might not have considered himself part of the gang, THEY didn't think he just got to walk away. he'd worked with them for too long and knew too much. there might even have been a desire to tie him to the family permanently through marriage. and well,, one man against a growing criminal empire can't do much

it was a huge shock to him, and made him truly realize how naive and reckless he'd been. he'd been a dumb kid who wanted to start some trouble, the moriyamas were career criminals. they expected that once you were in, you were in for life, and they did not take kindly to meyer disagreeing with this

he didn't know how to explain this to his family... so he didn't. they'd all told him they wanted him to stop, but he'd meant for the announcement to be a surprise. after learning that he would not be permitted to walk away, he chose to just hide it and continue with business as usual

it worked for a while, maybe a few years, a time during which the moriyamas were getting a lot more brutal as they got more established and increasingly looked to expand, putting them in competition with other gangs and greater law enforcement, until they were a true crime empire spread across whole regions of the country. meyer had lost a lot of esteem in their eyes by asking to leave, leading them to put him under increasing scrutiny and giving him more incriminating tasks, to ensure that he would be incriminated if he ever tried to turn them in. it's during this time that he first had to kill for them

then camara got pregnant

and meyer was terrified. he didn't know how the moriyamas would deal with a kid. the only marriages and children he knew of within the family were endorsed by the boss, many arranged by him, and he knew his wouldn't be approved. yakuza wives were heavily involved with the business too, and he absolutely did not want that for camara

he broke down and told her everything. she's horrified, and furious that he kept it from her, but she didn't want to give up her baby. it would be hard, but she believed they can keep it hidden, and if the moriyamas found out, maybe it wouln't be so bad?

(spoiler: it would)

they have a son, born natan da machado, under his mother's name

meyer and camara never got married. meyer was going to propose after he left the moriyamas but that obviously didn't happen. marriages were supposed to be blessed by the boss, and meyer never dared to ask. they already lived together, anyway

but with natan, they decided that meyer couldn't acknowledge him as his own. in the deli or in the streets, he didn't acknowledge natan. he was camara's bastard son, and meyer didn't want anything to do with him

it was a flimsy disguise at best. natan was mixed, but there was a strong enough resemblance to his father. even if his hair was a darker red or he had brown skin, they had the same eyes

they tried to keep him away from the moriyamas as he grew up, hoping they wouldn't see him and make the connection, but they also kept him very hidden in general, just in case. he spent a lot of time inside, with his grandmothers

and that was how natan grew up, feeling like a secret, his father cold and distant, only acknowledging him in their apartment. cut off from other kids his age. a hearing boy in a Deaf family (natan himself was HoH but still had most of his hearing. meyer and his maternal grandmother could both hear, but they had gotten out of the habit of it and mostly communicated through sign)

natan developed a deep feeling of resentment towards his father and shame about himself from a young age. he felt like a mistake, defective somehow. so wrong he had to be hidden away from everyone

there's only so long that you can hide a child, though, and when natan was around ten the moriyamas found out about him, and they were not happy.

they didn't like split attention or loyalty. they kept children and family under very tight wraps. they should be one hundred percent enmeshed in the moriyama empire, raised to be loyal and helpful in whatever way they were needed. the fact that meyer wanted and was willing to leave for this family, and then hid his son, was a huge betrayal

still, they gave him an opportunity to prove his loyalty: kill camara or the moriyamas would kill them all: her, natan, meyer, and both their mothers

but meyer couldn't do it, and instead he told camara to run and hope they didn't actually care enough to chase her down. and she did. and she couldn't take natan with her. (i haven't fully fleshed out why yet, currently thinking that meyer was given this ultimatium when they already had natan)

so camara left her son, and got away

i built the story of mary's mother as a reflection of mary's story if something had been different, and i built nathan's story the same way. his wife takes her son and runs away with him when the moriyamas try to take him from her. nathan's mother was in the same situation and left him behind

over the next forty years of his belonging to the moriyamas he gets to marinate in that resentment. from the father that ignored to the mother who ran away from him, he internalizes it as being something wrong with him, not the circumstances. the more he's taught to torture and kill and the more he excels at it, the more this belief gets cemented. he's good at killing, he was meant to kill. he's twisted and broken and wrong inside and he always was and his parents always knew

and then when it happens again but differently this time he throws away a decade and millions of dollars and his standing with his boss to hunt down his son and his wife because he didn't get to run away so why should they? why does mary love nathaniel more than camara loved natan?

from here, the exact detail's of nathan's story aren't quite solidified. whether he was raised by his father from then on or by his grandmothers (or whether his grandmothers left with his mother) or whether the moriyamas put him somewhere else entirely, but from then on he lived under the moriyamas' direct supervision, and they taught him how to turn a knife on a man

they took his mother's name from him, though, so he's natan wesninski, not natan da machado, because they own the wesninskis now

and when the moriyamas decided to expand beyond brazil when natan was a young man instead of a child, and settled on the east coast of the US, they renamed him nathan, because it sounded more "american"

---

so that's it. obviously there are still a lot of unfinished details in both stories, but they're strong enough at this point to stand on their own and i haven't changed or rethought a lot of the major details in a long time

i've become extremely attached to these OCs and their stories, and i hope they interest other people too. some day i'd like to write them out in prose properly, along with the story of nathan and mary meeting, but that'll be a while away considering the pace i move at

so until then i just wanted to put this out there

#aftg #tfc #neil josten #nathaniel wesninski #mary hatford #nathan wesninski #txt #my fics #my writing #my posts #black neil josten #jewish neil josten #cw gangs #cw organized crime #cw ww11 #cw wwII #long form post

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marcspectrr · 3 years

Text

A word or two on Kiara's mental health...

Before I attempt to summarize the 39 page slideshow living rent free in my brain, a preface! This will include spoilers for s2, as well as a few mentions of suicidal thoughts! Also. I love Kiara Carrera with all of my heart so if you're not a fan of her, you might wanna keep scrolling. If you don't vibe with her that's perfectly fine, but this post is heavy with Kiara appreciation, be warned, my respect for her runs deep. The choice is yours, of course, just understand that I'm writing this bc @yellowlaboratory among others have encouraged me to get it out there because it's all I've been thinking about since I watched s2. This is not to start anything.

(This is also not me hating on Pope because I genuinely like his character, he's just made some very questionable choices throughout the show, some I can forgive and some that still don't sit right with me.)

Deep breath, here we go.

It's no secret Kiara has been poorly handled by the writers and therefore the characters at times. We got little development in s1 compared to other main male characters, leaving us to fill in the gaps as far as her ambitions, motivations, family, overall interest in the boys, etc. While I do keep this in mind, I could rant about it for days so for this I'm going off of what we have as well as what's been implied.

Kiara didn't have the same upbringing as the boys but it's clear the Carrera's had/have their struggles. She's got her foot in both worlds, not quite 'rich' but not entirely 'poor', inevitably giving her a fragile sense of belonging and identity. 16 is a hard age even without societal pressures and growing up in a classist environment, but here is where we're assuming the boys come in. They give her a place to feel comfortable in her own skin, with shared interests and accepting her for who she is, which we know the kooks don't provide. Just being around them helps ease those deep insecurities, helps her form meaningful bonds. We weren't given an explicit scene where this was shown but over the course of the two seasons it's clear how she feels about them and what they do for her mentally.

Her relationship with the pogues, however, puts a rift between her and her parents. Mike and Anna clearly want what's best for Kie but it's also obvious they've struggled with her even before the pogues. Anna wants Kiara to have the things she never got growing up, breeding a disconnect since Kiara doesn't share in her mother's interests. This leads into my biggest problem with Kiara's arc in s2, which was how Anna and Mike were written.

Yes, Kiara didn't/doesn't treat them the best but it went both ways -- they all failed at communicating. Instead of finding a common ground and compensating for the things Kiara cares about, Anna shuts her down and ignores her, leaving her to feel like a problem rather than a person, further perpetuating even less healthy communication. Kiara even says in s2 that's why she doesn't like going home, because it always means walking into an argument and not feeling accepted.

I sorta expected a little more understanding from Anna considering her own background with pogues but instead it backfired. And Mike...he didn't contribute much at all. They could've all done better and need some work. Kiara could be more grateful and Anna and Mike are the parents, the adults, they need to make the space feel safe to talk. Kie didn't just wake up one day and decide to act out and keep her parents in the dark all the time, that stems from not feeling listened to when she does try and open up.

Expanding on this with...the whole Blue Ridge plot. Moment of silence for the show neglecting to acknowledge the academy, even though it clearly had a big impact on Kiara's life. In s1 we got a brief look into how her 'kook year' affected her and it was not good. More isolation, blurred identity, insecurity and this time suicidal thoughts, with no one to turn to for support, assuming she was not on good terms with her parents then either. I'm assuming this because for them to send her to the academy, hoping to give her better opportunities only for it to end with her wanting to cut her wrists, to then thinking the best option is to send her away again? At this point I hope they didn’t know how badly the academy affected her because sending her away a second time with that knowledge is such a hurtful and oblivious move.

Kiara already thinks her parents see her as a burden, hurting her sense of worth as is. I really wanted to like the Carrera's and I still feel like they genuinely love and care for Kie, I just need to see more communication maybe. And if they choose to include the Blue Ridge plot, which I'm leaning towards yes on that one, I hope it's handled somewhat well, preferably not a tool to create drama even though I know a lot of people want to see it be used that way. I'm very particular, I'm sorry I'm this way.

Things I've seen her being criticized for in s2 is her behavior. The thing that people have to remember is that she's 16 and teenagers are just not the best with navigating their emotions. She made questionable choices (the 'murderer' thing and 'abusing' Pope) but these are both things that fit the plot and her character. She was by no means the only one grieving so I don't know why she's being targeted for it (although I'm not surprised, the fandom treats her horribly). Some of her core characteristics are her high moral integrity as well as her headstrong belief in people and causes. She's never been one to make herself palatable for people and s2 shows a lot of this (calling out the Cameron's, going off in front of the court, etc). Even if it caused them problems and even if they are flaws, that doesn't make her an inherently intolerable character, it makes her realistic. She was not in a good place emotionally and it would've been wrong to shy away from depicting it any other way, especially in a show where the teenage experience is decently represented.

Now with the Pope thing. I think it was handled as well as it could've been considering the circumstances. It really should've never happened but to justify it, emotions are messy, relationships even messier and they were both spiraling at the end of s1. I don't agree with the way it started (why give Kie the line of literally telling him she wanted something different only to show them together next episode, I'm forever confused) but I'm not mad about how it ended. They were both in the wrong at times so only bringing up Kie's faults is just unfair.

I believe they both tried their best and even wanted to feel the right things but learned quickly that's not exactly how it works, which was how it was supposed to be shown. Not as this romanticized, idealistic healthy relationship but as one that has its bumps and was bred out of all the wrong things. All of their body language pointed towards this. Pope didn't deserve to be hurt but Kie clearly didn't intend for things to turn out how they did. She wasn't mentally comfortable enough for a relationship and I can appreciate them showing this in the ways the writers framed it. Even the conversation with Kie describing their night on the beach, I think it was perfect. It was awkward but it was honest, which is so important.

Overall, I think Kiara's gone through a lot mentally that the show could be better at exploring. It doesn't have to be big, obvious lingering shots, they can be subtle and still mean so much to people who relate to her. Seeing someone on screen grapple with real life struggles (even if the show walks a painfully fine line as far as realism), it means a lot. Especially when mental health (more prominent than ever) is so rarely portrayed to translate in any significant way in media now. It's definitely something I would love to see get more time and effort so until then, just know I'll be manifesting the screen time Kiara Carrera deserves.

#obx #outer banks #obx s2 #outer banks season 2 #kiara carrera #whoever read this whole thing kudos to you #i also hate the tumblr app for posting it twice before it was finished :)#i have MANY thoughts on kie #as well as the rest of the pogues arcs in s2 #its a curse to have this many opinions agshdjf #obx rants #i guess?

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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The nuke cane ticks me off so much. There's literally no reason for Ozpin not to use it against Cinder at Beacon. A tiny bit of that power would've destroyed her and saved the academy and hundreds of lives. Keeping the maiden powers away from one of Salem's most dangerous minions along with preserving his power base. It was obviously thought up much later as a deus ex machina for their situation.

I'm prefacing this with the agreement that yeah, I 100% believe this was a stupid Volume 8 addition that had no real setup prior to Oscar charging it up. However, if we were to theorize backwards and try to answer why Ozpin didn't use it then, I don't actually think it's as glaring an issue as we might assume.

First off, it may not have taken out Cinder. If the cane's blast was capable of hurting anything other than grimm and grimm beings (Salem) then Oscar, Jaune, Yang, Ren, Emerald, and the Ace Ops all would have perished in the blast. Hazel's death is weirdly ambiguous given that, since it couldn't have been from the blast, it must have been from the fire he set while holding Salem... but Oscar blasted her seconds after that fire started? And Hazel's body wasn't anywhere to be seen? He should still be alive, if badly injured. It's an all around badly written scene in terms of internal logic, but we do know this blast didn't touch the other ten people in its range, so it presumably wouldn't have touched Cinder either. It might hurt her now, with the grimm arm, but she didn't have that during the Fall of Beacon. That came later.

Now, granted, Cinder was hurt by Ruby's silver eyes because of the parasitic grimm she used to steal the first half of Amber's power (not because she's a Maiden/has magic, otherwise Ruby's eyes would have hurt Qrow, Oscar, and Raven at the Haven battle). So in theory Ozpin's cane might have hurt her, but we don't actually know they work the same way. Yeah, they both destroy grimm-things while leaving everything else untouched, but Ruby's version of that is a genetically inherited magic power driven by emotion and Ozpin's version of that is a magical tool from a previous version of humanity that uses "kinetic energy" stored up over years. If they're the same thing the show hasn't said as much, so idk if we can go, "Yeah, the cane definitely would have taken out Cinder the same way Ruby's eyes did." Even if it did, even if we knew for sure the cane would target any grimm-ness in someone like Ruby's eyes did, Ozpin didn't know Cinder had that. He didn't know how Cinder got the first half of the powers, only we do as the audience. He didn't know Cinder had used a weird glove-beetle-grimm thing. As far as he's aware, Cinder is a normal, non-grimm person trying to kill him. Using the cane on her would be a total waste based on the knowledge he had.

Which leaves the enemies the cane could definitely have taken out and that Ozpin knew it could take out: the grimm. Yeah, Ozpin could have easily set it off to clear Beacon, but the thing is the grimm weren't the real concern. Their human/faunus enemies are. That's why he races to the vault with Pyrrha, attempting to get the transfer complete. Ozpin knows that the danger here isn't really from the normal grimm drawn by negativity, but from the people who helped orchestrate that tragedy. He's got a hierarchy of priorities and the regular grimm are not at the top of that list. Especially since they attacked a huntsmen school. Not ideal in any situation, sure, but this is the place literally filled with people trained to kill grimm. On top of having even more fighters than usual thanks to the Vytal festival. On top of having an army thanks to Ironwood being overzealous — "You brought your army to my kingdom, James, so use it." Again, Ozpin isn't omniscient. He's down in the vault trying to transfer magic into Pyrrha. He doesn't know that Ironwood's army is eventually hacked and, even if he did, that's still something the regular fighters can take care of (and did). I think it's worth remembering that, given how it's presented, the cane is a super rare tool. It took lifetimes to charge up that energy. Ozpin isn't going to waste it on a situation that he can handle with the people at his disposal.

And then we know the rest of the story. Ozpin never made it out of the vault. He was murdered by Cinder before he could rejoin the battle and decide whether the cane was or was not necessary in this battle. If he had lived, he might have decided that the cane was worth using on the Wyvern because that, really, is the reason why Beacon fell. Our fighters could have handled the grimm and Ironwood's droids given enough time. The real problem was that when Ruby froze the Wyvern in place, she created a giant grimm beacon that keeps enemies coming, endlessly. Get rid of that and you can deal with the rest, if only because "the rest" has become a limited number.

Again, this is me headcanoning a lot of Ozpin's thought process (and even some lore) to explain why he wouldn't have used the cane, the exact thing I accuse other fans of doing, with the difference being that I don't mean this in a, "RT is so smart. It all makes sense!" way, but rather a, "It could make sense if RT had bothered to write this into their story. But they didn't and that sucks." See, despite me encouraging them to plan ahead, no writer can plan for everything. It's both fine and inevitable to include things that you never could have thought up five years previously, the work is simply in getting it to fit, like providing a solid reason for why a character didn't use this seemingly perfect tool. And I think RWBY has those reasons! We don't know the cane would have hurt Cinder and, more importantly, Ozpin had no reason to think it would have hurt her. It would have taken out the grimm army, but I would 100% buy it if Ozpin went, "I thought we could handle that army without wasting a tool I intended to use on Salem herself but then, well, I died." How the cane is used is still stupid beyond belief, but why it wasn't used could have had a cohesive explanation in-universe, even if the audience knows it's really because the authors hadn't invented it yet. RWBY is a detailed world and the characters often only have a part of the picture at any given time, so we could explain a LOT of stuff whose current lack of explanation just makes the characters look foolish. Having Ozpin say, "Cinder was fully human far as I knew and I might have used the cane after securing the Maiden powers but, uh, murder" would go a long way towards smoothing this addition over.

#rwby #mymetas

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anniestoney · 3 years

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Analysis of Sonic the Hedgehog: "Sonic cannot show emotions e.g. crying."

I feel like people literally took the meaning of this. I find that people have misinterpret the meaning behind this mandate. But I will give my understandings on what this really means.

After a year of being a Sonic fan, I've notice that the blue blur is quite reserve in terms of deep emotions. Characters, such as Sonic, who are boys at heart, are usually known as characters that are the most lively and rarely shows deeper emotions beyond it. But it does not mean he is detached from any other emotions other than joy. In games, it is hard to try to tell this in action since in good storytelling, it needs more time (& consistency). So, lets try to see this through the animated series, Sonic X. To make it more clear, I'll based it in the Japanese version due to the fact that Sonic's OG creators at that time played a part in the anime. Let’s start.

Do you remember that one time he cried?

In this scenario, we see his tears but not his reaction. This tells me that for Sonic Team, Sonic's rawest emotions comes every once in a blue moon. He has emotions, he has the capability to cry, but how it is done right is the challenge.

Do you also remember these scenes?

(Note: Pay more focus on Sonic's action, its deceivingly subtle that people often miss it)

The 1st scene is shown of Sonic wearing the now fixed bracelet Amy made for him. Notice how there is a new set of shells along the fact the OG string is not replaced but extended with another one. This tells me of Sonic's dedication and appreciation. It tells me how Sonic expresses himself more in action but here is the catch. No one knows of what he did, the trouble he did to find the new shells for the bracelet. This tells me of how private Sonic expresses himself. He seems to be the type to hide himself when in his most vulnerable. His reason? It is unknown, there are many possible reasons.

The 2nd one is a famous scene, the light lavender rose & his secret words. In this scene, we see Amy asking Sonic to tell her (if) he loves her (in a romantic way). His responds? A rose for her with his voice muted. This implies to me that when telling something very intimate, Sonic shows it not through words but by small (yet huge deal) gestures. The fact that it is muted to the audiences further indicates that any words he says that carry deep meanings, he is very private about it. His most deepest thoughts and feelings are shadowed to the point nobody, not even us, his fans, can know.

Now lets get back to these two pictures.

Notice how many people are with Sonic in these scenes. Only one. When it comes to showing emotions to a specific person, Sonic will only show it to that person. His emotions are not absent rather he chooses the right time to show it or who he'll show it (w/ch is unpredictable).

There are possible reasons for his lack of expressing himself in an emotional aspect. It could be to not have anyone worry about him or possibly going out of control (these feelings include anger & sadness). When in anger, things like this happens.

It could also be due to show the people hope and courage. As a hero that has inspired many by your smile and optimism, it can be very crucial (tho Sonic has a strong support of friends, this can be explored if given the time to tell the story). Another reason could be the unsureness on what to do. As Sonic always find ways to do what he does best, we have never ever see Sonic handle an emotional crisis. This being an example.

As Tails cries for the loss of Cosmo, we see Sonic standing doing nothing. Some might see this cruel for Sonic to not comfort his little brother. But I came to think, that maybe just maybe, he just didn't know what to do. I mean, what could he really say to Tails at this moment who just loss someone dear to him? (tho anything can be helpful but it would still be painful for anyone who goes through what Tails did).

Another possibility (w/ch many will disagree) is the infamous rumor of Sonic the Hedgehog being shy. Yes, shy. The word has many synonyms and one of them is the word reserved. Its no secret that Sonic is not a master in the emotional department so his shyness is an option. As an intellectual property (IP) that is owned by a very reserved country, Japan, its no coincidence that the friendly and open blue blur might have been given this trait.

What can I conclude?

Well, I have just begun my journey in the franchise but I think I've grasp the basics yet I've many to learn about Sonic the Hedgehog and its future. To what I can conclude, Sonic is a reserved person when it comes to emotions, a trait that is hard to be seen when not paid close attention. A trait that, Sonic Team, envision as part of Sonic.

Now the real question is, why won't SEGA let Sonic show more emotions other than being happy go lucky?

There are possible reasons. But I'm going to give (imo) the reasons why. One, it could be due to how challenging it is to portray this because, lets be real, Sonic story writing, when not monitored, can be very bloody when not executed well. Another could be the fact to avoid any unwanted out-of-character (OOC) occurrence, remember, Sonic is definitely a reserved person in emotions thus any extreme gestures or declaration is already OOC for the hedgehog.

So, how can Sonic show emotions e.g. crying without being too OOC?

That is a challenge that a writer must figure out, from what we see in Sonic X, with the guide of Sonic Team, Sonic crying, can be done when there are no prying eyes or not showing the audience the obvious. An example of this scenario would be a person standing in the rain, his tears, not clear due to the pouring rain. His back turned and his face not clear. This does not limit only to crying, it can also apply to any emotions or actions. The challenge is to do it without altering the character’s existing core traits.

Sonic does have emotions, its how it must be displayed with the knowledge that he, Sonic, is a private person when it comes to his emotions. Thanks.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic emotionless?#emotionally reserved sonic #why can't sonic cry?#sonic x

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frostops · 4 years

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I have some thoughts about how FGO has handled trans and trans-adjacent characters, and I’m frustrated how many people talk about the mishandlings without discussing the transmisogyny in it, but this is long as fuck, so its under the cut.

Its a good thing that FGO is having more characters with the genderless trait who aren’t given that trait for shitty reasons, but framing this as FGO being better at handling nonbinary characters, while technically true, ignores what caused many of the early issues. That cause is often transmisogyny.

Transmisogyny has been an issue in the game since Da Vinci’s introduction. Da Vinci doesn’t have the genderless trait, but she’s still important to discuss to understand FGO’s mishandling of trans characters. Mash and Romani are both angry at the idea of Leonardo Da Vinci not being a man, and call her a pervert, among other things. This is immediately after both find out King Arthur was actually a woman, but neither seemed to care then. Its understood by the writing that some believed to be a man turning out to actually be a cis woman isn’t deserving of malice, but that person turning out to be a trans woman is. The writing surrounding Da Vinci slowly got better, with characters being less shitty about and eventually respecting her gender. While Da Vinci initially describes herself as beyond gender, she says so in response to Roman and Mash’s reaction to her gender, where as whenever she is referred to as a woman (Lancelot saying he couldn’t hurt a beautiful women in Camelot, Napoleon calling her mademoiselle in LB2), she eats it up. Her early description of being beyond gender feels more like a tongue-in-cheek way of degendering a trans woman. While overall the writing treats Da Vinci better now, there are still times where it gets shitty, even as recent as the event where Van Gogh was introduced, where Hokusai talks about both Da Vinci and Van Gogh having an inherent maleness that bleeds into their art. This event did have a guest writer, but it was still allowed into the game.

The first character to have the genderless trait is D’Eon. Historically, D’Eon was intersex and trans feminine, and very likely a trans woman, but the fate version is introduced saying they were crazy in life, intended to be in reference to how they presented their gender. They are also presented as caring more about loyalty to France than what gender they are seen as, when the real D’Eon blackmailed the king into legally recognizing them as a woman. Transmisogyny, as well as intersexism, is pretty obviously what made Type-Moon take reduce D’Eon to just jokes about gender. D’Eon feels degendered in way similar to how Da Vinci is at time, though D’Eon gets it worse

Astolfo debuted in Apocrypha, where their presentation is used for a joke where Jeanne, believing Astolfo to be a girl, freaks out when she sees that Astolfo has a penis. The joke is that it is such a horrible thing to find a penis on some you think is a girl. I shouldn’t need to explain the transmisogyny behind that, or that Astolfo ostensibly not being a trans woman doesn’t make the joke less transmisogynistic. There are other, better things about Astolfo in Apocrypha, but most of their writing in FGO is in the same vein as the joke with Jeanne. This is crystalized in Agartha, where both Astolfo and D’Eon were used for many transmisogynistic, intersexist, and homophobic jokes.

The third, and for a long time last, character to have the genderless trait was Enkidu. They are given this trait due to changes to their myth. In Fate, Enkidu is made of clay, and had a nonhuman appearance until meeting Shamhat, and modeling their appearance after her. They don’t have a physical sex, but, due to originally being a male character and appearing feminine in fate, the writers and fans alike treat them similarly to how they treat Astolfo and D’Eon, though less aggressively. Usually when Enkidu appears in a fate work, one character has to talk about how they can’t tell whether Enkidu is a man or a woman, before settling on neither, but only reach that conclusion because they don’t have a physical sex. The transmisogyny isn’t as strong in Enkidu’s writing, but its still there.

Until LB3, no other character would be given the genderless trait, and what all 3 of them have in common is being AMAB or originally male characters who present femininely. Technically Da Vinci fits this description as well, but her body is considered female by Type-Moon’s standards, so she gets the female trait. Also, with the exception of Astolfo, have bodies that wouldn’t considered male of female by most people. In Deon’s case, this is the result of intersexism, and even more frustrating when you remember that D’Eon blackmailed the king to be seen as a woman. I’d wager the reason Astolfo is grouped with the other two is itself a continuation of the joke from Apocrypha. It’s a coy “We all know what Astolfo’s ‘real’ gender is, but we’ll play along with the joke.”

I think this also explains other characters who, arguably, could be included in the genderless trait, but were not. Nezha, like Da Vinci, only got a “female” body after dying, so they get the female trait too, despite not really being comfortable with any gender labels. Mordred, who consistently gets violently angry at being called a woman, and whose bio states that they don’t like being referred to as a man either (though this wouldn’t be implemented into writing until LB3, where they are clearly far less bothered by being referred to as man) also has the female trait. King Hassan’s bio has his gender listed as “?????” but he is treated as male by the game and has the male trait.

None of the newer genderless servants fit the same description of amab/originally male and presenting femininely, which does show a more nuanced understanding of gender identity and expression, but it doesn’t show anymore respect towards trans women and transfems. Both Shi Huang Di and Douman have somewhat androgynous presentations, but we still don’t really have trans fem character whose gender and presentation is treated respectfully other than Da Vinci, and that’s frustrating. For the most part, though, these characters are all pretty well handled.

Two of them, Mao Nobu and Romulus-Quirinus, are new versions of characters who already had the female and male trait respectively, meaning the game has at least someone moved away from equating the genderless trait to a character’s physical sex, but not entirely since part of the reason Shi Huang Di has the trait is their inability to reproduce.

There is some disagreement about how Caenis is handled, and I do have thoughts on that topic, but if I talked about that this would be twice as long. The short version is that the necessity to make characters fit into fanservice, something which negatively affects all of the characters I mention here, limits the ways in which Caenis’s relationship to their gender can be explored. Its also why we have Caenis and not Caenus, and why Caenis is rarely allowed to where a shirt.

There is also Dioscuri, who is two characters, one man and one woman, who are collectively on servant, so even though they have the genderless trait, they're not really relevant.

We do have more originally male characters now in female bodies. Vritra and Van Gogh, who were added recently (Vritra’s bio says she was originally male and now has a female vessel and Van Gogh is Vincent Van Gogh in Clytie’s body), Kama, an originally male deity possessing Sakura’s body, is being added to NA this year, and even back in part 1 we had Quetzalcoatl, another male god in a female vessel. All of them are given the female trait, and Quetz in particular seems to be very comfortable being a woman, but this still feels like what happened with Nezha, where the “physically female” body matters more than the identity of the character, especially with Van Gogh, who had no choice in being put in Clytie’s body.

Mechanically, the gender traits only affect certain skills and nps, having extra or stronger effects. The genderless servants are exempt from the extra effects, with one exception. Once of Blackbeard’s skills has an effect for female servants, but D’Eon and Astolfo (And maybe also Enkidu, but I don’t remember) were included in this effect as well. The joke here was that Blackbeard is written to be reflective of the worst qualities of weebs and otakus. many of whom would refer to those two as traps, a transmisogynistic slur, so Blackbeard is into them in the same way. Servants with the genderless trait added afterwards weren’t included in this effect, even though some of them (the ones who transphobic fate fans consider to be women) would still be seen as attractive by Blackbeard. So rather than coding each one individually to be included, they added a new trait, the female looking trait, for Blackbeard’s skill. The genderless servants included in this one all present feminine, but the inclusion of this trait is to make continuing a transphobic joke easier, which almost feels like a step back from some of the previous progress in handling trans characters.

I also think some people are a little too eager to give FGO credit when it may not deserve. For instance, a lot of people liked Douman being included in the genderless trait, and on its own it fine, but the my room line where Sei talks about trying to check under Douman’s robes concerns me. Many people took it as Sei just being horny for Douman, but it could easily be intended as Sei trying to check what’s really in his pants, especially since the canon reason Douman has the genderless trait is that he combined himself with some spirits and deities, one of which is female.

None of this is to say its wrong to view any of these characters as nonbinary (I do view most of them as nonbinary), but I don’t think we should view the genderless trait as equivalent to nonbinary. Not only are there characters included in it who probably shouldn’t be (like D’Eon) and characters who don’t have it who probably should (like Nezha), doing so treat nonbinary as a third and wholly separate gender. And if you’re going to talk about the transphobia of FGO, please be willing to use the word transmisogyny.

#transmisogyny #transphobia #fate grand order #fate/go

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