#they looked up at me and acknowledged me but showed 0 fear whatsoever???

[kestreleve]

ummm hi can I help you

[asuccessfulbusinessman]

Time to Justice Knight Post

Call me biased because I love mecha with lances and I prefer blind aggression in multiplayer games... but out of the small fanbase for Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE* ya’ll give Kazami too much crap for this dysfunctional party. For those not in the know, Kazami is the boisterous pink one-

-the only one of the Build D1vers** with a confirmed 0 kill count as of Episode 6. Formulaically, the resolution of his initial character arc will come in Episode 7, but until then he’s been bashed in basically every episode, as well as in the review for his own plastic model kit.

Avert your eyes from the comment section.

Now, why don’t people like him? Well, he’s loud and boisterous, without anything to show for it. He’s both a stickler for Gundam-like settings (complaining about the unconventional looking suits the rest of the party uses, not liking the off-Gundam MMO setting of the hidden questline) while also not really caring about the storyline of the hidden questline (every episode he makes it vocal he doesn't care about the story events, even in missions the objectives take a backseat to kills and points to him). Despite his eagerness to pull a Leeroy Jenkins, he has just about no combat effectiveness, like, at all. This last point is, in my opinion, unneeded narratively, because he can still be a flawed character and straight detriment to the team even if he ranks up a high killcount and even if the “ACE” marker was next to his name because of, say, ignoring objectives and teammates. However, Bandai uses that complete ineptitude to payoff in episode 6 to a decent effect, already better than the ‘character development’ that was present in the original Gundam Build Divers.*** 

...As long as they follow through and don’t just have the development for one episode, and have him never be combat effective after that. Bandai Please. You already have Colasour for your meme, and Colasour was better than this to begin with, not to mention after he got his character development.

So, yeah, no angel. Big whoop. I’ve seen people stan that angry boy from macademia nuts for worse. But meanwhile, both May and Hiroto get a pass and even get the backing from the community for dunking on his incompetence because... they’re cool loners. Also, they get stuff done... on their own, without any teamwork whatsoever.

You ever play a tabletop game? DnD? Kazami is the guy that really wants to roll dice and hit things. Problematic at times, yes, but no tabletop player is without sin. Hiroto and May are the stereotypical rogues who both have their own agendas and refuse to engage with their party, or content alongside their party. Despite Kazami hating the story sections, he is the only one of the group that even really engages in them (he’s basically being forced to), Parviz being withdrawn while both May and Hiroto basically... watch from the sidelines, chiming in regarding tactics at the most. May is too focused on investigating for Magee to emote, and will only engage with the content on a tactical level... without informing her party. Hiroto, the protagonist... does exactly the same but on a more strategic level. He’s focused too much on an MMO player he used to know**** to engage with those players near him right now, and while he may be engaging with the content... it’s all internal. He doesn’t talk to his party, and he doesn’t trust his party. 

He got called out in episode 6, you know. The Build D1vers lose hard to Kazami’s old guild, a Journey to the West reference that has Kazami lined up as Zhu Bajie. Hiroto implies that he predicted the plan, and Kazami grabs him by the cuff of his shirt, forcefully asking why he didn’t tell the rest of them before walking away. Kazami’s old guild’s leader calls out Hiroto for not trusting the rest of the Build D1vers, and asks him what they mean to him. Hiroto is completely silent.

And as a reminder, Hiroto’s introductory scene is of him using other players as bait to complete a mission.

Anyway, here’s YouTube’s response to Episode 6:

What’s even funnier is that many people theorize that Kazami is, like, 8-10. The equivalent of a Fortnite kid is here in the west. Unskilled***** and easily influenced by streamers. It’s a fine theory and good character interpretation, but then why are people still dunking on Kazami? Why are you dunking on a kid that just wants to play the game, when half of ya’ll cheered for Parviz getting over his fear of heights (as you should)? Why do you dunk on Kazami when he’s being a Leeroy Jenkins lone wolf but refuse to dunk on Hiroto when he’s being a brooding lone wolf?

Well, people are using their own experience with multiplayer games to judge the characters here. They think of themselves as Hiroto, and that Kazami as the nameless kid/ unskilled player that’s ruining their team. They have to carry their teammates in multiplayer matches just like Hiroto, but are constantly held back by someone like Kazami doing something stupid. Which is ironic, because it means they themselves have the ego to think of themselves as akin to this MMO protagonist and not ever as the weakest link of their own team. Just like “it’s never their fault,” they refuse to acknowledge Hiroto’s flaw here. In this regard, they’re exactly like Kazami, blinded by their own perspective, their own image of themselves. And that’s part of what makes Kazami is a great character, or rather it would be if the audience would spend a couple of minutes to engage with his character and introspect.

*That is to say, youtube comments and the 3 people who tag stuff about this show.

**Yes I know the name is slightly different, with just a capital I. 

***As long as your name wasn’t Ayame or Koichi. I’m focused on Doji and GM-Beammaster’s Garbage Character Episode Adventure.

****Yes, she could be an NPD or something like Sarah. But let me have the “one of my old internet friends just… disappeared over the years” story for now.

*****Let’s be real, a kid would kick your ass at Fortnite. They have the time and love of the game to practice nigh endlessly.

[violet-bookmark]

The devil between us, by S.C Wilson

Remember the book I was reading during the train ride and that made me finish RAR? This was it. I bought it for the same reasons as La bastarda: saw it somewhere, synopsis looked great, read the free sample of the prologue and immediately wanted it because the plot looked promising and the writing style was beautiful and captivating yet simple. A lot of people, straight people included, seemed to love it: it was one of Amazon's #1st best sellers of 2018! What could possibly go wrong?

A lot, as the first chapter showed me.

Massive trigger warnings for rape and murder. If these are things that affect you, please be cautious when reading this book, or just skip chapter five completely. I am not triggered by these things and even I had a panic attack while reading because it was fucking horrifying.

This book starts in the year 1853, during the Californian Golden Rush. It tells the story of Jessica Pratt, a young girl who lives with her lovely family near Mount Perish. This life does not last long for her, as her family is all horribly murdered during the first chapter. She manages to escape, and after being found by a mysterious woman who lives by herself in the mountains, she begins to live with her in the wilderness. After a decade, circumstances force her to leave the mountain and to seek civilization again, concretely on the town of Ely. Since it is dangerous for a young woman to travel alone, she disguises herself as Jesse, a young man who ends up catching the eye of the town's sweetheart and singer, Abby.

The writing style was amazing; very evocative yet simple, not falling into the mistake of being too convoluted. It striked the balance between descriptive, beautiful and natural perfectly, letting the story flow at a very easy pace and trapping the reader between its pages in no time. Despite its bleak beginning I found myself reading it eagerly and not even realising how far down the story I was. I had no problem imagining the scenery, and the action was described in a very cinematic way, easy to visualize. The setting is also well done and cohesive, but I can't talk much about the realistic side of things since I am not very familiar with that time period. It was definitely detailed enough to feel like the author cared about realism.

The plot was good: I was surprised by how romantic it was, as I expected something more like "the protagonist tracks down the men who killed her family and takes her revenge, getting a girlfriend in the process", or at least something far more thriller-like, since the prologue is about the protagonist about to die from a bullet wound. Instead, the story had much less action and was more focused on Jessica/Jesse as a character and her growth as a person, her fear of her true sex being found out, her budding romantic relationship with Abby and her maternal relationship with Frieda. This disappointed me a little because I expected something else from the plot, but I also didn't like it because Jessica/Jesse's character development was not as well done as it could have been.

Let's start by her character development: her sadness felt unrealistic. She just lost her family, she had nightmares about her parents being murderer and her sister being raped, but it was all very linear before the ending. She never felt rage, or frustration, or any type of "bad" emotion outside of fear and sadness. Her trauma doesn't evolve, and I don't believe that. As a child she saw her dad and brothers die, her sister being raped and her house burning down with her mother and her sister inside. This is huge. This is no normal loss; her family was humiliated and murdered in front of her. These events should have traumatized her for life and left her with a lot of complex emotions to deal with. The way her feelings were described, you would think that she lost her parents to an illness, or perhaps to an accident, which is traumatic but at least you know they were not unnecessarily and horribly tortured before they died. I would have expected her to feel some type of anger or denial at the circumstances more often. You just don't get the feeling it impacted her character as much as it should during the book, and when everything explodes during the ending it does feel forced.

Before starting to rant again, I will give kudos where it's due: I deeply appreciated that the author acknowledged that in order to pass as a man it is necessary to have a deep voice and "manly" mannerisms. A lot of authors only make their women dress as men and bam, instant disguise. It doesn't work like that at all and for once it was very nice to read about a character putting effort in practicing the social cues that people associate with the opposite sex, that was very well done. That being said, it frustrated me how inacurate the book was in regards to chest binding. I know this book is not supposed to be "How to pass as a man 101", but since the story is about a woman who wants to disguise herself as one you should take realism into account, especially in regards to something as dangerous as chest binding. When the protagonist bandages her chest it is not hard at all for her, which is complete bullshit. Anyone that has ever tried to bandage their chest can attest to the fact that it can be quite difficult to get it right the first time. She also leaves it bandaged for several hours without feeling any pain, nor any discomfort, or having any difficulty breathing; she sleeps wearing it, performs physically exhausting tasks wearing it, goes on long walks and horse-rides wearing it with no effects whatsoever. At this point I was like "damn, this woman's ribcage and lungs are made of steel or what?". Very unrealistic, 0/10.

As for Jessica/Jesse's reaction to having to disguise herself as a man... It was badly done. The author didn't stop hitting us in the head with "she is wearing pants, but she REALLY wants to wear pretty dresses! Pants and shirts make her uncomfortable and she hates them! She is a feminine woman!" And at first I was like "eh, I thought she wore animal hides during that decade in the mountain? The last time she wore a dress was like... 10 years ago, when she was 10 years old? She didn't care before and she cares now? What? Oh well, I guess the animal hides were shaped like dresses, which doesn't seem very practical but hey, at least it makes sense". But then in a scene where she is talking to Abby about the mountain, she is like "Oh yes, you can't wear dresses or skirts in the mountain, you have to wear practical clothing like pants" and I was like ??? You have been moaning to hell and back about how you miss dresses, and now you say that you have to wear practical clothing in the mountain? So then your animal hides were not shaped like dresses? So then what you wear at Ely is really not that different to what you have been wearing during 10 damn years at Mount Perish? What are you so hard-pressed about, exactly??? There is a difference in a character just wanting to wear dresses and... This.

If she should have had to disguise herself as a man immediately after she had been wearing dresses all her life and taught that skirts are the proper thing for women to wear, I would understand her anxiety. But if she has been wearing pants during 10 years out of her own volition, why does she suddenly care the moment she goes down to the city? Especially when at times she says that she does not understand the women in Ely? It was confusing. Maybe the author had an intent there that I am not able to see, but she did not transmit it very well through her writing, in all honesty.

And then, towards the end, Jesse sees that Abby is worried about wearing pants and out of the blue she is all like "don't worry, they are just clothes." I just... What?

I did like some things about Jesse: she was a good person, she liked to travel, she was a good hunter, she helped a prostitute when she had the chance and was generally nice to everybody, but was not afraid to fight if somebody mistreated her or Abby. Overall she was not a bad protagonist, but she did not feel cohesive. Her development felt forced and not very organic.

Moving on to the romance: I disliked the scene where Abby was introduced. It was promising at first, because this author is very good at writing impactful scenes and introducing characters, and I thought that I was in for a really great moment. But then, as we are being told about the reactions that Abby awakes in all the men in the crowd, the narrator starts to describe Jesse's. And she is feeling, guess what: jealous and insecure. She is not even awestruck, or feeling even a hint of attraction to her, or feeling something that she can't determine (which we all know what would have been). But instead she wants to get dolled up like her and be as pretty as her, and she looks at her reflection with insecurity to check herself out in comparison to Abby. That is all that the author describes to us; no hint of any possible romance. If I had not known that Abby is supposed to be the love interest beforehand, I wouldn't have known from that scene. Then some moments after Abby approaches Jesse, and she notes that "he" looks at her like "a kid caught with his hand stuck in the candy jar". But then again she thinks that Jesse is a man, and it would be easy to misinterpret any other feeling that Jesse might be feeling as attraction. We certainly don't have any indicators from Jesse that point to her being attracted to the other woman. Abby's own attraction, while well described, relies on perceiving Jesse as male. This has to be the most "no homo" romantic introduction of a lesbian love interest that I have ever read.

Don't get me wrong, the romance gets better, but their first scene together didn't have any chemistry whatsoever. After that, however, their scenes together are way better written and heartwarming. Only thing I didn't like was the fact that Jesse reveals her sex way later than I expected, which made everything worse because their relationship was built on that lie. I really disliked that and I wish Abby would have found out way, way sooner.

I liked Abby more than Jesse: her character felt more coherent, she was a brave woman surviving in a harsh world, and always there to support her friends. I also found realistic that she tried to move on after Jesse had been rejecting her advances for a long time, because honestly, life is short. At first I thought she was bisexual but the story leaves it quite ambiguous; she has been with men before but wherether it was out of love/attraction or not is not clear. I loved that one of the things that made her be attracted to Jesse was the scent, which she described as being sweeter than a man's. I empathized with that, because one of the first things that made me realize I was not attracted to men, apart from the anatomical aspects, was the fact that I don't like how they smell. I am not being rude and saying that men don't wash, it is not about that; men and women smell differently per se. Men's smell does not attract me; women's smell does.

I also liked Frieda, she was a great mother figure and the relationship between her and Jessica was very beautiful and emotional. She cared for her as if she was her own daughter and made sure that she could survive in that harsh world by herself.

Which brings me to the appearance of native americans in the story: I disliked how they only appeared when the white characters needed some spiritual or physical healing. They felt like walking Deus Ex Machina instead of characters. Even the background characters from Ely felt more three-dimensional than them. I also think the book may have showed the conflict between white people and native americans through rose-tinted glasses; not in the sense of it being something to romanticize, but in the sense of painting both sides as having suffered equally, which obviously was not true.

From the prologue I imagined that this book would be bold, realistic and harsh. And it certainly was at the beginning (way more than what I would have expected) but then it just toned down and didn't live up to the expectations I had for it. The book spends so much time reminding us that Jesse is a woman (as if we would forget), that she wants to be feminine and that she is afraid to be discovered that does not develop other potential plot points that would be way more interesting, in my opinion. There is no real tension to her being discovered out, really: no character suspects anything, her ribs and lungs of steel prevent her from having any real need to remove her bandages and the only moments where characters ask her things that could potentially expose her true sex, she just refuses and they go like "Oh, alright. Tell us if you change your mind okay bye!" So there was no tension at all. It was just so easy for her to pass as a man that I didn't understand why the author insisted so much on emphasizing how afraid Jesse was of being found out. Instead of hitting me over the head with it, make me feel afraid she will be discovered! Create tension! I know you can, S.C Wilson, because you had me at the edge of the seat during the first part of the book!

During the Pratt's family manslaughter, the author was amazing at making us feel as miserable, traumatized, empty and defeated as the characters were feeling, and created a powerful scene that was very hard to read but that had a lot of merit in terms of moving the reader, all without being too graphic to the point of being distasteful. I would have expected this to extend to the rest of the book, but it was not the case; the rest of the story made me feel things, but it fell flat during the moments that mattered.

By the ending things pick up again: the plot gets back on track and the book grabs you again, making you feel the same trepidation that it made you feel at the beginning. I was grateful for that but everything was kind of rushed. Things would have felt more natural if, instead of so many romantic moments, the author had left the climax some time to build up during the middle of the story. The resolution also felt very rushed.

I think I may have bashed the romance and plot too hard; the author has obviously worked hard to write this book, it does have a good plot and the writing style is excellent, as are a lot of details from hunting, history, etc. Research was obviously done, something that a lot of authors don't do, even famous ones. But it just didn't do it for me. I expected more. I would not discourage anyone from giving it a read, but some moments are so cringey that I would not recommend it too much, either.

I recommend this book if you like stories set during the Golden Rush, with harsh conflicts, characters that are attracted to women and beautiful descriptions of american landscapes. I don't recommend it if you are searching for an exciting story, gnc characters or romances that you can ship (lying about one's sex is a deal-breaker for ships, imo).