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rutilation · 4 years

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In honor of the wailing and gnashing of teeth that has occurred in the last few days for fear of potential incoming Joshua discourse, I have decided to get ahead of the curve and start discoursing about him before the anime even airs!

(--because he’s an interesting character who I didn’t really understand until several years after finishing the game.)

So, I got into the game around 2010, and while I comprehended the broad strokes of Joshua’s character, he seemed more like an inscrutable trickster than a person with relatable emotions, and his reasons for setting the plot into motion were as opaque to me as his reasons for backing off at the last second.

In particular, a big sticking point for me was his assessment of Neku. He considered him “the worst person in Shibuya” and chose him as a proxy because of that. And for years I thought that was the most ludicrous aspect of the game. If the very worst person you can find in your bustling metropolis is a grumpy teenager who only has the potential to commit murder when under duress, then how could you possibly think that it’s beyond salvation, you utterly incoherent moron! But, several years afterwards, I realized why he saw Shibuya as unsalvageable, and why he held Neku in such contempt, and the disparate elements of the character started to click into place for me.

For as much as Joshua likes to put on airs, his motivations aren’t rational in the slightest. When Joshua says that Shibuya has grown shallow and static, he’s really talking about himself, and is projecting all the things he hates about himself onto the surrounding environment. He singles out Neku not because this run-of-the-mill moody teen is objectively the worst person in Shibuya, but because he sees Neku as a younger, more naive version of himself, and in a classic example of the narcissistic element of self-hatred, being like him is the most irredeemable sin Joshua can conceive of.

Then, I started thinking about what he actually intended to accomplish with his whole plan, and specifically, the duel at the end. I don’t think Joshua had any intention of presiding over a remade Shibuya. I think he was banking on Neku killing him and taking his place, and all that stuff about hijacking Shibuya from the composer during week two was for the sole purpose of planting that idea in Neku’s head. In life, Joshua was friendless, miserable, and myopic. He had hoped that by entering the world of the reapers’ game, he might find a sense of fulfillment. But in the end, this mere change of scenery didn’t do anything to address his underlying malaise, and life felt just as empty as it did before. Thus, he sets his plan in motion, intending to pass on his awful torch to a fellow awful person.

What he didn’t count on was Neku growing as a person and gaining hope instead of losing it. Joshua wanted to end his own world, but the outcome of all his scheming was that it opened up instead. Instead of validating his grand act of self-destruction as planned, Neku refutes Joshua's worldview in a way he can't ignore or dismiss.

When I first saw the secret ending, my reaction was something along the lines of: “Aww, I guess he’s not totally heartless after all.” But looking back on it, I can’t really see it as anything other than tragic. Joshua can’t lie to himself anymore, can’t continue to protect himself with a shield of apathy and cynicism, but because of the permanence of his past choices, he can’t actually free himself from this isolated and claustrophobic world he’s created either, and that prison is made all the more painful now that he realizes how much he’s missing out on. All he can do in the secret ending is watch forlornly as that younger version of himself grows up, makes connections, and moves on, while he’s still stuck at a dead-end.

(There’s a moment during the credits of KH:3D in which Joshua is perched above the rest of the cast on a giant letter, parodying his fondness for sitting on buildings. The others soon take notice of him, and hassle him into coming down and joining them. When I noticed it, it warmed my heart a bit, and made me hopeful about the trajectory of his character, regardless of whether or not a sequel would actually materialize.)

But all that being said, what I just wrote isn’t what the fine folk in the TWEWY fandom mean when they refer to Joshua discourse. As far as I can tell, the true discursive quandary is thus: “Is Joshua, in fact, Komaeda?” Well I have bad news for you guys because, in my humble opinion, he kind of is?

Now, I realize that knowing enough to write several paragraphs about such a cursed character can be seen as me telling on myself, but in my defense, your honor, I didn’t get into danganronpa until a few years after its popularity peaked. Whatever discourse wars were waged over Komaeda and his zipper-shoes back in 2013, I was not a part of them. With that out of the way...

You know those posts that get passed around here every so often about how the concept of gifted children sucks? How it puts too much pressure on them? How it encourages them to see themselves as instrumentally rather than inherently valuable? How it leaves them anxious, depressed, and bereft of ways to cope? Well, that’s the underlying allegory of SDR2, and underneath all the wacky shenanigans that comprise your average danganronpa title, that’s what the cast is contending with. This is true of it’s protagonist, and especially true of his rival.

in much the same way that Joshua is the worst parts of Neku exaggerated and taken to their logical conclusion, Komaeda plays precisely that role for Hinata. Both characters serve as a cautionary tale for the respective toxic mindsets that these games are denouncing.

Now that I think about it, Komaeda almost seems like an evolution of the concept, because he intuits from a fairly early point in the story that the protagonist’s very essence is a refutation of his worldview. He insists on viewing Hinata as being far above him, but in actuality he realizes Hinata is in a similar situation--see his comment in one of the FTEs that Hinata feels like a miserable outsider like himself. And if someone even a little bit like him is capable of experiencing happiness and connecting with others, what then? The gap between how Komaeda wants to feel and how he actually feels is a subtle but reoccurring thread throughout the story. This, I think, is why he seems to regard Hinata with both attraction and revulsion, treating him as simultaneously an avatar of his repressed will (hence why he attempts to bolster him in the class trials,) and an object of scorn (hence the smattering of passive aggressive jabs before chapter four, and the outright antagonism from that point forward.) While Joshua fools himself until the the end of the game, Komaeda, master of doublethink that he is, seems at times self-aware of the fact that he is a foil in the literary sense, and that awareness partly informs his neurosis. His take on the character type feels a little more post-modern, I suppose?

Anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me if Joshua were an inspiration for Komaeda’s character and role in the story. But even then, I suspect that the question is less, “Is Joshua, in fact, the same sort of character as Komaeda?” and more “Is Joshua, in fact, going to become a contemptible meme like Komeada?” To which I say, probably not. *knock on wood*

For one thing, while TWEWY will certainly experience an uptick in popularity once the anime starts airing, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will capture the nerd zeitgeist enough to turn one of its characters into a meme that transcends the story from whence it came. Furthermore, there’s more to being a tumblr sexy meme man than merely belonging to an archetype. Komaeda’s spiritual successor in DRV3 is kind of popular, but isn’t an inter-fandom joke in the same way he is, and neither are Kaworu from Eva or Ryo from Devilman, for that matter, and those are the grandfathers of the archetype in question. In addition, the other infamous tumblr sexymen that come to mind, Sans and Onceler, aren’t a part of the white-haired-anime-rival-boy archetype, and Sans isn’t even a conventionally attractive twink. I posit that the alchemy determining which characters and media tumblr loses its shit over is more varied and complicated than it appears at first glance. (Not that I actually want to devote much brainpower to that particular field of study, lol.)

Uhhhhh... in conclusion, thank you for reading my words and also the DR3 anime is trash.

#the world ends with you #twewy

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personas-against-antis · 6 years

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My experience with anti-ism and back

Inspired by @huntypastellance's interviews with ex-antis, I decided to post my own story of how I became an anti and how I got out.

My inbox and messages are open in case anyone has any questions or wants to say anything.

Apologies for any typos, my typing is not the greatest.

Names have been changed to protect my friends’ privacy and to prevent certain antis mentioned from coming after me again.

Where It All Started

So back in middle school I fell in love with an anime called Hetalia, about the interactions between anthropomorphized versions of various countries. I had been in fandom for a while (my first big fandom was Sonic, but that was before antis went mainstream), and I was a pretty big follower of "don't like, don't read/look". When I joined, I immediately latched on to the ship AmeCan, or America/Canada.

They were cute and it was my OTP for a long time. The only problem with AmeCan is that, by a large majority of the fandom, America and Canada were considered brothers. I personally didn't see them that way, I saw them as adopted brothers at most, and I was always pretty squicked out by shippy fanfics that depicted them as biological brothers. The ship itself was still pretty big in that fandom, so I ignored the haters and immersed myself in fanart and fanfic.

I met a girl at my school (let's call her Duchess) who also liked Hetalia and we quickly hit it off. We soon asked what each other's OTPs were.

Me: Oh, I ship AmeCan.

Duchess: ...

Me: What is it?

Duchess: You realize they're brothers, right?

Me: Oh, I don't see them that way because [insert reasoning that I don't want to have to explain to non-Hetalians, just know that I explained that I didn't see them as brothers.]

Duchess: But it's canon. They canonly see each other as brothers.

Me: Oh...

In hindsight, I probably should have asked what she meant by “it’s canon”. Either way, I began to drift away from AmeCan due to lack of interest, and towards other ships (Romerica and AmeBela), and then to other fandoms. She still remained one of my closest friends.

Down The Rabbit Hole

I began to get really into kawaii culture and browsed the tags pretty regularly. Over time, I came across CG/L content. It squicked me out at first, but due to some sort of bile fascination, I began browsing CG/L blogs and began learning about that subculture. I actually enjoyed it quite a lot, but I knew that it would be inappropriate for someone my age (around 13-14 years old) to participate in kink, so I kept my distance and admired it from afar.

Soon, Duchess brought it up at lunch.

Duchess: I really hate seeing DDGL stuff everywhere.

Me: Haha, yeah...

Duchess: I mean, It's practically pedophilia!

Me: Mhm...

That's what I had thought at first too, before researching it. But she kept talking about it.

Duchess: They're sexualizing children, and children's toys! It's so gross! I actually made a blog against it.

Me: Whoa, really?

Duchess showed me her anti-CGL blog and I quickly followed it because she was my friend, and slowly began to follow other anti-DDLG blogs as well, even making my own: rise-against-ddlg. I took it down due to lack of interest, but antis had already grown on tumblr, and I was torn between my "don't like, don't look" policy, and wanting to "help" survivors. So outwardly, I became an anti, while guiltily reading "problematic" fic and playing "problematic" games in secret.

One such problematic game was Yandere Simulator, and I began to browse those tags too, when I discovered another anti blog, this time against Yandere Simulator and Alex Mahan, a.k.a. Yandere Dev. I learned he was fairly homophobic, sexist, and transphobic, especially in his own private chatroom, and began to idolize that anti blog. Suddenly, they released an invitation to a Skype group chat. Eager to meet my heroes, I quickly applied and was approved.

The Group Chat Incident

I loved that chat. It started with 15 people, but slowly trickled down to nine, including myself. I found myself isolating myself away from my real life friends and family, too focused on the group chat, as they made dropping out of high school and staying online all day sound cool. I kissed up to them, desperate to be seen as a good person. But, soon, I began to question myself and the group. The mods were very against "problematic" content, like Killing Stalking, and NSFW depictions of minors, but were also quick to draw NSFW of minors (specifically Budo and Senpai from YS). I introduced them tot he game Boyfriend To Death, and one of them quickly latched on to the character of Rire, who brutally rapes the protagonist in game, despite them being against rape. The main mod even introduced the group to a game called Artificial Academy 2, in which you can rape others and be raped.

...There was a lot of rape and NSFW in that chat.

But, there was also a hierachy. At the top were the two main mods of that YS blog, Mod H and Mod J. Joining them at the top was a very cool person and a good artist who acted very much like an older sibling to all of us, Member M. Then, there were three more people who tended to kiss Mod H, Mod J, and Member M's asses, and at the bottom was me, my friend Foam, and Member C. Mod H was the ruler of that chat. Anything they said, went, and if you disagreed, they'd suddenly play victim, manipulating and gaslighting you into apologizing. They loved Dragon Age, and now that game has been forever tainted for me, considering how much they shoved it down my throat. They would also tease me and my interest in Persona 5 (saying that the protagonist looked like The Onceler, subsequently calling me a "Onceler Fucker" for finding him attractive, along with making fun of when my tongue slipped and pronounced "Goro" as "Gort"), only stopping when I had Foam address the group to tell them to stop. There was a livestream that I was really excited for, talking about it since it was announced and they seemed hyped for me as well. Only when I placed a rabb.it link in the chat so we could all watch, only Member C showed up. When I returned to that chat, they were watching Yuri On Ice, and they wouldn't even let me talk about my livestream.

During that time period, I created a group chat for me, Foam, and another internet friend I will call Emilia. I though Foam and Emilia would get along really well, so i formed a Skype chat with them, and allowed them to talk. Slowly though, me and Foam began to use that chat to bitch about the group chat behind their backs, because we were terrified of the backlash if we tried to criticize them to their faces, due to Mod H's tactics of avoiding conflict. We soon added Member C to the chat as well, after they were constantly getting dogpiled by the rest of the chat.

That December, the Bode meme was in full swing and Foam mentioned in the group chat that he didn't get it. The group chat immediately began to make fun of him and I, sick of letting them control our lives, stood up for him. The group chat just continued to dogpile and we continued to try and fight until Mod H eventually left the chat, in one of their methods to get us to apologize to them. I was feeling overwhelmed and also left, and Foam tried to surrender and tell the chat to stop, but they wouldn't let up and he left too. Member C was the only member we remained on good terms with who was still in the group chat.

I made a post on my blog saying that i didn't want to interact with those people anymore and they got mad and began to try and message me. I eventually messaged an official statement, citing their abuse of me and Foam, and blocked all of them across social media.

They created a fake blog to get around the block, and I was dumb enough to fall for it.

Member C even turned on us, revealing me and Foam's messages with her and claiming we were abusing and bullying them. Suffice to say, I cut off all contact with Member C and changed my main blog's URL.

I was harassed and stalked and I carried that fear of them looking at my blog for a long time. I still worry about it sometimes.

The worst part, in my opinion, was that I changed my own name that I had chosen for myself because it had become a trigger for me hearing them say it so many times. And I really, really loved that name.

There was so much hypocrisy, so much fear in that chat. Now, looking back, I wished I had never joined, but in those months after I left...I felt empty inside. Aimless.

Out of curiosity, I looked up cult behaviors, and that chat hit nearly every single one. It's scary looking back on it. Even writing this, over a year after I left, my heart hurts.

But even leaving a cultish group chat didn't knock me out of anti-ism.

Villain Ships and Past Revelations

Remember how I mentioned that I love Persona 5? Well, I ship a ship called ShuAke, which a very loud subset of people claim is abusive.

Spoilers for Persona 5 up ahead.

ShuAke is a ship between the protagonist (shujinko in Japanese, which is where the "shu" comes from) and Goro Akechi. I shipped ShuAke since before Goro's name was announced, when all we knew was his design. Goro turned out to be a detective hunting the Phantom Thieves, the protagonist's group. The cat and mouse aesthetic really suited my fancy, with the protagonist's thief alter ego, Joker, seducing the naive Detective Prince. Swoon.

Of course, the ship shattered when the game was released in Japan and it turns out Goro tried to kill the protagonist, was working for the bad guy, and betrayed the whole group.

I was shocked and essentially went through the five stages of grief. I was torn between abandoning the "abusive" ship and evil character...or ignoring the haters and shipping it anyway. After way too much debate, I chose the latter and stuck with it.

The anti-ism died down quickly due to a lot of the fandom hibernating until the English release, and I happily shipped ShuAke and supported Goro Akechi with little objection. Even when the game was released in English, I stood my ground and even argued in support of Goro with anons.

And yet, I still considered myself an anti.

Late May of last year, some repressed memories came to light. I had been sexually abused by a close family member and a few girls at camp when I was younger, with other fragmented and questionable memories in my brain. It put my past into light, as I had also had a self destructive habit of attempting to seduce older men online, due to low self esteem. That was not a fun week for me, and I found myself diving into dark fic, particularly rape fic, in order to make sense of it all. I even wrote some in an effort to just get it out of my brain.

And it worked. It was really therapeutic for me.

And yet...

I still considered myself an anti. Every word I read or wrote was mixed with guilt over what I was doing, even though it worked. While I'm still a sexual abuse survivor, as I always will be, I'm much more well-adjusted by participating in those dark activities, rather than wallowing in self pity and slipping into a depression, like my old group chat would have expected me to do.

I dropped anti-ism later, with the help of one blog.

Back to "DL,DR"

The blog @anti-anti-survivor was recommended to me, and anti!me, looking for a laugh, clicked on it...and soon found that pretty much everything they said made sense to me. I saw Mod h in the people they argued with, Member C in the people they called out...and I realized that I had never been an anti, just hiding behind that label.

I sent an anonymous message to them (though I guess it isn't so anonymous anymore, ha), thanking them for opening my mind to it, and created my own anti-anti blog. I realize I'm not very active on here, but, well, I'm lazy and I'm more of a reader than anything else.

And of course, there was another problem.

Antis are fucking everywhere.

I'm terrified of posting pro-shipping stuff on my main, and I'm terrified of admitting I like problematic ships. I'm in a Discord server that keeps spouting anti-kink and anti-ship stuff, and I have to keep my mouth shut or risk being banned, just because most of the time they're really nice. Duchess even messaged me one day, absolutely shocked that I admitted to shipping Shidge.

I'm happy now that I don't have to feel that guilt but, reading what antis do and then finding out that people I hang out with are antis...it's horrifying. I'm not a confrontational person. I never have been. But I'm sick of rolling over and accepting what everyone else deems is problematic fiction.

I'm mentally ill, a sexual abuse survivor, and dark fic and dark shipping helps me cope.

Deal with it.

#pro shipping #anti anti testimony

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