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brainyxbat · 6 months

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Chapter 9: Hiriluk's Cherry Blossoms, and the Will that gets Carried On!

(episode 86)

"Hey!" A frustrated Chopper had locked Luffy in another room with a caged door. "What're you doing?! Why am I in here?!"

"It's because you're pestering me!"

"Like I said, just join us!"

"This is exactly what I mean by pestering me!"

"It's fun to be a pirate!"

"I've had enough! Just rest in there for a while!"

"Hmm?"

"Your injuries actually aren't that light either." Chopper backed off, then walked away with a huff. "Geez, what's his problem?" Just then, he realized: the key was gone! "Huh?" To his horror, the door opened, with a chuckling Luffy holding the key. "Why?!" The chase commenced again.

"Wait!"

"What is this guy?! When did he steal the key?!"

"Wait! Wait, wait, wait, wait! Wait!"

Chopper skidded to a stop, letting Luffy crash through the wall, as he sensed something was off. "This smell is..."

"Huh?"

He glared with fury. "Wapol!"

"When he found out that Hiriluk had only 10 days to live, Chopper got quite upset." Kureha hung her head low. "Well, that was only natural. But he took action in his own way."

Chopper frantically ran through the woods. "I'm gonna die. I will make cherry blossoms bloom in this country!" He crashed into a tree, startling himself out of his thoughts. "This is a symbol of the belief that nothing is impossible!" He thought back to one particular moment.

"A lot guards have been absent recently, What's going on?" Hiriluk and Chopper eavesdropped from behind a wall.

"Well, they're out picking mushrooms at the request of the Twenty MDs."

"Mushrooms?"

"They said there's some mushroom that can cure anything."

"Mushrooms?" Hiriluk pulled him down by one of his antlers. "Ah!"

"Hmm?" Dalton turned behind his back, but didn't see him.

"Idiot! They'll see us!" Hiriluk scolded.

"Doctor, about what they said..." At the home, Chopper scoured through the books, creating a mess; he flipped through a particularly thick one, before finding a certain page. He slammed it shut, and ventured outside with determination, holding it under one arm. "I will never shoot you!" He remembered that encounter, then another. "Don't ever come back here!" He stayed quiet through his trek.

While he was gone, Hiriluk returned to the home, staring silently at the mess. 'I did a terrible thing to you.' He went straight to work. 'At least see my cherry blossoms. They'll be my last big work.' Chopper didn't turn back at the explosion, and along the way, he bowed to a Hiking Bear. "Well... here we go again!" Another explosion.

He stopped at a hill, and to his surprise, there was a herd of reindeer.

His herd.

A weakening Hiriluk panted on the ground. "Dammit! I don't have much time left!"

Changing into a form more closely resembling them, Chopper walked through the herd, paying no mind to the leader leering at him. Inevitably, he headbutted him away a few feet. He charged in again, but a motivated Chopper fought back. 'Nothing is impossible for the man who raised a flag with a skull! That's what I told you, right?!' He was launched away again. 'I will fight! Just like pirates do!' Chopper finally ran, ultimately losing them.

At a cliff, he looked around with a telescope, before stopping at a tree. There was a red mushroom growing by its roots. "I found it! The Amiudake Mushroom. That's the one! But..." He glanced back. "How do I get across?" The ravine was much too wide, and deep for him. However, the herd found him again, and the leader was glaring with a vengeance. What to do?

Hiriluk coughed on the floor, with a broken vial in front of him. "Dammit!" He panted. "I'm close... so close!" He turned to the door when the knob turned, before it opened. As he stayed in bed with a gun pointed, a certain someone staggered in, beaten and battered.

"Doctor... I'm sorry... I lost one of your precious books."

Hiriluk stared in shock; Chopper was bleeding badly, his left eye was bruised and swollen, his left leg appeared broken, and his left antler was missing. "What... happened to you?"

"Mushroom..." He weakly held up a red mushroom. "Medicine."

Hiriluk jumped out of bed. "That's an Amiudake Mushroom!" His gun dropped to the floor. "You... got it for me?"

"Please live. Please live, Doctor. I wanna be a doctor. Please teach me how to be a doctor." Hiriluk dropped to his knees. "I'll fight too... just like pirates do!" He was lost for words. "Do you think a reindeer can become one too?"

A sobbing Hiriluk suddenly held him close. "You can! You can! You can! You can be a great doctor."

"Doct- I can't breathe."

He cried in Chopper's shoulder. "Because you have such a kind heart." Chopper smiled through the embrace, and started crying with him. "You idiot!"

"Chess! Kuromarimo!" Wapol called. "Is the doctor hunt going well?!"

"Yes, sir," Chess replied, "Most of the doctors have already been exiled."

"Most?"

Dalton listened on with anger. "There are two that we haven't captured yet. That's Dr. Kureha, and the quack, Hiriluk."

"What'd you say?!" Wapol seethed with fury, before an epiphany came. "Oh, yeah! I've come up with a good idea!"

"Hmm?" They both looked up.

"Send an official notice to the citizens. The Twenty MDs have all... fallen ill," Wapol ordered, as Dalton glared silently.

"Does the Amiudake Mushroom soup... taste good?" Chopper asked.

"Ahhh!" He screamed. "Darn, this tastes terrible!"

"What?!"

"This isn't something that any living thing can eat!"

"Oh no," Chopper's head hung in shame.

"Don't be so down," Hiriluk grinned in assurance, "Good medicine doesn't taste good. This means it's working. Thank you, Chopper." He chuckled, as the reindeer smiled widely. "Huh?!"

"Hmm?" Chopper noticed him staring in shock at something behind him. "Huh?" He turned to look; the spherical vial's contents were bubbling, and turning pink. "What's that?"

"I did it."

"What?"

"I finally did it." He stood, and walked to the table. "This is it! This reaction, I've waited for it for 30 years." He turned back around. "I did it, Chopper! My research succeeded! I wasn't wrong! I wasn't! I wasn't!" He burst outside, and screamed with joy. "I can now make cherry blossoms bloom on this winter island!" Chopper watched, and smiled widely, before he was sent to bed. "Listen. I'm going out, but you stay put, and rest here."

"Okay."

"See you later!"

Chopper watched him disappear behind the door. 'Doctor was happy. I cured a human disease!' He giggled with ecstasy, but then looked up when Hiriluk came back in. "Hmm?"

"You'll be able to become a great doctor. I'll guarantee it." With that, he left again. "Do you know... that the entire country is a madhouse right now?" He asked Kureha.

"Yeah, I know. About the Twenty MDs falling ill, right? Ridiculous! So what brought you here today?"

"Actually, I have a favor to ask-"

"Ahh, I refuse," She cut him off.

"I haven't asked anything yet!"

He handed over a small bag tied at the top, containing pink powder. "What's this dust?"

"That's my 30 years. That's the medical science that I've finally completed! It's an all-purpose medicine that can cure this country's sickness of the heart."

"You've lived 30 fruitless years," She snarked, "Good work. So, why are you showing it to me?"

"There isn't enough dust. I don't have much time left, either; I want you to make cherry blossoms bloom in my place.

"Ridiculous! Why do I have to-"

"And one more thing!" He got in her face. "Please teach medical science to Chopper. He wants to become a doctor."

"That's enough! Why would I-"

He was on his knees at that point. "He's a reindeer, and a monster, but he'll certainly become a good doctor!" He bowed in pleading. "He's a nice guy with a kind heart. He risked his life to make medicine for me! Please! Help him become a doctor!"

"What nerve you have!" She glared. "You want me to take care of your stupid research, and strange pet?! You should know that I'm not someone who'll sympathize with a man just because he's not long for this world! Get out of here!" She kicked him out, then his bag, and shut the door.

"Yeah... I know. We've known each other for a long time." He laughed weakly. "I'm counting on you."

"It's not like you, Hiriluk," Kureha remarked, "Throwing in the towel already."

"I don't have that much time left."

After a moment, her eyes widened in realization. "That idiot! He wouldn't!"

"What do you mean?!"

"The Twenty MDs fell ill!"

"Who'll treat this country's sick people?!"

"At least give us access to medicine!"

"Talking to us won't do anything!" The guards turned down concerned citizens. "Even doctors get sick!"

"Out of my way!"

"Ahh! Hiriluk?!"

He was running in, carrying two lit-up bombs. "Out of my way! Out of my way!" He chucked the bombs at the guards, just in time or them to explode.

They coughed from the thick smoke. "That bastard is crazy!"

Suddenly, he had a gun pointed in his face. "Take the ropeway out," Hiriluk ordered, "Take me to the castle."

Chopper was surprised at the door bursting open. Kureha. "Where's Hiriluk?!" The panicked reindeer began running all over the room in fear. "You don't have to run away! I know about you!" To her chagrin, he didn't stop. "I'm asking you where the quack went!"

Chopper hid feebly behind the table. "D-Doctor got better, so he went to the town."

"Got better? He doesn't get better." She walked up to him, hands on her hips. "He can't be cured with the current medical science."

"That's not true! Look at this!" He held up half of the mushroom. "He's fine now, because he ate this!"

Kureha gawked in horror. "That's... an Amiudake Mushroom!"

"This is an all-purpose medicine! So he's fine now! Doctor said that he felt full of energy too!" She glared. "I will learn to be a doctor from Doctor." Suddenly, a punch from Kureha sent him flying into the wall. "What was that for?" He demanded angrily, then was thrusted up, and thrown into a cupboard.

"You stupid reindeer! That mushroom is..." She choked up, and tears started falling. "That mushroom is... extremely poisonous! Once you eat it, you'll be dead within half a day!"

"What?" Chopper looked back, now terrified.

Kureha collapsed down to sit on the floor. "That's why that idiot..."

"That can't be true. I looked it up in a book... though I lost that book. It's a mushroom that can defeat diseases!" 'That's why I raised this skull towards all the diseases!' "That's right! There was a skull right next to the Amiudake Mushroom picture!" He remembered, as Kureha was silent with despair. "Doctor also said he got better! There's no way he'll die! You're a liar!"

"Paddle faster! Hurry up!" Hiriluk commanded. "Seconds count!"

"He was happy about your thoughts," Kureha recalled, "The skull in the book indicates poison."

"That's a lie!" Chopper glared.

"That's not a lie! Remember it!" She snapped. "There's no medicine that can work for all the diseases in this world. That's why doctors exist!"

"That's not true!"

"Listen. You can't save people just by being kind! If you want to save them, then learn medical knowledge and skills! Without skill, you can't save anyone!" Chopper started sobbing right then and there. "You idiot." She calmly picked up her sunglasses from the floor.

"Wapol-sama! Hiriluk is heading to this castle!"

"So he got tricked!" Wapol laughed. "What an idiot!"

'Is he serious?' Dalton thought. 'Why? What for?'

"He'll no longer come back to this house." Kureha grabbed a bottle of plum sake. "Looks like he decided the castle is his graveyard."

"Take me to the patients!" Hiriluk ordered. "I came to save the Twenty MDs!" But to his confusion, his would-be patients stood around in front of him, in perfect health. "What?"

Wapol laughed evilly, as he sat on Robson in the middle of the horde. "You idiot! You still don't get it?! It was a trap! As you can see, the Twenty MDs are just fine! You came here to die, Dr. Hiriluk."

'Why did he come here?' Dalton thought.

"Guards, ready..." They all pointed their guns at him. All the while, Chopper was making a mad dash for the castle.

"So that was all..." Hiriluk fell to his knees in relief, "Good. So none of them are sick? I was convinced... that this was a national crisis." Tears fell into the snow. "So it was just a trick."

"Humph!" Wapol scoffed. "If it really was a national crisis, I wouldn't want someone like you! Pay no attention. Execute him!"

"Don't bother," He held his hand out. "You guys can't kill me."

"Huh?"

"Hey..." He looked up at Wapol, feeling weaker and weaker, "When do you think a person dies? When a bullet from a pistol pierces his heart? No... when he's attacked by an incurable disease? No... when he eats a deadly, poisonous mushroom soup? No!" A determined Chopper walked up the ropeway, as Kureha stayed in the house. "A man dies when people forget him." Dalton felt choked up, as Hiriluk casually poured a concoction into a vial. "Even if I disappear, my dream will come true. The citizens' sickness of the heart will be cured as well. Why're you crying, Dalton-kun?"

"I wonder," He paid no mind to his tears streaming down his face, "If it's the same for a country."

Hiriluk smiled. "Yeah, if there's someone to pass it on to."

"Hey, hey, Dalton! What're you crying for?" Wapol demanded, but went unanswered.

"Soon, a monster will come here," He continued, "He's my son. Don't hurt him." He became quiet, as blood leaked from his mouth. 'Don't worry, Chopper. Your mushroom can't kill me.' "I had... such a good title!"

"Goodbye, quack," Kureha downed more sake in despair.

He confidently drank up the vial. "Thank you, Chopper! " Right after... he exploded! His hat flew down, and landed in front of Chopper on the snow. He stared at it in horror; he was too late. He couldn't save him.

As the shell-shocked Dalton and the guards looked on, Wapol laughed heartlessly. "He blew himself up! What an idiot!"

Hearing him, Chopper started seething with anger. He then grew into his large form, with a roar of fury, and trampled up to the castle.

"Ahh!"

"What's that?!"

"It's a monster!"

"Shoot him! Shoot him!"

"Ahhh!" He roared dangerously.

"Wait!" Dalton blocked his way without harming him, turning into his bull form, and pinned him to the ground. "Leave... leave here! When you can't even defeat me... you can't possibly defeat them!" Tears of regret continued falling. "For laughing at Hiriluk's death, I apologize!" Chopper eased up at that. "Without enough power, you'll just die in vain. Don't sacrifice yourselves any longer for this country. Please..."

"Huh?" Wapol watched, as Chopper walked down the ropeway. "You let him get away, Dalton."

"Shut up! You still don't get it? The only man who tried to save this sick country has just died. When everyone gave up and despaired, a kind doctor who tried to save this country died!"

"So what if someone like that dies?" Wapol dismissed heartlessly.

"I saw the path that this country should take. It should die out. As long as we stay here, it won't be rebuilt, because, even if medical care progresses, even if the research on medicine continues," Dalton glared in the king's direction, "There's no medicine that can cure fools!"

"I let you have your say," Wapol growled, "You made me really angry!"

"Please!" A sobbing Chopper begged outside of Kureha's house. "Please teach me to be a doctor!" He was waving Hiriluk's flag, with his top hat hung on a stick close by. "I'll become the all-purpose medicine! I'll become a doctor who can cure anything! I'll cure even a country! Because... because... there's no disease in this world that can't be cured!"

Kureha watched for several seconds, as he cried wordlessly. "Call me... Doctorine."

At the castle, Dalton was thrown in the dungeon. "I won't... die. I will carry on his will."

Venus blinked tears out of her eye. "That's so sad."

"So for the 6 years since then, Tony-kun has been studying under you," Nami almost whispered.

"Yeah. I taught him everything I know."

"Doctorine! Doctorine!"

"Ahh!" Luffy glared from a window up above. "That bastard!"

Wapol. "I've finally returned!"

"That annoying mouth!" Luffy raged.

"Now, we're restoring the Drum Kingdom!"

Chopper burst into the room, resembling a normal reindeer. "Doctorine! There's a problem! Wapol is back!"

Kureha smiled calmly. "Is that so."

#magical straw hat #one piece #one piece oc #tempeste g. venus #drum island arc #drum island

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carolynpetit · 5 years

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Reason to Play, a Journal--Entry One: Fortnite, MGSV, and Finding Ourselves in the Act of Play

Hi.

This is the first entry in what I hope will be an ongoing journal of play. I wanted to start by explaining my thinking behind this project.

Right now, I’m looking for a reason to play. I’m always wary of games that seem to offer nothing beyond a mildly pleasant occupation of my time, and right now, I find such games downright inadequate. Unworthy. These are horrifying times, and yet, like so many of us, I find myself exhausted by it all. Unable to maintain the levels of rage and resistance that the actions of the current administration demand. I see it all becoming normalized and I feel powerless to stop it. And as the days and weeks and months go by, I feel as if this numbness accrues. I become increasingly detached, not just from the horrors of the moment but from myself. I start to wonder where the person I believed myself to be has gone.

I believe that art is most vital in times like this. I love this quote from Kafka:

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for?...We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”

If a game isn’t going to be the axe for the frozen sea inside me, if it isn’t going to cut through the numbness, shake me up, break my heart, fuck me up, do something to rehumanize me, it is not worthy of this moment.

But I might find what I’m looking for anywhere. I’m not talking just about games that explicitly comment on fascism or racial injustice or economic inequality. Yes, I think it’s essential that we have art, including games, that confronts these things directly, but it’s also true that a game can have the noblest aims and leave me cold, while a throwaway moment in a big-budget mainstream game of the sort that certain gamers like to call “apolitical” can crack my heart wide open.

Like most of my writing about games, this journal will be a place where I fully embrace the subjectivity of my own experience with the games that I play.

Okay. Here we go.

Testin’ My Mind, Shakin’ My Body in Fortnite

Yeah, okay, Fortnite’s a Battle Royale. That’s just a fact. If you’re playing solo, which I almost always am--I’m uncomfortable teaming up with random players, though on occasion I’ll play duos with a friend, which makes for a completely different, really exciting dynamic--you drop onto the island with close to a hundred other players, and the way you win is by being the last player standing. Now, I encourage conversations about the violence inherent to the format, as well as about all the other aspects of Fortnite that people rightly raise concerns about--the way in which it’s monetized, Epic’s pattern of repeatedly profiting off of dances associated with artists and communities of color without compensating the artists or communities that created them. All of it. But if we’re gonna go to the mat with Fortnite on these aspects (and we should), let’s also at least have a full, multifaceted conversation about why we play Fortnite, how it feels, and the moments that can emerge from a fully invested experience of the game.

Did you know that earlier this year, a massive beast that had been frozen in ice under Polar Peak broke free, that huge footprints showed it had made its way to the sea, where it’s occasionally been spotted, roaming the waters around the island? Did you know that right now, a towering robot is being built in the remnants of the volcano? It seems inevitable that soon, a massive Pacific Rim-style fight between them will take place, almost certainly resulting in a new wave of major changes to the island. Indeed, the island is always a place in flux, changing in big and small ways. It’s alive in ways that I’ve always wanted my game worlds to be alive. Landing near Loot Lake a few weeks ago, I was excited to see that the massive power cable that runs through the area was shredded and sparking, as if perhaps the monster had taken a bite.

But the life of the environment wouldn’t mean much if it weren’t for my encounters with the lives of other players. The other day, I was trying to complete a challenge that required me to get a certain score on a balloon board at one of the numerous little beach party setups that currently dot the map. Jumping from the bus, I swooped down to a spot in the desert, opened a chest, grabbed the weapon, and made my way over to the nearby board. Another player got there just before me, and I stood still, hoping to indicate that I didn’t want to stop them from completing the challenge. They froze for a moment, but then proceeded, and when they hit the necessary score, a little celebratory explosion of confetti occurred, and I got credit for the challenge, too.

Basking in the glow of our shared little moment, I wanted to walk away then, wishing them nothing but the best in the match ahead. But then they took a shot at me. In that instant, a sinking feeling ran through my whole body, a physical expression of “Aw, why’d you have to go and do that?” and in an instant, I obliterated them. It wasn’t a victory. It was more like putting someone down. I didn’t feel good about it, but it sure was a real feeling. Something surprising and immediate that emerged from my encounter with another living person. And that’s what I’m here for.

Yes, Fortnite is a Battle Royale, but so much of the experience of Fortnite is about unexpected occurrences like this, and about the things we do in the stolen moments between the shootouts and build battles. The other day, I got so caught up in playing a silly memory game I stumbled upon that I wound up getting caught in the storm. Not long before that, I danced with John Wick to raise a disco ball in an abandoned lair so we could snag a fortbyte, one of this season’s collectibles. These are the things I really remember, not my win-loss ratio or all the times I’m eliminated by players much better than I am before I quickly hit play and hop on the battle bus all over again.

I’m eager to return to the island because the island itself feels vibrant and alive, emanating a kind of Spielbergian Americana and optimism, but also because of the vigorous bodies and exuberant identities I get to inhabit while I’m there. The mix-and-match nature of Fortnite’s customization means that one round I might be a sprightly female wizard with a sleek laptop on her back, and the next a nerdy, purple-haired gamer girl with a satchel full of potions and spellbooks. “Fun” may be overemphasized in some of our conversations around games, but it certainly has its place, and playing as these colorful characters, well, it’s just fun.

Every character in Fortnite plays exactly the same, but they don’t all feel the same to me. I just unlocked a black variant of the character Sentinel, a robot or power suit that looks like it might have appeared on Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, and I think it looks kinda cool, but I sure don’t want to be it. On the other hand, playing as Elmira (pictured above) feels good. And oh, do I love the way that some emotes make me feel. Tweeting recently about an emote called the Laid Back Shuffle, I wrote:

I’m almost always pretty uncomfortable in my body, for a number of reasons related to my appearance and my transness and things. The easygoing physical exuberance of this emote, the way that the avatar performing it, whatever avatar that might be at any given moment, appears to feel so loose and free in their own body, makes it really appealing to me, like a virtual experience/expression of a sensation that I’ve never known IRL. I think emotes have some kind of power beyond whatever power we often think of them having, perhaps particularly for those of us who never really feel comfortable in our own skin.

And all the kids playing Fortnite that we’re so worried about, let’s remember that their experience of this game isn’t as simple as just trying to slaughter everyone else on the island. Setting aside whatever value there may be in the particular type of complex thinking and skill-building that it requires to try to simultaneously outbuild and outgun your opponent, there’s also the fact that they, too, are experiencing the life of Fortnite’s island, having encounters with other players that play out in unexpected ways, and experimenting with self-expression. Yes, their opportunities for that exploration and expression are gated by money, and that’s a real issue, but that doesn’t change the fact that a young person finding that they feel particularly cool when playing as a woman in red with a bionic arm is valid, and maybe even valuable.

II. MGSV and What I Know Is True

I set The Phantom Pain aside for a few years after hitting a mission that I found maddeningly difficult, but something called me back to it. Now I’ve powered through the mission that gave me so much trouble, and I’m making progress again. I enjoy the geographical roughness of its environments, and the way you really have to deal with that roughness, often lying flat and crawling along the ground. The truth is that I spend far too much time alone in my apartment, and though it’s no substitute at all for the real, natural world, when I take my time being rooted in one spot to scout out locations and tag enemies before making any dangerous moves, I feel the shape of the space around me in a way that I rarely do in games.

The other day I fought a grueling boss battle and then, finally, when it was over, hopped onto the helicopter to return to base, exhausted by the ordeal. Just as we were about to lift off, Quiet hopped on, hanging off of the side of the chopper as the rotors above her head spun faster until we lurched up and away from the ground. She held my gaze the whole time. I think a lot of games look at the player too much. They want you to feel like the center of the universe, the only person who really matters. But that wasn’t the feeling I got from this moment. I’d just fought for my life, and the way she looked at me, without malice or sympathy for what I’d just been through or anything, made me feel like I was being sized up. Looked at in a real way. Seen.

Do you know that feeling--Does this happen to everyone or just me?--that feeling where, for a moment, your awareness kind of spreads beyond yourself and you’re suddenly very aware that what you’re experiencing is something real that is happening in physical, three-dimensional space at this exact moment in time? It’s a feeling I get sometimes when I’m in a moment that I wish I could make last, or that I really want to remember. Sharing a last drink with a friend before they move away, that sort of thing. This feeling of momentarily being very much rooted in myself but also outside of myself and acknowledging, This is real. This is something that happened. That moment where Quiet was looking at me in the wake of the momentous battle I’d just fought felt something like that.

It didn’t happen in real, physical space, but virtual space is a valid space, too, a space where real things happen. Sometimes when I’m playing Fortnite I’ll see the hillside where a friend and I once sped away from attackers on a Quadcrasher, bullets whizzing past our heads, and I’ll think, We were there. That happened. These moments become part of my relationship with the ever-changing island, just as my memories of San Francisco become part of my relationship with the city.

On another recent mission, I was sneaking my way through an enemy outpost when, from a nearby building, I heard the familiar sounds of Spandau Ballet’s “True.” To be honest, I never liked “True” much. The Phantom Pain takes place in 1984, and as a kid in the suburbs of Chicago in that year who sometimes saw the video on MTV, the song felt too airy and ethereal to move me. But recontextualized in The Phantom Pain, I heard it differently. That precise ethereal quality made it such an effective contrast to the grim military seriousness and the tactile terrain that my heart began to ache.

The presence of 80s pop songs in the isolated military outposts of the game is politically fascinating to me. It says something about how American and British cultural exports are absorbed by the entire world, but it’s largely a one-way street. A Pakistani friend of mine in high school had grown up with Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis, but I’d never heard Pakistani music in my life. I don’t understand why so many players are so intent on not considering all the political dimensions of a game like this. They only make the experience infinitely more fascinating, even if and when they reveal the game’s failures.

The songs also allow for the creation of some great moments. I snuck into the building where the song was playing just so I could snag the tape, and the next time I was in the helicopter, I played it, and as the opening notes of “True” played, I panned the camera slowly around Big Boss, creating a very short music video that I honestly found exciting.

I tweeted the clip, jokingly commenting that I’d “won Metal Gear Solid V by creating this beautiful moment,” but it had really felt this way to me. Creating this moment had been as fun and rewarding to me as anything else the game offered. Playing MGSV isn’t just sneaking and shooting, or at least for me it isn’t. This, too, is play. So obviously, I get frustrated with the “Git Gud” players, those who feel that games are at their best when they’re perfectly calibrated tests of raw skill, that the only thing that matters is having an awesome KDR, or earning the highest possible rating on missions, or whatever.

But the truth is that it’s not just hardcore gamers who set limits on our notions of play by talking about games like this. A lot of us do it, even a lot of us who consider ourselves emphatically opposed to the “Git Gud’ brigade. We do it when we look at a game like Fortnite and see it only as one simple thing, a struggle to be the last remaining survivor, without at least acknowledging all the other things a player might go to the game for. We do it when we deny the possibility for moments of strange beauty to emerge from even a grim, ugly, grossly misogynistic game like MGSV. We do it whenever we, ourselves, adopt a limited, conventional understanding of what it means to really play a game, rather than fully engaging with all the different ways that we can find ourselves and each other in the spaces that games create.

-----

I’m currently looking for work. If you enjoy my writing and are in a position to do so, please consider supporting me on ko-fi.

#MGSV #Fortnite #Reason to Play

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that-shamrock-vibe · 6 years

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TV Review: Gotham (Spoilers)

Season 5, Episode 1: Year Zero

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this character analysis the day after the episode airs in the U.S, so if you haven’t seen it here in the U.K. don’t read on until you have.

General Reaction:

Well well, I can honestly say this episode has well and truly gripped the dark tone of the Batman mythos. Yes Season 4B definitely was getting there but with the Jerome/Jeremiah twist it did kind of take away from the overall feel and vibe of the series in replace of what exactly was happening with our resident Clown Prince of Crime, however here we had the atmosphere, the dark characters and that borderline horror vibe that has only ever been shown in the 90s Batman animated series and The Dark Knight.

The episode starts with a flashforward and, for anyone actively following Gotham’s social media campaign throughout December, you will see that when we see what has become of No Man’s Land on Day 391 and throughout December there have been teases for Days 1, 22, 87 and 151 it’s been a very real world dystopian situation. The only downside to a flashforward is, no matter the peril of the characters we see throughout this season now, we know that from Day 87 which is present day for the season and Day 391 that the characters we see in the flashforward remain alive.

The fact we know what is to come from the trailers yet only a handful of these events have barely been teased in this episode is very exciting as a fan of the show and the material. There were some shocks but inevitable shocks and teases that you can tell may not pay off.

Characters:

As always, this is a list of characters in order of my favourites for the episode, I will also do an end-series roundup compiling the entire five seasons with a list in order of my favourites throughout the entire series when this season ends.

Bruce Wayne:

In a shocking turn of events, teenage Bruce Wayne was actually my favourite character in this episode...more shockingly so is Jim was very close behind him. Yes this series for me has always been about the villains for me but, as you can see from my rankings, the villains are actually at the middle section of my list sandwiched in between three heroes either side.

I have really enjoyed David Mazouz becoming Batman in both Season 4 and here, what I love most about it is while he is fully embracing the vigilante nature, he is still learning and making mistakes.

Honestly, one of my favourite moments in the episode is when he was using those night-vision goggles to detain Scarecrow’s men in the clinic’s basement and then the lights came back on and he was blinded because of having the goggles on. It shows he was forward thinking in using the goggles as fans know when he becomes Batman he was have night-vision tech built into his cowl, but will obviously learn from these mistakes.

I am also liking the Bruce-Jim friendship, not only are they consciously building towards the Batman-Gordon alliance we all know from the comics but also it is being done so organically. The searchlight Jim uses, the fact Bruce mysteriously disappears when the action starts, I bet Jim knows Bruce is up to something but doesn’t want to say anything as they need all the allies they can get.

Bruce’s style as well is giving me such Michael Keaton vibes that I can almost see Mazouz’s Bruce Wayne growing up to become Michael Keaton’s Batman.

Also, now that David Mazouz has finally got through puberty and his voice has properly changed, he isn’t as annoying as he was because his voice isn’t cracking. I am very excited to see the final steps Bruce takes

Jim Gordon:

Ben McKenzie is finally becoming a reputable James Gordon. However, as much as I can see David Mazouz becoming Michael Keaton’s Batman, I still cannot quite see Ben McKenzie becoming Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon. That’s not to say I can’t see Ben McKenzie as a Commissioner Gordon but for me, Gary Oldman was always the best incarnation of the character from The Dark Knight Trilogy.

I really liked seeing Captain Gordon struggle here, he is currently trying to make himself the beacon of hope in No Man’s Land and yet is getting no help from the outside, the only help he received was when Bruce choppered in resources from Wayne Enterprises and even that got shot down. Unclear as to who by at this point but I have my suspicions.

One thing I have always loved about the Batman-Gordon relationship is while Batman is the Dark Knight operating in the shadows, Gordon has always been the face of a hero and an everyday hero at that. Ben McKenzie does portray that rather well, you can tell there is a co-morbidity between Bruce and Jim’s motives in this new world order. They both want to bring a sense of order and justice to Gotham but are going about it in different ways. One tries obeying the law, one takes the law into his own hands. The beauty is as both grow in their personal lives they both learn to rely and adapt on each other’s strengths.

I really liked his confrontation with Scarecrow because, not only did it stir up old feelings which I will talk about when talking about Scarecrow, but it was two-way battle between order and chaos and I loved it.

Also the fact he definitively made an enemy out of Penguin and saved Barbara, both of whom have been intriguing relationships for the character since the show’s first season, proves an interesting development considering on that Day 397 flashforward we see Gordon siding with Penguin and Riddler with Barbara nowhere to be seen.

Selina Kyle:

I have loved this interpretation of Selina Kyle, Camren Bicondova has embodied a teenage Catwoman to such a quality degree that she for me is the teenage version of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman from Batman Returns. She has the same attitude and the same personality.

We didn’t see a lot of her here but we learned a lot for her character going forward this season. Firstly, she and Alfred never got out of Gotham before the bridges blew so are stuck in the clinic which is part of GCPD territory and a resource hub for medical supplies.

Selina has become paralyzed and while her spine has been saved from shattering it is still the case that she can’t walk and has become understandably depressed by that.

She also blames Bruce for her current situation because Jeremiah would not have gone after her if not for the fact that she was important to Bruce. So while Bruce is constantly at her bedside and Alfred doesn’t seem to leave the clinic, Selina has grown very resentful in those 87 days and I am sure the resentment will grow as the season goes on but in that beautifully twisted way that we know the Batman-Catwoman relationship to be.

I am curious to know who “The Witch” is, if I had to guess I would say Lee because she of course has a doctor background and Hugo Strange did “fix” both her and Riddler. Hopefully we find out in Episode 2.

The Riddler:

Speaking of The Riddler, yes he is one of my favourite DC villains and Corey Michael-Smith has been very hit and miss over the five seasons, but Season 4B and going into Season 5 I am very happy with his performance.

Not only have you got Ed now firmly embracing his Riddler persona as he is questioning why “Idiot Ed” is taking control while he sleeps leading him to wake up in random destitute places, but considering he did not interact with any main characters this episode but rather that one homeless man yet we know on Day 391 he sides with Gordon, Bullock and Penguin to defend Gotham, it poses a lot of questions that I am sure The Riddler himself would be very happy about.

Also I want to know what his relationship with Lee is now like considering the two died Romeo and Juliet style but still did both kill each other. We know Lee is alive from the trailers so I eagerly await this reunion.

Final point is on Ed’s hair, I know Corey Michael Smith has shoulder-length hair and for him to get that rather sophisticated Riddler style he just needs to comb and style it back, we saw this with Jim Carrey’s Ed in Batman Forever, it’s just a great callback and I love it.

Penguin:

Oswald is back in his comfort zone which is a position of power in a fortress. Robin Lord Taylor is best as Penguin when he is playing the Penguin as a power player rather than a whinging little brat.

It was confirmed here that he has taken over City Hall as his zone and is in possession of rather dodgy ammunition. Regardless it gives him the position of power in trades as he has resources the city needs. The problem is the only trading he seems to do is with The Sirens and they don’t exactly like him, particularly Tabitha.

Also the fact that he sends Penn out to do his dirty work, how is Penn still alive? We know Zsasz is in this season so where is he and why isn’t he at Penguin’s right hand?

I always admire the fact Robin Lord Taylor keeps that limp from Season 1, Episode 1 going and yes he apparently does it by putting a stone in his shoe but it never looks goofy or overacted. The fact they temporarily fixed it in this episode I thought was going to be a cop out at first and a behind the scenes choice of Robin’s maybe wanting to walk normally for the season, however when Jim brilliantly shot him in the knee and Penguin had that hilarious tantrum afterwards I thought “Ah yes, order restored”.

I love the fact that Penguin now has a hatred for Jim that isn’t muddled with some weird one-sided friendship, he wants Jim dead. It does create intrigue as to why he seemingly sides with Jim on Day 391 to defend Gotham. I await answers eagerly.

Scarecrow:

Scarecrow has gone from being a tease in Season 1 to the opening threat at the start of Season 4 to Jerome’s henchman in the back half of Season 4 and now he seems to be his own boss with his own rules.

I love the fact he has an army and seemingly strings his victims up like Scarecrows, his look is eerily similar to the comics and even the 90s animated series. It’s also a more realistic depiction of the Arkham games costume. It just looks so dead on for the character.

While the GCPD, Penguin and Sirens are seemingly more about a defensive strategy, Scarecrow is very much on the offensive, he’s not shy to go out with his minions and reap and pillage. He has his fear toxin, he knows how to swing that scythe and he knows how to strike fear.

As I said with Jim, during their confrontation old wounds were opened not only with Scarecrow’s first main encounter with Jim at the start of Season 4 but also the fact Jim and Harvey were responsible for his dad’s death way back in Season 1.

This episode definitely brought Scarecrow to the forefront of villainy for the series and proved why he will become such a formidable threat for Batman in the future.

Barbara Kean:

I have loved Barbara for the past three seasons, Season 1 I found her very dull and Season 2 she was all over the place but since then and since she embraced her villainy, she has become such a bad-ass and brilliant character.

I really love her style in the promotions, the white trench coat and the pixie cut hairstyle are very striking and suit a female crime boss of her standing. However, her look in this episode was more lesbian club owner and yes that’s essentially what she is but she’s also the leader of a group that runs a turf and owns valuable resources for the city.

The fact she is still willing to trade with Penguin despite that fact that he killed the man who her best friend loved is very telling of the type of businesswoman she is. She knows that the city has gone to hell and also knows her club is not only responsible for the safety of all women that seek sanctuary but also has a monopoly on the food supply for the city. This doesn’t mean she is just going to roll over and show her belly to Penguin’s demands but she knows what she wants and how to get it which I love.

My two negatives with the character are firstly the fact their “turf” is female only as it just seems too feminist of an agenda for me. Also when Penguin kills Tabitha she is understandable distraught by it, however when she proclaims “If it’s the last thing I do, I will kill him!” referring to Penguin...not only do we know that Penguin survives beyond this show but also we do not know what happens to Barbara on Day 391 so surely proclaiming this in the first episode as a vendetta is signing her own death certificate?

I hope not because I really like this character, but at the same time she’s survived this long so there is nowhere really to go from here.

Tabitha Galavan:

My favourite Tabitha moment was during Gordon’s opening monologue sequence when one of the men that The Sirens gracially permitted to be on their turf for a while got a little bit touchy with the women and Tabby put a blade to his throat, you hear the sound of a wildcat over it.

We of course know that Tabitha was brought in to be this canon’s version of Tigress but there hasn’t really been any bite to that aside from her becoming Catwoman’s mentor and she is dubbed “Tabby the Tigress” by Ed when she fights Grundy in the Narrows but there is nothing to say she becomes this supervillain.

Obviously now she won’t be because while she is a main character still, Penguin killed her as he promised he would at the end of last season. Again Penguin is a staple character in the Batman mythos and characters like Tabitha and Barbara, even Fish Mooney, while brilliant, aren’t staples. So when they decide to challenge Penguin with a vendetta you know how it will go.

It is very sad that Tabitha died in episode 1, I maybe wanted her to last longer and see Barbara and Tabitha truly become lovers that way Oswald could kill Tabitha not only to avenge his mother but also hurt Barbara and while yes he has done that, for the first episode it didn’t seem warranted.

Ecco:

Ecco makes a brief cameo in this episode towards the end, surprisingly not in her Mummer outfit which resembles Harley Quinn but in a leather-clad look with just the Mummer mask.

Ecco is Jeremiah’s assistant from before he became insane and after he did, that is when she took up the Mummer mantle. From what we see in the trailers she is destined to become Harley Quinn to Jeremiah’s Joker so the fact she is seemingly spying on the GCPD from the shadows possibly for Jeremiah makes sense.

Also the Joker face calling card is a bit of a giveaway.

Others:

By others I mainly mean Bullock, Lucius and Alfred. While all three gents were brilliant as always, they didn’t have any standout moments themselves outside of their established roles. Bullock is there to prop up Jim, Alfred is there to prop up Bruce and Lucius is propping up both of them assisting the GCPD while also kitting out Bruce’s vigilante attire.

Alfred Pennyworth is getting his own series, unfortunately not portrayed by Sean Pertwee but Jack Bannon who does actually look like a younger version but anyway. Maybe because the butler is getting his own series, we’re having less emphasis on the character here? I hope not because I bloody love Sean Pertwee in this role.

Overall I’d say this episode is a strong 8/10, it set the final season up rather well and promises many exciting things to come.

So that’s my review of Gotham “Year Zero”, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more DC TV Reviews as well as other TV Reviews and posts.

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