#narrative point of view examples

[m-c-easton]

The Courage of Writing Nuance

One of my textbooks this semester is Words Overflown by Stars, a collection of craft essays by Vermont College MFA faculty. This week I contemplated Ellen Lesser’s essay “The Girl I Was, the Woman I Have Become: Fiction’s Reminiscent Narrators.” Specifically, she reflects on “the point in time from which the story gets told” and the purpose of placing a narrator in the present, reflecting on the…

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

Wrt localization, I can understand wanting to change let's say a joke if the context of the joke would be lost on people due to play on the language. But when someone changes the content of a story and characterization to the point where it's a completely different experience and then they have the audacity to say "have respect for the localizers. You support gg" or some nonsense in response to criticism, it's really disingenuous.

Not sure if you saw when I mentioned it before, but yeah. There are times when they have to make cultural changes (Pokemon did it with food to make more sense to the western audience!), change jokes that won't land in translation, etc. Those are reasonable changes that have to be made or the audience will just be confused/uninterested/disconnected.

Sometimes there are also jokes that in different cultures would be deemed inappropriate (like the sex joke aimed at Edelgard in the middle of the night - that makes sense that it was removed because western culture would've been largely uncomfortable with it). Age differences also account for this, in that what's seen as appropriate to a teen audience in JP is not necessarily considered appropriate in the west.

My viewpoint toward localization is that it should only be that. Everything else should be a faithful translation as much as is able, i.e. doesn't alter the message given in the original script. It doesn't matter if the content is from Japan, if it's a JRPG or what have you. If it was of French origin, I'd still say the same thing: that the messages and narrative of the French originating story should be handled faithfully and should be telling the same story/characterizations/etc to all audiences in any location.

Obviously in translation you can't make everything one to one or the sentences would sound off and/or broken. That's why you reword things to have the sentences structurally accurate in the translated language. Doing that, however, should not involve changing the meaning behind the sentence or trying to sell a different narrative. Doing that becomes a different story, even if only in bits and pieces. When a story nudges really fuckin' hard trying to tell you something that's wrong is right or that something right is wrong, but that narrative is only added into a loc and didn't already exist, it's a disrespect toward the writers and their original intention.

Even if, yes, the writers were very bias toward Edelgard (which they were as that was, again, confirmed in an interview), it didn't come at the cost of other characters. It didn't come at the cost of Rhea being worse, Dimitri being worse, or Claude being worse. It didn't come at the cost of her allies all being disgusted by their enemies that they were invading. They loved Edelgard when they were writing her, but they didn't make that cloud how they treated other characters (and while yes, the Nabateans get largely ignored in favor of focusing on Edelgard and such, it's not at the cost of their characterization or to make them seem worse).

Even if the loc heaps praise upon praise toward Edelgard and that doesn't harm the original intent, it's what they do to other characters that disrespects the original content. It would be like if they took FE10/RD and had Ike (who was actually just and a good person) spouting nonsense about Micaiah that just wasn't true, hyping up his allies to kill her because she Must Die.

Personally, I'm no Micaiah fan. She was one of my most hated characters in the franchise until Edelgard (and Berandetta) showed up. I still am not fond of Micaiah and she's still pretty low on the rung for me. That said, I would not enjoy a narrative where Ike wrongfully labeled her and her allies and provided his people (and the Laguz Alliance by extension) a false narrative about her. If those things about her were true I wouldn't care, but they wouldn't be. Why does that not work for Ike? Because it's not who he is as a character to say those things, and thus if he did, it means something is off.

The original has some ??? points about Edelgard that favor her/lift her up, but again, it's not doing harm to other characters. Yeah, we get the whole "they are the enemy" stuff from her side, but like... that's the point. If you team up with her, you're on her side and are seeing the story through her perspective, which makes her enemies, well, the enemies. They're viewed in a bad light on that one route.

But when you actually come into contact with the characters in question? It's not as bad as she makes it out to be. She, as the protagonist of her own story, makes other named characters and their ways of living sound very bad because she views them negatively, but we don't actually see what she claims if we personally come into contact with those characters.

What the loc does is have her say those things, understandably from her side, but then trash the characters' very characterization and personality to match her and her/her allies' opinions of them. The characters reflect her views with no pushback whatsoever, when it should be that the pushback is how those characters she talks about behave.

There should be a dissonance between her thoughts about them and who they truly are. It should make you question, "is this really right?". You should feel bad when you kill genuinely good people (like Sylvain. You shouldn't feel like he's some trash scumbag, but feel upset about his death and find yourself questioning why he had to die - not cheering for his death).

Point being, the loc changed that stuff because ??? I guess they wanted Edelgard to shine at her very absolute brightest, and the only way to do that was to harp on all the characters who opposed her. I don't understand why they would do that tbh (like I know the intent, i.e. making her look good, but I don't know why they went to such lengths to vilify her enemies and not just say hey, maybe she's wrong about these people but I'm still going to fight for her, if fighting for her is what you decided to do. The one idea I have is the final paragraphs of this post).

It just makes it feel a lot like purist culture, where if you've sided with her than they can't possibly let her be actually bad and do bad things. You've sided with her, so she simply cannot be a villain! It makes the loc team seem afraid of a concept of siding with the villains, feeling the need to change it because it's BaD to play a game/route where you do that. It feels like it's portraying the idea that if you do bad things in a video game, you condone those bad things irl.

Whether that was their thought process or not, that's exactly what it comes off as, and that since they loved Edelgard they couldn't portray her poorly unless there was no other option. In the times they do finally portray her poorly via other characters, there's always pushback in some form, like someone defending her, giving her the benefit of the doubt after everything she'd already done and still intended to do, or being sad about fighting/killing her. In the original that was still there, but the loc just added to it - just by doing a whole lot of damage to other characters in the process.

Meanwhile with Rhea, there's always negative pushback. If she does something good, there's a negative thought following her good actions. Obviously there isn't space for that to happen literally every single time, but when possible it's there. Again, this is another thing the loc amped up, and I can only guess it's because she's the head of the Church (and churches are viewed as the enemy in most JPRGs) and the main person Edelgard opposes (with no acknowledgement from the loc team, about why that is, being a bad thing).

It's like, the one time there's a game where the Church isn't actually the enemy, they... made it so that the loc reflected that the Church is still actually the enemy. Churches being the enemy are so common that it was intentionally used in the original script as a red herring. You think they're gonna be the big bads because they always are in JRPGs.

The point of that was meant to fulfill itself as a red herring, making you focus on them and scrutinize everything they said and did even heavier than you would anyone else. It makes everything Edelgard does get swept under the rug and causes the player not to notice until it's fastballed at you. That's why you end up fighting her and not the Church except if you're specifically on her route.

That was lost in loc, of course, and it got so overwhelmingly popular in the west (which I do believe is a reason they did it to begin with, i.e. made the Church the baddies by western viewpoint because the west apparently eats that shit right up) that Hopes catered most strongly toward the western audience, making the Church the big bads (who... don't even do anything wrong whatsoever in this game and hardly even exist to do so, but I can only guess they got largely ignored because they were so hated, and less positive interaction with them meant less worry of killing innocent people/more not caring about them as the enemy) of two routes out of three; not because that was the original script's intent, but because they just went with what was popular even if it went against their home game's intention. I was pretty unsurprised to find out this went over very badly with JP players.

In other words the loc was so widely understood as the true canon/intent of the story (despite its vast and drastic changes) that Hopes was crafted around the loc more than it was the original script. The loc of Houses altered so much that it changed the perception of the audience consuming it, so whether the JP writers are aware that that's why the game was consumed the way it was or not, they just knew a chunk of the western audience loved Edelgard and hated Rhea.

When I play a game I want the same story and experience that everyone has playing it. I don't want to understand it differently than it's meant to be understood and was understood in the region it was created in. If it's a dark and mature themed game, it should stay that way. It western audiences can't handle that, then the game shouldn't be played by them whether it comes out in the west or not.

If you can't handle the content of a video game, you shouldn't play it, plain and simple. No amount of "oh but I like this portion of it!" changes the overall narrative that you can't handle and/or don't like (and you wouldn't know you like a part of it if you didn't play it at all, which you did play it despite knowing it's largely not for you. If you didn't know but play it and find out, you put it down and move on). The game's messages should not be altered to fit purists or baby the players. If it needs to be edited that strongly to work in the west, my feeling on it is that it should not be released in the west.

If it is released, the story should not be altered to baby its audience. If people do play it despite that and can't handle it, it's their responsibility to stop playing it and not bitch at the people who released it (in any region) or bitch at the loc team for not changing anything (i.e. bitching that the loc team didn't change creative aspects of the story to fulfill another region's agenda).

Why does that happen though? Capitalism, quite frankly. Companies prefer the money added to their coffers than to keep the originality of a creative piece of art. They'll follow any political agenda that's popular, any social media agenda that's popular, etc, even if it means changing creativity.

They want the most people possible to purchase it, so if more people will buy the product, even if it means sullying the creative work of the original writers, they'll do it. That may not be true worldwide, but it absolutely is with many western companies. If the narrative of a game doesn't fit what western culture agrees with, they'll change it to make it so that western culture agrees with it (re: the Church).

Localization shouldn't exist to change a work of art/to change any media form for the sake of just releasing it in another region for the profit, but it does happen; hence why I prefer translation to loc. Over the years I've grown to hate western localization more and more.

If localizers have to work that badly to change what already exists (including changing the intent of the creator(s)), I have zero respect for their "efforts" for trying to alter a story and possibly even pursue a particular agenda (because we play games to have fun and enjoy something, not to have irl agendas thrown back in our faces).

Translators who go through loops upon loops to make sure the story stays as intact as possible with only changes of necessity are the ones I respect. Translating things to keep the meaning of a story is a lot more difficult and trying than just going "well how about we just completely change this and then we don't even have to think about how to work it out".

Also, there's a difference between pursuing an agenda or writing something to fix a glaring issue like racism. If there are aspects of a media that got changed in the west to eliminate racism (which is often, especially in Japan from my understanding based on other media I consume, done because of ignorance and not genuinely harmful intent), that's understandable.

That alone shouldn't alter a whole story though, and if it has to because the racism or whatever it is is that bad, then the work should simply not be released in the west! Simple as that! If it's that bad, why support those things by changing them to sound nicer/better and let the original product still generate revenue?

Now, is all localization this bad? No. Is Houses' localization bad enough that it changed an entire region's perception on the contents of the game? Yes. That's a no no for me.

I respect localization that does its best to keep the same story and change what won't work in another region (including what may be deemed unacceptable in said region or really toes a line of general regional discomfort).

I do not respect localization that sticks in the team's own biases or tries to push any kind of agenda to appeal to certain people. If a piece of creative media is created without the intention to push any kind of agenda, it should remain that way and not suddenly have things added to it for that purpose.

I respect creative media. I don't respect capitalism and changing content to cater to a specific subset of an audience, including the staff's own.

[eeunwoo]

this is super on brand for me but today I’m experiencing debilitating frustration @ being misunderstood on the internet like some kind of loser 😩

[ssaalexblake]

what didn’t appear in that post was the line ‘even peppa pig is a little bitch a lot of the time’ bc i was trying to actually be serious, but i wanted to mention it bc it’s funny and also true. 

[valeriehalla]

I am so utterly fascinated by “Saki”, the 18-year-running mahjong manga in which you, the reader, become gradually, frog-boilingly aware (over the course of nearly two decades’ worth of mahjong tournaments) that none of these girls are wearing underwear and most of their boobs are slowly expanding.

I need you to understand that I have, like, an anthropological level fascination with this comic. From the perspective of someone who is also a comic artist and writer, two things delight me about it:

the fact that I understand completely how an artist gets from “the fans can have a little hint of skirted asscheek” to “the pussy is completely out on center page” over the course of 18 years; and

the way in which the pussy being out is treated by the characters and diegesis as being utterly unremarkable.

Okay. Point 1. The frog-boiling.

Let me put this in perspective for you. There was already a meme about how the characters in “Saki” don’t wear underwear when I was in middle school. I am thirty now. Okay? And it’s still going.

In the time since, this has stopped being a joke. It is now indisputable canon. This is not because anyone outright says it at any point. It’s because the underwear ran out of places to hide. I’m obsessed with this thought: somewhere in the over 20 volumes of “Saki”, there is a panel in which underwear was objectively deconfirmed. And it would be so hard to figure out where that panel actually is. Maybe the artist didn’t even realize it when she drew it! The frog? Boiling!!

And of course there is also the breast expansion. I don’t know how to put a spin on this. They are just expanding. Like, this happens a lot with artists: you define a character as being, in your mind, “the one with the big boobs”, and over the years you emphasize that trait further and further so that the signal doesn’t get lost in the noise. It’s just that normally—in like a wildly popular manga series about mahjong published by literally Square Enix, for example—normally there would be a point at which the boobs stopped getting bigger. Like, an editor would step in or something. Or you would get to the point where you cannot draw the character in the same panel as her mahjong tiles without her breasts spilling over the tiles, and you’d go, “Well, this is now untenable.”

That did not happen. There is no ceiling. The frog is soup.

Point 2. The complete and utter mundanity of all of this.

It’s like this, okay: there’s no shortage of trashy ecchi manga out there. There’s a million other comics doing wildly bawdier things with wildly more improbable bishoujos.

The vibe with “Saki” is different.

It’s hard to explain this, but it feels like the world of the comic is fundamentally uninterested in the fanservice happening on the page. I cannot describe it as “leering”, because I cannot conceive of a person in the story from whose point of view one would leer. I think the artist is probably into it—I can’t imagine anyone is making her do this—but “Saki” the comic has no opinion on the matter.

There are essentially no male characters in “Saki”. Like, there was one guy? Kind of? At the very beginning? But he is gone now. They put him back in the toybox. He does not exist. It appears to be some level of canonical that in the world of “Saki”, almost all humans are women. Those women are sometimes romantically into each other. According to comments the artist has made on Twitter (which I cannot source), they have lesbian baby technology, so it’s no problem. It’s so much not a problem that the story is about mahjong, instead of any of that.

So, like, the fiction here appears to be this: this is the, like, meta-narrative of the fanservice of “Saki”, right: it’s just normal that they don’t wear underwear and their boobs are arbitrarily big. It’s been normal. It was normal before the story of the manga began. It’s just how things are. Nobody bats an eye about it, and if they do, it’s in sort of a lesbian kind of way so like what’s the problem, we love lesbians here. This is literally normal for girls.

The fanservice simply diffuses into this all-encompassing aura of disembodied, ambient sluttiness. The framing of the panels demands you acknowledge it, and the story demands you already be over it, because it’s mahjong time now, and we’re playing mahjong.

Do you get??? why I’m so fascinated??? Are you not a little enraptured???

Anyway, I have no idea how to end this weird post. I guess the conclusion is that women stay winning????

[deception-united]

Let's talk about transitions.

Transitioning between fast-paced and slow-paced scenes is essential for maintaining the flow of your narrative and keeping readers engaged throughout your story, allowing for moments of reflection, introspection, and character development.

Here are some strategies to smoothly transition between different pacing levels:

Use scene endings and beginnings: End a fast-paced scene with a cliffhanger or revelation that propels the story forward, then transition to a slower-paced scene that allows characters (and readers) to process the events. On the flip side, begin a slow-paced scene with a hook or question that intrigues readers and draws them deeper into the story.

Bridge paragraphs: Include bridge paragraphs between scenes to provide a smooth transition. These paragraphs can briefly summarize the previous scene's events, set the scene for the upcoming events, or transition between different settings, characters, or points of view.

Change in tone or focus: Shift the tone or focus of the narrative to signal a change in pacing. For example, transition from a tense action scene to a quieter moment of reflection by shifting the narrative focus from external events to internal thoughts and emotions.

Utilise pacing within scenes: Even within a single scene, you can vary the pacing to create transitions. Start with a fast-paced opening to grab the reader's attention, then gradually slow down the pacing as you delve deeper into character interactions, dialogue, or introspection. Conversely, speed up the pacing to inject energy and excitement into slower scenes.

Symbolic transitions: Use symbolic elements within the narrative to signal transitions between pacing levels. For example, transition from a fast-paced scene set during a stormy night to a slow-paced scene set in the calm aftermath of the storm, mirroring the shift in pacing.

Foreshadowing: Use subtle foreshadowing in fast-paced scenes to hint at upcoming events or conflicts that will be explored in slower-paced scenes. This creates anticipation and helps to smoothly transition between different pacing levels by maintaining continuity in the narrative arc.

Character reactions: Show how characters react to the events of fast-paced scenes in the subsequent slower-paced scenes. Use their thoughts, emotions, and actions to provide insight into the impact of these events on the story and its characters, helping to bridge the transition between pacing levels.

See my post on pacing for more! ❤

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[ilions-end]

i finished statius' ACHILLEID. thoughts thoughts thoughts:

i knew going in it was a VERY short unfinished epic, but i didn't know it would be FUN?? if i ever get that time machine, FIRST THING i go back and find one publius papinius statius, i lock him in a room, and i'm NOT letting him out until he's finished the achilleid!

achilles is statius' BLORBO in a way neither homer, quintus nor virgil have blorbos. statius likes achilles to be strong and pretty and graceful, but most of all ENDEARING even when he fails. and he fails a lot, because this is him still figuring out how to be an adult, not to mention a prophesied legend literally everyone is waiting for to step up

the one thing that gets tiring is just how many prophecies permeate the achilleid. nothing's left to chance, there are so few unknowns. even ODYSSEUS was aware that from peleus' wedding there would come a child destined to be a central warrior in an upcoming gigantic war.

as it stands, the achilleid is more of a... thetisiad? she is very centered in the narrative (we spend more time looking at things from her point of view than achilles') and there is SO MUCH SYMPATHY for her, oh my gosh!! she loves ONE person, her son, the only worthwhile thing she got out of a traumatizing marriage, and she despairs that he's fated to die young in a silly human war.

also i'm a deidamia defender forever now. so three-dimensional, so clever!

aughhh i love how much characterization statius puts in, even in the small scenes! my favourite example is odysseus and diomedes as they walk up to lycomedes' place (literally just moving characters from A to B). diomedes teases odysseus, and odysseus is delighted to be teased. that night we're told odysseus CAN'T SLEEP because he's too excited about showing off his plan the next morning!

the unveiling of achilles is completely different from the chagrined defeat/"achilles is a fucking idiot" ways i've heard it retold! i love that it's collaborative, it's a mutual triumph. it's just as much achilles (who's been suffering in gender dysphoria hell for a year) longing to be exposed as it is odysseus LIVING for showing everyone (especially diomedes?) how clever he is. it's not just the shield and the spear and the bugle, it's odysseus playing the part of the siren, whispering in achilles' ear that he knows who he is and describing how glorious he will be on the trojan battlefield. it's achilles' grateful relief at being ALLOWED not to pretend anymore as he rips off his own dress even before the bugle calls

also it's very important to me that the moment he's no longer hunching over trying to make himself look small and inoffensive, we're told achilles is taller than both odysseus and diomedes

i KEEP IMAGINING how good statius would have made the rest!! especially because as book ii ends, achilles regards odysseus as a cool uncle; he's the guy who rescued him! i want to think statius would have put in the big mystery quarrel achilles and odysseus are said to have had early in the war, something to drastically change that affection. i want to know how statius would have handled troilus, and the gods. augh statius you roman BLUEBALLER

an assortment of story beats still revolving in my head:

chiron is such a sweetheart!! he's SO gallant with thetis, he's so affectionate with achilles. he HIDES HIS TEARS when achilles leaves, awww

statius writes out phoinix completely. as a phoinix stan i object. sure chiron can raise young achilles, but i NEED phoinix to tend to him as a baby

i enjoy how achilles EXPLODES into a mess of teenagerly hormones when he first sees deidaima. it's so funny that thetis is looking on (and we get my favourite simile of the achilleid, of a herdsman delighting in a young bull snorting and foaming at a beautiful heifer) like "aaaaand there's my son's sexual awakening. i see! well, we can use that" and THAT explains why achilles is so willing to commit to the female disguise

(listen. listen. few things mean more to me than the love between achilles and patroclus. but achilles is a teenage boy at the age when a fucking breeze will give him a boner, and deidamia is the most beautiful and the cleverest of her sisters. i really enjoy a story where achilles and deidamia are neither "fated eternal true love" or one's a sneaky opportunist. it's much more compelling that they're both knots of budding emotions and bodily feedback)

i notice that statius never uses the name pyrrha, he doesn't seem to have a fake name at all, just "achilles' sister"

lycomedes is SO honoured and proud that thetis is entrusting her daughter to him. i feel sorry for lycomedes, he seems so earnest and hasn't done anything to get tricked

the one thing i can't forgive statius for is that after spending SO much time establishing that achilles and deidamia (who knows he's a guy) are genuinely into each other, it feels like statius goes OUT OF HIS WAY assuring us that their first sexual encounter is rape. sure they talk right after, deidamia forgives him, AND i understand there are social rules that makes deidamia more "honourable" and "worthy" when she resists, but like. sigh.

aLONG with the previously mentioned interplay between odysseus and diomedes as they walk up to lycomedes' court, there's a simile where they're both starving wolves on the hunt. so sexy it's almost illegal

the feast scene is SO FUNNY omg. all of achilles' careful feminine training dissolving because odysseus and diomedes are there with their boundless masculinity for him to feed off of. deidamia practically WRESTLING achilles back down on the couch every time he forgets himself and behaves too much like a man. odysseus chatting with lycomedes SPECIFICALLY trying to rile up achilles, and then after the women have left (achilles dragging his feet and looking back, YEARNING for their male company) odysseus specifically praises the maiden's "almost masculine" beauty (because ohh he suspects. he just needs to prove it in the morning. he can't SLEEP for it)

when they depart, achilles earnestly swears to deidamia that no other women shall ever bear his children. i find it interesting as a reminder of the social rules of its era. neither of them expect achilles to be sexually exclusive, just not fathering potential heirs. which again makes me wonder about the contraceptives in ancient greece

on the ship towards aulis, diomedes begs achilles to tell them all about his feats and training with chiron, and achilles is so shy about it! who can blame him! diomedes has a WAY more impressive track record

odysseus is SO good at firing up achilles' outrage at paris even as he's just catching him up on what the war's about. and he's so pleased at how easily achilles' outrage can be directed! you KNOW that would have developed in such an interesting way AUGH THE REST WOULD HAVE BEEN SO GOOD.

[felassan]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard info compilation Post 4

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [another post]

Post is under a cut due to length.

There is a lot of information coming out right now about DA:TV from many different sources. This post is just an effort to compile as much as I can in one place, in case that helps anyone. Sources for where the information came from have been included. Where I am linking to a social media user’s post, the person is either a dev, a Dragon Age community council member or other person who has had a sneak peek at and played the game. nb, this post is more of a ‘info that came out in snippets from articles and social media posts’ collection rather than a ‘regurgitating the information on the official website or writing out what happened in the trailer/gameplay reveal’ post. The post is broken down into headings on various topics. A few points are repeated under multiple headings where relevant. Where I am speculating without a source, I have clearly demarcated this. if you notice any mistakes in this post, please tell me.

Character Creation

BioWare confirmed that even if you make your Rook a short king, the team has done work to ensure animations fit any character build [source]

"Dragon Age's character creator has seen a massive glow-up" [source]. "The volume of choices you get here are frankly insane. As Epler noted, “you could spend forever here,” and he’s not kidding." [source] The art and graphics teams spent a lot of time trying to make hair look amazing [source: the Discord]

In CC we can customise our "bulge size" [source]

Some more detail on the new lighting options to see how Rook looks like in CC when you make them: you can view them in "blazing forest sunshine versus the glare of an underground temple" [source]

"newly mobile, extra-hairy hair" [source]

Faction choice has statistical boons. For example, Shadow Dragon Rook deals extra damage to Venatori blood cultists [source]

Faction choice basically determines why Rook has been called to help in the fight against Solas [source]

All pre-determined character models in CC can be adjusted [source]

You can make a really tall dwarf if you want [source]

"Setting your previous world state is fully integrated into the character creator for Veilguard" [source: the Discord]

Inquisitor appearance will be re-created, there is no way to carry their appearance from DA:I into the game [source: the Discord]

Classes for Rook are not restricted in the sense that you can play any almost class, lineage and faction combination that you want. For example, a mage Rook can be a Crow [source: the Discord] (Fel note: it sounded like Rook cannot be a magic-wielding dwarf, even though the exception of Harding now exists) (Fel note: there is a mage Crow in one of the books)

Story and lore

Here is another article which refers to Rook as "the Rook" [source]

The story is set "9-10 years from DA:I and about 8 years from Trespasser" [source: the Discord]

They have been tracking Solas for "a while. Something else you’re gonna learn about…" [source]

The game does not use the Keep [source]

Shadow Dragon is the faction background with the most in-game reactivity (e.g. from other characters' dialogue) during the prologue section of the game, due to the fact that the prologue is in Minrathous and the Shadow Dragons are a Tevinter-based faction [source]

"I also saw a big moment after the gameplay trailer ends that I can't talk about" [source]

During the more narrative-heavy dialogue choices, "the game will also give a bit of context on what you're about to choose, but doesn't go as far as explaining the exact consequences or precisely what will happen thereafter" [source] "the game shows you how you’ll go about the choice, but it doesn’t tell you the consequence of that choice". [source]

"The game is bringing back Dragon Age 2s dialogue system, which was tone-based and resulted in its protagonist Hawke falling into one of three different personality states. You have three general tones in a conversation: kind, humorous, or aggressive, with slight variations depending on the situation" [source]

"Venatori blood cultists" [source]

"The whole game has the makings of another Suicide Mission [ME2], given that you are up against a god with the ability to collapse dimensions" [source]

"Choices and consequences". "Now, it seems you can see the effects of your choices like never before, and this time, they marry that choice with incredible visuals" [source]

In the bar when you're trying to get information in the opening, if you choose to fight it out and the barbrawl ensues, you then have to run from the pursuers in the bar [source]

A key concern of the developers when creating the environments was to make “a world worth saving" [source]

The prologue is quite linear but there are additional paths you can follow to find additional loot [source]

In the opening section of the game there is a dock which has been attacked and the soldiers that were there have been killed, "but rather than seeing this passively, we walked through the aftermath and had to interact with the scene to piece it all together" [source]

The tone of the gameplay video is a good indicator of the tone of the rest of the game [source]. On the tone: "dark fantasy" [source]. horror & gore is back along with DA's classic dark elements [source]

Tevinter Nights is a better tone indicator for the game than the original reveal/character trailer. Ghil Dirthalen: "Tevinter Nights has felt the most 'DAV' to me" [source]. The gameplay reveal video is the best indicator for the tone of the game (vs the character one) [source]. there is still messy dark shit in the game [source]

Tonally the game is closest to Tevinter Nights and DA:O [source]

Ghil Dirthalen: "[as] one of those unfortunate souls who has latched onto a media world so hard: This game is for me. For the hardcore DA lore nerds, I've been secretly screaming about things I saw for MONTHS now" [source]

The game is true to the DA stories we know and love [source]

Characters, companions, romance

You can choose to engage in companions' own storylines as you progress or ignore them entirely [source]

You will often have to make dialogue choices that will affect how your various companions treat you [source]

Neve is quick-witted [source], measured and elegant [source]

In the opening, you interact with the companions as you move through Minrathous. "your choices during these interactions will determine who goes on portions of the mission with you, along with how “pleased” they are with the answers." [source]

On Varric and Harding: "Instantly the two felt like they’d never been away and avoided the trap of being parodies or fanfiction versions of themselves" [source]

Solas' eyes were always purple hh [source] (yes!)

Gameplay, presentation, performance etc

Some enemies have additional shields that are weak to ranged attacks [source]

When asked about if the war table from DA:I returned, John Epler said "There is a table. Now, whether it works the same way as the table in the previous game..." [source]

Once you get passed a certain point in the game, it opens up dramatically, however it is not an openworld game and they wanted to make sure that all the content mattered and was a more structured, sculpted experience for the player. There is some exploration, some opportunities to get off the beaten path, and some spaces that are fairly wide [source]

The button to press to bring up the skill wheel is RB or R1 (depending on what controller you're using) [source]

"You'll also have access to two skills or spells for each of your two companions that you can command. For a more seamless, uninterrupted combat experience, you can also assign these skills to shortcuts (such as holding the left trigger and hitting the X button) to quickly use them" [source]

"The game is bringing back Dragon Age 2s dialogue system, which was tone-based and resulted in its protagonist Hawke falling into one of three different personality states. You have three general tones in a conversation: kind, humorous, or aggressive, with slight variations depending on the situation" [source]

"booting Fade demons into pits" [source]

"BioWare have revised Dragon Age's art direction to make character models a little more consistent with the series' lovely Tarot-inspired menu art. Flesh is ruddy to the point of painterly; facial features and bodily proportions are thicker and more striking, as though the characters had been cut from clay" [source]

The 3 specs for Warrior are Reaper (has lifesteal/stealing health from enemies, and other freaky powers, does big damage), Slayer (can wield the biggest blade, big swords, big damage) or Champion, which is tanky, shield-using and Paladin like [source] [source]

There are quick-recover prompts [source]

You can roll through puddles of incoming AOE [source]

There are ziplines between some levels levels [source] (Fel note: just like in As We Fly... )

There are also slidey hills to slide down between some sections [source]

There are still some Hinterland-type areas designed for exploration [source]

We can do some home base management to our home base [source] (Fel note: this refers to The Lighthouse, detail in a previous post)

Camera placement is quite zoomed out [source]

Where Rogues have 'momentum', Warriors have 'rage' and Mages 'mana'. When a warrior spends rage in the ability wheel it triggers more powerful attacks. this has been referred to as a build-and-spend mechanic. this system resource gates your use of more powerful skills and is built by getting stuck in [source]. Momentum for Rogues is built by landing hits without taking any [source]

There are big glowing environmental cues for picking up loot or replenishing health potions [source]

"Epler noted that The Veilguard will not be an open-world experience like Inquisition, and instead will have large spaces to explore with quests littered throughout. This allayed my early concerns that they would course correct too hard from the oft-maligned open areas of Inquisition" [source]

Melee and ranged attacks can be charged up [source]

It sounds like there is an option to have greater guidance on when enemies are attacking [source]

The community council gave a lot of notes on the game's art direction to BioWare (gave feedback to the devs) that they were told and shown were changed from the first reveal/character trailer, these made it into the gameplay trailer [source]

The community council asked about having an arachnophobia mode, though they can't guarantee this was implemented [source]

"You’re encouraged to explore and grind for stronger weapons and gear, so your stats and cosmetics improve the further you get into the game" (in the sense that you’ll be rewarded for hard work) [source, two]

Follower information such as cooldowns and health will be visible on the HUD [source: the Discord]

There is a "quick cast" option if you prefer not to use the wheel, should be a chorded action using a controller [source: the Discord]

On PC you can play with keyboard and mouse or controller [source: the Discord]

An accessibility option is the ability to make auto-targeting stronger or weaker depending on your preference [source: the Discord]

The game will have DLSS support at launch [source: the Discord]

Re: hard drives, the game can be played using an HDD, they would recommend an SSD though for the optimal experience [source: the Discord]

There are lots of different interface options you can play with, e.g. combat text size, opacity, when to display health bars [source: the Discord]

Other

The leak from last year or whenever it was (the one that leaked screenshots and a gif from the game) was mainly a lot of outdated stuff and didn't really represent even the early version some community council members had played [source, two]. It was not leaked by a member of the community council, but by a member of another focus group [source]

The community council were given the chance to play the game twice, once in Fall 2022 and a year later in 2023 [source]

There is no information as yet regarding when pre-orders will be open [source: the Discord]

BioWare are hoping to at the very least have the very "best of" the Discord dev Q&A featured on social media and potentially in a blog [source: the Discord]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

[schattenhonig]

The A in LGBTQIA+ doesn't stand for aspec because they're not repressed!

(please read the disclaimer at the end of this post)

Ummm, excuse me? Would you mind telling me what your definition of repression is, then?

Because I feel repressed when a doctor asks me about my sex life, and if I say I have none, it gets marked down as a symptom without being asked if I suffer from it.

I feel repressed when my gyn tells me I can't get a hysterectomy yet despite losing so much blood on every period that I need to take iron supplements all the time, because I could change my mind about not wanting children (which is a whole other post, I know, but it's most likely linked to sex).

I feel repressed if I can't use dating apps or platforms because my sexuality doesn't even exist there, and the one time I tried, I got called names because I didn't want to meet for because it was clear where this date would go, despite my explicit "what I'm looking for".

I feel repressed when I think about how recently a paragraph was finally abolished in my country that considered sex a vital part of a marriage, basically entitling the spouses to having sex with their partner (both gender neutral, because entitling people to having sex with somebody else by law is wrong. It's basically a rape permission).

I feel repressed when I can't watch any film or show without it being about love and/or sex, no matter if it fits the narrative and furthers the plot.

I feel repressed when I plot my own stories and automatically put a romantic couple in there as main characters, even though I have no idea why this would be important for the plot. Not even my own stories, my own thoughts are mine.

I felt repressed when I was asked accusingly in a relationship if I wasn't missing something before I even knew asexuality as a spectrum was a thing, and having to lie about this being a side effect of my medication instead of genuinely not feeling attracted to someone in this way.

I feel repressed when I can't tell people I'm not sexually attracted to them because they will take this personally no matter how well I explain myself.

I feel repressed when everywhere I look there's advertising relying on naked skin, suggestive posing and objectification. Why are expensive cars still presented by women considered beautiful and tempting? It's not like that's necessary to convince people of spending so much money on a thing that gets you from A to B. Couches with women in smart dresses and high heels. That's not what a normal person looks like on a couch. But the worst is a truck in the town where I live: it's from a small fruit and vegetable stand, so whenever I see it, it comes from the warehouse, delivering groceries. On it is a woman clad in very little, presenting fruit. I'm sorry, but why? Does a misogynistic picture convince you of the necessity to avoid scurvy?

I feel repressed when I tell people and get the answer "you just haven't found the right person yet", because there are two possible assumptions from that point: I'm either not trying hard enough (so it's basically my own fault) or something about me is not right, appalling even (which circles back to I'm not trying hard enough or frames me as a victim of my genetics, upbringing or circumstances to be pitied).

Do not tell me how I feel. Do not try to tell me everything is fine and I shouldn't complain or ask for acknowledgement if everywhere I look, I'm reminded of how odd, how weird and how not normal I am. How much it inconveniences you to even acknowledge my existence, let alone respect any of my traits, views and choices.

And while I can only write from my own asexual point of view, I wrote this with all kinds of flavours of aspec in mind, so I'm explicitly including aromantics, aroace people and every shade of the spectrum in this. Not all my examples may apply to you, but I hope you can find something to relate to.

ETA: please feel free to add your own experiences of repression!

[mesetacadre]

hi, i hope you dont mind me asking this question! i often come across lists of reading recommendations for communists, and they are usually focused entirely on communist theory. which is important and im already on that, but i wonder if you also have recs for learning about history? especially the history of the soviet union, but also other past and present socialist states. i sometimes find myself reading theory and understanding the concepts in a vacuum, but with very little understanding of the historical context they were written in, if that makes any sense. and id like to get a basic grasp of the history of various socialist projects that isnt just the typical western "the ussr was evil!!!!" thing

Hi, historical context is indeed very important for works of theory, especially if it's more than a hundred years old. Lenin's What is to be Done, for example, is very conditioned by its historical context of Russia still being predominantly feudal, with only a timid appearance of the proletariat in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and therefore the very first trade unions, which he talks about. The understanding of these texts is amplified, and quite often enabled by knowing at least the basic historical context. Below I'll list the historical works I've read (and others) with some commentary, but I encourage anyone who has something to add to do so, since I am as of only recently getting more into historiography.

Anything by Anna Louise Strong (I've read The Soviets Expected it (1941) and In North Korea (1941), there's also The New Lithuania (1941), The Stalin Era (1956) and When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet (1959) for example). Her works, which I'd consider primary sources since they are written from her own experience witnessing events and talking to a lot of people, are extremely useful if you wish to form an idea about how some aspects of socialist states worked. The limitation of her works also resides in this specificity and closeness, these are not works that present a broad view of long processes, but a slice of the present with the sufficient historical context. They are still very, very good.

The Open Veins of Latin America (Spanish versrion), by Eduardo Galeno (1971). This one is focused on the history of imperialism in Latin America, how it evolved from the moment the first Spanish foot touched ground to the time it was written in (It talks about Allende before he was assassinated but after achieving power, for example). Perhaps it's not exactly what you're looking for, but it contains very important general context for any social movement that has happened since 1492 to 1971

The Triumph of Evil, by Austin Murphy (2002). I have mixed feelings about this book. While it insists on this weird narrative of absolute evil, which IMO takes away a lot of value from the overall points made, it is an astonishingly in-depth analysis of the economic performance and general merit of socialist systems against their capitalist counterparts. Most of the book is dedicated to comparing the GDR to the FRG, and both the economic and social data it exposes was very eye-opening to me when I read it about 2 years ago. If you can wade through the moralism (especially the beginning of the introduction), it's a gem. I've posted pictures of its very detailed index under the cut :)

Blackshirts and Reds, Michael Parenti (1997). Despite the very real criticisms levied against this book, like its mischaracterization of China, it is still a landmark work. Synthetically, it exposes the relationship between fascism, capitalism and communism.

Red Star Over the Third World, Vijay Prashad (2019); The Russian Revolution: A View from the Third World, Walter Rodney (2018). I'm lumping these two together (full disclosure, as of writing I'm about four fifths of the way through RSOtTW) because they deal with the same topic, Prashad being influenced by Rodney as well. Like both titles imply, they deal with the effects the October revolution had on the exploited peoples of the world, which is a perspective that's often lost. Through this, they (at least Prashad) also talk about the early USSR and how it functioned. For example, up until reading Red Star, I hadn't even heard of the 1920 Congress of The Toilers of the East in Baku, or the Congress of the Women of the East.

From here on I'll link works that I haven't (yet) read, but I have seen enough trusted people talk about them to include them

How to Cast a God into Hell: The Khrushchev Report, by Domenico Losurdo (2008). This one talks about how the period of Stalin was twisted and exaggerated through destalinization.

Devils in Amber, by Philips Bonoski (1992). This is about the Baltics and their historical trajectory from before WW1 to the destruction of the USSR (I'm not very sure on those two limits, perhaps they fluctuate a bit, but it definitely covers from WW1 to the 60s)

Socialism Betrayed, by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny (2004). This one deals with the process leading up to and the destruction of the USSR itself.

The Jakarta Method, Vincent Bevins (2020). This is about the methods the US used in the second half of the 20th century to stamp out, prevent, or otherwise sabotage communist movements and other democratic anti-imperialist movements.

I know some of these aren't specifically about socialist states, which is what you asked, but the history of its opposition is just as important to understand because it always exists as a condition to these countries' development and policies chosen.

[penultimate-step]

Lately, I've been thinking about the effect of real-world time on perception of media. Or, wait, let me start from the beginning.

When I was 11, I read the book Ender's Game for some school assignment or another. I don't remember ever considering Ender a relatable character, but certainly my understanding of the events was shaped by being of an age to see the protagonist not so much as a young child but as someone of my peer group, someone who could have been slotted amongst my classmates without anybody batting an eye.

Over a decade later, I read the sequel, Speaker for the Dead; it takes place many years later, when Ender is in his thirties, and my feelings about the in-universe time skip were undeniably shaped by the real life time gap between my reading of the novels. Reading the first book back then and then the second book now created a feeling where it's almost like, I'm browsing the facebook page of someone I had known in middle school but lost contact with, checking up on how they're doing today. The real-time factor caused me to perceive it less like a timeskip, and more like a reunion - the feelings were closer to "oh wow, that's my boy! I haven't seen him in years! Wonder what he's up to?" Which in turn gave me a better position to appreciate the parts of the narrative about him struggling to find a place in his adulthood than I would have been had I perceived it more strictly as a quick skip from 11 to 20 to 36.

While musing about this, I considered a VN I played a few years back, which took place over three in-game days - except at the end of one in-game day, the game would lock you out from progressing for 24 hours real time. So that as the in-game investigator protagonist was ruminating on the information that had been discovered that day, the player would be forced to do the same. In this example, by forcing the player to experience the same timeframe as the in-game characters, the sense of it being an in-depth and extensive investigation increases, even though without the forced pauses the game would be short enough to blow through in a handful of hours real-time.

Which brings to mind how time effects things in long-running serial works. It's well known that an audience which watches an episode or reads a chapter week by week has a very different experience than one binging through whole seasons or volumes at a time, but I wonder if the real time relative to the in-universe time makes that effect stand out more? Fight scenes, for instance, have been known to take up several chapters in certain manga or webnovels. What does it do to the reader's perception, if from their point a view a fight takes a whole month, while for the characters they read about it's only been a couple hours? Readers might feel that the situation is more stressful, since the pressure of the fight has been ongoing for a long time for them, while in-universe it was a rough afternoon but no more than that. Contrastingly, when a series skips ahead or otherwise has long periods of time for characters that feel short for readers, it can feel like no time has passed and everything is still the same, unless the author really stresses the differences in world-state that occurred offscreen. Because the reader hasn't changed at all.

No conclusion here exactly, I just think it's interesting how often an audience's response to a work, the emotions felt, are more closely tied to their real-life timescale, something almost completely out of the author's control, as opposed to in-universe time, which can be intentionally shifted or played with for the sake of the narrative.

[still-searching-for-something]

Today was Yom HaShoah, the day that Jews remember the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the industrialized genocide of the European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators from 1941-1945.

This is a really simple opening statement, but bear with me--I think it gets a lot more... 'yeah, buts' than most people may realize. And I think a good way of illuminating that is to break down the difference between how gentiles and Jews commemorate and remember it.

In my experience, gentiles seem to view the Holocaust as the ultimate example of mankind's barbarity to mankind. Like, the distillation of evil, the most obvious example of dehumanization and bigotry brought to its horrifying and extreme conclusion. They emphasize Nazi Germany's responsibility, elevate the instances of non-Jewish Frenchmen and Poles and Germans who made efforts to save Jewish lives, and generally view Nazi oppression as a catastrophe of whom Jews were one of many victims. And they emphasize the Allied Powers' role in ending it by liberating the camps and invading Germany. Hence why International Holocaust Remembrance Day falls on January 27th, the day Auschwitz was liberated.

But Jews have a different perspective.

We view the Holocaust as the most extreme manifestation of--but far from the conclusion to--mankind's barbarity to Jews. Not to his fellow man, per se, not to some universalized insert minority here slot, but to Jews, particularly and deliberately. The Nazis could never have accomplished their genocide were it not for the two millennia of anti-Jewish hatreds and dehumanization embedded deep in the institutions and political structures of European society. They didn't have to persuade Europe that the Jews were incurably evil, the Europeans already believed that. The Nazis had 99% of their work done before they'd even come to power, work that was done by the the Russian Empire, the Romans, Martin Luther, Christian Passion Plays, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the centuries of blood libels, the Fourth Lateran Council, the New Testament, the Spanish Empire, and on and on and on and on. It's as if some people think Hitler just woke up one day, out of the blue, with a total hatred of Jews and managed to use propaganda to convince the previously 100% tolerant Germans to hate Jews, too. Antisemitism did not begin or end with the Holocaust.

The sole responsibility of Nazi Germany in the Holocaust is also just... not true. Vichy France rounded up 13,152 Jews in the Vel' d'Hiv roundup, with not a single German participant, and sent them off to be murdered in Auschwitz. Vichy passed antisemitic legislation without any outside coercion--French Jews were hiding as much from the French police as they were from the Gestapo. France, of course, was the home of the Dreyfus Affair--antisemitism was and is a deep part of French society. And it isn't just France. Ukrainian nationalists participated in the Lviv pogroms, killing maybe around 8,000 Jews, Poles perpetrated the Jedwabne pogrom, and that doesn't even bring in that countries like the US, Switzerland and Ireland and Britain blocked Jewish emigrants, and I could just keep going on, but I think you get the point. Quite simply, six million Jews interspersed throughout Europe don't get murdered if it isn't without the collaboration of--or at minimum, silent assent and indifference--of all of their neighbors. The Nazis were the primary perpetrators of the Holocaust, of course, but almost all of Europe collaborated on some level, too. And this is a history that gets wiped away in favor of the comforting narrative of the Allied Powers bursting into Auschwitz, killing Nazis, and being horrified by what they've found, and then the poor people in the surrounding towns having NO IDEA about what had been going on. I think this narrative is why gentiles have International Holocaust Remembrance Day when Auschwitz was liberated--when they 'came to the rescue'--and why we have Yom HaShoah on the day in the Jewish calendar that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began--when we died on our own terms in spite of our murderers.

Think of the tiny, unwritten, centuries old minhagim of small Jewish shetls and towns like Trochenbrod, which were entirely annihilated. The end of the burgeoning Yiddish cinema. Yiddish going from 13 million speakers to 600,000 today. See how many entries in this list of shetls end with "town/city survived, but all/most Jews exterminated." Imagine for a moment, the potential rabbis and scholars and actors and scientists and artists who could have lived, had they survived or been born of Jews did. Three and a half million Polish Jews, to around 15,000 to 20,000 Polish Jews today. Imagine if Thessaloniki were still a majority Jewish city. How many Jews worldwide would be alive today had the Holocaust never happened? I've heard estimations of 32 million, compared to the real life 16 million. To kill such a massive number of people from an already tiny minority group--that has real consequences. The cultural loss for the Jewish people is staggering and beyond human comprehension.

And yet, the Nazis deliberate targeting of us is, in many ways, being pushed aside. Magnus Hirschfeld was gay, yes, and advanced the Institute of Sexology way ahead of its time and yeah, the Nazis were homophobic. But they were homophobic for antisemitic reasons. They viewed his work as Jewish perversions BECAUSE Dr. Hirschfeld was Jewish. In fact, they viewed homosexuality as a creation of the Jews. But so many progressive queer people, especially those who run in antizionist circles, seem to be trying to co-opt the Holocaust as being their trauma, downplaying Hirschfeld's Jewishness and holding the Institute up as proof that queer people were the 'real' victims of the Holocaust, entirely shutting out the millions of Jews, Sinti, Roma, and Slavs who were murdered. You can also see this in anti-mask conservatives comparing masking mandates during the pandemic to anti-Jewish legislation in the Holocaust, or the comparisons of the ongoing war against Hamas as being a 'modern day Holocaust.'

This phenomenon, Holocaust universalization, gets so much pushback from Jews for a reason--it downplays the anti-Jewish character of the Holocaust. It's softcore Holocaust denial. And it's so ridiculous we even have to say that, as the whole point of the Holocaust was to be anti-Jewish, to be the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." It's 'All Lives Mattering' the Holocaust. Holocaust universalization, and Holocaust inversion--the phenomenon of talking about Jews, Zionists, or Israelis as perpetrating a 'new Holocaust'--minimizes and trivializes the astounding damage and traumas and death and destruction wrought by the Holocaust. It's a polemical lie, so incendiary and so insulting--imagine telling a sexual assault survivor that they're morally no better than their rapist--that the only thing it can be is antisemitic. It is beyond reprehensible to talk like that, but it's so mainstream and acceptable to do it. Activists who say these things need to examine their own rhetoric, because it's dangerous, antisemitic, and adjacent to Holocaust denial. Not a place I think anyone should want to be.

The Holocaust is not a lesson Jews should have learned, an educational seminar, a 'card' Jews play, a choose your own adventure novel, a philosophical meditation on the nature of mankind's evils, or an empty slate upon which to project modern politics, warfare, or your ideology onto.

The Holocaust is, quite simply, the industrialized genocide of the European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators from 1941-1945. And today was Yom HaShoah, the day we remember that.

[headspace-hotel]

Just spent a couple hours digging into this book. I'm not even sure what has worse environmental impacts, the paper the book is made of or the opinions printed within.

Is "post-colonial" literary theory a joke? It's distressing that a book printed in 2021 by a reputable academic press can be so painfully Eurocentric, and I mean PAINFULLY. The philosophical and literary frameworks drawn upon in most chapters are like what some British guy in 1802 would come up with. In most of the chapters, every framework, terminology, and example is inseparably fused to Latin, Greek, and/or Christian philosophers, myths and texts, even down to the specific turns of phrase. You would think only Europeans had history or ideas until the 20th century.

Don't get me wrong, non-european and even specifically anti-colonial sources are used, and I don't think all the writers are white people, but...that's what's so weird and off-putting about it, most of the book as a whole utterly fails to absorb anything from non-European and in particular anti-colonial points of view. The chapters will quote those points of view but not incorporate them or really give their ideas the time of day, just go right back to acting like Plato and Aristotle and Romantic poets are the gold standard for defining what it means to be human.

In brief, the book is trying to examine how literature can shed light on the climate crisis, which is funny because it completely fails to demonstrate that literature is good or helpful for the climate crisis. Like that is for sure one major issue with it, it shows that people *have* written stuff about climate change, but it sure doesn't convince you that this stuff is good.

Most of the works quoted are rather doomerist, and a lot of the narrative works specifically are apocalypse tales where most of Earth's population dies. The most coherent function the authors can propose that literature fulfills is to essentially help people understand how bad things are. One of the essays even argues that poetry and other creative work that simply appreciates nature is basically outdated, because:

“One could no longer imagine wandering lonely as a cloud, because clouds now jostle in our imaginations with an awareness of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric pollutants” (Mandy Bloomfield, pg. 72)

Skill issue, Mandy.

The menace of doomerism in fiction and poetry is addressed, by Byron Caminero-Santangelo, on page 127 when he references,

the literary non-fiction of a growing number of authors who explicitly assert, some might even say embrace, the equation between fatalistic apocalyptic narrative and enlightenment…they are authoritative in their rejection of any hope and in their representation of mitigatory action as the cliched moving of deckchairs on a sinking ship

He quotes an essay “Elegy for a country’s seasons” by Zadie Smith, who says: “The fatalists have the luxury of focusing on an eschatological apocalyptic narrative and on the nostalgia of elegy, as well as of escape from uncertainty and responsibility to act." Which is spot-on and accurate, but these observations aren't recognized as a menace to positive action, nor is the parallel to Christian thought that eagerly looks forward to Earth's destruction as a cathartic release from its pain made fully explicit and analyzed. Most of the creative works referenced and quoted in the book ARE this exact type of fatalistic, elegiac performance of mourning.

I basically quit reading after Chapter 11, "Animals," by Eileen Crist, which begins:

The humanization of the world began unfolding when agricultural humans separated themselves from wild nature, and started to tame landscapes, subjugate and domesticate animals and plants, treat wild animals as enemies of flocks and fields, engineer freshwater ecologies, and open their psyches to the meme of the ‘the human’ as world conquerer, ruler and owner.

This is what I'm talking about when I say it's dripping Eurocentrism; these ideas are NOT universal, and it's adding nothing to the world to write them because they fall perfectly in line with what the European colonizing culture already believes, complete with the lingering ghost of a reference to the Fall of Man and banishment from the Garden of Eden. It keeps going:

“Over time, the new human elaborated a view of the animal that ruptured from the totemic, shamanic and relational past.”

Okay so now she's introducing the idea of progression from shamanic nature-worshipping religions of our primitive past...hmm I'm sure this isn't going anywhere bad

“While humanity has largely rejected the colonizing project with respect to fellow humans, the occupation of non-human nature constitutes civilization’s last bastion of ‘normal’ colonialism. A new humanity is bound sooner or later to recognize and overthrow a colonialism of ‘nature,’ embracing a universal norm of interspecies justice.” (pg. 206) 

OKAY????

Not only denying that colonialism still exists, but also saying that humans' relationship with nature constitutes colonialism??

Embracing limitations means scaling down the human presence on demographic and economic fronts…(pg.207)

ope, there's the "we have to reduce the human population"

Embracing limitations further mandates pulling back from vast expanses of the natural world, thus letting the lavishness of wild (free) nature rule Earth again” (pg. 207) 

aaaaaaand there's the "we have to remove humans from wild nature so it can be freeeeeee"

don't get me wrong like I am a random white person with no particular expertise in anti-colonialist thought but I think this is an easy one. I'm pretty sure if your view of nature is that colonialism involving subjugating humans doesn't exist any more and actually humans existing in and altering nature is the real colonialism so we should remove humans from vast tracts of earth, your opinion is just bad.

Anyways y'all know I have an axe to grind against doomerism so it was probably obvious where this was going but good grief.

[temporaerthaervaerk]

I just realised that all the media I adore has some level of autistic/neurodivergent coding and it's been that way since I was a child.

And like, oftentimes their different way of perceiving and being in the world is the driving force of the story/and or a crucial element in it.

There’s the canon example of the entire Camp Halfblood (ADHD), where the ADHD is literally what keeps the characters alive.

There's Dean Winchester (ADHD) whose hyperfixations are typically masculine (as well as geeky) and who never sits still, with the added bonus of Castiel (Autism), who Dean just... accepts, in a way I rarely see.

Then there’s the infamous Will Graham (Autism) whose hyperempathy is litterally the focal point of the entire narrative.

We have Haru from Free! (Autism), whose special interest (swimming) is the motivating factor for several other characters.

Reki and Langa from Sk8 the infinity (Autism), who share a special interest and grow a special bond because of it.

There's Sai from Hikaru No Go (Autism), who trancedented time and space to play Go (special interest) and whose special interest sets the story into motion.

We have any version of Sherlock Holmes (AuDHD), who's brilliance I attribute to a mixture of hyperfixations and special interest in crime solving. His conflicts with society and disregard of social norms are a central theme as well.

There's Anne with an E (Autism), who loves words and stories and speaks before she thinks (where all major problems arise due to her lack of understanding for social norms)

We have Pat and Pran from Bad Buddy (ADHD + Autism), like I dunno, I just really felt that vibe.

There's Beth Harmon from Queen's Gambit (Autism) with her special interest in Chess.

And like, the list goes on: Daryl Dixon, Jon Snow, Kotaro from Kotaro Lives Alone, Will Treaty from the Ranger's apprentice, Hal from the same author, Katniss Everdeen, Si-eun from Weak Hero Class 1, etc.

Don't get me wrong I've consumed plenty of stories without characters coded this way, but all the stories that truly resonated with me? Neurodivergent, all of them.

It's probably because the focus on social norms/hierarchy always seemed foreign to me. Eg. I like Skam but it's like a view into a completely foreign world where people function differently.

[sparrowlucero]

Even if a creator is a bad person it's still okay to like their work. People need to mind their own business.

Honestly it's not really that sort of situation. I'll actively defend Steven Moffat here.

There was a huge hate movement for him back in the early 2010s - which, in retrospect, formed largely because he was running 2 of the superwholock shows at once, one of which went through extremely long hiatuses* and the other of which was functionally an adaptation of an already well regarded show**, making him subject to a sort of double ire in the eyes of a lot of fandom people. Notably, his co-showrunner, Mark Gatiss, is rarely mentioned and much of his work is still attributed to Moffat (and yes, this includes that Hbomberguy video. Several of "Steven Moffat's bad writing choices" were not actually written by him, they were Gatiss.)

People caricatured the dude into a sort of malicious, arrogant figure who hated women and was deliberately mismanaging these shows to spite fans, to the point where people who never watched them believe this via cultural osmosis. It became very common to take quotes from him out of context to make them look bad***, to cite him as an example of a showrunner who hated his fans, someone who sabotaged his own work just to get at said fans, someone who was too arrogant to take criticism, despite all of this being basically a collective "headcanon" about the guy formed on tumblr. Some if it got especially terrible, like lying about sexual assault (I don't mean people accused him of sexual assault and I think they're making it up, I mean people would say things like "many of his actresses have accused him of sexual assault on set" when no such accusations exist in the first place. This gets passed around en masse and is, in my opinion, absolutely rancid.)

On top of that a ton of the criticism directed at the shows themselves is, personally, just terrible media criticism. So much of it came from assuming a very hostile intent from the writer and just refusing to engage with the text at all past that.

Like some really common threads you see with critique of this writer's work, especially in regards to Doctor Who since that's the one I'm most familiar with:

A general belief that his lead characters were meant to be ever perfect self inserts, and so therefore when they act shitty or arrogant or flawed in any way, that's both reflective of the author and something the show wants you to view as positive or aspirational.

An overarching thesis that his characters are "too important" in the narrative due to the writer's arrogance and self obsession (even though this is a very deliberate theme that's stated several times)

A lot of focus on the writer personally "attacking" the fans or making choices primarily out of spite.

A tendency to treat the show being different to what it's adapting as inherently bad and hostile towards the original.

Just generally very little consideration and engagement with the themes, intent, etc. of the shows

This one's a little more nebulous and doesn't apply to all critique but a lot of it, especially recently, is clearly by people who haven't seen the show in like 10 years and their opinion is largely formed secondhand through like, "discourse nostalgia". Which. you know. bad.

I think these are just weird and nonsensical ways to engage with a work of fiction. I also think it's really sad to see the show boiled down to this because that era of who is, in my opinion, very thematically rich and unique among similar shows, and I'm disappointed that it's often dismissed in such a paltry way.

This isn't to say people aren't allowed to critique Steven Moffat or anything, but the context in which he basically became The Devil™ to a large portion of fandom and is still remembered in a poor light is very tied to this perfect storm of fan culture and I just don't agree with a ton of it.

* I'm sure most people have seen the way long running shows and hiatuses will cause people to fall out with a show, with some former fans turning around and joining a sort of "anti fandom" for it while it's still airing. That happened with both these shows. ** Doctor Who will change it's entire writing staff, crew, and cast every few years, and with that comes a change in style, tone, theme - the old show basically ends and is replaced by a new show under the same title. As Steven Moffat's era was the first of these handovers for the majority of audiences, you can imagine this wasn't a well loved move for many fans. *** I know for a fact most people have not sought out the sources for a lot of these quotes to check that they read the same in context because 1) most of them were deleted years ago and are very difficult to find now and 2) many of them do actually make sense in the context of their respective interviews

[haine-kleine]

The entire manga ending is a burning trash fire that falls on its head in all of the established thematic purposes, but what was done with Shigaraki's character might be one of the stupidest and plain evil writing decisions.

Shigaraki was established as an immature and arrogant AFO's heir and since they were separated after Kamino, his journey was all about learning to stand on his own, developing his own agenda, establishing and chasing the goals he set out for himself. In other words, since AFO's imprisonment, Shigaraki was gradually healing from years of grooming, brainwashing and social isolation.

His backstory revealed in the My Villain Academy arc had challenged the readers and their views of this character, showing his extreme trauma, his guilt as a 5 years old boy who had killed his entire family in a quirk accident. It also finally explained Shigaraki's fervent devotion to AFO, the only one who had reached out, who wanted to help, who cared.

Of course we were aware AFO's motives can't be pure. He was preparing Shigaraki as a future vessel for himself, a means to achieve his dream of living forever.

Then, by the last war arc, Shigaraki has all the agency, individuality, autonomy ripped away by AFO stealing his body. He spends the entire second war fighting for control, silenced by AFO and the narrative barely giving him any chance to talk. One of his main goals was protecting his comrades and their dreams - this is taken from him as well, the League spent the entire second war separated, not even getting one final chance to see each other. Shigaraki dies while thinking of his friends, of his goal to save them, which he will never be able to achieve. While Izuku was at least given a chance to directly confront Shigaraki on his final quest of trying to save him, Shigaraki spent the entire time even before the second war delirious, and until his death, he had never even learned what happened to his friends, the people who chose to follow him, trusted him and supported him.

The very last thing that happens to Shigaraki before his death, is learning that his entire life, everything that had happened to him, was caused by AFO and his schemes. This strips Shigaraki of the last of his agency, turning him into a martyr. His story is no longer one about the unfairness of the heroes-adoring society and hypocrisy, good VS bad victim, trauma and coping with it. His story is about becoming a victim of a creep who had been grooming him since he was 5. One who had tried his best to make a life for himself outside of his abuser, and then had this life cruelly taken from him. Shigaraki doesn't even get to talk or react to the fact he has to sacrifice himself for AFO to die. Izuku doesn't ask him, doesn't apologize to him, he just presents the fact plainly. Shigaraki just has to deal with it.

He went from a victim to a martyr and the story barely even acknowledges it. Deku and Shigaraki were the only people who had learned the truth and neither talks about it or is allowed to share this with the world. Shigaraki died an unwilling martyr, and is remembered as a monster no better than AFO. The public draws no line between the abuser and his victim. Izuku or Allmight don't exhibit any intention to reveal the truth, and we already have Dabi's example on how this turns out.

What is the point of this character ending? Life is unfair and everything is horrible? Just deal with your trauma without causing problems for others, or you will be punished? Always abandon your ideals and your friends if a cop tells you to, or you will be murdered?