#Blame bandai's writing team

[ponett]

with the fallout of bandai namco's idiotic "it's up to interpretation" bs, do you think that it's possible to enjoy queer media made in a corporate environment in addition to independent works? is it even worthwhile to attempt making queer media in a corporate environment? i find it special how well the g-witch production team managed to tell the story they wanted even with the challenges and pressures they faced, but i have to admit that independent works like slarpg are always going to more completely tell queer stories. as someone who has resonated with both slarpg and g-witch, i was curious to know your perspective.

i'm probably less cynical about this than a lot of my peers are - not that i can blame anyone for feeling cynical about queer rep from corporate-owned media. (we've been through so many First Ever Gay Disney Characters at this point, and lord knows blizzard loves to tease that another overwatch character might be gay every year or so as a PR move.) unfortunately it's just extremely hard to get something like a full season of an animated series funded and produced independently, so the artists looking to enter these fields and pour their hearts and souls into meaningful queer stories as a full-time job don't have many options

going indie gives you theoretically endless creative freedom to tell your stories without corporate censorship, but it's also a massive gamble. only an extreme minority of indie creatives in any medium are actually able to make a living. the fact that i came out the other side of slarpg's development with enough money that i can keep being a full-time indie instead of being in massive debt makes me one of the lucky ones. and even with my modest success, i sure as hell don't have the money to hire a whole team, which limits the scope of what i can make. so i can't turn my nose up at the queer people writing disney channel cartoons where they can't say the word "gay" out loud. they have health insurance, i don't. for most people, what i do is simply not an option

with the corporate-produced Queer Stories i enjoy, i'm often able to squint and see what the creatives were trying to do, wishing that they could have done more while understanding that they probably had to fight tooth and nail for what's there

in the realm of children's animation in particular, i'm thankful that the people working at these studios ARE fighting for more, because it means that kids today have so many more positive queer stories to relate with. i didn't have a single gay character i felt i could relate to until i read scott pilgrim at age 16 and saw wallace wells. before that, i felt so alone in the world. i denied who i was for years because it felt like there would be no place for me. i didn't know anyone openly gay in real life, growing up in the south, and in fiction gay people either existed as the butt of a joke or not at all. the fact that queer kids are now able to see people like themselves in so many shows means something, even if we still have a long way to go and the big studios continue to be a major obstacle

on the subject of g-witch, i'm honestly unfazed by the statement from bandai-namco. i guess i wish they could've let suletta and miorine kiss, but like... the text of the show is extremely blunt about them being a couple by the end. it's not up for debate. and it's not like a gundam series having a meaningful story in spite of the wishes of the toy-producing overlords is anything new, this is just our latest example

all that being said, i do think people should branch out more and explore more weird indie shit if they want more wholeheartedly, openly queer stories. people gotta suck it up and embrace more outsider art instead of only valuing things with studio-level production values. start looking at ren'py visual novels, rpg maker games, obscure webcomics, zines drawn in sharpie, artists on bandcamp who aren't signed to a label, all that jazz. maybe part of the reason why i'm not more fazed by the state of affairs with corporate-funded fiction is that i'm constantly surrounded by furry artists who are telling their own little gay stories

[asuccessfulbusinessman]

I made a long post about why Kazami’s Garbage (0 Kills) and how Character Development will drastically make him improve without being magical, here’s the TL;DR

Up to and including Episode 6, Kazami has not landed a single effective blow. Shields, parries, just being shot and having to bail on a charge, the threat and promise of friendly fire from Parviz and May meaning he can’t charge in again. Lots of reasons.

Barring Parviz and May, a lot of what’s stopping him from landing a good hit are a result of being too predictable, which stem from his character flaw of being Leeroy Jenkins. (The poses would be fine if he didn’t charge immediately afterward). Furthermore, every time he’s read like a book, he gets countered, and is put into a losing position.

Kazami refuses to even entertain the notion of Captain Zeon (his idol) losing, refusing to watch videos where he does lose. It might be a stretch, but Kazami’s playstyle might have been molded into a “win-more” playstyle by this cherry picking, where if it works it’s flashy as heck... but Kazami knows no alternatives and doesn’t have the skill to get into that already winning position to make it work. At the very least, it’s certain that Kazami doesn’t know how to fight back from a losing position. The position that he puts himself in at the start of every encounter.

No, he can’t just charge through it. Parviz and May are spamming artillery at the enemy and he’ll just get himself friendly fired. Again.

So, if Kazami’s character flaw is addressed - preferably by him having to overcome a losing battle, bonus points if it embraces the ideal of heroism that he currently lacks...

Kazami won’t be as predictable in combat, so that he can actually land attacks and make use of that heavy melee armament.

Kazami won’t be immediately put into a losing position, where his mobile suit and lack of experience have no way to deal with it.

Kazami’s effectiveness will skyrocket to a reasonable level unless the writers hate him.

Now of course, that’s just the logical reasoning why being told to not charge in will magicially put him on par with Parviz. There’s still no explanation as to why Kazami has to be this ineffective from a narrative perspective. 

[tokuconnect]

With the new scans for LuPat, I can’t help but feel like the writers are sidelining the Patrangers, especially when it comes to the new VS vehicles. Do you happen to know why?

It definitely isn’t the writers’ fault. In fact, I have to commend Ms. Komura and her writing team for still making the Patrangers relevant in the series and giving them good focus episodes. Unfortunately, when writing a Sentai (and Kamen Rider) series, you aren’t given free reign of the story; you have to be able to fit in the new toys and work around what the higher-ups are telling you to do.

Basically, don’t blame the writers, blame Bandai for giving preference to the Lupinrangers.