#To explore the characters but also to vent some of my resentment towards my own dad

[adhd-wifi]

Jiang Cheng’s Deepest Personal Struggles 

I spent more time on the title than I did the actual post. 

Note: Wei WuXian is also very present in this meta, because Jiang Cheng’s entire story and development is so heavily tied to him that you literally cannot separate Wei Ying from him. And I thought Lan Zhan was bad. 

Personally, I find Jiang Cheng’s traumas and internalized issues so much more interesting than his siblings’. Wei WuXian’s issues were much more dramatic and intense, but not uncommon in fiction, while Jiang YanLi’s issues were not explored in canon. With Jiang Cheng, we see so much of his development and how it is mostly negative in nature. However, even though Jiang Cheng’s development is negative more than positive, it’s very interesting to see how it affected him and how he does maintain his old personality even despite what he’s been through, which makes him the most realistic character out of the three siblings in my opinion. 

In other words, I fucking love Jiang Cheng as a character so fucking much even though there are times in which I would gladly throw a book in his face and if you tell me he’s a badly written character I will break into your home at 4am on a Tuesday night and rearrange all your furniture before stealing all your spoons and leave a 27-page essay on why you’re wrong in their place. 

(I won’t actually do that. I’m lazy. But not lazy enough to not write this long ass post I guess.)

So Jiang Cheng’s issues are extremely obvious to us, the audience, even more than WWX’s, despite WWX being the POV character. (This is probably due to WWX being a bit of an unreliable narrator, ignoring his own problems for JC’s sake, but we’ll get to that in another WWX post.) 

We know the main problem is how he was raised, with JFM and YZY as parents. Between the two, we see that JFM’s neglect and favouritism towards WWX was actually much more impactful and damaging to him than anything from YZY. JC wanted his father’s approval and love, and while YZY berated him for being worse than WWX, JC at least felt like his mother cared about him in some way. YZY’s abuse was still extremely damaging of course, and she definitely contributed to JC’s problems by constantly yelling about how JFM cared more about WWX in front of JC. Still, the main problem was this: JC felt like he wasn’t loved by his own father, and then felt like his mother spent more time being angry at WWX than caring for him. 

WWX and JYL also weren’t as there for him as they maybe should’ve. Yes, they actively showed more love and support to JC than their parents did, but the problem between the siblings is that WWX and JYL were unable to give JC what he specifically needed, and also JC lacked the communication skills to tell them what he needed. Of course, this is none of their faults. The three of them were raised under the same abusive parents and all had their own ways of coping with their traumas, as I’ve mentioned in my previous posts (WWX version, JYL version). Something both WWX and JYL had in common despite their difference in character and responses was that they tended to internalize things and smooth out the conflict present in their family, but while JC did also internalize things, this coping response didn’t work for him as it did with his siblings (well, it’s not that great, but they don’t struggle with it the way JC does). When you realize that both WWX and JYL are more reflective of JFM’s nature, but JC is closer to YZY instead, it makes sense. Like his mother, JC is someone who needs to vent and get his emotions out, but he doesn’t get that chance. Or rather, he FEELS like he can’t, because no one else does except YZY, and YZY isn’t exactly a prime example of healthy venting (Pls Madam Yu your children are crying.) It’s hard to talk about JC without bringing up how he compares to others, especially WWX, since that is the core of his problems and insecurities in the first place. So let’s talk about that. 

JC’s competitive nature is mostly the result of his abusive home, but also because he’s the youngest sibling. Youngest siblings in general tend to be taken less seriously than their older siblings and thus often end up with the need to prove themselves more. This, combined with his parents’ lousy parenting, just made a recipe for a self-esteem disaster that blames others over himself. In WWX’s case, his self-esteem problems are “I’m the burden, I’m to blame”. In JC’s case, the problems are “They keep comparing me to others, I’m not as good as they are”. So, with JFM seeming like he doesn’t love JC (at least not as much as WWX), and YZY always berating him for not being as good as WWX, it’s really hard to fault JC for having an inherent idea of “WWX is to blame for his suffering”. 

Despite this, JC had also actively spent his life fighting this idea of his. He loved WWX and very rarely let his jealously show at all. Even during the time WWX had been recovering from fighting the XuanWu, and JC was angry and frustrated at his parents fighting in front of them all again, and voiced his concerns about how his father didn’t like him or his mother, leading to WWX comforting him and making the promise he would eventually break (along with my heart but it’s okay I didn’t need it anyway ;-;). This is after JC walked from Qishan all the way back to Lotus Pier without stopping, desperate to save WWX as fast as possible. With his inherent idea of blaming WWX for his problems, on top of not being recognized for such a valiant effort for his brother, JC was in the perfect position to take it out on WWX. But he never actually said it was WWX’s fault, even though we knew he believed it at the time. Yes, he blatantly told WWX that he was upset about his efforts being ignored, but JC’s wording at the time didn’t contain a single line of actual blame towards WWX. (WWX probably heard it different, but those are his problems, not JC’s.) Considering JC is someone who doesn’t think about his words when he’s angry or frustrated, it says a lot about just how much he tries NOT to blame WWX, because he still truly, genuinely loved his brother. As children, JYL told WWX that JC was secretly very happy to have a new companion, even though WWX was the reason for his dogs being taken away. And then we see baby JC crying about being unable to find WWX when he tells him to go away. Yes, there’s probably some fear of punishment from JFM, but if that was the only thing he feared, baby JC didn’t have to promise to chase dogs away to protect WWX for the rest of their lives together. JC loved WWX just as much as WWX loved him, he just has a very, very different love language from his brother. 

And then...the fall of Lotus Pier happened. And all of that came crashing down, burning away along with their home. JC finally blamed WWX for what had happened, years and years of pent-up, painstakingly internalized jealously and blame exploding at once. Because no matter what WWX did before, no matter how much trouble WWX caused before, it never cost them THIS much. WWX coming into their lives had never been any REAL trouble, and JC had been able to forgive everything else, because he loved WWX, and because WWX kept him from being lonely. But now his parents, who he desperately wanted the love from, were gone. His home was gone. WWX kept him from running in and taking revenge. WWX was the only person there when he let his emotions take over, and WWX happened to be someone he could blame. So what else could JC do but blame him? 

“If WWX hadn’t saved Lan WangJi, if WWX hadn’t provoked Wen Chao, if WWX hadn’t won the archery competition, if WWX hadn’t come into their lives...”

JC’s default response to grief and trauma is anger fused with bargaining. He finds blame in someone or something and focuses on the “What-Ifs”, because that’s what he was raised on. That’s just what he was used to, because JC could never vent like he needed to. WWX and JYL, his only real sources of comfort, never truly listened when he did actually say something. WWX would tell him “You’re better than you think”, while JYL would tell him “That’s how things are, but don’t worry”. While these were said and done out of good intentions, JC’s needs are never really met or even fully acknowledged. No one addresses or even really listens to what causes the problems, often knowing the cause but almost blatantly refusing to really talk about it. Again, this isn’t their fault. Both older siblings had their own coping mechanisms that clashed with JC’s, and their entire family have CLEARLY never been taught proper communication skills, so no one really knew how to communicate in the way they needed to. However, it’s still true that this affected JC the most, given his character. He NEEDED someone to listen to him, he NEEDED the validation that his feelings and person mattered, but he never got it. 

And yet...the sad thing about this was that JC himself clearly gave up on trying ti get it himself after Lotus Pier was gone. He let his emotions rule him, seeking revenge against the Wens with every intention of slaughtering them as they did his family during the Sunshot Campaign. We see his loss of morality and hypocrisy when he shows how he was perfectly willing to let WWX, as the Yiling Patriarch, stay by his side as long as he was the enemy of the Wens despite how much he used to be against WWX using resentful energy. We see the innocent child who had only wanted the love and approval of his family become a vengeful man burdened with trauma and the responsibilities of a Sect Leader at too young an age during a time of war.

JC was clearly traumatized by Lotus Pier, and to me, it seemed that he had manifested a fear of seeing his home fall a second time. We see this especially in his passiveness towards the other sects when he was put on the spot during the times WWX “caused trouble” as the Yiling Patriarch, and how much more reactive and unstable he was when talking to WWX before WWX decided to leave the sect. JC had been desperate to keep things stable, safe, that he was willing to abandon the debt he owed towards Wen Qing and Wen Ning. He didn’t want to make enemies of the other sects, because his family and old home were gone. When WWX brought up JFM’s teachings, JC was obviously really affected by it, and I think that’s why he accepted WWX’s duel right then. 

One thing I would like to say is this: At this point in their relationship, WWX absolutely wronged JC. Yes, it’s fully understandable why WWX did so, with his horrible misplaced guilt and unwillingness to drag JC into his choices any longer. But JC didn’t deserve this. He reacted badly to WWX after Lotus Pier, but we know for a fact that he was overwhelmed with grief and pain when he did, but despite how much he’d changed, it’s obvious that JC still loved WWX (still should’ve apologised tho). JC didn’t need to try and protect WWX, but he did. Some might argue that he did it for JYL’s sake or to keep power, but I doubt that. If that was the case, he wouldn’t have argued with WWX the way he did, screaming “I won’t be able to protect you!” if he only wanted WWX around for power or for JYL. JC did try, but WWX didn’t. WWX saw their relationship as a debt he owed to JFM and the Sect, and with the transfer of the golden core, he saw that debt repaid. Not once, however, did WWX truly consider JC’s feelings about it, too caught up in his own guilt and thus deciding what he thought was best for his brother. Again, it’s understandable, given what he’s been through. But after the war, WWX was definitely the main reason they fall apart, not JC. Not the mention the whole golden core transfer itself. WWX made the decision for JC, then refused to tell him and let his little brother abuse him as YZY did until they finally separated, WWX willingly breaking the promise he made to JC himself. WWX didn’t even try to reconnect, using the excuse of “the Wens needing him more”. Can you imagine how that must have felt for JC? He didn’t know what WWX did for him, so to him, he could only see his brother abandoning him for almost no reason. WWX was his closest companion his whole life, as well as the person who shaped him the most throughout his childhood. His life and character were dependant on WWX, both positively and negatively. WWX could live without JC, but JC couldn’t live without WWX, and he knew that. 

When JYL died, the trauma of Lotus Pier returned, and once again, JC was consumed by grief. So he did the exact same thing he did back then: Blame WWX. And this time, he no longer had a good reason to give WWX leniency. After all, WWX pushed him away. WWX didn’t care about him. WWX chose the Wens, strangers, over him. WWX neglected him just as his own father did. JC’s complicated feelings towards his beloved brother had finally morphed into hatred, and WWX had let it happen. So WWX died, and JC no longer had a physical target to blame. But he needed something, someone, to blame, because that’s how he copes. It’s unhealthy, it’s damaging, it’s cruel, but it’s his coping mechanism. It’s the only way he knows how to deal with things because he never had a single chance to learn to cope in any other way. Thus, he hunted demonic cultivators and tortured them, but his hatred could never be resolved because he would never be able to receive the closure he desperately needed. 

Then WWX came back, and JC learned about the golden core transfer. 

If you’ve ever had someone sacrificing their time for you without needing to, for example a friend staying up for three days straight to finish a birthday present on time while on a busy and hectic schedule, you’d probably know the momentary guilt of “OMG you didn’t have to do that!” while being grateful to them. Now imagine that guilt times almost 20 years of hating the person who did something so selfless for you while also knowing you mistreated them for a portion of that time. JC was absolutely devastated to know what WWX did for him, because what the hell, the man he hated and blamed, the man who pushed him away and abandoned him for a bunch of strangers from a sect that destroyed their first home, did something that was essentially cultivator’s suicide? For his sake? Because he actually cared for JC despite everything he did? But also, with WWX’s core instead of his own, didn’t it also mean that he was still Not-As-Good as WWX, because he never truly achieved anything great without WWX’s help in some way? The main, EXACT, cause of his insecurities and problems in the first place? Bruh I can’t blame him for having an existential crisis here. I really can’t.

At GuanYin Temple (admittedly I’m basing this off CQL cuz I haven’t gotten there in any other adaption so I don’t know if this scene actually took place there or not), when JC shouted at WWX for everything, JC was finally given a chance to properly vent and finally have someone listen. Yes, WWX being shouted at isn’t favourable, but honestly, I think WWX truly deserved it from JC here. JC was finally able to say things against WWX to WWX’s face, and most importantly, have the last person he grew up with that he used to truly love and treasure tell him his feelings were valid. But even with this, I still find it fully believable and probably even narratively better that JC and WWX never fully resolved their relationship (as much as I want them too, for my heart’s sake) by the end of the story. Because even knowing what WWX did for him, honestly, how on earth could JC trust him again? JC was too hurt for too long, and besides, they were incompatible in the first place. WWX and JC’s personalities and coping mechanisms and all that simply clashed with each other too much for them to go back to being brothers like they used to be. But at least there’s now closure between the two, and Jiang Cheng might be able to finally move on from the past he’s trapped in.

Like I said in the beginning, I find Jiang Cheng the most interesting as a CHARACTER out of the Yunmeng Siblings, and I haven’t even finished what I wanted to talk about with him. Gonna do a post next time about his relationships with others aside from WWX, specifically with Jin Ling probably. Also I don’t actually think Jiang Cheng was neurodivergent to begin with, but that’s also another post all on its own. Anyways I hope y’all survived this long ass post LMAO. 

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen X Rambles about Chapter 7

“I hope Episode 7 is focused on only 2 or three characters with little distraction... Amiya maybe finding out that Ch’en is slowly becoming Infected and helping her come to terms with that. Ch’en revealing her past to Amiya and the two connecting over losing so many close to them due to Oripathy. The two standing up to the political corruption of Lungmen, shoulder to shoulder, as women that refuse to see another life lost due to the indifference of a city’s politics.”

-Allen X, October 2nd, 2020, Rambling about Chapter 6

Man... I’m starting to believe it when they say Arknight’s story mode is longer than the Harry Potter series. Things are getting crazy in Chapter 7 and crazy-long to in terms of length. This chapter really had me on the edge of my seat as I read through it and as I played through because 7-16 and 7-18 were a bitch to get through that require some of the most precise timing I’ve seen in this game yet. That aside, I enjoyed a lot what I read and experienced.

And I wanted to talk about it a bit.

But first, as always, a synopsis.

Coming off the heels of Frostnova’s death and the realization of Wei Yenwu’s purging of the Lungmen slums, tensions are high and trust has been fractured between Rhodes Island and Lungmen. However, in the midst of Ch’en hot temper and Amiya’s cool head, Reunion is plans to send the Russian Ursusian   city of Chernobog on a collision course with Hong Kong Lungmen, giving Ursus a cause to make war against Lungmen and its great region of Tawain China Yen. However, through some rather amazing political maneuvering and passionate words by Wei Yenwu’s wife Fumizuki, Rhodes Island agrees to mobilize in order to save Lungmen, the Infected, and the beloved daughter of Lungmen, Ch’en. But beyond Chernobog lies Patriot, Reunions greatest commander next to Talulah herself, who’s rage toward his daughter’s death is only matched by his disciplined mind and even more disciplined soldiers. It’s a fight to the center of the Chernobog to save as many lives as possible, even at the cost of this great general’s life.

An Addendum to 7-18

So between my venting about 7-18 when I talked about some fun Arknight’s lore a handful of people wanted to give me some advice on how to conquer that stage. Admittedly that venting was said out of anger and was much more acidic in tone than my usual essays and opinion pieces. I have since beaten that stage and I can give some of my thoughts on this advice. Some of it was helpful... some of it.

“AmIyA cAn TaNk PaTrIoT’s SpEaR tOsS!”

This is technically true and I was technically wrong. When Amiya’s S3 is active she gained increased Max HP and can in fact survive with a sliver of health. However, Amiya’s S3 takes quite a long time to charge even with her talent, and unless someone is actively blocking Patriot her can honestly spam his spear through for how long it takes Amiya to get prepped for her S3. This is more of an issue of Amiya’s balancing than with the game, but I’ll talk about that later.

“jUsT sTaLl PaTrIoT tO kEeP hIm FrOm UsInG tHe SpEaR tOsS!”

This would be pretty viable advice if Patriot didn’t one-shot my units. Yes, defenders like Cuora, Nian, Hoshigumi, and even tankier vanguards like Zima and Siege can tank at least one hit from Patriot without dying, meaning a squad of healers can just focus-fire on them while they do chip damage to Patriot and stall him out. However, Patriot’s phase 2 has him do constant damage to nearby units with his aura ability, so if he can get lucky enough, he take someone down to a sliver and let his poison damage finish off your staller before they get a chance to be healed. That strategy needs luck and some damn smart unit placement. Neither of which I honestly have.

“uSe SpEcTeR aNd DeBuFfErS!”

Again, this is also a pretty good strategy. Specter’s S2 makes her immortal for a limited time and pairing that with healers like Breeze and Celycon who reduce stun damage isn’t a bad idea. Characters that ignore or lower defense like Pramanix, Shamare, and Meteor are also good. This doesn’t work for me however since I only have Pram and the other debuffers are way too underleveled and not on my priority at the moment, and E2-ing units this late in the game just to take out one boss feels like madness.

“f12 CaN dOdGe ThE sPeAr ToSs!”

F12, W, Jessica, and FEater have a dodge chance. Their dodges are not guarantees. Yes, Patriot will target the ranged operator furthest from him and there are range tiles pretty close to his spawn point for that purpose. However, some of those operators have some pretty damn expensive DP costs and waste that on a chance to survive isn’t worth.And feeding Patriot ranged units that take over 30 seconds to redeploy is a waste of DP in general. And those either dodge chances aren’t viable. Them surviving isn’t a strategy, it’s a fluke, and you can’t depend on flukes in auto-deployment.

“Allen, you’re being kind of an asshole to what’s actually sound advice.”

Yes, I am. 

I don’t care. 

7-18 does things to a person, man. That stage breaks people. I lost sanity IRL just doing that stage or 20 times with a guide... dear lord this stage.

Anyway, moving on.

Story Notes

My, this story sure was thick, wasn’t it? It’s been while since I’ve been on a ride that wild. And this time around I don’t have any small issues to bring up. All the characters felt in character without breaking my suspension of disbelief. There weren’t multiple character arcs going on at once. And I even tolerated Kal’tsit berating the Doctor for reasons beyond his understand since she wasn’t discussing too many things that were above my head as the player.

No... I only have big issues. 

But before that, I wanted to hit on some actual important notes that were very good and smartly written.

Rosmontis and Child Soldiers

This was probably the biggest takeaway for me. I know the Arknights community likes to poke a lot of fun about the child soldier thing and how Kal’tsit is harboring slave children, but... man, it makes so much since now.

These kids aren’t just kids, they’re all infected people with some rather scary abilities. Popukar has a history of mental instability coupled with monstrous strength. Ifrit has powers she can just barely keep under control and could set Rhodes Island ablaze at any point. Frostleaf and GreyThroat are deeply traumatized from their past. The Ursus Self Government are full of kids with hatred, resentment, and fear of both the world and themselves. The list goes on, but the fact is that these kids all either have abilities that would be a danger to themselves and others if they aren’t trained, or have emotional hang-ups that might very well have them lash out at innocent people if not put on a leash. Wouldn’t it be better to at least give them some training and let them hack and blast away at the actual bad guys? Wouldn’t it be better to at least make them a weapon for some kind of greater good? And would anyone else really treat these broken, powerful children as anything but weapons and warriors anyway?

I know this is about chapter 7, but I remember in Children of Ursus Rosa asked Zima why she fought, and Zima casually answered that she just liked fighting. It’d be far better to have someone with that mindset working for an organization like Rhodes Island than ending up in Ursus’s fold and blindly hacking at something she shouldn’t. 

And I think it’s important to remind everyone that Amiya is the head of Rhodes Island and not Kal’tsit. She’s a big part of the organization, but it’s the bunny in charge. And the bunny that is herself close to a living nuke and is also has empathetic superpowers understands this probably better than anyone else, which is why she okays it. 

Patriot and Reunion

As much as I despise, and I do mean despise, how cagey this series can be with it’s portrayal of Reunion’s morality I can understand why a lot of its members can see the group as being just. Patriot is a warrior of such renown and praise, and Talulah has so much charisma and power that I can see the group overlooking characters like Mephisto and W when the other two do so much for their members and general people. The Guerillas under Patriot behave like soldiers. They don’t rampage, loot, pillage, or harm everyone in sight, only those that halt, stagnant, and harm the infect. Talulah has a charisma about her and attracts people, and seems to come from some sort of royal/noble line to match. And while Faust wasn’t mentioned much in this chapter, he was a soldier that started at the bottom, worked his way to the top, and made sure to play by rules that kept his moral high ground. Mephisto seems to be the only outliner here for some baffling reason.

But... there are some major issues with this story. I hint at them every time I talk about Arknights’ story, but I’ll go into depth here. And I’ll present these two issues I have in the form of a two question:

Who is the Doctor?

I don’t mean this the sense of the story, but what is his function as a character? Is he a self-insert for the player, or his own character to be explored and examined?

And either answer, to me, is wrong. 

The Doctor Isn’t a Self-Insert

It’s straight up impossible for the Doctor to be a self-insert character. Most self-inserts are blank enough to let us place our own personality onto them and the situations their in the choices they make are meant to be more or less choices we’d make or at least a general audience could make barring some specifics. Their personalities tend to be blank or at least bland to let us, the players, live through them and project our personalities onto them.

The Doctor isn’t this. 

There are too many moment where our choices are clearly pointing to one conclusion and most choices, though varied, give a clear idea that the Doctor is someone that care about the operators’ wellbeing deeply and hates seeing them used, abused, or manipulated. They are strategist and commander, but they have enough humanity to not see people as tools. They are passionate when they see other operators and especially Amiya in harms way and tries to come up with strategies to minimize lost and causalities. Awhile we, the player, feel the same in this regard the Doctor has dialogue that feels more conversational and toward specific directions than what a player would likely want and gives us some bits and piece about what they’re actually like. 

The Doctor hates Kal’tsit and wants little to do with her, only tolerating her presence as much as she is with the Doctor. The Doctor is a bit of a bleeding heart that doesn’t fully grasp that they are constantly in a warzone despite their strategic competency. The Doctor has an extremely weird diet and eating style, devouring live animals and ingesting foods that would probably need to be probably mixed and brewed before consumption. The Doctor still sees Amiya as a child despite her mature nature. 

The list goes on, but there’s enough there for me to say the Doctor is more like Hakuno Kishinami of the Fate/Extra series, a character that seems like a self-insert but has a number of traits and character tics that keep them from fulfill that role. However Fate/Extra, for all I have against it, makes Hakuno work by giving them their own internal thoughts outside of the player’s actions that explain their dialogue choices and actions outside of the player’s control. The Doctor doesn’t, so them being a self-insert feels really weak and irritating when the dots stop connecting.

But despite this...

The Doctor Isn’t Their Own Character

Too much of what the Doctor does is passive. For a clear as their personality is, at least to me, they don’t have much agency in the plot. Not enough for me to call them their own character at least. They commander the battlefield, but they don’t have a place on it. They don’t have much reason to interact with characters like Patriot and Talulah unless its on the metaphorical and literal chessboard we’re playing on. 

Every time the Doctor says something that advances the plot in some way I feel like it could be said by another character and work better. Amiya trying talk down Patriot and explain that Frostnova fought bravely did not need the Doctor’s interjections, especially when Patriot shoots them down in the same manner. In chapter 6, being trap with Frostnova would had worked much better with Amiya since that chapter was giving them parallels anyway. The only thing that really works is the Doctor trying to call out Kal’tsit for her treatment of Rosmontis as a soldier despite her age, as that’s only something that someone who didn’t have the full context could do. 

But... Jessica, Frostleaf, Frostnova, Melantha and several other Operators are young teenagers and even children. Specter and Lappland are clearly just as mentally damaged and still going into battles. The Doctor knows the kinds of people that fight for Rhodes Island, so isn’t this just another young fighter like Popukar and Suzuran? Hell, in chapter 6 we canonically had Beagle and Fang in a stage where they had to fight and tank Faust, why is the Doctor so surprised that someone like Rosmontis exist and works for Rhodes Island?

See? 

See how trying to give this character separation from being a self-insert and actively slot them in the active story does more harm than good? 

I think games like Girls Frontline and Honkai Impact 3rd do this better, where the player character is clearly more behind the scenes and is only a passing influence, if any.

But that leads me to my next question, which is...

Who is Amiya?

Amiya falls into the trope of being a cute anime girl with a mysterious past and dangerous powers. More accurately, she has a mysterious past and powers to the player, but everyone in Amiya’s inner circle seems to have a clue about it. I don’t mind this being a mystery, but... when our main character’s plot revolves around things the player doesn’t know, it’s curious at best, and infuriating at worse. 

Folks, I’m not someone that looks to theory-crafting. I’m not someone that reads every scrap of dialogue in this game to find out more about its lore. The lore, to me, is just fun and interesting. I honestly do not have the time and energy to spend on making theories and predictions that could be wrong and a waste of mental energy. However, with all this stuff about the King of Fiends just feels like a waste of time, or at least a last minute addition to something I could had been added properly in Chapter 8.

A lot of it feels like you had to know about the Darknight Memoir side story to really get a feel for what’s going on. The Sarkaz civil war, Theresa, W’s role back when Rhodes Island was Babel, a lot of things that don’t come up in the main storyline. Especially with that bombshell about the Doctor maybe killing Theresa. 

I don’t like it when a story expects me to have read the spinoff to understand the mainline story. This is why I don’t like the Dragon Age series and I’m really getting annoyed with Arknights right now.

This bombshell of the King of Fiends also kind of sours a bit of Amiya’s character as this young child who rose through the ranks of Rhodes Island as a charismatic leader being able to steel optimism with the reality of war to forge ahead as a proper leader through her abilities as both a commander and an empath. Instead it’s beginning to come across that her skills as a leader comes from something more supernatural, or at least something more forced than "small child is a good leader and can lead an army,” which is surprisingly more believable and nuanced given how seriously the series takes Amiya’s character. 

That said, I recognize this criticism is more my wish of what was rather than an issue of what is. I completely understand that essentially wishing for my own fanfic and limited fan theories to come true isn’t a sound criticism, but it's a criticism I have regardless.

But moving on, there’s one more issue that bugs me.

W’s Importance

I’ll keep this brief since I already discussed my bigger issues of the story and this is an admittedly small portion of the story:

W wasn’t utilized much in this story despite being a main feature of it in the promotional material. She has a pretty lengthy intro, disappears from the story for most of it, then reappears at the last bits of chapter 7 to make mean looks at Kal’tsit and the Doctor before being literally shoved offscreen again. I’ve already discussed my issues with the Doctor’s agency so I won’t bother here.

W’s banner should had been during Darknight Memoir, it just makes more sense given she was the feature character of it and her high physical damage would had been a goodsend among all the arts-resistant Sarkaz units of that series of chokepoint-heavy maps, similar to Weedy’s inclusion her is helpful as a lot of these maps could use a good pusher, especially 7-16.

Speaking of, Weedy, the other operator on this limited banner, has no presence in the story at all. Need I remind you in the last limited banner Aak and Hung at least had cameo-esque appearances in the Ancient Forge event. Weedy’s inclusion feels like an afterthought because they didn’t want the limited 6-Star to have a good chance to be pulled for the whales.

Anyway, I believe those are all the big issues I had with this story, so...

In the Future

As I always tend to say, I don’t like the idea of trying to fix something that has already been made and has already passed. It’s too late to change the past, but I see nothing wrong with asking for things to happen in the future as a way of giving feedback. 

To that end, I still have hope that Chapter 8 will have a focus on Amiya and Ch’en tackling Talulah together. From my understanding of some spoilers this is more or less what is going to happen. I also hope that we’ll have a more detailed idea on this whole King of Fiends thing is about. As much as I personally don’t care for it, it’s already be discussed in the story so I at least hope we get the full idea on what’s going on with that plotline. 

I also hope the Doctor either plays less a role or becomes their own character outright away from any player influence. Us speaking through a character that already has a personality feels weird to me and I’d rather not have it at all.

Anyway, that’s it for me folks. Next time... maybe I’ll talk about anime or something, who knows.

[steven-falls]

Steven Universe Future reviewed: Prickly Pair

‘Prickly Pair’ explores the negative feelings Steven has been having as of late and I’m a little worried those negative feelings are going to rub off on to this review.

‘Fool!’

Before I say anything else, I will clarify that Steven cactus is the MVP of the episode. In an otherwise angsty affair,  he provides the most enjoyable and comedic parts. Which is a bit messed up considering he’s being mistreated throughout the whole thing.

I will split this review into four parts; My overview of the episode as whole, my thoughts on the opening scene, a discussion of Steven’s view of the other Crystal Gems, and finally my thoughts on the episode’s conclusion.

Overview:

I think what’s difficult about watching ‘Prickly Pair’ is that it’s a pretty big downer the whole way through, with only a couple brief uplifting moments. Steven was a sad sack in the previous episode too, but that was balanced out by everyone else in the episode being pretty happy in their lives. You don’t get that levity in this Steven centric affair.

‘I gave up running the school, but now I don’t know what comes next.’

Ah that feeling of giving up your job because it isn’t right for you, but not having an idea of what you want to do next. So you start filling your time with hobbies to distract you, like gardening or writing reviews of children’s cartoons… ahem. 

Almost every plot beat has Steven be depressed or anxious about something new. We start with Steven questioning what he’s doing with his life, which progresses to him venting about his problems to his newly born son, Cactus Steven. This results in Steven mistreating the cactus when it starts parroting him in front of others, exposing all Steven’s insecurities to his loved ones. Finally, this cumulates in the two fighting. And, despite ultimately making amends with the cactus, it still decides to leave him. 

This does at least lead to Steven experiencing a growing moment. 

‘I’m sorry I mistreated you, you’re just learning from the only role model you’ve got!’

He learns the moral that impressionable children can internalise and replicate their parents unhealthy behaviours and attitudes.

Despite learning this, I’d argue that Steven is in a worse place emotionally at the end of the episode than he was at the beginning. Steven at least had his plants to distract himself from his depression, but after the cactus fiasco I can’t imagine he’d be able to go back to that. Now he has no hobby to consume himself with, and has to deal with his family knowing about all the negative feelings he was trying to keep hidden from them. 

This is probably something that will benefit  him in the long term; the gems are aware how much he needs their support now. But in the meantime he’s left feeling pretty low.

And that’s sort of how I feel about this episode. By itself I don’t really enjoy it that much because of how negative it is, even though in the long term I can acknowledge this was probably a necessary step in Steven’s journey.

That acts as my general overview of the episode, but now to get into more specifics.

Potty for Potted Plants:

‘This little smarty is named Connie.’

Awkwardly drawing attention to the fact that we haven’t seen Connie since the movie… a movie she was barely in.

The episode opens with an introduction to the plant colony Steven has been growing, each of the plants being named after one of his friends. Steven naming his plants after his friends is something that could be seen as cute, but it’s portrayed as an unhealthy coping mechanism from the get go; as Steven rambles about how the plants can’t leave him. A dark reading of this behaviour suggests that he wants his friends in a position where they physically can’t leave him, and also depend on Steven to care for them for their own survival.

While I can appreciate the subtext I still didn’t care for this scene in general. Particularly the part when Steven starts talking to the Lars plant.

‘You’re stuck in the ground aren’t you not going to zip into space and leave everyone behind’

 I personally find it annoying when a character just starts rambling like a crazy person for comedic purposes. Particularly if the content of what they are saying isn’t that funny: Steven’s pretty much just summarising his insecurities for the audience right here.

Steven’s plant obsession is supposed to be comedic in its creepiness, but I just don’t find this creepy behaviour comedic. 

It does serve its plot purpose, although having Steven literally name the plants after his friends feels so on the nose. Just have him ramble about how plants can’t leave and we’ll get it.

I’ll give them the onion joke though

I’m assuming Garnet’s ‘You should keep a close eye on your cactus.’ line is her using her future vision but…. What exactly is she seeing? Her later line of dialogue ‘that cactus really bounced back’ suggests that she was just warning him about over watering it, but that seems like such an inconsequential thing for Garnet to care about. Did she see the events that played out in the episode, where the cactus comes to life and started attacking them? I feel like if that’s so then she surely would have known about Steven’s mental state from the beginning. Also her warning Steven about the cactus is ironic as it is inadvertently what caused those events to happen in the first place.

I don’t know, I think she knew something was up with the cactus but I’m not sure what.

It does at least act as an example of her ‘high and mighty advice’ Steven complains about later in the episode. Speaking of...

Steven VS The Crystal Gems:

This episode contains Steven’s most sinister character moment yet; slagging off the crystal gems behind their backs. Let’s break down each of Steven’s ‘critiques’ of the crystal gems to assess their validity. 

‘I can’t let Pearl know how I feel because she’ll blame herself and spiral out of control, and I’ll have to pick up the pieces!’

This is by far the harshest of Steven’s outbursts, and a pretty low blow considering all the trauma Pearl went through. But on the other hand Steven had to resolve a lot of Pearl’s issues for her from a young age, so I can’t really blame him for feeling this way. In fact if this complaint had been made before the Pink Diamond reveal I would have been fully in Steven’s corner.

It is ironic because you could say that Pearl unloading her trauma onto Steven traumatised him. And now in turn  Steven is unloading all his issues on to Cactus Steven. Definitely a message in here about parental figures passing on their baggage to their children.

‘I don’t want any more  high and mighty advice from Garnet.’

 I found this one funny because it just reminded me of his impression of Garnet in season 1’s ‘Tiger Millionaire’

‘I’m not going to say anything, but I expect you to understand that was wrong.’

Ah, the more things change the more they stay the same.

‘And I’m so sick of Amethyst acting like she’s so mature now’ 

This is the rant that comes most out of left field, especially as Steven was the one who first labeled Amethyst as ‘mature’ back in ‘What’s your problem.’

His issues with Pearl and Garnet make more logical sense as those are reactions to problems he feels he needs to deal with himself. But Amethyst's maturity isn’t something that negatively impacts Steven. 

In fact, in the very next scene Amethyst's maturity is the thing that encourages her to reach out and ask if Steven needs any help. Steven’s distaste for Amethyst maturity comes across as plain pettiness towards her growing as a person. The two have somewhat switched roles from the episode ‘Steven vs. Amethyst’. 

‘Great and now you’re even more mature than me [...] Now I’m the worst Crystal Gem’

Here, Amethyst was bitter that Steven was starting to excel past her. Steven improving as a person made her feel worse about herself. Both of them have felt bitterness towards the other showing maturity and character growth . But of course, being resentful of someone else’s maturity only makes you seem more immature. 

The Final Fight

It takes Steven having a physical fight with the cactus to realise the only reason it is being so aggressive is because it’s copying him. Which is weird because Steven knew the cactus was learning by copying him from the beginning.

Like, come on man you already knew that, it should have been pretty self evident. 

But obviously Steven was so preoccupied by his annoyance the cactus that he completely forgot this.

The reactions to the cactus pricks make for some great visual gags. But I feel they overplay this joke, it’s done like 5 times in the final scene alone. 

Because the cactus only copies Steven, all of Stevens' anger directed  the cactus is really  just anger at himself. This metaphor is made even clearer by the cactus literally being a cactus version of Steven. So Steven’s realisation that he shouldn’t have been so hard on the cactus doubles as a realisation that Steven shouldn’t have been so hard on himself, (although I don’t think Steven made that connection)  So there’s a double moral here that one should be kind to them self as well as others.

[elrondsscribe]

A Love Letter to Star Wars Ep. 9: The Rise of Skywalker - sweetie, let’s sit for a while.

SPOILERS, by the way. Also, genuine love and affection. You’ve been warned.

Hey, it’s Elvella. How’re you feeling? You need a hug? A cup of tea? (God, England is getting to me already lol.)

Now I make a rule not to doubt the authenticity of other people’s suffering at the hands of a piece of media - that’s bad practice, and anyway it’d be hypocritical on my part, seeing as how my initial reaction to Attack of the Clones was to vent my unfiltered rage on a friend of mine and call him a gremlin. At the same time, I do weary of the endless stream of screeching and hair-tearing, kind of like with Endgame I guess.

Look, I wanna reiterate that I love you. I really do. So many people around me are screaming in rage, saying you murdered their souls and murdered their childhoods and murdered their joy. Me? I think you’re beautiful, and better still, I felt like you were being sincere with me. You gave me joy, wonder, sweetness, and just enough sorrow to be sexy.

Not to mention that you gave me more characters to love. Like Jannah and the other former Stormtroopers - but especially Jannah. And my newest adopted droid baby D-0 (poor sweetie, who treated you so bad?). And you brought back Lando, one of my old favorites!

And about character things in general, I guess I was prejudiced by all the rage, because I got so much more of my babe Rose than I thought I would, and I was so pleasantly surprised! And the married-gay energy of Poe and Finn overwhelmed me. For my part, I really liked the backstory of Poe both having had an involvement with Zorii and having been the in-universe equivalent of a drug dealer - I dunno, it seems fitting somehow. The wisdom of post-mortem Luke felt like real growth: a step up from where he was for most of TLJ, but a believable one! Leia’s final effort, combined with the memory of Han, being the big tipping point in Kylo Ren becoming Ben Solo again - yeah, man!

I’m even a fan of the combined arc of Reylo-as-endgame and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo’s redemption+death. I was never a Reylo stan (for the entirety of the two and a half weeks since I’ve seen TFA and TLJ, lol), but the Ben/Rey progression you gave me? Hey, I’ll cheer for that! Their actual “together” moments felt so sweet and sincere. And on Ben’s dying: I think growing up with Narnia and LOTR/Silmarillion have made me a lot easier on Noble Death as the end, and even end goal, of a loved character’s journey, so my love of Ben’s redemption arc absolutely feeds into my lack of resentment toward Ben’s death.

All that being said, even I noticed how a lot of the beats you hit, particularly the ones around Rey’s arc into almost exactly the same as Luke Skywalker’s. The Dark Lord patriarch being her only remaining blood family, the requirement for her to overcome her dark heritage/powers/temperament, the final gaze into the Tattoine suns, even having her Jedi Master Force-pull an X-Wing out of the water to beef her up for her Final Boss Fight.

Honey, I know that you’re scared because big brother TLJ got so much screeching for venturing “too far” from Grandpa OT’s shadow. Kinda feels like you’re hiding behind Grandpa’s leg. I’m sorry you feel like you gotta do that - I’d say “it’s okay to be your own person, you don’t have to do the things Gramps did just because Grandpa did ‘em,” but considering how people responded to TLJ ...

And in fairness, I also know that, as the Last Of The Nine Episode both in- and out-of-universe, you had to find a way to tie all the movies together - Originals, Prequels, and your own Sequel siblings. I’m just saying that I noticed the ways that you did it - and so did everyone who’s screaming mad right now.

Now I hear a lot of people say that your making Rey a Palpatine flies directly in the face of the lesson that your big sister had for Rey. But personally, I feel like the message of “yeah, you have a heritage of Great Evil, but that doesn’t define you�� to be pretty emotionally consistent with the message of “sure, you came from nothing, but that doesn’t define you.” And I was a fan of that too.

I mean, like with Endgame, it’s not like there’s nothing I might not change in fanfic later. I might focus more attention on Finn, explore his Force-sensitivity, maybe gently tug him loose from running after Rey constantly. I might keep Ben alive post-redemption. Maybe even more major stuff, like an alternate villain and backstory for Rey; maybe look into how to move forward with the Jedi as an order. You know, stuff like that.

But let’s finish strong with one more burst of love! I highkey cheered at the way that you brought Rey the presence of so many previous Jedi through their voices. The first time I recognized the voices that I did, I had some Big Time Emotions, let me tell you! I know that moment was a source of frustration for a lot of people, but I loved it so much! It really did feel like a “we stand behind thee, daughter” moment in all the best ways.

So after all this rambling? I dunno. I just wanted to up and express some affection and honesty, in the midst of the general unhappiness, in response for the joy and sweetness that you gave me.

The Force be with you, honey. All my love.

PS. A good number of people (myself included) love and stick up for the prequels now, and initially everyone hated them. Maybe that’ll happen to you!

[helunar1]

Oh 100% agreed tbh

Tho I was definitely not at all as clear in my late night vent haha

Thing is, I do like how Viktor, isolated and silence by their own family, essentially forced his family to listen to his telling of events.

It shows that he isn't as meek as many would have thought him to be. He is kind at heart, yes - but Viktor had built up a life times worth of anger and resentment towards his isolation - hence why I say he is completely right in feeling and seeing things the way he did!

It's an aspect of his character I love, and frankly wish it would be explored more!!

While biased in his tellings, this is his world view. And as a consequence, completely blinded him to the abuse and trauma the other's face (or at least made it seem not as bad).

My favourite scene that exmplifies this is the flashback tattoo scene. Here we have all the siblings, sans Viktor, essentially being branded by their own father. You see all six of these siblings shaking, whimpering and/or downright sobbing. You see Diego in pain, refusing to even accept his mother's comfort, someone who he loves unconditionally (reasons up to interpretations). You see Luther, trying to stand tall and stoic but visibly terrified and hurt, at watching his siblings (his team) undergo something deeply traumatic. Something that will stay permenant (physically and mentally speaking).

All of this is occurring and yet we see Viktor.

Who sees this, and is not horrified. Not scared. But manipulated and isolated so much so that he also wishes to be included. He is completely or partly blinded to the pain and abuse the other's face because in a way, imo, he believes they should be grateful they were ever included at all.

And in the end, what was fascinating was that the book didn't help him at all. The publication of the book was supposed to be, what I think Viktor hoped, a turn in his life. He put his voice out and believed the catharsis would somehow help him change. But it didn't - instead it burned bridges and left him back to where he started.

Except this time with more guilt.

Imo - Viktor is one of the more (along with some others) self-serving of the siblings. And I enjoyed his flawed and contradictory nature - kind but petty, sweet but angry, quiet yet destructive.

Issue I have tho is that, while I do enjoy what it says about Viktor as a character, it does not erase what the consequences of said actions are. Whether the book was a 100% factually correct biography, it did not mean it was okay to completely expose the others to said facts.

And from the exerpts, so many of their tellings, while some stem from truth, are completely biased.

Again, the fact that Viktor published said book is telling of his nature. But what I am confused by is the lack of accountability of the harm it actually caused. How the book was a sign of how Reginald had molded and manipulated this world view that Viktor became unable to fully understand others trauma and instead so engrossed in his idea of his "ordinary" existence. The power Reggie holds, and how their father has pitted the siblings against each other once again. (Further shown by how the only ones effected was just the siblings, Reggie didn't even read it! And the news castings about his death only talked about him in high regard).

Instead I've found that a lot of the fandom (I could be wrong) either dismisses this or say that publishing this book was actually a good thing? Like any of the characters telling him that "Oh, don't worry, you were right in publishing that book," or "it was all true anyways"

But you have these adults who are going through their own trauma to have it shoved in their faces that, not only a one dimensional view of their personalities. But also exposition of the lives they lead that would completely shame them and/or put them in danger. So while Viktor understandably wanted to be heard after being silence. The had a complete right to also be downright PISSED at the Viktor doing so.

(And by one dimensional I mean that it sort of just states who they are as people but never delving into HOW or WHY they turned out the way they were. Which again, is telling of Viktor's mindset - being unable to really understand the abuse and trauma faced by the others)

So I always get confused when people believe that they shouldn't have been? Or downplay its consequences simply because Viktor was an abuse victim?

It kind of aligns with Allison's issues with Viktor in s3 where Viktor HAS been coddled many times while the others had to suck up their own problems to focus on him. And I felt that strongly even in terms of the fanbase?

Again - this is my own personal interpretation of characters and whatever others believe is just as valid.

But I guess I was just baffled by the amount I've seen this interpretation of his character? And perhaps I interpreted it different??

A bit of a rant I guess

But a lot of fics and posts have characters say that Viktor's telling of their childhood was "true" and have him be such a soft boy????

The things written in that book, while he does have the right to be resentful, was mean and heavily biased????

At one point; he even says that Luther (along with Reginald) let Ben die. Effectively blaming him for their brothers death. I could only imagine the effect it would have on Luther tbh.

And while I do think its great for the characters to forgive, I would love to see more on how the effects of the "childhood expose" was infact detrimental to the lives of the other siblings.

And for a Viktor to snap back and eventually own up to it. No more coddling!!

I've read great fics that included this though, for sure. And everyone has their own interpretations and ideas, but I do feel like a bit of a minority so I wonder if others may feel the same. Hrm.

[tedfashionski]

Finking, Finking.

Hi, welcome to my ted talk. (That is the only time I will ever make that joke. This is Fashionski Finks. Expect radically low standards of self-involved rantiness with zero research or accountability from here on out). For a while there I seriously thought that the covid-19 quarantine was going to result in people being increasingly placid and accepting of creeping extensions of the police state. But here I am, getting depressed again, not about the protests, which I love, but more about my relationship to in-group pressure dynamics. One of the problems with being a relentless contrarian is the discomfort of my impulse to rebel against groups even when they’re championing the right thing. I have to find my own way to fight against the system as an outsider. No gods, no masters, no fucking peer pressure.  I’ll never be happy joining a chorus line. I don’t sign fucking petitions (they’re just lists for the NSA). I do donate, but like fuck will I do it performatively. I can’t go to protests cus I get panic attacky in crowds. I empathise pretty strongly with outsiders of all stripes but believe ridiculously excessively in the public good of criticism, and have a nostalgic love of trolling (I like to think I’m gentle with it though). Bring back the troll! We need that fucker, he’s a sign of a healthy internet. I’m writing this blog thing as an extension of my need to vent my extreme negativity. TBH I never expected to get any followers with ted twitter and the bizarre welcomingness of the hf twitter community totally wrongfooted me. I’m not nice. Ted isn’t meant to likable. He’s my dark side. I was meant to be using this alt as a way to terrorise the nice nice (secretly cruel) fashion people. I’m gunna try and up that aspect more. Just bear in mind, my complaints are largely about the system, but if I see you perpetuating fashion’s entrenched anti-intellectualism or its insidery bullshit, I’ll come for you with a little meta-bomb with your name on it. Maintaining my misanthropic tone does take work tho, like, deep down in some twisted part of my psyche, I guess I do actually want to be liked. It’s fucked up.

I suppose it’s only fair to explain this Ted fursona. Like, new concept, who dis? Why all the furry porn? …..because I just think it’s hilarious. Every time I think about the furries I cackle (not at them, mind). I just love the mad corruption of pure Disney aesthetics into hardcore pornography. That’s anti-authoritarian as fuck. I love the sincerity of their culture. The way the crazy fetish aspect means they’ll never be fully blandified by mainstream acceptance. The way it’s so cringe but so delightful. And more seriously, I’m interested in how a culture of mostly gay male nerds developed to the point where they’ll invest 10k in custom fursuits and support eachother’s independent businesses in ways that the fashion community completely fails to do. The fashion world sucks. There’s so many correlations there that I want to investigate: the newness (furries date from around the 70s, fashion culture in its self-aware state dates from the late 19th C – both very young fields); the centralisation/decentralisation; the hierarchy (furries can be pretty catty, I have discovered in my research, and we all know what fashion people are like); the adoption of new identities; the cis-boy gayness aspect (I’m increasingly tired of the extreme nasty hierarchy of certain CSM queens. It’s all very UGH. Just, fuck those particular bitches.) There’s more to the furry love, but I’ll explore it in future posts.

More importantly, why Ted fucking Kaczynski? I’m not like, actually a terrorist. (….yet. tehehe. NO, seriously I like non-maiming violence. Fuck yeah to property damage. Fuck yeah to disabling the system in extreme way. But no to wooden IEDs. Think of my shitty jokes that fail to land as my hand-crafted bombs). I think I like the shitness of Ted. He was just an epic fail of a terrorist. I’m a little white girl living in London. I’m not actually a primitivist, as much as I crave a hut in the woods. I did go to an elite school though. I had some really shitty experiences in the fashion industry in my early 20s, and I watch my friends who are relatively successful in that system and I get so angry on their behalf at their poor treatment. They think I’m too angry. Fuck that. They should be more angry, and the fact that they can’t be angry at their extreme precarity and the fact they’re still insecure and terrified of being ejected by the system after all their investment and skills they’ve built up is BULLSHIT. I’ll be double angry for them, I’m not invested in that system. I don’t need it to pay my rent. I’m free, motherfuckers, and I’m coming for the abusers and exploiters. If you’re a complacent industry figure not fighting hard from within, uggghhhhh fuck you. Yes, YOU. Soooo, I relate pretty hard to the MK ultra stuff. (go look him up, he was basically tortured and experimented upon by the elite). But there’s a pretty big chasm between my views and his, and I’ll try to be clear about the extent of my interest in his extreme beliefs. I haven’t even finished reading the manifesto. Basically, I watched that shitty show on Netflix with sam worthington around the same time I watched Joker (that movie fucked me up) and thought it’d be a good outlet to larp online as a terrorist. There’s the angry white alt-right school shooter aspect, which I’m still figuring out, cus I’m non-binary and I was raised by nutso trumpy right-wingers, who I barely speak to anymore, and I struggle to get along with people generally. There’s sad, self-pitying rage here. I empathise with the angry white dudes too much. I feel guilty about it. That’s good ground for artmaking (yes, shamefully, this…is…art. Sorry). I modelled this fursona a little after my brother, who I spent years living with and arguing with and trying to lift out of his scary racist youtube rabbit holes. This is actually quite an emotional thing for me, cus I did the ‘talk to your fascist family’ thing. And I completely failed. I realised his right-winginess wasn’t lessening, I wasn’t gaining ground, and in fact my excessive empathy and desire to reach out to the relative most similar to me in character meant his extremism was rubbing off on me. Making me more resentful and depressed. Feeling powerless. I was being too kind-hearted and forgiving of his masculine impotence. So I’m exploring some personal shit here. But Ted is also a cute lil fuzzball teddy bear. He means well, but me being super autistic and faily at social skills means he’s kind of a dick, cus I am. I’m going to try and further develop this character, this POV, and this post is the only time I’ll explain the divide between him and his creator (moi). The ‘I’ on the twitter and here is Ted Fashionski, I need that space between me and him. Masks give us this freedom to be more ourselves. Internet culture has lost a lot of its wild brutal anonymity in the last decade or so, now everyone’s afraid of making mistakes. How the hell do you grow if you’re not allowed to fuck up? This is a vital outlet. He’s become an important part of my life and I have to say, I love being Ted Fashionski. He’s like Paddington Bear who just escaped form Guantanamo or something.

I get pretty fatigued as a matter of course. I’m a long-term depressive since childhood. I have a difficult time keeping my hard-on for living. I don’t get suicidal really but I do struggle with extreme fatigue. I sleep a lot. I often fall into spirals of self-hate. And as someone who utterly believes in revolutionary leftist politics, I beat myself up about not doing enough. I’m so middle class and english and white. I was raised in such a chauvinistic and complacent culture; I don’t even know where to start. I’m wading my way through post-colonial literature and beating myself up for finding it boring and uncomfortable. It’s hard to force yourself to acknowledge your culture is The Bad Guys. It’s easier to fall into fanstasies of supremacy and butthurt misunderstoodness. And it’s not like my depressive brain needs any encouragement to hate me. My trajectory is ever leftwards, but I remember the righteous fury of being right-wing. I get it, that was me. We need more paths back from fascism, more comprehension of why people are that kind of shitty. I talk less, and less well, the more depressed I am. If I’m talking, it means im feeling a lot better. Just, fyi.

Give me a minute to be critical here. With the George Floyd protests, a lot of the cool guys on fashion twitter has gone blazingly hardcore on the political side. But there’s this troubling rhetoric about ‘no return to normal content’ or ‘this isn’t the time for fashion’. Like fuck it isn’t. This is a key problem with fashion culture right here, we have this received perception of fashion as empty escapism. Escapism matters in fashion, yes. But seriously, talking about the surfaces of things does not equal not caring about deeper meaning. What the fuck. Clothes are a connective tissue, a membrane between us. They’re emotional and powerful. We can talk about things that matter THROUGH clothes. I speak fashion, pretty fucking well. Most people who work at fashion magazines are morons with no understanding or respect for their subject. They’re incapable of doing it justice, and that’s deliberate. On this tumblr you’ll see rants and reviews of fashion and other artforms, always interpreting through a fashion lens. cus it matters, cus it’s a vital part of the culture, cus just because something has a glittery, seductive surface doesn’t mean it doesn’t communicate or contain depth. There’s no going back to ‘normal fashion content’, yes. Normal fashion content is a fucking psyop to divert legitimate interest in aesthetics amongst largely non-academic dyslexic visual types away from careful thought/feeling and towards empty consumerist commericiality. The traditional fashion media wants you to express yourself and your interest in the zeitgeist through buying more shit. Another fashion world is possible. Let’s destroy the old and build a new one, one where surface and spirit are connected and true and fashion can’t be abused in service of evil industrial monopolists.

/end rant. TLDR: angry fictional teddy bear with tin-foil hat and an eco-anarchist fetish says no to stupid fashion and yes to the renewal of conceptual fashion. Also, Fuck White People.