#the rules for these characters are very very simple. the in-context character MUST exist within the setting and understand it to be reality

[tmae3114]

the other day, a friend of mine invited me over to testplay a paper-and-pencil storytelling game he's been working on for a while and feels like he's finally got a workable version of and one of his mentioned reasons was that "you're a fellow storyteller, I want to see what you'll do with it"

I promptly created a character which violated exactly zero (0) rules but nonetheless obliterated one of the core intended mechanical limitations of the game and I didn't even do that on purpose

after the game, when we were laughing about this, he admitted that one of his other reasons for asking me specifically to testplay was because he knew that "if there was anything that could be broken, you would find it and break it"

[kaijuposting]

Folklore, Magic, & Psychic Abilities in the World of Pacific Rim

The existence of ghost drifting and drift hangover in the world of Pacific Rim implies that people have the potential to be psychic; that it's something that can be cultivated.

This raises the question of just how many ways one could potentially cultivate and strengthen psychic ability. Since the world of Pacific Rim is a very fantastical sci-fi universe, there's not a whole lot that's explicitly ruled out. And I think that leaves us with the question of what might be thematically fitting.

We could say that because Pacific Rim is an action-packed soft sci-fi flick, then anything from other action-packed soft sci-fi might be on the table. But I believe that to do this would ignore something that makes Pacific Rim special: its world is permeated and shaped by elements of myths, fairytales, and folklore that ultimately have origins in animistic worldviews.

The reason for this is simple - both Guillermo del Toro and Travis Beacham are deeply interested in fairytales, folklore, and the like.

In Pacific Rim, kaiju are effectively malefic dragons, associated with fierce weather events (in this case, hurricanes) and slain by heroic figures (Beacham even associates jaegers with Saint George). The Precursors fill the role of mysterious and sometimes frightful spirits thought to have their homes in realms beneath the waters. The character of Hannibal Chau owns an old-fashioned apothecary, and if you listen carefully you can hear a frog ribbiting in the background, as if to subtly suggest that Newt has entered the domain of an eccentric wizard.

Even Newt's prior kaiju drift experiment was nothing if not analogous to the many, many ways humanity has attempted to make contact with other beings, both those thought to dwell within our realm, and those thought to live outside of it. The act of consulting with unknown or untrusted spirits, or attempting to contact spirits in unconventional ways, has always been controversial throughout history and frequently banned by authorities (one of my personal favorite cases is when medieval university students were banned from summoning demons to help them pass their classes), but has never been entirely suppressed.

Based on evidence provided by Emma Wilby in Cunning Folk & Familiar Spirits, many people in pre-modern Europe engaged in practices that appeared to let them leave their physical bodies and visit realms where spirits of all kinds were thought to dwell, and that these practices very likely ultimately derive from pre-Christian spiritual practices. Newt's drift is not entirely unlike the sort of astral journeys described by Wilby; while his body remains in the k-sci lab, his spirit, so to speak, is able to enter the otherworld.

Emma Wilby also argues that fairytales about people visiting spirits in other realms are inspired and informed by the astral journeys taken by folk practitioners. And I can say this from personal experience: if you get into the habit of reading fairytales and mythology, one thing you will notice is how often somebody travels to an underwater realm, and how often the inhabitants of these underwater realms are some kind of serpent or dragon. (And a quick aside, it sure does happen a lot that these creatures are, shall we say, smoochable. The Shape of Water is riffing on old myths and folklore just as much as Pacific Rim is, just saying.)

In the context of Pacific Rim, Newt's otherworldly journey is facilitated by a piece of technology that allows him to directly link his brain with the brain of a kaiju. But if we permit the existence of ghost drifting and drift hangover, then we must accept that one does not always need technological assistance.

With the setting being so heavily inspired by fairytales and folklore, I think it's appropriate to look toward what magic practitioners in the past were doing. This well-cited post describes some things people did within Nordic cultures, including fasting before sitting outside overnight while alternately chanting and meditating in silence.

People have used more ritualistic means of contacting faerie spirits; such is written about in Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period, for example. While ritual magic does tend to have more complexity than the aforementioned Norse practice and is generally meant to bring the spirit to you rather than the reverse, they are nonetheless similar; they are frequently preceded by some form of purification (EG, fasting, abstinence) and use long invocations. The operator of the ritual likewise works in a state of focused concentration, and elaborate spoken incantations are generally involved.

I think it could fit the tone and feel of Pacific Rim if it were possible for people to eventually reach the hivemind through essentially a lot of focused meditative effort. I also see no reason why it wouldn't be possible to establish a sort of drift with another person this way, provided they had also cultivated this sort of skill. Perhaps two people could even cultivate this skill together.

In the case of person-to-person psychic links, I believe that Beacham's general sentiments about trust being fundamental would apply. It surely wouldn't work if you had two people trying to block or kick each other from each other's minds.

Additionally, Beacham's take on drifting implies that people can be kicked out of your mind if their presence is unwanted. Based on the parameters he gives, it doesn't seem like any sort of forced entry would be tenable. And of course, he also mentions that drifting only allows you to see what's currently on someone's mind - it doesn't allow you to search their whole brain like a database, so I don't think we'd see any psychics who can just walk into a room and steal everybody's deepest secrets.

If anything, I think a psychic person in the world of Pacific Rim might function a little like Miki Saegusa, who featured in several Heisei Godzilla films. The Pacific Rim film has a lot in common with these films, to the point I strongly suspect that they served as a point of inspiration. (Just read the page I linked, and I'm sure a few similarities will stand out to you.)

Another thing we could potentially throw in so long as we're leaning into folklore and folk magic, is the idea of premonitions and the like. Perhaps the world of Pacific Rim includes old grannies who can sense when a kaiju is coming.

Finally, the existence of drift hangover implies that humans have the capacity to imprint consciousness on things that otherwise would not be conscious. This is not unlike the notion making magically or spiritually animated constructs, or the concept of haunted dolls, or even some forms of talismans. Whether actual haunted dolls are possible within the Pacific Rim universe, or whether the potential to imprint consciousness is limited to sufficiently advanced AIs such as those found in the jaegers, is debatable and would, I think, ultimately come down to one's personal preferences as to just how magical they want this world to be.

Finally, there is the question of whether one could be potentially possessed by the Precursors/Masters, or even controlled by another human being. I believe that Beacham's interpretation of the drift as something that's only sustainable as long as the involved parties are willing to trust each other would make this rather unlikely. And while it's often assumed that the kaiju are effectively being puppeted by the Precursors/Masters, I don't think the narrative truly supports this.

While the film does describe them as being in a "hivemind," it would also appear that the kaiju are being instructed to attack rather than being puppeted. After his first drift with a kaiju brain, Newt describes the kaiju as attacking "under orders." Additionally, Scunner uses vocal communication to call for help when pinned by Lady Danger, an action which wouldn't make sense if they were all being directly puppeted by a single mind.

For all we know, the kaiju themselves might also have a bond built on trust - albeit, a very misguided trust in authoritarian leaders, rather than people who genuinely care about you. Perhaps they're told and believe that that death is temporary and they'll be reborn (taking a little inspiration from Hellboy here), or maybe they're convinced that they're serving a truly glorious cause.

Now, there are traditions that state that fairy can effectively replace a person; in Ancient Cures, Charms, & Usages of Ancient Ireland by Lady Wilde, a means of restoring a woman who has apparently been replaced by a fairy is given. If a woman is "nervous or hysterical" and doesn't recover, and the prayers of the priest don't work, a "fairy-doctor" might be called for; and if the fairy-doctor determines that she's been replaced by a fairy, will lay hands on the patient's head while reciting incantations. This is done over the course of three days. I think it's worth comparing this to an incident in another one of Guillermo del Toro's projects - in the Trollhunters episode The Exorcism of Claire Nunez, Claire's spirit is taken to the shadow realms while the spirit of Morgana is able to control her body.

With that said, I think it's very important to treat these concepts with some caution; the notion of possession has been used to dehumanize various people and justify abuse and hatred against them. (QAnon, for example, often does this to those they consider their enemies.) I personally have religious trauma connected to being accused of being possessed for basically being autistic and too opinionated for a "girl." The threat of possession was absolutely used to control my behavior, my interests, and all that. Because of that, I will personally never be able to feel okay with possession as Pacific Rim: Uprising presented it, with the guy who was too interested in kaiju getting possessed by their creators.

Finally, I would like to emphasize that the number of links and references I've given are actually pretty small in the grand scheme of things. The purpose is to give a few simple ideas of a few things people have done and believed, not to suggest that this is essentially all there is, let alone suggest that various cultures are or were basically all the same. There are absolutely loads of similarities between various mythologies, folklore traditions, and whatnot all over the world, but there are also a lot of differences, and those differences do matter. Doing more research could be incredibly helpful here - just try to make sure you stick with people who have actual academic qualifications (or at least heavily rely on those who do) and disregard anybody who's pushing conspiracy theories about myths concealing some "hidden truth" about our history or whatever. And of course, listening to people talk about texts and tell you about what's in them is no substitute for actually reading them yourself.

[whitehotharlots]

Dr. Seuss, cruel power, and our terrifying future

If you’ve been online in the last few days, you’ve no doubt been informed that the company that controls the work of Dr. Seuss is putting six of his lesser books out of print and pulling them from shops. Today, it was reported that they are partnering with major online retailers to prevent these platforms from selling even used copies of the books. And this was all in response to a predictably shitty academic article that counted the number of characters in Seuss books and found--gasp--that most of them were white, that the non-white characters who are present are still offensive, and also that there was secret racial coding in works such as Horton Hears a Who, which are racist in spite of not featuring any human characters. 

Now, one might wonder how a children’s illustrator could have represented racial diversity in simple line drawings without including symbols that could, when taken intentionally out of context several decades later, avoid being considered offensive. If you’re asking that question, you don’t know how these things work. Despite the patina of scientism, “scholarly” pieces such as this always start from the assumption of offensiveness. Their authors know any accusations will stick, no matter how absurd, self-contradictory, or even non-existent they may be. All you got to do is toss in some numbers to make it look real official-like, then it becomes objective proof.

This is all a con, and everyone knows it. 

John Dolan had a great observation on an episode of the War Nerd podcast over the summer, back when everyone was tearing down statues. Paraphrasing, he said that people who do stuff like this realize that they're not actually accomplishing anything. That's not the intention. The reason you deface monuments is to demonstrate to everyone that you can.

Dr. Seuss is a ripe target for today's mob because no one seriously believes that his work is harmful. There are literally thousands of children's books, old and new, that you could plausibly claim are more offensive. They're doing this because it's so unintuitive and alienating. The fact that this seems--and is--so unnecessary and absurd makes it a much more profound statement of cultural dominance. Amazon and Ebay must take social justice very seriously if they’re willing to do something so unnecessary!

But, ahh, I'm sure the pedants are itching to point out that ACTUALLY it's not censorship. No sir. It's just a corporate trust banning several works of culturally important children's literature in response to an obscure academic article and then working with retail platforms to ban the private re-sale of the book. That's totally not censorship, because, umm, the government didn't do it directly. That's a super smart point and you should pat yourself on the back for making it. Everyone is very impressed.

That this ban did not come from a formal government dictate does not obscure the fact that it’s part of a broad cultural-political project that’s embedded within the Democratic party. The internet’s army of Democrat scolds were uniform and effusive in their praise of it. Republicans were equally uniform in their denunciation. If you’re a Democrat, this is your brand. In the minds of the average voter, this is what you stand for. And, since you’re unlikely to accomplish anything else beyond this, that’s not an unfair appraisal of you and your beliefs. 

Semantics aside, the precedent here is terrifying. The petty cruelty is astounding. This is the start of a broader and significantly more dangerous phase of wokeness.

If you're reading this blog, you are no doubt aware that claims of offensiveness are arbitrary. Any person can, conceivably, take offense at any work of art. This isn't necessarily a mean or selfish reaction--sometimes something rubs you the wrong way. But a foundational tenet of liberalism was, until very recently, the realization that just because you yourself don't like something, that does not give you the right to completely dismiss it. It especially does not give you the moral clearance to deny others access to it. 

Instead of seeking to universalize personal taste, there used to exist formal and semi-formal mechanisms for adjudicating the artistic merit of potentially offensive pieces, and then establishing a consensus in regards to their worthiness and people's potential access to them. These systems were imperfect and reflected the prejudices of their times, as all systems of apperception are bound be. But instead of seeking to adjust them, replace them with systems that are more inclusive and humanistic, we've decided to junk them entirely in favor of a full and proud embrace of narcissistic standpoint valuation. 

The old systems always took into account the age, context, intention, and critical reception of older works. The new system regards these very criteria as malignant. Now, all you need is for one piece of criticism to gain traction, and that's it, there's no pushing back against it--it's not a consensus but a declaration, and you either agree with it or you're in favor of erasing identities and making vulnerable people feel unsafe. The criticized works are now evil. The handful of companies that control our access to media now face a heavy monetary and social incentive to get rid of them. 

The censorship isn't going to stop, and they're starting to prioritize banning works not according to how "harmful" they may be but by how much the act of banning them will upset and sadden people. I'm sure, by pure coincidence, works that commit the crime of fostering class consciousness will be high up on the list--Steinbeck's about to finally get his comeuppance. And, of course, the political reaction to this is going to be historic.

Covid vaccines are rolling out and stimulus is not coming. The meager checks on our everyday cruelty--eviction and foreclosure bans, debt relief, elevated unemployment insurance--are all about to get yanked away, replaced with nothing. The jobs aren't coming back, and many of those that remain will soon turn into gig work. Millions of people will be forced out of their homes. Millions will lose healthcare. And the very best our ruling party has been able to do in response is ban Dr. Seuss and get Aunt Jemima removed from the box of pancake mix. God help us all come 2024.

[bestworstcase]

my most controversial tangled opinion is that the sundrop/moonstone lore isn’t confusing, it’s just a soft magical system in a story that wanted a harder one.

what i mean by this is: there are zero theoretical limits on the powers of the sundrop and moonstone, but their actual established powers are nebulous and controlled by vague concepts (“faith” and “feelings”) without any hard explanation. this works as long as the magic is a mysterious quest object and its actual use is largely incidental, but once cass takes the moonstone, the magic becomes a central component of the plot and the system fails.

for those unfamiliar with the soft/hard magical system distinction, in the most general terms, a hard magical system is explained—it has defined rules and limitations so the audience can understand How It Works—while a soft magical system isn’t. neither is better than the other per se, but which type works best for a given story depends a lot on how the magic is used in the plot.

to give an example, bending in avatar: the last airbender falls into the “hard” category. bending is a martial art with a strong spiritual component; there are four types of bending, each tied to one of the four nations; with one exception, benders can only bend a single element, and the exception is explained and given his own set of rules, like the requirement that he must learn the four types of bending in a particular order. even the last-minute introduction of a fifth type bending is logical within the context of the universe: humans learned the other four types of bending from powerful magical creatures, so the lion-turtle’s ability to gift energy bending to aang follows the established rule for how humans acquired bending abilities in the first place; and aang himself has long been established as valuing and prioritizing the spiritual aspect of being the avatar, so it makes sense that when he entreats the spirits for a way to defeat ozai without killing him, the spirits basically go “sure, here.” 

and of course, we the audience need to understand these rules, because bending is integral to the plot and to the way characters solve problems. if the characters in atla were constantly pulling new powers out of their butts to deal with the problem of the week, would that be as satisfying a story? characters do discover new powers (katara’s healing, toph’s metalbending, iroh’s lightning redirection, hama’s bloodbending), but when that happens the series is quick to establish how those powers fit within the framework of what we already know. we see this happen in fanworks too, because the audience understands the underlying mechanics and we can extrapolate new powers that fit within the defined rules, eg: could a sufficiently skilled and motivated firebender manipulate the electrical signals of the brain? taking control of a pre-existing electrical discharge and manipulating elements inside the human body are both possible, so i don’t see why not.

now back to rta.

the magical system in the series is very soft. for the purpose of this discussion, we’re going to focus on the sundrop, moonstone, and zhan tiri, because those are the core pillars of the magical system—the assortment of enchanted artifacts that pop up are sort of tangential and irrelevant here. 

let’s start with what we know. 

the sundrop and moonstone are two halves of an ancient cosmic power (hereafter ACP). the ACP was destroyed by an unknown calamity, the two drops fell to the earth, and they have been longing to reunite ever since. 

whether this “longing” implies a degree of sapience or if it’s simply an attractive force like a pair of magnets is never specified, but based on the way the two forces behave i think the magnets explanation makes more sense.

the sundrop and moonstone are said to be inverses of each other. the sundrop heals, the moonstone harms. simple enough. 

...but the moonstone also has a secondary protective ability, which it gifts to rapunzel in the form of her unbreakable hair. and the moonstone has the black rocks, which seem to exhibit both the destructive and protective/invulnerable facets of the moonstone’s power. 

and the the sundrop also has a secondary destructive ability in that it. explodes.

so...

sundrop heals ↔ moonstone harms sundrop destroys ↔ moonstone protects

now this internally contradictory set of powers for the drops does make sense when you remember that they were originally just one thing. the ACP was theorized to have basically unlimited powers of destruction and creation, so it makes sense for its two halves to exhibit that duality within themselves as well.

if we consider the wording of the four incantations (and the events of BVA), we can kind of get a sense of what else the drops might be able to do: 

i think there’s a strong argument to be made for understanding the healing/decaying capabilities of the drops as temporal manipulation. the sundrop doesn’t “heal” so much as it reverses time so it’s like the damage never happened (“make the clock reverse!”)—which incidentally would explain how gothel stayed fertile for two thousand years a lot better than “healing”—and the moonstone’s decay does the same but in reverse, so fast forwarding rather than rewinding.

they both alter/manipulate fate (“change the fates’ design”/“end this destiny”). this may be a metaphorical reference to the temporal manipulation thing, or it could be that the tangled universe truly is deterministic and the drops powerful enough to literally change fate.

a case can be made for a third dichotomy of sundrop faith ↔ moonstone will. by which i mean that the sundrop runs on belief/faith while the moonstone runs on feelings/willpower. the sun incantation focuses on hope (“and let our hope ignite”) and eugene having faith in rapunzel in LAF is what allows her to activate the sundrop nuke even without the incantation. meanwhile, the moon incantation focuses on willpower (“bend it to my will”) and in BVA, the moonstone is shown to react intensely to cassandra’s feelings and is also able to manipulate the feelings of other people (meaning that, presumably, the sundrop could also inspire faith). 

...but notice, here, how much of this is postulation. very little of this is explicit textual information; instead, i’m drawing connections between the lore given in LAF and the things that we see the sundrop/moonstone do on screen in an attempt to line up what we see with the loose, vague framework of “two halves of a broken whole that are opposites/complements of each other.” 

and i really think this is what people mean when they say the sundrop/moonstone lore is “confusing.” unlike in a hard magical system like atla, the series dedicates no time to explaining how it all works. it’s just There, and while we can make some extrapolations based on what we see, it’s not really a system that is meant to hang together in a coherent, rules-based way. and—unpopular opinion—that is FINE. hard systems are not innately better than soft systems. 

do i personally have a preference for hard systems? yes. are hard systems in vogue in modern fantasy? also yes. does that make soft systems inferior to hard systems? no. can i suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy a fantasy story with a soft system? absolutely, yes, though no force on earth can stop me from picking over it with a fine-toothed comb to develop a personal theory on how it all works, or from breaking it down into its component parts and then building a hard system from scratch for my own fanworks like i did with bitter snow. 

but—the key thing is—it’s not confusing if you go into it with the understanding that the magical system is soft. the nebulous vague what you see is what you get thing is a feature, not a bug. 

the same goes for zhan tiri. i’ve already expounded at great length about her canon lore and i’m not going to get into it again, but suffice it to say: she’s some sort of powerful ancient shapeshifting demon with nature-based magic, a side helping of dream/mind-based magic, and a penchant for deceit and manipulation. and again, the underlying mechanics of any of this are not explored, because rta has a soft magical system.

but farran, you said rta needed a harder system, so why are you now saying that soft magical systems aren’t bad? 

i did say that, yes, but it’s not because soft systems are bad. it’s because soft and hard systems are different tools used to accomplish different things, and rta as a series tells a story that, ultimately, would have been better served by a hard system rather than a soft one.

let’s start with cassandra’s control over the moonstone. in RR, she uses its powers instinctively and effortlessly. then, she loses that ability, and zhan tiri tells her that it’s because she needs to focus on her rage because that’s what the moonstone responds to (this is an obvious lie ziti uses to get cass to wallow in her anger, but the basic principle that the moonstone responds to emotion appears to be sound). and then, in BVA, cassandra’s fear about attacking rapunzel causes her to spontaneously manifest a completely new ability that sends magical fear-empathy rocks all the way to corona where they start giving people nightmare visions and petrifying them. 

that’s huge! we had no idea the moonstone could do something like that. but then they go away and cass never uses them again. why? who knows!

next, zhan tiri (off screen -_-) evidently tells cass that it’s not actually a matter of trying harder to master the moonstone’s power, she needs to use the moon incantation to unlock it. this is inconsistent with what we’ve seen before (RR and BVA proved that she could access the full range of the moonstone’s power, she just doesn’t know how), and could be explained by zhan tiri lying again... except that when cass recites the incantation it works as-advertised. 

and “mastering the moonstone’s power” turns out to be... black rocks and lightning, but bigger and more elaborate. that’s it. there’s no expansion on the withering incantation, or the empathy-rocks or petrification abilities introduced in BVA, it’s just black rocks and a light show. and black rocks shaped like dogs that one time in plus est. 

the same thing happens with the sundrop. it glows and it blows things up and it heals things and that is all it does. it just does it... bigger, and flashier, after rapunzel recites the sun incantation. 

and when zhan tiri acquires both of the drops, something that we are told grants her the (undefined) “ultimate power,” she... uses them to make rocks, but they’re golden now. what do the golden rocks do? who knows! and she uses the decay incantation, which works exactly as it did when rapunzel used it except faster and bigger and not uncontrolled. 

and then she’s beaten by whacking her over the head with a frying pan and tricking her into clapping her hands together, which blows her up. and then rapunzel takes the unified drop and revives cass everyone before letting it fly off into space. yay!

but... do you see the problem here? why so many people felt so dissatisfied with the lore surrounding the drops and zhan tiri in season three? people say it’s “confusing,” but i think that describes a symptom, not the root of the problem. a good, well-utilized soft magical system doesn’t cause confusion; it blends into the story and doesn’t call attention to itself. it’s like... lighting. it’s just there and it just works and it enriches the story but we don’t question it. 

whereas a hard magical system is an actual component of the narrative, almost like a character in its own right in the sense that we understand what makes it tick. there are rules, and we understand the rules, and because we understand the rules we can make predictions about what influence or role the magic will have in the plot. to use atla as a very simple example again: when iroh teaches zuko how to redirect lightning, we can predict that this ability will become a vital form of defense against azula and ozai. atla sets up lightning bending, then sets up a defense against lightning bending, and we don’t need to wait around for it to happen to understand that this is going to become Very Important later.

now compare this to rta season three. a whole episode is dedicated to establishing that the moonstone is connected to cassandra’s emotions in a pretty significant way. after bva, there was a lot of speculation about how this fact would play out in the events to come; speculation about other types/colors of rocks and what effects they might have; speculation about how this would tie into cassandra’s emotional arc; speculation about how zhan tiri’s manipulation might interact with the moonstone’s emotion-based magic. and... absolutely none of that happened, because that was rules-based speculation built on the assumption that rta’s magical system had definitive rules. and that was an assumption made because, in s3, rta’s soft magical system started to behave as if it were a hard one. ie, it jumped into center stage and went “look at me! i’m important.” 

except it was still a soft magical system with no definitive rules, so any rules-based speculation was impossible and pointless. it is like trying to build a house out of beams of light. you can make a house shape, but if it rains you are still going to get wet. 

and i made this mistake, too! i also made the assumption, after BVA, that answers were coming and we could expect the magic to continue to develop into, if not a hard system, at least a hybrid one, and a lot of my speculation after that point came from a place of expecting answers (and trying to unravel the answers on my own before the series showed them to us). 

but rta’s magical system just was not built that way. it wasn’t set up to play this central role in the plot, it didn’t have definitive rules, it didn’t have a preexisting framework that could be used to expand and elaborate on characters’ abilities in a naturalistic, predictable way, so... as is often the case with mis-used soft systems, the magic just got vaguely Bigger whenever the narrative called for escalation, and the “ultimate power” ended up being completely underwhelming because it was just More Of The Same, But Make It Yellow. 

as... a point of comparison here, because i’m struggling to articulate what i’m driving at, let’s consider my take on the sundrop/moonstone lore—the hard magical system i created for bitter snow. 

1) magic is drawn from a powerful magical entities (deities, demons, spirits).

2) magical abilities are based on the abilities of the patron.

3) the sundrop and moonstone are artifacts belonging to/created by a solar deity (huma) and lunar deity (turul). they are basically teeny tiny shards of those deities that fell to earth when it was still a molten lump of raw material and then molded it into a world capable of supporting life. the drops themselves can serve as direct conduits to huma/turul, and both have extensive root systems; the sundrop’s roots support the outer crust of the earth, while the moonstone’s roots (the black rocks) form the inner core. 

4) the magic of the sundrop is restorative, and it also “casts” a shadow in the form of destructive magic. the restorative/destructive magics are always equal (hence the “shadow” metaphor). the restorative magic heals, creates and nourishes life, offers strength. the destructive magic is the opposite: it destroys, it kills, it weakens. 

5) the magic of the moonstone is transformative. it takes the sundrop’s “shadows” and refashions them into the black rocks. it adapts, it moves, it alters things. it is neutral, centered, and stable in comparison to the sundrop’s intense extremes. 

6) both huma and turul (and by extension the drops) are also connected to zhan tiri, as all three formed very early in the beginning of the cosmos. like huma and turul, zhan tiri’s magic is centered around change; hers is corruptive. zhan tiri’s magic manipulates strengths into weakness, and weakness into strength. it gives by taking away. it feeds.

7) to put these three types of magic into more concrete terms: let’s say alice, bob, and carol all break their arms. alice calls on the power of the sundrop to heal herself, and her arm is instantly and perfectly repaired, but some destructive, uncontrolled magic is unleashed into the world to balance the scales. bob, meanwhile, calls on the power of the moonstone, and it transforms the broken arm into solid stone; the pain is gone and the arm is no longer broken, but it is also no longer, strictly speaking, a human arm. and finally, carol entreats zhan tiri for healing, and zhan tiri sets the bone but also infuses it with her own magic, so it festers/grows into a well of power for carol.

now, if we apply these rules to a plus est en vous type of situation where zhan tiri claims both of the drops for herself, what does that look like? it’s the power to instantly unmake and re-make the entire cosmos. it’s the power to transform the entire world and everything on it into stone or ice. it’s the power to cure every disease and heal every injury suffered by every living thing on the planet instantaneously, and to inflict those same sufferings on everyone and everything with a snap of your fingers. it’s, literally, limitless. (it also fuses zhan tiri, huma, and turul into a single entity called jinarche but that is a little beside the point for the purpose of this discussion.)

and... how do you beat a creature like that? well. you sort of can’t, on paper, but in practice the overwhelming shock of the fusion of that much power into a single being would cause a few minutes of intense disorientation and that creates a window of opportunity to break the fused power apart again... but this isn’t a “win” scenario either, really, because when you do that it is going to cause an explosion of power violent enough to shred the entire cosmos so it is basically hitting the reboot button on the whole universe.

so, operating within the bitter snow magical system, the key to defeating a zhan tiri who wanted to acquire the sundrop and moonstone (and fuse with huma and turul in the process) would be to stop her before she gets her hands on both drops. because of the framework created by this hard system, the plot of this alternate plus est en vous is all about preventing zhan tiri from acquiring the drops, because the second both of them are in her possession it’s game over even if you manage to kill her. you either get an unkillable, omnipotent god or you get the entire universe self-destructing. the stakes are that high.

*deep breath*

with this in mind, let’s wrap this back around to canon. when zhan tiri takes both the sundrop and moonstone, what... are the stakes?

in TOTS, when zhan tiri revealed her plan to take both drops for herself, did the stakes feel high? we are told at several points that the drops have the potential to destroy the world, but does the stinger at the beginning of TOTS feel like an “oh, shit, the literal planet is at stake here” moment? 

does zhan tiri in plus est feel like a super-powered demon who has just acquired the ultimate power of creation and destruction? no! the golden rocks and turbo-charged decay incantation don’t even feel like an escalation over the cassandra vs rapunzel battles in CR and earlier in plus est—in fact, frankly, they feel like a downgrade by virtue of being less flashy!

the series has given us no frame of reference for what the ultimate power looks like while simultaneously providing no internal scaffolding on which to build that kind of escalation. this is the biggest downside of a soft magical system—it’s really damn hard to keep raising the stakes if you don’t have the basic framework of “here’s what the rules are, here’s the limitations.”

back to bitter snow: neither zhan tiri, turul/the moonstone, nor huma/the sundrop on their own are powerful enough to rip the whole universe apart. zhan tiri is the most individually powerful of the three, and while she could probably destroy the planet if she really put her mind to it, that would take centuries to come to fruition. it would be a matter of planting the right seeds, worming her magic into the right cracks, growing and feeding and hollowing it out from within, and then hitting the pressure points at just the right time. it is only in combination that these three become strong enough to just unmake the whole cosmos in the blink of an eye. this kind of escalation is possible because i know what the limits are. 

in a soft magical system version of bitter snow, it’d be more like “well zhan tiri is really powerful, the sundrop and moonstone are pretty powerful too, if you put them all together they’d all be... like, Really Really Really powerful.” because the whole point of a soft magical system is that it’s vague. it’s not supposed to have this level of clarity and precision in how it works. this doesn’t make escalation impossible, just super difficult, because it’s so easy for escalation or new powers to come across as plot contrivances (BVA) or deus ex machina or purely aesthetic in nature like the gorgeous and dramatic fight in CR or the golden rocks zhan tiri uses. and from an audience perspective, there is literally no way to guess what might happen next because there are No Rules. you can predict character beats and plot developments, of course, but you can’t make accurate assessments about the magic.

and when you’re using a soft magical system in this way, where escalating stakes based on magic use are integral to the plot, you are basically inviting your audience to go “hey, wait a minute, how does this work...?” for the same reason audiences try to analyze and understand why characters are acting the way they do. 

and that’s why rta’s magical system ultimately failed. not because it’s confusing, but because it was too soft for what the story wanted to do with it. 

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

Was Norman Osborn ‘flanderized’?

It has been said that over the years, particularly following his resurrection, that Norman Osborn became a caricature of himself. Does this accusation carry any weight?

First things first, let’s define what the terms ‘flanderized’ and ‘flanderization’ actually mean. The most comprehensive descriptor can be found on TV Tropes. To quote an excerpt from them:

The act of taking a single (often minor) action or trait of a character within a work and exaggerating it more and more over time until it completely consumes the character. Most always, the trait/action becomes completely outlandish and it becomes their defining characteristic.

When it comes to Norman Osborn the accusations hinge upon his evolution into a villain who:

Just wants to kill Spider-Man

Is behind everything bad in Spider-Man’s life

Makes Spider-Man the point of all of his schemes

The latter point is often accompanied by referencing Norman’s original goal of taking over New York’s gangs. The idea being that originally Norman wanted to take over the gangs and then was ‘flanderized’ into being obsessed with Spider-Man.

To an extent these accusations carry merit, but not really the way detractors might think.

I’ll begin by addressing the two most obvious counterpoints.

Firstly, the idea that Norman’s vendetta and schemes against Spider-Man are ‘outlandish’ is a hollow critique in context.

Almost everything in super hero comic books is outlandish, even accepting the pseudo-science of super powers. The majority of super villains could make more money legitimately than as criminals.

Common crooks would be unlikely to go to jail if any masked vigilante beat them up. The world at large would never resemble the real world on any level if even one super powered being existed as it’d redefine what it meant to be human. Not to mention the confirmation of life on other planets, other dimensions, parallel universes, alternate timelines and the existence of deities and the afterlife.

So Norman Osborn’s schemes (the most ambitious of which was the ‘Clone Saga’) are only outlandish if we take it on face value. In context, it’s merely a large-scale version of super villain standard practices. After all, perhaps the two greatest Doc Ock stories of all time respectively involved him having secretly built an underwater base out of a James Bond movie and attempting to nuke New York City.

As for Norman ‘just’ wanting to kill Spidey, I’ve already addressed that in an earlier article.

Moving, on let’s talk about Norman’s schemes. Did they all revolve around Spider-Man? Well, even dismissing his post-OMD stories or stint as an Avenger, this is simply not true.

Osborn actually retained  his gangland aspirations in the 1990s. In fact that was his primary concern in Europe between his ‘death’ and ‘resurrection’.

When he returned to America during the ‘Clone Saga’ it was revealed (through exposition provided by the Rose) that Osborn was still very much involved in acquiring power through the criminal underworld.

Spider-Man: Made Men #1 revolved around various gangland figures vying for power. Osborn was unsurprisingly among the figures depicted.

There was some follow up to this in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #95 when the Kingpin tried to assassinate Norman as a rival gangster.

So Peter was absolutely not at the root of all  of Norman’s schemes.

Nor was he behind the majority of the bad things in Spidey’s life. Between 1997-2007 alone Norman had nothing to do with:

The Chameleon learning Spider-Man’s identity

The resurrection of Doctor Octopus

Mary Jane’s death being faked by her stalker

Spidey’s duels with Morlun

The Venom symbiote seeking out new and more violent hosts, including Mac Gargan

The destruction of Peter and MJ’s apartment and of Aunt May’s home

Peter’s failing health and death in ‘The Other’ arc

Aunt May being shot courtesy of the Kingpin

So when we look at the facts, Norman just doesn’t fit the definition of flanderization listed above. He’s far from a caricature of his early appearances. This is actually fairly uncommon in general among Silver Age characters. The vast majority of all characters who were around back then have developed at least some layers of complexity since then; if anything that’d be the opposite of flanderization if anything.

This is unquestionably the case for Norman Osborn. Through stories and issues like Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #14, ‘Revenge of the Green Goblin’, Spider-Man: Legacy of Evil #1 and ‘A Death in the Family’ Norman Osborn’s personality and psychology has been immensely expanded upon from what it was between 1964-1973.

But I do not deny the idea that Norman has changed and become more focused upon Spider-Man himself. Initially his primary goal was the conquest of the criminal underworld, through which the death of Spidey was a means to an end. But from the 1996-2005 (and arguably since Superior Spider-Man v1 #4 in 2013) Norman’s primary concern seems to have been his feud with Peter.

However, these accusations against the character seem to treat this change as unnatural. As though lazy writing simply kept exaggerating one trait of Norman’s and consequently made that the crux of the character.

In reality though this change in priorities was entirely organic. Norman grew gradually more and more frustrated with Spidey’s interference until he decided to just find out who he was and destroy him. Upon learning one another’s identities that  was when Norman and Peter’s relationship fundamentally changed. It became less about gangland aspirations but far more personal. This didn’t occur due to lazy writing across time, it was an evolution during he same run that invented Norman. And it happened around 2 years following his debut.

From there Norman was integrated into Peter’s social circle and Harry was unwittingly caught in the center of their feud. After ASM #40 every time Norman remembered he was the Goblin he wasn’t going after Spidey to rule the gangs, he was pursuing a personal vendetta against him. ‘The Death of Gwen Stacy’ in particular displayed this as Norman sought revenge for Peter giving him amnesia and for the harm he felt he’d done to Harry.

So, Norman’s priorities had fundamentally pivoted within less than 10 years of his debut. And it wasn’t due to lazy writing that ‘drifted’ him in that direction. It was an entirely believable evolution of what had began as a practical consideration and then spiraled into a personal blood feud.

Detractors though might argue that Norman became a caricature upon his return in 1996.

Even if he was manipulative and at times nasty in the Silver Age, it wasn’t nearly to the same extent as his portrayal in the 90s and beyond.

This is perfectly true. And you know what, the same can be said of the impact he had upon Peter’s life. He became far more integral to shaping Peter’s life from the 1996 onwards than he’d ever been in the Silver Age.

On these counts perhaps it’d be accurate to argue Norman became flanderized.

At which point I must ask…why is that a bad thing?

Let me give you an example that’s a bit left field.

In the 2010 animated show ‘Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated’ the classic Hanna-Barbera meddling kids got a major update. The most starkly different character though was Fred Jones. In the original and majority of Scooby-Doo shows Fred had almost always been both the de facto leader and the guy who planned the traps.

He was also the single blandest character of the main five, even excusing the pretty simple personalities of the rest of the gang.* SDMI however outright flanderized him. He went from the guy who happened to be in charge of setting the traps to someone literally obsessed with traps.

And you know what? He became immeasurably more interesting as a result. Suddenly he had a role within the group as the eccentric, the strategist and his interest in mysteries had more specificity as he actively looked for chances to ensnare would be ghosts and ghouls.

Whilst it’s often not the case, SDMI’s take on Fred proves that flanderization is not inherently  a bad thing.

This is certainly true in Norman’s case. His vendetta with Spider-Man, status as puppeteer and framing as the ultimate evil within the Spider-Man universe has been used to great effect over the years.

As a puppeteer and manipulator he was given greater scope to attack Peter and his loved ones, thereby making him a far more dangerous villain that Spidey couldn’t just knock out with a punch.

His framing as an ultimate evil also helps render Peter’s heroism in starker contrast. Everything that makes Spider-Man a true hero and champion for good is spotlighted whenever he confronts the sheer sadism and malevolence of Norman. Personally, I feel Peter Parker: Spider-Man #75 is the greatest example of this.

Call me crazy or old-fashioned but isn’t this an essential function of a villain in superhero fiction?**

And the emphasis upon the Parker/Osborn feud simply made their encounters more emotionally gripping. We all read Peter Parker’s adventures specifically for Peter’s character. We don’t want just any given person (spider powers or not) in the spotlight. We want to follow the ups and downs of his life, his relationships with his friends, family and colleagues, what job he’s working, where he lives, how he provides for himself and others, etc.

The Spider-Man story is in essence is the life of Peter Parker.

Having a villain who has a dramatic impact upon both halves of Peter’s life is more than creatively justifiable. It makes every encounter personal  and if we read Spidey because we’re personally invested  in his life then Norman’s vendetta renders him perennial relevant.

He is the villain who fundamentally tests the soul of our hero.

This isn’t to say that it wouldn’t be nice for Norman to be written with goals beyond Spider-Man. But my point is that making that his priority was never ever a problem in the first place.

In short, Norman Osborn was better  for his flanderization.

*Noticeably Fred’s character has had the most reinventions over the years when you look at wider Scooby media.

He’s been a cool douchebag in the live action films, something of a conspiracy theorist in ‘A Pup Named Scooby-Doo’, a cameraman in ‘Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island’, etc.

The lack of uniformity to his character is very likely an indicator of how simple and bland he originally was; and has largely remained since.

On a symbolic level one could even argue that Norman’s elevation to this personification of evil was appropriate for an older and adult Spider-Man. As we grow up the world in general grows darker and more sinister, presenting challenges that test our inner resolve.

A great example from modern literature would be Harry Potter. Harry ages from 11-17 across the seven novels, each of which dials up the amount of pain, cruelty and death Harry must confront.

[astoldbythetrees]

So I Want to Be a Game Designer #1 - Once Upon a Tower

Introduction

Hello, reader.

Welcome to a new series, “So I Want to Be a Game Designer”! In this series, I will be analyzing a game to identify its mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics to determine if the game successfully facilitates Meaningful Play.

The game I will be analyzing in this post is Once Upon a Tower, a roguelike game designed for mobile on both Android and iOS. In this game, you are a princess who has been detained at the top of a tower. When a knight’s failed attempt to rescue the princess results in her gaining a weapon, she uses the weapon to facilitate her escape from the tower and the evil dragon who guards her.

While this game has a straightforward objective, there are many aspects that work together to make the game challenging and fun. In the following sections, I will be covering the game’s:

Core Loop

Mechanics

Dynamics

Aesthetics

Meaningful Play

Core Loop

The core loop consists of the main activities that players will use continually throughout the game. In Once Upon a Time, those core activities can be boiled down to two things:

Every action the player might take on their quest to escape the tower (i.e. descend) can be encompassed by the term “overcoming obstacles.” As the player makes their way through each level, they must destroy blocks in their way, avoid or defeat enemies, and perhaps collect fireflies and purchase power-ups. No matter how the player chooses to go about navigating the level, the fact that they must overcome obstacles remains.

Likewise, after overcoming the obstacles in their way (no matter how they choose to do it), the player must then descend the tower. This is the goal of the game, and an action that will be repeated throughout its entirety.

Mechanics

Mechanics are game rules that are designed to constrain and influence the player’s actions within the game so that it is played as intended. There are three main types of mechanics:

Space Mechanics - has to do with the environment

Object Mechanics - things within the environment that can be seen or interacted with

Action Mechanics - things the player can do

Core Mechanics

The core mechanics are those that are fundamental to the player’s experience; without these, the game would be completely different.

Gravity (Space Mechanic)

The character falls through open spaces in the map to progress through the level

Swinging the Weapon (Action Mechanic)

Serves several functions: breaking blocks, collecting fireflies (currency), and attacking enemies

The action of swinging the weapon is integral to the core gameplay because the player cannot progress without at least breaking blocks

Levels (Space Mechanic)

The only way the player can progress through the game and win it is by advancing through the levels. Without the level structure, the game would be fundamentally different

Non-Core Mechanics

The non-core mechanics, while important for furthering the core theme, are those that the game can exist without if they were to be replaced. For example, the enemies do not have to be dragons and ogres; they could be replaced with zombies and skeletons and the core of the game would remain the same.

Space Mechanics

Barred Windows - A space in the tower walls that the dragon will breathe fire through to attack the player. The player cannot interact with them, so they aren’t really an “object” in the game. The effect of the dragon attacking through them is activated when the player stands on the same horizontal plane as the metal bars.

Object Mechanics

Bricks - An obstacle the player must destroy to progress through the level

Rubble - Weak blocks that will crumble when the player stands on them, causing the player to fall through (usually to traps waiting below)

Spikes - An obstacle that kills the player when landed on (without certain power-ups)

Piston - An obstacle that periodically pistons a log vertically or horizontally to crush the player if they do not time their movements correctly

Power-ups - Purchased with fireflies between levels

Defensive buffs to prevent damage from attacks or obstacles (e.g. the armoured boots will prevent damage from landing on spikes or crabs (who have spikes on their backs))

Offensive buffs will augment the player’s weapon or give them an extra ability (e.g. the fire hammer will give the player ranged attacks, or bombs will destroy enemies and obstacles on a large scale)

Other buffs will aid in the players traversal of the obstacle course (e.g. the parachute slows down the character’s fall and allows movement when descending

Fireflies - in-game currency and points. During a level, the player can use collected fireflies to purchase power-ups. After exiting a level, the fireflies earned will be converted into stored points which can unlock new character avatars.

Diverse Enemies - Each enemy has unique behaviour, and require different strategies for countering them:

Ogre

Hyena

Spider

Crab

Baby Dragon

Action Mechanics

Movement - The player moves one block at a time by the player swiping in any direction on their screen (left, right, up, and down)

Swiping Left or Right: Moves the character one space in the indicated direction

Swiping Up: Causes the player to jump and swing their weapon at the space above their head

Swiping Down: Causes the player to break the block in the space beneath them (if there is one), which is how they can utilize gravity to descend the tower

Dynamics

These are the ways players can utilize the mechanics to play the game; i.e. the gameplay. Dynamics include strategies the players can develop based on different game mechanics.

Timing

The player needs to select the right moment to break blocks or move past obstacles to avoid getting caught

Utilizing Enemies

Some enemies will fight each other if close enough together. Players can attempt to turn them against each other by pushing them closer with hay bales or breaking blocks

Managing Currency

Do you buy a powerup now or save it for more expensive items in later levels?

Spatial Reasoning

The player must be aware of their surroundings so that they can properly react to obstacles (especially the dragon, which will breathe fire through barred windows)

Collection

Do you prioritize collecting fireflies in order to get power-ups? Or do you ignore them in favour of taking out enemies at a more advantageous time?

Aesthetics

Once Upon a Tower is primarily trying to engage the player’s competitive spirit and sense of discovery. Many of the game's mechanics and dynamics are ideal for players who enjoy a challenge and like playing to beat their best score.

Challenge

The player is issued a high score at the end of each play session, so they are encouraged to play again to beat their own score

Obstacles are tricky, so when the player is bested by a level, they are left with the competitive urge to try again until they can overcome it

Escape progress (beating all the levels) is tracked per princess. This encourages players to continue playing the game with each princess to feel the satisfaction of “100% completion”, which can be considered as completely beating the game

(No noticeable narrative to interfere with a competitive player’s desire to get right into the gameplay)

Fantasy

The game is set in a fantastical environment with mythical medieval enemies (such as dragons and ogres)

The cartoon style of the graphics keep the game feeling whimsical and fun, so that the player will not be distracted from the core gameplay

Discovery

The player is constantly learning new things during each playthrough and each level. Every time the player restarts at the top of the tower, the layout is regenerated for a fresh experience. Furthermore, as the player goes from one level to the next, they will encounter new enemies and obstacles to overcome.

Once Upon a Tower has a colourful, cartoon-like art style typical of indie games. The art style fits well with the medieval fantasy setting, so that the player can be immersed in the simple narrative of a princess trying to escape a tower.

The style of the art and animations upon defeat are very lighthearted. This keeps with the primary theme of keeping the player engaged in the challenge aspect of the gameplay, rather than a tragic narrative. The game is meant to be something that can be picked up and played immediately, not something that requires the player’s focus on uncovering a complex story. The upbeat background music and sound effects only add to the player’s feeling of lighthearted fun.

Meaningful Play?

“Meaningful play occurs when the relationships between actions and outcomes in a game are both discernable and integrated into the larger context of the game. Creating meaningful play is the goal of successful game design.” —Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Chapter 3: Meaningful Play. In Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (pp. 4–4). essay, The MIT Press.

The game mechanics and dynamics in Once Upon a Tower are able to achieve meaningful play in several regards. For example, the blocks the player chooses to break (i.e. the route they choose) to navigate the level can determine whether they can collect fireflies or safely overcome obstacles. Collecting enough fireflies will allow the player to purchase power-ups between levels. Certain power-ups will make the later levels much easier to complete, such as armoured boots or a shield, which is why the player’s decision to collect fireflies in the early levels and save them for purchasing more powerful buffs will have an integrated effect on their gameplay.

The medieval fantasy setting of the game was a good choice considering that gravity was a core mechanic. Any tall building world works well with the concept of the game. However, the aesthetic genres are able to work in conjunction to create a game environment that makes sense. The fantasy setting facilitates the use of the castle tower as well as the designers’ creativity when choosing monsters and obstacles. These obstacles are what turn the game into something challenging, and the diversity among them is what allows the player to explore uncharted territory.

The combination of all the aforementioned mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics certainly do give rise to meaningful play.

Conclusion

Once Upon a Tower is a game that is able to facilitate Meaningful Play by a combination of its mechanics, dynamics, aesthetics, and overall design decisions. For those who have a competitive nature, this game will likely prove to be an addicting pastime due to the challenge it poses. Many of the game's mechanics, such as the obstacles, diverse enemy types, and the level-based structure of the game will keep the player engaged. The use of upbeat music and colourful visuals give the game a sense of lightheartedness that will immerse the player in the role of a plucky princess trying to escape a tower against all odds.

Credits: All screenshots are of in-game elements from Once Upon a Tower. I claim no ownership over the image contents or the game itself.

[fytheuntamed]

Do you have any thoughts on why the novel might be so popular among lgbt people despite (sometimes quite obviously) being written by a straight women for straight women. I think this is quite evident in for example the sex scenes

Why do I think the novel is so popular amongst LGBTQ+ people despite being written by a straight woman for straight women? Simple! It’s a good story and the characters are complex and intriguing. No piece of media is ever perfect, so it simply comes down to whether an individual feels the positive aspects of the media outweigh the negative aspects of the media. Are there problematic aspects within the novel? Of course! But that doesn’t mean the novel as a whole should be disregarded. You can consume media while still being critical of it, just like you can like a character while acknowledging that they’re not a good person. LGBTQ+ people, like everyone else, value a good story and interesting characters, so even if there are aspects of the story that we dislike, we may still stick around if we think it’s worth it! Also, I think there’s a shortage of stories like “Mo Dao Zu Shi” where you have LGBTQ+ characters whose sexuality isn’t the focus of the story. Yes, Wangxian are soulmates and very much in love, but that isn’t the whole point. You have a delightful bundle of politics, magic, familial ties, concepts of right and wrong, mystery, etc etc that also features a beautiful love story between two men. I guess my point is, LGBTQ+ people are flawed just like everyone else and sometimes we consume content even if we don’t agree with every part of it.

I’ve avoided getting involved in any discourse surrounding the various versions of MDZS because I wanted to keep this blog drama free, however I would like to take this chance to offer my own thoughts on the “problematic” aspects of the novel. Before I get into it, I just want to make three things clear: 1) I’m white, 2) I’m not mlm, I’m a lesbian, and 3) I’ve only read the second half of the novel and honestly I can’t remember too much of the specifics. The relevance of my opinion on the matter, therefore, is limited and my words should be read with this fact in mind. I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts and feelings on this matter, so do feel free to either leave a comment or reblog and add your two-cents. All I ask is that we keep it respectful so this can continue to be an enjoyable space for all fans.

I’ve been going through the untamed’s tumblr tag daily since the start of this blog in August 2019, so I’ve seen the whole spectrum of opinions on this matter. Some people feel very strongly that some of the ways in which MXTX writes particular aspects of the novel are “problematic,” some people are indifferent, and others feel that criticism of MXTX’s writing comes from a lack of knowledge of Chinese culture (particularly LGBTQ+ Chinese culture). (I remember seeing a post touching upon this last matter, but I didn’t save it, so unfortunately I can’t link it.)

I think the two most common criticisms of the novel that I have come across pertain to matters of consent and the imposing of heteronormative concepts onto Wangxian. Again, I want to stress that I haven’t read the novel in its entirety and my memory of it is foggy. Talking about consent first, some felt the scene in the novel where LWJ kisses an unexpecting blindfolded WWX was a big no no, while others thought it was a very sweet, romantic scene. (To give context for those who have only seen the drama, this scene would have been placed in episode 25 had they included it). For this matter, I’m of the belief that consent is a must. Regardless of whether WWX enjoyed the kiss, the fact stands that no one is entitled to another’s body, and this is why consent is, in my eyes, non-negotiable. For those who have no problem with this scene, I do think it is worth considering how you would feel about this scene had it involved, say, Jin Zixuan kissing a blindfolded Jiang Yanli. If that had been the case, I do think the majority of readers would have found the scene in poor taste (I could be wrong, though!). I will say that the trope of the forceful kiss is extremely common and can be found in every genre; it’s definitely not restricted to LGBTQ+ couples. For the aforementioned reason, I don’t like the forceful kiss scenario irregardless of the genders of the people involved. I do think writing such scenes for LGBTQ+ couples in particular can perpetuate harmful stereotypes, particularly that LGBTQ+ people have no respect for personal boundaries and can’t control their physical desires. I think the situation is doubly bad if the person who is being kissed is “not yet gay,” because again, it perpetuates the idea of the big bad gay person and the innocent “straight” person who is at the whims of said big bad gay.

Moving on to WWX and LWJ’s sex life, I have seen multiple people in the tag mentioning WWX having a “rape kink” and their discomfort with this fact. Logically, I understand that we are all allowed, as human beings with different tastes and preferences, to enjoy the things that bring us pleasure (excluding certain obvious things). That being said, I do not personally enjoy rape fantasies in my media and try to stay far away from it. As I mentioned, we are all welcome to our own tastes and preferences, but I do think it is important that we realize that we are all also the product of our environments. Things, including kinks, do not exist in vacuums, and therefore they must arise as a result of some mixture of external and internal forces. Does MXTX giving WWX a rape kink automatically make her demon spawn? Not really. Does MXTX giving WWX a rape kink add anything to his character or the story? Also not really. All this being said, I do think LGBTQ+ media is oversaturated with consent issues and I’d personally like to see this come to an end, because once again, it perpetuates harmful stereotypes that do have a real impact on LGBTQ+ individuals.

As for the imposing of heteronormative concepts onto Wangxian, I think the biggest complaint I’ve seen is about WWX being referred to as the “mom” or the “wife” within the Wangxian couple. I would like to state here that this may be a situation in which cultural differences come into play. Additionally, because the novel is not originally written in English, it may be a case of telephone in which the true meaning becomes distorted as it is translated from one language to another and then to another and so on and so forth. Therefore, I am going to proceed with my thoughts on the matter in a more generalized way. For me, this is a big pet peeve of mine, to the point where I will not reblog content that refers to any of the male characters as “mom” or “wife.” My reasoning is simple: WWX is a man, so he would be someone’s “dad” or “husband,” not their “mom” or “wife.” I know from first-hand experience that non-LGBTQ+ people will often try to place a gay couple within a heterosexual context to make it easier for them to process how two women or two men could be together. I understand the reasoning behind this way of thinking, but that does not mean this way of thinking should be encouraged. It’s bad enough that non-LGBTQ+ couples are ensnared in an endless maze of gendered ways of being and thinking - let’s not force that on LGBTQ+ couples as well. My other issue is that the words “mom” and “wife” not only have gendered connotations, but they have implicit sexual connotations as well. In this context, “mom” and “wife” are just another way of saying “bottom.” Just think about it; nobody’s out there calling LWJ “mom” or “wife.” The whole idea of “top” and “bottom” in gay media is so……..it’s almost like an obsession? And for those of you who may be thinking it’s not that deep and has no bearing on real life….I really wish that were true. Go look at the comments section of any gay couple’s youtube video and you will invariably find someone asking who is the top and who is the bottom. That’s invasive as fuck, y’all, and you don’t see that shit on straight couple’s videos (again, because the assumption is that women are always in the submissive, therefore there’s no need to ask because it’s assumed the answer will always be that the woman “bottoms” and the man “tops”). All this being said, I can only speak about this matter from my viewpoint as a lesbian. If one day I were to get married, I wouldn’t want people referring to my wife as my “husband,” because the whole point is that we’re both the wife! I know there isn’t one rule/mindset that applies to all gay people, so I would love to hear others’ feelings on this matter.

Finally, I would also like to briefly touch upon Mo Xuanyu, who we don’t really get to see in the drama. I don’t know whether LWJ or WWX ever explicitly state their sexualities or which gender(s) they’re attracted to, but I’m pretty sure Mo Xuanyu is explicitly stated to be strictly into men (please correct me if I’m wrong!). I do wonder what MXTX’s intentions were (if there were any) when she decided to make Mo Xuanyu gay, because what I’ve grasped of his characterization is that he is written similarly to other gay male characters that give the impression they were created by checking off a list of every popular stereotype about gay men. I guess I’m just curious, as someone who knows very little about Mo Xuanyu, how others felt about his character in terms of complexity and stereotypes.

If you took the time to read all this, thank you! Let me know your thoughts~

[thelawyerthatwaspromised]

Why Jon Snow’s Climax Shouldn’t Involve a Battle

How should Jon Snow’s story end? What are we supposed to think about his character this season? Does he deserve to end up on the Throne, perhaps married to Sansa Stark?

To understand my view on Jon’s story and why I don’t hold anything against him so far in Season 8...I think we need to go back to the root of his story. 

Generally speaking, it helps me to analyze a character by asking myself “what’s the ONE THING they want more than anything else?” I’ve come to one big over-arching conclusion: Jon Snow just wants to be loved and “belong” in the context of a family.

That might seem simple but it’s so deeply relatable and complex that I can’t help but feel like it’s been layered many times over within his story.

I’ve written before how Jon Snow shares a ton of similarities to Superman/Clark Kent. A hidden prince from a lost civilization. Raised as a son by a morally upstanding man (the Catelyn issues are a twist on Jon’s upbringing). Confronted by the “last of his kind” and forced to choose between the world he grew up in or the world where he biologically came from. Both Superman and Jon deeply desire to “belong” and it’s something that works in any literary tale.

Superman has every power you can imagine but the second a person feels alone and isolated, they become instantly relatable and sympathetic. 

In a lot of ways, Jon Snow is the same way. He left Winterfell because he just never truly felt he “belonged” though he ached to every day. He joined a sacred order who, no matter their pasts, become his new “family”. Certainly appealing to someone like Jon. He wants to be a Stark, but that seems impossible. So he will remove himself from that environment. 

His most meaningful relationships are formed upon the realization that these different people he meets at the Wall really CAN be like family to him. Sam, Grenn, Pyp, Edd, etc. They all hold a special place in his heart. And yet...Winterfell still calls to him. 

He nearly abandons the Watch on more than one occasion when he gets word of the goings on in the south. And yet he works. And works. And he makes friends of wildlings. He betrays them. He fights them. He makes friends of them again after his brothers elevate him to command.

Then his brothers kill him.

And it’s such a big moment. Jon has only ever wanted to belong to a family. To have true “brothers” and to be accepted. He thought he had that in the Watch. He treated them as a real family. As if he could trust that, even if they disagree, they’re all in it together. 

The place Jon forced himself to go because he never felt he could belong in Winterfell has now rejected him. We saw how rejected he felt. It was about more than being betrayed, it was that he was betrayed by the people he viewed as his FAMILY.

Jon was fully ready to give up. There was seemingly no place for him. Then Sansa road through the gates at Castle Black and put Jon, as Kit Harington puts it, back into a state of action. She reignites him. And he feels that maybe, just maybe, his place is to safeguard Sansa. Maybe he’ll feel he CAN belong, given that purpose. 

They go on to win back Winterfell, together. And yet Jon is thrust into the position as the figurehead of the North when he’s named king. So Jon is meant to rule the place in which he left in the first place because he never really felt like he belonged. Being king doesn’t feel earned to Jon. It’s easy to read in his demeanor. He is good at ruling. He likes helping people. 

But there’s always this same cloud hanging over his reign. 

Worse, in Jon’s mind, is that everyone trusts him for a job that he doesn’t feel he deserves and he doesn’t feel like he’s particularly skilled in performing. He has the trust of all these lords and ladies. He has Sansa’s trust even though he has lingering guilt over the fallout after BotB. And the worst thing imaginable happens; he makes the decision to leave again, this time to try to save the North - and he feels he must betray their trust by surrendering his crown to Daenerys Targaryen.

Jon’s NEVER felt like be belonged in WF. He’s never felt like he deserved to be king. He feels he betrayed their trust. He knows why he did what he did, but it still cuts him every single time he’s reminded of what he did. 

And then Jon is hit with the single hardest thing he’s ever had to deal with: he learns the very essence of his being has always fundamentally been a lie. The one thing Jon has ever held onto about himself..the one thing that ever made him see SOME value in himself was the belief that his father was Eddard Stark. 

Now, that’s gone. Jon, who’s NEVER felt value in himself, who’s NEVER felt like he belonged even as Ned’s son, is plunged into a brand new pit of self-doubt and sense of longing. As Ned’s son? Sure, he could serve some type of role in Winterfell and feel good about it. He could protect Sansa, and then later Bran and Arya. He was forced into a situation where he feels he betrayed them. And now his own identity feels like a betrayal. 

Jon Snow in Episode 4 is in the darkest, deepest state that we’ve ever seen him. He doesn’t feel like he deserves to stay in Winterfell. He doesn’t feel he even deserves to have Ghost. Afterall, the dire wolves were for Ned’s children. Ghost’s physical appearance in Episode 4 is Jon’s inward appearance. He’s mangled. Beaten. Mostly destroyed. 

This is why his status as the “heir” isn’t really changing his course. He has fear of Daenerys and what she might do to his family and that has prevented him from processing one of the most traumatic things an individual can possibly be forced to suffer. 

On top of that, the only way his new “family” will accept him is by REJECTING THAT HE IS A MEMBER OF HER FAMILY. It’s perhaps the most psychologically damaging thing I can imagine. Jon feels lost that he’s not who he thought he was...and the only way he can continue to exist is to lie to himself and the world and pretend it’s still the truth and it’s all because the person who represents his new family is actively preventing him from belonging.

So Jon is aloof. He’s emotionally volatile. He’s clearly depressed. He’s anxious about anyone contesting Daenerys even though he now knows she’s rejecting his Truth. Jon’s given up on belonging. 

It might not be well-liked by some in the fandom...but...

Jon needs rescued

He’s in physical danger, of course. But he’s faced that a million times over. That’s not what is crushing Jon’s spirit. It’s his own self-hatred. 

Depression is beating Jon Snow in Season 8.

This is a fairly profound arc, IMO. It’s subverting expectations, too. Because Jon’s issues aren’t so different from the Hound’s. He’s not that different from Jaime. But Jon’s identity crisis is different because he always WANTED to belong to House Stark contra Jaime or the Hound. Either would likely be relieved to learn they aren’t trueborn sons of their houses. 

Jon is devastated, though. His entire essence was ripped away and now the family he learned he COULD belong to has rejected the very idea that he can ever publicly be acknowledged as a member. 

He’s in a clear spiral. He’s distancing from Sansa and Arya because he feels like he could never deserve the trust they’ve already given him. Their love and support aren’t being accepted - but it’s not because he doesn’t want it, it’s because he hates himself. How could he feel differently? Given his story. There’s a self-hate that CAN’T be resolved (in his mind). He sees no escape. He’s dutiful. He wants to protect the people he loves. And Jon DOES love. But he feels so unworthy of it that he thinks the only option is to disappear and be forgotten by them. 

So why should his climax not involve batte?

Because, in his heart, Jon Snow isn’t just about fighting. He doesn’t enjoy it. He doesn’t want it. Jon wants peace. Jon wants to be loved. Jon wants to feel like belongs. Jon wants to be HOME.

The fact that he still wants what he wanted at the start but he’s constantly sacrificed his own wants for the good of the people he loves makes me confident that the only suitable climax for Jon is a confirmation and realization that he is loved and he belongs. And he needs that as a part of accepting who he really is. Dany can NEVER provide him what he NEEDS because she wants to force him to hide it. The ONLY scenario I see that can fit Jon Snow’s character is being “saved” by Sansa Stark.

And no, I don’t think this has anything to do with the trope of “woman saves man” shit where he’s otherwise destructive and unkind. Jon deserves the love that Sansa would give him. He deserves the home that they could build. He deserves to have the truth of his origins accepted. He deserves to be a Stark, but not based on a lie. He doesn’t see any of this, though. And that’s the great sorrow of his portrayal thus far. I think it’s incredibly accurate and moving, but Jon Snow doesn’t see his own value. He knows Sansa and Arya and Bran and his friends care for him - but he can’t see himself being worthy of it. 

That’s why Sansa working so hard to validate Jon. To crown him. To make him a Stark...it will mean EVERYTHING to Jon. He’s already given more than any reasonable person could be asked to give. He’s accepted that he must, for the protection of his family, go south and just try to keep people alive. He’s given up what he wants. His whole arc since he left for Dragonstone last season has led to him giving up on happiness. Nothing makes this more obvious than the moment Sam and Gilly tell him that they plan to name their baby “Jon” if he’s a boy and all Jon can say in return is that he hopes they have a girl. He can’t imagine a worse fate for their child than to be like him. 

Jon needs saved. Not from physical danger. He needs saved from his demons. He needs home. He needs love. He needs a family. He needs to belong. And most of all, he needs to know that he deserves all of it. 

Jon IS emotionally stunted right now. He IS emotionally closed off. But I’m starting to see that it’s not just poor writing. It’s a function of his state of mind more than anything. His attempted goodbyes tell me as much. Given the chance for positive emotional interactions, Jon chose self-hate. And it made me ache inside.

At the root of it, this is why I can’t see any other end for his character. I truly see Jon’s emotional catharsis as a climactic moment for the series. Much like Frodo turning and smiling to his friends as he prepares to leave Middle Earth was the *actual* climax of the LOTR movies. But here, it’s not Jon finding relief in LEAVING but in STAYING. 

As a Stark. With love, and children, and a home. Even if that home doesn’t end up being Winterfell. And I really truly believe that all of the choices Jon has made this season - including all the things we’d WISH he could say but hasn’t - will culminate in Sansa proving to Jon that he is the man that she knows he is. 

Jon needs his pack.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

OK Bookchin

There is perhaps no modern thinker who has done more to damage the term “anarchism” than Murray Bookchin. Beyond all the physical repression over the centuries, by both capitalists and communists, the right and the left, Bookchin’s piece “Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm” stands as the most notable instance of ideological sabotage against anarchism.

Even the title of the piece is a lie. The only reason this “chasm” exists, is because Bookchin and his followers have been harping about it for the last 20 years. Additionally, individualist and social anarchism share a long history of tolerating each other, if not working together. Bookchin conveniently ignores that fact that many individualist anarchists were members of the First International, right alongside social anarchists, and even Marxists. There may have been tension between these groups, but there was no chasm, as there was no chasm until Bookchin created one.

Bookchin starts by going through the history of individualist anarchism, making sure to label them as terrorists pretty quickly out of the gates.

“individualistic anarchists committed acts of terrorism that gave anarchism its reputation as a violently sinister conspiracy.”

This is patently false, as shown in the work “The Anarchist Beast” by Nhat Hong. If Bookchin knew what he was talking about, he would have known that the drive to label anarchists as terrorists was going strong since likely before the 1880s. Yes, some individualist anarchists were terrorists, but anarchism had largely been stuck with that label already. The deeds of terrorists are not what established the label, it was the fear of those in power, and their need to discredit anarchism.

“Despite their avowals of an anarchocommunist ideology, Nietzscheans like Emma Goldman remained cheek to jowl in spirit with individualists. “

Here, we see Bookchin using Nietzsche like his name is some type of slur, in addition to using him to discredit Emma Goldman. Goldman did far more to advance anarchy in this world than Bookchin ever did, and often did it side by side with more social leaning anarchists. Where is the chasm then? Of course Bookchin wants to dismiss Goldman away, as her very life disproves his thesis here.

“The period hardly allowed individualists, in the name of their ‘uniqueness,’ to ignore the need for energetic revolutionary forms of organization with coherent and compelling programs.”

Moving past the 1800s and early 1900s, Bookchin moves on in time, suggesting that social anarchists in the period past that had “compelling programs.” What were these programs exactly? Allying with the Stalinist red fascism in Spain and getting murdered? While individualist anarchists may have been focused on smaller scale actions, the larger scale actions of the social anarchists of the 1930s ended quite literally, in fascism. I would hardly call that compelling or coherent.

“These trendy posturings, nearly all of which follow current yuppie fashions…”

It is at around this point in the piece that Bookchin abandons his delusional version of history, and moves on to mere ad hominem attacks and mere complaining. Bookchin is the last person who should be complaining about anything fashion related! Look at his hat! Bookchin constantly looks like how he thinks a worker should look like, and could absolutely deal with some sense of fashion other than his self-styled “assembly line chic”.

“the 1990s are awash in self-styled anarchists who — their flamboyant radical rhetoric aside — are cultivating a latter-day anarcho-individualism that I will call lifestyle anarchism. Its preoccupations with the ego and its uniqueness and its polymorphous concepts of resistance are steadily eroding the socialistic character of the libertarian tradition.”

Here, Bookchin attempts to coin individualist anarchism as something he created, a “lifestyle anarchism”, if you will. He claims lifestyle anarchism erodes the socialistic character of anarchism? So be it! The socialistic tradition in anarchism is what has led historically to anarchists buddying up to, and later being murdered by, socialists and communists. If erosion of this socialistic character is what it takes for anarchists to stop thinking that leftist traditions have their best interests at heart…Erode away!

“The ego — more precisely, its incarnation in various lifestyles — has become an idée fixe for many post-1960s anarchists, who are losing contact with the need for an organized, collectivistic, programmatic opposition to the existing social order.”

What Bookchin does not realize, is that this type of collectivist, programmatic “opposition” has become ingrained in the social order itself. Mass politics, with its programs for social change, has become part of the status quo. The system itself would much rather have people mimicking its structures and playing within its rules, as opposed to the infinitely diverse forms of resistance available to all individuals at any moment. The state understands how to deal with the same dogmatic resistance it has faced for centuries. It is not prepared for outbursts of individuality, fluid and innumerable in their scope.

“Lifestyle, like individualist, anarchism bears a disdain for theory,”

Yes! We do! We disdain those who fetishize thought, while cowering from action. Unlike Bookchin, who spent his life writing dozens of books, and many more pieces outside of them, the individualists see the world as their parchment upon which to write. Action is worth more than a million words, and also the most effective way to breed more action. People have been theorizing about the same things for centuries now, to little effect. It has been those who commit themselves to enacting theory, rather than steeping themselves in it, who have made the strongest stands against rulership.

“The price that anarchism will pay if it permits this swill to displace the libertarian ideals of an earlier period could be enormous.”

And here is where we see that Bookchin is not interested so much in opposing rulership, as he is using anarchism as a method of control. As evidenced above, Bookchin cares more about anarchism as a static ideology, than as a fluid attempt by people to not be ruled. He is concerned with anarchism as a monolithic entity, because as a singular and dogmatic ideology, anarchism becomes another box in which to contain people’s ideas, and thereby control people’s actions.

“Thus, instead of disclosing the sources of present-day social and personal pathologies, antitechnologism allows us to speciously replace capitalism with technology, which basically facilitates capital accumulation and the exploitation of labor, as the underlying cause of growth and of ecological destruction. Civilization, embodied in the city as a cultural center, is divested of its rational dimensions, as if the city were an unabated cancer rather than the potential sphere for universalizing human intercourse…”

Bookchin also attempts to attack currents of thought like primitivism and anti-civilization, but really just proves that he does not understand the critique these strains are making. Anti-civilization ideas are generally not “anti” technology, so much as they are insisting on an honesty about technology. The technology that exists, exists because of a globalized system of coercion. As anarchists, we need to be critical of this system, and understand that without coercion modern technology would simply not exist. Those who critique technology often do not oppose technology itself, but the manner in which technology is produced. Bookchin’s claim of “antitechnologism” is either a misunderstanding, or a purposeful falsification.

It is also worth noting that Bookchin again vulgarizes primitivism and anti-civ ideas by equating civilization with cities. He dares not address something like Fredy Perlman’s idea of civilization as the roots of all hierarchy…as simply rulership. Instead, Bookchin shows his cowardice by addressing anti-civ ideas with a meme level understanding of it, avoiding those who have thought deeper on the subject.

“Lifestyle anarchism must be seen in the present social context not only of demoralized black ghettoes and reactionary white suburbs but even of Indian reservations, those ostensible centers of ‘primality,’ in which gangs of Indian youths now shoot at one another, drug dealing is rampant, and ‘gang graffiti greets visitors even at the sacred Window Rock monument,’ “

And, of course, no old white man rant would be complete without some statements that just end up sounding like a confused racism. Bookchin actually attempts to claim that lifestyle/individual anarchism is responsible or related to the severe marginalization of people of color?! I believe that responsibility lies with capitalism and the racist structures it has created, not some individualist spectre.

“Social anarchism, in my view, is made of fundamentally different stuff, heir to the Enlightenment tradition…”

Finally, Bookchin comes clean, after the thinly veiled racism, and comes forth with an admission of his true forebearers…the archetypical “old white dudes” of the Enlightenment. Bookchin’s anarchism is not rooted in a simple desire for “no rulers”, but tied up in the liberal white supremacism of Enlightenment ideas.

“it describes the democratic dimension of anarchism as a majoritarian administration of the public sphere.”

Bookchin cannot rid himself of statist ideas, as he goes on to talk about his notion of Communalism. Bookchin does not stop to think “What if the majority does not want to administrate anything?” To him, anarchism is just another system of rulership, albeit a “majoritarian” one. Anarchism to him, becomes less about “no rulers”, and more about “everyone rules”.

“The sovereign, self-sufficient ‘individual’ has always been a precarious basis upon which to anchor a left libertarian outlook.”

Clearly, Bookchin does not believe in any sort of “bottom up” egalitarianism, or else he would not be so quick to dismiss the individual. Free and empowered individuals make up free and empowered societies, and should absolutely be the basis of liberty. One cannot force a system onto people, and then call those people free, no matter how inclusive the system.

“Democracy is not antithetical to anarchism; nor are majority rule and nonconsensual decisions incommensurable with a libertarian society. “

Any sort of rule…Any sort of nonconsensual decision is antithetical to anarchism. Here, again, Bookchin shows his desire to control others in the name of freedom. He literally attempts to reconcile the very tools of the state with anarchism!

“That no society can exist without institutional structures is transparently clear to anyone who has not been stupefied by Stirner and his kind.”

Again, his blatant statism is laid bare. Is “institutional structures” not simply another name for “rulership”? Of course, given the many societal blueprints that Bookchin created in his lifetime, it is clear that Bookchin saw himself at the helm of, or at least a theoretician of these “institutional structures”. Bookchin is incapable of rejecting these structures, because he views them as instruments to be used in ruling over others.

“Certainly, it is already no longer possible, in my view, to call oneself an anarchist without adding a qualifying adjective to distinguish oneself from lifestyle anarchists.”

And again, Bookchin shows that he is the one attempting to dilute anarchism, by attempting to add qualifiers and appendages to it. If anarchism can be obscured by adjectives, then its true meaning of “no rulers” can be watered down and even changed into something else.

“Mere opposition to the state may well unite fascistic lumpens with Stirnerite lumpens, a phenomenon that is not without its historical precedents. “

Bookchin finishes with a bit of classist flair, using the same terms that Marx used with disdain when talking about the underclasses of people. Bookchin, the “good worker”, must berate and chastise others. In a fit of workerism, Bookchin then plays the card common to leftists, and sinks to claims of fascism, putting to rest the notion that he ever had any real argument to begin with.

This final cry of “fascism!” truly shows Bookchin’s true designs here. He is willing to use the threat of fascism to scare those who might not be convinced by the piece’s end into complying. This final statement perfectly illustrates the authoritarianism masking itself as anarchism that Bookchin exemplifies.

“Follow my ‘organized’ and ‘coherent’ plans, or you are a fascist!” he cries.

OK Bookchin…

[vantablade]

016.

on nocturne’s speech patterns, I wanted to make a point in that her manner of speech can be quite unpredictable. Raised by a High King, who remains incredibly and thoroughly praised for her constant and unyielding elegance and eloquence in equal measure (despite her private cruelties), Nocturne was at first exposed to language that was proper, structured and, due to the musical and artistic inclinations of her family, also affected by a flowery quality. Although not exceptionally literate (in fact, her literacy is rather poor, and has only improved due to years of arduous study) she is well-spoken and well-versed in language, especially as to the fact she can adapt and learn language very easilyーeven if said language is not her native tongueーand so, when she speaks, one can assume she received a rather high quality education, and presume her to be exceptionally literate and boasting a high intelligence.

However, likewise, although she can talk, and talk often, especially upon first meetingsーif we are to understand her through astrological purposes, which are not canonically effective due to the fact their astrological practises are entirely different, comprised of different planets and connotations, then we should consider the fact that Mercury is in her first house, which can give natives with this placement an immediate talkative air, although the nature of their talks are altered depending on the sign which Mercury calls home (in this case, Scorpio)ーshe is also of a rather stoic and private personality. She does not deign to overshare unless it’s observational or reflective of her own philosophical thought, and rarely does she actually reveal the nature of her emotions or herself unless she is in a mode of comfort to allow herself. In fact, it is this ability to be talkative that allows her some degree of privacy; people assume they know much of her character when she has in fact revealed very little. 

The intimacy she shares with her conversational partner also impacts her manner of speech, as does her experiences since her childhood, and she becomes increasingly more laconic and taciturn with growing friendships, which can be misconstrued as a growing distance between them. Rather, actually, this is a sign of closeness; she dislikes silence, so if she is accepting of it between her and a partner, then this is a sign of trust. But it is also a sign of fondness that she is so open to sit and consider another’s thoughts and speech, without feeling the need to contribute in any vocal way, because she is happy to simply bask in another’s tale. 

Also, a juxtaposition is crucial in her character; while she is perfectly capable of being florid, extensive and intellectual in her speech, which most assume to be associated with some innate understanding of social norms and politeness (at the very least), Nocturne is prone to rudeness. Her instinct is to be direct and tactless, with very little concern for the social appropriateness of her comment. She neglects to refer to others as their titles, especially if they are considered ❛Superior❜, because to her that has little impact on her perception of them. To her, respect must be earned interpersonally, rather than just assuming that they are owed it based on others’ judgements. For example, she consistently refers to her High Commander purely by their surname, which is perceived as incredibly disrespectful by some people, especially Doctor Pandora Anach’k, who finds Nocturne to be impetuous and entitled. Which, while a little harsh, isn’t all too far from the truthーas dehumanised as Nocturne was, she was also raised with an immense ego, a head filled with religious epithets and fates, and thus some degree of self-importance exists within her even despite the paradox of her immense lack of self-worth. A true-blue ❛inferiority-superiority❜ complex, one that she is not entirely aware of.

However, it should be noticed that she doesn’t always intend to be unkind or rude; as is the way with people who are autistic, Nocturne truly doesn’t understand social conventions, although she is slowly being acquainted with them over time. She really doesn’t always understand the nature of her speech is inappropriate for the context, or could lack sense and compassion for the other person. Sometimes, yes, she is being deliberately rebelliousーsometimes unnecessarily soーor rude, but sometimes she is simply speaking as she thinks. It doesn’t help that with a Mars ruled Mercuryーbeing Scorpio, as I mentioned, as well as possessing other placements in Scorpioーshe has a nature that is quite argumentative, overly passionate or intense in some way, and Scorpio is a sign of extremes. 

Speaking of extremes, my last point is, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, Nocturne is becoming acquainted with social norms and polite manners of speech; this is largely influenced by Orun Li, one of her closest companions and another autistic person in her life, who was afforded a much kinder childhood and a much more natural way of acquainting himself with societal norms and expectations. As such, she receives his guidance much more kindly than she would others, although she also accepts guidance from Amandine (though not initially), and some other respected individuals. As such, she has ❛scripts❜ that she relates to others, which are in order to upkeep a respectable (due to the fact she does act as a Representative of Atlas, especially one of significant rank) demeanour and a diplomatic relationship with most she encounters. However, her politeness can seem stiffーshe is relating it based on stock phrases she has been told about, and lacks the nuance to acutely augment her speech depending on the situation. Sometimes, there will be significant pause between her statements (as she often speaks in absolutes, with little doubt) as she recognises afterwards that she has forgotten some sort of crucial politeness. 

She often must ❛remember her manners❜ which is a phrase I admittedly use a lot in her narrative, because she literally does have to remember her mannersー politeness is not her immediate priority. But she is not so prideful to assume that nobody deserves it. As she matures, she becomes much more naturally kind in her speech, and her true compassionate nature is revealed easier. But don’t be surprised if she is equal parts blunt and overly polite, florid and poetic and then laconic and simple; her speech is easily influenced by her company, but also is an amalgamation of several different ways of teaching. She is equal parts a fantastic speaker, and also incredibly awkward; polite, yet rude; humble and yet prideful. She is a woman of paradoxes, as are all people. 

[portable-rock]

i watched Daisies again last night and this time i was so severely disappointed by the film. i understood why i liked it last time—it was fun, exhilarating, unlike any film i had never seen, visually inventive—but now i realised it was quite flat. i went through my notes and saw that i said it was 'the sort of film that a lot of liberal feminist artists aspired to create in their works with the ‘female gaze’ but failed to do so'. but now i think it actually takes the concept to its logical conclusion and inadvertently reveals the flaws of such an approach. the result of the chaos on display here is ultimately nothing, this is a film that exists purely out of spite, it feels empty and nihilistic, it is rebellion that fails to acknowledge the causes of the problems around them.

the scholars who have attempted to contextualise it within a modern feminist lens always point to how authority is masculine and thus being 'messy or chaotic' is feminine. but i think this isn't true. in fact being chaotic is not an inherent part of being a woman, it is the result of class oppression. the characters in the film are no more liberated by choosing to cause chaos, in fact (as the ending perhaps suggests and gets ignored) they suffer either way.

but there is a larger question also of why this film in particular was the one that made Věra Chytilová well-known or became a symbol of the Czechoslovak New Wave. almost every article i read dives into how people are shocked a film like this could come out of a Communist country when in fact Czechoslovakia at the time was undergoing a massive period of liberalisation, which is why the films of Czechoslovak New Wave were allowed to exist in the first place. (also the claims that she was not allowed to make a film after this are also wrong because she made Fruit of Paradise right after which came out a year after Prague Spring). actually, i think it's fine Věra Chytilová made such a film, she did so as a response to the society she lived in, but to take these films outside of this context, especially to lionise it as an act of punk cinema, is a mistake:

An interesting question arises as to what extent Chytilová’s anti-consumerist criticism also addressed Western societies. While Czechoslovak filmmakers of the second half of the twentieth century did have some idea about social and cultural developments in the West, they primarily reacted to the political and social reality of their own societies. In this day and age, in the era of the internet and global social networks, it is perhaps difficult to realize how isolated the Eastern European societies were from the outside world, and not just linguistically. In the first half of the 1960s, it was almost impossible for Czechoslovak citizens to travel even to East Germany, and in the 1970s and 1980s it was extremely difficult for Czechoslovaks to obtain permission to travel, even for short periods of time, to the West. Thus, it must be emphasized that Chytilová primarily reacted to the situation in her own country, acting as a responsible citizen, always trying to improve the status quo, or at least to start a debate.¹

in fact, after her eight-year ban which ended when she pleaded to the West to pressure the president into allowing her to make films again, Věra Chytilová had actually made several films. she made on average about one every two years until her death, they are all from my understanding satires about society. in one of her later films, she criticises Czechoslovak society again, this time she suggests people should be working together more rather than being focused on themselves:

In Emergency (Kalamita, 1981) Chytilová continues criticizing greed, selfishness and cynicism of Czechoslovak society of the 1970s and 1980s. The film is a story of a young man who leaves university without graduating because he feels he wants to achieve something meaningful in “real life”. He becomes a train engine driver on a branch line in the mountains, but he cannot really achieve anything due to the extreme levels of self-obsession and selfishness of all the people around him. His final train drive ends in a calamity when the train is buried in an avalanche. This is a metaphorical warning by Chytilová who argues that when people in a society are obsessed with their own individual needs, they lose their ability to act together to mitigate the impact of shared problems – the result is a catastrophe.¹

even more, to claim that she's some sort of hero against 'the suppression of free speech under communism' is wrong too, because after Czechoslovakia split (the ‘Velvet Divorce’) and Czechia became capitalist, she and other New Wave filmmakers vocally criticised the privitisation of the film industry:

State-owned Czechoslovak cinema was privatized after the fall of communism, despite protests by many famous Czech filmmakers of the 1960s, including Chytilová herself. Political oppression was gone, but commercial pressures immediately arose. What is more, Chytilová remained a highly critical commentator with regard to what was happening in the post-communist era and this did not go down particularly well, especially in the first years after the collapse of communism when everyone was expected to applaud the new “capitalist” regime.¹

her post-Czechoslovak films, which criticise the transition to capitalism, are largely ignored outside of Czechia. she even made a film called The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday (which i think is meant to be more like 'Fuckyoubye') about life after the transition and the objectification of women:

The film’s main character, Bohumil Stejskal, is a lazy country bumpkin who suddenly inherits several valuable properties thanks to the post-communist restitution laws. The film is a study of the childish, yet good-natured uncouthness of a loudmouth, an analysis of a human being who cannot come to terms with his sudden freedom and wealth, which has come upon him unexpectedly. Like several other post-communist films, this one is also a reminder that the fall of communism and the general spread of pornography and sex for money have made it possible for some men to realize their most chauvinistic ideas about using women. Chytilová’s Inheritance is dealing with the haphazard, unjust and chaotic nature of life after the fall of communism. It analyzes truly demotic processes and notes the sudden degradation in mores which was brought about by the unexpected arrival of freedom.¹

to be honest, i don't think she's a great figure to worship anyway. i think her views often contradict each other, they are cynical and misanthropic. to me, she is largely inconsistent and simply responds to and rebels against her surroundings without really digging deeper into why things are the case. despite the message of Emergency above, she is quite like every other self-professed provocateur who still calls herself an individualist and says her worldview just comes from disdain for other people:

Her steam rising, she explains that she does not believe in feminism per se, but in individualism. "If there's something you don't like, don't keep to the rules - break them. I'm an enemy of stupidity and simple-mindedness in both men and women and I have rid my living space of these traits."²

she considers other people weak and insufferable and enjoys being compared to figures like Margaret Thatcher—she makes it clear she doesn't share her politics, just her contempt for everyday people:

Her abrasive manner has earned her the moniker the Margaret Thatcher of Czech film, and she appears quite flattered by the comparison - though she swiftly adds that they have nothing in common politically. "People are generally weak, cautious and frightened of being embarrassed, whereas I'm merciless and impertinent."²

also she's proud of abusing her workers, apparently:

Film-making with Chytilova is by all accounts a harrowing experience. She shouts and screams, and gleefully admits to beating up her cameramen when they prove unwilling to try out new ideas.²

in fact, with all of this in mind, it becomes very clear why bourgeois/individualist feminists love a figure like her so much. by simply watching Daisies and ignoring the rest of her filmography and simply skimming some of her biography, and by buying into the anti-Communist mythology that comes with it, she is of course compatible with the sort of 'boss-bitch' ideology of bourgeois feminism, she appears to fully embody it.

¹ https://eefb.org/retrospectives/The-Films-of-Vera-Chytilova

² https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/aug/11/culture.features2

[utaprifanzine]

Shining Live Fanzine: Concept Pitch

I believe @utapri-idol-hell has already mentioned this upcoming project on her blog so, without further delay, this is the completed concept pitch for an SL-themed Utapri fanzine!

(Note: there is also a link to this post on twitter! If you have a twitter account, please consider retweeting the post from this account so that non-tumblr users can also see this!)

I would like to first put emphasis on the fact that this is a concept pitch. That means this is a presentation of the initial idea to anyone who might be interested in this project. At this point in time, most of the rules and concepts are still malleable - they can be changed and shaped according to feedback from this post.

If you are interested in this project (as either a contributor or as someone who would want to acquire a copy of the zine) please consider filling out this feedback form. Any responses will be useful to determine how the zine moves forward, but the feedback is particularly important in regards to the “Application Methods” section of this post (see below).

There are, however, three rules which are already “set” and would not be changed. They are as follows:

This zine would feature work from both artists and writers.

Due to Broccoli’s history with ordering “cease and desist”s against utapri doujin artists, this would be a non-profit zine. Thus, digital copies would be completely free.

The concept for this zine is based on the intention of it being a fun project that would appeal to the majority of the fanbase. Therefore, some rules are set in place to avoid content that might spark conflict and/or be geared towards a specific audience.

Below the cut, this post is split into three sections: Concept, Rules, and Application Methods. Each section is clearly noted with a header. “Concept” covers the general theme, content, and layout; “Rules” covers additional restrictions and/or allowances for the zine content; and “Application Methods” covers various possible ways a writer or artist could possibly apply to do a page for the zine. That last section is particularly important, because at the moment the application method for the zine has yet to be decided and the final decision will depend feedback.

There’s quite a bit of information below, so for anyone who is dyslexic or has any other reading difficulties, the most important information is in bold.

The ask box is also open for anyone who has any additional questions, or would like further expansion on something mentioned in the following text.

Please also consider reblogging this post so more people can see it!

The initial concept for this zine, was that it would (hopefully) be the first in a series of SL-themed zines that followed the chronological release pattern of the in-game events and gachas.

This seemed to be a good way to establish a kind of content equilibrium, so that no specific character/event/gacha appeared too often or too little. The pages would be themed after the events/gachas and each one would have a specific amount of pages allotted to it. Since KLab has only screwed the rotation once thus far, it seems like an easier method of creating balance.

Originally, it was going to be an annual digital zine with a high page count. However, since people have expressed their interest in physical copies of a zine, the concept was revised into something that would also translate well into physical format.

The following are the revised restrictions/guidelines for the current concept of the zine:

The total page count would be 44 pages. This includes the front/back cover, index and closing pages.

The content would cover from the release of the game (Aug/Sept 2017) up through January 2018. This covers 8 gacha and 10 events, not including the SL UR set which would also be featured.

Each event and gacha would be allotted two A4 pages of content - one for art and one for a piece of flash fiction. The cover and its related story would have double that amount: front/back cover + a two page short story.

The zine would have the potential to run in both physical and digital formats. Digital zines would be completely free (hence, non-profit project) however they will still require the purchaser to put in an order/request for the file. There will be no public download link posted.

All contributors are entitled to a digital copy without placing a request. Free physical copies may be a possibility, but that depends on a number of factors (namely the amount of contributors, zine orders, and if a print run is made at all) so I can’t promise anything at this point.

Print runs would be made if there is enough demand for physical copies, and there would only be one run per zine. This is reduce the risk of Broccoli viewing the zine production as a competitive merchandise and thereby becoming offended by the project.

(The following rules were put in place regarding the intentions and concept for the zine. Since this is a concept pitch, each rule is followed by an explanation of why it exists. If you believe any rule is unnecessary, or flawed, please note that in the feedback form! Passive-aggressively ranting about it on twitter doesn’t help!)

The UR Rule

The featured UR pair (for gachas) or the featured UR/SR pair (for events) MUST be the focus of the piece. Other characters can be mentioned and/or appear, but the piece has to be clearly centered on the two featured characters for that set/event. This is to help ensure the balance of content set by following the release patterns.

This goes without saying, but the pieces must also be themed after the event/gacha for which they are the pages for. A simple mention, hint, or acknowledgement toward the set/event isn't strong enough to be considered a theme.

Non-Shining Live Characters Are Allowed

Although the zine will be SL themed, all other characters that are part of the Utapri franchise can be featured within artwork and fiction pieces submitted to the zine. Since they’re official characters, I see no reason to purposely block them out.

The UR rule still applies, however, so these characters cannot become the focus of the pieces.

Keep it PG 13/15

This is partly in place to acknowledge the younger fans of the franchise (as well as those who aren't big fans of higher rated content) and partly because there is no fail-safe way to verify someone's age over the internet.

There are a lot of minors who consume and produce adult content for this fandom, and while their choices are theirs to make (I'm not the fandom police, it's none of my business), I don't want this project to be held responsible for distributing inappropriate content to minors in case issues do arise.

It's also worth noting that this rule does not only apply to sexual content (because some people think R18 only means sex). A piece depicting other mature themes - such as serious cannibalism, gore, or class A drug use - would not be acceptable.

No Romantic Ships

I feel like this is going to be the least popular rule, so the explanation for this is twice as long. Hear me out for a minute, and, if by the end you still think it’s unnecessary, by all means put that on the response form!

There are two main reasons for this rule.

Firstly, although shipping as a concept is extremely popular within fandom, individual ships still only cater to very specific audiences within the fanbase. No matter which way you twist it, no matter the popularity of any given ship, no single ship is universal. Some fans don't even connect to the idea of shipping in the first place.

Under most circumstances, that's completely fine, but within the context of a fanzine that's intended to appeal to as much of the fanbase as possible, allowing ships starts to seem very juxtaposed to that goal.

Case and point: if I have to include an extra contents page that lists all of the ships mentioned inside the zine so people can pick and/or avoid certain ones, that, to me, completely negates the idea of having a zine that most people can just pick up and read without issue.

Secondly, as I'm sure most people already know, ships are a primary source of conflict and motivator for harassment within fandom.

In terms of problems arising from including ships in a fanzine, I'm mainly worried about contributing artists/writers as well as the other admins getting harassed for content they did or didn't include within the zine. As someone who has not only seen utapri fan blogs run offline because of ship-based anon hate, but has also seen people ridiculed and kicked out of groups for not liking a popular ship, I would rather not risk exposing contributors and admins to that kind of toxic behavior.

When thinking about potential application methods for zine contributors, I realized that the traditional method - where people send in entries and these entries are reviewed/accepted/denied by an admin panel - may not be the best suited for a project that a) is supposed to be fun, not stressful and b) is looking for as many applicants as possible to hopefully be a success.

After brainstorming several alternative ways that applications could be handled, I decided the best possible way to choose one, would be to ask people who are interested in contributing to the zine how they would prefer to apply. After collecting the feedback, the most popular application method would be the one used for this zine.

The following are three different possible application methods. Each has a description of how it would work followed by a list of pros and cons for that method.

Method 1: First Come, First Serve

This method is very well-known, and very straightforward. Essentially, the list of available pages is posted at a specified time and date, and contributors would simply message the zine admins to claim whichever pages they want to contribute for. The first person to claim that particular page is the person who that page is allocated to.

Method 2: Random Chance

There are two variations of this method.

Application for Specific Pages: using this method, applicants would apply for specific pages at any point during the application period. Then, once the period has ended, the contributing artist/writer would be drawn at random for each page.

General Application: using this method, applicants would apply to the zine in general during the application period then, once the period has ended, the contributing writers/artists for all the pages would be drawn from the same pool. Applicants would be allowed to veto certain characters/sets/events and trade among each other if desired.

Method 3: Traditional Application

This is the method that’s most often used to manage and select applications for a zine.

An applicant would send in an entry form during the application period that contains, among other possible things, which pages they would like to apply for and an example of their work. At the end of the period, all entry forms are reviewed by the admins and the contributors for each page are decided by majority/unanimous vote. 

And that’s everything! Please consider filling out the feedback form if you have the time!

[f-nodragonart]

Alphas and Hive Minds

HTTYD and now Godzilla:KOM have done me too dirty on this topic, I HAVE to rectify this

so let’s break this down

“alphas” are a very human-centric concept (and more arguably, a specifically capitalistic concept), and aren’t typically present in nature in the ways we expect them to be, if at ALL

“dominance” is at best a fluid concept that can sometimes help map out relationships b/t individuals under certain contexts, but it’s NOT an inherent trait. here’s a quote from an excellent article on the subject, PLEASE go read the whole thing:

You can’t really say ‘an animal is dominant’ in the same way that you can’t say ‘an animal is chasing.’ Who is that animal chasing, and who is that animal dominant in relation to?

While there are many hazy definitions of the word dominance in the current scientific literature, the most accepted one that I have seen is that dominance is a factor of a relationship between two individuals regarding control of resources. In this relationship, the submissive individual will allow the dominant individual to have the resource. Theoretically.

What dominance is NOT is a character trait. No animal is born “the alpha.” Studies of wolves in captivity and in the wild have shown that the fact that an individual is the highest-ranking member of one pack has little to no bearing on the animal’s rank if it moves to a new pack. Similarly, studies of parent-raised canids have found that no stable hierarchy forms in litters of pups. And finally, dominance relationships are often based off of the result of a single fight; if two individuals are evenly matched it can be a more or less random conclusion.

as this article goes on to explain, wild wolves typically live in “nuclear families”, so what we perceive as the “alpha couple” is actually just the parental unit to the kids who have yet to leave the nest and start their own families. anything approaching “Alpha/Beta/Omega” among wolves has mostly been observed in captive situations, where a bunch of random wolves are thrown together and forced to navigate their environment together-- it’s uncomfortable for everyone involved

now this isn’t to say that wild animals are NEVER hierarchical-- ranking is useful when dealing with large groups of individuals. however, these hierarchies are generally more complicated than a simple “perfect ladder” concept (again, from the same article):

Figure redrawn from Bradshaw, Blackwell, and Casey, 2009. Dashed lines between pairs indicate no clear dominant individual despite multiple interactions. No line between a pair indicates that the pair rarely interacted.

(while not necessarily an example of wild animal hierarchy since this is mapping out relationships within a group of shelter dogs, it’s a good example of the complexities of larger group relationships)

and one last important quote from that article, relating to submission (seriously, read the whole thing):

So much of the literature focuses on agonistic behavior, yet agonistic behavior is far, far rarer in wild canids than submissive behavior is. In nuclear wolf families, aggression is almost nonexistent.

The word ‘submissive’ has a negative connotation. It suggests a loss of power, a humbling, a subjugation. It might be better to remove it as a label for certain types of canid behavior, in that case. Canids don’t demand submissive behavior from one another, they offer it. Muzzle-biting in wolves, which seems fierce, is usually solicited from the animal being bitten- several times in a row. Far from the popularized “alpha roll,” canids rarely force each other to roll over- they use rolling over as an invitation to play or a plea for affection. This type of affiliative, cohesive behavior makes up the vast majority of all social behavior in canid groups.

A wag of the tail and an open, panting mouth is called submissive by the literature, but in that case, so is a human smile.

while this article focuses on canids, there are plenty of examples of wild groups of animals w/ some sort of ranking/hierarchy (including non-predatory animals!), just be mindful of the sources u look into. even scientific sources could have a bias based on the researcher’s personal social background

even if we ARE treating dominance as an actual trait, or creating a ‘perfect ladder’ hierarchy, there’s a BIG difference between asserting dominance via size/strength/pheromones/etc. vs. straight-up mind-controlling a group to do ur bidding. however, mind-control is unfortunately how most “alpha” media seems to frame dominance, which is simply not even POSSIBLE in nature, as far as we know

this is where we see botched attempts at “hivemind”, which isn’t even present in the hives we associate it with. here’s a post that breaks down social insects RLY well (which I recommend reading in full), but for the sake of this post, I’ll just quote some important sections:

If you think of a social insect colony as a superorganism, which it’s useful to do in many cases, different groups of insects within the colony act like organs. One caste protects the colony from invaders, which is like an immune system. One caste scouts for new places to forage, which is like a sensory system. Generally, science fiction has a good grip on this idea. Where sci-fi authors fail is that they think the queen is the brain of this superorganism. She is not. She is the reproductive system. The queen does not control what happens in the hive any more than your reproductive system controls what happens in your body. (Which is to say, she has some influence, but she is not the brains of the operation.)

~~~

Now, I’ve already told you that the queen is not the brain of the hive. So where is the brain? Well, that is exactly the point of swarm intelligence. The brain does not reside in one particular animal. It’s an emergent property of many animals working together. A colony is not like your body, where your brain sends an impulse to your mouth telling it to move, and it moves. It’s more like when two big groups of people are walking toward each other, and they spontaneously organize themselves into lanes so no one has a collision (x). There’s no leader telling them to do that, but they do it anyway.

Much of the efficiency of social insect colonies comes from very simple behavioral rules (x). Hymenopterans, the group of insects that includes ants, bees, and wasps, have a behavioral rule: work on a task until it is completed, and when it is done, switch to a different task.

~~~

The existential terror of the hive mind in science fiction comes from the loss of the self. The idea is that in a social insect colony, there is no individual, but one whole, united to one purpose. No dissent, disagreement, or conflicting interests occur, just total lockstep. I totally get why that’s scary.

The thing is, it’s just not true of real social insects. There is conflict within colonies all the time, up to and including civil war.

~~~

Here’s what I find weird about depictions of social insects in science fiction. They are portrayed as utterly alien, Other, and horrifying. Yet humans and social insects are very, very similar. The famous sociobiologists E.O. Wilson and Bernard Crespi have both described humans as chimpanzees that took on the lifestyle of ants.

and even worse than a false attempt at hivemind among just one species, “hivemind alphas” in popular media are often shown to control an array of completely separate species! as if all these diverse, uniquely-evolved creatures answer to the same, single power!

"but what if I want to KEEP alphas/hivemind? is there a way to do it ‘right?’”

well, there might just be! here are a few ways I’ve thought of

1) integrate “dominance as a trait” into reasonable caste systems and/or hierarchies

sure, something like “dominance” could theoretically be an inherent trait under certain circumstances, but what would that MEAN for the species this occurs in? this sort of system would evolve for a REASON, so what purpose do castes with different levels of “dominance” serve to the overall community?

does dominance correlate to a certain set of tasks (IE-- alphas fight and protect, omegas gather/grow/prepare food)? or is this simply a way to better keep the peace among a huge group of individuals that would otherwise in-fight too much if there weren’t any genetically-predetermined parameters in place (and if this is the case, what kind of tumultuous relationships must this species have that they wouldn’t be able to solve these issues thru social interaction)? or maybe this is a purely reproductive strategy, and there are either several different sexes based around dominance, or different castes within sexes that perform different sexual/social roles depending on population and breeding season (and if so, how does dominance factor into these reproductive strategies)?

for as much flack as the genre gets, there are a lot of ABO/omegaverse fics that actually do rly cool worldbuilding w/ the concept of “dominance as a trait” and/or genetically-predetermined castes, so I know it can work lmao

2) lean HEAVY into exploring autonomy/individuality and mind control

if u want an alpha that can override the autonomy of others, then don’t shy away from the full implications of that

what does it mean for this society if one single creature can override individual autonomy? what does this level of control mean for individuality-- if that’s even a concept that exists for these creatures? do individuals feel any particular way about their lack of true autonomy-- are they relieved to not be under the pressure of having to making decisions themselves? maybe they even feel that individuality is a psychological death-sentence-- after all, what is anxiety if not the existential dread of individuality?

are alphas born into this position of mental control, or do mentally strong individuals battle for it? if this is the case, are alphas the only ones that could be considered truly autonomous individuals? or perhaps alphas are more of the mouthpiece for the collective consciousness of their community, so their opinions and feelings shift to reflect the average consensus of their community?

if a single creature can control individuals across a wide area (such as across an entire planet), how do they do it? do they have far-spreading pheromones, a loud call, or do they use second-tier individuals to exert their control? or are all individual members of the community connected into a complex neural network? is this network so intimate as to connect all individuals in a mental web that can be tapped into at any moment, despite distance? what can transfer across this network-- complex thoughts/language, visuals, or just emotional suggestions?

also, please think deeply about how far-reaching an alpha’s control is in your world. sure, perhaps a complex neural network evolved early on enough that all of a planet’s species fall under the control of this neural umbrella, but that’s prettyyyy unlikely. a much smaller taxa level makes more sense, like just a species. this species may still be the dominant species of a given planet, but their alphas aren’t controlling EVERYTHING on that planet-- it would be FAR too much effort to control every little ecological system. or at the very least, the control exerted beyond an alpha’s own species would be very weak compared to the full control they exert over their own-- perhaps they can only implant suggestions or telepathically communicate w/ other species?

though just because the alpha’s community consists of a single species doesn’t mean there can’t be diversity-- social insects like ants and bees are a great example of specialized tasks leading to diverse morphology among a species’ castes

3) the society is actually a TRUE superorganism of systems with a leading “brain”

are there even any separate individuals in this world, or is the “alpha” in fact the ‘brain’, and all other ‘individuals’ are their various limbs and organs? real-life hives/colonies without a “brain” allow for highly-efficient, decentralized coordination among as many as thousands of individuals, so what is the advantage of a ‘single’-organism society setup with a single “brain”?

this is a great route to go if u rly RLY want a multi-species hivemind, b/c u could make the base organism a parasite-- cordyceps fungi, anyone? parasites still tend to be species/clade-specific, but at least this physical conduit makes more sense for a multi-species hivemind

-Mod Spiral

[mavenupcreatives]

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SEO optimization of a web site or blog is a long-term process, involving both the optimization of each page individually and of the internal links within the site.

To get the best results from the SEO optimization process for your site, you need to be up to date with new requirements, techniques and strategies that will allow you to react quickly to different events that may influence your business.

Moreover, everything you have applied in recent years is almost no longer valid because the techniques that worked in the past no longer have the same results today.

Although Google is beginning to lose ground in front of Facebook though, the search engine giant remains the most important factor for any web site owner. To be optimized in Google, the requirements are relatively acceptable and accessible to everyone, such as short page load time, relevant and qualitative content and no other things not allowed - spam, hidden or paid links, because the site will be penalized by search engine.

Some useful tips for what SEO represents at the moment for the search engine, can be implemented in a few ideas to implement and some steps, relatively simple to follow and to be taken into account, displayed in a random order.

 Social Media - newer, the search engines rely heavily on this aspect, taking into account how many followers you have, how many shares or likes. As in real life, the world tends to have more confidence in a company that has more employees, than a small company with few employees. This means that the more likes, shares or followers you have, the more credibility you have for Google. To do this, add social buttons on the site, such as "share", "tweet", "Google plus". The recommendation is not to promote on social networks only products, because these networks are not dedicated to shopping, but more to socialization. Here, try to create connections with potential clients through educational tips and publications.

Quality content - an important aspect that search engines have begun to place a great emphasis on is the content of the pages, which should highlight quality. As Google says "Content Is King!", These words express the powerful influence of a site with a lot of original content, offered free to visitors and meant to educate. If you want to promote a site that presents certain services, and you intend to get in the top positions of the search engine result page (SERP), you must know that the most important thing is to provide quality content, added as often as possible. Therefore, a unique content, with a high importance, will rank the page in the top positions, Google considering that information is useful for users. Also, the content must be relevant to your type of business and have a positive impact on the reader, which motivates him to give "share", "like".

 Keywords - generating keywords for the content of the page helps in SEO search engine optimization. It is recommended not to add more than one word, maximum two for an article, word that must exist in the title, meta-description, content and last paragraph. Also, underline Bold or Italic only the keywords set, not a whole phrase, because the underline is considered by Google as a keyword, so the search engine is misinformed, which leads to low optimization. Newly, Google has implemented new rules on this aspect, namely the fact that it gives up the exact keywords for Adwords campaigns.

 Tags and meta-description - these contain additional information about the page, which are visible only to search engines. Meta-description is of particular importance, as it is used by search engines as a short description of the page and should be approximately 150 characters long, contain the short topic of the page and be appealing to users. Although it has a small importance in establishing the position in the search engines, it is important from the perspective that it can convince the user to click on your link and not on a competing site.

External links - these are how the pages of a web site are linked. Starting from the first page, create links to the most important pages of the site, both for directing visitors to its important sections and for directing link juice (PageRank) to them. Use keywords in the link anchor and try to position the links in context.

Mobile Devices - As the number of users using smart mobile devices is constantly increasing, it is advisable that the website pages are responsive. The number of users using smartphones or tablets is almost as large as those using the desktop.

Upload speed - users want to have an enjoyable, easy and accessible experience on your site, page loading speed is a very important element for SEO. Therefore, it is necessary to pay more attention to the hosting services as well as to inquire about the infrastructure and location of the server on which the site is hosted.

 A useful guide for efficient optimization is the use of Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to monitor the evolution of the site. At the same time, in the online environment there are a lot of tools with which you can analyze the SEO optimization of a web page.

For more details about digital marketing, you can visit Mavenup Creatives.

[dpillustrations]

Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 5: A Discourse on Communication and Storytelling (Part 1)

“The poet must stir souls, not nurture idolaters." - Andrei Tarkovsky

I feel compelled to talk about the latest episode of Game of Thrones. The reason I feel drawn to speak is twofold, because I am an artist and I love Art. It is my passion and my life’s work, and I am most particularly passionate about the Art of Cinema, which includes series and television shows. Entertainment, for the lack of a better word, although it is so much deeper than that word implies. It is my desire to see Art thrive in our culture, and more importantly I want to see our culture thrive because of its Art.  

For this reason I would like to draw a valuable and crucial lesson from what has happened with HBO’s Game of Thrones and Weiss and Benioff’s series. I will not be addressing the story through technical criticism. I believe there are people more qualified than I to address those issues as I am not a storyteller (in the traditional sense) or screenwriter, so I will not be addressing story structure and development. What I will be focusing on is communication and storytelling themselves as well as the fundamental worldview that has poisoned this series and why the finale was false in every sense of the word and did not ring true in most of our hearts.

I will begin by asking you, my readers,  

How do we tell stories?

Again, this is not about story structure and mechanics, but I’m talking about the very act of telling stories, which is, at its essence, communication. So in other words, I am asking, how do we communicate? There are multiple ways in which we communicate, but I want us to consider the very essence of communication and the how and why it is done. I am communicating to you right now through this blog post by arranging commonly understood words (English language) in a specific manner (grammar and syntax) through which I am communicating ideas. I am communicating for the purpose of transferring information that exists in my mind to your mind, desiring that there would be understanding between us. I would not start speaking to you, an English speaker, in another language not known between us and neither would I suddenly abandon sentence structure – the jumped white over rabbit box the – that is nonsense, is it not? It would be pointless and worthless to communicate with you in any other way than by commonly understood rules and structures of communication that exist between us. So, communication’s goal is understanding, we communicate to be heard. Communication is a forward moving action. We don’t want to stagnate or regress, but to progress in deeper knowledge and establish a connection between us. Now considering we are talking about a television series, let us lay out the commonly understood structures of communication through that medium:

- Language, through firstly the written, then secondly, spoken (by actors) word.

- Visuals which include: Composition (i.e. how a shot is framed) - What is actually in the frame (what is shown to us as the audience vs what is NOT shown to us), and Scene transitions (i.e. editing).

- Music  

- Sound 

With these fundamental elements is a story told through the moving pictures. Now if you will notice, storytelling through the Cinematic Arts is significantly more complex than communication done simply through words alone or images alone. There are layers and layers and layers of text and subtext through word, actor performance, sound, music, imagery, etc. It is mindbogglingly complex, yet at its core it is still working towards that very simple (though not easy) goal as any other form of communication, which is understanding.

Why do we want to be understood?  We desire understanding because we hold a conviction that whatever it is we are communicating will be beneficial and/or necessary for the one hearing in order that something may be accomplished. Whether we are communicating something evil, “I hate you.” or something good, “I love you.”, whether positively or negatively, we are trying to give to our fellow person something that person can then take, process, and react to. We communicate at work to accomplish tasks. We communicate with our loved ones to develop deeper connections. We communicate from our emotional needs. We communicate in order to learn. There is an endless amount of reasons why we are communicating, but they all are done for that one goal - understanding which produces a desired reaction and achieves a purpose.

Storytelling, then, as a means of communication, is being told for a reason. It is communicating information and ideas that it might be understood by its audience and then provoke a reaction from said audience. We do not communicate from the vacuum or into the vacuum. We do not tell stories from the vacuum or into the vacuum. Therefore, story has meaning. 

Bond of Union by M.C. Escher.

With this understanding, then, we now see that the fundamental elements of storytelling that I laid out above all have meaning. In every nuance of an actor’s performance, in the arrangement of words, in the notes of the music, in every aspect of a framed image, all these variables contain layers and layers of meaning. You cannot escape it. You are bombarded by it by every moving moment. The storyteller is speaking, and we the audience are listening. 

Then we react.  

Now, I am not going to go into the psychological and philosophical complexities of actually communicating successfully in any given situation, because we know that our perceptions play a key role in it. How you perceive the world is different than how I perceive the world, and so there are, unfortunately, so many ways in which communication can break down between us because of subjective experience. And if there is a communication medium that is very much made up of subjective experience, it is that of Art and Story. So, I am not going to go into the nuances because I want to focus on analyzing the literal communication structure of the Game of Thrones Season 8 episode 5 and lay out a case for its utter failure at communication which follows in its failure of story which then follows to its failure of being meaningful Art in any way at all.  

Daenerys Stormborn

For the sake of time, yours and mine, I am only going to focus on Daenerys’ character and how she was treated in this episode because she is probably the most crucial point, being one of the main characters after all. In the episode we see her fully succumb to her Targaryen blood, going full “Mad King”, as she takes out all her rage and sense of betrayal in not being loved by the people of Westeros on the inhabitants of King’s Landing, laying waste to all the innocent people through fire and blood.  

Now, Weiss and Benioff, as well as many Game of Thrones fans, say that this was inevitable, that Daenerys was always going down this route from the beginning, but the argument I am making is that that is just not true. At the very least this fact was not communicated to us successfully through the 7 seasons we have been watching, and I shall make my case as follows by using two scenes (for the sake of brevity) which outright contradicts this character conclusion.  

Season 1 finale Episode 10 Fire and Blood

You know the moment I am going to bring up very well, that powerful and moving climax when Daenerys steps into her husband’s pyre and comes out with three newborn dragons. She is Daenerys the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons.  

Why was this scene communicated to us as part of the story?

Remember as I just laid out above about the fundamental elements of storytelling, i.e. word, imagery, sound, music, etc  - each element is strung and woven together for a purpose. What is this scene’s purpose?  

I am going to rewind time back to this moment, we yet do not know what is going to come next in this story, but we are solely focusing on how this finale made us feel. How we reacted to what it was communicating. Of course, it makes sense, does it not, to study this finale within the context of what had come before within the first season? We can’t understand the end of the sentence unless we know the beginning. We must listen to the beginning, middle, and end of said communication because if we stop in the middle of our listening, we will be missing crucial information and communication will break down. There would be no understanding, no meaning, and therefore nothing gained.

We have now just established, then, how we understand. 

Through context.

Context is how all elements are arranged in conjunction and relation with each other so as to convey meaning. You cannot just focus on one element, pick out one word in a sentence, pick out one scene, you need all the elements in order to effectively communicate and achieved your desire goal of understanding.

Okay, so what is this scene’s context?

We were introduced to Daernerys and her brother as the last surviving members of House Targaryen (or so we thought at this time). They have been exiled because of Robert’s Rebellion which overthrew the Mad King from the Iron Throne. So essentially, our protagonist starts out in a very low station. She is the “underdog”, and it is extremely low, as her brother is vicious and cruel towards her and she is treated no better than cattle to be sold off. Viserys makes a deal with Khal Drogo as means of gaining an army to take back the throne, and Daenerys is given to him marriage. Being Khal Drogo’s wife certainly doesn’t make our heroine’s life any better as she is forced in a traumatic sexual encounter with her new husband and she is miserable through the strain of travel, and there really isn’t any sign that Khal Drogo even cares about Daenerys and her brother’s purpose of regaining what they had lost. Yet as the story progresses we see Daenerys begin to work her way up. She learns to communicate with her husband and they even end up falling love, she gets pregnant (which culturally speaking is one of the highest and noblest functions for women), and she becomes empowered, able to stand up to Viserys and his cruelty. Our heroine finds her voice. She even successfully eats a horse’s heart, which for the Dothraki is an honorable feat and promises great things for her unborn child. Even at some point Drogo gets rid of her brother, so she is freed from his life long abuse. Things are looking up as Daenerys finds herself in an honorable and secure station in life. However, it isn’t long before calamity strikes again when Drogo becomes sick from an infected wound. Daenerys puts her trust in a slave woman captured by the Dothraki to try and help her husband, but things go from the frying pan into the fire when the woman betrays Daenerys using blood magic and is responsible for both the death of Drogo and their child.

Now rewinding back again, we were also introduced to Daenery’s dragon eggs which were given to her as a wedding gift at the beginning of her story. Dragons no longer exist, if they even did exist, so they are more ceremonial than real. However, Daenerys is drawn to these eggs, which seem to be inert stones, because of her Targaryen blood. She sees something within these eggs that encourages her to press on, to remember who she is. They represent hope for our heroine. And this story element has stayed with us through the entire season. It is only now, at the finale, though, that we see their true significance when in her despair, Daenerys takes her dragon eggs and sets fire to her dead husband, and then steps into the fire herself.

The next morning she is Mother of Dragons.  

The reason I took the time to outline the events of the plot was to show you how the elements built on one another. How did they make you feel? How did you react to them? What did this story as laid out through words, Emilia Clarke’s acting, imagery, composition, sound, and music communicate to you? What did it mean? Did we not feel triumphant? Did we not feel wonder and hope? Did not all those elements strung together express suffering, perseverance, and transcendence? Did we not empathize deeply with Daenerys and her struggles? Did we not weep with her? Did we not cheer with her? I mean just look at our pop culture surrounding Game of Thrones – the endless amount of merchandise with “The Mother of Dragons” on it and what “Khaleesi” meant to us as fans. (We even named our children “Khaleesi” and “Daenerys”!) Why? What did her story fundamentally move within us that we reacted in such an ardent way? If we were supposed to understand from the beginning that she was only a psychotic murderer, then why did she inspire such affection within us? Did we not instead fall in love with a strong and deep feeling woman who held onto a dream and persevered through some of the worst possible atrocities in order to realize that dream in a more profound way than she could have possibly imagined?  

If Daenerys was always destined to be the series’ tragic villain, then why did we fall in love with her as the series’ savior?

My own art piece Take What is Mine! Weiss and Benioff want us to believe that she was always meant to “take what was hers” through “fire and blood” very literally, but look at the title of the 10th episode of Season 1: Fire and Blood. How was the concept of fire and blood actually used in this scene? Through loss and sacrifice, yes, but then, - new life. She lost her husband and her child, but she gained a miracle, this supernatural event, three dragons. The impossible made possible. Life. Not death.

Season 5 Episode 8 Hardhome

For a non-book scene, this was such an excellently written and performed scene. I loved watching it so much. It was the meeting we were all waiting to have happen. However, we must once again consider the context. At this point of the story we have shifted to Tyrion’s point of view, but I use this scene as an example of what Daenerys means to Tyrion’s personal narrative.   

“So here we sit, two terrible children, of two terrible fathers.”  Tyrion’s place in the story is not unlike what Daenerys’ was at the beginning of season 1. He is in a very low place. He too has been exiled, a runaway who was accused and sentenced with murdering King Joffery, but an actual killer of his own father. Having been an outcast in society and within his own family, is now literally an outcast and he comes to Daenerys seeking a reason to live. He comes to Daenerys for hope.

We know of the mistakes Daenerys has made at this point, but we also know the wisdom she has exhibited from the advice of others. We have seen her passion for justice and setting slaves free, but we have also seen her mercilessness and her heavy hand of power. In this scene Tyrion points out both of these aspects of Daenerys, but he tells her that he came to see if she was the “right kind of terrible”, someone who could still maintain order and give stability to a kingdom. In the context of this scene, as we look at Daenerys through Tyrion’s eyes, we are in no way meant to see her as mad or cruel, but a deeply flawed, volatile, passionate, and noble woman. She is human, as all the characters of this show have been, neither wholly pure nor wholly evil. Yet it is her dream that sets her apart from the rest of the candidates for the throne, a dream that speaks to Tyrion in his lowest moment and inspires him.

Daenerys: Lannister, Targaryen, Baratheon, Stark, Tyrell they're all just spokes on a wheel. This ones on top, then that ones on top and on and on it spins crushing those on the ground.

Tyrion: It's a beautiful dream, stopping the wheel. You're not the first person who's ever dreamt it.

Daenerys: I'm not going to stop the wheel, I'm going to break the wheel.

A bold, powerful, and inspiring proclamation! Daenerys wants to stop “the game of thrones”, the petty squabbling of houses and vying for power. She wants to unite the kingdom under one ruler and bring about a better world for it. We believe her. Why? Because Tyrion believes her. Tyrion is also a dreamer just as much as Daenerys, he also values a better world. Are we to believe then that instead of this moment being a turning point for Tyrion, as it was clearly shown to be within its context, of him finally finding a promise and a hope of achieving something better than what has been, that it was actually all just a lie? Tyrion going from a terrible state to an even worse state: Delusion?

Where in this scene or in the rest of their scenes together was it indicated that Tyrion was delusional? In the elements - dialogue, acting, scene composition, the things shown to us in the frame, etc. In all those parts where was this feeling and concept conveyed to us to make a “delusional Tyrion” make sense? 

It simply wasn’t, because he isn’t.

Do you see my argument? If Weiss and Benioff meant to communicate that Daenerys was “Mad King Targaryen” then why doesn’t her character conlusion make cohesive sense with these scenes? Taken in all of its elements, in its entire context, why isn’t this communicated perfectly and without question? Daenerys is one of the most crucial players in the Game of Thrones, her and Jon sharing prominence in the stories unfolding, shouldn’t we all, then, be in agreement on the meaning of the conclusion of her story? 

Yet instead what Season 8 Episode 5 communicates is in direct conflict with the rest of the show and what it was communicating from the first. However, this episode isn’t the only place of conflict, there has been other moments in the show which showed this kind of disingenuous storytelling (Stannis and his burning his daughter Shireen is a good example this problem happening early on). Even the first half of Season 8 is in direct thematic conflict with the last half of season 8. Somewhere communication broke down terribly, and it simply isn’t enough for someone to point out this moment or that moment as proving Daenerys was always meant to end this way. ALL aspects of the show are communicating something to us, and so ALL aspects of the show must be taken into account and expected to be coherently saying the same thing as revealed by its whole. When we lay out Game of Thrones in all its seasons and its many elements it should be communicating “Daenerys Mad Queen”, but I have just proved that it wasn’t.

If you, my reader, truly believe this was Daenerys’ fate all along, then I ask you in earnest (in the spirit of communication and the desire for understanding) how do these scenes and the seasons they were contained in that I have just outlined above fit within that context of that narrative? 

I have now come to the end of first half of my argument. The final question I would like to leave with you before closing is: what exactly is the end of Season 8 communicating? I hope that you and I can thoughtfully study this further. Thank you so much for reading and listening. 

[chibivesicle]

Why is Yuusaku so awkward with Ogata?

Something that has been bothering me since the start is in regards to the relationship between Yuusaku and Ogata.  The nice thing about having the break between chapters 188 and 189 is it has given everyone’s brains some time to settle and ponder things other than the arrow in Ogata’s right eye. .  .  .

It has always appeared to me that the relationship between Yuusaku and Ogata was rather one-sided.  I definitely do not have the general take that the Japanese fanbase has, where Yuusaku is this pure angel individual (okay so more like the Yuusaku fanart community).

It is clear in the chapter 103 revisions from the tankoban, that more scenes were added in to explain Ogata’s statement about Yuusaku and the difference between an individual raised by two parents and an individual abandoned by parents or born out of situation where the parents are not both their to raise the individual.

People have spent a lot of time and effort in trying to determine what is going on between Yuusaku and Ogata and what Ogata was able to conclude from his interactions with him.

Ogata’s body language and implied overall avoidance of Yuusaku really indicates that he did not want to associate with Yuusaku or want to be seen with him (unless ordered by Tsurumi).  Ogata clearly saw that he was a well respected man and a model second lt. and flag bearer. 

We still do not know how Yuusaku found out Ogata was Hanazawa’s illegitimate child, but it is clear that Yuusaku didn’t understand how trying to strike up a brotherly relationship with Ogata likely wasn’t going to go over well.  From what Ogata tells Hanazawa, Ogata and his mother were officially “dumped” by him when Yuusaku was born.  He had a legal heir and he did not want to be found out for having an affair with a geisha for the fear it would sully his reputation.

What has always struck me as odd is how Yuusaku couldn’t figure out that there might be a reason why he never knew about his older brother and why he never met him until in the 27th.  Yuusaku comes from an elite family.  I’m sure he knew about gossip and rumors and all sorts of class related things to realize he father wouldn’t want to let it become public that he had an illegitimate child who was out in Ibaraki.

Ogata assumes that part of his personality comes from his own assumption that Hanazawa and Yuusaku’s unnamed mother loved each other.  In some ways, it is kinda cute b/c Ogata grew up as a commoner, he was in an environment where people could marry for love if they desired (not saying it is 100% possible, but marriages weren’t for political reasons and producing an heir).  I wonder if this in part a reason why he took not being loved by his mother and father so hard?  Did he see other families in his area where there was evidence of love.  I will say that b/c his grandma went as far as bringing both him and his mother back home, she was a grandma who loved them.  I think it also implies that grandma was the “head” of the household, so, go grandma Ogata.  She likely took on his mom’s debt and hence her working hard and leaving him home alone with his mom to provide for both of them.

What is interesting is that when Yuusaku finds out that Ogata is his brother he’s like;

“Wow!!!I’vealwayswantedanoldersibling,andweshouldtotallyhangout andbondlikesiblings!!!!!”

The idea that Yuusaku’s very existence might have lead to Ogata’s less than ideal upbringing doesn’t even seem to register with Yuusaku.  Instead, it is clear he kept trying to be friends with him, break protocol and all him older brother and make all sorts of awkward for Ogata.  What is very clear is how awkward Ogata’s body language is with him all the time and Yuusaku is just out to lunch.

So I’m only going to drop one panel in this meta and it is this one right here.

This is from when Ogata goes out for night on the town with Yuusaku (at what is clearly Tsurumi’s orders).  When Ogata invites Yuusaku out, you can see him blushing as he’s just so excited to have the chance to interact with Ogata outside of the context of the military.  I guess they went out for dinner or something before they head to the brothel.  The whole point of this trip is to determine if Yuusaku is able to give into temptation and have sex even though he is expected to remain a virgin as the flag bearer.

So, I’ve read this panel over and over and over to figure out what the deal with Yuusaku is.  Why can’t he read Ogata?  Why is he driven to keep doing what he wants to do based on his feelings?  And then I came back to what Ogata tells him:

The flag bearer is handsome, a high achiever, a paragon of moral virtue. . . . basically, they’re the face of the regiment.

We haven’t seen Yuusaku’s full face, but Ogata’s an attractive guy (well, his mom would also have to be attractive based on her former profession), and Yuusaku is a taller and a more nutritionally balanced man with a rather smooth complexion.  So we will assume he’s an attractive looking guy too.  He also states that this individual must be a paragon of moral virtue, so someone who will uphold the rules, serve as an example to others and also implied to be a virgin by not giving into temptation so to speak.

So now I’m going to come back to what he said in the middle, “a high achiever”.  Yuusaku attended the military college with the full intent to enter the military at the age of 21 as a second lieutenant.  This means that Yuusaku would have been well educated, he’d learn a foreign language as a future officer and all sorts of military specific knowledge as well as becoming more cultured as an individual.  But then it finally struck me, Yuusaku is known to be a high achiever.  What does this mean? Yuusaku was a nerd!  He had to have performed well in all of his coursework and the military academy and done very well for himself in all of his assignments and whatnot.

And then things finally clicked in my brain.  Yuusaku was raised in an affluent household, so he was raised in a sheltered environment.  He was likely tutored and educated as a child and kept busy with all sorts of activities to benefit his future career as a solider.  He likely excelled at all of these things and was a good little son doing everything he was asked to do.  Since he excelled in his studies, it shows that he was academically an intelligent person.  But he’s an individual who exists in a very small and simple bubble for most of his life.

Why to I feel bold enough to think this was Yuusaku’s background?  I’ve been working with people like him for years.  I have many colleagues who are very intelligent people and academic high achievers.  They are very focused on doing their job and being very excited and into it.  But most of these people lack what are known as soft skills, and when presented with a situation outside of social behaviors that exist to maintain the social construct that we exist in are very awkward. 

Many of these people cannot “read a room” so to speak.  They are weak at reading other people’s body language.  They miss verbal cues.  They lack the ability to read between the lines.  I’ve sat through so many meetings where several of these people are talking to each other but no one is getting what the other person is saying and it just becomes this awkward conversation that an entire room is subject to.  Someone else will try to steer things in another direction but it goes right over their heads b/c they still aren’t getting it.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Yuusaku is one of these people.  He’s intelligent and has done well in a very specific context.  But, it looks like despite how smart and good he is at following the rules, he likely lacks good people skills and soft skills.  It was clear in chapter 165 that he was very good at being the cheerleader for the regiment and following a very tightly defined role to the absolute best of his ability.  What is interesting is that as a flag bearer he only needs to lead by being inspirational and a symbol or as Ogata will later imply an “idol” for the regiment.  But Yuusaku’s role is the complete opposite of what Tsurumi is doing as a first lieutenant.  Tsurumi is always talking to his men, he’s got them doing different roles within the 27th; we see many of the men hanging back in the trenches, the more wild ones like the Nikaido brothers and Noma and Okada are shown running behind Yuusaku towards the Russians, while it appears he primarily had Ogata sniping from far behind in the trenches.  This may have in part been due to his eventual plans to use Ogata as his personal hitman, but he clearly determined what each of his men was good at doing and put them in the appropriate place.  Tsurumi is exceptionally good at reading people.  Tsurumi is likely even more intelligent than Yuusaku was (as a spy) but he also possessed the soft skills to be a very effective leader and to use his personnel in the best way possible.

This is why I think in chapter 165, Yuusaku is unable to understand what is happening between him and Ogata.  This likely is some sort of test of Yuusaku’s character (I mean Ogata by himself couldn’t hide a Russian POW and pull him out onto the battlefield without someone on authority turning a blind eye to them e.g. Tsurumi).  The fact that Yuusaku is really hung up on the fact that they are breaking the rules indicates to me two things; 1.) he was raised in an environment where this concept was unthinkable and looked down upon 2.) he also does not have a type of intelligence that is flexible and adaptive.  Many intelligent people are successful b/c they figure out when the rules help them and when the rules hinder them; they determine when it is a good idea to break the rules. 

Furthermore, his response to Ogata’s own personal coping mechanism is so childish and simplistic.  He says it can’t be possible for someone to not feel guilty for killing another person.  He can say this without thinking what could be going on in Ogata’s head b/c he can only draw from his own sheltered and protected childhood and education and what was clearly imposed on him from their father.  In part, Yuusaku doesn’t know any better, but in part it is due to his very limited life experiences and likely being too much of a nerd to be able to read those around him. 

I’ve often wondered why Hanazawa let Yuusaku become a flag bearer.  All of Hanazawa’s actions indicated that he’s incredibly image conscious and aware of how he is perceived by others.  He is a man from a lineage of military men (which Tsurumi and others cite in reference to Ogata’s skills and drive) so it makes sense that Yuusaku is also in the military.  But for him to be a flag bearer implies that he likely will not survive to advance in his military career.  For a man with only one legitimate male heir, who comes from a long line of military men this concept baffles me.  If he had two [legitimate] sons, then I could see grooming one to take a leadership role like himself and another becoming a flag bearer for family honor bonus points.  God that sounds terrible, but I see Hanazawa as that type of man.

So I’ve wondered why Hanazawa would let his only son that he recognized and invested so much time and resources in be a giant target to the Russians?  I’ve wondered if he saw that Yuusaku lacked the skills to be an effective leader and this was the best use of him as an heir - to be the honorable flag bearer and not to embarrass the family by being a poor military commander (which Hanazawa ultimately was).  This seems horribly cold and calculating for Hanazawa’s own pathetic ego, but he comes off as the type of man who could do that. 

I also think that is why Koito’s father is so insistent on making sure that Koito learns to be an effective leader of men.  If you are able to have the privilege to be a person in the position of power in the military (the elite) than it is best for you to learn how to lead your men not only for your own and the military’s success but for the success of those individual men.  We know Admiral Koito was friends with Lt. General Hanazawa, I’m sure he watched the parenting that Hanazawa did and may have seen Yuusaku’s personality and then looked at Koito’s own personality.

I do think that b/c Yuusaku took his duties as a flag bearer seriously as well as being 100% obedient to Hanazawa and being able to essentially uphold a contradiction, that he made such an impression on Ogata.  Even though there were many aspects of Yuusaku that Ogata clearly did not like, he is not the type of person to hate him for who he was.  I think instead Ogata did respect him in his dedication to following the rules of their father and upholding the standards of the flag bearer.  What Ogata likely wasn’t able to see was that Yuusaku was trapped in that role and likely had no other options.  Ogata can only see Yuusaku as a son who followed his father’s intentions to his ultimate death on the battlefield.

Lastly, I think the juxtaposition between Yuusaku and Ogata’s personalities and backgrounds are supposed to highlight that Ogata was likely the “rightful heir” to follow Hanazawa in the military.   Hanazawa, due to his own ego, abandoned Ogata and when he joined the military, was as a lowly private with no chance for leadership.  But based on Ogata’s abilities, intelligence and skills, backed up by the statements made by Tsurumi, we are likely supposed to read that Ogata “inherited” the ability to be yet another Hanazawa military commander if given the right circumstances.