#I feel like the two fanbases do not really intersect | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jonayariley · 1 year ago

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Okay, I've got some additional thoughts on this -

Boring intro part you can skip if you don't care about who I am or whatever

I wanna preface this by saying that I'm currently co-directing Stuck at Home Con (which draws in over a thousand Homestuck fans every year, and has involved some level of conversation with folks working on official content) and directing Friendsim 2 (which is a fan project, but also has over a hundred people having worked on it at various points, which includes several folks who're currently working on HS:BC as well as other folks who've worked on HS content in an official capacity), so some of these thoughts are gonna be tempered by my own experiences as a project runner.

Also, wanna make it clear that I think Sarah's points here are good ones, and I don't wanna just rehash what she's been saying.

But also, I want to offer another POV on this - as someone who came into the fandom in 2019 and became rapidly entrenched in it in 2020. I've put a huge amount of time and effort into the HS stuff I've made (like, over 1.5 million words written and thousands of hours of time spent on projects).

Also, like, the Homestuck fandom is where I met the woman I've been dating for the last two years. It's the reason I helped start Studio June Games. I've met a bunch of my current friends through the fandom in one way or another. It's the reason I got back into both writing and game dev after a bit of a hiatus to do other stuff.

All of which to say - I've never worked on official content, but I'm not some kind of neutral observer here.

Now, on to the actual point of this

IMHO, there were two intersecting issues that hit HS2 (and really all post-canon content) and I think threading the needle between them was always going to be an issue.

On one hand, a certain sub-group of the fandom could be virulently against post-canon content and the team that was making it in a way that was both awful, and often fueled by what felt like naked bigotry. Like, I'm not talking criticism or "I don't like this" but folks talking about how they're gonna "fix" Roxy's Pesterquest sprite by changing the hair to make her look whiter. People being bigoted towards the official writers. That kind of shit.

The approach that was taken to the fandom as a whole - and I feel like the hostility of some of the fans played into this - felt very distant and disconnected. There wasn't much in the way of communication as far as what was going on with post-canon content, period, and that made the whole thing feel inapproachable and, at times, kinda hostile.

I've said for a while now that Homestuck as an official entity in the post-canon era (and I get that it's, like, one or two people at any given time in actuality) should engage more with its fanbase. Not with the kind of bad faith assholes who want to argue about whether a character is trans or not, but the people who are making fandom content and creating stuff and all that.

There is a tremendous amount of creative energy in this fandom, and I think that should be celebrated and explored.

So I think what James is doing now feels like the right call. It's a willingness to engage with the fandom while still staying true to what they want to do with the comic. Basically - listening, but not just randomly following whatever direction the wind is blowing. Similarly, transparency about stuff like how things are organized is really nice, especially given the absolute lack of any insight into things before. This is especially true since money was flowing in from the fandom, and it's nice to know kind of generally where that's going.

I agree that it's not the job of the current team to, as Sarah aptly put it, re-litigate what happened with the previous team and everyone involved. I think that would be putting an unreasonable expectation onto people who are trying to tell a story, not answer for every single issue anyone ever had with how things used to be run.

But also I do not, personally, think that the situation was well-managed before - and that's going to be an obstacle in terms of how the fanbase interacts with your current work.

It is also worth noting that the fanbase as a whole has changed since 2019. Like, fans who might've been kids at the time are now whole-ass adults. People's perspectives and views on things may have shifted or mellowed out over the years. The fact that some of the fandom bullshit/drama has had time to heal probably helps too.

Also, new people have come into the fandom and become more prominent, at the same time that other people have moved on to other things. The landscape has shifted - it's been three years even since HS2 last updated. I think the absolute worst thing that anyone could've done would be to try to jump back into the shit like no time at all has passed and nothing has changed.

Idk - my own feelings about some things have rounded out over time. At the end of the day - I'm 40 years old and I just wanna make interesting stuff for people to enjoy. I want the same for the people working on the official content. I sincerely hope that the people who were being bigoted assholes previously have fixed their hearts… and if not, then I wish them a very stay the fuck away from this fandom, please.

By the same token, it always weirded me out to see takes along the lines of "all Homestuck fans need to answer for their bigotry crimes" when it's, like, a bunch of marginalized creators trying to make stuff in the Homestuck/Hiveswap fandom space. So I'm glad to see that James and co are willing to put themselves out there - I think that'll ultimately engender a lot of good will and tbh most of the people I've seen interacting with the official content now are cool and chill, so if there are still bigots out there, they can fuck off because their energy is very much not wanted here.

I know you said you're cautiously optimistic about HS2, but the newest blog post has me kinda worried. The talk of "fixing the fans broken trust" and how even the new writers don't like a lot of story decisions that were made by the old team seem really off to me, like it's throwing the old team under the bus. I want to expect good things from HS2 but when the people working on it don't seem to like the story as it stands right now it really just seems like they might bend over backwards to appease the shitty side of the fandom. What do you think about this whole thing?

this is in reference to the october 30th 2023 news update on the hs:bc website. i give the date because the news posts don't seem to have individual links atm, so if you're reading this in the future you might have to scroll back.

to your worry that the new team might bend over backwards to appease the shitty side of the fandom, i wrote at length in my prior hs:bc post about why i don't think that's gonna be a problem. i'd also caution against reading too much into what james says about the attitude of the hs:bc team at large, for reasons that should be apparent by the end of this post.

i think it's perfectly reasonable to take a diplomatic position towards a fandom that is historically very hostile to this continuation. a lot of people haven't read the epilogues/hs2 and hate on them anyway because of what they've been told they contain, and refuse to question those received opinions on principle. many who did read them seem to have been inattentive or otherwise needlessly aggressive, sometimes owing to a baffling refusal to accept the premise of postcanon. plenty of others maybe just need a reason to think that homestuck is for them again. for this project to succeed, the fandom at large needs to be given a reason to revisit the epilogues/hs2 from a position of safety and critical distance. i have my own barbed opinions about this state of affairs, but it is what it is.

i understand and to an extent share your misgivings over that Q&A post, but it simply is not james roach's job to relitigate the conduct of the hs2 team. to even broach the subject in more than a general sense would constitute the opening of a massive can of worms, because the truth is muddy. mistakes were made on all sides, some worse than others, and to really contextualize where the hs2 team were coming from you'd need to explain the history of the hs fandom, the leadership of the reddit/discord, the overall tenor of twitter post-2016 and especially leading into/during 2020, the history of pgen and the homestuck renaissance, the lack of PR training or oversight or guidance from anyone at WP, the history of audience hostility in homestuck, and on, and on. for what it's worth, i think that context is essential-- but i don't know that anyone working on this project ought to be the ones to tell it (nor do i think they want that responsibility), and a brief casual Q&A post as a halloween treat is certainly not the place to publish it.

and ultimately, none of that has much at all to do with hs:bc. they are not beholden to or responsible for the choices made by the hs2 team. they have been entrusted with the reins of this story, and with that trust comes their own admitted desire to take it in different directions than what was initially planned. the hs2 team did this to the outline andrew hussie gave them; it's only fair that the hs:bc team has the same leeway over the outline they inherited. acknowledging fault in prior leadership, admitting disagreement over past creative decisions, is an olive branch to a largely skeptical fandom. i bristle at some of this because the hs2 team were my friends and i'm very protective of their work and that moment in history, but that isn't james roach's (nor the hs:bc team's) cross to bear. his choice, as the new public face of homestuck, is to move forward rather than linger on the past. it's good that he's burying the hatchet, frankly. i'm sick of that fucking thing.

love it or hate it, agree or disagree, the hs:bc crew has to exercise diplomacy right now. they've reopened the patreon and want to sustain this project for the foreseeable future, ideally without subjecting the workers to intensely traumatic levels of scrutiny and harassment. this involves clearing up miscommunications, admitting fault, gesturing at shared disagreements over story direction, and otherwise putting on a friendly face for strangers. and let's be clear, i know for a fact that plenty on the original hs2 team had a panoply of disagreements with the choices made in the epilogues! the operative condition here is not unquestioning devotion to / hatred of prior material, but a willingness to build upon that prior material constructively regardless. that's what matters most to me, and i have every reason to believe they're taking the constructive route.

i'll end this saying what i've been saying from the start. the measure of this project's success or failure should be taken in the work itself. if james roach blanket dismissed the prior team, but hs:bc constructively evolved in a way that didn't invalidate or undercut prior material, i'd still consider us oldschool hs2 fans the winners. i wouldn't be HAPPY about it, but the art is what we're all here for, and it's the art that people will remember. i think often about how the showrunners of the tv series LOST insisted from day one until the very end that everything in the show had a scientific explanation, despite the fact that they *always knew* this was a bald-faced lie. they told this lie because ABC did not want to fund a fantasy show and would've canceled it otherwise. some fans to this day decry the lack of scientific explanations in the text of the show, even when you point out that the promise of such explanations was false from the start.

point is, there are material realities to leading a creative enterprise. james roach has put himself in a genuinely dangerous and scary position, a fact that's easy to forget with how casual and welcoming his posts have been thus far. but this is perhaps the single most mismanaged property of the internet age, and there's no walking that back without stepping on some toes. over-correction is expected and probably necessary. if it ruffles your feathers, that's fine-- but let the work speak for itself, and judge it on its own merits. all this other stuff is ancillary and will inevitably fade into the distant fog of time.

#homestuck #homestuck 2 #james roach #hsbc

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bestiesenpai · 4 years ago

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youtuber Sukuna

I beg you to read the shitposts I made about this, they are delicious. You don’t have to of course but...if you loved me you would :) s/n = screen name, and I hope you chuckle at Sukunas screen name

Content warning: uhmhm lowkey incel shit(mean internet comments and whatnot)

part two --- part 3

Name: Sukuna. Age: 25. Height: 6 foot 5 inches. Occupation: toxic Youtuber, fitness trainer and hot guy.

Sukuna wasn’t exactly known for being kind. He wasn’t nice to others, rarely having anything good to say about anyone, and he’d made a successful Youtube career out of it. First starting as a fitness trainer at his gym, through encouragement from his clients and the notion of a quick cash grab, he started Youtube.

He didn’t care about it and that reflected in the quality of his videos and editing. He didn’t have consistent uploads, just filming and posting videos whenever he wanted, analytics be fucked. But somehow, that worked out for him, and he quickly found himself with over two million subscribers just frothing at the mouth for his next video.

And those subscribers were some of the worst people. Sukuna didn’t care about fostering a safe space online for others, not in the slightest. His comment sections were atrocious, both on his Youtube and his Instagram. It was full of toxic men one-upping each other constantly and dragging on each other for not being able to work out as much as Sukuna did.

Sukuna was a large part of why his fanbase were so toxic. He himself often made bad comments about others, whether fellow creators or people that happened to appear in the backgrounds of his videos, and on more than one occasion he’d been ‘cancelled’. None of that mattered though, all he cared about was shitting on other people and making money.

Sometimes he played video games and posted it, but not too often. Sukuna often stated he wasn’t so much of a fucking lonely loser that he’d play video games all the time, and so the gaming videos he did post were few and far between. He played angry shooter games and GTA, mindless button clicking he could get lost in for a few hours for a video.

Laying in bed one night after uploading his most recent video, one where he rages at 12 year olds on GTA online, Sukuna was just scrolling through his phone mindlessly. After he uploads video game content, like clockwork, he gets recommendations for gaming channels. He only watches a few of them, mostly leaving mean comments saying what losers they are, but one catches his eye.

He’s never been recommended this kind of video before. The thumbnail is light and bright with some pink aesthetic lights in the back. But the most enticing thing is the person in the middle, cute pink cat ear headphones on and a bright smile.

“Let’s see…” Sukuna mumbles to himself, mindlessly clicking the video. He hasn’t even read the title, he only clicked it because they were cute, and here he is nearly blinded by the bright setup they have.

“Hi everyone, it’s (Y/N) here and I’m really excited today! We’re going to be playing this new game I found!” Sukuna is immediately enraptured by the sound of your voice, watching how your face changes as you talk. His eyes drift off to the decor behind you, cute plushies and healthy plants, and some twinkling fairy lights. There’s books as well, and your chair is one of those ergonomic gamer chairs he has as well but in pink.

Sukuna watches the video dumbly, totally in the dark about whatever you’re doing, but loving it all the same. All he knows is that he likes the sound of your voice, and when you laugh and smile at a funny part in the game, it makes a light flush come to his cheeks.

It only takes one video for Sukuna to spiral into more of your content. He watches a video on your gaming setup, and he’s surprised that so much technology can come in pink. He watches a video on how you edit, a few of you cooking in your kitchen, and even a few vlog videos.

He quickly subscribes to your channel, and when you plug your social media, he immediately goes there. Pulling up your Instagram, he stares at your profile picture and almost audibly coos at you for being cute.

Your profile is just as cute as your videos are and Sukuna barely remembers to follow you before he’s going through your whole feed, liking every picture he sees. Sometimes he leaves comments, only one word though, ‘cute’. He’s never liked something so outright cute before, it wasn’t who he was and it definitely didn’t fit with his brand.

Falling asleep after following you on every platform, Sukuna wakes up thinking about you as well. And he also wakes up to hundreds of comments from all his accounts, bombarding him with questions and screenshots from last night.

‘SUKUNA WHY WOULD YOU LIKE THIS SHIT?!’

‘OMG Sukuna liked (Y/N)s posts!!’

‘Sukuna is so gross and toxic, you better stay away from (Y/N)!’

‘SUKUNA YOU GAY NOW’

‘EW why the fuck do you like this bitch?’

There were hundreds of comments that he waded through. Most were from his fans, expressing disgust at how many photos of yours he’d liked and wondering why he, Sukuna, most heterosexual alpha male on the planet, would like a pretty in pink Youtuber who had bubbly intros and whined when their animal crossing villagers wanted to move away.

Other comments were from your fans, some in awe that he would like you considering how much he said he hated overly cute things. Other fans expressed concern, worried what this might mean for their favorite Youtuber. Did Sukuna want to cause problems, potentially hurting you? He did have a reputation of bullying others, so this wasn’t far fetched.

Checking your Instagram, you didn’t make any comment about it. There wasn’t any update or anything, but on his end he was being tagged in endless Twitter threads with screenshots of him liking your posts and commenting under them.

“For fucks sake.” He grunted, clenching his phone in his hands. The amount of notifications he was getting were starting to upset him and he nearly threw his phone to get them to stop.

Ignoring his phone for the rest of the day, Sukuna went to the gym like he always did and trained with his clients. Some of them brought it up to him, asking him if he had a mind break last night and forgot what he was doing. Sending them harsh glares, Sukuna refused to talk about it.

“Oh my fucking god.” Sukuna nearly wailed when he got home, finally checking his phone. His name and yours had begun trending, and the hashtag #protect(Y/N) was also. Muttering angrily under his breath, Sukuna turned on Instagram live.

“Okay what the fuck!” He shouted, seeing the live become instantly flooded with people all screaming about you and him. “You’re all fucking annoying, you know that?” Glaring harshly at the camera, he read some of the comments that went by.

‘WHY’D YOU LIKE (Y/N)S POSTS FROM 2017’

‘Are you two secretly dating??’

‘COLLAB!’

“Who gives a shit why I liked their stuff, you’re a fucking weirdo for keeping track of me. And we aren’t secretly dating, dipshits.” Rolling his eyes, Sukuna scoffed as more comments came in begging for a collaboration. “And think about it you morons, why would we collab? Our shit is too fucking different, what would we even film about?”

Sukuna stayed on Instagram live for nearly an hour answering questions asking about you. Every time he had to answer that you weren’t secretly dating, he got a little more annoyed. Not at the comments themselves but at the fact that it was true; you didn’t even know he existed.

Ending the live in a huff, Sukuna didn’t feel any better than before, and it was made even worse by the fact that everything he said was being relayed to Twitter, and you were tagged in every tweet.

“These idiots!” Staring at his phone, Sukuna couldn’t believe what he was seeing. On your Instagram stories, you’d posted a q&a for your followers, and nearly all of the comments were about Sukuna.

“Hi everyone! No, me and Sukuna aren’t dating!” You said, laughing a little to ease how uncomfortable you were. “To be honest, I’ve never even heard of him before! As you know, my content is very...different from his, so our circles don’t exactly intersect. But I’m always happy to have new followers and potential friends!”

“Fuck me.” Sukuna groaned, cringing at how uncomfortable you looked having to address the sudden onslaught of questions. For once he wished he’d actually given a shit about his online presence, so that maybe one day your circles could intersect. He knew he scared you, he scared a lot of people, and this was just proof.

“Uh, Sukuna if you see this, hi it’s nice to meet you!” You said in the next slide, puffing out your cheeks and waving cutely at the camera. It made Sukuna blush, and he hated it. “Thank you for following me and liking my content! I was very surprised that you found me!”

“Of course I did, idiot, you’re fucking cute.” He muttered under his breath.

“I know a lot of people are asking for us to do a video together and I know our content is really different, so don’t feel pressured to respond or anything, but the offer is open! If you’d like, we can collab on something.”

“On what?” He asked like you were there.

“I cook sometimes, and I know you cook too! Maybe we can make a cooking video? You can teach me how to make healthy food or something!” Sukuna could tell a fake laugh when he heard one, and you definitely had one right now. “Anyways, thank you! Bye Sukuna!” But hearing you say his name cutely like that made him not care.

He nearly responded right away, accepting the collab offer now that you’d spoken about it, but he didn’t want to seem desperate. He watched through the rest of your Instagram stories, going back and replaying the parts where you talked about him over and over and his heart clenched every time when you said his name.

In the dead of night, Sukuna DM’s you after watching your latest video and leaving the simple comment ‘check your DM’s’.

“Fuck, what should I say?” He’s suddenly stumped as he looks at the keyboard. Typing and retyping a message, in the end all he can say is hi. He doesn’t expect a reply, ever, but when he gets a vibration on his phone two seconds later he jumps to read it.

(S/N): hi Sukuna! :)

(cursedgod): hey

Real fucking smart, repeating what he just said.

(S/N): is there something you wanted to talk to me about?

(S/N): I hope you haven’t been annoyed at all the notifications you’ve been getting!

(cursedgod): No it’s okay

(cursedgod): we can collab if you want

Good Sukuna, good. Play it cool, don’t let them know that your fingers are actually trembling because you’re nervous.

(S/N): do you want to?? I don’t want to pressure you! I know we’re pretty different haha

(cursedgod): yeah, let's do it. Cooking?

(S/N): sure!

Looking around his home, he was suddenly assaulted with the fact that he didn’t have any furniture. He barely had a proper bedroom, just a mattress on a bare frame and a dresser. His lounge room was the same with his computer setup in one corner and then nothing else. There was only a couch, a mounted TV and a fold out table and chairs for his dining room.

(cursedgod): I know a studio kitchen we can use, I’ll send you the address

Thank god he’d done promo work for a brand in a studio one day, otherwise he’d be fucked.

(S/N): awesome! I’m free next Saturday!

And just like that, it was a date. Well, a meeting. Sukuna knew it wasn’t a date, but his heart still thumped like it was one. Confirming the time, he ended the conversation with a curt goodbye and obsessed about it throughout the night.

When the day to meet you came, Sukuna nearly ran late trying to pick out his clothes. He’d never cared about looking good or presenting himself well in front of others, whatever version of him he turned up in was what they got. But for you, he wanted to try a little harder.

Waiting outside the studio space, Sukuna rubbed his hands together nervously. You’d messaged a day or two ago offering to put the video on your channel since it probably wouldn’t fit his aesthetic, so he didn’t have to bring his shitty camera equipment.

“S-sukuna?” Snapping his head up, Sukunas mouth fell open looking at your curious face a few feet away, an Uber driving off behind you. You were even cuter in person, just his fucking luck. How was he expected to act like a normal person when his recent obsession was here looking better than he could have imagined.

“Hi.” What comes out is a grunt, not the smooth word he’d hoped. He can see you eyeing him up, taking in all the thick and corded muscles of his body. It made his chest puff out a little, he worked hard for this physique and to have you so openly looking at him made him happy.

“It’s nice to meet you!” Sticking your hand out, you smiled politely at him.

“Same.” Shaking your hand with a firm grip, Sukuna could feel the difference in your palms. Yours was soft and nicely moisturized and he had callouses everywhere and a few cuts and scrapes.

Opening the door for you, Sukuna led you to the studio space he’d rented out. It was a clean and modern kitchen, not unlike his own, but it had appliances and looked actually lived in. Helping you set up a few camera angles, Sukuna felt a pang of nerves hit him in the stomach.

“Sukuna, can we take a picture together?” You asked before starting, and Sukunas brow furrowed deeply. Why would you want to take a picture with him? His expression must have scared you, because you quickly backtracked. “F-for promo for this video, on Instagram and stuff!”

“Sure.” God, did he feel bad or what. He shouldn’t have made that face at you, now you wouldn’t look him in the eye. Crouching down to get the right angle for you, Sukuna watched you pick a cute animal filter.

“Just do what I do.” Throwing up a peace sign, you cutely tilted your head from side to side and smiled. Sukuna tried to do the same but he looked awkward, and most of all he was blushing pretty bad.

You snapped a multitude of pictures, some at different angles and some with different filters, and in all of them Sukuna was blushing at least a little. He managed to smile more as it went on, even laughing at one of the filters.

“Thanks! I’m going to post these really quick and then we can get started!” Giving him a brief smile, you turned back to your phone and set about editing some of the pictures. Looking over your shoulder, Sukuna could see that he looked like a blushing high schooler meeting their idol for the first time and not a grown man.

Once the photos were posted and you tagged him in everything, it was time to start. Setting up your marks on the floor, you took a generous drink of water and cleared your throat.

“Are you ready for the intro? I’ll start it and introduce you, okay?” You’d actually prepared a script for yourself, and showed Sukuna as well.

“Okay.” Stepping in front of the camera, Sukuna bristled at feeling you so close to him. Your arm brushed his casually as you were fixing your shirt, and Sukuna was glad he’d worn his most expensive cologne for this.

“Hi everyone, welcome to today's video! As you know, I’m (Y/N), and today we have a special guest today!” Throwing your arms in the air, you motioned to Sukuna.

“Hi.” He nodded, barely cracking a smile. He could feel you looking at him like you wanted to say something, but he didn’t look.

“So, many people have been asking for us to do a collaboration and it’s finally here!” Clapping your hands lightly, you rocked on your heels and nudged his shoulder with yours. “Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?”

“Uh-” The playful nudge you’d given him was enough to make Sukuna short circuit. “I-I-” He suddenly couldn’t remember how to speak. “Rice?”

“Let’s try that again.” You laughed. “Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?” This time, you didn’t nudge him with your shoulder.

“We’re gonna…” the words were on the tip of his tongue, they wanted to come out and be spoken but he couldn’t do it.

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Nodding reassuringly, you took a deep breath in and out, and Sukuna shakily copied. “One more try?” When he looked at you, Sukuna expected to see a hint of annoyance in your face, but there was none. You were just smiling softly at him, waiting for his answer.

“Yeah. I’ll uh, I’ll get it next time.” Stepping away from the camera, Sukuna took a drink of water and cleared his throat. Cracking the bones in his neck, he took a deep breath and came back. “Let’s do it.” No more fucking embarrassments.

“Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?” You asked for the third time, slightly swaying your body side to side this time.

“We’re gonna make katsudon today.” Finally, the words he wanted to say came out.

“That’s right! As you can see, Sukuna is really fit!” You immediately hopped in, giving his arm a brief squeeze. “And he knows how to make a ton of healthy meals!”

“Mhmm.”

“So I asked if he could help teach me, and all of you at home, how to make it!” Smiling at the camera, you waited a few seconds before relaxing and turning it off. “Did you like that? We can refilm it if you want.”

“No, it’s okay.” Running a hand through his hair, he pointed to the bag of rice he’d brought. “Let’s get started on this shit.”

Taking fifteen minutes to film the two of you filling up the rice cooker, when it was over, you set about getting aesthetic shots of the other ingredients. Sukuna tried to seem casual off to the side on his phone, but he was really watching you.

Getting started on chopping the ingredients, Sukuna somehow managed to say the things he was supposed to without stuttering too badly. He was amazed that you could make the things he was doing sound so interesting, your narration as you held the camera and tried to do things yourself was impressive to the man that barely knew anything about cameras.

“Sukuna, I need help cutting the meat.” You whined, tapping the meat on the cutting board with a knife. “I don’t remember how you showed me.”

“Here.” Without thinking, Sukuan grabbed your hand with the knife in it and moved it for you. “You just have to move your wrist more, it’s not that hard.” Doing it a few times, when Sukuna felt your chest expand with air against his, that’s when he realized how close the two of you were. “S-sorry.” Immediately jumping back, he stared at the floor.

“Thanks!” Giving him a smile, you kept at it.

“I’ll fry the meat.” Stepping in as soon as you were done, Sukuna already had the hot oil ready. He was eager to cook and do something with his hands instead of - what he felt like - was awkwardly watching you off to the side.

“Okay!” Grabbing the camera, you focused on the pan. “You’re really good at this, Sukuna!”

“T-thanks.” Staring directly at the pan, Sukuna didn’t look away. Even with the hot oil popping up from the pan a few times and burning his fingers, he didn’t flinch at all.

“Ow!” But you did. Your hand had gotten too close, and when Sukuna flipped the meat, some of the oil had gotten on your hand.

“Shit.” Abandoning the pan, Sukuna was ready to drag you over to the sink for some cool water.

“I-it’s okay, it was only a little.” Shaking your stinging hand, you point to the food. “But I think the meat might burn.”

“Shit!”

Narrowly avoiding disaster with the meat, when it came time to cook the eggs, you made a joke about how you liked your eggs in the morning and Sukuna burnt them almost immediately. While not an overtly sexual comment, the implications of the words still affected him.

Somehow, he managed to make the dish come together and while his plated dish didn’t come out the best, yours looked at least halfway decent with overcooked meat and burnt eggs. The only things not messed up were the rice and vegetables, and even then Sukuna was surprised.

“We did it everyone, we made katsudon!” Holding up the bowls, you smiled big and nudged Sukunas shoulder again. “You saw we had a few mishaps along the way, but that’s okay, that’s what made it fun.”

“Yeah, it was fun.” Sukuna chuckled. Despite him being more nervous than he’d ever thought possible, he had fun cooking alongside you.

“Sukuna, will you try mine? I made it super pretty and everything.” Holding your dish up to him, Sukuna wasn’t expecting you to do that. Now he felt bad that his looked so ugly and like a teenaged boy made it; he almost said no.

Eating yours though, somehow it tasted better than he was expecting. It must have been how you prepared it, and the fact that you cared so much about the presentation. Eating it in silence, he let you eat in peace as well for a few minutes and compliment the food to the camera.

“Alright, that’s the end of the video!” Putting your bowl down, you turned to Sukuna. “I had so much fun today, thanks for filming this with me.” Now was his chance to make everything better. Putting his bowl down and bolstering himself with confidence, Sukuna threw his arm over your shoulder and pulled you close to him.

“Thank you (Y/N), I really did enjoy today. I hope we can film again soon!” He squeezed your shoulder and smiled really big at not only you but the camera as well. He knew he was blushing, he knew that even the tip of his nose was a nice rosy shade, but he didn’t care. If people teased him for it, then so be it. But he wanted you to know how he truly felt.

“R-really? You want to?” You asked, looking up at Sukuna from your place smooshed against his body.

“Really.”

“Aww, well you heard it here first everyone! Sukuna wants to shoot another video with me!” Clapping your hands a few times, you waved at the camera. “Okay, bye everyone!”

“Bye.” Sukuna waved too, waiting a few seconds before letting you go and turning off the camera.

“Sukuna, did you really mean it? You want to film another video with me?” You were in utter disbelief. All this time, he’d just seemed very standoffish, if not a little awkward around you. You were happy to film this video with him, he had way more followers than you and it would help boost both your channels, and to hear him say that just made it even better.

“Yeah, I was serious.” Sukuna spoke around stuffing his mouth with the food he still had left. He was more hungry than he thought, the nerves doing a good job of twisting his stomach during the video. Now that it’s over, he can finally relax.

“That makes me really happy.” Eating the rest of your food as well, you leant against the counter. “This is gonna sound kind of mean, but I was really scared to film with you today. I thought you were going to be really mean.”

“Shit, you did?” He grimaced, letting out a sigh. “Sorry I had you worried.” He could already imagine the comments you would get from his fans.

“It’s okay! You’re actually way nicer in person, I was surprised!”

“That’s good.”

“And you’re really buff, you have muscles in places I didn’t even know were possible!” You laughed bashfully at that comment, and avoided looking at him when he stared at you in shock. “I couldn’t help but notice…”

Were you checking him out? Had you been checking him out this whole time and he didn’t even realize? He had seen you eyeing him up when you first met, but were you looking at him like that at other times as well? Now he’d really have to watch your video to see if it was true.

“Thanks, it’s my job.” Could he have said that any lamer? “My job outside of all this, I mean. I’m a trainer at this fancy gym downtown.”

“Oh, I’ve seen some of your videos at your gym! I know which one you’re talking about.”

“You do? You’ve seen my videos?” If he wasn’t surprised before, he was now.

“Yeah, you know I had to do a little research beforehand.” You nodded, beginning to clean up the dishes around you. “And I know you’ve already watched almost all of my videos, so it only seemed fair.”

Did you have to bring that up? Now Sukuna was embarrassed again.

“Y-yeah, I did.” Clearing his throat, Sukuna helped gather the dishes. He took up washing them, another task he could do to get his mind off you. As you took down the camera equipment, he nearly broke several dishes and utensils from scrubbing too hard.

“I’ll call you an Uber.” He said when all was said and done and you were back at the front of the building.

“You don’t have to, it’s okay.”

“No, I want to.” Quickly calling you a ride, Sukuna fiddled with his phone a little more. “Uh, could I- could I-” His voice kept leaving him, and he had to cough a few times. “Can I get your number? I really liked your camera shit and I want to improve mine.” Okay, it wasn’t a total lie. He did like your setup and wanted to make his just as good, but he really wanted your number to potentially talk to you more about things outside of Youtube.

“Sure! Go ahead and type it in.” You were quick to give him your phone, a cute pink phone case on the back of it. Typing it in, he can’t help but notice the little devil emoji you add by his name. He wants to ask, but your ride is already pulling up.

“Bye!” Setting all your camera gear inside the car, you turn and wave goodbye.

“See ya.” Just as you’re about to close the car door, Sukuna gets a burst of confidence. “Text me when you get home, okay?”

“Okay!” And off you go. Sukuna watches the car drive off until he can’t see it anymore. He takes his time getting to his own place, eagerly awaiting your message with every step. But even when you do message him, all he can do is send a thumbs up back and nothing else.

It’s about two and a half days after that that you text him again, letting him know you’re done editing and that you’re going to post the video soon. It wasn’t a very long video to begin with, so the editing was simple enough. Sukuna replied with what appeared to be a lackluster ‘can’t wait’, but on the inside he was shaking. He’d already screenshot all the pictures the two of you took together and added them to a folder.

“Here we go.” As soon as the video went live, Sukuna watched it. He was mortified as soon as it started at the blush so evident on his cheeks, and how it stayed throughout the whole thing. He groaned at the part where he helped you cut up the meat, he almost wishes you’d cut it out. Every little detail that made him embarrassed was there, every little nuance of his actions you’d managed to capture and make it cute.

(Y/N): How do you like it??

You texted him after twenty minutes, eager to hear his thoughts.

(Sukuna): it’s good, good editing and stuff

(Y/N): yay! I’m going to read comments in a few hours, you should too! I bet people will be really shocked!

(Sukuna): yeah no doubt

Oh, he was definitely going to read the comments. Whereas you were going to wait for a fair few to come in before commenting, Sukuna frequently refreshed the page and read the new ones as they came in. You were right, a lot of people were surprised, but he also saw a lot of his fans as well.

‘Ew Sukuna really cooked for that bitch? They can’t do it themselves?’

‘Yeah, why do they have to rely on him? Useless as fuck lol’

‘Sukuna only did this to get laid, (Y/N) looks like an easy fuck’

All of those comments, and many more, made his blood boil. Usually, he wouldn’t care at all about the comments, letting them fester in his comment section and spiral out of control. But for you, it was different.

‘Fuck off and die you pieces of shit. Leave (Y/N) alone or say it to my fucking face’

Sukuna sent that message, along with a variety of other threats, to all the people that insulted you. He didn’t care that this wasn’t his channel and that you would deal with it in whatever way you wanted to. He needed to defend you against the unwanted audience he’d brought you.

Luckily, after seeing Sukunas messages, all of his fans backed off. They knew how serious he was about his threats and there were many rumors that he actually did go and beat people up who said things he didn’t like. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of his torment.

With Sukunas name attached to the video and his heavy presence in the comment section, the video easily went viral. It was easily the most viewed video on your channel, getting on the trending pages of several different platforms.

(Sukuna): hey

It’s nearly a week after the first video that Sukuna messages you, and the hype is still going strong, and your follower count grows greatly from it.

(Y/N): hi! What’s up?

(Sukuna): do you want to film a video for my channel now? We can play a game, I have a few

(Y/N): sure that sounds fun!

Oh how wrong you were. The game Sukuna chose was a scary game, a shooter game with scary zombies and a lot of possible jumpscares. He doesn’t tell you either, so on the night of filming - he insisted on it being nighttime to get the full scary effect - you were caught off guard.

“I don’t know about this.” You whined once you saw the title. The two of you were video calling alongside playing the game together, and Sukuna’s eyes flicked to your figure on the screen.

“It’ll be okay, I’ll carry you, don’t worry.” He had started filming as soon as he’d set up the game, and you were filming yourself as well for him.

“You promise it won’t be too scary?”

“If it’s too scary just close your eyes and I’ll protect you.” Smiling softly at you, he started up the game. The beginning was fine, just a quick introduction to the game, but as soon as things started to get moving, you were scared.

“Sukuna a zombie is eating me!” You screamed, frantically pushing buttons in an attempt to get it off.

“It’s okay!” He quickly got rid of it, and made sure to stay close to your character as the story progressed.

“(Y/N) stay by me, there’s about to be a whole lot of them.”

“Close your eyes there’s about to be a jump scare here.”

“Don’t worry about getting that item, I’ll grab it for you!”

Sukuna nearly forgot he was being filmed, saying sweet things to you to help encourage you and make sure you weren’t overwhelmed. There were many parts where you screamed in fright and Sukuna was there to coo at you and tell you it was okay. He made sure that your character never died, making sure to keep you close until the end of the game.

“Sukuna, that was so hard!” Squishing your cheeks in your hands, you looked at him through your phone.

“It was fun though, wasn’t it? I had fun with you.” Completely abandoning the game, he stared down at his phone with a soft smile on his face.

“Yeah, when there weren’t so many zombies.” You stuck your tongue out at him, and it made him laugh. Leaning his head into his hand, Sukuna grinned when you yawned.

“Aw, are you tired? Better go to sleep soon.” His voice dropped to a lower volume, like you were right next to him.

“I will.” You yawned again and it made Sukuna yawn as well.

“Get off the phone and go to bed, you’re making me tired too.”

“Fine.” Whining out the word, you waved sleepily. “Goodnight Sukuna, I’ll send you the video files in the morning, okay?”

“Night.” Waving back, Sukuna waited until you hung up to turn his stuff off as well.

In the morning, Sukuna was ready to edit. What usually took him a week to edit out of laziness, he took only a day to edit this video with you together. Rewatching the footage, he nearly gagged at seeing how soft his face got when he looked at you, and most of those parts were left in because he couldn’t stand to watch them and fix them.

(Sukuna): videos up

The next day, he messaged you. Once again Sukuna patrolled the comments, swiftly deleting any that said even a hint of a bad thing about you. There was less this time, what with Sukuna adding a warning at the beginning of the video threatening anyone that talked down at you.

This video, like the first, went viral. But for a much different reason. Since Sukuna was emotionally unable to deal with how sappy he was and edit those parts out, everyone got to see how soft he was for you. If the comments weren’t mean, they were screaming about how you and Sukuna must be dating now, because why else would he look at you and talk to you like that?

And much to Sukuna’s dismay, there were also fancam edits of you two together. Any clippable moment of him being sweet on you in the videos you’d made together along with the photos you’d posted on Instagram were edited together and posted on Twitter. You both were tagged in every single one, making sure Sukuna saw all the videos of you and him together. He saved all of them too, delighting in the way you looked with him with all those pretty filters.

By the end of the day, people were trying to put a ship name together for the two of you and he’s seen you repost a few fancams with cute messages of thanks as well. Seeing you receptive to the fans screaming about the two of you made him happy, even if he was still too nervous to text you about anything outside of Youtube.

As more comments came in, people on Twitter were begging him to do a vlog with you. You had quite a few on your channel, going to cafes or filming what your day or week was like. Sukuna had watched them all and was jealous of every single person that appeared alongside you.

(Y/N): hey I’m doing a live on Instagram if you want to join me! I know people really like us together lol it’ll be great for views

(Sukuna): sure

Did you want him to join now? He’d just gotten out of the shower and thrown on a pair of sweats, he wasn’t exactly decent. But he didn’t want to waste time getting ready only for you to end the live.

“Hi Sukuna!” You smiled and waved when he appeared on the screen.

“Hey.” He waved back, not caring about the angle he was holding the camera in. He saw hearts begin to fill up the screen and comments started to fly by, almost all in caps about the fact he was shirtless talking to you.

“Guys, don’t be weird! Who cares that Sukuna is shirtless?” You tried to stop them, but it was clear you were flustered as well. You weren’t looking at him, peeking at him through the screen a few times.

“God you’re all thirsty as fuck.” Sukuna finally looked at himself on the screen. He was shirtless and in bed, hair slightly damp and tousled on his pillow. Reading a few comments, he shot up. “Of course I’m wearing pants, you nasty fuck!” Storming out of bed, he stood in front of the only mirror in his house that wasn’t in the bathroom and turned the camera around. “See, look!”

“Oh.” Gasping softly, you were glad Sukuna didn’t notice you screenshot the live. Clad in only gray sweatpants, Sukuna’s freshly cleaned skin gleamed in the light of his bedroom and every single muscle and edge of his body was on display.

“There, told you I wasn’t fucking naked.” Rolling his eyes, he flopped back down on the bed. None of the comments had gotten any better, all of them talking about how hot he was and how you were so lucky to know him in real life.

“L-let's talk about something else.” You stammered, not showing your face on camera for a few minutes. Sukuna laughed at the comments teasing you for being embarrassed, agreeing with some of them under his breath.

“So, what the fuck are you all doing here?” Sukuna posed the question at the chat, but at you as well.

“Well before you came everyone was talking about you...and you know how everyone has been begging for us to vlog?” You started off slowly, peeking an eye at his face.

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to call you to ask how you felt about that?” How he felt? Why did you want to know?

“You couldn’t have texted me that?” That wasn’t necessarily what he wanted to say, but it made you chuckle, so it was okay.

“No! I wanted to ask so everyone could know!”

“I don’t mind it.” If you wanted to vlog with him, he would do it in a heartbeat.

“So…” Worrying your lip, you looked off camera for a few seconds before looking directly at Sukuna. “Would you like to be in a vlog with me, at a cafe? It’s outside the city, kind of far, but we can rent a car or-”

“Yes.” Sukuna interrupted, nodding his head quickly. “I’ll come. We don’t have to rent a car, I’ll drive.”

“Really?” The comments were just as shocked as you were. Sukuna never filmed anywhere but his home and the gym, this would be a monumental occasion.

“Did you want me to say no?”

“No!” You screamed immediately, nearly dropping your phone. “I just- I wasn’t expecting you to say yes!”

“Well I did.” Sukuna bit his lip, running a hand through his hair and flexing his arm. “So I guess it’s a date, huh?” His normal asshole confidence was back now that you were appearing through a screen and not right next to him. A surprised sound came from the back of your throat, and you nearly dropped the phone again.

“Y-yeah! A date!” It felt good to have you flustered for once and not Sukuna. Laughing heartily at you, Sukuna smirked at the comments.

“Was that all you wanted to ask me or was there something more?”

“No, that was it!”

“Alright.” Licking his lip and letting his tongue hang out of his mouth a little, Sukuna watched you bite your lip as well. “Well I’m gonna go, I got stuff to do, but I’ll text you later (Y/N).” Dropping his voice as he said goodbye, Sukuna left the livestream.

“Holy fuck.” As soon as his phone was off, Sukuna let out a breath he’d been holding in. His heart was pounding hard despite how confident he was in his actions. Flirting was nothing new to him, but with you it felt different and like he’d never done it before in his life.

He watched the rest of your livestream while he finished getting ready for bed, laughing at the comments still teasing you about getting flustered with him. The notifications for Twitter were going off as well, and he knew for sure that there were new fancams for him to check out later.

(Y/N): Sukuna!! You’re so embarrassing!

Texting him after your stream, your cheeks were still burning at the memory.

(Sukuna): hey, you said it would be good for views and it was

(Y/N): I know…

(Y/N): did you really mean it, about coming with me?

(Sukuna): of course. If I didn’t want to I would have said no

(Y/N): that’s good lol!

There was a lull in conversation, and Sukuna nearly fell asleep waiting for you to either text him again or for him to figure out what to say next.

(Y/N): so, a date huh? Are you going to bring me flowers?

Now he was awake. He didn’t expect you to bring that up again, and his eyes flew open. Sukuna’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, mind going blank on what to say.

(Y/N): lol just kidding! I know you only said that for the stream! I’ll text you later about the details, I’m about to knock out

(Y/N): goodnight :)

Well shit. Now he definitely wanted it to be a date.

#jujutsu kaisen #ryomen sukuna #sukuna x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #jujutsu kaisen imagines #jujutsu kaisen scenarios

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penninstitute · 4 years ago

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Case #0190811

Statement of Jameson Kisler and his writing ability. Statement given on August 11, 2019.

I would like to preface this statement with something very important: I never meant harm to anyone who has read my works.

I suppose I should start from the beginning. I have been writing for 30 years now and I’ve built up a fanbase with my works. Countless people have come to my book signing and those people have credited my novels to be extraordinary and different from other authors they’ve read. At the time, I’d feel a sort of ego boost and simply thank them for the compliment.

It is always the silence afterwards that hurts the most, I think. When the person leaves, they walk down the sidewalk and to their life, unsuspected to their nearing doom. A week passes and they’re found dead, run over by a bus or a sudden heart attack or their apartment complex has a gas leak and they’re never able to escape in time. They die and I’m the reason for it. The death toll is different each time, too, but it rises and rises each time someone new reads my books.

At first, though, my writing was simple. There was a beginning, a middle, and an end. It was just that. I was working as a freelancer writer, too, and I never had a deadline. I could write and not worry as much. There is a certain joy in writing something you can enjoy. I found myself in a zone and sometimes, I would write the whole day. I lost contact with most of my friends as a result, but I had a job to do, and it was to write.

Who knew that could change in one day.

Another thing I find important worth mentioning is I write on a typewriter. It is old, but it gets the work done. Many, many people use laptops, but you can never trust the internet.There are ghosts that live inside of the screens. Loved ones have died, but they’re still online, as if they’re waiting for someone to talk to them. I never want to encounter the ghosts of the past. A typewriter doesn’t have this problem, though. It works just as well as a laptop or phone can, and there is nothing like the feel of paper between your fingertips. The gentle click click of the words as they’re pressed into the paper gives me a sense of purpose when it comes to writing. The shrill sound of when you successfully finish a page, that was it for me. Surely, though, I have to adapt to the continuously changing world that is around us.

At least, that is what my editor wants me to do.

I’m not fond of change. As much as I want to accept the change of the days or the passing of the seasons, I can’t bring myself to it. I know by the end of the day, the end draws ever closer and at some point, as a whole, we must accept that. As I write these stories, I write endings for each and every one of them, knowing someone will read it and experience the satisfaction that comes from a complete storyline. To be an author is to be willing to accept that change will not come unless you alter the writing yourself. To be a part of the future is to be a part of the present, knowing and accepting that oftentimes than not, things will happen without your acknowledgement.

I fear, as mentioned, the same has happened to me.

This change… first occurred when one Olivia Gracestone had read my first piece in my new series, the ones I’ve been tasked to write by my editor. I remember the event clearly as it was at a book signing and she was very adamant about my works, even going as far as saying she had been a fan for a while. I signed the first page as she began to ramble and, as rude as this sounds, I was hardly paying attention. She left with the book and that was the last I heard from Ms. Gracestone.

I received a call from her parents a week later. Olivia had died, tragically, in a car crash as she was passing an intersection. A speeding semi, they told me over the phone, was the reason for her death. When I had asked why they decided to call me, they had mentioned my book. Coincidentally, in the same book, the protagonist had been killed by a speeding semi, two, if I remember correctly, and it was the book that Olivia had read before she left that afternoon. She had, as her parents told me, going on about the book, describing how she really began to feel connected to the character and how they shared the same issues. College, I believe, was the main issue in that book. Olivia was going to be a freshman in college, just starting out. At the time, I brushed off these incidents as coincidences.

The tragic death of Olivia Gracestone plagued my mind for weeks, but I continued to write because my editor was expecting something to be done by the end of that month. It was around May, I believe, I realized my works were becoming more of a problem in reality than actual fiction. As mentioned previously, I’ve grown quite a fanbase with my novels and collections, and because of that, more and more people were ready to buy my books. There were lines outside of the bookshops and talk on the internet about what my next big work would be. I was used to this type of pressure and excitement, as it was the driving force for completing my next work, which featured a small town coming together after an earthquake had occurred.

A week passes. News coverage of a small town in Nebraska reported to have been hit by a 5.9 magnitude earthquake. Lives were lost and homes were torn apart, rattled from their foundations. Coincidences. It was all coincidences, right? I watched the news with a solemn face and told myself it was a coincidence. The feeling vanished when I saw a face of a family, faces dotted by the small pigments of the TV screen. There was a little girl… with blonde pigtails and she was crying, clutching a stuffed bunny, and her father was speaking to the newscaster with a hand firmly gripped on his daughter’s shoulder.

I briefly encountered a bit of writer’s deja vu as I continued to watch the scene. It shifts from the little girl and her father, to the entire town, again. The image pans until it settles on a house, amongst the carnage. A female steps out of the house with a book tucked under her arm, her face concealed by the curtain of brown and in that small moment of coverage, I was able to get a good look at the cover.

It was my newest release.

My center of gravity had shifted and the sounds hallowed out from around me. My room darkened as thunderclouds formed outside, and at some point, I had dropped the remote. The television continued to play the scene, but my focus was blurring. Tears were falling just as the rain began to cry from the clouds outside. Pent up emotion, I believed, and realization. The thunder shook the house when I went back to my room that night. I didn’t touch my typewriter for a week, I just watched it from my bed.

Was this my change?

I have this one piece I’m working on. A longer piece, I’m afraid. It details the life of an older man, unnamed for the time being, and his story is harder to write. I believe it is only because I haven’t found… myself drawn to this project.

I’m afraid to finish it, I think, because if I finish it, will that be all I’m good for? For now, I’ll continue writing about other people’s lives and ignore the deaths that continue to grow around me.

FOLLOW-UP NOTES

While none of our employees (at least the archival employees) plan on actually reading Mr. Kisler’s works, just for... safety precautions, we do have a few of his books at the institute. We sent them to Artifact Storage for further inspection, but at a glance... they seemed mostly normal. Something about them just felt... off. I don’t really know how to explain it.

They just... looked strange. But none of the others seemed to notice anything, so. I don’t know.

Mr. Kisler wasn’t available to speak to institute staff, but... there wasn’t really anything in this statement we needed further clarification on, so. We’ve looked into the events and deaths detailed here, and confirmed all of them. Whether or not the books had a part to play, it’s unclear, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility. Reality-altering books are actually a pretty common phenomenon, considering the nature of Leitners and the like.

I think it’s safe to assume that this statement only states the truth.

#submitted statement #0190811 #tma #the magnus archives #submission

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irarelypostanything · 5 years ago

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Gen:Lock - RoosterTeeth has really come a long way

I just watched the first two episodes of Gen:Lock, and I immediately wanted to write a Tumblr post comparing it to the first RWBY episode. Then I decided against it. They came from two very different places. RWBY was supposed to be a cool, action-based web series that “aged with its audience.” RoosterTeeth itself has been known to have writers double as actors, and the entire thing came up off the ground when a web series parody intended to go on for maybe a season transformed into an extremely elaborate story with main heroes, villains, and a plot that may or may not have been invented to justify things that happened before.

Basically, they made it up as they went along.

Gen:Lock, from what I can tell, sprang up with a star-studded cast and an enormous budget. It was supposed to be something big, and there are a lot of people unfamiliar with RoosterTeeth who might pick up Gen:Lock simply because of the recognizable cast names, and because it kind of looks like the sort of thing you would see advertised with the other big shows.

So far I do really like Gen:Lock, but maybe even comparing it to RWBY isn’t completely fair.

Now watch as I try to do it anyway:

*Spoilers*

So you have this futuristic setting in New York City and an ominous threat. But wait...the ominous threat with apparently superior technology is actually human, and they even establish in an opening shot that one random person secretly working for them is able to protect his family. So the enemy also has human emotion and their own military, apparently...they’re not some sort of alien infestation. It keeps getting more interesting. They have nanotech in smoke. We have EMP, which kind of works in the hand-wavey way EMP works in other science fiction series, and the enemy really doesn’t seem to care about killing civilians in horrific ways. So basically, it’s dark but manages to evoke real emotion.

Maybe it’s not perfect. There’s already some degree of plot armor. Certain quips, at least in my mind, kind of fall flat. But what I like is it immediately establishes itself as a serious show with a dark tone, bolstered by really talented actors, and it has this degree of subtlety to it. No one is all-powerful. It immediately looks like the protagonists are fighting a losing battle. But the characters aren’t all doom and gloom, and they go about their lives regardless.

I’ve watched every single episode of RWBY. It actually has one of my favorite fanbases. But I find that almost everyone, even the most die hard of RWBY fans, admit that the show has some issues. They take time to develop characters who never appear again. They introduce godly powers to heroes and villains and then have them refrain from using them at key points. And sometimes there are such radical shifts in tone. They’ll easily plow through threat after threat and then get overwhelmed the next season. They’ll face off against some malevolent cross between a witch and Satan, and then the villains will spend the next season mostly focused on hacking their security system. It’s an intersection between science fiction and fantasy, which in some ways is great, but at times it doesn’t feel like RWBY really knows what it is.

That being said, I’ve already heard a number of comments arguing that the tone shift is justified, and that the first two seasons of RWBY were simply a “false sense of security before the rug was pulled out from beneath their feet.”

So is Gen:Lock a fantastic show, and a great step forward in RoosterTeeth? I would say so, but I’m only two episodes in. A lot of things are still mysterious. I don’t know if there’s a non-cliche way for them to resolve this major conflict. But if they can stay this compelling, and keep the characters likable, and build out a plot that’s really well thought out....then yeah, I think this is absolutely awesome.

And to think, this is a studio that started with a series of short Halo parodies that were supposed to be pretty standalone.

#20-minute freewrite #gen:lock #rwby #roosterteeth

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trishyeves · 4 years ago

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Poorly Planned Halo Post

TO START WITH: SPOILERS FOR ALL OF YOUNG JUSTICE SEASON 3, DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT. NOT PLANNING ON SPOILING THE WHOLE SEASON, BUT WHO KNOWS WHERE THIS WILL GO

So, because my brain is weirdly cyclical and I’ve randomly gotten back into Young Justice, I’ve been trolling through Tumblr regarding the show. In doing so, I’ve run into a lot of posts that deal with Halo, and they inspired me to write this poorly planned, probably a trainwreck post.

Before I say anything else, I feel like I should make something clear: people react to media really differently (obviously), especially if the material is personal to them in some way. For a lot of people what was done with Halo is season 3 of Young Justice isn’t just hard to watch, it was a travesty that completely ruined the show for them. That is totally fine. I would never pretend I have the authority to tell people if they should or shouldn’t be outraged by something, or mediate their reaction to a show. This is all just a splattering of my thoughts and feelings on this messy as hell lump of topics. If you read this and think my point of view is bullshit and hate what I have to say, I can totally understand why. This is just my two cents, as someone who is genderfluid/non-binary and queer. (Though I am not a person of color, I do not identify as a woman, and I have no connection to the Muslim faith.)

To start with the smaller issues: how Halo does at representing nonbinary people, women of color, Muslim people, and Bisexual/Pansexual/Queer people. I 100% agree that they could have done better in all of those departments, full-stop. In the scene establishing her as nonbinary, it would have been much better if they had established what pronouns she prefers (I’m using she/her throughout because that is what is used in the text and she/her nonbinary people are valid), how she wants to be seen, and it should have been brought up more often. The fact her only brush being interested in a girl/feminine person was a kiss that made her feel guilty for cheating on her boyfriend sucks, as it conflates her kissing Harper with shame. I don’t really feel qualified to wade into the area surrounding the portrayal of her wearing a hijab or the fact that she wasn’t really Muslim, Gabrielle was, but I have heard a lot of people’s thoughts on those topics, and I think they’re important to hear and consider.

On all of those points, I don’t think it’s possible to not consider them at least partial failures. That said, I do appreciate the attempt to give us this intersectional character who can be so many different pieces of representation at once while also being a lovable and well-developed character. I know for a lot of people the failings of her portrayal invalidate any good will their attempts at representation could have fostered, but that’s not how I feel about it.

Onto the big thing: Halo dying, graphically, a lot. It is, to say the very least, a bad look. A lot of people are upset about the fact that one of the handful of queer characters on the show, a woman of color, one who is associated with the Muslim faith, is shown being violently killed episode after episode. They have every right to be. I find it pretty abhorrent too.

It was a bad idea, a really bad idea. BUT I also don’t think it taints the entire show, and I don’t think it signifies that the people creating the show wanted to show women/queer people/poc dying graphically. That was the effect, but I highly doubt malice, sadism, or bigotry was the direct cause.

From here on out, I am talking based on my understanding of worldbuilding, character writing, television production, and what I know about the development of this show in particular. But I am not an insider with special knowledge of what went down behind the scenes, and I could be totally full of shit on a number of points.

First off, Halo is basically a completely original character. The Outsiders comic series had a Halo character who was also a gestalt entity created by a being related to the Source taking over a dead woman’s body, but from what I can tell on the whole they have little to do with her. They made the decision to change her host body’s nationality to Quaraci, probably for better representation, and changed the entity in her body into a Mother Box’s soul, which I am fairly sure was to tie her in better to the overall season’s New Gods focus, the same way they did with altering Cyborg’s origin story.

Second, they changed some of her powers, but one of the ones they kept was the idea of healing and being able to resurrect herself from death. Now, the only way to really make that work in a visual medium is for her to die sometimes, then resurrect. That does create a weird narrative element, since no other characters get badly injured/fatally wounded at the rate Halo does, but it’s a way to show her using her abilities. Of course, a lot of people have said, rightly, that there’s no need for those deaths to be so graphic. They could have been off-screen, or hinted at, or a number of other things. If the season was aired on Cartoon Network, as was originally planned, I am certain that’s what they would have done.

Thirdly, and this is the big one, I am fairly sure the decision to make her deaths as graphic as possible was tied in with it being aired on DC Universe. Sure, the platform means they could do it, but I also think it’s related to why they did it. It’s possible that Greg Weisman wanted to show off some gore thanks to the liberties granted him, but I think the more likely option is this was studio interference. They looked at the audience Young Justice had developed, one that tended heavily towards older teens and adults, and made it a condition for the show being brought back on the new streaming service that they needed to up the age rating of the show itself to match. Specifically, they probably requested more violence and for it to be more gratuitous where possible. After all, this is DC, and we all know how much they adore making things far more graphic and violent than they have any right to be, all for the sake of making their properties look more ‘grown up’.

Now, clearly some of that violence went to other characters. Victor Stone’s transformation into Cyborg is easily the most gruesome version of that story yet, and several characters throughout get pretty terrible deaths. (Baron Bedlam, for example.) But Halo got the brunt of them. After all, they needed to have more violence on the regular, but Greg Weisman hates killing characters, especially in this show. It’s a huge sandbox with as many DC characters from various eras as they can possibly fit inside it, so they don’t want heroes or villains dying when they don’t need to. But they do have this main character, one who can die again and again and again, and who can come back every time. So, Halo became a gore magnet.

I’d also wager that her being non-binary was a late addition to her character, something they only threw in as a scene once they realized that, as a living machine in a human corpse, there was no reason for her to have an attachment to any gender, and when they realized they could use that to bump up their LGBTQ+ representation, they did the scene.

None of this makes what they did good, or right, or acceptable. It still isn’t. I really, really wish it hadn’t been in the show, it turns my stomach. But at the same time, I don’t think they wrote that element for the season in an attempt to sadistically torture a marginalized character. They absolutely should have hired some sensitivity writers to look things over and catch these things, and I hope the controversy all this caused means they’ll be more careful in the future. But I am still happy they created Halo as they did and gave her to us as a fanbase, even with those disgusting death scenes. If Season 4 does actually happen, I think there is a chance they’ll have heard our voices and work to do better. This is a case where ignorance, rather than cruelty, was the cause, at least from what I can see. If you still hate that part of the show, or the show itself, I’m not expecting this to change your mind, and I don’t want it to. I just wanted to throw out my thoughts, before I collapse into sleep from a long shift at work.

#young justice #season 3 outsiders #halo #spoilers

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duhragonball · 5 years ago

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Logan Paul

youtube

I did some research for that Coffe Shop AU fic I did last month, because I got it in my head to set it in Japan, and I wanted to make sure I got Japan right, or at least right enough that it wouldn’t be super-obviously wrong. The last time I tried to write anything set in Japan was when I tried to write Tenchi Muyo! fics, and I quickly realized I had no idea what I was doing, so I noped all the characters into outer space, where I could make stuff up.

But that was 19 years ago, and now we have YouTube, with tons of videos about travel and tourism and local custom. I often regard YouTube with contempt, but I have to be honest, it’s a bigger part of my life than I want to admit. YouTube taught me how to change the headlights on my old Pontiac G6; it lets me watch all the good parts of Star Wars on-demand, and it taught me not to eat while walking around town in Japan.

Anyway, now I get recommended all these videos about Japan, and they’re kind of fun to watch. I checked out one about capsule hotels, because I could never tell if those were are really good or really bad idea. I’m at least satisfied now that I could fit in one of those things if I needed to use one. Then I came across this video about Logan Paul.

In case you’re not familiar with him, Logan Paul is the jackass vlogger who decided to do his show in Japan for a little while, and while he was there he found a dead body in a forest and filmed it. This drew international outrage, and from what I understand his popularity nosedived afterward. I didn’t pay much attention to his story at the time, because there’s a million jackass vloggers on YouTube, and it struck me that the only thing special about him was that he had the budget to fly to Japan, and the celebrity to actually get in trouble for doing something offensive.

Then I watched this video about him on Totally Not Mark’s channel. It’s no longer there for some reason, but back in September he made this “mini-documentary” about Logan Paul’s attempt to stage some sort of comeback. As I recall, the basic idea is that Logan’s really, really sorry for offending everyone, but he wants to be a famous YouTube celebrity again, so he’s going to do.... something... and return to his former prominence. And he’s got a film crew making a documentary out of this quest, so that if he ever succeeds, he can put out this feel-good redemption story.

The problem is that no one knows what the hell he’s supposed to do to get people to like him again. I mean, I’m sure he still has fans today, but not as many as he did before, and he seems to want to just hit a reset button and go back to the way things were pre-Japan. According to Totally Not Mark’s now-deleted video, all he seemed to be coming up with were various sports events for charity. He had a couple of boxing matches against fellow YouTuber KSI, although I don’t know that either of those fights were for charity. Judging from his Wikipedia article, he doesn’t seem to be doing anything particularly different from before. Mark seemed to genuinely think he might have a shot at redemption, even if the path forward isn’t obvious.

I found the whole idea kind of stupid. Redemption isn’t about celebrities becoming celebrities again. If Logan Paul learned a lesson from the consequences of his actions, if he reflects on his bad behavior and takes steps to be a better person, then great, but that doesn’t mean he gets a free pass from the public. He had an act, and people bought into it for a while, and then he took it too far and it backfired on him. There’s some things in life you can’t undo. Watching Mark’s mini-documentary suggested to me that Paul still hasn’t figured this out, probably because he never understood how he got so famous in the first place. It just sort of fell into his lap before, so he doesn’t understand how he lost it, or how it’s not something he can just recreate at will.

Anyway, that brings me back to the video above, by “That Japanese Man Yuta”. In it, he discusses all the other videos Paul made during his visit to Japan. The video in the forest was taken down, and Paul made a video apologizing for that one, but all these other videos paint a bigger picture of a guy who basically made it his business to wander around in a foreign country and make an ass out of himself. He horsed around in religious sites, places of business, in the middle of traffic, and pretty much anywhere else he pleased. As far as I can tell, the joke was one of two things. Either it was “Hey, I’m pestering these people and they just sort of stand around and let me!” or “Hey, I’m doing the same nonsense I usually do, only this time it’s in Japan!”

Yuta takes the time to explain exactly why Paul’s behavior is so disrespectful, but it really isn’t even an issue of Japanese culture specifically. I wouldn’t want him doing that crap in any country, including the U.S. Seriously, imagine if he went into a church and just started throwing coins around. Imagine if he went to a big city and ran around in a costume in the middle of an intersection. There’s a scene where he waves around a raw fish in public, then he gets bored with it and leaves it on the back of a taxi cab. That might be funny in a cartoon, or some fictional comedy, but he’s doing all this “XD lol random” crap around real people who aren’t even remotely in on the joke. Really, the joke seems to be nothing more than “Look these bystanders have no idea what I’m doing and they’re confused and annoyed by my antics.” Then he praises the Japanese people for being “so nice”, as if they’re being good sports about the whole thing. Well no, they were just tolerating his behavior, and even if they were being “nice” that doesn’t make his behavior right.

And that’s why his “redemption arc” is doomed to failure. What Paul doesn’t seem to get is that the same man-child shenanigans that got him in trouble were also responsible for his rise to stardom. There’s not some magic formula where he can keep doing his old routine and control people’s reaction to it. And he can’t reinvent himself because the goofball persona was the only thing that made him a big deal. No one got into this guy because he’s a good athlete. They want to watch him dress up in stupid costumes and throw shit at people. Only that’s no longer tenable, so I’d say his only choice is to accept whatever fanbase he has left as his new level.

I don’t know that I have a point to any of this. I just watched the Mark video and thought “Wow, this Logan Paul guy is an entitled shithead.” And then I watched the Yuta video and thought “Wow, he’s an even bigger shithead than I ever imagined.” I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that his athletic build, lantern jaw, and curly blonde hair are probably why he’s managed to survive as many scandals as he has. He looks like the lead in some stoner comedy, and people want to root for him and overlook his flaws. It’d be kind of interesting to see how he does when he hits forty, but no one will be paying attention by then.

#that's not a dragon ball

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paperclipninja · 6 years ago

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I started watching younger this week because of you, and I have become a hardcore CharlesXLiza shipper! I do have my doubts though because through some searching it looks like team josh may have a larger fanbase? I can’t go through another show where my ship isn’t endgame because it hurrrtttsss (also a fellow hardcore Tiva shipper and we all know how that went down!)... what are your thoughts on who will become endgame?

Anon, hellooooo! And also, yay that you delved into Younger (just such a fab show all round) and extra yay that the Charles and Liza story grabbed you as it has me and many others!

I actually think that the fanbase is pretty evenly split across both Team Charles and Team Josh. I just think that certain factions of both teams are particularly vocal or present on social media at different times and that potentially skews how balanced the spread really is. There have also been interviews in which Darren and other writers have said that they read some of the comments and if there was a persistent thing that kept coming up they might take notice but they otherwise really write the story and characters they want to write. So I don’t think the fanbase will necessarily have any influence over how this show plays out.

I 100% hear where you’re coming from though, I do not ship pairings that easily believe it or not and this is the first show and pairing that has grabbed me and drawn me in since Tiva (we’re obvs bound for life purely because of that whole experience). Honestly, there are a few factors in my mind that will contribute to how any romantic pairing might play out on the show. Depending how the rest of this season goes, from a narrative perspective, I still think Charles would be endgame if there is going to be a romantic pairing at the end. However I think that the number of seasons this show runs for will greatly influence how it may play out. In order for Charles to be endgame if there are one or two more seasons after this one, there’s still unresolved stuff with Josh IMO that we would need to see Liza fully address and that relationship to really transition away from any possibility of a rekindling. I feel like there’s really nothing there romantically at the moment, however the insinuation that there’s possibility or something might happen etc is always still there so that would need to go.

Similarly, if they decided to bring Liza and Josh back together it would have to somehow show that they had grown and happened to intersect again at a point when everything lines up but for me, that’s really hard to buy or to find plausible as a long term or satisfying ending considering how little they have in common within a romantic relationship. A revisit of the relationship, ok, I could see that happening if the show continues a couple more seasons, but as enduring endgame, I don’t think so.

Considering the incredible divide that this love triangle, that apparently isn’t a focus of the show yet seems to be focused on an awful lot, has caused amongst fans, I feel more and more that Liza may end up alone. I just cannot see any other way that won’t leave half the fan base disappointed or angry. I mean, I like to think and hope that Darren and the writers preference giving the characters some kind of ending that shows that career success and friendships and romance are all attainable and that a woman starting over can have it all and will just leave the fans to deal with it. Because at the end of the day, it’s Liza’s story and I think the most satisfying thing as a viewer would be to see her thriving and happy and free (with career, friends, relationship). I would love to see this show challenge the idea that strong, career focused women end up alone because it just perpetuates an idea that women must make a choice - successful career or relationship but the two cannot co-exist (though Diana is proof they can and I am so enjoying her journey).

Sorry, I got a bit ranty there, but short answer - I really don’t know, it will depend on how many more seasons the show goes for I think but I feel pretty sure endgame will either be Charles or Liza alone.

My hope is obviously that at the end Liza is in a happy and supportive relationship with Charles after we have seen his character learn and grow (which I think we’re seeing right now) from his past experiences and mistakes and that the two have grown together, two people who have reinvented themselves and found each other and helped make each other better people.

I am an eternal optimist and even with Tiva I have always remained optimistic that as long as that show is on air, they may still get their HEA (and I cannot believe that’s an actual possibility now...but that’s another essay for another time).

#anon #liza x charles

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writingpromptswithkate · 5 years ago

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Taylor Swift’s “Lover” - A First Impressions Review

Let's face it: Taylor Swift is one of the biggest music stars in the English-speaking world. That trend is not showing signs of reversing any time soon, so we might as well get used to the idea that it's her world and we're all here just living in it.

So let's talk about Lover, the much anticipated and much-much marketed new album following her musically and socially divisive last entry, reputation. Lover contains the usual Taylor Swift album fare: that is to say a bunch of love songs and a few jabs at her various haters. Let's start with the jabs, because the album does and what's good enough for the ol' T-swizzle is good enough for me.

We open with “I Forgot That You Existed”. This one is definitely directed at a specific person, but you could just about toss a coin with Kanye West written on one side and Calvin Harris on the other. Lyrical cues are just vague enough that either would do. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter though; this track is not that much worth thinking about. She forgot that they existed, except for writing and recording a whole song about it, and I've now forgotten that this song existed, except to bitch about it for a minute on the internet.

Further entries in the hater-jab category include “The Man” and “You Need To Calm Down”, which are directed at The Patriarchy and Haters On Twitter, respectively. Of the two, “The Man” is more to my music aesthetic taste, even if it rings a bit hollow lyrically. Would her race to the top of the music industry have been easier if she was a man? Likely. Would the media make less of a thing out of her personal relationships if she was a man? Definitely (but if I learned anything at all from Hiddleswift it's that at a certain fanbase size being a man is no defense against sharks in a blood frenzy). But it all leaves a bad taste in my mouth because, well... Did I really come here to listen to one of the most successful women in the world sing about how she's not privileged enough? It's not that she doesn't have a point; it's that about 99% of people listening to this song are dealing with the same or worse problems in their own industries, only we don't have half her wealth or status to carry us. So forgive us if all the POC, women, LGBTQ+, disabled, chronically ill, neurodivergent, and/or poor folks out here think maybe she needs to calm down.

I want to move on to the love songs now, because much like spelling, those are more fun.

Something I have come to appreciate about Swift is how, beginning with Red, many of her love songs have taken on a personal edge. Some details are straight-up autobiographical. Things don't have to be 'real' to be good, but in music, it sure helps.

So: “Cornelia Street”. It's such a specific detail, right there in the title. There's a line about throwing open a window and feeling the autumn air, and it sounds real. In “Afterglow”, when she sings about being wrong and picking fights, that feels real. When she sings about loving America but also loving a “London Boy”, well, that one seems like the free space on the Real Taylor Swift bingo card. Many artists pull real details from their lives to fuel their music, but not all artists can make those details sound real on record. This is a line Taylor Swift has walked beautifully, both in this album and in its predecessor reputation.

Many of the love songs on this album, regardless of their 'realness' score, also have an undercurrent of anxiety not present in reputation.”Death By A Thousand Cuts”, the aforementioned “Afterglow” and “Cornelia Street”, “Cruel Summer”, and the deeply moody “The Archer” all deal to varying degrees with heartbreak, not as a present trial but as a dreaded future possibility. With lines like 'saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts', 'hope I never lose you, hope it never ends', and 'help me hold on to you', Taylor Swift has never sounded more like she has something to lose.

The most real and most anxious song on the album, though, isn't an overtly romantic love song. In fact, it might be a song of a non-romantic love entirely. “Soon You'll Get Better” feels so real that I got goosebumps and cried, and then fought the urge to Google 'is Taylor Swift's mom okay?' *note: at no point does she mention her mom, it's just that she sounds completely lost without whomever the song is about, in a way that reminds me of people who have lost a parent.* The minimal backing instruments only add to the hopelessness. It's about frailty and mortality, and if you ever needed a reminder that Swift came up in country music, well here's, as the poets say, your sign.

Switching gears here: special mention now to “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince”, which is just a fun piece of music, as well as definitely the name of an anime[citation needed]. Is it a little bit ridiculous that a grown woman likens her relationship to some petty high school drama? Well, yes, obviously, that's why it's fun, and also why it needs to be an anime title. I don't have anything to justify this guilty-pleasure feeling except that sometimes a song hits you in just the right spot, somewhere at the intersection of car karaoke jam and big mood, with a dash of silly.

It feels weird not to mention “ME! (feat. Brendon Urie of Panic! At The Disco)”, which is a song title I wanted to type just once in full so I could use two exclamation points. I don't have much to say about “ME! (etc)” that was not already said by someone when the single came out. I've heard it called “Blank Space in reverse”, as in 'darling I'm a [daydream] dressed like a [nightmare]', and that's the aptest description I could offer. One thing about it I can say now that I couldn't before is that it feels out of place in the context of the album. It's placed between two much mellower tracks, so album listening feels disjointed and unbalanced. It definitely feels like a 'missing link' track designed to prepare the reputation listeners for Lover without actually being a proper fit with the rest of the album.

Lover ends on a hopeful note with a track called “Daylight”. Personally, I think it's delightful that we're ending with this, and meanwhile, reputation ends with “New Years Day”. Both songs carry the theme of entering into or rediscovering something new, in which the past informs but does not bind. Does it draw a parallel between the two albums? Yes, of course. Is that parallel justified? Also yes. Her jab songs on Lover are still directly related to her reputation, after all, and all the love songs with any intended autobiography are written about the same person. reputation is a harsher album: the angry songs are angrier and the love songs are more intense and direct; Lover's jabs are more dismissive and its love songs more pleading and vulnerable. It's a bit like getting HATE tattooed on one set of knuckles and now here comes LOVE on the other hand to balance it out. For maximum effect you really have to take the two as a set.

#review #taylor swift #lover #music review #reputation

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disease-danger-darkness-silence · 3 years ago

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Okay so I'm a SPN fandom survivor. I don't go here yet but I need to pass some vital info down.

Please leave these guys alone. Do not link them to fan things. Especially if they're involved in production. They literally cannot look at them because if they do, and they take inspiration from it, you could them to court, legally. So they have to maintain a practice of not looking at anything anyone sends them.

Instead, ask questions about the process. Don't be obsessive. Ask about the budgeting, about how some effects were done, if there are any hair, makeup, or wardrobe people we should be praising, how script writing works. Ask what kind of filming process they used. Ask what a typical day on set was like. Ask if everyone was strictly business, pranky, or somewhere in-between. Ask if anyone on crew or cast was known for being the class clown (yes, we know, but still).

Ask questions pertinent to their crafts. If they're a writer, ask them about how they build good characters. If they're a director, ask them about the process they use to get the shots they want and the performances they want. If they're an actor, ask them about how they tapped into the character and what their opinions on the character are. If they're production, ask them about lighting, sound, staging, props, set carp, whatever. If they're a producer, ask them about how to break into the production world and what the hardest part of production is. If they're in music and scoring, ask them what emotions they tapped into to produce said score.

Don't ask about ships or fanart or fanfic or sex or whatever unless it's got to do with the writing, characterization, et. Because these people would all love to talk about their crafts, trust me. As a stagehand, if someone came up to me after a Broadway show and asked about the prop construction or wardrobe setting I would have been giddy. As a writer, when someone asks me about how I developed something, I feel absolute joy, even if I can't really answer them.

Engage with them on their level. Don't try and bring them to ours. The two don't really intersect very well and then you wind up with creators that loathe their fanbases and actively mock them (see: SuperWhoLock - all three shows found ways to take massive jabs at their audiences bc they hated them).

And hey, you may wind up with some really excellent advice, whether it's on how best to style a wig for your next cosplay, or how to break into scriptwriting.

Just.

Talk to them about shit they know and love. They know you love their show and they're thrilled. But they don't need to see NSFW art or fanfic, and in fact, legally shouldn't. Talk to them like they're people with interests. Because they are, and because they have so much to say and we have so much we could learn from them.

Hey, i know y'all love the fact that Vico Ortiz or David Jenkins or Con O' Neil are so vocally supportive of fanworks. I do too.

But.

Quelch the parasocial attitude now that it's early. Don't treat these people like your best friends or ask their opinions on fandom things. It's very nice that they like fanwork but for fuck's sake, try to leave them alone. Don't look for their approval. Have a chuckle and move on.

I saw countless times what happens to approachable crew when they meet with overentusiastic fanbases on twitter and it. never. ends. well.

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pixelgrotto · 6 years ago

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The horrific Resident Evil playthrough, part ten

Resident Evil 6 is the big one that I was anticipating when I started this series playthrough in March. It’s the one that seems to have split the fanbase like no other, the one that some folks love and others abhor, and the one that took Resident Evil so far into the realm of explosions on top of zombies on top of exploding zombies that the franchise had no choice but to dial the entire thing back in Resident Evil 7 in order to give everyone’s minds a break before those exploded too. There is, in fact, a particular sort of enemy in this game that represents it well - called the Whopper, it’s a giant Fat Albert-looking thing that charges at you in a truly grotesque example of fun character design. It’s a bioweapon to be reckoned with, and when you see one coming your way, all you can say is “OH SHIT” as you try to blast its head apart before it barrages you into a wall.

RE6 is a whopper of a game. It’s chock full of so many different gameplay styles, so many plot threads, so many bits and pieces barely holding together at the seams in a mad effort to appease all sectors of the fan base - the people who preferred Resident Evil when it was eerie and quiet, the fans who fell in love with the series when Resident Evil 4 introduced an emphasis on action and the shippers who just love the characters and want to see them press the trigger of a Magnum at the same time and let loose with a bullet that will send the remains of a hulking Serbian mutation go stumbling backwards into the flames of a burning wind tunnel.

The only way to properly assess RE6 in the midst of all this madness is to look at its four campaigns one-by-one, which took me 33 hours in total to complete, a staggering number for this series.

Leon’s campaign - Everyone’s favorite Resident Evil protagonist who is still rocking Leonardo DiCaprio 90s hair (even though he’s aging in real-time and is apparently in his late 30s now) is BACK in this campaign, which seems to be the one that the game wants you to play first. It’s a rollicking adventure which I personally thought was the best of the bunch, though I wouldn’t blame you if you found Chris’ campaign better. I think I was won over by the fan service, since Leon’s opening chapter immediately channels Resident Evil 2 by forcing you to escape Tall Oaks, an American metropolitan area that’s essentially Raccoon City 2.0. Zombies will be lurching at you from the darkness like the old games, you’ve gotta run through subway cars just like in RE2 and RE3, and the whole vibe actually approaches scary at a few moments, which is something that the rest of this game has absolutely no time for. Partnered with Leon is Helena, a new character who’s also a US government agent but frankly kind of boring, and the pair quickly find themselves wrapped up in a conspiracy engineered by a politician named Derek Simmons. To figure out the extent of his conspiracy, you’ve gotta play Ada’s campaign (all the characters’ stories intersect at various points, which is one of this game’s best ideas), but let’s just say that Leon’s party ends in a wild rush to a made-up Chinese city named Lanshiang - which, from the POV of someone who lived in Hong Kong for six years, is clearly HK under another name. Half of Lanshiang gets blown up, Simmons transforms into what looks like a T-Rex and then a giant insect kaiju, and the general tone is deliciously batshit, though if you don’t like batshit then your mileage will vary. Leon gets music that I like to call "Funky Zombie Porno Breakbeats” for his ending theme, and I feel like this phrase can summarize the tone of the entire Resident Evil franchise perfectly.

Chris’ campaign - If Leon’s adventure was the cheesy-but-occasionally-spooky “LET’S TAKE THESE ZOMBIES TO SUPLEX CITY, CHUMS” vibe of Resident Evil 4 on acid, then Chris’ campaign is the “MILITARY ESPIONAGE ACTION AGAINST BIOWEAPONS, BRUH” vibe of Resident Evil 5 on acid. It begins with Chris suffering from a bout of PTSD after losing a contingent of his men in a made-up country that’s supposed to be Serbia, then moves to Lanshiang after ace sniper Piers recruits Chris for one last mission. Instead of zombies, you fight mostly J’avo, a breed of terrorists using viruses to give themselves horrific limbs, and everything resembles a Call of Duty or SOCOM game, with Chris hearing instructions from his squad leader through his headpiece, ducking behind cover to shoot J’avos apart and generally being a weathered, grumpy soldier. The main theme of Chris’ campaign is actually removed from the overarching tale involving Simmons, and the focus is instead on the quieter, MANLY subplot about how all these years of fighting monstrosities has worn Mr. Redfield down. He needs to learn how to be a soldier once more, and Piers - a guy who I was initially suspicious of because he’s a pretty boy with nicely groomed hair, and those sorts are usually lame in Japanese video games - comes through as one of the most likable additions to Resident Evil lore in a long time to offer Chris much-needed support. The entire campaign might actually be better if played as Piers instead of Chris, especially due to a touching ending scene which is probably the one moment where the game’s plot transcends crazy horror action and enters the realm of something actually thought-provoking. Chris’ campaign, in general, is also where RE6 seems the most focused and confident, though the cover shooting mechanics are clunky when compared to titles that actually specialize in cover shooting, like Gears of War. Chris also doesn’t have Funky Zombie Porno Breakbeats for his ending music, so Leon gets a tiny point ahead of him in my book, but not by much.

Jake’s campaign - I’ve read a few reviews that call this campaign the “experimental” one, and...yeaaaaah, it is. Jake, who’s the son of former Resident Evil baddie Albert Wesker, was presumably designed to serve as a bold new protagonist for future games, but he’s kind of an emo douchebag, so I played through the entirety of his missions as his partner Sherry Birkin. Sherry’s the little girl from Resident Evil 2 all grown up, which I think is genius, because she serves as a tangible example of this franchise’s progression over the years. You could probably show her picture to anyone unfamiliar with Resident Evil and be like, “That’s a formerly 10-year-old side character from the second game grown up into a secret agent” and get a response of "Woah, cool,” so yeah, I like Sherry a lot. In fact, her presence made this whole campaign tolerable, because Jake is an edgelord and his missions run the confused gamut from shoot ‘em up sections to weird exploration bits that seem to want to channel the spirit of the old games but don’t succeed. Then there are the stealth and chase sequences against Ustanak, the “hulking Serbian mutation” that I mentioned a few paragraphs ago. This fellow was clearly created to remind Resident Evil veterans of Mr. X and Nemesis from RE2 and RE3, but while those guys would break down walls and pop outta nowhere to put a lump in your throat, Ustanak’s every impending arrival is advertised from a mile away, to the point where he’s not really frightening - just redundant. And the stealth bits against him seem like B-tier ripoffs of sequences in Metal Gear Solid, because RE6′s engine is really not engineered for sneakiness. At one point, Sherry and Jake have to hide in garbage dumpsters as Ustanak sniffs around, and that serves as an accurate representation of what large portions of their campaign are. These two kiddies do get a cheesy love ballad for their ending song, though, because the game really wants you to ship ‘em. Sherry, ya deserve better.

Ada’s campaign - As messy as Jake’s campaign is, however, it’s nothing compared to Ada’s, which was originally an unlockable extra in the original release of RE6 and designed to tie up loose story threads. It does do that, though the resulting plot - where Simmons got so obsessed with Ada Wong that he whipped up an entirely new virus to re-create her and then lost track of it - is pretty meh, though it could perhaps be an intriguing exploration of the depths of male entitlement in the hands of a better writer. Aside from these pieces of so-so story, Ada’s adventure offers aggravation in the form of bad level design and a truly horrid slew of Quicktime Events and wretched stealth sections, which, once again, this game just doesn’t do well. It opens with her investigating a sub filled with guards that she’s encouraged to sneak past, except you can’t really sneak in RE6 and eventually they all notice and decide to gangbang you, and then the sub floods and there’s dizzying shaky cam everywhere that made me feel sick. You’re given a minimal amount of seconds to succeed on the Quicktime Events to escape the rising floodwaters, and I felt like I was playing a game of Dragon’s Lair, where you need to press right or left immediately or risk seeing yourself die over and over again. That sums up the frustration of Ada’s campaign, which also made me realize one important thing - I really don’t find Ada Wong to be much of an interesting character. She’s little more than a walking femme fatale trope, and even people who insist on shipping her with Leon will probably have to admit that those two’s “relationship,” if you can even call it that, is little more than quick winks and five minute interactions that have amounted to nothing over the span of nearly twenty years. The pair of them get ONE good scene on a bridge in this game, but that’s it, and honestly, their cornball kiss near the end of RE2 is still a more genuine character interaction. Oh yeah, and on the topic of ending music, since I seem to be coming back to that a lot in this post, Ada gets generic filler tunes for her credit roll. How appropriate.

As you can see in the impressions above, in its own special way, Resident Evil 6 has something for everyone, ranging from a quality tale about battle-hardened men shooting biomutations to terrible levels that feel like they came out of a 2005 PS2 game that was quickly relegated to the bargain bin at Gamestop. Reviews were all over the place when this sucker came out, and still are today, with just as many people insisting that this game is the shit as there are people emphasizing that it is shit. My verdict? It’s BOTH, with some truly excellent parts and some truly abhorrent ones. It could have done with some trimming, for sure, and at the end of the day, Leon’s and Chris’ campaigns feel like the only real important ones here. A streamlined and likely better-received version of Resident Evil 6 would’ve only focused on those two guys - since one pivotal scene where the pair meet for a few minutes, briefly scuffle and POINT THEIR GUNS AT EACH OTHER YEAAA FAN SERVICE - seems to have been written first. That would’ve given Resident Evil 6 a better balance, with Leon’s missions possibly focusing on old school survival horror and pulp while Chris’ missions would lean hard on the military action stuff.

But we didn’t get that. Instead, what we got is a shambling whopper of a game - at times as unwieldy and ridiculous as the enemy bearing the same name, at other times just as satisfying as a real-life beef whopper. Resident Evil 6 is both good and bad, the video game equivalent of an excessive and expensive comic book crossover, and shit, I think I’ve just written the most about it than any of its predecessors.

That, at the very least, has to count for something.

All screenshots taken by me. For more, check out this Twitter thread showing my step-by-step progress through the game.

#pixel grotto #video games #now playing #resident evil #biohazard #resident evil 6 #leon kennedy #chris redfield #piers nivans #jake muller #sherry birkin #capcom

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crystalnet · 7 years ago

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State of the Art: JRPG Spotlight-

Issue #1- 2017 at a Glance- A quarterly or bi-annual journal on the JRPG at large, focusing on recent releases, trends, quarterly reviews/analyses and upcoming release hype.

The other night I was getting yet even deeper still into the freshly minted minor-masterpiece that is Xenoblade Chronicles 2 when it dawned on me just how good 2017 was to the quaint little genre known as the JRPG. I knew all year while it was happening that some special games were getting released with a certain regularity, but now that the dust has fully settled, we can look back and be conclusively impressed by such a stellar stretch.

3 or 4 years ago I think people were getting ready to pen their moratoriums on why big developers and JRPGs should soon plan on never intersecting again save for small-scale handheld releases, and now here we are and Japan is seemingly back on top as far as role-playing goes. That return-to-form didn't always seem so inevitable as it is now that it's fully underway, especially after a somewhat shaky stretch for the genre during the 7th generation. Indeed, high-definition graphics and devs who catered to Gatorade-guzzling gamer bros seemed to not be the boon to the genre that old-school role-players really needed, and even the first couple of years of the 8th generation saw the genre to still be on slightly shaky ground, without a ton of great titles to point to from those initial years.

But then throughout the 7th gen a little franchise called Dark Souls (a JRPG in spirit, though not quite in practice, in many ways) started to build a little following, generating new interest in things like difficulty, customization, and innovative diagetic story-telling. As of the middle of this decade though, the genre still doesn’t have all that much of a presence compared to the late 90s heyday of JRPGs. Cut to 2016 though and Square drops FFXV which is a solid, if not-perfect realization of the 30-year-old standard-bearer of the genre, (a herald of sorts, if you will) and BAM. 2017 begins and in quick succession Nier Automata, Persona 5 and Breath of the Wild drop, all to stunningly positive reception. Now BotW, like Dark Souls, is not as much of a JRPG as the other 3 releases I hope to focus on, but Zelda has always had it's toe in the same waters as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, borrowing and simplifying elements of role-playing games from an action-adventure perspective, and in turn, also influencing those very JRPG franchises it seemed to pay homage to.

This wasn't just a coincidental blip of releases though, proved largely by the fact that all the way at the end of the year, Xenoblade 2 would also drop, and show yet again how the JRPG can be fresh and vital, and can be a Nintendo-exclusive at that. Indeed, I hope to demonstrate my thesis that it was a particularly strong year by triangulating my discussion around Nier A, Persona 5 and Xenoblade 2. Not only are these three very strong titles, they are also all pretty vastly different styles of JRPGs, which I think displays the health and potential of the genre even better than the fact that they are so individually good. First of all we have an industry veteran and mad-hatter in Yoko Taro finally coalescing a fully-realized vision of action-JRPG greatness by collaborating with Platinum games to make something as heady, and intellectual as it is well-designed and fun to play. That game is something like a Hegelian Philosophy PhD driving a Lamborghini in terms of the amount of stuff going on with the writing and character development, all while sporting a super classy luxury sports-car, six-cylinder engine. For long-time fans of Taro, I don't think this direction could have ever been predicted, though they may have secretly dreamed of such a fusion of form and function.

The best thing about how simultaneously weird and playable Nier A is for me is the way it hearkens back to the golden age of PS2 JRPGs for me personally. Without pinning it to a single PS2-era title, it gives me the same feeling that games during that console could consistently deliver on: a fully realized fantasy/sci fi world, a deep-yet-approachable combat system, a weird and very-Japanese, but also deep-as-hell plot, and a certain functionality that games like Kingdom Hearts 2, Rogue Galaxy and Final Fantasy XII delivered on back then. I don't mean to say it's derivative or stuck in the past, it's just that, the highlights of the PS2 days are my go-to precedent for what a good modern, post-16-bit JRPG is, since that equally sweet ps1 era can only be reasonably emulated on smaller and/or handheld retro-style releases. And while the story’s depth and esoteric nature recall the plot’s and worlds of PS1 and 2 greats like FFX, Xenosaga or Vagrant Story, the combat itself feels as fast-and-furious as hack-n-slash classics from then like Devil May Cry.

So while Nier had action-(j)RPG style gameplay covered, Persona 5 was there for all the turn-based devotees, and oh boy were we there for it also. That game was a huge victory lap for Atlus, who has built up a deep fanbase over the past decade, largely because of youtubers (at least in the west we can thank the cult-y presence of its fans online for the slow-burn development of an army of Atlus acolytes, whereas P3 and 4 were only barely noticed in the States back when they actually first came out.) And they finally capitalized on that hard-earned interest by finally following up P4 after nearly a decade, and while they were at it, they also showed everyone that fully turn-based (not even slightly active-time) systems can still melt faces, please crowds and feel fresh, which is no mean feat at all in a world where some question if turn-based is officially dead save for retro-homages.

And while Nier captures a kind of ethereal PS2-esque quality, Persona very literally pulls some of the PS2-era goodness into the future by updating and refining the awesomely deep and OCD-enabling systems of the now holy-grail-level PS2 era Persona games. Yes, wandering around Shinjuku, going on supportive dates with classmates, building up your relationships in general, and working a part time job between study breaks has been fully realized for the modern gamer, and it is glorious to behold.

And that takes us to Xenoblade which out of all the titles I might be most surprised by. Being a bit of a Xeno-noob, I wasn't sure if the release was going to be a major or minor event for role-players, especially given Nintendo's spotty track-record with the JRPG, usually sporting all of maybe one or two truly notable ones per generation, as well as their tendency to censor and/or smother developers. But alas, Xenoblade is fully-formed, proper, brimming-with-life and as deserving of the title of new standard-bearer to the genre as any of the other fantastic JRPGs released that year, many of which I won't even get to.

As is the case with the others, it seems to draw on PS2 era greatness in someways, by building on battle systems like the ones in FFXI and FFXII, while also being an actual descendant of the Xenosaga series that rocked that console, and also still draws on PS3-era titles that were successful (though smaller in number there were some good ones!) like Ni No Kuni and the Last Story. This is a round-about way of saying the combat system is an excellent take on the free-moving active-time auto-battling-but-with-real-time-triggers-style combat that started to show up towards the end of the PS2's life-cycle just when people were realizing the days of pure turn-based role-laying may be limited. And it also delivers on all those other check-marked boxes that any truly great and special JRPG must deliver on including: emotionally stirring and unique soundtrack, a deep and rewardingly complex story with all sorts of specific and detailed lore, a really nice visual style, and some incredibly beautiful locales. Okay that last thing isn't even a thing JRPGs usually have to deliver on, but it sure is a highlight. Some of the locations you move through during your travels in this game are breathtaking, and even more impressive than the similarly psuedo-cell-shaded style of Breath of the Wild, whose open-world Monolith Soft also worked on (though you can't climb all over these areas I should say).

I'm as blown away by the suddenly addictive combat (once it fully kicks in and you are given full control over 3 blades around the 15 hour mark) as I am by the surprisingly moving, funny and immersive story. I can be a little skeptical sometimes when approaching JRPG stories, but by all three of these aforementioned titles, we were treated to surprisingly mature and complex narratives, with refreshingly grounded and/or thoughtful characters. Indeed, with this many games firing on all these different cylinders (I didn't even mention the soundtrack to Persona 5 or Nier OMG), you know something special is happening.

So there you have it, three wildly differently styles of JRPG, only unified by their consistent top-tier quality. An old-school turn-based lite-novel hyprid, a full real-time action-RPG for philosophy students, and a MMO-style combat fantasy epic. And on top of all that there's myriad other fantastic releases, or even re-releases like the Final Fantasy XII Zodiac Age remaster of FFXII, one of my favorites and oft-forgotten FF titles that I think got overlooked slightly upon initial release precisely because of the way it showed other developers the way forward from pure turn-based combat.

And then the behemoth that is Breath of the Wild saw a tried-and-true franchise get fully revitalized in a way that drew on the weapon system of Dark Souls as much as it did the food system of Odinsphere of all games. And like I said, though not a true JRPG, it shows that role-playing adjacent titles are also showing a come-back. Survival components in video games were always the more practical, realist cousin to role-playing/stat-grinding after all.

So where do we go from here? Well 2018 will show us whether 2017 was a stand-out year or just the beginning of a trend, but all signs seem to point to an ongoing upward trend if releases like Monster Hunter World are any indication. Ni No Kuni 2 is due out soon, Octopath Traveler, which should make good on the idea of a retro-JRPG, and Kingdom Hearts 3 at the end of the year all help to paint the picture of an equally formidable year. Alas, Nippon is poised to continue its domination in coming months. All in all, fans of the genre should be very pleased, and if you haven't checked out one of the aforementioned titles get to it, because all of them are excellent, even if Xeno takes about 15 hours to truly get rolling and Persona takes a whopping like 20. All good things come to those who wait, after all.~

#xenoblade chronicles 2 #xenoblade #nier automata #nier #persona 5 #persona #jrpg #state of the jrpg #role-playing #role playing #role #playing #ps4 #switch #turn-based #combat #real-time #state of the art

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remember-wim-faros · 7 years ago

Text

Episode 1 - Are You Listening?

[voice echoing] When a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around to hear it,

it makes a sound!

[birds chirping] Ladies and gentlemen. We have found the music! It had been lost, as so many things are lost. Missing, disappeared, misplaced, vanished. Every day, what falls into obscurity without anybody noticing? Without anybody paying attention. What is locked in the attic?

I mean, let’s talk about some things that have been found in an attic, or spaces like attics. Did you know that Van Gogh’s “Sunset at Montmajour”, that beautiful painting, was found in an attic? Or that the original handwritten manuscript of “Huckleberry Finn” was found in an attic? The “Venus de Milo” was, well no it’s no-not an attic but, buried in a farmer’s field, unearthed by a peasant who came across some stubborn soil.

Did you know that the only copy of the pilot of “I Love Lucy” lay under the bed of Pepino the clown for 30 years, until it was swept out by his widow when she finally cleaned up around the place and taught to herself, this is pretty funny.

All these masterpieces just a broom sweep away from history’s dustbins.

And today, today! Recovered from a neglected attic of a suburban townhouse, one cassette tape destined to be sold in a garage sale, containing what is likely to be the first recorded concert of Wim Faros.

So.. who is listening? Hello? I’m Deirdre Gardner, and I welcome you to my new show. “It Makes a Sound”. [thumping, windchimes] It’s the first and only show in the nation dedicated to Wim Faros, native son of our Rosemary Hills. Where together, we’ll be part of a musical legacy. We will prepare to receive the genius that is Wim Faros. And to return him, like a prodigal son, to this deprived land. I will be the one to provide you up to the minute news and information about the artist, as I discover it. The name – Wim Faros. The subject – genius. And its location? Where us extraordinariness, I ask myself, don’t you? Don’t you ask yourself that? Extra..ordinariness, where I it today? Where are the truly exceptional ones who, out of our sheer proximity to them allow us to glimpse the intersection of our little lives, with the profound? Who walks among us? Is there anyone? Who walks among -us-, all the little uses? [chuckles] Uses… eh, eh, rolling lint off our pants. Uses, squeezing avocados in the grocery store and never picking the ripe one. Uses um, driving up and down the side streets to work because highway frightens uses. Uses um, drinking chamomile, attempting inverted yoga poses, popping melatonin and crossing our fingers as we slink into bed for the night. Where can we look here, in this vast wearied landscape of Rosemary Hills? Where our weathered old water tower reminds us in fading letters of past town mottos. Such as “golf capital”. Or “Rosemary Hills is alive with the whirr of commerce.” Or “Let’s tee in the hills.” But where now, the best boast we can master is “easy access to the highway”.

Well. Here, amidst the now abandoned golf course and its neglected grass, amidst the shuttered strip malls and these potholed streets, the extraordinary has tread. And the footprints, they linger. If you know how to look for them. And I think I do.

My fellow people of Rosemary Hills, citizens of the world, what have you forgotten? What treasures have we hidden under cobwebs and dust? What beauty awaits us on the other side of that drywall, as we wrestle fitfully in our sleep? What life lingers on these old fairways? What wonders just passed us by, as we bowed our head towards.. uh, a brightened 3-inch screen? Our necks hurt, our brains are zapped from too much screentime, our souls ache, and suddenly decades have past us by. Like poof. What are we missing?

Do we remember what used to be held in the delicate folds of our heart? Do we remember how things used to sound? Smell. Feel. Taste. I want to.

It’s time to unpack the attic! Today, we have a mind-boggling discovery. A confirmed to be authentic tape containing what is known to be Wim Faros’ debut public musical appearance here in Rosemary Hills, in the year 1992. And so we are not going to rush this moment, like we rush everything. We’re gonna slow down, we’re gonna savor. We are going to consider the tremendous significance of this relic. In order to fully appreciate it.

And thus, it is my privilege on this day of days to hold in my hands this freshly discovered tape. It’s an ordinary-looking cassette tape. But.. it’s possible some of you have never held a cassette tape. I will explain. Because, though it contains the stuff of wonder, to the human eye it is just a 3,5 by 2-inch clear plastic rectangle with two holes in the middle. And these holes, they have six little black teeth. Non-threatening teeth, so that you could feasibly uh, insert a pencil or a pinky finger, should sometime go [wry] [0:10:09]. Like if the delicate tape needs your manual assistance.

Now that tape is a very thing, translucent gray strip, of course containing some magnet um, magnetic properties. So and it’s spooled around the left hole, and as the tape plays in the cassette tape player, the tape will run along the bottom edge of the rectangle across a tiny magnetic strip. And the magnets pull the music out, with magnetic force, until it is fully spooled around the right hole, which means the tape is finished and you have heard the music. And that’s how a cassette tape works.

I’m Deirdre Gardner. This is “It Makes a Sound”. I am describing a cassette tape. Perhaps the most important cassette tape there ever was.

No won this particular model, we have a yellow sticker that covers the smooth section of the cassette. Nad written on that cover in purple felt tip pen, in bubble letters, is “Wim Fa”, but a waterspot has obscured the “ros”, leaving a purply pink splotch. It’s very pretty, like a watercolor. And underneath, with that same pen and font: “1992”. Crudely drawn stars in uh, multiple colors of pen, speckle the entire sticker. I mean… it’s great. it’s really incredible that one small object can capture so much of an entire era, even just aesthetically. We all seek the soundtrack of our lives, don’t we? And we wish to be privy to the voices of our generation. Yet it its a profound rarity that an artist like Wim Faros crosses into your limited sphere of existence. It’s like an alien prophet touching down on a ordinary Tuesday afternoon in a chain store called The Last Topper. Suddenly making the universe crack open to reveal infinite shards of meaning barely comprehensible to you. Standing there in cargo shorts, holding a casserole dish. Yes, yes. it’s hard to determine the full effect on Wim Faros’s music on this simple town of Rosemay Hills in the early-to-mid 90’s. it’s difficult to quantify the extent of – sacred devotion he inspired in his earliest fanbase.

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? That was a time without social media and its um, incessant public proclamations to hashtag, trending desires of the moment. Yesterday’s youth had to be more – intuitively united in our common affections. Had to keep the faith that even in a friendless existence, for instance as an example, living in an inherited furnished townhouse on the edge of Rosemary Hills’ gated golf course community, there were kindred souls somewhere underneath that same blue sky, wishing and waiting for a connection, just like you. Though perhaps at times to love in solitude, from afar, in the most generic of settings, was lonely and painful. That melancholy was trumped by a feeling of purpose. The purpose that comes from knowing that if someone out there could so perfectly capture the nuanced secrets of your soul, there must be greatness and solace in this universe indeed. isn’t that why we listen to the music? Isn’t that why we listen to the music?

We must ready ourselves to listen to the music. But I will say, even without the ease and benefit of cached fan pages or blogs serving as testimony to the early Wim Faros effect, the artist did manage to be a catalyst of cultural awakening in the town zeigeist. If a town can have a zeitgeist, can – sure. And there is archival evidence of the first reactions to Faros’s artistry. In fact… I happen to be in possession of documents from a Rosemary Hills resident who encountered Wim Faros in his earliest musical phase. Now, some of these pages are enclosed within a purple velveteen diary that I now have in front of me. The writing appears to be by the0 hand of a 12-year-old, I would estimate. And the paper is white ruled. And I seem to have come across a lengty series of haiku. Perhaps I sould share just a few of thes with you, for the sake of research. it’s a segment.. [rummages around] We’ll call it – the poetry of a little us.

[bangs a cong] You have changed my life by allowing me to see even thought you don’t see me.

[cong] I am hard to see in a golf community with many sand traps.

[cong]

You have a blind spot for almost nothing. But one in the size of me.

[cong]

I am the catcher you are a rare butterfly that I cannot grasp.

[cong]

Butterflies upclose freak me out. But you fly free, beautiful and free.

[cong]

I catch butterflies, yes, but I am afraid too. A contradiction.

[cong]

Faithfully you come to the window of my dreams singing: la la la.

[cong]

What is this music? Like, I never heard music before you played it.

[cong]

Now, those are just a few haikus and there are lots more, [chuckles] written here in Rosemary Hills circa 1991-1992. Likely dedicated to one Wim Faros.

[pause] If you’re just tuning in, hello. Welcome. I’m Deirdre Gardner, and this is the first episode of my show, “It Makes a Sound”. A discovery has been made in the attic. it’s Wim Faro’s first live album. It’s the real deal, it’s not a hoax, and it’s so rare that he only known copy exists, recorded from some distance, on a cassette tape. There is nowhere else in the entire universe where you will be able to hear a 16-year-old Wim Faros shaping what comes to be known as the sound – of an epoch. E-P-O-C-H. Stay with me and you will hear it here first, folks, because I have the tape and you’re gonna get exclusive access.

So we’re discussing Wim Faros’ formative teenage years as a musician, right here in Rosemary Hills. We’ve just begun working towards a fuller understanding of the human behind the mu-

[static] [hoarse voice] Who’s there? Who?

Deirdre: Oh, Jesus..

[static] I know, I know.. I know you! I knew!

Deirdre: Are you asleep?

[static, snoring]

Deirdre: Are you? Who’s that? (It’s something). OK. OK.

OK. Everything is good. I’m back. And i’m excited to introduce a new oral history segment of the show, based on town legend and lore around Wim Faros. It’s called – a portrait of the artist as a young man.

[music box plays] A light in the window of the second floor. The only window on the second floor, means Wim Faros is in his bedroom. And almost always when he is in his bedroom, he is drawing on the wall. What was on that wall? Everything was on that wall. The winds of change blew on that wall. The.. unfettered scrawl of technicolor wonders. The rainbow, a paltry container for the variety of colors applied to that wall. New color names would have to be invented. The ongoing overlapping shifting images and symbols, muraled, frescoed, appliqued, on that wall. All these ideas spewing forth from the eclectic multitudes of a single creative mind. In a blue and tan flannel shirt, his right arm braced against the drywall in an L-shape above his head. The bottom of his sleeve ripped and hanging down, he looks like he’s whispering secrets in a confessional. But he is drawing. There’s a lava lamp somewhere, out of view of the window, and it casts blobby spots that climb up and down the room, catching Wim’s distorted shadow when he’s out of view of the window frame. His left hand moves delicately or scribbles furiously. He is left-handed, as statistics prove that most geniuses are. If you’ve been watching, over the course of several months, you would have seen – his fantastic mural take shape.

In the center, a five-foot tall octopus, with the uncannily rendered face of Diane Sawyer. Her arms spread open, Christ-like, with magnolia blossoms and spiders dripping from her fingers. A flock of owls flying over a forest of pine trees. Each face of the moon, paired with a pizza pie of different toppings. Eight personalized pan pizzas, for eight different moons. A ninja army battling a family of squirrels throwing sharp acorns. Pages falling from a Gutenberg Bible into the gaping mouth of a Native American chief. Snoop Dogg. Scully riding a Mulder centaur as Ross Perot hoverboards over their heads! He was getting political.

As the seasons pass, the wall incrementally becomes and intricate map of his fertal, fertal inner life. Repetitions of hummingbirds and starfish, cans of beans, nunchucks. Later, peacocks. A dragon breathing fire, melting the iceberg just before it sinks the Titanic, which passes into clear skies. Dracula playing video games in front of a television set, flickering with an image of outrage from the Rodney King riots. And toaster strudels flying out of toasters into the rings of Saturn! Kurt Cobain offering an origami swan to a sobbing River Phoenix. And hundreds of other elegantly drawn details, too small to make out from a distance, that create a constellation of.. enlightened connectivity across the peeling beige wall.

And almost every night, after all the lights in the windows of the bungalow go dark, if you cared enough to pay attention, you would see the single beam of a flashlight splice a path behind the house, pointed towards a lopsided shed some 40 yards away. And if you were standing right up against the fence that separates Rosemary Hills’ gated golf course community from the unincorporated land that stretched out behind the scattered houses on Chamelia Road… you would hear a soulful strum of guitar, and a crescend of drums. Because in that decaying shed, surrounded by the loneliest darkness that is suburban darkness, is where young Wim Faros made the music. It was that music that pulsed through this town, permeated the air, pumped through the water.

Did everyone hearken to the call? No. If a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around to hear it wall, does it make a sound? Well. I’m here to tell you: trees have fallen. Trees are falling. And you may listen, but do you hear?

People of Rosemary Hills, it is time to hear. It is time to hearken. Hearken. I believe in your ears. Wim Faros sang for you. You didn’t know, but he will sing for you again. He has been lost in the attic, but now he is found. And maybe, [sighs] I don’t know. Maybe… maybe you’ve been lost in the attic too. There was greatness in our midst, transcendence, eccentricity, nuance. I’m Deirdre Gardner, and I believe that when a tree falls in a forest, it makes a sound. And i’m inviting you to try, to truly hear, and to remember. So stay tuned for my next episode when that music, lost but now found, will be born again straight into your ears. When you hear the first track from Wim Faros’ debut concert. The first track, perhaps, of the rest of your life.

This has been the inaugural episode of the first and only show in the nation dedicated to the music and legacy of Wim Faros. Thank you for listening. If you have any information about Wim Faros that you think should be shared with our listeners, or if you own a working cassette tape player, do not hesitate to contact me. Um, I, I guess for now you shoud just ca- um email me at ddg at.. no let’s not do that um, i’ll create, I’ll create a new, yes you can contact me at wimfaros@aol… Actually no. please contact [email protected]. Thank you. I’m Deirdre Gardner. Til next time.

[windchime]

“It Makes a Sound” is created and written by Jacquelyn Landgraf. Co-directed by Jacquelyn Landgraf and Anya Saffir. Sound design and engineering by me, Vincent Cacchione. Original music Nate Weida. With Jacquelyn Landgraf as Deirdre Gardner and featuring Annie Golden as the voice from downstairs. It Makes a Sound is a Night Vale Presents production. For more information on this show and other Night Vale podcasts, go to nightvalepresents.com. We hope you’ll rate and review “It Makes a Sound” on Apple Podcasts, and that you’ll tell your friends and all sorts of other humans to listen to the show, to hearken to the trees. And remember Wim Faros.

#it makes a sound #night vale presents #episode 1 #are you listening

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