#my main issue is actually something i glossed over in the post

[q-morning-crew]

You know, I've been seeing a lot of posts about Wilbur coming back to the qsmp, and I'm conflicted.

Obviously, Wilbur coming back would be great in most aspects. It would be awesome to see him interacting with the lore, the new members and the new dynamics the server created.

The one problem I see with him coming back is, funny enough, also the main reason people want him to return so badly: tallulah.

Tallulah. His daughter. The reason Wilbur logged on more than twice and pretty much the only reason he is still semi present in the lore despite not having logged on for months.

On the surface, it seems like Wilbur returning would be great for tallulah, wouldn't it?

Wilbur has not logged on for months. Tallulah has been alive for over 100 days, and Wilbur has been there for 8 of them.*

Tallulah sees chayanne as her brother. She calls philza papa. She sleeps in the basement she and chayanne decorated every night, her bed next to his. She has her own projects with phil. She hangs out with him (or bad) practically every day.

Philza can recognize all of her mannerisms and quirks, he knows how to properly accommodate her, he can tell whenever her admin plays any character and whenever any other admin plays her.

If Wilbur came back, what would happen to all of that?

Would she return to her room in the tower? Would chayanne have to sleep alone in their Garden of Hope and Music? Would she have to start calling phil "abuelito" again, after getting used to calling him papa?

In addition, Wilbur doesn't know tallulah the way she is now. He doesn't know the island the way it is now.

One thing I've seen other people point out and still haunts me is: if Wilbur had returned for the election dinner, would he have recognised the fake tallulah as fake? It breaks my heart to say this, but... I don't think he would.

The only way I can see his return not completely disrupting tallulah's existing dynamics is if Wilbur moved in with phil and let her keep calling him papa. I doubt that would happen, but fingers crossed

*not counting appearance on other people's streams because I have no way to count that

[shinidamachu]

I think you or someone else discussed how Inuyasha is most likely demisexual because of his lack of interest in nudity until he formed an emotional bond. I was just thinking how the anti’s claimed Inuyasha settled for Kagome, but all evidence points to him loving her *despite* her resemblance to Kikyo. Not hating on Kikyo, just pointing out how Inuyasha kept saying it’s his fault she died because he didn’t trust her, even though trust has to go both ways but whatever, so if he was settling then Kagome would be a daily reminder that he failed Kikyo. Which would sound like hell considering his repeated claims of his fault.

But clearly in the past discussion of Inuyasha being demisexual, we all know he isn’t shallow or ”settling”.

I might have mentioned Inuyasha being demisexual once or twice, but I don't remember posting something that specific. Maybe someone else did and I reblogged it?

I'm glad you brought up the "Inuyasha settled for Kagome" terrible take, though, because you make great points and boy do I have something to say about it.

First, I love that you mentioned trust has to go both ways despite Inuyasha blaming Kikyo's death solely on his lack of trust on her. It always bothered me how quickily and sincerely he owned up to the role he played on her fate when there was zero reciprocity from Kikyo.

He went as far as taking responsability for things that have never really happened and that would be completely out of his control if they had, such as Kikyo "dying to follow after him" even though he didn't ask for it and never would.

The irony is that, between the two of them, Kikyo was actually the one more equipped to realize they were being played and yet, not only she falls for the same trap, but never really acknowledges that her lack of trust on Inuyasha was just as detrimental to their downfall.

Naraku's entire plan was based on both of them doubting each other. If either one had been more trusting, it'd have failed. Inuyasha recognizes this and regrets not trusting Kikyo, immediately treating her like the victim that she is and never once blaming her.

But he is a victim himself and she never extends the same courtesy to him, still thinking her actions were justified because he should have trusted her — not the other way around — and so she never bothers easing his guilt. On the contrary, she purposely adds to it.

The thing about the love triangle — for lack of a better term — is that Inuyasha and Kagome are constantly pushing their feelings aside to empathize with each other's and Kikyo's pain, while Kikyo acts like she's the only one who's hurting.

Which is to be expected at first because she is the one who died and was brought back against her will, but as the story progressed, I kept waiting for Kikyo to see a little bit of herself on the ordinary girl who was entrusted the weight of the world upon her shoulders, had her shoes to fill and the mess she left behind to clean up.

I kept waiting for her to show some sympathy for the boy who lost fifty years of his life because she misjudged him and was willing to die for a debt she manipulated and guilt-tripped him into thinking he had, a boy she supposedly loves.

None of it came, at least not in a way that felt organic or satisfying. That's my main issue with how Kikyo was written. You can't paint her as a complex character and then gloss over her flaws. You can't sell her as gray character and then pretend the bad things she did never happened.

Takahashi wanted her to reap all of the rewards that come with a redemption arc without really bothering to make her go through one, because that would mean having Kikyo face her mistakes for what they were — including her distrust on Inuyasha — and then apologizing or making up for it, a feat that rarely happened in canon, if at all.

Instead, she abruptly stops acting as vicious, so everything can be conveniently forgiven and forgotten because "she isn't like that anymore." The lack of explanation about what motivated this change makes harder for the audience to connect with her and results in many plot inconsistencies.

And the lack of accountability regarding Kikyo's actions keeps her from growing and reaching her full potential as a character, indirectly regressing or preventing the development of the characters around her as well, which I believe is a huge part of why the story feels repetitive and stagnant at times.

Now, you're definitely onto something when you argue that all evidence actually points to Inuyasha falling in love with Kagome despite her resemblance to Kikyo. I've actually talked about it here and here.

While it's true that Inuyasha mistook Kagome for Kikyo when they first met, it would've been unreasonable to expect anything different. Their looks and scents are similar, he had just woken up from a fifty years long spell and up until then he had no reason to believe otherwise, but Inuyasha actually caught up in a decent amount of time.

After that, as much as he still refused to call Kagome by name, he was also very aware she wasn't Kikyo, to the point that it took seeing her with complete priestess attire on for him to even make that correlation again.

And yet, Inuyasha still doesn't go back into thinking they're the same person, but rather that Kagome's a girl who resembles Kikyo. Only eventually, even this starts to change the more time they spend together and suddenly, when Inuyasha has a nightmare about Kikyo, is Kagome he sees first.

Mind you, he has only seen Kagome in priestess clothes once. Kikyo wore those her entire life. It'd be understandable for him to confuse Kagome for Kikyo and yet Kagome was his first thought here when, by logic, she shouldn't have been. From them on, he doesn't even see any resemblance between the two girls at all anymore.

Which makes sense, because even if Inuyasha had tried to use Kagome as a replacement — something he never did — he couldn't possibly have succeded, since both girls are polar opposites — a creative choice that was done completely on purpose — and Kagome wasn't slightly interested on being anyone but herself, making her into the worst Kikyo replacement ever.

That's why it got easier for Inuyasha to distinguish one girl from the other with time. Their distinct personalities make up for completely different dynamics and bring completely different feelings out of Inuyasha, because they represent completely different things to him and, again: this is done absolutely on purpose.

In the manga, this is better illustrated by two very specific panels. In the first one, Kikyo is smiling sadly but genuinely at Inuyasha — which we don't see her do often — and he admitted later on that the exchange made him feel guilty, like he had done something wrong, since he had just been rude to her.

In the second one, Kagome is smiling brightly at Inuyasha, which she does constantly, then we immediately see him blush and think to himself how relieved he is to see that smile

Of course those are very different contexts, but they pretty much set the tone for both relationships and if the arrangement of those panels wasn't a conscious choice — which I doubt — then Takahashi is insanely lucky. It's also worth noting that Inuyasha felt relieved to see Kagome smiling because it was further confirmation that even after Kikyo's resurrection, she was still Kagome.

So I think it's safe to say the physical resemblance actually slowed the romantic process down, considering that the staged betrayal made Inuyasha build his walls even taller than they were when he met Kikyo. This becomes even more clear when you compare their respective first "amicable" conversations.

With Kikyo, even though he was reluctant about her approach and suspicious of her intentions, there was still a part of him that obviously wanted it to be true, so he was at least open to what she had to say.

With Kagome, he was visibly more aggressive and closed off because he has been burned before and she was the reincarnation of the woman who did the burning, which makes her managing to get his trust so quickly that much more remarkable, since she apparently did in less time and in worse circumstances, what Kikyo couldn't.

And Kagome did it precisely because she never acted like Kikyo. She actually took the time to know Inuyasha, to give him her trust and to earn his, to build a solid relationship, based on honesty and real acceptance.

I like to think that, while Kikyo found a crack on Inuyasha's defense she could slip in, Kagome slowly smashed his walls to the ground, therefore leaving an ever lasting impact on him that she couldn't have made by being anyone but herself.

When Inuyasha starts to pursue Kagome romantically, he does so after concluding that there's absolutely no resemblance between the two girls at all and after going through an entire arc where Kagome cried for his sake and trusted him blindly, none of which has anything to do with Kikyo.

People argue that Inuyasha was actually trying to kiss Kikyo here, but why would he do that when he still thinks she betrayed him? And if this was really the case, then why has he never willingly kissed or tried to kiss Kikyo until their final goodbye, Sunrise additions excluded?

At this point, it makes more sense to me that he was avoiding to look at Kagome not because she looks like Kikyo — he has been looking at her just fine before —, but because he has started to catch feelings for her despite his efforts not to and doesn't know how to act. In fact, when he had the chance to kiss Kikyo soon after, this is what we got instead:

And then he hugs her — something the anime cut out — but the important thing is that Inuyasha had this and many other opportunities to rekindle his relationship with Kikyo and simply didn't.

In this particular occasion, he even go as far as to ask Kikyo to return the piece of soul that keeps her "alive" to Kagome knowing full well what the consequences were.

Why would Inuyasha settle for a "replacement" when he could have the real thing instead? Even if you believe resurrected Kikyo to be nothing more than a malicious replica of the original, she's still more Kikyo than Kagome could or would ever be.

I dislike this notion because if it's true and there's not an ounce of Kikyo there, why should the audience or the characters care if she "lives" or "dies"? If she gets a redemption arc or not? It feels like a cop out to only consider her the real Kikyo when she does good things.

That being said, save for maybe one scene at the beginning where Inuyasha shoved a bow and some arrows at Kagome because Kikyo was a master archer, he never expected her to behave like Kikyo, never tried to change her so she would and never acted frustrated or disappointed at the fact that she was her own person.

Inuyasha has his flaws — as any good main character should — but he always respected the inviduality of both girls, which is more than I can say about the people who insist on this baseless take.

To wrongly paint Inuyasha as someone who settled for Kagome because she looks like Kikyo gets especially icky when even Naraku, the villain who was obsessed with her, never redirected said obsession to Kagome.

It's such a common trope that I was actually expecting it, but I'm glad it didn't happen because it's a subtle and yet effective way of sedimenting both girls as separate individuals instead of going for the cheapest option.

And ironically, the only character who treated Kagome as if she was Kikyo was Kikyo herself, but even that was very early on and she only seemed to do it as a way of belittling Kagome, because while mentioning her to other people — or by the end of the story — Kikyo had no trouble referring to Kagome as a different being.

Sunrise's adaptation made very questionable choices but something they were pretty consistent on was making clear Kagome and Kikyo aren't the same.

Besides, something fundamentally wrong with this argument is that Inuyasha comes off as shallow and Kikyo as disposeable. Shallow because it suggests physical appearance is all that matters — which goes against everything his character stands for in canon — and the soul is just a seal of approval.

Disposeable because it hints Kikyo's personality is so forgettable and unimportant that it played absolutely no part on sparkling Inuyasha's interest. She's so easily replaceable that even someone who had opposite world views, thoughts, feelings, temperament and mannerisms could do the trick. The memories they made are so generic that it wouldn't have make a difference if any other character was in her place.

Why do people even like those characters, why do they even ship them together if they truly believe that? That's why I don't buy that they actually do.

You see, considering how huge Kagome's soul is, Kikyo technically has got to be someone else's reincarnation too, but I've never seen anyone making the case that she is anyone but herself or that her predecessor is also the love of Inuyasha's life.

The reason they try to do this with Kagome is so that they can pretend Inuyasha and Kikyo somehow ended up together to cope with the fact that they didn't. And that's the exact same reason they pretend he setled for Kagome as well.

Which is funny because what exactly was Inuyasha settling for? Like, in the great scheem of things, what was Kikyo able to give him that he couldn't get a thousand times better from Kagome with no strings attached and just had to make his peace with it?

It seems to me like it was the other way around: Kagome managed to accomplish everything Kikyo failed to do, so if anything Inuyasha was settling, it was for Kikyo, resigned to spend the rest of his life as human — something he hated to be — just to get "accepted" or to die for something he didn't do just to appease her.

Finally, to say inuyasha settled implies he had no other choice but to marry Kagome. He had: staying single, because now that he has friends and wasn't alone anymore, he doesn't need a lover to fill that empty space in his life if he doesn't want one.

Plus, Kagome wasn't entitled to his love. She jumped trought that well knowing that three years is a long time, that people and feelings change and that what waited for her on the other side was a mystery, but she did it anyway because all she ever wanted from him was to stay by his side and for him to be honest with her.

Kagome would've been fine with a platonic relationship because even though she obviously wanted more, she was ready to accept whatever Inuyasha was willing to give her, but he wanted her to return so he could give her everything, which he couldn't before because he felt in debt with Kikyo. That's the whole point.

Inuyasha was the one who iniciated every romantic moment they had early on: the first hug, both almost kisses, etc. And it was clear that the things Kagome made him feel, such as that sense of peace, of belonging, of unadultered happiness, were very new to him, so the idea that Inuyasha was settling for her is laughable when this is the character in question:

I know a lot of those scenes were deleted or changed by Sunrise but I watched the anime without reading the manga beforehand and reached the exact same conclusions, so I'm still of the opinion that the people who convinced themselves Kagome was a consolation prize either didn't pay attention or have an agenda of their own to push, that won't change by reading the original material.

TLDR; one does not simply "settle" for their soulmate. They come home to them.

[weirdmageddon]

woaw people are STILL talking about my original strilonde guardian swap homestuck meta post with high praise in the tags and comments

what is the opposite of flopping cause thats what happened to me. i was actually surprised at the outpouring of support and positive responses i’ve gotten on that analysis. had multiple people saying theyre reblogging it more than once “because its that good”

normally people dont leave commentary when they reblog something but so many people went out of their way to say something nice about what i had written and its blowing my mind, thank you. wasnt expecting it. this is what i saw 3 months ago and now theres even more of it, some people are writing straight up prose in the tags here to communicate how good it was and im beyond flattered

it’s not without its faults though not a 100% comprehensive post (such as me glossing over mom lalonde’s alcohol issues and the implications of that which i addressed here in the replies because different moving parts and dynamics could produce different results. check it out) but the main post got the message across i wanted to convey i think. about irony and stuff

[velvetroomkeeper]

Is Danganronpa 2 sexist

A response to @serahne

A few years ago serahne made a post on why the girls in sdr2 are written in a sexist manner and I’m here to go over

Now first off this was made years ago so it’s debatable if she still holds these opinions however that doesn’t exempt this from proper criticism

(For example)

And another thing while I do disagree with her points about this that doesn’t mean she doesn’t make good points and the points I do agree with will not be present in this response

Let’s begin

This is ignoring a few things regarding the characters Akane for instance did take action on her own accord during the series

For instance she tries to fight monokuma after the second trial

Or strangling nagito during the fifth chapter

This also ignores chiaki’s goal to stop the killing along with hajime granted it’s a pretty simple one but it’s still a motive regardless

It also ignores the contributions characters like Sonia have in the narrative such as her knowledge of military weapons coming into play when she’s the first one to realize nagito’s bomb plot was a bluff

Another thing she doesn’t bring up is that while Mikan did kill for love the person she killed for was female shouldn’t this go against the sexist narrative if the person in question is female

Again I’m not saying their writing is perfect it isn’t but you shouldn’t gloss over things like this when making your point or criticizing something because it weakens the point and makes you look like a fool who doesn’t know what they’re talking about

Now I’m pretty neutral about whether hiyoko should’ve died or not because while I do have issues with her dying these mostly stem from execution which I’m not going to get into because it has nothing to do with the main point here but blaming it on sexism feels unwarranted and presumptuous here

Another thing here is that she makes a few mistakes

First off nagito doesn’t actually develop in the context of the game the fact that he still goes with the murder plot should be proof enough that he hasn’t changed within the context of the game while characters like kazuichi did develop as he went from not trusting anyone to finally trusting in other its not the strongest arc in the series but it’s still an arc regardless

Another thing is that when writing this serahne at the time really disliked nanami claiming her writing was sexist for pretty bad reasons that ignored details I made a response on my blog you can check it out if you want

But again she’s ignoring nanami actually giving herself up and resisting her programming so the others can survive

Akane became less rash and more patient

Sonia became more determined to push forward and stop the game

So (say it with me)

Don’t ignore things like this it’s going to ruin you’re credibility

(Damn you gamergate!)

If I had to describe this it’s a massive generalization of all female characters in the game and it’s really does more against her point

So apparently because most of the girls in the series are good people that automatically makes them waifu bait only made to please the men

(Oh boy where do I start with this one)

First off “All the characters were created to be potential waifu”

Danganronpa is part dating sim of course they’re all going to be potential waifu’s even the ones you praised before

Secondly “they are all nice polite caring are all following the fetishized innocence”

Okay first off how is writing a character to be nice and polite and caring automatically fetishizing innocence (screw you gamergate)

Secondly not of the characters are these sexually submissive dolls you’re making them out to be when most of them have a few quirks that would turn other away

Akane is about as conventionally feminine as mondo meaning she doesn’t act like waifu bait especially not with that gluttonous behavior of hers

Sonia loves serial killers and dark magic

Ibuki is constantly portrayed as very eccentric to the point where is got her kicked from her former band

Mikan is very unstable and possessive to violent degrees

Mahiru can be very demanding and abrasive sometimes

And Chiaki the gamer girl you constantly call waifu bait enjoys games like this

So yeah real waifu bait there

And you end with a circular argument that bases itself on a faulty premise

Oh boy this is rich

Miu and Angie both have the most sexualized designs in any mainline Danganronpa game

Not to mention miu becomes totally submissive when someone pushes back at her

Plus celes is wearing a gothic Lolita outfit

And you had to cite mostly antagonistic characters to make your point which is pretty indicative

And Sakura doesn’t actually argue or try to fight the male player and she’s one of the more polite and kind hearted members of the first class so by your own logic she should be considered waifu bait regardless of how her character is meant to break down gender stereotypes

Conclusion

Yeah this is not a good meta

It ignores details and makes dumb reasons for why a character is waifu bait that don’t make any sense

Now I’m not going to go after the part about fanservice because I actually agree with that one however this for the most part is very poorly construed ignores details makes dumb reasons for why this is waifu bait and is pretty terrible

[aihoshiino]

I saw recently you said that you dont like the current version of akane, and I honestly agree. But what are your reason you dont like post tb akane

Hello anon, sorry for the wait!!! I have actually been pecking at the response for this all week because it ended up dovetailing into some of my broader thoughts and issues with the manga using my feelings about Akane's characterization as a sort of lens/jumping off point. I hope this is still interesting to read even though it took forever to answer lol.

I also want to note that the bulk of this post was written before chapter 128! Some of my issues that are mentioned in this post did get sort of poked at and paid some lipservice in a way that makes me hopeful we'll get some improvement on this stuff as the movie arc progresses. Think of this as 'my pre-128 thoughts' if you come across it in like a post chapter 130 world in the distant future. It's also uh fucking long (it was over 2000 words long when I stopped counting.....) so enjoy this mini essay???

To get my most neutral thoughts out of the way up front, Akane is a character I really like in LoveNow! I think the arc she's given is compelling and her struggles feel super real. The gradual peeling back of her outer layers and the reveal that she's just as damaged by the industry as the people around her was really good and my only real major problem with LN is that I felt like the aftermath of her suicide attempt (at least, emotionally speaking) was glossed over a bit too quickly for my liking. On top of that, I like a lot of ideas about TB Akane on paper and I'm not inherently against any of the things that get put on the table in relation to her. My issues are more to do with the ways Akasaka executes said ideas and – imo – fails to capitalize on a lot of the interesting potential that a character like Akane presents.

I think this issue partially stems from the fact that Akane and Memcho were (iirc anyway) not actually originally intended to stick around with the main cast past the LoveNow arc. Memcho didn't really have a personal arc during LoveNow and during the rest of the manga, she sort of has a "flat" arc, so I think she makes the transition a lot more gracefully. Which is not to say Memcho herself is a flat character lol! Rather a 'flat' arc is when a character doesn't necessarily have some major change in themselves, but their intrinsic traits/beliefs/etc help to advance the arcs of characters around them; sort of like a mentor type character, if that helps.

Akane, by contrast, had a pretty dynamic character arc that felt as though it was intended to be relatively self contained and conclusive but with Akasaka's plans changing behind the scenes, Akane has ended up sort of outlasting the arc she was originally set up to have. That's not to say a character can't still be relevant after their arc is done or that a character needs an active ongoing arc to work within a story but there's a lot of things about the way that arc is simply not resolved that bug me – for example, the arc wrap makes a big point of saying that Akane will probably have to deal with ongoing online negativity for the rest of her career but this never comes up again even in places where it really should be relevant. I also just personally am not a big fan of how quickly and completely Akane's suicide attempt gets swept under the rug and is literally never addressed again once LoveNow wraps but that's more of an issue with OnK's bad habit of dropping loose threads a whole than it is something specific to Akane.

As for the rest of it… uh, this might be a bummer to see in the main tag if Akane is your Oshi no Girlie so I'll put the rest of my thoughts behind a cut. Akane enjoyers, please feel free to pretend I'm just talking about my favourite ice cream flavours or something. Or even go get some ice cream yourself and say it's on me. I don't care if it's October, ice cream is a forever food!!!

SO… To get the most immediate and shallow points off the table first, I just find the character design change between LoveNow and TB Akane really jarring lol. Like, I guess it's not necessarily impossible for her hair to have grown down to her chest in the time between LoveNow and when she pops back up but that combined with the changes in how she starts being characterized really just widen that gulf. The only time she ever really feels like LoveNow Akane to me again is when she takes Aqua to see a 2.5D play and is just so happy afterwards that he enjoyed it – that's cute! That's charming! That's the Akane I liked a lot in LoveNow and I feel like we don't really see her again after that but it's hard to put my finger on what feels so off. It's kind of just Vibes.

Getting into more serious, structural stuff a big part of why I feel post-TB Akane falls flat for me is simply that a lot of the interesting things Aka put on the table for her during LoveNow have been swept away and ignored. There are so many things that could be done with Akane as a character that are absolutely screaming out with incredible thematic potential but Akasaka hasn't really taken advantage of any of them. At the worst points of the manga, it feels like she's being used as a blunt force tool to make the plot go at the speed Akasaka wants it to progress and this has resulted in Akane spending a good chunk of the story doing literally nothing on-panel that doesn't revolve around Aqua in some way. Everything else – her rivalry with Kana, her passion for acting, her relationship with her family and her manager – is paid the barest bits of lipservice if it's even acknowledged at all but when you really get down to the nitty gritty of what Akane meaningfully engages with and achieves in most arcs now exclusively has to do with Aqua.

It's not inherently a bad thing for a character to be motivated by outside factors or for their actions to be driven by devotion or even hatred for somebody else – Aqua himself is a good example of a character whose arc is driven by both of these things, as his devotion to Ai and hatred for the man who hurt her are the main external things driving him through pretty much the entire story so far. But Aqua also has things going on outside of this – other important connections and relationships, feelings and conflicts and motivations that make him feel, imo, more well realized. Not only that, but his arc has a very well conveyed and easy to understand "want vs need" conflict, of his continued pursuit of revenge having clear and tangible friction with his emotional need to let go of his past trauma and move on.

Akane has, since Tokyo Blade, been sorely lacking in a lot of these areas. Her acting career progresses entirely offscreen with no apparent conflict or effort on her part and she has absolutely no strong or meaningful connections to the cast outside of Aqua and arguably Kana, but they haven't really had any sort of meaningful or meaty interactions since way back around, what, the mid-70s, in chapter terms? Not only that but her existing relationships have largely been completely put to the wayside, too. LoveNow establishes her as a person who cares deeply for the people who care for her – her mom, her manager, her friends on the show. Akane felt so bad about people saying bad things about her mom and her manager online – not even harassment actually directed at them, or that we have any reason to believe they saw or received! – that it contributed to her suicide attempt. Contrast this to when she is literally about to walk off and attempt a literal actual fucking murder and all she's thinking is "aqua… let's have crepes together… let's be together forever…". No consideration for her parents, who are about to go through unimaginable pain, or the promising acting career she's about to destroy? Nope! Akane revolves entirely around Aqua now. It feels insulting!

I don't even necessarily hate or even disagree with taking Akane in the direction of her fixating on Aqua in response to him saving her and feeling like she has to cling to him and throw away her life to 'save' him in return. I do think the story is purposely portraying this as an unhealthy fixation and does not want us to uncritically celebrate this aspect of their relationship but I also just think the story kind of fails to really examine Akane to the logical conclusion of that flaw.

In general, Akane is one of those characters who like… I don't quite know how to express this feeling so forgive me if I go in circles on this topic a bit, but there are occasions where Akane will do or say something genuinely shitty or deranged or display a pattern of behaviour that speaks clearly to a flaw of hers in ways I want to be on board and engaged with but as time passes, it becomes clear that the narrative does not actually see anything wrong with what just happened and so it never gets addressed or meaningfully engaged with. There's a lot of little bits like this (can we talk about how Akane leveraged her suicide attempt against Aqua as a manipulation technique in TB and this never comes up again?? lol???) but the thing that really truly sticks in my craw is the way Akane is repeatedly depicted as continuing to use her fake 'Aikane' persona (as conveyed by the star eyes) during her acting career and starts getting famous at least partially because of it.

This is going to sound really dramatic but as someone who deeply, deeply cares about Ai and is so, so compelled by the tragedy that was her exploitation in life and death – this is so horrifying! This is Akane directly profiting off her exploitation of Ai's image. This is Akane digging up Ai's corpse so she can rip out her guts and parade around wearing them. It is absolutely baffling to me that the story at no point pauses to at least acknowledge that this is another way in which Ai is being exploited even in death – that even now, almost twenty years later, she cannot ever escape or be left to rest in peace as a human being.

Honestly Akane's relationship to Ai is SUCH a mountain of missed opportunities it makes me kind of crazy. Like, we get some wishy-washy stuff about ~Ai's emotions that were revived in her~ but seemingly the only thing done with that is to give Akane a cheat code to magically know things about the mystery she should have no reasonable way of deducting. But like - if Akane really does understand Ai so completely and it's so empathetic that she can Sherlock scan the emotions of a dead woman she had never met then why does she never, you know… express any kind of opinion on her? What does Akane think of Ai? What does she think about the way Ai was exploited and abused by the very industry Akane is trying to break into? Holy shit! It should be SO obvious to draw a parallel between Ai's death at the hands of a ex-fan and Akane's suicide attempt driven by fan harassment. But Akane just… never talks about Ai or even really treats her like a person even though she apparently downloaded Ai into her brain by reading Wikipedia really hard.

It's frustrating because there SHOULD be a really great thematic idea here - other characters often treat Ai as this inscrutable enigma but with Akane, there was the opportunity to make a point that Ai was just a lonely, messed up person and that if Akane can come to understand and connect with her post mortem then the people in her life absolutely could have put in the effort to understand and connect with her while she was still alive. The story failing to have Akane treat Ai even the slightest bit like a person ends up making her feel really callous in a way that was clearly not intentional and is, as a result, frustrating to read. This also comes into play in the ways she's so tunnel visioned on Aqua. Like, there's just something really darkly funny about Akane acknowledging how insanely unimaginably tragic the horror of Ai's death is and the way the people closest to her were robbed of the opportunity to publicly heal and grieve and then she just... totally fails to acknowledge Ruby also experienced this life altering trauma? LIKE

"your little sister is on her own, though"

To be clear, Akane being callous and kind of tunnel-visioned is not in of itself something I have a problem with. As a Category 5 Women's Wrongs Enjoyer (my list of favourite fictional women includes Monika DDLC, Akane Shinjo and Junko Enoshima lol) so I actually think Akane having those sorts of nastier flaws or at least having blinders up that make her behave in such a way that contrasts her actually heart would be so good and juicy! It would be a really good opportunity to dig into ideas of like... someone can go through something horrible that negatively impacts them and maybe even makes them behave in poor and destructive ways, but just because someone isn't a 100% pure and sympathetic 'perfect' victim doesn't at all take away from the fact that they were victimized and they still deserve to be helped and protected. But because the story seems to be largely unaware that Akane comes off like this, it fails to be meaningfully engaged with which, again, makes it frustrating to read.

I do have hope that a lot of these issues will be resolved, though! The AquAkane breakup finally forcefully ripped her out of the role of 'Aqua's Perfect Girlfriend' and while she's still orbiting him a bit more than I necessarily would like, chapter 128 has already done a lot to address some of these issues. Even stuff as small as Akane talking to Memcho and Kana and not really having any page time with Aqua and her acknowledging that both Aqua and Ruby (with particular emphasis on Ruby, it seems!) are both still suffering in the aftermath of their childhood trauma. It's small, but a lot of my issues with Akane were of the 'death by a thousand cuts' variety so even having them addressed in these passing ways does a lot to help.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if I eventually come around on Akane and end up liking her a lot more. I've sort of had similar feelings about characters in works I like before – off the top of my head, I remember really disliking Naoto from Persona 4 when I first played the game because the section of the story she's associated with has some really bullshit pacing and Naoto is used in some really awkward ways by the narrative that made me associate those feelings of frustration with her. I felt similarly about Megumi from 13 Sentinels where I felt like some of the beats in her story dragged down both her arc and the arcs of the characters associated with her and really disliked her as a result. Upon revisiting both games though, I was able to properly separate my feelings of frustration with the narrative from the characters themselves and ended up coming around on both of them in a huge way.

Once Oshi no Ko wraps and we can see what Akane's arc looks like in its entirety, I fully expect to have a similar turnaround on her. I don't expect that she'll ever be one of my favourite characters but once we can see the totality of her character arc and the full scope of her role in the story, I expect to find more appreciation for her. Right now, though, while I'm still sort of stewing in disappointment, hope, expectation and frustrations it's hard to fully come around on her.

[freyalise]

that anon question about litrpg got me thinking about the iterative nature of isekai (and anime/manga as a whole i guess). do you have a favourite and least favourite genre convention?

the secret knowledge is that all literature is iterative because it's impossible to produce art in a vacuum. the other secret knowledge is that iterative doesn't necessarily imply forward progress but rather that cultural trends can be tracked in different vague directions

least favorite: i feel like it's the isekai free space but my least favorite has got to be every single time isekai depicts slavery. a whole lot of fantasy as a genre has issues with depiction of slavery but fantasy manga and isekai in particular have issues with showing slavery as just something that happens with no ethical exploration in pre-industrial fantasy societies. this topic frequently comes up about isekai in particular because of how often the protagonist either tacitly or actively endorses the institution of slavery (with special dishonorable mention to rising of the shield hero here).

that being said, even so-called "more ethical" isekai has its issues with this. in that time i got reincarnated as a slime, which by the way is one of my favorite media franchises, the fact that the orcs are prisoners of war forced into involuntary labor is more or less glossed over because rimuru is really nice to them! plus there are a lot of recent manga where the main character can tame intelligent monsters and it's not slavery you guys they just look 99% human and obey their every command and are more or less incapable of leaving it's fine main character-kun just treats them so well so it's okay.

i'm not really asking for every isekai protagonist to start cutting down slavers (though they fuckin should) but i think that if an author is going to depict slavery in their story they should be prepared to grapple with that ethical dilemma at least a little bit

most favorite: i want to say that in a different post i talked about characters that have to grapple with their previous lives and deaths in their new world, so i won't go in-depth into that. instead, i'll say that i'm a sucker for stories where the main character is isekai'd to a setting where they have foreknowledge of disastrous events and have to rely on their wits to avert that disastrous future. you see this a lot in otome isekai from korea specifically since "book enjoyer gets isekai'd as the villainess/mob character" is a super common trope over there, some of which actually get anime (why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion)! ofc this happens a lot in manga too (with one day left i'll break all the destruction flags: 'serves you right!' RTA 24 hour record, my next life as a villainess: all routes lead to doom!), but i find that manhwa tend to tell a more in-depth story due to the faster release cycles. i'm thinking about things like marriage of convenience (which isn't an isekai, but i'm counting it here nonetheless) or master villainess the invincible!

[procrastinatorproject]

So, I was just mercilessly roasted by @regionalpancake, and it reminded me that I had opened tumblr a couple hours ago to write a post about the exact same thing she roasted me about -- but then I was good and put tumblr away because i need to do SO MANY UNI THINGS 😱

But now that it's come up again, I'm gonna just write this and then get back to Productivity™

Basically, I have this huge collection of semi-finished, mostly plotless Star Trek: La Sirena whump stories. And I do mean huge! On the order of 200k+ words, in fact. None of which I ever intended on sharing, because it's all daydream-adjacent and OC-centric (because my daydreams are pretty much exclusively self-inset. 'tis how the brain rolls, and always has).

If I ever wanted to share any of them publically, first of all, it would require a whole bunch of editing and/or added context to gloss over the parts where you'd need about ten years of daydreamt worldbuilding to understand what the fuck they're even talking about! And even with that smoothed over, there is still the issue of having a non-established and somewhat non-descript original main character, which can really put people off. And while I primarily write for myself and only secondarily for my friends, if I put something out into the world for others to see, I do wnat it to be semi-decent, so I do think about these things a lot.

But I've been rereading these stories, and goddamnit, there is some excellent writing in there! And some of it has already showed up in some of my main feed fics, but a lot of it hasn't, and actually, I really want to share it!

So, now I'm faced with a conundrum, because my choices basically are:

Only slightly edit the existing stories to smooth over the bits that really need additional context to make sense to a reader who hasn't lived in my head the past decade, but otherwise leave them as-is

Only take the best bits and pieces from the existing stories and create new original stories out of them that feauture canon characters (or maybe one or two OCs but make them fully-fleshed characters by including the required establishing passages to bring new readers on board)

Search-and-replace the OC with a canon character and do the required editing to make it work.

And I'm honestly torn 😅 Because I've been attempting approach 2 over the last few years, and nothing has been happening. Approach 1 is the "Fuck it, I write for myself and have a right to archive those stories, too!"-attitude I aspire to, but it's also fucking scary 🙈

But coincidentally, I was re-reading one of these stories earlier, and my brain kept going "Hm. If you shuffle these characters around a tiny bit and then make Agnes the main character, you'd only have to do some minor editing here and here for it to work really well for her, actually 🤔"

And just now, when I lamented to Pancakes that I really want to write more Agnes, her devastatingly accurate reply was: "Just search replace some of your whump with Agnes! That should fit, right?"

(Which... There is a reason I identify with Agnes so hard it makes it difficult for me to actually write her 🙈🙈🙈)

So yeah. That's what I've been mulling over this fine November day.

Serious question: Would you read a story that is fairly clearly marked as "OC main character with minimal establishment" if it containted characters and tropes you enjoyed? Or is that a huge No-no for you?

And second question: can you tell me why you feel either way? Is it nice to have a more-or-less blank slate to slot yourself into? Does it feel too personal if you suspect you're reading a writer's self-insert, whether they confirm it or not? Do you not care as long as the characterization of canon characters and the whump are good? Is it "I'm going to fanfic so I don't have to do the hard work of connecting with new characters"?

And if it were a properly established OC, i.e. not just "this person exists, already slotted into this crew, don't worry about it", but "this fully fleshed-out character has a backstory and a history of how they met these characters and they will be introduced accordingly" (like, say, Xyr in A Night at the Opera), does "OC" still make you think "must be self-insert and thus must be shit?" 🤔

[twilightguardian]

More Discussing Fixing RWBY Criticisms

I've been thinking of doing this for a while, since I know while my initial essay was ungodly long, it wasn't comprehensive. Plus, there's new criticisms and stuff I glossed over in my initial post that started my involvement in all this. Partially because it wasn't as big, but also some of the criticisms require a lot more time, effort and nuance to look through and discuss and my initial post had taken a couple of days to bang out.

I'll start off with a review that was posted due to my involvement in this. I think it was a good review, and it was brought to my attention because Raymond happened to see it and discussed it. This person has unfortunately blocked me, and I don't blame them for it, because I said some things that with my phrasing could be viewed in a less than good light. But I'll explain myself a little bit below, when I talk about my general attitude toward confronting people since I might as well.

I'm mainly posting this as a primer because it's going to encompass most of the criticism. And I think it's fair if the reviewer didn't find the faunus plotline to their tastes. Not everyone is going to be satisfied with it, no matter what and at the end of the day, no matter how hard someone tries, there's going to be issues someone will take with a work, or how a concept is presented, and there's ultimately nothing that can be done with it. The most that an author can do is their sincere best.

I think calling the White Fang 'the bad guys' in Fixing is a little simplistic. Sure, they are an antagonistic force to some extent, but they aren't bad or evil. The first volume has thieves posing to frame the White Fang and cover Roman's tracks. The second volume does have actual White Fang members, recruited by Cinder, and Roman forced in middle management between the two.

But it is established that there is corruption seeping into the organization and disparate groups in some internal political maneuvering in the background as people with different ideas move about among the different branches. This is where we get Onryu, who is only ever mentioned, Adam, who was under Onryu, and then Sienna and Ghira.

Volume 3 has Adam directly involved and pushing White Fang involvement in the Fall of Beacon. Adam abusing his power and influence, and later in Volume 4 blames the actions he pushed for on the Lieutenant who died. I think that pretty clearly establishes that these are individuals and mindsets within and not the White Fang as a whole who are considered bad guys, but people swayed by charisma and ideology to do a man's bidding with the White Fang itself in opposition to it in Volumes 4&5.

As for Blake, she said directly that their parents got a new extension to their home, and later it's stated that Ghira is newly crowned Chieftain.

Getting extra clarification on this, there was mention that Blake was meant to be 12 when she ran away, but her family's class status doesn't actually matter to this other than as background detail. But there was something that we determined was a genuine flub on his part because of this criticism, with him waffling on whether the house belonged to the Belladonna's or the house belonged to the Chieftain who'd move in once elected.

Either way, Blake isn't a rich princess-or-equivalent in Fixing, nor is it meant to imply that she is in the dialogue. I believe he could have been clearer on this, but the scene where he says 'newly elected Chief' is there.

I'm unsure if this is an issue or just stating a fact. But if it is criticism, then I'm not sure how racism being mostly an issue within the minds of individuals is a problem. We saw it be an issue all throughout volume 1 and it's mentioned with Cardin. Weiss' arc is also very much heavily focused on racism, even if her main issue is her perfectionist attitude about her team.

It's a little confusing when it's stated here that they're hoping it'll be treated like a big deal but then implies that they're brushing off everything with Cardin and Weiss as not being enough. I suppose in this person's mind, at least according to what I'm gaining from this review, the only racism worth talking about is systemic? I do not want to assume, but that's what I glean off this.

Well, I'd already said how Blake is not the pseudo Weiss-like character this person seems to think she is. But even so, that doesn't mean Blake hasn't experienced racism in her life. Especially after she joined the White Fang. I'd honestly think that if a faunus family like Blake's could gain that much affluence, then things have improved. And that's the point, isn't it? Adam's a true believer of the cause, and Blake attacked his core motive: One that has driven him to spite and hatred and malice, no matter where it may have started.

He's had a rough situation, but can he see past it? Can he see the concept of a good human? Or that the situation with the faunus has improved, even if there's still work to be done? If what he wants is no longer equality, but revenge, no amount of what happened in his past should justify Blake sitting back and watching Adam hurt innocent people. It's a cycle of hatred and violence, one that is easy to fall into.

That's ultimately the dilemma between Blake and Adam now, though I'm told we'll get a lot more into this as we go through Volume 6.

The comments feel very ideological, and such things can paint one's view of a work. But I just want to say that I don't think Blake's tragedies have to match Adam's in order for her to have an opinion on his extremism. Do I think that Blake being an orphan could make her case stronger? Sure. I don't think it's necessary.

In my rewrite/OW template, my interpretation of the White Fang is much more leaning into religious cult, with its members being raised and indoctrinated into an idea that humans are the enemy and will harm you if you let them. But the White Fang are also not the only racial justice group, with Velvet being a part of one in Vale and takes over as a student representative and leader of the movement at Beacon when the last one graduates.

In Fixing, we just had Ghira and Kali set up an all-faunus disaster-relief force that's separate from the White Fang as well.

There are many different routes that one can go with depending on how close or far one wants to take the ideas and worldbuilding and Blake can be adjusted for to fit the needs of that world.

There have been a couple of Sketchy Huntsman who have addressed this months ago. Your mileage may vary with how successful that was. There are some people who go to extremes with how careful one must tread when addressing other cultures to the point where it's almost not worth it to acknowledge another culture's existence. In writing circles there's also a growing concern over the concept of sensitivity readers hindering a project more than helping.

The term itself is also vague and muddies the conversation, and I much prefer the term 'diversity editor' as it better reflects their role in professional writing and what they're meant to do. But I digress.

This isn't professional writing. It's a fan project meant to expand upon and correct issues with the worldbuilding of this franchise. So what do we have?

This text claims that the Branwen tribe is inspired off the Ainu people. This gives a false impression it's meant to be a 1-1 comparison between real life Ainu peoples and the Branwens. That's not true. The SH who have addressed building up the tribe talked about how the Branwen tribe is a fictional ethnicity and culture that are based on multiple different cultures, not just one. There's elements of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Mongolian and yes, Ainu. They aren't representative of one ethnic group, nor were they ever intended to be. The main inspiration were those of Mongolian tribes, of which there are many. It was specified Mongolian Steppe Peoples, though there was contention with this use of words.

Pan-Asia is a term and ideology that seeks to unify all elements of Asian peoples. Japan itself has tried to use this term for its own imperialist gain. But for our uses here, Pan-Asian does not work. This isn't a unification of Asian cultures into a single amalgamus blob of Asia. This is creating a fictional ethnicity by taking inspiration from many different real life ethnicities. This contention seems to be under the impression still that no matter what, the ethnicity is still meant to represent a real group of people when that's not true.

I take issue with the idea that creating something by taking elements of other things is inherently bad. That is how art is made. An artist will look up pieces of different clothing to create something that looks similar to, but isn't quite like the sum of its parts. Collages are made out of what inspires you with the design. This is no different, and the exact method used in designing the clothes of the Branwen tribe, and broadly their ethnicity as a whole, made of many things but not directly any of them, but something new. It's fiction. We who write fiction are inspired off the real world, and may at times reflect it, but never copy it lest we get called out for being hacks.

The Branwens are bandits. They are nothing more than bandits in canon, a collection of people who gathered around Raven, though a handful may have been with her since they were young. Fixing turned them into a people.

I repeat that humans cannot create something out of nothing. We don't have that amount of creative freedom, and something is bound to be copied intentionally or not off of something that person has experienced in their lives, or looks up. It is not disrespectful to be inspired, to have no desire to create a perfect representation of a specific peoples in a world that is not reflective of ours.

It is correct that there is a misconception about what the bear is being sacrificed to. The bear, taken from its mother and raised like a person, is then killed off after two seasons with arrows until its throat is slit and the spirit of the god is released back into the mountains. The peoples are gathered for the celebration and the flesh is then eaten.

But the process of killing the god is itself still called a sacrifice, no matter if it is to something or for its own benefit. It is still a sacrificial ceremony where the life of the mortal bear is sacrificed to release the spirit of the god.

To take this concept and apply it to Vernal is called symbolism. Symbolically she is the bear, worshipped and venerated and kept close and raised well, but it is her mother's faults and failings that ultimately get her daughter killed, propping her up as a god and slaughtering her. Symbolism doesn't have to be directly comparable and to think that it must is to stifle creativity and art.

Yes, I have done research on Ainu culture, both because of my own interest with characters in fiction who were directly Ainu, but also because of this. Knowing the meanings behind things, the ceremonies, the practices, the beliefs does not mean I'll necessarily want to replicate it. In a way, like how Ainu art is respectful to the gods by creating something original, not replicating and creating a realistic image, so too does the Branwen's Ainu leanings not reflect the truth out of respect.

Honestly this is the end of the Fixing RWBY section. Stop reading if you don't care about what I have to say below because it's otherwise unrelated because this issue wasn't about Fixing, but the one time I talked about canon (legitimate hot take) and people got upset.

So, here we are. The 'stain' on my time here and the main reason I was blocked by this person in particular. I will clarify I was talking about Shay, not Shiloh, and I differentiate them by calling them by their names depending on whether I'm talking about canon or Fixing. And I was talking about Shay.

In my opinion, Shay did not sexually harass Yang and I'll stand by that. Why? Because I'm not someone who is going to look at every single negative and unwanted interaction and label it as such and my opinions are very strong on this. Sexual harassment can be any unwanted interaction because there is no solid definition. Because I have friends who have told me they witnessed these situations at parties, where the girl is upset the guy leaves and complains to my friend about it because she was playing hard to get so why'd he leave? I've been directly in Yang's situation myself, and arguably worse because the guy did end up touching me.

So why do I not view any of these three examples as sexual harassment? Firstly, context. The guy is drunk, and if anyone who has been around drunk people know, their mental faculties aren't exactly there. That means their booze-addled brains are too stupid to comprehend small little social faux pas like touching someone's hair or (in my case) reaching into someone's mouth because they're wearing fake vampire fangs and drunk brain goes what the fuck is that. He was clearly trying to flirt, not believing the girl he saw was as young as she claimed, because dumbo drunko brain. Yang was calm, slightly annoyed, but engaged in conversation with the guy. To me, thinking about how drunk people can be fucking stupid, can easily see the guy interpreting her engagement in conversation as egging him on and playing hard to get.

Secondly, I simply don't automatically assume malice in anyone, fictional or otherwise until it's made clear to me they're meant to be someone I shouldn't trust. There has to be strong evidence to the contrary, and even after the reveal of him being a bandit, he's played far too much for laughs for me to consider him any amount of legitimate threat.

Thirdly, and this was the thing I was trying to originally say: I don't like calling Yang a victim of sexual harassment. That implies some level of frailty on her part, and she was in control and comfortable in the space and with her abilities the entire time despite the small triggering of small episodes with her shaking hand.

Whether or not someone still agrees with me after this, that's fine. But I do not like the idea of infantilizing Yang as a victim of Shay and that idea triggered something primal in me. But I'm not a sexual assault apologist or whatever for looking into the context and not immediately assuming malintent due to my own personal experiences and the experiences I've heard about from close friends. This isn't out of nowhere. Some people are going to have their own experiences that aren't mine, and they'll interpret the scene a lot more maliciously than I have. I'm not meaning to downplay their experiences, merely state that my own has painted my perception of the scene, as their experiences also painted theirs. But at the end of the day, I stand by Yang was not a victim of sexual harassment.

As for mentioning someone's sexuality, the meaning people took from it was the direct opposite of what I'd intended, and I can in some ways acknowledge if I wrote it in an unclear way. I was trying to say that I did not believe she could use her lesbianism to play dumb on the topic of male dating and flirting because I thought she was too smart for that and didn't believe gay flirting could be that different.

[indigowizard]

An in-depth diss of Roxanne Wolf

I feel like what I've posted thus far in relation to this travesty of a character is only a hint of how I really feel about her. Obviously, I've made it apparent that I don't like her, but for all you can tell, I might as well just take her flimsy-as-cardboard insults at face value, or dislike her overt popularity (and thirsting) in the fandom.

However, it is neither of these things.

Initially, I just despised Roxanne Wolf because I took one look at her and thought: "Oh. The very moment Scott Cawthon handed off his franchise to another party (I didn't know that Steel Wool worked on Help Wanted at this point), they instantly decided to try and make the generic template of an angsty deviantart OC into a character." You see, that doesn't work, at least, not with FNaF.

You can't be a blocky, uncanny, ventriloquist doll-looking children's entertainment android, possessed by the spirit of one of the children it was meant to entertain (and you can go off in the comments about how they're not really possessed, it doesn't really matter either way) and also a bona fide furry rock star, it doesn't work outside of weird, plot-incongruent fanfictions. You can't be a muppet and a Black Sabbath band member. You can't be a telly-tubby and Marilyn Manson--actually, scratch that, Marilyn Manson does kinda look like if you took the beanie off of a telly-tubby. But my point is, you can't have your Chuck e. Cheese pizza and eat it like a badass, too. Unless you're Dante from Devil May Cry. (This paragraph has enough tangents that I should say 'Perchance' as a non-sequitur.)

But then, as I suffered myself to get into the game through watching playthroughs, I started to see that this issue covered all of the main four, and it seemed more to be an in-universe issue, but regardless, it still seemed to be be Roxy especially.

But I also began to taste of that angst, that good old My Immortal-esque angst, and, like a former drug addict recidivating, I fell right for it, and I realized: Roxy is the perfect angst cow. Not only does she have on of the most generic reasons for angst ('I doubt my value both intrinsically and in terms of how others see me'), but she is also truly trapped. Trapped in a building she can't leave lest she run out of power; trapped by the fact that, legally, she is literal property of her company--"A mere object!", as Gabriel from ULTRAKILL would say; and, finally, trapped by the fact that, whether possessed by a ghost, or possessed of a spark of life like in the FNaF novels, she is still subject to the faulty code that will forever wire her to be the way she is.

Perfectly angsty. Perfectly one dimensional and stupid. Perfectly vulnerable. Perchance.

The single lick of passion and competitive aggression, and the base appeal that any anthro wolf girl has, plus something about part of her aesthetic, all amount to a few scraps of likeability. Likeability which can be stirred up and made something of when reading enough silly little fanfictions. Likeability which makes her pathos just poignant enough to stroke those dopamine receptors in my brain that respond to that sort of thing. Just enough to make me relish drinking the tears from her eyes and the blood from her torn-out heart.

The fact is that if I can gloss over the fact that she's a machine, for kids, probably possessed by a kid, and also extremely ugly in-game, I can just about find her shallowly crush-worthy. That's necessary. If she weren't 'beautiful', then her angst wouldn't be beautiful either. But if she weren't stupid, (both she herself, and the basic concept of her, including how generic and one-dimensional her inner turmoil is) then her angst wouldn't be funny, either. She has to be both, and she is, so I feel about her the way I do--the closest comparison I could think of being kismesis from Homestuck.

So, in conclusion, I actually kind of like Roxy. But not in the normal way. Not in the way you simply and honestly are fond of a character, and wish them the best. I like Roxy as a lamb to the slaughter, just detestable enough to feel mirth at her suffering, but just lovable enough to empathize with her angst enough to relish in it. A perfect object of my sadism. A sweet peach to be torn into with my teeth. Tender. Delectable. Served medium rare, cooked in tears--even if they are a waste of good suffering.

[clearlakeve]

a insomnia-driven set of thoughts (i.e. a book review) on Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under The Sea

I feel like I should like this book more than I actually did. On paper, it's got all the stuff I like -- a tragedy in the making, "you love her but you can't keep her", the ocean, cosmic horror, etc. But...something about the execution is just off for me I guess? 

Let me be clear: these are 100% my own opinions, and I understand that a lot of people like this book. That's absolutely fine! Nobody has to agree with me! Everyone is entitled to their own opinions! No hate here :)

Things I liked:

   1) I think the book does a very good job of acknowledging/representing the queer love? romance? at its core. Miri and Leah are married, and that is important to them, and it's not a major plot point or anything, but there are still subtle societal pressures surrounding them. It's always nice to see relationships like this normalized in a realistic way.

   2) The ocean descriptions. oh my god. I love the ocean and I think the book did an excellent job of conveying its beauty and also how terrifying and vast and unknown it is. "To know the ocean, I have always felt, is to recognize the teeth it keeps half hidden." Amazing. 10/10 line. Beautiful.

   3) Leah's chapters are pretty cool. She's obviously the more dynamic character to Miri's more passive one, and while this...has certain drawbacks I'll talk about later, conceptually the idea that the more passive person, the one left behind picking up the pieces is the one stuck in the present while the dynamic character is (in a sorta meta sense) stuck in the past is a pretty cool subversion of traditional adventuring/fiction tropes. It's clear that the Leah whose chapters we read no longer exists in Miri's present.

   4) It was always going to end like this. You were never going to be able to keep her. "Every horror movie ends the way you know it will." That one Tumblr post that goes something like "I loved you so much I broke the laws of nature to bring you back but I do not think either of us are happy." (aka the leftover pizza post). Despite the fact that I had issues with the way Miri and Leah were written, the sense of mounting doom constant in the background of the story was there, and contributed heavily to the tone of the overall story.

My problems:

   1a) I think my biggest problem is that the story and writing just did not make me care enough about either of the main characters. We are supposed to care about Miri, and through her, care about Leah. (I concede that Miri herself acknowledged this, but being self aware about this does not invalidate the detachment I felt from both the characters.) Leah and Miri are the center of the story -- if we cannot bring ourselves to care about them, the story sort of falls apart at the seams.

   1b) I think this lack of care is because neither Miri nor Leah get any real character development in the story. I was on a 14-hour flight, trying to understand why I loved The Song of Achilles but not this book, when they're conceptually and theoretically a bit similar. I mean, one reason is that Madeleine Miller's writing just works much better for me personally, but also, we are drawn to care about Patroclus and Achilles because we get to actually see Achilles develop as a character (from a young boy to an...adult?), and fight against his own demons and societal pressures. Even though it's a similar character pairing, where one character is much more dynamic than the other, the timespan of TSOA really works for it. In comparison, Our Wives Under the Sea sort of glosses over Miri and Leah's character development (we assume that it exists. It honestly might not.) in favor of a really short timespan and a lot of introspection. (Leah's portions are set in the past, but they focus pretty much solely on the events of the ill-fated submarine expedition, while Miri's are only about the aftermath. Kind of makes the whole story disjointed.)

   2) Connected to problem 1 (probably the reason for it tbh), but Miri is barely an entity in the story. This is bad because by and large, her sections are longer than Leah's. We know she loves Leah, she has a weird and complicated relationship with her mother, and probably suffers from some mental illness. But she spends such a large portion of the book waffling around and just being confused about everything! This does not an interesting character make. 

   3) Connected/extension to problem 2. Miri is so...passive? I wanted more emotion from her. It feels like she doesn't even do all that much to try to help Leah, it's really just her coming to terms that Leah is not actually back, and/or that she's changed. I wanted her to fight before coming to terms with it, or fight it to the end. Instead her entire tone was more just resigned. I cannot understand the care and love she had for Leah if she's so resigned and just depressed about it all the time. (Maybe her repeated calling of the Centre is supposed to be her fighting? Idk I just didn't get enough of that from her.)

   4) Too much is left unknown. I personally think the not knowing what Leah saw in the ocean is fine, but all the stuff happening with the Centre felt very mundanely confusing for no apparent reason? And I guess the author was maybe going for realism, where sometimes you just don't get answers to questions but...it's just more confusion on top of the already confusing wtf is happening to Leah thing.

   5) Kind of nitpicking at this point, but I felt like the introduction of Juna felt really unnecessary. I think it should've been someone else who drove Miri to the beach. Perhaps Carmen or Sam? Or maybe she drives herself idk. Most of the side characters in Miri's parts honestly felt useless to me. At least Jelka and Matteo seemed to serve actual narrative purpose in Leah's parts?

My final verdict: 2/5 ⭐.

Long story short, I really wish I had liked this book more than I actually did. It has such a cool premise! Maybe it was the stream-of-consciousness writing style or something, but it just wasn't my thing.

[heloflor]

So, making that post about how I love the vibe of the Telltale characters making the main duo blend in rather than stand out and the fact that it’s a world with continuity made me think about how those games also have what I see as my favorite version of Sam and Max’s characters for a handful of reasons that I’m going to explain here.

Little disclaimer first : Note that I am in NO WAY trying to defend the bad and offensive parts of the Telltale games, neither in this post nor in my previous one. While this trilogy + Poker Night are my favorite entries of this franchise, it doesn’t change the fact that this trilogy has its issues and I can absolutely understand people disliking or even hating those games because of it.

Now, onto the things I like about this interpretation of the characters:

- First of all, out of all the versions of this duo, I really appreciate how morally gray this version is, and how they managed to balance “they’re sociopaths who only care about themselves and each other” with “they’re good people whose work is to help others”.

I mean, in the comics, the vr game and “Hit the Road”, Sam and Max are a lot more on the “trigger-happy” side, doing their jobs for the money and the free violence. In the cartoon, they’re much softer and have a more “mature” vibe to them, being more on the “do-gooder” side (while still retaining their love for violence obviously).

But in the Telltale games, it feels like they managed to mix a bit of both in their characters. Like you have Sam playing nice to pretty much everyone even if he doesn’t particularly like them (or being a troll with a smile with those he doesn’t like) or Max being able to form friendships (Sybil, Mama Bosco, Superball) despite how judgmental he can be. Sometimes, like in most of S2, they get involved in stuff because they’re curious about what’s happening regardless of what others want, and end up doing the right thing by the end.

Basically, Telltale Sam and Max are douchebags who do the right thing. They can be assholes towards some people while having friends, they sometimes save the world by accident or because they were fucking around in the right place at the right time. They’re good people, but they’re not great. And by the end of the day, they’ll always prioritize each other over everything else, with the best example being 305. Sam should be at his most selfless in order to save the city, and yet he’s at his most selfish because he cares more about Max than anything else.

- Still something regarding both (TRIGGER WARNING for mention of depression and suicidal thoughts) : while the execution in the games was meh at best and horrendous at worst, I really like the concepts of Sam dealing with body image issues and Max being hinted at having depression. In a way, I think it makes them feel more “flawed” and human by showing that, despite always smiling and acting like nothing matters/never taking anything seriously, they actually do suffer from personal struggles and are both insecure about some parts of themselves.

Tbh I find it a bit sad that no other iteration of those characters really showcases it (yes in the cartoon Sam is shown eating a lot and Max shuts down whenever he and Sam are apart, but in the cartoon Sam has no issues with his looks and Max’s situation isn’t really talked about. There’s also the vr game with one line about Sam being insecure, the “it’s either Sam or the afterlife and I’m good with either one !” line from Max, and Sam in the last fight telling Max to “go into your happy place”. And while that’s definitely a bit more by making them have those issues, it’s still glossed over quickly).

Though, again, the execution was very bad. Sam’s body issues are always played out as a joke with other people calling him fat and him getting offended, while Max’s depression is called laziness in 106 (even if they didn’t intend for it to be depression, the fact that they consider the vice acting like that to be laziness is fucked up) on top of it not being directly addressed in 305, nevermind the fact that Max is shown to be literally suicidal in 305 or at the very least hates himself and is self-destructive since the Superego is part of him !!!

The worst is that there was actual potential here ! Like, in 304, Sam is shown to be uncomfortable around the clones and there’s especially that one cutscene if you find one of the clones’ underwear. Meanwhile, Max spends the whole chapter showing interest in said clones, thus proving Sam that he’s getting worried over nothing. Heck, even Mama Bosco is into the clones ! And yet they never take that opportunity to delve into Sam’s insecurities !

Same for 305. There was a lot of potential to talk about Max’s issues instead of just saying he has them but never dwelling on them. For example, have Sam comment to the Superego on how he knew Max wasn’t alright but never realized it was so severe, or have a few sentences about it from Sam to the rest of the main cast, or even have Sam ask alternate!Max if he’s okay. Or maybe even simply have the episode be more focused on Max suffering. After all, when you think about it, 305 is all about trying to prevent Max from committing suicide, and yet it’s completely glossed over by making the Superego some kind of villain that needs to be stopped !

And yes, I know the franchise is a comedy, but S3 got into some dark stuff nonetheless !

So yeah, the execution in the trilogy was very bad. Still, I love the concept itself of Sam and Max dealing with such personal problems.

- Last thing regarding both before I get more specific : while it’s definitely helped by the 30+ hours length, the trilogy is the instance in which Sam is the most explicitly bi, especially regarding his attraction to men (one line with one of the zombies in 203, Peppers in 205, Flint Paper, that one “Max is looking pretty buff” line from 305, Max in general tbh, two-three lines towards Ash and Brock in Poker Night 2), while Max is the most explicitly gay (not only with the “doesn’t even like girls” joke but also due to his regular flirting with men).

Which leads to another thing : if I had to describe the evolution of Sam and Max’s relationship, I’d say that, basically, Sam and Max love each other in the comics, “Hit the Road” and the vr game, but they are in love with each other in the cartoon and the Telltale games. So that’s another bonus this version of the characters has in my shipper eyes (bonus that the cartoon has as well).

Overall, it’s just very sweet to see not only their usual shenanigans and complicity but also to have a few small moments like the “I love you”s, the way they would always prioritize each other in the face of danger, the little touches like Max jumping on Sam’s back, him fixing Sam’s tie in 204, or the way Sam smiles whenever Max is being a dork. It’s all very good and cute stuff (and the writers of the vr game are cowards for reverting their dynamic back to their “Hit the Road” selves. Heck, even in this game, there were some cute moments like Max’s excitement to go into the tunnel of love or Sam asking the 8-ball if he and Max will stay together forever !).

- Regarding Sam himself, first of all I absolutely adore the “uncool 40 years-old dad” energy he gives off at times ! Like him dancing in 203, the “boom ! More science !” line from 301 or even the “that’s how we do things downtown homie !” from Poker Night 2. This man is just so goddamn cringe while being the biggest dork and I adore every second of it !

Secondly, my favorite thing about Sam overall (aka in the whole franchise) is how overprotective he can get, the best examples being in the cartoon with him losing his shit everytime Max is in danger. But even in the Telltale trilogy, we get plenty of those instances.

What’s more, on top of his usual overprotective self, we also have moments where he just gets worried because of the situation, like in 301 and 304 where you can ask Max in a few rooms how he’s doing with his new powers (btw I love how Max is clearly a bit annoyed by Sam’s worries but at the same time seems to understand why he feels that way and doesn’t try to invalidate them). Idk I just really love this side of Sam and I’m glad we get plenty of this here.

Also, not really related to him being protective but I kinda love how much of a petty bitch Sam is towards Hugh Bliss just because he’s jealous of the way Max drools when around the guy. I mean, usually Sam smiles when interacting to people, including when he’s being an asshole to those he dislikes (with some exceptions like him going noir or being in a desperate situation or provocated etc). But with Hugh Bliss, Sam is uncharacteristically angry and provocative the whole way through, even way before knowing the guy’s evil. And the only thing Hugh “has” that other characters don’t is Max being into him, which really makes it look like Sam is jelly (tbf Max is also really into Flint Paper but Sam likes the guy so it’s no surprise he doesn’t get mad about it).

Special mention to his anger in 205 with the “bend over provocatively” line. Like Sam, buddy, Hugh Bliss is dead. He won’t steal your man so stop feeling so threatened.)

Finally, I love how bad Telltale Sam is with kids, especially with how it contrasts with Max’s baby fever. Like, in 305, Sam straight-up thinks the point of having kids is to pay less taxes ! Also he adopts a cockroach, accidentally eats it as a roomba and goes “welp, no son of mine will die from that !” This dude is such a fucking disaster with kids and I love every second of it (yes I know he’s not that bad with kids but I like to headcanon that he is because it’s funny).

Just imagine a scenario of Sybil asking Sam to babysit her kid, afraid to ask Max for obvious reasons, but then it turns out Sam called Max less than 5 minutes in because he just has no idea what to do and Max is much better with kids than he is.

- For Max, first of all I love how much this guy adores his body in those games. Like, there are several instances of him calling himself hot and I really like it. I think what I love about this is that 1. it contrasts with Sam’s body issues, which is always interesting to see and 2. Max himself has a bit of a stomach, so it’s really sweet to see someone with a bit of a chub going around calling themselves hot and shaking their booty around. It’s just really sweet to see this kind of positivity. Because yeah, I do believe that Max is sincere when complimenting his own body. It doesn’t feel like him pretending to like himself or trying to compensate for his low self-esteem, at least in my opinion.

Secondly, I like how flirty Max is in those games. It’s pretty funny actually to see how different Max’s sexuality is shown throughout the franchise. In the comics and the vr game, they just never talk about romance. In “Hit the Road”, he’s not really interested in it. In the cartoon, he’s straight-up afraid of “mushy” romance (and if you imagine each iteration of those characters to be their own dimension/timeline, I’d argue that Cartoon Max is more likely to be aromantic homosexual, since despite his fear/hatred of romance there are a few sex jokes hinting that he sleeps with Sam + he’s low-key into Mack Salmond and it could be sexual attraction).

But in the Telltale games ? Dude’s a raging homosexual and I love it. I especially like how much this sorta pairs-up with him having a good opinion of his body, like him loving himself is giving him the confidence to be more obvious about his attraction for men and act more flirty with them.

Lastly, my favorite thing about Max is his baby fever and how much he adores kids and wants to start a family with Sam, and those games have a lot of moments showcasing this side of him. I think what I love most about it is that 1. it’s cute as hell and 2. it completely contrasts with Max’s usual destructive self. Although, just like for Sam’s overprotectiveness, this is something we also get to see in the cartoon (and speaking of which I feel like we don’t talk enough about the giant robot episode and how quickly Max melts at the view of the giant baby. Also can we talk about Max calling himself “daddy” when hurting the kid and then calling himself “mommy” when acting like a parent ? No because if there’s any proof that Max has daddy issues, it’s this !)

So yeah, all this to say that the Telltale games are my favorite version of Sam and Max as characters.

And for those who expected me to talk about the voice-acting, honestly I don’t particularly have a favorite voice-actor for those characters. Each entry in the franchise has a few differences in how this duo is portrayed, and I feel like each voice-actor fits perfectly with each version they’re dubbing. So while I could say I’m more familiar with the Telltale/vr and the cartoon versions of the voices, it doesn’t mean that I find them better than the “Hit the Road” ones.

That being said, if I had to praise the Telltale voice actors, I would give huge kudos to Sam’s voice actor for the emotions he’s capable to bring into the character, especially in S3. As for Max, I really admire the fact that he had three voice actor and each new one managed to sound like the previous one, thus keeping Max’s voice consistent throughout the trilogy.

On that note, being someone who adores angst, I didn’t mention the whole “S3 is the angst seasons and there can be many repercussions from 305” because it has less to do with the characters and more to do with the story itself. Like don’t get me wrong, S3 absolutely tests the limits of Sam and Max, but “Sam and Max love each other more than anything else and would give anything for each other” is something we already knew.

So in my eyes, “S3 has a more angsty story and some character development” has less to do with “why I love this version of the characters” and more to do with “why I love the story of the Telltale trilogy and the fact that there’s continuity”.

Also, regarding the repercussions of 305 and how it can play onto the characters, it’s again not something the trilogy itself dwells in. Instead, it’s something the fandom itself likes to play with and interpret (and I absolutely adore that).

Oh yeah, and one last thing : obviously there are a lot more things about Sam and Max’s characters that I love. What I pointed out in this post are things that are exclusive or almost-exclusive to the Telltale games. Just pointing it out in case I didn't made it explicit enough at the beginning. 😅

[thevalleyisjolly]

Ok, I’ve rewritten this post several times because I really want this to be a productive and respectful discussion, but this is a conversation that does need to be started.  I’ve been thinking about the whole cultural appropriation story line in this season of The Unsleeping City so far, and of course I think it’s great that Cody is starting to realize why that’s wrong and that Murph is making it explicitly clear that it is wrong, but I want to reorient the conversation away from Cody now and talk about Ricky as a Japanese-American character.

Because when Zac went “Just to paint a picture for you...” during the museum fight episode, there was quite a bit of surprise from non-Asian people in the fandom that this was really a serious issue, and one that Ricky would be bothered by or speak up about.  But why wouldn’t he?  I mean, the character is Japanese-American, and so is the player.  Doesn’t it make perfect sense that he would at least be a little bothered by a white person appropriating Japanese culture?  Asian fans certainly noticed and pointed it out before that episode aired.  Ricky/Zac certainly noticed - go back through the episodes and observe how every time Cody pulled out a kunai or threw a shuriken, Ricky was cringing or facepalming with an uncomfortable laugh.  Even with seven different camera perspectives to watch at the same time, it should have been pretty clear in the fandom that this was an ongoing issue that would bother and was bothering Ricky.

And I think there are several different facets to this, but the one I want to address is how there’s a tendency in fandom to ignore or erase Ricky’s Japanese heritage.  Not literally (although there is a particular sting every time I see another Ricky fancast where the actor is of another Asian heritage than Japanese - Asian people are not interchangeable).  But especially prior to Season 2, there was a general trend in the fandom that liked to simplify Ricky’s character and overlook him as a complex player character because of traits that are very common in East Asian immigrant cultures.

Perhaps it’s because my heritage is East Asian and I’ve had more exposure to general cultural customs and behaviours among East Asian immigrants, but Zac’s portrayal of Ricky has always read as a very obvious Asian-American child of immigrants to me (and, y’know, Zac and Ricky are actually Asian-American children of immigrants).  Not expressing negative emotions out loud, not verbally articulating thoughts and feelings but expressing them through actions, deferring to other peoples’ needs first instead of expressing his own wants because it’s not about him.  With the caveat that I’m Chinese and not Japanese, these are common practices that I’ve observed in my own family, among friends and acquaintances (of various Asian heritages including but not limited to Chinese), in broader experiences with other East Asian immigrants.

(Asia is not a monolith and I’m not familiar with the immigrant cultures and experiences of people from other Asian heritages.  I specify East Asian here because that is broadly what I can speak on and because Ricky is Japanese, but other Asian people please feel free to discuss your experiences as well)

And obviously, these are not monolith traits observed at all times, I’ve definitely met plenty of East Asian immigrants who did express their emotions loudly, who used their words, who were assertive about their own needs and wants (this is not the post to be getting into different generations of immigration and the culture differences between those generations).  And it also depends on the context - from my own experience, in private within families, both emotions and words can get extremely loud (if you dare to risk the wrath of your elders by arguing with them!)  But my point is that the habits I pointed out above are still relatively common in East Asian immigrant cultures, even if not all individuals follow them at all times.

Particularly prior to Season 2, there was a common perspective in the fandom, usually couched in “uwu, I love that Zac is playing a hot dummy!!” that would go along the lines of “Ricky doesn’t have a character arc, he doesn’t get into conflicts with other people, he doesn’t say anything and is just happy to be there, he’s a shallow character who’s just a himbo.”  All of which I’d dispute, (*insert post here about Ricky as a character reclaiming Asian masculinity*), but I want to focus on how the main traits -refraining from overt emotions, remaining reserved in speech, not bringing up his own needs and wants- that were brought up and used to simplify and dismiss Ricky’s character were traits which are commonly found in East Asian immigrant communities.  The whole “remaining reserved/trying to avoid conflict” is something a lot of East Asian-American kids pick up at home because what you say or don’t say isn’t as important as what you do or don’t do.

And I mean, so much of Ricky is about doing things for people, showing his feelings through his actions, not his words.  Just because he wasn’t getting into PC conflict in Season 1, or expressing his emotions in the same ways as other PCs, doesn’t mean he was just a silent, cheerful himbo.  Which there’s nothing wrong with being a himbo, and it can be particularly empowering in Ricky’s case as an Asian man (see above linked post about Asian masculinity), but that’s not all there is to Ricky’s character!  And don’t get me wrong, I personally love that part of his ongoing character arc in Season 2 is speaking up about his feelings and expressing to other people what he wants (because there’s the “American” part of the Asian-American experience that’s not just about having Asian heritage but is also about negotiating that relationship in a place with different norms and customs).  But it doesn’t negate the “Asian” part of “Asian-American” either, which does impact and shape the way Ricky interacts with people and the world.

In hindsight, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that interest and meta in Ricky skyrocketed once he did start being more vocal and assertive in Season 2, which are common traits in many Western cultures.  And it’s not the only reason that there’s a deeper interest in Ricky now (shout out to all the Asian fans and allies who’ve been really diving into Ricky’s character this season!) and I choose to believe in good faith that it isn’t intentional or malicious (audiences do tend to gravitate more towards tangible moments of conversation and conflict rather than background acting).  But I think we as fans need to start questioning why as a whole, we really didn’t start giving deeper thought to Ricky until he began displaying more typically Western traits, because I think it’s emblematic of how, very subtly and unconsciously, we are used to privileging white “American” behaviour and ignoring or glossing over Asian (immigrant) traits.

In many ways, Ricky prior to Season 2 (and very arguably up until the museum fight), has been perceived in the general fandom as a sort of post-racial American-melting-pot character.  Fans don’t wholly ignore that he’s Japanese-American, you can’t really do that when his family name is “Matsui” and when the Season 1 finale showed that his interactions with the American Dream pretty strongly involved his parents’ immigrant experience.  But knowing intellectually that Ricky is Asian doesn’t always translate to actually perceiving him as an Asian person with all the implications and racial dynamics that entails.

An example of how this manifests: Ricky and Esther become a canon couple.  Numerous posts begin to appear (and periodically still do) that express opinions along the lines of Ricky/Esther being the only tolerable “het” couple.  Ignoring the fact that we don’t know Esther’s sexuality and we only have an offhand Ztream comment for Ricky, Ricky/Esther is a canonical interracial relationship between two non-white people, a Japanese man and a black woman.  Interracial relationships are already extremely poorly represented in media, to say nothing of interracial relationships between non-white people.   Yet we overlook the racial dynamics and only focus on the perceived queerness (or not) of the ship.

Or, for another example, taking the discussion on cultural appropriation and making it all about Cody’s flaws and character development, rather than considering how it affects Ricky as a Japanese man to see a white man disrespecting a part of his cultural heritage.

Anyways, I really urge D20 fans, especially if you’re not Asian, to start questioning and challenging how you really perceive characters, what kind of characteristics you tend to privilege and be drawn to and why, and what kind of fandom environment you shape in your interactions with the show and with other fans.  This is not to say that Ricky should be everyone’s favourite character or that you can’t dislike him, but it is important to think about why we have the preferences that we do.  I especially urge you to remember that Ricky Matsui is a Japanese-American character, that this was a deliberate choice which has been repeatedly brought up by Zac (who is a Japanese-American actor), and that you cannot and should not ignore Ricky’s heritage when you think and talk about him. 

(And if you think Ricky is being an “asshole” to Cody just for being, frankly, mildly perturbed in his direction because Cody spent most of the season so far being very offensive to Ricky’s cultural heritage, I really encourage you to think critically about your opinions and why you hold them.  And if, after thinking critically, you still don’t see why they’re wrong, please don’t let the door hit you on the way out.  Your conscious racism is not something that is welcome in this fandom, and Asian fans are not here to teach you better)

((White and non-Asian people can and should reblog this, but don’t clown around.  Productive, respectful discussion is welcome.  Asian fans are more than welcome to add their perspectives/agree/disagree, especially people with Japanese heritage))

[wenellyb]

hey! every now and then i've seen random posts about sebastian's comment/s on colin kap kneeling among other things, but i've never seen any source material or hard facts. do you have any posts about this or deconstruction of your own? i'd be very interested, ty!

Hey yourself😉!

So I've found the screenshot of the post (at the bottom) and just so you know he also posted an apolology but that one I couldn't find a screenshot of.

There are plenty of posts talking about this but I think most of them are old so it would take some time for me to find them.

If you want my opinion. The whole thing was f*cked up and I remember being extremely surprised and unfollowing him after that post.

And he did apologize, which is good and I do think he understands that that post was not great, but it wasn't my main issue.

When the whole story with Kaepernick happened it was a real eye opener and exposed a lot of racists even among celebrities. I'm looking at you Christopher Meloni. But not only him.

So Colin Kaepernick was to kneeling to protest against police violence and racism.

And a lot of people reacted like a lot of White people react when the topic of racism arise: deny everything and get defensive "How dare he protest blablabala" "He's so rich and he's saying White people are priviledged..." "How dare he say there is racism in this country". You know the usual.

But the thing is to me, the way he protested was the most respectful, and most peaceful way to protest and also so impactful. And some people had still a problem with it...I don't understand how ANYBODY could have a problem with it ... unless they were racist in one way or the other. That was the bar for me... I could not have respect ANYBODY who had a problem with him kneeling, because their message was clear “just sh*t up and play football”.

To me, anybody who had a problem with Colin Kaepernick taking a knee... was automatically problematic and the worst.

For other forms of protests there can always be arguments against it, lousy arguments, but arguements nevertheless: "They're blocking the streets" "There was violence during the protest",... etc... But what is your argument with having a man kneel during the National Anthem, to call out something as serious as police brutality.

To me it was clear that they just wanted Black Americans to shut up, and stay in their lane. "Sports have nothing to do with politics blablabla"

And unfortunately history proved Colin Kaepernick right, and I don't think anybody could voice bad opinions about him today, but at the time, a lot of people were criticizing him, calling him names, insulting him, and even some celebrities were talking about how disrespectful he was.

They cared more about the way he was voicing his protest, than the fact that racism was a real issue.

And because of the protests last year, I think a lot of people tend to forget about that time, but Kaepernick faced A LOT of backlash, A LOT and for what....??? Absolutely no justification. With the way some people reacted you would have thought he burned the American flag on a daily basis, or used it as toilet paper.

So having that in mind, it was really disheartening to see an actor you respect take part in that...

And just to be clear, this is my personal opinion, but I don't think Sebastian had any bad intention with that post (not like other celebrities who were outright criticizing Kaepernick, for some reason I only remember Chris Meloni lol). But the timing, and the content, even as a joke, even as a promotion tool for his movie was extremely bad. You also have to understand the context, and how there were a lot of people rooting against Kap.

Worst case scenerio Seb’s post was racist and best case scenario it was tone deaf.

I can only assume Sebastian watches the news in the US, so he must have known what the caption "take a knee" meant and still decided to post it... So maybe he wasn't ill-intentioned, but to him the topic was light enough that he could post it on his social media...

My main problem isn't even with Seb's post, it was a weird way to promote his movie, or a joke I don’t know. Artists do problematic stuff all the time, and it's up to the fans who support them to decide if they keep doing supporting him or not.

My main problem was and still is the reaction of the fandom, where White Seb stans think they know and understand racism better than anyone else. And honestly this is not me saying that Seb is racist, this is me saying that we should be allowed to voiced our opinions without being silenced or accused of trying to villainize him or cancel him blablabla .

But the Seb stans don't understand that and prefer to turn a blind eye.

I make difference between stans and fans. The Seb fans are the ones who are willing to listen, understand why some people might be offended and admit that their fav f*cked up. The stans are the annoying ones who yould rather keep their head in the sand.

And nobody is even asking to stop supporting Seb... If I cancel an actor, I will stop consuming his content, supporting him, paying to see his movies etc... But I'm not forcing anybody else to do it... But I would like to be free to voice my dislikes especially if that actor was being problematic... without the stans complaining about how "I don't know their fave"

I haven't cancelled Seb btw, I just don't feel like finding him excuses and glossing over the words and if I think that something he did was racist, I will say that it was racist, not "problematic" or "tactless" or "clumsy"...

I think that a lot of people are confused about what racism is, and think it is only White Supremacists who want to harm all non White people.

But it's not only that and in my opinion, there are many layers to racism. If you have "nothing against Blacl people" but there is a part of you that believes you or White people are better than Black people, well you are racist... If not hiw would you describe it? I have already told this story, but I have a friend who swore she wasn't racist and we even had a big debate about racism, and a few weeks later, her boyfriend told me that during a family dinner, she had talked about a common Black friend of theirs saying "She is pretty for a Black girl"... But if you ask my friend, she will say she isn't racist.

If you try to silence people calling out racism, you are contributing to it instead of fighting it.

Another example, I received a lot of "problematic" comments at work from coworkers on my hair, my origins etc, but when I talked about it to my friends and said those comments were racists.. they said that I was "overeacting" that those comments were harmless or just my colleagues being "ignorant". But one time, I was done with it and I wrote to HR about it losting all the comments I had received and the HR director called me and told me that those comments were racist full stop, he didn't try to minimize it or act like I was exagerrating.

And that's how I see the reactions of Seb stans whenever something from him re-sufaces, like my friends who just act like it is nothing.

Just so you know you are not helping when you do that.

They act as if we're suppoosed to accept that because "it's not that big of a deal". Who told you that? How do you determine what is a big deal or not? Especially when you have never dealt with racism?

Fandom behaves as if people who were hurt or offended by that post were overracting. "It was a joke" "It was a long time ago" "He would never do somthing racist"

How hard is it to say " I can see that my fave did something problematic, or that what he did was racist, and I would still like to support him but I understand that people were hirt"??? How hard is it to continue to stan your fave WITHOUT trying to silence people who call out the behavior.

And also the way they refuse to use the words is annoying... it's always "I'm sorry if anybody was offended", never "What I did/wrote was racist and I know better now". If no one wants to admit it when they do racist stuff... nobody will never get anywhere... Like my friend who is convinced that she isn't racist but goes around thinking that White Women are more beautiful than Black Women, and even says it when surrounded by her family. 

And people act like the people who were hurt have no reason to be hurt because he apologized, but I hope those people realize that it doesn’t work that way. An apology is great of course, but it doesn’t take out the hurt, or the feeling that if he was comfortable enough sharing this on social media, what is he comfortable doing in the safety of his close circle?, or remove the idea that maybe an actor you adored, and respected doesn’t view Black people struggles as a serious matter.

I personally don't hate Seb, far from it. And the reason why I have so many posts about him, calling him out or not, is that he is one of the very few White actors I'm interested in. I don't know him personally, but I enjoy his interviews with Anthony and enjoy his movies. But I'm not about to act like he is perfect like some of his stan do and also I have absolutely no issue with people who have "cancelled" him because of his past behavior, because I understand them and it's their choice, it's what works best for them... I don't want to force them to root for someone who maybe wouldn't root for us.

Last point, that I won't elaborate because I have already written way to much. There's a difference between people actively trying to be racist, and people who are racist and maybe don't realize it, or people who have prejudice but are working on it...

I hate it when White people act like the worst thing in the world is being accused of racism when the actual worst thing in the world is being racist. Because it shifts the conversation from... "Oh how can I improve myself and stop this racist thing I'm doing, or how can I work on this prejudice I have?" to "How dare you call me racist!!! I would never" all the while they continue doing the racist thing they do.

TL:DR: His Instagram post was f*cked up, and he apologized. And it's up to each person to decide if they still want to support him or not, but it would be great if thise who still support him stopped pretending that those whose don't are overreacting or had no reason of being offended.

[crystalelemental]

Three Hopes - Scarlet Blaze

I’m a fan of SpeedyHawk’s videos.  Oddly enough, the first video that got me invested was his sitting down with four other people, only one of whom I knew in advance, and doing a group tier list of the Fire Emblem games.  I’m a sucker for tier lists.  I think they’re a ton of fun to make and to hear about, mostly because of the criteria that people will use to determine placements, but that’s a different rabbit hole for a different post.  I bring this up because I remember a lot of the defining arguments that established what I thought of the five present, and one comment was “Do you really need to play all 200+ hours to know if Three Houses is a good game?”  It was meant to argue that you can tell in one route how the quality of the game is overall, but...I disagree.  You absolutely need to know the full game before you can determine good or bad, because you never know when it’s going to suddenly trip and break its neck.

Possibly related: how about that Three Hopes game?!

For those who followed the saga of the demo, you may recall that I went from being really disinterested in this game, to super on board.  Initially, I had kinda anticipate this as being a completely uninspired cash grab, designed to capitalize on the ongoing Three Houses popularity wave, rather than do something interesting like start a completely new game, or remake Genealogy.

But oh man, that demo.  Every route played out differently, but by far, Black Eagles went crazy.  In those first three chapters, we have Edelgard defy the Agarthans, save Monica, and remove Thales from the capitol, before continuing on her quest to take down the church.  It’s so good!  It’s a ton of fun!

And to be honest, that continues for a ton of this route.  The twists and turns are engaging, and several developments are, quite frankly, more interesting than Three Houses.  That in mind, this is not at all a standalone game.  If you haven’t played Three Houses, I can’t say I’d even bother with this one.  You’d be missing way too much context that this game kinda glosses over to tell a more succinct story.  In a way, it’s...almost like a DLC route to me.  A really long one, sure, but it’s compressed in a way I can see myself wanting to play it, unlike wanting to replay the lengthy repeating into of Three Houses.

If it seems like I’m shitting on Three Houses a bit, it’s because I am.  The game isn’t bad, but it’s definitely not my favorite, and a huge part of that is how much of that game felt like redoing the same goddamn thing over the course of a 40-80 hour campaign.  All of the Part 1 chapters are identical.  Three of the routes share almost every chapter and progression, with the only one doing anything differently being the shortest route.  Three Hopes doesn’t have this issue.  My wife’s been playing Blue Lions, and so far, there’s been almost nothing alike between main story maps.  Side maps are a lot of reused layouts and mission demands, but I guess that’s what you should expect with this kind of game.  The maps are distinct, but the gameplay is...notably button mashy.  There’s nothing particularly tactical about it.  It can be fun, but I will admit to getting a bit worn down by the side missions when I just want to push forward with the story.

But to get to the point of this post: oh my god, what happened with the last three chapters?

This game was amazing throughout the main campaign, but provided you’ve recruited Byleth, you can unlock two extra chapters before the final confrontation.  These chapters involve Arval awakening within you and causing problems, taking over Shez’s body to attack Byleth and attempt to remove Sothis.  Which is neat!  I can get behind this.  Especially considering that there’s a lot we don’t know about why Sothis and Arval at odds.  We don’t really know much about the Agarthans, or their source of power, or what the hell Zahras is, or...well, anything.  “The mystery of our bodies” was one of the biggest things never actually addressed; what the hell are these guys?  Finally, having a protagonist with a clear connection to them would finally have some answers!

Haha, you naive fool.  Absolutely nothing is explained.  The main campaign, which was super engaging, gets put on hold to take care of...whatever this was about.  It’s super unclear.  Just more going on about cleansing the world and beasts and some shit that never made sense and continues to make no sense.  Oh, but this derailing of the plot serves one major function!  It brings all three of the lords together for a weird little peaceful interaction.  Super glad that Dimitri can just calmly talk to us about this place after we killed Sylvain, Rodrigue, and Ingrid.  Glad the voices of the dead decided to calm down a little over this one.  It just annihilates the sense of conflict we’d be driving through for this weird offshoot moment that addresses nothing and resolves nothing.  Worse, from how everyone talks in such neutral terms, and how out of context everything feels, it’s not going to be any better in the other routes.  Because it’s all the same.  It doesn’t need to be adjusted, we can just reuse the entire chapters!

If I had to guess, other routes may explain a bit more.  I sure hope they do, because good god is this dissatisfying.  Literally nothing is explained.  All the mysteries they built up around Shez and what this power was and why Arval was compelled to destroy Sothis...it amounts to nothing and is cast aside in favor of vague statements and contextless character moments that just feel out of place for the route I’ve been playing.

And in the last chapter, we come back and immediately jump into what we were doing before.  Which is, apparently, take down Rhea and Thales, who are in the same spot now for some reason?  Not really clear what Thales is doing.  But we beat them both, and then Thales tries to do a big exploding magic attack and Rhea pulls a Captain Falcon and they both explode and fall off a bridge and are presumed dead.  Despite one being a flying dragon and the other being able to teleport.  We then just...walk away.  Good end achieved.  What?  Beating the Kingdom and unifying everything?  Don’t worry about it, it’s taken care of, route over, we promise it’s fine.

It is...painfully unsatisfying.  I remember in an old Dark Souls Let’s Play from the Super Best Friends, Woolie talked about how a lot of the statistics on achievements in games show that most players don’t actually finish the games they pick up, and as a result, the industry kinda frontloads effort, putting money and time into polishing up the early game and maybe the mid-game if they have the time and resources, but the endgame often gets left behind and feels rushed or unfinished, because you can always just patch it or add DLC later, right?  This route feels very reminiscent of that.  They put all their time into the early and mid-game, and the endgame just...ran out of time.  Given that Claude’s route seems to actually be a thing unto itself, and Dimitri’s also is showing a lot of unique stuff, It seems like more effort was put into making the routes equally developed...but the consequence is that the main focus of the game, Shez and Arval’s deal, is a complete letdown.  And I’m no longer convinced the other two routes won’t be more of the same.

At this point, the most interesting thing left to me is finding out how the bad endings go, if you don’t recruit Byleth.  What happens then?  I’d love to find that out.  Because that at least has the potential to be a sensible ending, even if it’s a sensible ending that ends in failure and despair.

I dunno, I really have to hand it to them.  At the last like two hours of my playthrough, they managed to completely destroy something I was really enjoying.  It’s kind of impressive.  Like, I had a worry about this when I saw the playable roster, and saw that Hanneman, Alois, and Cyril weren’t playable, but Gatekeeper was.  That is 100% based on CYL bullshit from FEH.  The three lowest ranked characters are removed, even though there’s no reason Alois shouldn’t be playable with Byleth and Jeralt, and Cyril has all the reason in the world to be involved in Claude’s route given the increased focus on Almyra.  But no, their narrative relevance doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that people cheated Gatekeeper to first in some gacha poll, and now we gotta make him playable.  And that just sent up all kinds of red flags again about this being just a cheap cash grab.  But I was enjoying it a lot, and my wife was insistent that hey, using the gacha for market research isn’t the worst thing in the world if it does, in fact, make a better product.  But I’m not convinced it did.  I thought it would.  I really did, for the majority of the play time.

But now?  Now it just feels like they had fun ideas and new ways to make events unfold, but absolutely no idea what they were actually doing with it.  They just...did stuff, and hoped it would work out, and coast on the popularity of the initial game.  Maybe I’m being harsh.  Maybe the other routes bring the whole game back around.  To the initial point, I can’t judge the full game until I’ve played everything in it.  But for Scarlet Blaze?  Absolutely spectacular failure of a conclusion to what should have been a knockout success.

[lunammoon]

The Problem With Hetalia (As told by someone who actually in the fandom until like, 2016)

I'm hoping this post will explain to people who are still into Hetalia why a lot of people have an issue with from the perspective of someone who knows a lot about the show. 

TL;DR: By making the WW2 axis powers come across as a lovable idiot, his serious friend, and the stoic voice of reason, it downplays the serious nature of what the Axis did and seeing as the real-life Axis harmed real-life people, many people have a justifiable huge issue with this. 

I will go more into depth about this under the cut.

A lot of people are talking about how Hetalia is coming back after 5 years and a lot of people are rightfully annoyed at the show. But what I'm seeing is that a lot of the people who are upset are people who clearly haven't watched the show and therefore are unable to explain to people who have watched it why it’s bad. The most that you hear is:

"it glorifies the Axis Powers" (which isn't 100% accurate although the assessment that they are portrayed in a way that makes them seem less bad is accurate) 

"Hetalia Cosplayers wore Nazi uniforms in front of a Holocaust memorial" (which I'd say is more of an issue with fans than the show). 

That is not to say that there isn't an issue with the show, because there really is. But these observations are unlikely to mean much to someone who watches Hetalia. So, in this thread, I'm going to explain why Hetalia is Problematic with the added context perspective of someone who was into the show during most of middle school and until Freshman year of high school. 

I knew the human names, used to jam to "Always With You" and "Pub and Go" and “It’ll Settle Itself Somehow” and “Light my Heart” and “Absolute British Gentleman” and “Mein Gott” and “World Rondo” and “Excuse Me, I’m Sorry” and so, so many more. 

I lost my shit with everyone else when the season 6 ep dropped and Italy danced like he was possessed by a demon. When I hear “ACE” family, I don’t think of Youtubers. I actually took a side on the FruUK vs UsUk debate and if you look in my archive, you can probably find some Hetalia posts that I’m too lazy to delete.

The point here being, I’ve actually seen the show so I know what I’m talking about. This isn’t an outsiders perspective is what I’m saying.

So, let’s get right into it. While technically only seasons 1-2 are officially actually called "Axis Powers" (Seasons 3-4 are called "World Series" Season 5 is "Beautiful World" and Season 6 is called "World Twinkle") WW2 and things relating to the Axis Powers are an important part of every season and appear prominently.

While Hetalia has covered many things from all different time periods, the two most common periods covered are the modern-day and of course, the second World War. The show is Japanese and (I assume) because Japan was on the Axis side, these portions focus more on the Axis Powers of Italy, Japan, and Germany. The Allies do come into play. And while the Allies aren't directly like, evil, which would've been FAR WORSE they've got a kind of Team Rocket-esque thing going on? They're not exactly mustache-twirling villains but they're clear antagonists. Make no mistakes.

I think the deserted Island arc is the best example of the problems many people have with the show.

Take for example, that beach fight. If you've watched Hetalia, you'll know the one I'm talking about. The one that they reused like, 50 times. The Allies are clearly shown as the antagonists/aggressors while the Axis are literally just vibing on a (kinda) deserted island and defending themselves. 

Now, if this was three dudes chilling on the beach and they suddenly got attacked by another five dudes also on the beach who they then fought off until the five attackers ran away that’s be one thing.

The issue is that this is supposed to be a representation of WW2. It's basically saying "oh, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy were literally just vibing, not bothering anyone when suddenly, the Allies attacked for no reason. Luckily, they (the Allies) retreated because the Allies are Cowardly but they keep coming back and bothering them,". Do you see the issue there? Most of the beach arc seems to be the writer forgetting that these are supposed to be Nations, not a random Italian dude, a German dude, and a Japanese dude.

“Oh, but they don’t glorify Nazi Germany. They don’t really even talk about what Germany was doing! Look at this pic of Germany in a lab coat holding a dandelion :)“

That’s not the defense that you think it is and it’s actually a main part of the issue that I, and many other people have with Hetalia.

I think the scene where this issue is the most obvious is the one where they are gathering around a campfire and talking and one of them comes up with the name "the Axis". The whole scene has the same energy characters in a moe anime coming up with a band name.

They’re sitting on a beach at night. I think there might’ve been a campfire, the stars are out, and the three of them talk about their dream of making a world that revolved around them. One of them comes up with the name “the axis” and then they all talk about how you would translate "axis" in their language. It’s all very found family-esque. The way the scene is framed is to encourage you to route for them to reach their goal. It’s the same kind of tone you’d see in a shoujo with a girl telling her friends about how she wants to win the singing competition no matter what or in Sword Art Online when Kirito talks about saving Asuna.

The issue is that their goal isn’t to win some competition or to save someone they care about. It’s to spread facism, imperialism, and bring about genocide.

There of course don’t SAY that that’s their goal, and outside of a one off line in the English dub that’s been since censored, they don’t really bring up what Germany was up to during WW2 vis-a-vie the Holocaust and if they did bring it up, I either wasn’t paying attention, it was in the manga, or it was in one of Germany’s character songs.

The issue is that during WW2 the show seems to at best forget and at worst, gloss over it that the main trio that they're focusing on are the villains. And not like, fantasy villains. Actual real-life villains that hurt real people in the real world. Imagine if instead of Ludwig Beilschmidt and Feliciano Vargas, it was Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. 

Are you seeing the problem yet?

I get why people like to watch the show. Ignoring the WW2 bits, it’s actually pretty good. I, as an American, really like Alfred F. Jones and the way he’s portrayed.

If Hetalia had stuck to non-WW2 related things such as that episode where the nations all talk about how horror movies differ in their nations, or they talked about their Christmas traditions. Or the ones where America and Japan are roommates. Or when they showed that time when America airdropped XL condoms on Russia labeling them as "small" for intimidation reasons. Or that series of episodes where they talked about Micronations. Or that time they all had to come together to fight aliens. Or the bit where they talked about the WW1 Christmas Armistice. Then it would be fine.

The issue is that they didn’t.

If they kept WW2 stuff for SOME reason. They had two options. 

Make the axis as proper villains

 Be explicit in showing that the nations will doesn't reflect what their leader wants. 

The first option wouldn’t be ideal if they wanted to cover any time period other than World War 2. The axis would be too unlikable and I doubt that an anime where Japan is the villain would appeal much to Japanese audiences.

But what about the second option. Have a bit where Ludwig is passing out White Rose pamphlets or smuggling people to safety.

Have Kiku (Japan for people who don’t watch Hetalia) purposefully looking the other way as Sugihara writes visas to get people to safety and covering for him against his boss. SOMETHING!

But instead of doing either of those, they took the bad third option which was, their choice to instead make the axis seem like likable individuals who are a group of three good friends who work together will in contrast with the “bumbling Allies” who are barely cohesive and constantly fight and argue. At best, makes it seem like both sides had a point and at worst, makes it seem like the Axis was a better than the Allies.

All of this is to say that liking Hetalia does not make you inherently a bad person, but you need to be more critical of what you watch and understand that there is a reason that some people have a genuine issue with it and they have a very good reason for that. You can still watch it the show, but do keep this information in the back of your brain as you do

[maxbernini]

Idk if you have seen Annais poster, but she is in a boxing ring. Who's into boxing? Redouane. So I'm pretty sure they are actually going to do the Annais x Redouane with them falling because they love boxing and he teaches her self defense or something like that

i have seen it yeah. frida also has a boxing glove emoji in her insta bio, so i wouldn’t be surprised if anais meets her at redouane’s gym, bc she teaches a women’s self defence class or something, and then introduces anais to her feminist activist group (probably where maya and her ~big role will come into play), and frida, redouane, maya & tiff are the main costars

i was already :// about rednais just on a character level but now i’m like actively concerned with how it’ll happen. i’m trying to collect all my thoughts in a longer post and i’ll talk about it more there but like...my issue with rednais (or any LI) is now the theme. eg: to a certain degree you can gloss over the harsher realities of teen motherhood & pregnancy denial (certainly helped by how privileged the main is; a lot of those harsher realities wouldn’t impact her anyways) to give tiff a cheesy, rushed happy ending with max. but you really, really cannot gloss over anything here or rush anais’s healing arc for the sake of giving her a traditional skam type happy ending in ep10, and i think what even constitutes a happy/good/satisfying ending with this topic is important to consider. you can’t do the usual 9 weeks of hell followed by 1 week of sudden happiness, and even something like ‘5 weeks of suffering, 5 weeks of healing’ is risky because you don’t wanna swing too far over and have her be magically fine and imply it didn’t effect her that much, you know? and not only is this season just 10 weeks, it’s also their last 10 weeks ever, the last time you’ll see these characters. i’m not sure whether rape (at least when it happens in ep1) is a topic the skam format can tackle successfully tbh? especially not in a final season. idk. lots to think about.