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sunandmoongobrrr · 4 years ago

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Korra and her Brutalization: A Legend of Korra Meta

In honor of International Womens’ Day, I want to talk a little bit about Legend of Korra and the treatment of Korra (and to a small extent other women) throughout the show. Content warning: there's some disturbing scenes that I show here, but if you've watched all of LoK, you should be fine.

Korra starts off confident; she is a young avatar who is eager to learn and feels suffocated from the isolation she is kept in from a very young age. But that doesn’t stop her, and like the headstrong girl she is, she moves to Republic City to make a difference and step into her role as the avatar.

Korra immediately starts to doubt herself; she becomes unsure of her abilities and frustrated with herself, and through that she learns to become emotionally vulnerable with Tenzin. To me, this was really great. It showed that you can be confident and vulnerable, and that the two aren’t necessarily independent of each other.

(I’m going to be honest, the 2nd season I didn’t really remember much of, so I’m just going to skip over that. Because what I really want to talk about is season 3.)

In season three, Korra faces the Red Lotus, an “anarchist” group that essentially wants to kill her. And they get pretty close. First, I want to talk about how Tenzin is beaten by the Red Lotus. This has been brought up in Lily Orchard’s (in?)famous LOK video, and while I disagree with her on many many topics of the show, I really think she has a point here. When Tenzin is being brutalized by the Red Lotus, the camera pans away. It is SO painful to see him like this, and the directors know it. It’s TOO painful to see it, so they don’t show you it, and the episode ends before we can see him be defeated.

Contrast that with Korra. They show you every detail of this. And I mean every detail.

It’s disgusting, and they refuse to treat her with any sort of decency or respect like they do Tenzin. It’s almost like they want us to enjoy her torturing. It’s genuinely gross.

People will often refute this by saying “LoK is just a darker show! Look at what they did to the Earth Queen!” And while yes, it is marketed towards an older audience, there’s still no point in brutalizing Korra this way. The main difference between Korra and the Earth Queen is that… well, Korra’s the protagonist. We’re supposed to be rooting for her, and while the Earth Queen being suffocated was definitely dark, it wasn’t unprecedented. The audience was never supposed to like the Earth Queen—she exploited and kidnapped her own people, so of course we wouldn’t care THAT much if she died. But we’ve been with Korra since the beginning. We’re supposed to want her to be happy, and why on earth would we want her to be tortured brutally in such a disgusting way that gives her absolutely no dignity? If we want her to succeed?

(here Zaheer uses the same technique used on the Earth Queen to suffocate here on Korra. for some reason)

In Season 4, the main focus is on Korra and her healing from the brutal things the Red Lotus did to her. She is clearly still struggling, and it could have been another great way to show how being physically strong and confident doesn’t mean you can’t be vulnerable. But they make a lot of bad choices in this season.

One of my main gripes is that in order to heal, she has to return to her abuser, Zaheer, and HE has to teach her how to feel better.

I don’t want to compare LoK to ATLA, although it’s very important to mention that a show that’s a direct sequel, uses its old characters, and banks off of references, should be able to be compared to its predecessor. But I think it’s important to compare Korra’s arc here to Zuko. This doesn’t come out of nowhere; Korra has a lot of similarities to Zuko. The chopping of her hair is a significant turning point in her arc, and there’s an episode called “Korra Alone” (which is clearly a direct callback; shown below).

The difference between Zuko and Katara is that, a. Zuko never had to accept his abuser, and b. Zuko started off as a villain.

One of Zuko’s major points is when he confronts his father—his abuser. He does not bow to him and give in, saying that maybe he had a few good points or his heart was in the right place, but he directly says that Ozai was wrong for what he did. This isn’t the case with Korra. For some reason, Korra has to learn to trust her abuser. The person who did this to her:

And she has to hear him out.

This leads me to my second point, and what’s basically the complaint I have; despite being a protagonist, the show treats Korra like a villain. It frames her torture scenes as if we’re supposed to be excited that she’s being brutalized, as if we’re supposed to think she deserves it. And it’s not even handled properly as one of the villains we know so well—Zuko, who was able to overcome his abuse and become a protagonist who we root for. Again, Zuko and Korra aren’t directly the same characters, but there are parallels between the two and the show encourages their comparison. When it comes to Korra, however, we’re supposed to believe that she deserves everything that comes to her; the brutal scenes and the lack of dignity, even if she is a protagonist.

And in the end, that’s what we’re meant to believe; that Korra deserved what happened to her. In the finale, Korra says, “I finally understand why I had to go through all that. I needed to understand what true suffering was, so I could become more compassionate to others.”

This is, to put it short, ridiculous. I hate this so much I can’t even begin to say how much I hate it. No, Korra did not have to go through the torture she went through. She did not have to go through the mercury poisoning. She did not have to go through every hardship she did. This “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is so harmful because Korra’s healing revolved around accepting her abuser and thanking him for the awful things he did to her. Korra wasn’t even that cocky by the end of the first season, so what it’s essentially indirectly teaching girls is that if you’re confident, you’ll pay. It’s disgusting.

Zuko got a banishment to the Earth Kingdom, got to have his ideas and practices challenged, but he never got physically tortured. I truly, truly believe that one of the main reasons why Korra is quite literally villainized by the show is because she was a confident, brown teenage girl. None of the male characters are treated with such disrespect and we never get told that they need to be “humbled” by abuse.

This is not completely resolved to LoK; there are some aspects in ATLA that I think could’ve been fixed had there been more women in the room. I tag her a lot (bc her metas are awesome), but I really recommend you read @araeph 's Katara: Consumed by Destiny series. I also have a meta here about how Katara is treated in ATLA, specifically in “The Fortuneteller.” (I want to emphasize that while I am anti-Kataang, I don’t believe that Katara’s treatment had to do with the ship itself or that kataang is inherently anti-Katara. It’s just a note about how her character is treated in this episode and beyond.)

I’ve heard a lot of people say that they’re ‘glad’ that LoK didn’t feature Suki or Mai or Ty Lee, because they can’t imagine how poorly they’d be represented. And honestly, I can’t blame them.

This isn’t to say that we need to stop watching LOK or even ATLA. I think the internet has this weird problem where we’ve been told that the way to get rid of problematic media is to just stop consuming anything even remotely problematic altogether. But certain aspects of media will always be relatively problematic, since as content creators we sometimes input our biases into the things we create. The solution, then, is not to banish anyone who puts any harmful stereotypes into their content from society, but to actively and healthily criticize it. Bryke are not God, but they’re also not demons put on the earth to suppress woc. They’re white guys that have implicit biases that have worked their way into the content they produce. I think the lesson learned here, is to have women, especially BIWOC, in writing rooms, to prevent atrocious acts from happening to future Korra's.

Happy International Women’s Day, y’all.

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onesheeptwosheepandachicken · 3 years ago

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26 Reasons why Qrow is not Ruby’s father and why Taiyang is Ruby’s father

In response to the toxic aspect of the fandom attacking CRWBY and demanding that their desires for Qrow be chosen over canon, or how they feel their theory is more valid than the show itself? I have researched RWBY to make this 26-point Discussion as to why Canon is valid, and fancanon is not when it comes to Qrow Branwen, Ruby Rose, Taiyang Xiao Long, and Summer Rose.

1. “Monty said NO” Most obviously. Monty Oum.

He said in this tweet that ruby and yang are half-sisters…half-sisters, which means they share the same mom or dad…in this case Taiyang….

https://twitter.com/montyoum/status/492070189731565568

Now people have claimed “he obviously meant step-sisters or cousins” Why is it that every time we show the English dictionary to you people or ask you to read it, that you claim you are being attacked or that you claim Monty was misleading us?

2. The writers said NO

Miles Luna debunked this theory on Reddit…

He pointed out that Ruby sees Qrow as a Role model, so she adapts her colors to be similar to his.

And you don’t need somebody to be blood to be your role model.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBY/comments/7x3w4s/crwby_ama_w_miles_luna_kerry_shawcross_and_paula/du5d67g/?

3. “Rooster Teeth said NO” Rooster Teeth even said that Qrow is "Ruby and Yang's Uncle" They also said “Ladies, he’s not your man”

https://twitter.com/RoosterTeeth/status/1067205612331782144

4. “But what if Summer had feelings for Qrow? Why does Qrow Serve Ozpin?” Qrow said in Volume 6 " No one wanted me... I was cursed... I gave my life to you because you gave me a place in this world... I thought I was finally doing some good... " So he was saying he wasn't wanted, so no relationship with Summer. SUMMER DID NOT WANT HIM. And he was literally saying he served Ozpin because Ozpin gave him purpose. It’s pretty sad how people think Qrow can only be a complex character if he obsesses over another person’s wife and child. What , you wanna make him Severus Snape, the Lilly Potter stalker who insulted a girl’s face and tried to poison a boy’s pet and publicly outed a teacher?

https://rwby.fandom.com/wiki/Qrow_Branwen/Quotes#So_That.27s_How_It_Is

5, "But Qrow could be lying" Except in volume 6 Qrow literally said "Don't lie...we're better than that"

And in volume 7?

" Long time ago. I just found working alone tends to be for the best "

" Gotta say, I’m still not really used to working with other Huntsmen in the field. "

And finally World Of Remnant on Patch.

" Nice place to raise a family, if you're into that sort of thing. "

https://rwby.fandom.com/wiki/Qrow_Branwen/Quotes#So_That.27s_How_It_Is

6. “Qrow fans claim that Ruby and Summer form a core part of Qrow’s character and backstory.” WRONG! The main accusation for demanding Rooster Teeth / CRWBY change the backstory for Qrow would accomplish nothing.

Raven already pushed Yang onto Taiyang to raise on his own.

Qrow forcing Tai to Raise Ruby alongside Yang while Qrow could regularly visit, and while Summer lived with Taiyang, Yang, and Ruby?

It would cheapen Qrow’s character….blood isn’t everything. Neither are cliches.

7. “But what if Qrow gave Ruby to Tai to raise after Summer’s death?” Volume Chapter 6, Burning the Candle.

Yang tells Blake that she (yang) and Ruby were raised together by Summer and Taiyang…not by Taiyang on his own, but by Summer and Taiyang.

Yang clearly had memories of being raised by Summer and Tai both, which meant that Summer and Taiyang lived together raising Ruby and Yang for Several Years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZkN-53h5Os

8. “Does Taiyang care about Summer or Ruby?” Taiyang was noted to have shut down when Summer didn’t come back…. Yang noted this in Volume 2 Chapter 6, and Ruby mentioned in the first episode of Volume 3 that Taiyang missed Summer. Qrow also said that Ruby is Taiyang’s “Special Angel”…. Ruby has also pointed out numerous times that Taiyang is Overprotective of Ruby. In fact, Ruby's conversation with Penny about overprotective fathers.

9. “Qrow knows Taiyang is Ruby’s Father. Taiyang knows Ruby is Taiyang’s daughter. Qrow has referred to Taiyang as Ruby’s father during volume 3 and 7. Taiyang referred to Ruby as his daughter in volume 3.

10. “Why didn’t Taiyang train Ruby in Martial Arts?” Taiyang is a martial arts fighter. Ruby has neither the build nor the personality for ruthless hand to hand combat like her sister… Taiyang would trust Qrow, despite his semblance. Remember how bad Ruby was in v5?

11. “Qrow’s semblance is not what his fans exaggerate it to be”

Speaking of Qrow’s semblance? He was playing video games with his nieces, taught at Signal Academy, and could train Ruby… Clearly, his semblance is not what theorists make it out to be.

12. “Why doesn’t Qrow treat Yang the same way he treats Ruby?”

Yang is the daughter of Qrow’s sister,who abandoned the team.

During a one on one interaction between Qrow and Yang after yang vs mercury, Qrow called his own niece crazy, after she had been framed.

Qrow was not empathetic to Yang.

Qrow may not like Yang’s resemblance to Raven.

Ruby is the daughter of his two closest friends, so of course he’d prefer Ruby over Yang.

13. “Examples of Taiyang caring for Ruby.”

Volume 2 Ruby was excited when Taiyang sent a package in the mail, not even knowing it was Zwei.

Taiyang was at Ruby’s bedside in V3, and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

He also tried to bring her breakfast in bed.

Taiyang said he wanted to chase after Ruby, but had to nurse Yang back to health.

During the V8 broadcast, Taiyang was upset when the broadcast was cut.

14. “Genetics research”

Black hair is the subtype of the pigment for blonde hair…

Also, Ruby’s got the same hair strand that Yang and Taiyang have.

Finally, black hair is more dominant.

So Ruby doesn’t need blonde hair to be Taiyang’s kid.

https://askinglot.com/is-black-hair-a-dominant-or-recessive-gene

https://www.quora.com/If-a-jet-black-haired-parent-and-a-blonde-parent-have-children-what-color-hair-would-the-children-likely-have

15. “The STRQ Photo”

The photo....Qrow was with STRQ for four years...do you really think Qrow is not allowed to cry on the photo unless he was romantically involved? Can't a man grieve over the death of a female friend that he was NOT in a relationship with? Or are men not allowed to have female friends? Ichigo and Rukia from Bleach for example...friendship. They were his friends, his family. People seem obsessed with the idea that Qrow cannot care about a woman unless he was romantically involved or unless he's their bastard father.

16. “Men and Women…as friends, platonic” Harry Potter as a book showed that a boy and a girl can interact and still be friends…

Why can’t Qrow be Summer’s friend?

Why does he have to be her lover?

We’ve seen Qrow talk about Innkeeper’s skirt lengths and leer at Barmaids who flirted with him.

Also, he’s shown to be bonding with both Clover and Robyn.

People act like he doesn't flirt with anyone , and yet he does.

17. “Bad Luck Charm” Qrow has spent his whole life with his semblance, named after a Crow.

Raised by the Branwen bandit tribe.

“You and I are not the same, you don’t want the burden of my name” Both Branwen and Qrow are names that Qrow hates due to his semblance and past…

People may think of him as cool, but Qrow suffers from self-loathing.

So NO, the Bad Luck Charm song does NOT in fact allude to Qrow being Ruby’s father, but that Qrow hates himself, hence a major part of why he’s alcoholic.

Proof of which is his volume 6 exchange with Ozpin about being useful, which Qrow disagrees with, leading him to drink further. Yang literally said that she had never seen qrow so drunk before in v6.

And Ruby encourages his self-worth leading him to try giving up alcohol….

His alcoholism is tied to low-self-esteem, not relationships.

18. Manga Anthology

Taiyang was shown in the Manga Anthology to have shut down upon Summer’s Death. That impacted his relationship with Ruby and Yang. Qrow? Is relatively unaffected. The good Uncle helping around the house. Taiyang haters and Qrow stans took this to demand that Qrow is entitled to Ruby, despite Taiyang recovering and doing his best to be a father. Anything Qrow does is worshipped like Mother Teresa, while anything Taiyang does, good or bad, is downplayed and smashed. Taiyang loved Summer so much he was devastated by her death. Qrow was unaffected. Think about that.

19. “I like Brats” Why does Qrow spend time with kids he’s not related to? Because he likes kids. You know how there are adults who enjoy being around brats? That’s Qrow. He didn’t have romantic feelings for Summer, he liked being around her because she was like a kid. Similar to how Blake likes Ruby’s idealism? And trusts her leadership?

20. “Taiyang the 2-timer accusation”

A woman on youtube claimed that Taiyang was a 2-timer who cheated on raven with summer, as there was, in her and her friends’ minds, “no way that taiyang could be with half his team” When asked about TaiQrow as a joke, she was angered that people even ship TaiQrow.

But let me ask you this. Are you the same person you are now that you were 10 years ago? People claim that Qrow was somehow cool in beacon…because he’s cool now. But Taiyang, who raises two kids, and holds a job and a house…cannot be ruby’s father…because he’s not cool? And that somehow he was never cool? I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had to be cool to be a parent. I also had no idea people were only allowed to be in one relationship per lifetime. Raven freaking abandoned Tai for the tribe. Summer chose Taiyang over Qrow. People literally make Qrow out to be either an OC in a shipping fanfic, or a Naruto fanfic where Naruto is written to be fawned over by a girl whose canonical spouse, boyfriend, or male friend is somehow rewritten as evil.

1 year…..in 1 year since Raven abandoned Taiyang and Yang, Summer Rose the friend of Taiyang’s who he had known for 4 years, became more than a friend.

So no….Taiyang is not a two-timer…he moved on from Raven.

22. “Why can’t Taiyang talk about Summer?” To WHO? He’s barely got 15 minutes of screentime, and the writers did NOT do him any favors when they had Qrow demand he leave so Qrow could tell Ruby a secret Ozpin trusted him with, before telling Ruby to run away from home leaving only a freaking note. Terrible daughter. Even Yang was prepared to do the same! To a man whose first wife abandoned him! At least Weiss has a legit reason for acting as she does against Jacques, several at least. Ruby? No. Now why would Taiyang talk about Summer’s fighting style to Yang when trying to get her to stop acting like Raven in her fighting style and semblance? Sure if there was more time…but RT at the end of the day isn’t some money-hungry political entity, it’s a startup at the end of the day, they don’t have the ability to do a full anime episode. Also, Taiyang cannot go out on these active missions…he was a schoolteacher who did not do missions until only recently…he was retired, remember.

23. “These fanworks make more sense to me”

Qrow fans have tried using fanworks to justify their theory or ship, the same way Blacksun fans or Adam apologists make similar claims, and even Raven fans try to claim Raven is somehow a good mother. What do these fanworks do? Hate on Taiyang. Dismiss Ruby and Yang being half-blood siblings. Ignore multiple elements of the show or scenes. Occasionally shit-talk the writers.

Every time somebody tries to make a “rwby rewrite” or “rwby alt” or “Qrow is ruby’s father au” they cannot do it without completely rewriting the characters in so many forms and even the show, till Qrow, Raven, Taiyang, and Summer are NOTHING like they are in the show…And ONLY how a shipper wants qrow to be.

Or rewriting qrow to be nothing like he is in the show.

Most Alt or Rewrite consists of making Taiyang abusive, a cheater, or refusing to allow him to interact with Summer, while regularly pushing qrowxsummer at each other.

So no…it’s not that it makes sense to them through some fanart….a headcanon that has been debunked is no longer headcanon. A theory that is shut down is no longer a theory. There’s a reason anti-vaxxers and flat-earthers still exist. Because to them, their theories make more sense than reality. Which is why people still believe Qrow is Ruby’s father the same way people believe vaccines cause autism. Neither are true, and no amount of facts will shut them down, but they’re both popular theories.

24. “Qrow Rings and Cross”

People claim that Qrow was married to Summer or that his cross represents him mourning Summer. Did the STRQ photo, in v3, the same volume as his appearance, not show Qrow with his rings, his cross, and angrily scowling, while Summer was right next to Taiyang?

25. “What about Summer Rose’s choice?”

Remember how I said making Qrow’s character based on solely Ruby and Summer, ignoring everything regarding the tribe and ozpin giving him hope, and the grimm reaper…was bad writing? There’s a reason people hated v5. Raven was proven to be the deadbeat, Qrow was shown to have friends, and that Taiyang knew about Salem, and of course it was confirmed that Yang and Ruby again were sisters by Raven.

Now how about Summer? Team leader….took a man and a daughter who were abandoned by her friend…and made them her own. Yang calls Summer Rose “Supermom” and “Her Hero”…was literally willing to storm a bandit camp so Raven could use her portal to take Yang to Qrow, so she could get to Ruby. And yeah, I know the RWBY critics scream “why didn’t Yang just look for Ruby in Mistral?” It’s a bloody kingdom, and Yang was pursuing a lead, that Tai had given her, and Qrow told Yang he’d look after her sister. Remember that? Oh wait, RWBY Critics forget, my bad. Anyway, she’s more of a sister to Qrow than his blood sister Raven, she’s more of a mother to Yang than Raven, and she’s more of a spouse to Tai than Raven. Good Stepmother. Non-married couple. Relationship built on trust. Blood is not the same as family. (Example Weiss’s remark to her father) (Or Dom Toretto)

So making Summer into a throw-away character who dies so that a brooding jerk of an alcoholic can claim character development? Making a woman nothing except a throw-away for a man to get development is BAD WRITING. For God’s Sakes, even Pyrrha was written better than that! She interacted with team rwby, nora was always helping her out, and so was Ren (though those shakes are a crime against humanity” But when Qrow fans try to demand he’s ruby’s father? Their fanworks make Summer as much of a flat character as Preston Harvey from Fallout 4, where they make Summer unable to do anything but be obsessed with Qrow and having his child, similar to how Preston cannot think of anything other than “Another settlement needs your help, I’ll mark it on your pip-boy”

26. Finally, the accusations that CRWBY are lying.

“You have to be ****** if you believe CRWBY when they say Qrow isn’t Ruby’s father” “CRWBY is lying, it’s what writers do” “It’s okay for writers to lie, it’s good for plot” “I’d prefer it if CRWBY was lying to us” “Monty is dead, the writers should change it now” “Monty is dead, nothing else in the writing matters” “Monty was hiding the truth from us” “CRWBY is hiding the truth about Qrow being Ruby’s father” “It makes sense for CRWBY to lie to us” Look at this…Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, instagram…. The first quote? Was a woman who was using an anti-autism anti-disability slur defending the theory. Never have I ever seen people so obsessed with a theory that they would deny reality and be rude to the very writers and original creator. But the QrowxSummer and Qrow is Ruby’s Father fandom group has made countless cases of this. THIS is how they defend their theory? And people upvote, like and support these remarks? SHAME SHAME SHAME

Conclusion:

I get how people desire qrow to be Ruby’s father for ships or fanfics.

Even to where they make Taiyang a hated character just for the sake of making sure nobody disagrees with them.

But the attacking of RWBY and CRWBY, claiming that “this needs to be fixed”, or getting angry at RT for not giving you the non-canon ship you want? Claiming that just because you want it to be so, that somehow your ship/theory has “validity?”

That reflects poorly on the fandom and critics.

But then again…. It’s easy to ignore what’s real and what’s a fact that when theorists and ship-pushers and CRWBY Haters on youtube tells you to stop listening to monty and the writers, and instead believe whatever you want and claim whatever you want, Because surely you know what’s better for the show than the people who worked on it, right? Ha ha ha, no. THAT is the ULTIMATE disrespect somebody calling themselves a fan could ever give. And if you think or agree with that type of logic, you should look in the mirror.

I looked for backup sources to defend CRWBY and RWBY, you’ll find them below.

Backup sources include:

https://aminoapps.com/c/rwby/page/blog/qrow-is-not-rubys-dad/422o_0rbCYuoXj36VoB7obK3MXPZRbPKkz5

https://aminoapps.com/c/rwby/page/blog/why-the-qrow-is-rubys-father-theory-is-wrong/z668_nQlIxu0dmRdRpEPxqE3qlWlZEmoE2

https://aminoapps.com/c/rwby/page/blog/qrow-cant-possibly-be-rubys-and-heres-why/8BB5_LPVCmu2bonkw8eEP3Yokg8m8zJlgNV

https://aminoapps.com/c/rwby/page/blog/why-qrow-isnt-rubys-father/lXXx_5QoUQuPVGo3Wgko3wJ52mMBl7644P

https://aminoapps.com/c/rwby/page/blog/is-qrow-rubys-father-short-answer-no/422o_0rbCYupDKezxPxpdje7dRn3nB8YvZ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPbft3KJd6o

https://aminoapps.com/c/rwby/page/blog/qrow-is-rubys-dad-theory-debunk/d33g_pQEcbu1NKQoMEv0kmDpP6N8bmowkkq

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sirloozelite · 4 years ago

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A Review of SWTOR

So, not too long ago, a pair of friends (frenemies more like) of mine were playing SWTOR... and suffice to say they would not shut up about it. I’d always been aware of the game in the back of my mind, but it had never really appealed to me. MMO’s don’t really, as I would always be worried about random players sticking their nose in whilst I was trying to keep to myself.

Still, my friends would not shut up about it, and they kept recommending it to me, despite my internal aversion to it. Now, considering that they had both foolishly taken my advice on games to play in the past, I decided to return the favour and give SWTOR a chance.

And boy was I glad I did. Is SWTOR a good game? Yes... and no... and yes. It’s not perfect, it’s got problems, but it’s still a lot of fun, and I’m glad I’ve done at least one playthrough of the game.

Upon loading up I of course had to choose what storyline I wanted to follow. Since both of my buddies had gone Jedi Knight, (though I’d argue that a certain someone made their Jedi about as deplorable as Anakin) I decided to be the awkward one and went Sith Inquisitor instead, and honestly... I think I chose perfectly!

Oh and... for those interested... here is my Inquisitor:

His name is the Sixteenth Brother! What’s his backstory? Well... that depends on who you ask! Some say he’s the 16th sibling of a Zabrak family... others say he chose the name to hide his true one. Some even say he’s a time traveller from a distant future sent back in time after accidentally finding a Sith relic in his time. Whatever the truth is matters little. All that matters is that he was great fun to play as.

Oh and for the record, this review is based on a Free To Play experience and completion of the class storyline only. I’ve not touched the expansions yet, but intend to at some point. Any criticisms I have that are solved by subscribing are a moot point. Furthermore, it goes without saying but all of the below is my own opinions of the game. Doesn’t make them right or wrong.

The Good

There are many good things about SWTOR, almost too many to name. That said, there are some things I’d like to highlight.

The Story

The first and foremost best thing about the game is of course, the story. Being a Bioware written game created at the same time as the Mass Effect trilogy, I expected a good story... and I was not disappointed by the tale of the Sith Inquisitor. It was the standard tale of a protagonist coming from lowly origins, in this case a slave, and advancing up the ladder of society. Nothing too revolutionary, but add in the Sith and the Empire and it was made all the more better. Frequently, poor 16th Bro would get hounded for being an alien, and each and every time he’d beat the odds, and then usually show mercy to those who had insulted him. (I played him mostly light side... though there were a few times I surrendered to the dark and zapped people)

The world building within the story was also top notch. Plenty of detail is hidden away in the codex, much like Mass Effect, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t stuff in the actual gameplay and story as well. I’d never really been a legends fan, and whilst I’m still not, I do see why a lot of people love these sorts of stories. I was invested, and that’s what mattered.

Outside of the Sith Inquisitor, the very fact that there are seven other unique storylines and classes to play, as well as heavy character customization and role play more than make the game worthy of revisiting. There is a little bit of something for everyone it seems.

The Characters

Another great strength of Bioware games is usually it’s characters, especially the protagonists companions. I can happily report that, at least for the Sith Inquisitor, the vast majority of the characters in the story were great.

The three standout characters outside of the Inquisitor to me were Khem Val, Ashara Zavros and Talos Drellik.

That’s not to say that Andronikos, Xalek, Zash and Thanaton weren’t good characters either, I just didn’t enjoy them as much as Khem, Ashara and Talos.

Each character felt like they had their own arc. Khem Val growing to accept you as a Master and true successor to Tulak Hord was great, even if he and 16th Bro were constantly disagreeing about 16th’s methods. Despite his dislike of the decisions, I still sided with him when the time came to choose who got to control his body for good.

Ashara going from “I’m a Jedi and I won’t go against my teachings!” to “Peace is a lie!” was good development as well. I understand that some people don’t like this character much, but she was my go to companion most of the time. She’s not quite a Sith, but not quite a Jedi either, and that made for a perfect companion for the 16th Brother, as he was hardly a model Sith either.

As for Talos... well... he’s an archaeologist and a historian... and I’ve got a degree in history... so of course I was going to love him! Plus he was eccentric as all hell and added a nice voice of humour to the crew. His personal story about him trying to find his old mentor and carry on his legacy was heartfelt too.

As for everyone else, I was invested in their characters, don’t get me wrong, just not as much as the others. Both Zash and Thanaton were good villains that I took pleasure in ending, and Andronikos and Xalek got their fair amount of use on the field and in the ship. Everyone was friends at the end after all.

The Voice Acting

The other good point I’d like to highlight is the voice acting, particularly that of the male Sith Inquisitor. I’ve heard people say the female voice is better, but for my experience the male Inquisitor was the perfect match of sass and sarcasm. It made every scene with him in enjoyable to watch. RPG games were a single protagonist can get a bit boring sometimes. Commander Shepard suffers from this in Mass Effect at times. I never got that feeling with the Inquisitor though. He was hilarious from the second he stepped off the shuttle on Korriban and sassed Overseer Harkun (who I totally zapped to death) to the moment he took his seat on the dark council with a surprised Pikachu look on his face.

So yeah... super credit to Euan Morton for making the Inquisitor the dark master of sass and sarcasm!

Outside of the Inquisitor, I can say that all the other VA’s did a great job too. I can’t think of any character that had particularly bad voice acting off the top of my head.

Other Good Stuff

Outside of the three things I mentioned, SWTOR also has plenty of content to offer for everyone. If you want to do main missions, sure! Side quests? Sure! Space combat missions? Yep! Whatever you fancy, it’s there. There is no shortage of content to enjoy for hours on end, even as a Free To Play player like I was.

The Bad

And now to most likely upset some people... sorry about that, but no game is perfect, and SWTOR has some flaws that could put people off playing it. This stuff is by no means a game breaking deal for me, but it did annoy me and I felt like it needed addressing.

The Game is Tedious

My biggest complaint is that at times, usually after an hour of playing, the game can become tedious and boring to play! There were times it felt like a chore honestly, and I hate saying that because SWTOR is a good game.

The main reason for it feeling so tedious though comes down to how you move around the maps. When you can, fast travel is your best friend and can save a lot of time, however, not everywhere has a fast travel point near it.

This is where speeders come into play. You can buy one for a reasonable amount of credits, and they are faster than walking for sure, but not by much.

The problem with the speeders is that it is so easy to get shot off of one by one of the random enemies you are trying to drive past (and believe me there are hundreds of them!) that is becomes aggravating to move around the map from objective to objective. Avoiding enemies isn’t hard for sure, but sometimes you have to go right past them, and after hours of fighting enemies it can get a bit tedious being shot off your speeder in one shot just because you didn’t want to waste time fighting an enemy. Once you hit your level cap, fighting random enemies is pointless after all.

Maybe that’s just me though. I’d personally make the speeders a bit more durable. One tiny shot shouldn’t disable your speeder. Heavy fire... sure! Doesn’t help that sometimes you can tank a bunch of shots on your speeder and escape without being knocked off, but then on another occasion you’ll be knocked off by a sneeze.

Either way, movement around the maps can get annoying as all hell, but at least the scenery is pretty.

The Planets

Now don’t get me wrong, I like all the planets I went to... mostly... and my issue isn’t with the planets in general.

It’s with how bloody long it takes to complete them all.

The Story Arc quest lines for each planet can take forever sometimes and they end up going on a bit too long if you ask me. Alderaan and Hoth are the two that come to my mind the most. It felt like I spent weeks on those planets driving back and forth between areas to do simple tasks for little reward. Plus the sheer number of side quests didn’t help. I stopped doing everything that wasn’t a story or Arc quest once I hit Hoth!

Don’t get me wrong, I like side quests for sure... I just don’t like them to drag on forever! In a lot of ways, SWTOR reminds me of Mass Effect Andromeda. That game too also had side quests that went on forever.

My one piece of advice to nay new players for SWTOR would be to ignore the side quests and focus solely on your class story quests and planet Arc quests instead. If you try and do everything, you’ll burn yourself out quickly. Unless you are a completionist of course. In that case go nuts! XD

Other Bad Stuff

Aside from my two big gripes above, which are honestly minor in reality, the only other issues I really have with the game are the boring side objectives in some missions. Nine times out of ten they equate to ‘kill a bunch of dudes’. They are easy enough to complete, as you’ll be killing things anyways, so you don’t really need to put any real thought into completing most of them. They just feel tacked on and rather pointless honestly.

The Ugly

And now the ugly stuff. This is stuff that is between good and bad. Bad as in they annoyed me, but good as in I understand why others like them or they improved over time.

The User Interface

Oh god the UI! When I first started the game it was so overwhelming! Pop-ups everywhere! Hundreds of tabs and side bars and tutorial boxes being spammed my way. It was not friendly to a new player who had literally just jumped in. If I hadn’t played games like Civ or XCOM in the past I might not have been able to cope with how much stuff was going on at once.

Luckily, after a few hours of play, I began to understand the UI a bit more and became comfortable with it. I knew what was where and what did what, as well as what I didn’t need. (any PvP stuff for example) Plus the ability to edit the interface to your own liking helped a lot as well, so it wasn’t a complete lost cause, just overwhelming at first.

Flashpoints and Heroic Missions

So, these missions are designed to be played with other players online, clearly. They can be done solo, but they take forever to do so. Endless hordes of high HP enemies, including even higher HP boss fights is not that entertaining to me, and thus very quickly became boring to me. Artificial difficulty in a way. Plus if you do die, it ain’t half a pain in the ass to get back to where you were, only to find that boss that had 5% health left when it killed you is now back to 100%.

I gave up doing these sorts of missions and have no intention of returning to them unfortunately, which is a shame as some of the flashpoints have actual important story content in them.

Still, if unlike me you actually have friends to help you with these, then I get why you like them, and more power to you. I just don’t enjoy them much.

The Soundtrack

And now to really upset some people. Look... I like John Williams music scores as much as the rest of the fandom does. That said, there were places in SWTOR where it showed up and really really did not work! It almost felt like the game was just spamming random iconic tracks that sort of fit the scene, but really didn’t.

The biggest one for me that didn’t work was the final duel against Darth Thanaton in the Dark Council Chambers. During the cutscene between the two fighting, the music started on ‘The Final Duel’ from ROTJ when they were fighting, and they suddenly it shifted to the theme from Padmés funeral when Thanaton was overpowered! I mean, I get what they were going for with the music, but the sudden shift between tracks was unceremonious and didn’t work. If they were going to use licensed movie music then they should have just chosen one track and stuck with it rather than jumping between two!

Furthermore, to me those themes were written for specific scenes in their respective movies, and thus were created to fit those scenes, not random SWTOR scenes. If anything, the entire scene should have had it’s own score written for it rather than just reuse movie tracks instead!

That said, whenever the game does use original music that isn’t from the movies, it’s fine! The ambient background for the planets is great, Alderaan’s especially, and I hated that planet! They clearly had the talent of music directors to write Star Wars sounding music, so I don’t fully get why they didn’t just go with original music all the way rather than just reuse John Williams music instead. I don’t know if they didn’t have enough money or something. If that was the case then I’d understand.

So yeah, the music is a 50/50 for me. The original music is great. The movie music is still great, it’s just not used right.

Other Ugly Stuff

WASD controls. They aren’t game breaking, but I’m not a great fan of them. They make my wrist hurt. I adapted, like I did with the UI, so it’s not really a big issue, but I know it could put one or two people off playing it.

Another minor gripe is a consequence of the game being an RPG within an MMO. Other players are running around, often doing the same objectives as you. They can steal your objectives before you, forcing you to wait around for them to respawn so you can do them yourselves. Luckily there is usually other stuff to do in the meantime, and the re-spawn timer is smallish, so it’s not a huge problem. Just an unfortunate consequence.

Conclusion

So... would I recommend playing SWTOR to people? Yes! I would. It’s a good game, even with it’s flaws. I had a lot of fun running through the Sith Inquisitor’s storyline, and I learnt a lot about the game for any future playthroughs I do. I know what to expect now and what to stay away from, so hopefully whatever class I choose to do next will be full of less annoying little things.

That said, considering how long it took me to do the Inquisitor’s story, I feel like I’m gonna need a serious break before I can play another class. I was almost burnt out when I finished the Inquisitor, and I’ve still got the two free expansions to go!

So yeah... all in all, SWTOR is a good game,. I’d recommend it, and I’m glad I gave it a fair chance. It’s not in my top 10, but it’s one to return to. :)

So, if you’ve ever thought about trying out SWTOR before but were apprehensive about it, then I’d encourage you to give it a shot. It is free after all! Unless you subscribe. But you can at least try it for free! Bonus I say! XD

#swtor

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fatbottombucky · 5 years ago

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Thank You’s Go A Long Way *Steve Rogers x Reader*

@moonlight-mindfulness Requested: Steve working with a reader with intrusive thoughts (the depression/PTSD kind) and just giving her all the warmth and attention she needs whenever she feels bad, but also Reader being badass and just super sassy to him whenever she is in good spirits. I also just always like self care or someone helping the other w self care in fanfic. In case you want a steamy scene you could write her "Thank you" to him that evening 👀😏

Pairing: Steve Rogers x [F]Reader

Ratings: [+18] MATURE CONTENT

Warnings: Rough days and thoughts. Depression can be a bitch, tad angsty due to that. MAJOR F L U F F! Male Oral Receiving, cause lol

Notes: This... is way longer than I planned. Also, I haven’t written for Steve in a hot second. So, if this terrible... I apologise. - Rosalie

Requests are still open; men and female requests welcomed. I do want some female marvel character requests, got a lot of dudes, so c’mon...

24 HOURS EARLIER

“Oh, this was a bad idea,” Steve muttered into your ear over the loud gun shots being fired in your direction.

You don’t answer, so he looks towards you to see your cheeky smile. It almost makes him think this is perfectly fine, almost. You peek around the table you’re both behind, you almost get your head blown off and you have the audacity to laugh.

This is exciting to you, exhilarating even and that’s always confused Steve, but he feeds off of your energy. You have this thrill seeking attitude towards missions. It’s both a gift and a cruse for him, because his reckless nature combined with your thrill seeking: it’s a deadly combo.

But you are both always trying to outdo one another, it’s a sick challenge.

“So, what’s the plan?”

He looks down at you with raised eyebrows, wide eyes and a gobsmacked face, he’s meant to have a plan? For the shit you caused? The shit-eating grin you grace him with makes his heart flutter, but he’s not letting you off that easily.

“You’re Captain America,” you state obviously, “so man with a plan, let’s get outta here.”

He shakes his head dramatically, licking his lips as he looks over the table. There’s a drastic difference in bodies in this room, this whole operation was meant to be shutting down this organisation- collecting information too. Only it was shit from the get-go, for some reason instead of calling for back-up you both went further down in the bunker.

Now you’re both stuck.

“Still want to get that intel?” He asks you and you frown, tilting your head slightly, “I can hold them off, there’s a door just there,” he nods to behind you, “there’s a computer in there. You should be able to hack into them and get some kind of intel we can use.”

You begin to shake your head, “no way. There’s like thirteen of them, Steven. You’re gonna get seriously hurt.”

“Not if you’re quick, I’ve calculated the probability and it’s doable,” you roll your eyes, “better me than you, okay? We either go back empty handed or we get some type of information on these assholes.”

You only nod once at him, turning towards the door and deeply breathing. You look over your shoulder and cheekily smile at him, adding a wink for extra flare.

4 HOURS EARLIER

“Will you quit squirming?” You scold the man-child before you, he huffs loudly and sulks as you clean his shoulder.

He winces when you press the cloth to the wound, “It stings.”

“Yeah, well that’s what happens when you get shot!” You exclaim and shake your head when he pouts.

The Quinjet’s sink is covered in Steve’s blood and bloody gauzes, Steve watches as you use the small medkit to patch up his wound. Your eyebrows are knitted together, tongue poking out in concentration.

The gunshot no longer hurts or stings, his body already healing it for him. It looked worse than it felt, he knew that, but that didn’t stop you from worrying about him. Honestly, it was a lucky shot and a fluke he even got hit.

“Done.” You begin to close the sewing kit and smile at him, ruffling his golden hair.

“Thank you,” he grabs your wrist and kisses it tenderly, it causes you to scrunch your nose and make a gagging noise at his tenderness. “You’re so fucking mean,” he playfully pinches your side, you flip him off before heading out of the small bathroom and back to the cockpit.

PRESENT TIME

Your mind raced over yesterday’s events. How you managed to remain calm at the fact Steve got shot was a surprise, especially since your hands are shaking now. The same hands that masterfully sewed the bullet wound shut. Stopped the bleeding and cleaned him up.

This is your normal. Why the hell are you crying now? Getting shot on a mission is basically a normal date night for you both...

A soft knock is sounded through your apartment, you make no move to get out of bed, even when whoever it is knocks a couple more times. If they’re someone important or it’s serious they’d have a key... it seems they do.

The front door creeks open, keys are thrown into the glass bowl with all your change and keychains. Shoes are toed off, a jacket is being hung up on the hooks and then soft padding of footsteps are echoing towards your bedroom.

Door is pushed open, a tall figure is illuminated from the hallway lights. A sigh escapes you, it’s only Steve, your boyfriend, so it’s all okay. He’s fine, he doesn’t look angry even.

“You look snug,” He comments softly as he crawls onto your bed, laying over your covers and manoeuvring himself to laying beside you and facing you.

You’re silent in response, staring at your hands that are pulling threads at your blanket. Steve doesn’t speak again, choosing to remain quiet but he lifts a hand to tentatively play with your hair- you look at him and he gives a questioning glance, you shrug softly and he continues.

His fingers rub your scalp softly in circular motions, smiling when you scoot a little closer towards him. You don’t often let people touch your hair/head(head if you have a shaved head like me), but when you do it’s comforting and relaxing; could almost make you fall asleep.

“How is your shoulder?” your voice is barley above a whisper.

“Perfectly healed,” you nod once, “hey,” somehow his voice is even softer than before, “wanna do face-masks and eat chocolate?”

You raised an eyebrow, you felt really lethargic but nod. Steve leans over and kisses you softly before getting off of the bed, he switches on the fairy lights twirled around your headboard. You watch as he walks towards the bathroom and rummaging around in your cabinets.

It’s a full two minutes before he returns and puts the masks in his back pocket, he extends a hand out to you causing you to shake your head slightly. You didn’t want to leave the bed, you wanted to stay in bed.

“We have to leave the bed, Y/N,” you sigh and sit up, he chuckles when you make grabby hands for him- no way are you going to walk. He lifts you up effortlessly in his arms, “the bed is where monsters lie and you can’t listen to those.”

He sits you on the sofa and then settles beside you, silent as he crosses his legs and opens the packet of face-mask. A bag of snacks are on the coffee table. Between sitting up and looking through the contents of food the Netflix theme startles you, you faintly smile as he searches for Brooklyn Nine Nine.

He tells you that he’s going to put your face-mask on for you, your heart swells as he gently pats the cold paste around your face.

“You’re so beautiful,” he tells you sincerely.

Normally you’d roll your eyes at his cheesiness, but you don’t have it in you.

“Even with a cucumber mask on making me look like Shrek?”

He nods sweetly, “You’re the Fiona to my Shrek,” as you put his on for him. “Sam is Donkey,” he mutters faintly and you giggle.

“Who is Buck?”

“Puss in Boots,” you frown and huff a laugh, “he’s always been the cool cat and the one ladies fawn after.”

You smile softly, “but Shrek gets the princess. Not always about looks, Steven.” He nods with a shy grin, a blush forming on his cheeks at your implication.

Sitting in silence and watching Brooklyn Nine Nine with snacks, you couldn’t ask for a better distraction. Steve keeps a hand on your thigh, softly drawing patterns on your skin. Everything about this is perfect.

After twenty minutes Steve helps wash your mask off in the kitchen sink, laughing when you wipe your wet face on his shirt.

“I didn’t bring spare clothes with me,” he whines.

“I have shirts I stole from you in my room,” he gasps in mock shock at you, following you back to the bedroom where you show him your stash of his clothing.

It’s almost comical at how many shirts and joggers you have of his. Not that he minds, of course. You wearing his clothes is a favourite of his, he loves seeing you randomly in his stuff. *** After almost a whole season worth of Brooklyn Nine Nine you’re both back in your bed, facing one another and talking aimlessly into the darkness.

“Thank you.”

“Hey,” he wraps an arm over your body and pulls you towards him, “I love you. I’m not going to let you suffer in silence, especially not alone. So if you need to lay in bed in silence all day, then we’ll do it together. But I know how the mind works, twists thing and being in bed can be damaging too. Those monsters lie to you, so I couldn’t let it keep talking.”

You lean forward and press your lips to his gently, a surprise grunt rises from the back of his throat. Your hand settles on his jaw, stroking lightly as you deepen the kiss.

After a few minutes of making-out you push on Steve’s shoulder forcing him to settle on his back, you slyly smile as you lay over him and push the covers down as you travel down his body too.

“Y/N,” his breathless voice has you smirking, “you don’t have to.”

Judging by his breathy voice and obvious reaction to the potential possibility has you curving an eyebrow, his shoulder shrug in response and you chuckle.

“It’s a thank you,” you pull his briefs down, “you’ve been so good to me today, treated me so nicely.”

Before he can respond you lick a broad strip up his length, a guttural groan leaves his lips loudly. You smile proudly before getting back to work, lapping at the tip teasingly before taking him into your throat. You can’t fit all of him in your mouth, a slight gagging sound emits from you when he lifts his hips up to meet your mouth.

You pull back up, gasping slightly and working him with your hand. Licking at his length as you sped up your hand movements, smiling when he moans your name loudly, hand finding the back of your head; a silent plea for your mouth to replace your hand.

Accepting that you take him down again, bobbing your head and hallowing your cheeks. “Fuck,” he grunts rather loudly, “stop!” He whines and you slowly pull off him, your tongue staying on the tip as you watch him clam down. “Can we-Do you wanna?”

You climb up his body, hand still wrapped around his cock, “You don’t think my thank you was enough?” The question is paired with a coy smile.

“More than enough, but I wanna express my gratitude for looking after me yesterday.”

Please leave a nice comment/ like, maybe reblog? Any communication would be awesome :) I had my BETA help with the oral scene because... never sucked a dick lmao bye *peace sign* Let me know what you think! - Rosalie

#steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers smut #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x you #steve rogers imagines #steve rogers one shot #steve rogers x female reader #captain america imagines #captain america x reader

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sailormoonandme · 4 years ago

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My thoughts regarding the Usagi/Mamoru age gap

I am writing this in response to this thread.

To be clear as crystal here, this is just my take on the situation.

With all that said, for the sake of argument let's say we are in total agreement that in real life a 14 year old middle schooler and a 17 year old college student shouldn't be dating.*

But that is the key phrase here: 'Real life'.

The thing is...there is no end of fairy tales or media aimed at children that at best start to fall apart or at worst become extremely creepy when you apply a realistic lens to it.

That is the joke about the majority of Disney's canon in fact. For instance, Aladdin was 18 whilst Jasmine was 16. I'm British and over here 16 is the legal age of consent for sex but even so I'm at least iffy on a 16 year old dating an 18 year old. And to trade off some of the comments elsewhere in the above linked thread, you could absolutely argue there was a 'mental gap' between Al and Jas given how she was a sheltered and somewhat naive princess who'd never left the palace and he was a streetwise older guy who'd obviously flirted and charmed his way out of trouble before.

But let's consider a different Disney classic, perhaps their most famous movie, the Lion King.

The Lion King is a beloved and rightly iconic movie but if you take it at face value and realistically (albeit ignoring the fact that animals can talk, sing and are capable of human emotions and cultural references) it's guilty of:

Promoting incest because Simba and Nala would have at best been first cousins (Nala being Scar's daughter) at worst brother and sister. Because that is how lions work. Male lions murder the cubs of other males with the possible exceptions of their brother's cubs where they co-rule a pride. Even with the best case scenario, deleted scenes had Scar try to make Nala his queen and those scenes were reinserted for the hit Broadway musical. So either a brother and sister hook up or two first cousins hook up and a Dad tried to have sex with his daughter.

Promoting racial/class segregation: The Hyenas are from the 'dark shadowy' place and are given traits you can easily interpret as associated with black, Hispanic, Latinex or mentally disabled people. They are also framed with Nazi imagery and it is Scar's decision to let them roam freely that causes famine. Simba beats them, they are forced back to 'where they came from' and all is well.

Promoting authoritarian absolute monarchies. That's the whole movie's plot. Simba must embrace his destiny as the 'rightful ruler' of the pridelands whereby all other animals bow down to him. It's not even like the lions are the ruling class and they are at least democratic amongst themselves, it's literally this ONE specific bloodline that is not only in charge but is SUPPOSED to be in charge. Even if the wrong person from that bloodline is in charge the entire land suffers until the 'right' person takes the throne. That's a pretty terrible and pretty anti-democratic message isn't it, and that's coming from someone who lives in a country WITH a monarchy.

And, I admit this one is a serious stretch, but you could even argue that it's saying two men raising a child is a detriment to said child. Because Timon and Pumba raise Simba into an adult and the movie is very clear that he's grown up wrong, he is not the person he should be because he's embraced Timon and Pumba's upbringing.

So you see...the Lion King is mega terrible.

Except it isn't.

Because we all have the cognitive ability and understanding to grasp that you are not SUPPOSED to take it that realistically nor at face value. Even as children we grasped that, hence the generation that grew up with the Lion King (by and large) obviously don't think incest is okay, don't oppose same sex couples raising children, don't think segregation is a good idea and clearly do not think monarchies are the bee's knees.

Maybe as kids people couldn't put it into words, but material like this essentially exists in this realm of symbolism, psychological shorthand if you will.

In fact all fairy tales do that.

And Sailor Moon IS a fairy tale, or at the very least it borrows a whole lot from fairy tales.

In addition to being a fairy tale though Sailor Moon is a wish fulfillment fantasy story intended for a female audience (or at least a predominantly female audience).

Now of course what one woman's wish fulfillment fantasy might be may not be another's and I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to argue that Sailor Moon even clicks with the wish fulfillment fantasies of MOST female audience members. But I think it's fair to say from the cultural impact it has had, and how it's fanbase is clearly mostly made up of women, that the wish fulfillment fantasy it offers clicks with a sizeable enough number of women.

The reverse is true of something intended as a male wish fulfillment fantasy. James Bond was obviously intended as a male wish fulfillment fantasy, and it's success speaks to how it clearly clicked with a sizable enough number of people. And I don't think I'm being overly presumptuous here when i say MOST of those people were male.**

Both SM and 007 are wish fulfillment power fantasies but they are also romantic/sexual fantasies too.***

I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that for a sizable number (but not necessarily the majority) of women, including the tween/teen girls SM was aimed at, having an OLDER lover is a romantic wish fulfillment fantasy. On the flipside I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that for a sizable number of men and boys having an endless string of casual and completely consequence free sexual encounters with (traditionally speaking) gorgeous women who find you incredibly attractive is a sexual wish fulfillment fantasy.

And the thing is BOTH those things can become bad when you apply a realistic lens to either of them.

James Bond's sex life realistically would involve at least a few sexually transmitted diseases, unintended pregnancies (one of which occurs in the novels) and at least a few callously broken hearts. Even when you look at it strictly from Bond's POV that life only seems glamorous at first glance. Perhaps it is a fun fantasy, but only when it remains in the realm of fantasy. Because in real life that kind of life if lived long term is ultimately incredibly empty and unfulfilling. Even James Bond media has acknowledged this because there have been occasions in the novels and films where he has at least attempted to settle down with a stable partner. Many Bond fans (understandably) decry this as undermining part of the appeal of the character hence Bond inevitably defaults back to being single because that is a baked in part of the wish fulfillment fantasy the character offers.

Let's consider some other ways the Sailor Moon anime offers a wish fulfillment fantasy, namely the future of Crystal Tokyo.

At first glance it seems wonderfully utopic right. It is a beautiful crystalline world where everyone lives in peace and harmony, hunger disease and even aging having been functionally eliminated.

Well, that isn’t the case if you apply a realistic lens to it.

It's an absolute monarchy wherein everyone is functionally immortal and children don't reach maturity even after 900 years. Chibi-Usa clearly chafes at this reality so how do you imagine other children (who aren't royalty) might feel? How might their parents feel having to raise their children and be responsible for them for centuries as opposed to around twentysomething years? What if you became immortal in your 80s, you might be a very healthy 80 year old but you aren't in the prime of your life and you are stuck that way for what is essentially forever. Not to mention what if you don't like or do not agree with Neo-Queen Serenity's policies? What if they are actively detrimental to you, your family, your livelihood, etc? You can't vote her out of power and you can't even hope for things to change because everyone is healthy, provided for and lives forever. The chances of someone else coming to power are at best very, very, very slim.

Then you have the fact that it’s surely a society that would’ve stagnated because everyone is provided for. That’s the whole point of a utopia. It is perfection. But what if you are someone who defined your live by striving for improvement? What if you were a doctor and now found yourself redundant. Sure, you might acknowledge that’s for the greater good but you are still yourself left completely without purpose in this world.

And that’s not even considering the inevitable monotony of existing for hundreds of years. Modern medicine and science has allowed human beings to extend their life spans FAR beyond how long we’d live if we were still just cave people. As biological organisms are concerned we never evolved to live for 80-90 years. Even if your body isn’t breaking down across the centuries the human mind would never realistically be able to cope with centuries worth of memories and life experiences. Mental illnesses and conditions would be rife. If nothing else living in that world would sooner or later become utterly BORING!

Hate to say it and obviously it doesn’t justify their methods, but the Black Moon Clan kind of have some valid points against the world of Crystal Tokyo. At least they do when you break things down REALISTICALLY.

And that’s my thesis here. Sailor Moon isn’t supposed to be dissected realistically, at least not to THAT degree. It is a wish fulfilment fairy tale fantasy and demands a certain amount of suspension of disbelief and understanding of what the fantasy is offering.

And for the record I can 100% assure that no teenager in real life has, or could, ever get into a harmful relationship with someone older than them BECAUSE they watched Usagi and Mamoru’s relationship in the anime.

The human mind is a very complex and very powerful thing. At a younger age it’s impressionable and can therefore be influenced. But it’s not so susceptible that the romantic relationships in a cartoon about schoolgirl super heroes is going to influence a viewer into making any major life decisions that OTHER factors weren’t also influencing them to do.

In other words if a real life 14 year old girl began dating a 17 year old college guy it would’ve happened regardless of whether they watched Sailor Moon as a child or not.

Indeed, one of my frustrations with the podcast Sailor Business is how many guests on the show cite how they liked Usagi and Mamoru as children but now think their relationship is bad and creepy. I disagree with them for the reasons I cited above, but the fact that those panellists nigh universally give that same narrative proves how nobody was ever going to be prompted to do anything potentially harmful to themselves in real life by the show.

*Personally speaking that is certainly my own off the cuff attitude.

**Not to dismiss the fans who aren't, same goes for the non-female SM fans.

***Although I think you could argue SM is more on the romance side of things and 007 on the sexual side of things.

#My Essays #bishojo senshi sailor moon #pretty soldier sailor moon #pretty guardian sailor moon #sailor moon #tuxedo mask #mamoru chiba #chiba mamoru #usagi tsukino #tsukino usagi #James Bond #007 #Lion King #The Lion King #Disney #Crystal Tokyo

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fauzhee10069 · 4 years ago

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The Rock-Women, extinct or exist? (JoJolion)

This post is related to these posts:

JJBA Youthful Moms

The Biology of Rock-Humans

With the rise of youthful looking moms in JJBA, has Araki lost his ability in drawing 'old people'?

Araki’s evolving art-style

First, let's review his art-style and art-revolution in previous parts:

Part 1: Phantom Blood

I don’t really remember any significant old people here, so I’ll give it a pass.

Part 2: Battle Tendency

There was grandma Erina and Speedwagon in their 70s, both really looked their age.

There were also Straizo in his 70s and a 50 years old Lisa Lisa, as hamon users, they appeared younger than their age. Initially, Straizo looked like in his 50s and then in his 20s after he turned into vampire. Lisa Lisa looked like in her 20s, her youthful look had a purpose in-story and also got in-world recognition.

Then, there was also Erina in her 50s when she was holding baby Joseph, she really looked her age.

Part 3: Stardust Crusaders

There was this villainous villain named Enya Geil and she really looked old.

Then, a 69 years old grandpa Joseph really looked a granpa, despite being a hamon user. Readers believe that he rarely practices because he was lazy, but there is also wholesome speculation that he wanted to age together with his wife.

And Joseph’s wife, Suzy Q who is also a grandma looked old according to her age.

There was DIO who should be +100 years old, but just like Lisa Lisa and Straizo, as a vampire, he looked much younger than his actual age. Therefore, his youthful look had a purpose in-story.

Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable

In part 4, there was Josuke’s grandpa, Higashikata Ryohei at 55 years old. He did look like a grandpa.

Then, a 79 years old Joseph who looked very old and frail.

There were also Kira’s parents who were in their old age.

Part 5: Vento Aureo/Golden Wind

Just like in part 1, I don’t recall any significant old people in this story, but there was a Stand named 「The Grateful Dead」 with its terrifying ability to forcefully age people over a large area. Araki had drawn the aging too well.

Part 6: Stone Ocean

I don’t really remember significant old character but I know about the user of 「Dragon’s Dream」, a 78 years old elderly prisoner named Kenzo. He looked bizarrely old like Enya Geil. But I think this part could be the beginning of the aging problem for certain parent characters.

First, Jolyne's mom (whom sadly never named) didn't really look like a middle-aged woman. Although her age was never mentioned, I believe that she should be in her 40s or at least late 30s which should be her youngest estimated age.

Then there was Mrs. Bluemarine, left panel is when her son was still a baby then the right panel is around 15 years later when she confessed her sin. Not only her face remained unchanged (with no apparent aging), the hairstyle and dress are hilariously not changed.

And the meme of Jotaro ages backwards is not without reason.

Part 7: Steel Ball Run

This part also has a similar problem with the previous, the main villain of part 7, Funny Valentine (43/48) in his sexy form (late appearance) didn’t look much older than Johnny (19) and Diego (20), when he should have been more than twice their age, old enough to be their dads. Can you see their age difference on these panels?

But interestingly, Araki was also able to draw the differences in age and facial features of the two females (Lucy and Scarlet), as the former (the 14 years old girl) eventually had to impersonate the later. I also believe that the first lady Scarlet was in late 30s or in her 40s.

Then, there was also Stephen Steel who was around 51-53 years old and he looked his age.

Perhaps in this case, Araki just wanted to tell that Funny Valentine was older than he looked.

And now, we reached JoJolion (part 8) that likely suffers from the ‘youthful moms’ syndrome. So how did this begin?

The Middle-Aged Moms and their looks in JoJolion

Kira Holy Joestar

The first middle-aged woman to be introduced in JJL was Kira Holy Joestar, a 52 years old woman. Interestingly, she really looked her age, a middle-aged woman.

This early Holy also has similar facial feature with Scarlet Valentine

In fact, I think Araki did really well when he drew her as we can see the age difference between Holy (52) and Yasuho (19) clearly, a thing I highly praise because Araki did not rely using the frown lines on the sides of the mouth to illustrate the aging.

Hirose Suzuyo

Another woman that we can consider as a middle-aged woman is Yasuho’s mom, Hirose Suzuyo. Even though she is younger than Holy, being 44 years old can already be considered a middle-aged.

But together with Yasuho on the same panel, she doesn't look much older than her daughter. She basically looks like Yasuho’s older sister than her mom.

And if you prefer '43' to be the correct age of Funny Valentine, then it would make Suzuyo a year older than the president (in their respective timeline).

(Higashikata) Caato

Then this infamous gilf who rocked readers in her early debut and still being hyped by her supporters, (Higashikata) Caato:

Being 52 years old, she is the same age as Kira Holy Joestar, but her appearances and the fact that she already had a grandson makes the readers thought that her youthful look must have ‘a reason’:

Is she secretly a rock woman?

Is she a fusion of two people by Rokakaka fruit that caused her stop aging (an outdated theory from redditors due to her strange eyes)?

Will her attractive look signify that she will be the main villain (like Funny Valentine)?

Besides, during her family reunion, it seemed that Araki no longer bothered to make her distinguishable and significantly belong to different generation from her daughter Hato.

Though I think, there was a moment when Caato kinda look her age just like Holy in her early debut:

What is behind their youthful looks?

I think it is kinda unfair to think that only Caato who purposely looks youthful while disregarding the other moms’ look. Holy's first debut with her middle-aged look was in chapter 14, then Yasuho’s mom, Suzuyo even debuted earlier back in chapter 8 and she already looked attractive and youthful there. Only then did Caato made her debut in chapter 55.

Many readers also don't consider Holy's appearance during the Vitamin C arc, flashback where she met Josefumi and her son Yoshikage. The timeline at the time should be around 2010, because a chapter earlier (50), Yoshikage talked about Iwakiri, a baseball player who was taking a year off since 2009 due to an injury. Then Josefumi and Kira Yoshikage took action to steal Locacaca's branch until afterwards headed to a scene with Holy.

JJL chapter 51: Vitamin C and Killer Queen – part 2

In other words, a year ago (2010), Holy was already in her early 50s! And her face here definitely looks younger than her face when she debuted for the first time. We can argue that perhaps her older look in present time (her debut) was caused by her strange illness, as people who are sick often appear older than usual.

But in Holy's most recent appearance in chapter 92, she looks much younger than her age:

Her wiki page also agrees and has described her appearance that she still having her ‘youthful look’:

Holy Joestar-Kira’s wikia page

So, here is the breakdown:

Hirose Suzuyo (Yasuho’s mom)’s debut in chapter 8, aged 44, she is older than she looks.

Kira Holy Joestar’s debut in chapter 14, aged 52, she looked her age.

Kira Holy Joestar’s appearance in chapter 51, aged 51, she is older than she looks.

(Higashikata) Caato’s debut in chapter 55, aged 52, she is older than she looks.

Kira Holy Joestar’s recent appearance in chapter 92, aged 52, she is older than she looks.

The mystery is why Araki changed Holy's appearance from her initial debut? Why does she become younger than before? Did he do this on purpose or is this purely due to his evolving art?

The Hidden Rock Woman and The Red Herrings

What is ‘female rock-human’ in general?

They are indistinguishable from (carbon-based) female humans.

Their life span is ±240 years (just like the males).

They can be older than they look (just like the males).

They need to hibernate (just like the males).

Their gestation period is 6 months and give birth in the spring and summer.

They rarely (if ever) have affection for or a parental relationship with their children.

Their babies have an average body length of 28 mm and weight of 15 grams.

They can procreate with human males.

As Araki has brought up about the existence of rock-human females in chapter 99, coupled with the possibility of reproduction with (carbon-based) human males, readers have created various theories about them.

(Higashikata) Caato

The most popular theory nowadays is about “Caato as the rock-woman”. Since the beginning, this female character is often hyped as the character who will play a major role, mostly in antagonist side, be it as the main villain and (now) as ‘the rock-woman’.

I think there are a lot of made-up theories and far-fetched reasons created by her supporters, problems regarding the theory of "Caato as the rock-woman" have been mostly explained in my previous post:

Is Caato a Rock-Woman?

Even so, I myself have not dared to confirm that Caato can’t be a rock-woman. However, my post there was more to show how forced, flawed and ridiculous the theories made by her supporters. I am worried that this would be 'the case of bad writing' so I also hope that Araki would not make it happen.

But if Araki is going to make Caato a female rock-human in the future, I hope that he can provide a nice explanation with a story that makes sense and is not forced. Still, I think to make Caato a rock-woman will be the most complicated choice.

We never saw the signs of Caato as a rock-human. In her flashback, she had already behaved very different from the rock-woman, she was shown as a doting mom, she really loves Jobin and took care of him, in contrast to rock-woman who abandoned her newborn baby. She didn’t want Jobin to get hurt, she almost cried (see the beginning scene when he climbed a tree), she was very worried about him. Unlike the rock-women, Caato certainly has affection to her children.

Then we’ve also seen how her children grew up like any normal human in contrast to the bizarre growth of the rock-humans:

We still don’t know what happens to the baby born from reproduction between human males and rock-women? A human babies, rock-babies or crossbreeds?

Then with the four children of Norisuke IV and Caato, we also have to begin questioning again about what Jobin, Hato, Joshu and Daiya truly are? Are they half rock-humans, fully rock-humans or just regular humans? The problem is: we’ve been following their characters and there is absolutely no hint that these four were somewhat different from regular humans.

If the crossbreeds are somewhat different than the normal humans, then Araki will need to further develop not just one, but “four characters!” to show how they slightly differ from normal humans. Then if Jobin is a half rock-human with Mitsuba as regular human female, is it possible for Tsurugi to be born then? This will also be a problem that must be resolved in the story.

As rock-humans need to hibernate, how is he going to show that Caato need it too? Or perhaps she is fighting it off? A Caatofag has theorized that she uses Locacaca to be able to do that, as her son Jobin has access to the fruit, this kinda makes sense. However, there are many plotholes in this theory that need to be explored.

The fact that Caato became a model prisoner and was able to perform the penal hard labor for 15 years should be contradicting the idea of her as a rock-woman, but a Caatofag uses Locacaca as the reason of why she was able to do that, because in chapter 32, Yotsuyu was able to cure the dog Iwasuke of the rock-disease by feeding it a piece of a it. But what about Aishō? The member of Damokan Group did not use Locacaca to fight off his hibernation, he still needed to hibernate and that was the cause of his break up with his (then) girlfriend.

Besides, if Caato fights off her hibernation to hide her status as a rock-woman, she should have done it since her marriage to Norisuke IV, as her (then) husband just found out about the existence of rock-humans after the death of Yotsuyu.

This meant that Caato should have used Locacaca long before she was incarcerated. Then if she already used it during her marriage to Norisuke IV, it should include the flashback in chapter 64 as well, when she cured Jobin of the rock-disease using equivalent exchange on Higashikata’s land. Why did she use her late mother-in-law’s method instead of Locacaca (which allegedly in her possession)? Isn't Locacaca the fruit believed to be able to heal the rock-disease?

Then supposed that the rock-disease that has befallen the Higashikata family is the result of reproduction between human male and rock-woman, Caato as ‘a rock-woman’ can’t be the cause because the disease has already existed since several generations before and had afflicted the daughter of the first generation of Norisuke (I), Higashikata Rina.

We have seen how Caato handled the family curse in the past (chapter 64) and in that scene we did not see any hint of her as ‘a rock-human’ and her relation with the curse. It will be convoluted and redundant to have Caato reappears as a rock-human and involve her in Higashikata’s family curse once again. In short, Araki will need a lot of build-up to make Caato a rock-woman.

Kira Holy Joestar

Then, there is Kira Holy Joestar. If Caato becomes a candidate for secret rock-woman due to her youthful look (and various wild speculations), then Holy also deserved to be a candidate for the same reason.

Unlike Caato, in which her knowledge regarding Locacaca and her connection to the rock-humans are still pure speculations, Holy is already closer to both of these things (Locacaca & rock-humans). She has done scientific analysis on Locacaca and also knows about the rock-humans organization (Head Doctor gang and Damokan Group).

However, making Holy a rock-woman is probably more impossible than Caato because she is a descendant of Joestar family with very clear lineage too.

Johnny is clearly not a rock-human while Rina, she could be a descended from a rock-human (if that is the reason for the existence of the ‘rock-disease’). Holy can’t be a full blooded rock-human, but she can still be a crossbreed or a descendant of a rock-human.

By looking at Joestar family tree, it is still possible to make Johnny's son or grandson to marry a rock-woman. The rock-woman could be Elizabeth or Suzie Q, but I am more inclined to have Elizabeth as ‘the rock-woman’, she could be a little callback from Lisa Lisa in part 2 with her youthful look and how Lisa Lisa was made to abandon baby Joseph in the past. This can also be a nice parallelism to the rock-women's nature in abandoning their newborn baby.

In addition, Holy as a descendant of rock-human/crossbreed can be served as a nice reason of why the Head Doctor gang used Holy as their test subject.

Unfortunately, unlike the rock-woman, Holy also has affection to her children, even to other children whom she did not give birth to. However, if the speculation is only limited to "Holy as a descendant of rock-human", then this is still possible, because her traits might have been mixed with normal human’s traits.

Another problem is that Araki also has to build up Holy’s children, Yoshikage and Kyo, that they also have to descend from rock-human. However, they are still easier to build-up than Caato's children, as Yoshikage is already dead and Kyo rarely shows up.

If Kira Yoshikage is descended from rock-human, then Yoshikage who has turned into Josuke will make Josuke (the main protagonist) a part of rock-human as well. This can be an astonishing parallel if both Josuke and Tooru (as the main villain) are somewhat rock-humans (suppose that Tooru will be the main villain).

The next problem is about the existence of rock-disease that has befallen to the Higashikata family. If the crossbreeding between a human male and rock-woman was the cause of it, why didn't the curse fall on Johnny's descendants? It only ever struck his wife Rina in the past. Johnny's method in 1901 might have succeeded in protecting his descendants from the curse.

Holy's illness which was initially thought to be a part of family curse is apparently the product of illegal experiment. Therefore, will it be possible if Holy is a descendant of rock-human?

Hirose Suzuyo

Lastly, there is also Hirose Suzuyo who is still attractive at 44 years old, despite being several years younger than Holy and Caato, her youthful look should also be a consideration as well.

I think making Suzuyo the secret rock-woman would be the easiest choice compared to Caato and Holy. Out of the three characters, she has the least development and this instead becomes her advantage.

Caato and Norisuke IV have divorced and this is often used as an excuse by supporters that their failed relationship was caused by one of them (Caato) being a rock-human.

Caato is not the only person who has been divorced, Josefumi’s mother Kiyomi and Yasuho’s mom Suzuyo have also been divorced. Therefore, Suzuyo could have the excuse that her divorce from her husband could be the result of an incompatible relationship between a human and a rock-human.

JJL chapter 71: Hairclip of the Qing Dynasty

Chapter 46 told that “95% of rock-humans are Stand users”, Caato and (allegedly) Holy are Stand users, but what about Suzuyo?

Maybe yes maybe no, but the way she dressed when she debuted for the first time in chapter 8 could be a typical Stand user’s style:

Thanks to her limited appearance, it’s not difficult to suddenly turn her into a Stand user.

The only problem is that Araki (again) has to build-up Yasuho, the main female protagonist as a rock-human descent, but is it possible?

There is one particular incident in chapter 94, as Yasuho has snuck into Higashikata's house, Jobin caught her and flushed 「Paisley Park」 down the toilet, breaking both Yasuho and her Stand’s body in the process.

JJL chapter 94: The Wonder of You (Your Miraculous Love) – part 11

Seeing how her body was in the process of breaking apart, some readers pointed out that there is a resemblance to the rock-humans' body while breaking apart.

JJL chapter 32 & JJL chapter 42

Others simply assumed that Yasuho's breaking body is the effect of her breaking Stand as well.

I am also more inclined towards the second opinion, in which her body is breaking apart simply because of her breaking Stand. But the interpretation of this picture is still free, so it would be easy for Araki if he suddenly wants to decide that the reason of Yasuho's breaking body is due to her being a part of rock-human.

It is also fortunate that we have not seen normal humans and their Stands break apart like Yasuho and her 「Paisley Park」.

Perhaps, making Yasuho a part of rock-human could be the reason why Tooru dated her. I've always felt there must be something behind this. Tooru as the person behind HD gang can't possibly date Yasuho without reason.

Even though they had broken up, Tooru is still eager to to rekindle his relationship with Yasuho, but chapter 97 proves that his reason for that was not simply that he still loved her. There must be something that he wants from her and will take advantage of her.

But back to the issue of the origin of the Higashikata’s family curse, if the crossbreeding is the cause, why doesn't it befall to Yasuho too?

Once again, it is fortunate that we got the flashback of Higashikata Rina as the female affected by rock-disease. She became symptomatic as adult, in her late 20s. Yasuho is a female and she is still 19, it is possible if the rock-disease had not yet befallen her (suppose that she is a crossbreed).

The real problem is that Suzuyo has also shown that she cares to her daughter Yasuho, again, the opposite trait with the rock-women.

JJL chapter 24 & JJL chapter 71

Though she is not on Holy's level… or the level of Caato to Jobin, at least she is trying to show her love to Yasuho.

Then how about her job? Being a single mom should have demanded Suzuyo to have a job to support Yasuho and her life. We've never seen what kind of job Suzuyo has, we've only seen in her debut that she brought a man home from a club. Was this part of her job as a hostess or she simply had fun?

In her flashback of chapter 71, we have seen Suzuyo who was currently receiving a call, was the phone related to her job?

Suppose that it was related to her job, “Oh really? Sounds exciting, I’ll write that down”… an idea? Or was it a new job offer? Freelancing?

It is very fortunate that it is still very hard to determine of Suzuyo's actual career, Araki just has to give her a career that is suitable for rock-human if he wants to make her a rock-human.

Crossbreeding and developing affection in rock-women(?)

Apparently, these three women share the same problems, that they have affection for their children, the opposite trait of rock-women in chapter 99. The mother who had more of a similar nature to rock-women is (actually) Kujo Kiyomi, Josefumi’s mother. She almost left a drowning Josefumi, though the guilt overcame her in the end.

JJL chapter 52: Vitamin C and Killer Queen – part 3

Even so, Josefumi still felt that his mother had abandoned him. Could it be that she abandoned him again after the drowning event and that’s why Josefumi had a lot of respect for Holy as his mother figure? Or maybe it was only to that particular moment, but it was so engraved on Josefumi's memory that he hated his own mother?

And also remember that Kujo Kiyomi has been divorced. Too bad we never saw her again in her middle-aged, but I believe that if she will reappear, she will have that 'youthful look' like any others.

Regarding Caato and Suzuyo, suppose that they are rock-women, it is possible that they may develop affection for their children as a result of their copulation with human males.

To be honest, I think that Caato's role is more of a comparison to the other Higashikata mothers, so it would be too much if she is a rock-woman as I explained in my previous post.

However regarding Suzuyo, I think that her efforts to take care and love Yasuho are like a rock-woman learning to be a 'mother'.

JJL chapter 24: Paper Moon Deception – part 2

Perhaps it is just me, but Suzuyo’s response in that scene is a bit weird. She offered Yasuho to cook for her while playing video games, something that pretty normal in family dynamic. But then, Yasuho declined and said she was just going to go out again. Annoyed by her daughter response, she brought up Yasuho’s annoying attitude and likened her to her ex-husband (Yasuho’s father).

When Yasuho remarked that she was in a rush and didn’t have a time to be lectured her, Suzuyo out-of-nowhere brought up whether she wasn't motherly to Yasuho, something that I think was not quite related in a conflict. Because I have also experienced a similar conflict with my mother, but she wouldn't suddenly bring up of her being motherly and just straightly scolded me.

It was as if she said that “I’m trying to be a good mother for you, because I’m not like the other rock-women out there.”

JJL chapter 71: Hairclip of the Qing Dynasty

Her bad-mouthing her ex-husband (Yasuho’s dad) felt like she was trying to keep Yasuho away from her father. Besides, her words also indicate possessiveness towards her daughter.

Rock-humans in general have little to no relationship with their children, unlike (carbon-based) humans. So maybe Suzuyo is trying hard to get close to her daughter Yasuho while trying to keep her away from her father, because (perhaps) in her perspective, a close relationship between fellow humans will always be easier to achieve compared to the rock-humans.

Conclusion

At first I thought that ‘the youthful moms’ in JoJolion is just a deliberate artistic choice on behalf of Araki to make the characters more attractive, but what if it turns out to have a purpose?

Added with the recent chapter (99) which hinted the existence of rock-women, what if Araki wanted to make us wonder, is it true that currently there is a rock-woman among his characters? Which one?

I don't know why but I feel that possibility may lie in some middle-aged mother characters that look younger than their actual age. I also became suspicious, why Araki changed Holy’s appearance in chapter 92, that she significantly looks younger than when she debuted?

Especially with the reemergence of the theory about Caato as a rock-woman which becomes popular once again.

Of course I am more certain that a rock-woman will appear in the form of a flashback which will explain the origin of Higashikata’s family curse. It would also fit into the plausible theory of ‘reproduction’ that has been created by u/Mamezuku on reddit. But what if a rock-woman would appear in the present time as well? Who is she? Will it be Caato?

Of the three candidates I suspect, Caato will be the most difficult choice and requires a lot of build-up (and possibly retconing here and there). Holy highly unlikely will be a full blooded rock-woman, but it’s possible to make her a descendant of a rock-human and the build-up will be slightly easier. Suzuyo (Yasuho’s mom) will be an unexpected choice but she will be the easiest and least complicated to be built-up, the only big challenge is about the build-up of her daughter Yasuho as a crossbreed.

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojolion #rock humans jojo #suzuyo hirose #holy joestar #kaato higashikata #jojo meta #jjba part 8 #art evolution #kira holy joestar #kiyomi kujo #jojo's bizarre analysis #rock women #jjba meta #holy joestar kira #caato

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thatyanderecritic · 5 years ago

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i really like the yandere dynamic but i dont openly post or reblog about it anymore cuz i've had people give me a hard time over it being problematic. and i get told im terrible, get called a freak... idk. do you have any advice for dealing with this...?

Hey anon, sorry for not getting to you sooner. We have a lot of questioned queued up to be answered but I decided to put you first since this is a pretty big issue.

To be a yandere fan, we’re in a rather precarious position. Like any fandom, we are plagued with bad apples that end up painting the community’s face as a whole. You know the type of bad apples that all fandoms have: the overzealous stans that either attack those outside the community for not sharing a view or catering to our fandom. We also suffer from infighting/bullying between yandere fans because not everyone shares the same views on what a yandere is or even for something as stupid as a yandere headcanon for a character that never was a yandere, to begin with. But unlike most fandoms, the works that we support tend to go against us at times. That is to say... since we’re a bit of an under “funded” (e.g. don’t have enough yandere media. Especially for male yanderes) fandom, people tend to quickly put CrAzY characters on a pedestal without question. And this hurts our credibility, ALOT. Having group within the fandom worshipping some non-yandere, psychotic girl as a yandere just because she’s kawaii while the more “sane” fans try to explain, “No, we swear yandere’s aren’t like that” doesn’t look good for our case.

Is there anything we can do about people attacking us for our preference? Not exactly, I’m sorry to say. The moment humans gained self-awareness and free will, universal mental unity became a myth. There will always be a disconnect, even on concepts that all humans should be in agreement on. Would you believe me if I say that some people don’t believe that people should be allowed to have a livable wage? Of course, people will have their reasons as to why they think a certain way regardless if it sounds logical or not. Just because they have a reason doesn’t mean it’s reasonable but in a world where emotions is king, logical will never win.

People who attack you for liking yanderes most likely were victims of abuse and went through some sort of trauma that yanderes are usually identified/linked with. If they weren’t direct victims then they know someone who is a victim. And if it isn’t either of these two, then they’re most likely a bleeding heart with a “higher than thou” sense of morality. Regardless of the reasoning, they all have their hearts in the right places but rigid in their perspective of the world. Already, the decision is cemented and may never change. To most, we’re as egregious as pedophiles and incest-lovers just because we like villains. After all: “How in the world could anyone remotely ‘like’ such awful people?! Clearly, there is something wrong with THEM.” Of course, we have our reasons for liking yanderes but most people close their ears and eyes since they already judged us based on our interest. For those who were victims of abuse or know someone, I understand that they’re reaching out to attack those who seem to defend characters that may or may not be similar to their assailant/abuser. They attack, they defend invisible victims, and in a way, looking for purpose... looking at how they can turn their trauma into a positive. But most of the time, they overstep their boundaries and try to enforce their authority in something they don’t understand.

The only way we can approach these types of people is to send an open invitation for a diplomatic talk in trying to reach a middle ground. While a change of opinion would be nice, it would be nearly impossible since a lot of people are grounded in their personal moral compass. If they are open for a conversation, then all hope is not lost. Ideally, if a conversation is open then the most important thing is to validate their emotions invested in this situation. 9 out of time 10, people are stubborn in an argument because they feel like they’re getting personally targeted either by their identity, their pride, or their emotions. Therefore, they double down and become louder in their argument, not because of their view but because they believe they are defending themselves. From there, once the other recognize that you aren’t attacking them, you shift the conversation onto yourself and point out how they were making you feel the same away but they were actively attacking you; not only that, treating you as less than human just because you prefer villainous FICTIONAL characters. Ideally, at this point, the other recognizes their hypocrisy and you both agree in staying in your own lanes. If by some miracle they’re open of a different perspective, then you’re given a platform to say why you like yanderes... typical reasons being the idea of unconditional love or coping.

But this is all hypothetical and the most desirable outcome. But more than often, people are more than comfortable at screaming at you every time you try to open your mouth... most likely something they learned because someone shut them down in such a way. Not only that, they most likely formed their own counter-arguments already since a lot of yandere fans have the same reasons as to why they like yanderes: unconditional love or coping. The counter-argument can usually be boiled down to two reasons: unethical and risking future victims seeking a “yandere” partner. Ethicality... this is a low hanging fruit to argue. Everyone (well the majority of people, again it’s universally impossible to be on the same page) would agree that it’s bad to stalk a person. Even a yandere fan would say never to stalk a person IRL. But because of this, they think they got you in an “ethical checkmate”. It’s a cheap argument and they’re just trying to make you feel like a monster for your preferences in fictional characters. Funny enough, this is a tactic that abusers would use to shame their victim into compliance... hm...

The second counter-argument people use is “think of the youths!” Let’s be real... it’s scientifically proven that kids and teens are easily impressionable because of their underdeveloped brains and lack of experience. Not only the concerns of the younger members of society, they fear that by allowing us to enjoy our media, we are “normalizing” abusive relationships in society. Considering the state of the United State’s government, I understand where the fear is coming from. But they’re barking up the wrong tree and especially using the wrong method in preventing this dystopian future. I always see these people bring up the ‘Jaws’ case as to why there should be no yanderes and no support for them. You know, the case where there was a sudden increase in shark hunting due to public fear which pushed certain shark species into endangerment. It’s always this argument, I swear... anyways, they always toss this without never diving in deeper as to why this happened.

Before Jaws, people didn’t know anything about sharks in general. There just wasn’t any interest in sharks because we humans just didn’t find time interesting at the time. They were there and we can’t really eat sharks. But, there were already tales about sharks being “man-eaters” from those stranded out at sea or curious citizens. The stereotype was already there. But Jaws brought sharks to the forefront of public scrutiny and shark hunting competitions came up because “what’s the harm? Sharks are man-eaters”. This dropped the shark population, but because of this there was an interest in sharks, funding to research them suddenly increased. Scientist turned their attention on sharks while later on fed to informing the public, making them educated and less scared of shark attacks. Jaws came out in 1975... Shark Week on the discovery channel came out in 1988... there’s a reason, folks. People became interested in sharks. Yes, Jaws hurt the shark population but it’s slowly been going up. Damage takes time to repair. But it also brought about awareness. While the stereotype isn’t dead (that’s just humans at this point and it’s always been a stereotype ever since man was on a boat), it opened a conversation. And that’s the key point here. (Here’s a link. But you can go even further if you research)

Abusive relationships, manipulative people, toxic actions... these are nothing new. “Getting rid” of yandere fans will not solve this issue, just like telling your kid “there are kids starving in Africa” will not end world hunger. For the Jaws example, I point to the argument that politicians make about how video games create violent people. We know that it’s nonsense, you know it’s nonsense. But there is a fear of the “unknown”. People back then thought that cartoons like Tom and Jerry would cause kids to grow up violent. And even further back, people thought that reading books created lazy people. The fear on what’s on TV is a fear people had since the beginning of time. People aren’t as soft as they believe they are but they can lack information... Instead of shutting down people and censor what goes on TV, use it as a stepping stone for the bigger conversation. It’s a lack of knowledge and fear of the unknown that killed the sharks but it is knowledge that is now protecting them.

This is especially important for our younger peers. Raise of hands, who actually changed their minds as a teenager after someone called you stupid or told you “no” with giving a logical reason besides “because I say so.” I’m going to guess we got an empty room here. Attacking our younger peers or those who are older just because they like a character trope IS NOT HELPING THEM AND ESPECIALLY NOT MAKING THE ATTACKERS LOOK LIKE HEROES. THEY LOOK LIKE JACKASSES. Fuck man, the younger ones want acceptance and looking a supportive group by joining a fandom. Calling them toxic just pushes them to the edge these people never wanted them to be. The same applying to the older ones. We all got our issues and y’all never know what it is. That’s why I hate seeing people in our fandom gatekeep against our younger peers. They’re going to come in even though you say crap like “Lmaooo, my blog/game is 18+! Okay, byeeeee!” If you want to protect them then be their fucking guide, my dudes. You can have a mature conversation with them and explain the difference between fiction and reality and what’s wrong and right. “Yanderes are pretty cool, ay sport? But notice how that guy gaslighted the girl? That is a common tactic people do IRL. Be sure to recognize it as a red flag.” Fuck, is that so fucking hard for everyone? Some people act like they never grew on the internet during the early 2000s.Y’all were a teenager once. If what you’re doing wouldn’t help teenage you in the past, then you’re doing it wrong. Smh.

Finally, I do want to make a point for those who use coping reasons. While I do understand where you’re coming from, you guys are our most vulnerable to these attacks but also the reason for the attacks as well. It’s the mindset of “How could you support something like this?! You must be a horrible person.” I know a lot of people aren’t like that but also, we got bad apples... people who take this for coping reasons way too far. To them, I ask them to come back from the edge and let’s look for help together. Using yanderes to embrace “yandere tendencies” or rationalizing your abuse as normal isn’t the way. Use it to help you breathe and help you feel grounded but don’t let it define you... especially don’t make it a lifeline. As for those who know the difference and can separate fiction from reality, I applaud you but you got some work in helping those who are too deep. I’ve seen some of the yandere Tumblr group chats on the app. I’ll be real... YIKES. It’s a bit of an echo chamber. I ended up having to message a user on a side since I saw red flags in the group chat when I was lurking. People were trying to give the wrong help by encouraging their actions. Just... don’t do this y’all. I get you relate but don’t get your homie in jail or a court date for a restraining order.

Anyways, I’m sorry anon for pulling farther and farther away from you specifically since this is a big issue that everyone tackles and I’m also sorry that I can’t give you an “end all” answer. First, you can try having a civil conversation with these people. Try for the middle ground and if you feel like you can push further, then try to do a change of mind. But I know this is hard, especially when tensions build and emotions get heated. But it’s important to never explode that anger... or at least direct that anger into a logical response. The moment you explode and made an error of judgment, you will lose and suffer publically. If a conversation isn’t possible, then encourage these people to stay in their lane and unfollow you. Why the fuck are they following you if they hate the things you reblog? Sounds unhealthy... suggest some hobbies or blogs to follow instead. From there, if they try to continue the hate, just block them and delete the messages. As they say, don’t feed the trolls. Y’all may think you’ve seen all the hate anons we get but we get a lot more than what we answer. We just delete them because they’re typically incoherent or stupid. They don’t come back lol.

From there, anon, surround yourself with people who you find agreeable and who you relate to. A lot of yandere blogs are down for a talk, I’ll be real. Just be sure you open up that you want to be friends lol. So... yeah. I’m sorry this isn’t perfect, but I hope it helps. Don’t be afraid of being yourself!

#anon #yandere #male yandere #female yandere #feel free to reblog or share it with people #post it where ever you want #we aren't afraid of responses #Anonymous

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mahomoon · 4 years ago

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commenting to this video, which does a great job at explaining the two somehow contrasting opinions, I wrote something and commented on YouTube, and I thought to put it here as well, (for I kinda like how it turned out!) the video shows some footage of the character of Alana Bloom, and I thought I had to say something or my opinionated little fannibal within, could not bear not sharing the opinions they have accumulated as an observant and silent fannibal!

this is the mentioned video from Netflix Film Club's “ Take Two “

youtube

and this is my inner fannibal commenting:

I mostly agree with take 1 but not all of it. take 2 is good but if it is done correctly, if one considers the necessity of take 2 and has the take 1 in mind, they can create wonder! I give you an example of how it should be done.

I have to say that replacing the character of Alan Bloom with Alana Bloom in Hannibal series was a really clever choice, and I consider it as one of the, if not best, better examples of gender swapping a character. first, I should mention that the lead writer and showrunner of the series is Brian Fuller, a man, who not only knows how to properly write his own stories, but also rewrite classical gems and change what needs to be changed about them, all the while adding his own vision to it, which you would know is brilliant if you have followed his works. so a male writer can do it if they really know what they are doing, and why they should be doing it in the first place.

Changing the character of Alan Bloom to Alana Bloom was in a way even necessary, because if they were to follow the exact script of the books or the previous movies, then it would feel like, as Fuller had said himself, "a sausage party." because we can no more have a cast of all white straight men playing the major characters, the original script of the books did not have much place for diversity, and a script like that would be unacceptable today, by our standards. so the change was necessary, not just in the case of Alana, but all the other major characters that were swapped.

And Alana in the series had her own arc, which sat well in the story, and was also portrayed really well. she made the role hers, in a way that you cannot replace the role again (and in my mind if the character possesses the role in every sense, so that you cannot see it play out in any other way, that is powerful writing.) by the end of season 3 she was one of the most memorable supporting female characters I ever saw in a series. and her story, her personality, the way she handled herself, the way she began to see the world and people around her, really changed throughout the series. she really became a strong woman that would take no shit from no one anymore, and it is hard to do so when you are facing a character like Hannibal Lecter.

And if we are talking about gender swap, we should not forget that in the series Will Graham Swapped Places with Clarice Starling as well, he took her place and played her part and became the object of fascination and obsession for Hannibal Lecter. which is to this day, the most beautiful portrayal of love and obsession I ever saw in a series. I dare say it was even more grounded in the storyline, and considerate of the complexity of the characters, than the relationship Hannibal had with Starling in the movies (which may be due to the lack of time the movies had for portraying the complexity of their relationship and how it gradually turned into obsession.) so the gender or character swap can work both ways. (if you know what you are doing.)

but another powerful features of the series is also, that much like the books and the movies (and sometimes portrayed even better than them) the characters and their relationships are not about their gender, or their race, not at all. you don't notice it because their personality is not about these aspects; it's about their complexities, and their minds. so even if you change the gender and race of the characters again but keep the rest of what makes them the way they are, it may still feel the same because who they were was not about their gender or race. (as I have read in an article, even by changing the gender of Hannibal Lecter, a female Hannibal would be as possessive of Will Graham as he was as man, and still would act in the same way he did, not just regarding Will, but everyone and everything else involved.)

so all in all, the capacity for change should exist in the story, the good writer should see potential and add their vision to it. they should know what they are doing and why they should be doing it if there is a need in the first place. otherwise, the story and characterization would suffer for the lack of perspective of its writer(s).

(if the English is bad or the choice of words and the whole wording may seem strange, it’s because it’s not my first language!)

#nbc hannibal #hannibal #bryan fuller #gender-swap #alana bloom #will graham #hannibal lecter #clarice starling

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dreadnought-dear-captain · 5 years ago

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You Asked, I Told and Update

CW: Spoilers for Baghdad Waltz up to chapter 36 and some non-graphic discussion of childhood sexual abuse

Hello!!!

Wow, I am so, so sorry for falling off the grid like that. I thought I was going to have WAY more time in October/November to work on the fic and work on fandom stuff in general, but my professional life threw me a huge right hook and I got completely sidetracked for weeks. So I’m off schedule a bit, in terms of having the next chapter. I’m sorry for the delay.

I’m done with the full draft of Chapter 37 (about 23k - “short” but emotionally very dense) and am working through final revisions now. However, I also had to do an extensive amount of 9/11-related research for it, and part of that research has been reviewing oral histories of New Yorkers from the day of the attacks, and I came to the shocking realization that much of the prologue is historically inaccurate. Moreover, it’s shamefully inconsistent with the way that New Yorkers would respond to such an event. I’m embarrassed by how shoddy of a job I did with it.

Thus, I’m also going to be rewriting the prologue and including more accurate details, both historically and in terms of character dynamics. I mean, there’s no way Bucky could even live in Brooklyn and be a first responder at Ground Zero! All the bridges and tunnels were shut down. Shame on me. There will be ripple effects throughout the entire fic. Sigh. This is just round one of the massive amount of revisions I will be doing to the early chapters of the fic, which I wrote years ago now. I was going to wait to post both at the same time, but I don’t want to make you wait that long. I’ll just give you a notification when I finish the prologue revisions, and it’ll be like a little bonus chapter.

Anyway, here are some asks! Starting with a two-parter

First, thank you for the kind words. I’m glad you’re finding this fic moving. It’s definitely an emotional rollercoaster for these characters, and my hope (I guess?) is to have that be a parallel process for the readers. I think you hit the nail on the head that this relationship is exhausting. And you’re also right that not everyone would have the perseverance to keep coming back to it. It would be so much easier to amputate, pack up and go home. But once these characters get back into each other’s orbit, it’s very challenging for them to not keep crashing back into each other. It’s partially because they just love each other so much, but it’s also because they have an unhealthy relationship dynamic that sets them up for these toxic cycles. This will become especially apparent in the next chapter. They love each other, yes, but they also use each other to fill the gaping holes and insecurities they have within themselves. And they’re horrible communicators to boot. It’s a perfect storm. But at least they are going to try out some of this therapy crap maybe…?? We’ll see!

Along a similar line…

Thank you so much. That is so lovely of you to say, and I’m happy that I have your trust with this story. That said, I don’t know if it’s weakness if you’re not willing to run yourself through a miserable gauntlet of suffering the way Steve and Bucky are doing in this story. Would we call Rikki weak for drawing a boundary and stepping away from Bucky when his alcoholism was destroying their family? Some people used other words, but I’m not sure if weakness is the thing that might make someone walk away from a relationship like this. Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you should keep slamming your face against the same wall until you’re black and blue. This is a highly dysfunctional couple, and these men have serious issues they are grappling with personally that make them ripe for this kind of relationship. Bucky is an open wound, crippled with shame, desperate to do anything to feel better. Steve has deep attachment injuries from his chronically ill mother and deadbeat dad, as well as major control issues, and he wants to latch on and fix and make right, and if he manages every variable just right, he really thinks he can do it. And then throw in a fuckton of PTSD and TBI and alcoholism and physical injuries on top of it. So no, I wouldn’t rush to judge yourself for not envisioning yourself gutting it out in this grim scenario.

But I also think we can identify with at least one of these characters, and we can root for people who want to overcome the shit that life has thrown at them to be with the person they love. Because they really do love each other. There’s just so much noise that it’s hard to tease out the signal sometimes.

Good call on Bucky being a notoriously unreliable narrator, and he’s someone who is likely to underreport his suffering. Aside from his war-related injuries and his psychological struggles, Bucky’s most symptomatic issues are his GI problems. He has both peptic and esophageal ulcers, which are slightly different creatures. Peptic (stomach) ulcers, in Bucky’s case, have been caused by H. pylori and exacerbated by smoking and drinking. The esophageal ulcer was most likely caused by an excess of stomach acid due to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and, once again, exacerbated by drinking. Both of these have led to nausea, vomiting, lack of appetite, and weight loss. They have really emerged since Bucky got out of the military and pursued drinking with renewed vigor. Though he wouldn’t know it at the time because he doesn’t keep up with these things, his GERD is very possibly linked to acute, high dose exposure to the exceedingly toxic “dust” from the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. It’s one of the most widespread chronic health ailments of those exposed, aside from lower respiratory problems.

And now for some heavy-ass questions from licketysplittt — see CW above.

Yes, I am going to talk more about the context of Bucky’s abuse for sure, so I won’t go into the depths here. But I will say now that you are absolutely right that he has complex feelings for his abuser. I think it would have been easy to write him as just being unidimensionally angry or ashamed, but I know that’s not the experience of everyone who has experienced sexual abuse. This is especially the case if the person who commits the abuse it is a family member or caretaker or friend or trusted religious figure or someone who’s not just a “stranger in the bushes” type. I wanted to try to capture that experience in this fic. Bucky has also been multiply victimized by multiple people over the course of his life, which adds to this complexity and creates an internal narrative for him. Like what does it mean that this keeps happening to him? This is also not an uncommon experience for people who have been abused as children. And there’s also the added piece of this that Bucky’s gay, right? So he’s got this very, very young sexuality that’s on the verge of blooming (your Disney sexuality perhaps, sitting close, holding hands, etc) and this older male is making sexual advances toward him, and so he might ask if this person “saw” something in him aside from his social isolation that made him choose him. These are certainly questions he’s tortured himself over. I will get more into all of this, I promise.

Winnie and George undoubtedly knew that their kid wasn’t a very popular one. But perhaps they always knew that he was a kid who wasn’t destined to have many friends because he’s “sensitive” or however they would characterize him (I’m sure they had different ways of viewing him). And I think it’s important to take into account the type of household that Bucky was in and the way he would shape his behavior. George was this total wildcard — “Best Dad in the World” most days but a screaming, violent tyrant at these odd, unpredictable times that were fucking terrifying for everyone in his path. This is a house where it’s best just to shut up and create as few problems as you can, because you don’t want to be the one that dad is gonna flip his shit at. And so everyone is walking on eggshells and Bucky is going to get very good at lying about how bad things are. And oh! Jamie finally has a friend, how wonderful. There will be more details in upcoming chapters about how this all transpires, but I think the dynamics at home made it possible for a lot of this to happen. And you’re right that these were not the most skillful parents, and their marriage was very strained and stressful for everyone. And these fictional assholes also frustrate me! The emotional content can be hard to write. It’s one reason these past few chapters have taken me soooooo painfully long.

Great questions! You are all so thoughtful and kind. Sorry again for getting so terribly sidetracked. I am going to keep plugging away at the chapter and at comments and asks. I’m optimistic that I will have the next chapter for you within the next two weeks. I am pleased with this chapter and hope you’ll like it. Thank you for being so patient!!!

#YOU ASKED I TOLD #send me asks #baghdad waltz #you are the best

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echodrops · 6 years ago

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BNHA, some thoughts on Toga after reading both your recent metas, the representation and female characters ones. Toga getting reduced to fetish fuel by fandom is pretty irritating. It really shortchanges her character, she's interesting. Despite all the murder, she's not written as a true psychopath/sociopath - her emotions are written as genuine, her empathy is written as being real. Her most depraved and her most empathetic moments both occur in the same arc, too (Overhaul's Hideout).

I actually think we can make a pretty good case for Toga being the best written female character in all of Boku no Hero Academia.

There are two other contenders–Inko and Nana–who could probably easily take the spot if not for their extenuating circumstances: Inko simply isn’t in the story enough to be a consistent source of emotional engagement, and we haven’t seen enough of Nana yet to get a real sense of the depth of her character. If Nana gets to be part of an extended series of flashbacks or becomes a vestige that Izuku can talk to, we might get enough of her to bump her to the top.

But right now, I can make a pretty convincing case for Toga.

1) She is the only female character whose actions are absolutely central to the main plot/conflict as it is unfolding right now. In the last 100 chapters, the only female to single-handedly accomplish anything for her side of the conflict has been Toga. You could not remove Toga from the plot and replace her with any of the male characters around her because her quirk and involvement in the story line are actively integrated in a way that none of the other female characters’ are (again, barring Nana). Mina? Jirou? Kendou? Uraraka? Tsuyu? Even Momo? In the last half of the manga’s plot, none of the class 1-A or 1-B girls have played any major part in the series’ overall conflict, had any stand-out moments of emotional depth that wasn’t narrated for them by a male character, or even been allowed to meaningfully contribute to the battles except during training against classmates, the outcomes of which have no lasting impact on the main heroes vs. villains conflict.

That’s because Toga doesn’t suffer from the one thing holding back all the heroines and heroines-in-training: good girls aren’t violent. Good girls are lovable, attractive, and supportive. They’re not ambitious or obsessive about strength and overcoming their rivals like boys are. Good girls behave well. And unfortunately, Horikoshi is pretty progressive in some ways and really, really unprogressive in others. His definition of “good girls” and the ways good girls act seems to be pretty rooted in conservative Japanese standards, which traditionally have undervalued women. (This is not to say that everyone in Japan discriminates against women, far from it; in general, however, societal standards for women in Japan have lagged behind other major developed nations.)

Uraraka and the other girls in 1-A and 1-B can and will become heroes, surely. They can even prove themselves to be very strong and skilled individuals. But they will only rarely–if ever–be allowed to outshine their male compatriots in terms of strength, aggression, impact on the main plot, and even emotional depth. The tension and depth of this story has, so far, been given almost entirely to male characters–Deku, Iida, Bakugou, Todoroki, Shigaraki, Kirishima, even Shinsou… Readers get more glimpses into the mindsets, emotional struggles, and backstories of these characters than any of the girls. Bakugou can literally cry and scream on screen from how angry he is that he doesn’t measure up to his classmates; but Momo, who feels similarly, will demurely have her confidence issues discussed by Todoroki and Aizawa for her.

Toga, however, doesn’t get hit by this stuff quite as bad because she isn’t a “good girl.” Toga can be violent. Toga can be out on the frontlines throwing down directly with the male heroes and can come out on top because she’s a villain and sometimes the villains have to win for the story to be exciting. Toga got away with threatening Shigaraki.Whether Tomura is just telling lies to keep her on his side or not, Toga is canonically referred to as one of the League’s “linchpins.” She’s tangled with the heroes two more times than Dabi, Mr. Compress, Magne, or Spinner, and once more than Twice, making her literally the League’s most active member. Because of her role as a villain, Toga is free from the limitations that prevent the heroines from making any lasting impacts on the plot.

2) Toga’s personal motivations/mindset have direct impacts on the plot. Sure, being a “love obsessed” girl who develops crushes at the drop of the hat isn’t exactly the most fantastic basis for a female character ever–it’s cripplingly stereotypical and a gross excuse to draw faces bordering on ahegao, actually–but at least Toga’s crushes are plot relevant. Her “love” for Izuku and collecting his blood led to her utilizing that blood in combat to directly change the course of what is probably the series’ most important and dramatic battle to date. Unlike Uraraka, whose crush is essentially mandatory due to her role as the love interest and really has no bearing on the major plot, Toga’s “love” for Izuku shapes not only her actions but also the actions of others because she is a mover-and-shaker in the main conflict, unlike other female characters.

Toga’s crush on Stain was what drove her to join the League, despite the fact that Stain is no longer part of it in any way–and she’s remained loyal to the League. Her crush motivated her to take direct action and change the course of her life. Unlike other crush plot lines given to female characters, which are often used only in two contexts: 1) Oh no, I can’t let these feelings affect my friendship with [shounen protagonist]! 2) Ha ha, look how adorable I am trying to hide my crush from everyone!, Toga’s crushes are driving factors in her story and the plot overall.

3) Toga has demonstrated more meaningful emotional depth than half the female students. You’re right–reducing Toga to fanservice badly degrades a character who’s actually been painted with more depth than virtually any other female character (except Inko) in the series so far. In her response to Magne’s death, her comments that she wants to continue enjoying life with the League, her willingness to threaten Shigaraki for making choices for her, and her delicate treatment of Twice, Toga’s feelings–even those beyond her love and friendship obsession–are portrayed seriously and with a degree of attention and agency that few other females in this series get. Toga is loyal, intelligent, dedicated to pursuing her personal goals, empathetic, brave, and strong-willed, and most importantly–these aren’t informed traits. We don’t hear about how smart she is or how nice or how brave she is from other people–we see it in direct action throughout the course of the story. You don’t hold a knife to Shigaraki Tomura’s neck without being both staggeringly courageous and dead-set in your beliefs–Toga has a backbone of steel and a good head on her shoulders. She’s in far more control of herself than anyone is giving her credit for; she knows exactly what she wants and she’s going for that without hesitating. Her response to Twice after Magne’s death not only demonstrates a clear understanding of other people’s feelings, but also signals to the readers how far the League has come in supporting and valuing each other, an important turning point for readers, making her feelings and dialogue more meaningful than many of the other female characters’.

4) Toga’s obsession with identity–and its ties to her quirk–implies a significantly more interesting backstory than most other girls in the series. In a way that doesn’t happen for many other characters outside the villains, Toga’s quirk is directly tied her to mindset and behavior. She is obsessed with seizing the identities of the people she “loves” to actively become those people. It should be obvious that this obsession is a direct off-shoot of her powers. Imagine what life would be like for a child who could literally change identities any time she became dissatisfied with herself. Forming a personal identity is a complex process for human beings (google Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages for a more in-depth look), and it is also a process fraught with peril. Children and young adults who fail to develop healthy, complete self-identities struggle in a variety of ways, not the least of which is mental illness. How would a tiny young girl who was capable of completely altering her physical appearance and attitude, enough so to be easily mistaken for others, define her own personal identity? This is literally a nightmare scenario, ripe for the development of psychological issues. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out the start of Toga’s descent into madness was realizing that, by hurting others, she could become someone better, more popular, with more friends–someone happy. It makes perfect sense that Toga is the way she is now, with the quirk she has. Toga’s desperate love–her desperate desire to be someone else–is almost inevitably going to be tied to a shattered sense of self. This is why the issue of “villain quirks” is so interesting–did Toga ever have a chance to be “normal,” with a quirk that would have devastated the psyche of a growing child?

I don’t know when or if we’ll ever see Toga’s backstory, but just the hints we’ve been given are already enough to make it richer and more interesting to think about that almost any of the other female characters in the series.

Toga is great, and seeing what she gets reduces to by the fans (hell, and her own creator sometimes) seriously bums me out.

#toga himiko #toga #boku no hero academia #league of villains #bnha meta #himiko toga is best girl #fight me

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it-will-not-last-the-night · 6 years ago

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Blegh

In terms of Persona 5 I’d been riding high mostly since P5D. I’d been positive mostly over it because P5D and fan-generated content had been lovely overall and really engaging and enjoyable. It had helped me forget that the main game itself seriously does upset me at times and I have a less than ideal opinion of it.

*Sigh*

Now I’m starting to feel like that again. Both announcements of today have left brought back to mind some of my biggest problems with Persona 5 and the way Atlus writes in general. What are they? A bit of a lesson then in me;

For myself there are three events in Persona 5 that I really REALLY just consider outright despicable. In no order they are; 1) Two homosexual adult males being negatively stereotyped as child molesters targeting Ryuji 2) Ryuji’s friends responding to one of the greatest acts of selflessness in the entire story by physically abusing Ryuji and 3) The Valentine’s Day event making Canon that Akira/Ren is horrible, Sojiro is horrible and that Atlus thinks all the girls are vapid idiots.

‘Magical Valentine’ raises an issue I’ve always had but makes it even more forceful. You see in the game the Valentine’s Event is only ‘optionally’ canon. You can play a canonical run-through and not have it occur. So you can, legitimately, without needing headcanon or fanon, just have your own canon playthrough in which the girls are not vapid idiots. The anime however, now, makes it that, for the Animation, it is canon that Akira/Ren is an awful person and that the girls are vapid idiots. Oh and that Sojiro is just literally the worst like...like he is scum in this event. As bas as Akira/Ren is (and he’s bad in this version!) the bigger problem I think a LOT of people forget about the Valentine’s Harem Route is that it literally casts Sojiro as a Guardian of Futaba who would lie to conceal her boyfriend’s infidelities...even when said infidelities LITERALLY CAUSE FUTABA TO CRY!

So the animation is now making it canon that; 1) Akira/Ren sees no reason he has to be honest or forthright with any females in his life 2) Sojiro holds such low regard for his daughter he will aide Akira/Ren in an ongoing deception and emotional manipulation of her RIGHT AFTER SHE OVERCAME A SUICIDAL PHASE OF HER LIFE and 3) That Ann, Makoto, Futaba, Haru, Takemi, Kawakami, Ohya, Hifumi and Chihaya all fall in love with the exact same person and are literally when confronted with incontervertible evidence of his infedilities not only tricked into instantly accepting that them all bringing him chocolate on Valentine’s Day was a ‘misunderstanding’ but, in the case of the Phantom Thieves members, this has so little impact on them that mere days later they have no reaction.

AKA the ending Valentine’s Harem Route basically says: “Akira/Ren successfully cheated on all the girls in his life, and is free to continue to do so since they are so stupid that they could be convinced to assume it was a ‘misunderstanding’ even under the most blatantly false of pretext,” the ending basically gives carte blanche to say that Akira/Ren will probably keep cheating on the women in his life because, well, they’re so stupid that even if they all end up right in front of him, confessing their love for him to each other’s faces...they somehow think this was a ‘misunderstanding’?

That’s gonna be canon now for the animation. Not ‘optional’ canon, just...just outright canon. Literally everything in the Canon is soured now. Did you like Ren’s bond with Ann in the foregoing episodes? Well bad news; Ren literally is willing to commit to an intimate relationship with her and then emotionally cheat on her with several different women at once. Did you like how Ren played a pivotal role in building Futaba’s character and helping her grow out of her emotional turmoil? Well sucks for you cause Ren is literally willing to lie to this girl’s face and tell her he loves her whilst carrying on behind her back with numerous other women.

It sort of goes without saying that this kinda wrecks P5A completely since, canonically, Akira/Ren is now just an irredeemable asshole and the female characters are reduced to stock harem-style idiot love interests with basically 0 individuality because everyone has to love the Protagonist (self-insert!).

But when you think about it even in the original game...this was a problem. Sure you could choose not to do it...but you could also choose to do it. This means, technically, as far as Atlus’ writing is concerned, canonically Akira/Ren has it in him to be a complete asshole with no respect for women or his friends...and the females in the game are all vapid idiots. That’s technically canon since that’s required for the Valentine’s Route to work.

Oh, also, that Sojiro is the worst. The worst.

The Valentine’s Harem Event, like the Ryuji abusing event post Shido’s Palace. does irrevocable damage to the characters and the content itself, kinda ruining it since for it to be canon...well it means the characters are terrible people or stupid. Why I sort of have to choose to ignore them to actually like the story.

Of course what does all this writing have in common? It’s a JOKE! Haha! Ryuji’s being abused, isn’t this funny? Haha! The girls are all vapid idiots and Joker’s such a chick magnet they have no varying tastes in partner at all! Haha! Gay men want to force Ryuji to undress for them!

Isn’t this funny? I mean, no, of course not. In almost all these cases the ‘humour’ is...someone suffering. A common retort I then see is; it’s not canon, its just for a joke.

But the problem is it is, all, strictly canon. I could definitely understand if these things were packaged as clear ‘not canon’ events.

Here’s an example; the Blazblue game series has ‘joke’ endings which are explicitly not canon but usually feature bizarre or ‘funny’ scenes. One of said scenes is a reoccuring bit in which the protagonist Ragna is made to wear glasses that causes the female cast to all fall in love with him. Putting aside the fact for the moment that, to me, this still isn’t funny since its treating the Mind Rape of the entire female cast as a ‘joke’ the fact remains that it is, however, not canon. The creators make sure that nothing that happens here technically infringes on or diminished the canon character content by making it explicitly non-canon.

Persona 5, both the game and now the Animation, take no such efforts. There are no efforts to make clear that Ryuji being beaten up is a ‘comedic non-canon overreaction’ or that Akira/Ren being a womanizing prick and Sojiro being the WORST are just ‘comedic non-canon skits’ all these are played as explicitly, irrefutably, canon. That is how the characters are, as far as Atlus is concerned. That is their opinions, their beliefs etc.

Is it weird that P5 Dancing has the best, most wholesome, most healthy characterization of the entire Persona 5 Franchise? I suppose maybe the mangas are good to, I must admit I’ve never read any of them since from what I can tell Ryuji is basically ignored in all of them in favour of focus on the girls.

Atlus has a writing problem and that problem is centered I fear on a simple fact; the protagonist is a self-insert who is assumed to be a self-insert for a very specific formula; a young male who sees female characters as things he wishes to collect for himself and wants to feel adored by. Almost all of the major writing problems stem from this; Girls seem exploited or turned into vapid haremettes? Well, obviously, gotta appeal to that ‘chick magnet’ fantasy. Homosexuality is cast as negative or frightning? Well, obviously, the fantasy being appealed to is explicitly heterosexual in nature, everything else is ‘icky’. Other males seem to constantly be the butt of a joke or consistently shown up compared to the protagonist? Naturally since the fantasy is about making the player feel like ‘the man’ and all other men are simply lame by comparison so that the girls will only love the protagonist (the self-insert).

What really bums me out about all of this is that Atlus can write such amazing scenes as Ryuji’s ‘the place I belong is next to you,’ but then in that same game or anime have the Valentine’s Event and the Ship scene. I imagine in part this is due to it being a game first, story second, so they feel there are ‘beats’ that need to be there (the loser must be made fun of, the protagonist must get all the girls) even if, from a storyboarding point of view...it just makes the characters look A) Very inconsistent in personality and attitude (Ren’s infamous standing up for a stranger being assaulted but then instantly refusing to step in to help Ryuji in Shinjuku) or B) Like massive asshats (The entire Valentine’s Event from Ren and Sojiro’s perspectives.

It is just...its sad. I want to like this story because there is legitimately good characters and writing but...in the name of appealing to the lowest common denominator it gets weighted down by stuff which is explicitly canon and makes the characters awful.

It really makes it tough to like it at times.

*Sigh*

At the end of the day I don’t know how to handle this. Accepting its canon makes a lot of people awful or stupid. Headcanoning it away is fine but...then I gotta accept I don’t like Persona 5 per say, I like what I, or other fans, create from Persona 5.

Also can we please just be able to date Ryuji. Please Atlus. We don’t need another female character to be another fangirl for Joker, to be another vapid idiot who can be duped by the WORST Sojiro, please Atlus, please. Please. There are ENOUGH love interests Atlus, please try perhaps instead stop treating women like little toys for a protagonist to effortlessly collect and dupe.

Watching all the Persona 5 Girls (sans Sae) in the Valentine’s Event is painful. They are characters I like, many of them have good writing...and then they are reduced to props to make a player feel “Oh yeah! Such a chick magnet! They all want me! Women are simply a commodity by which I inflate my own sense of self-worth since having multiple of them attracted to me and betrayed by me makes me feel as if this is a positive development and not a negative one!”

And I do mean that seriously. Look at most content or statements around the Valentine’s Event. They frame it positively. The ‘harem’ ending, Joker is such a ‘chick magnet’ and so ‘alpha’ etc. etc.

Terrible emotional betrayal? Deep seated trust issues? Sojiro treating his own daughter like garbage? Ignored because ‘Joker is a PLAYER! WOOO!” And this is overall seen as a positive development.

By now I’ve rambled on ridiculously long but if I must have a conclusion it is thus; Please give us a Female Protagonist who can date the other boys and stop selling this sexist approach where non-protagonist males and all females serve the same purpose; inflating the ego of the player character.

#persona 5 #p5 #persona 5 the animation #p5a #akira kusuru #kusuru akira #ren amamiya #amamiya ren #joker #phantom thieves of heart #phantom thieves #sojiro sakura #sakura sojiro #sojiro

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jewlwpet · 6 years ago

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Space Pirate Mito, overall impression

This is a shounen anime from 1999. It’s sci-fi, as you might expect from the name. It has a wacky sense of humor, an endearing cast of characters, a fascinating and unique storyline, and some deeply affecting emotional scenes. It also featured numerous LGBT elements, the execution of which was... so-so. Could’ve been much worse, but also could’ve been much better. I do think it tries to present a positive message, and it isn’t always effective, but it is certainly memorable. There are numerous things that could’ve been improved, but I think the show as-is has a lot of value mainly coming from its uniqueness.

If you live in the U.S., it’s available for free (both seasons) on youtube from Nozomi Entertainment, just like Revolutionary Girl Utena is. Season 1 is also on both Crunchyroll and Amazon Prime; I don’t know what other countries this applies to. Piracy sites have this show too, of course, so you have options regardless. It’s also available on DVD for a surprisingly reasonable price, 22.49 USD from rightstuf, and that’s if you get it new.

Here’s the synopsis I like best for season 1, the one from animenewsnetwork:

Mito isn't just another space pirate, she's a three foot tall childlike alien with enough guts to outshine a supernova. She's known as the galaxy's most dangerous pirate, a wanted criminal who destroys a dozen police space cruisers every day before breakfast. But all she really wants is to be called "Mom."

Incidentally, Mito is voiced by the late Tomoko Kawakami, who also voiced Utena Tenjou! This was shocking for me to learn; they sound nothing alike, which just shows the versatility of her talent.

Wikipedia gives the following synopsis:

The first series of the farcical sci-fi title mainly revolves around the small space pirate Mito and her fights with and flights from the galactic police force, as well as her relationship with her half-human Earthling son Aoi, initially largely ignorant of his mother's spacefaring life.

This is basically accurate; however, there’s also a complex and compelling story that begins to unfold in the later episodes.

It’s in the unravelling of this story that the show’s LGBT themes are first introduced. I’ll insert a readmore here, because this post is getting long, so I might as well cut off before getting into plot spoilers: But if any of you goes off to watch it based on the above, there is a high chance you’ll end up checking back here at some point to determine if it’s worth sticking with.

If you’ve watched Simoun--another LGBT-related series that I adore and appreciate for its originality despite some serious flaws--this’ll sound familiar to you.

For Mito’s species, “sex differentiation” happens once a person is 10,000 years old. It’s not something that happens by itself, though; it is undergone by “choice.” I’m putting that in quotation marks because it certainly isn’t a free decision. Children are allowed to be flexible with their gender presentation, but “growing up,” in the eyes of society, means to become either a man or a woman, by fixed, preset standards. Those who don’t are socially ostracized.

In Simoun, at least, if you have your heart set on one role or the other, you can be sure to get it. Here... it’s not really clear, it seems that there is no such guarantee (I’m not sure if it’s just random, or if it’s arranged by one’s parents). Hence, it’s easy to imagine why some would find such an event absolutely horrifying.

One of the characters has a backstory that involves resisting this; I was really impressed with how this was established, except for the fact that this character did happen to be a villain. However, he (the character is shown saying “I’m a boy! I’ve already been differentiated” in his backstory, so that’s what I’m going with) joins the heroes’ side in the second season and is never made to conform, nor are the show’s protagonists ever anything but respectful.

However. For plot reasons that really do make sense in context (...sort of. it’s still contrived), Aoi ends up having to undergo sexual differentiation even though Aoi had been following a human pattern of physiological development up to that point. Aoi has no control over the process, and when it ends, everyone is shocked to find that Aoi is now “a girl.”

...Well, the humans are shocked. The aliens mostly take it in stride.

Aoi is also queen of the galaxy now, because sometimes that just happens.

For the record, this all happens in the final episode of season 1. This means that we don’t get to see the initial period of Aoi adjusting to this new role. Ultimately, I think that’s probably a good thing because it leads to many of the usual uncomfortable tropes being glossed over, but it also limits our insight into Aoi’s thoughts and feelings about this, which is pretty important. There are some mixed messages.

Something decidedly Bad is the way that the viewers are clued in on what happened to Aoi, which is... a couple of girls accidentally seeing under Aoi’s clothes and being shocked... and then the teacher wanted to look, ugh. That’s as bad as it ever got but it’s Pretty Bad for sure.

Onto Aoi’s reaction.

This is going to require some context. What first happened was that Aoi’s body became impossible for the aliens’ machines to detect as male or female, which led Mito to realize and explain that Aoi must be going through Sex Differentiation now. Only, the one weapon that could defeat the villain requires the user to have undergone it and be recognizably one or the other. This was the villain’s plan all along; he did “experiments” on Aoi to induce this, not out of a desire to cause suffering but for pragmatic reasons which still sound extremely contrived (though I was pleased to find that season 2 actually addressed why the weapons were built like this, whose decision it was, who was benefiting from it and how).

Consequently, Mito was demanding that Aoi “become either a man or a woman immediately.” Because Aoi had no idea how to control the process, the decision was made for Aoi’s (female) love interest to kiss Aoi and potentially “turn him into a man.” The reason I’m bringing this up is because notably, Aoi is not necessarily very keen on this idea, saying, “What about my feelings?” But it happens, and even, annoyingly, works long enough for the weapon to be used. (Not gonna lie, I was totally hoping that the opposite would happen and this would be the catalyst for Aoi taking on her True Form as a lesbian. That would’ve been epic). That said, it doesn’t last, and s2 leaves absolutely no room for the idea that kissing girls is inherently a “male” thing, so I don’t consider it a big deal on the whole, just such a missed opportunity.

Mutsumi, Aoi’s love interest, said in the end that her feelings for Aoi were the same regardless of what happened, but then ruined it by adding “Besides, I’m sure I can turn him back into a man.” (Aoi had not said a single word this point; she just thought that was something she could decide on her own, ugh--Mutsumi has clearly gotten over this by season 2, though; it never comes up again). At this point Aoi ran away “to find a planet where I can become a man,” according to the note left behind. It’s very possible Aoi just wanted to escape from everyone’s incessant comments and questioning, but that’s only speculation on my part. The next thing we see is Aoi being crowned queen, appearing somewhat exasperated and resigned.

Now onto season 2! Things get better... a lot better. Season 2 has its own unique and compelling story arc, with a new, more powerful villain. But the first thing to talk about how it opens, with an OP that seems to show a typical romcom with a scifi twist, one that happens to be about two girls. I love it.

S1′s OP centers around Mito, with this one centering around Aoi; because of that, it doesn’t feel like “now that we have a Female Protagonist we must make it a Love Story.” Just in case that was on anyone’s mind.

What the song tells us about Aoi’s perspective is interesting, but it can be hard to connect it to what’s shown in the show itself. It starts out with the line, “I’m a happy but lonely girl,” and includes the line “Hey, can you understand a maiden’s heart?” but Aoi certainly makes no such pronouncements withing the show (this would really make the show more comfortable to watch, because then it would certainly be Good and Right that everyone considers Aoi a girl now) and in my opinion would probably not feel comfortable doing so. I can imagine Aoi listening to a song like this and secretly strongly identifying, but that’s just speculation on my part.

I’m probably taking it more seriously than it was ever intended, but I will say, I don’t think it was made to be a mean-spirited joke. It doesn’t feel ironic. The visuals match the lyrics and melody rather than contrasting with them, and the upbeat tone is the same as that of the first OP. My best guess as to the motivation behind making it is that it’s to really bring the point home to the viewers that Aoi is a girl now and that that wasn’t just a silly joke ending to the first season but represented a major change in the status quo.

Early on in the season, Aoi has a dream about becoming a boy again and being with Mutsumi. If you want to believe the OP you could say that this is because Aoi feels that being with Mutsumi (romantically) would necessarily require being a boy. And this is a worry that Aoi canonically had, early on, but I think that most viewers would take the scene at face value and it might not be any deeper that that.

There was one other scene in the season that suggested Aoi would prefer to live as a boy, this one towards the end. In fact, Aoi shouts outright, “I would go back to being a guy if I could.” That said, the context is that a villain is torturing Aoi in an attempt to make that happen. Considering Aoi had already surrendered to that villain to save others (don’t worry, it all works out in the end), this could be as simple as “I would do what you wanted if I knew how.”

What I was hoping for, and what I think would have been awesome, is if at the end, Aoi would get a choice and would choose staying queen of the galaxy over becoming a man. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that. We do see that the experience has made Aoi a stronger person, more confident and expressive, and the show does end on a good note: The galaxy has been saved, and Aoi is free to be with the girl she loves, and looking as happy as in the OP for the first time ever, and has taken control of her life in general at last.

I didn’t mention this, but there’s another girl who has a huge crush on Aoi in season 2, and I was worried she’d be a “predatory lesbian” stereotype, but to my relief, this was not the case, and she ended up being one of my favorites.

She’s just like Nanami (from Utena--the director of this show actually directed Utena’s third ep, On The Night of the Ball) but openly gay and I LIVE for that. She has some great character development too.

#space pirate mito #uchuu kaizoku mito no boukugen #stellar buster mito #aoi mitsukuni #mito mitsukuni

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circe-poetica · 5 years ago

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Lunar Eclipse July 2019 Astrology

At 24°04′ Capricorn, the July 2019 lunar eclipse is only 2°13′ from the dwarf planet, Pluto, making this an intensely emotional lunar eclipse. The eclipse is square another dwarf planet called Eris by only 0°15′. This suggests the lunar eclipse will expose many dark secrets and bad behaviors. In turn, this will cause conflict and turmoil, and a dramatic transformation in relationships, society, and culture.

Looking at the lunar eclipse July 2019 astrology chart below you will see Saturn is also close to the Moon. But over 7 degrees is a bit too far away to have a noticeable influence, especially considering Pluto is so close to the Moon. Yet Saturn makes two other much stronger aspects worth considering. Venus opposite Saturn is not a good omen for love relationships, but Saturn sextile Neptune brings hope that something good will come from the strife and discord.

There are no major fixed stars within orb of the lunar eclipse but the Sun is closely aligned with fixed star Pollux in Gemini Constellation. This adds an aggressive and destructive Mars-like influence to the eclipse, but I will talk more about the stellar influences later.

Lunar Eclipse Conjunct Pluto

Moon conjunct Pluto brings such deep feelings that they can overwhelm you. A personal interaction or event may trigger a memory or emotion buried deeply in your subconscious. You might even become obsessed about your feelings and have trouble focusing on anything else. Dreams, visions, psychic impressions or intuitive insights may have a profound influence on your mood. Interactions with women will be particularly intense and revealing.

Your intuition may be correct but could obscure your rational thought processes and conscious judgment skills. In relationships, you may have to deal with controlling and manipulative behaviors like jealousy, guilt-tripping, threats, intimidation, violence or self-harm. Transcend your own challenging emotions and behaviors through meditation, self-analysis, or other technique to understand your feelings.

Sun opposite Pluto can bring some sort of crisis with your self-esteem, a relationship or an event. This may be related to abuse of power or due to a self-destructive character trait such as addiction, spying or stubbornness. Events may include the breakdown of an appliance or car, theft or violence.

Avoid being overly assertive, egotistic, or resistant to change. Challenges are more likely if you stubbornly resist change, or have engaged in some habit that is destructive to yourself or others. Even though you may experience a bruised ego, there is also great potential for positives if you are open to change.

Dwarf Planet Eris

The dwarf planet Eris was discovered in January 2005 and named after the Greek goddess of strife and discord. Eris takes 558 years to orbit the Sun, more than double that of Pluto’s 248 years. According to Nick Anthony Fiorenza:

Eris challenges patriarchal authority. As a powerful warrior female force, Eris especially uncovers and challenges patriarchal dominant miss-deeds and acts of misuse of power, especially about male dominance over, or exploitation of, women. Eris takes a stand to reestablish balance to our gender dominance/subservience imbalance by disclosing such discordance… and Eris abhors, will provoke and will challenge the assumption of the reality of a situation when based on false pretense. She provokes change by upsetting the status quo, by upsetting the apple cart. Eris discloses and exposes clandestine affairs, or simply what lies hidden behind innocent but naïve assumptions about reality. She opens our eyes to what is covered by lies, often revealing something deceitful, shameful, ugly, or simply what is unacceptable behavior, often driven from greed or inflated pride. [1]

So Eris square the lunar eclipse and Pluto is going to give more power and influence to the #MeToo Movement. The Sun opposite Moon at a lunar eclipse already highlights differences between masculine and feminine energies. The lunar eclipse will shine a light on abuses of power and all the ugly, cruel, disgusting, immoral, unethical and illegal behavior in society. It especially emphasizes the mistreatment of women by men in positions of power and authority.

Following this lunar eclipse, bad behavior in the domestic and work environment will no longer be tolerated. Annoyance and irritation will turn to aggressive reactions, the exposure of secrets, separations and legal cases. Perpetrators will be shamed, vilified, demoted, fired, fined and imprisoned. Victims will be acknowledged, vindicated, emboldened, promoted and compensated.

Other Aspects of the Lunar Eclipse

Venus opposite Saturn brings sadness and loneliness because of delays and limitations affecting your love life and finances. It makes it harder to give and receive love and affection. Physical or emotional distance can add more strain on love relationships. The best way to show you care is to work hard and do practical things. Try to work out where you are responsible for any relationship difficulties and do some work on self-development. Try to pay off any debts and if you can’t, at least organize them so you know where you stand.

Venus trine Neptune is good for relaxation and daydreaming. It softens the cold Saturn influence and makes it easier to connect through empathy. It heightens your sense of compassion and wishes to serve to others. So Lunar Eclipse July 2019 is good for joining a charity or some other organization to help less fortunate people. This wish to help out may even lead to political activism. Connecting to a companion at the spiritual level will be easier and make up for the lack of affection from Saturn.

Saturn sextile Neptune brings material gain from spiritual pursuits. You can make your dreams come true with hard work and a sensible, realistic approach. You will understand your own limitations but will be optimistic at the same time. Through practical help and spiritual support and encouragement, you can help others follow their dreams. You might become attracted to groups or clubs with similar values or beliefs to your own. These may include churches and other religious or spiritual groups, charities, welfare and support groups, animal rights and environmental causes.

Lunar Eclipse Fixed Stars

Fixed star Pollux (23°28′ Cancer) makes people spirited, audacious and brave. According to George Noonan [2], it portends eminence and renown, while the energy of Mars can be extremely valuable in such areas as war and business and politics. But Elsbeth Ebertin [3] calls it ‘the wicked boy’ of the Gemini twins. It can give a cruel, rash nature with an aptitude for getting into quarrels. Vivian Robson [4] said it gives a love of boxing, dignified malevolence, and is connected with poisons.

Sun conjunct Pollux: Brutal and tyrannical, violent and cruel. [3] Occult and theosophical interests, blows, stabs, serious accidents, shooting, shipwreck, murderer or murdered, extreme sickness and diseases, fevers, ailments affecting the stomach, homosexual, riches, and honor but final ruin, blindness, injuries to head and face, quarrels, rape committed or suffered, banishment, imprisonment for embezzling, violent death, decapitation. [4]

Venus conjunct fixed star Canopus (15°12′ Cancer): Emotional, sensitive, stubborn, strong passions, scandal through an intrigue by which reputation will suffer, public disgrace, bad for gain. [4] Immunity from disease and unrequited love. [2]

Saturn conjunct fixed star Vega (15°35′ Capricorn): Strong passions, opinionated, original, many Mercurial difficulties, reputation suffers through wrongful accusations, trouble with superiors, domestic difficulties, few if any, children, the latter half of life more favorable, sudden death. [4] Deflation of masculine pride. [5]

Summary

The partial lunar eclipse on July 16, 2019, with Pluto, brings intense emotions and compulsive behavior. It brings the potential for a personal crisis revealing deeply buried memories and psychological trauma. Power struggles, abuse of power, manipulation, jealousy, and lies are possible. Dark secrets will be exposed and this is also caused by the eclipse square Eris.

Eris represents the female warrior archetype and strengthens the feminist cause. At the personal level, expect the calling out of sexual abuse and misogyny to result in more criminal cases. At the social and cultural level, the attack on the patriarchal authority will intensify.

Other planetary aspects widen the gap between men and women. But Lunar Eclipse July 2019 also gives hope that empathy and understanding will lead to lasting changes out of the strife and discord. This should result in higher ethical and moral standards, especially regarding the treatment of women in the workplace but also in the domestic environment.

Fixed star conjunctions to the Sun, Venus, and Saturn highlight the unrequited love associated with sexual misconduct, and “wicked” behaviors like brutality, rape, violence and cruelty. The attack on the patriarchal authority will result in a loss of masculine pride. The stars also show scandal through intrigue and the resulting public disgrace and destruction of reputations. However, the Me Too Movement fight against abuse of power will itself be taken advantage of. Reputations will suffer through wrongful accusations.

https://astrologyking.com/lunar-eclipse-july-2019/

#lunar eclipse 16 july 2019 #me too movement #astrologyking #current astrology

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gamergate-news · 7 years ago

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Women and games yes. Women and game facing conflict and adversity? DON’T YOU DARE!! Am I crazy or is this the Guybrush Paradox in action?

The Last of Us, a video game released to critical acclaim in 2013, follows a man’s journey, along with his adolescent female charge, through a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested world. The game, though popular with critics and gamers alike, is characterised as extraordinarily graphic and rife with edgy, gritty and often gruesome themes and images — it is, after all, the apocalypse. Both central and peripheral characters meet brutal — and in some cases, egregious — ends, all in the name of entertainment and painting a vivid and violent world.

In the past couple months, Naughty Dog studios, the company responsible for the first The Last of Us, has confirmed the sequel is in its final stages pre-release. Then, on October 30, the studio posted a sample cinematic from the upcoming The Last of Us Part II. There is no better word for this short sequence than graphic. Viewer discretion is advised.

youtube

The Cinematic

In it, a female cult leader — we have to assume — orchestrates the torture and near-hanging of two other female characters, including a particularly grotesque sequence in which one woman has her arm pulverised by a hammer. In the end, the timely entrance of a young man saves the two, and more vivid hammer action follows. The gaming community, for its part, reacted with mixed reviews and impressions.

Some lauded the The Last of Us Part II’s trailer as a gritty masterpiece, praising the lifelike graphics and realistic staging of the fight scenes, the palpable gore, and shiver-inducing destruction of human bodies, as really evoking the apocalypse for viewers. Others have lashed out at Naughty Dog for going too far in this direction, brushing up against the region of gore-porn in place of a substantive and sensitive storyline. Many viewers commented on the targeting of female characters in The Last of Us Part II’s in-game cinematic as a ploy for easy thrills.

Whatever your opinion of the first game and this recently released cinematic, the outrage at female suffering in video games is nothing new. For the past decade, the feminist movement has taken a keen interest in the overtly male-dominated area of gaming. While the presence of women has skyrocketed in gaming in recent years, the industry still caters to an overwhelmingly male population.

Casual Cruelty

Anita Sarkeesian is a known name in the gaming community. She first rose to the public spotlight during the height of the Gamergate attacks in 2014, in which a loosely organised group of gamers targeted prominent female players and commentators. During this period, Sarkeesian, along with other vocal figures, received threats of death, rape and other deeply troubling actions. The Gamergate posters claimed to be combating expanding progressiveness and feminism in the video game community.

Sarkeesian, for her part, has written extensively on the topics of female objectification in video games. In many ways, these personal attacks served to underline her commentary on the male domination of the industry and the dangerous implications and echo-chamber effects of such an isolated population. One of Sarkeesian’s most-debated areas of writing is the explicit and continued use of casual cruelty on incidental female characters.

“Enforcing the expendable image of these women carries a massive and terrifying implication of its own.”

It is one thing for the female body to be put on display in a playable — quite literally empowered — fashion. Games like Mortal Kombat and League of Legends, though featuring well-endowed female characters in uniformly revealing outfits, allow these characters to be played and utilised in the same capacity as any male characters. Though the distortion of the female body in these games carries its own set of problems, these characters appear on a fundamentally even field as any other characters.

For Evil Purposes

Given this, Sarkeesian’s focus has drifted to narrative-driven games. In them, female characters are often relegated to marginal and unplayable roles and are subject to aggression and violence on the part of male antagonists as a means to drive the storyline and elicit a natural emotional response from the player. Cinematics such as those found in The Last of Us II potentially fall into this category.

In Sarkeesian’s estimation, there is no more straightforward way of demonstrating who is righteous and who is evil than by causing violence to incidental female characters. Male gamers fall prey to the age-old tropes of chivalry and feeling a deep, guttural reaction when exposed to female harm. This type of response is warranted when characters gradually develop over the course of a storyline and are tragically ripped from us. However, Sarkeesian says this is rarely the case.

Instead, the inconsequential female characters appear as simple tools to advance the storyline and accentuate the depravity of certain — typically male — characters. Game developers seem to have this all down to a science and will usually target female sex workers or women in otherwise compromising positions — the social “throwaways.” Enforcing the expendable image of these women carries a massive and terrifying implication of its own.

Aesthetic

However, female objectification manifests in another, hugely popular video game trope. In this, the typical “sexiness” of women portrayed in video games since the genesis of story-driven titles is mixed with violence as a means to evoke an edgy and dangerous but aesthetically pleasing world.

Instead of using specific and active instances of violence against women to evoke an emotional response, certain games utilise casual violence as a sort of game aesthetic. These titles portray women’s suffering as set pieces for certain stages of the game and allow the player to indulge in certain fantasies vicariously. From the exotic dancers of Grand Theft Auto to the trailer for Hitman: Absolution, women appear framed in demeaning and deadly ways for the benefit of the player.

Some Concerns From Gamers

This phenomenon is a slippery one to pin down: What constitutes excessive violence or humiliation on the part of non-player female characters, and what is reasonably accepted as a game aesthetic? There are arguments to be made that eliminating female-directed violence from games contributes to an unrealistic worldview for players.

Violence against women does exist in the real world and can be found more graphically in certain locations than others. To keep the escapist roots of video games alive, perhaps disallowing specific scenarios or areas is not the best way forward.

Further, enforcing the notion that bad guys participate in violence against women has its benefits, for all the weak story writing such tropes contribute to. If nothing else, studios still rely on the moral indignation players feel when experiencing violence against women, normalising how unacceptable such action is.

Anonymity

The real problem, it seems, is the portrayal of the characters targeted. They are anonymous, inconsequential to the story and simply introduced for the brief, unconscious reaction they elicit from the player. Video games struggle horrifically — for the most part, at least — to meet the Bechdel Test, which is a measure of gender depiction in media. The test only includes three rules: there must be at least two named female characters, those women must talk to each other, and they must talk about something other than a man. The majority of movies and video games alike do not meet this simple criteria, and that is simply lazy. Female anonymity is lazy. This technique does not do justice to the women of our world — or of any world these games are meant to create.

MEANWHILE.....

Does anybody remember that scene in heavy rain when you had to cut off your own finger?

I guess all this is okay RIGHT?

Just saying we do a lot of WAY more horrible things to MALE PROTAGONIST in video games WAY more often.

We also allow them to be very despicable characters and do very despicable things. Spec Ops the Line “white phosphorus” scene and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 “no Russians” Mission come to mine.

But that’s just my opinion.

#naughty dog #graphic violence

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themagnumnopus-blog · 6 years ago

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Every pedophile and every rapist should be brutally and painfully murdered. It's the morally correct thing to do

That’s your opinion and you are entitled to it. You can 100% think and say whatever you want but when it comes to damning people to death, actually enacting a death penalty for a crime. The real question is how many innocent people are you willing to brutally and painfully murder? It's inevitable that no matter what an innocent human being is going to suffer the penalty you propose. So are you comfortable with that outcome? Would you be comfortable if it was you or the people you love that died this way? Be they guilty or innocent.

So let's say you get your way and in your opinion, what 'should' happen comes to law. You have to tightly define what creates the circumstances by which a person is damned to death. Well, you're probably thinking to yourself 'duh that's obvious people raping people and doing bad things to children' but theirs where the first hurdle is you have to strictly outline the exact circumstances by which one has made themselves eligible for this death penalty. There are all kinds of people that get false accusations thrown at them. Look no further than right here on Tumblr to the people making lists of people that they are just accusing of being pedophiles with no proof. (See Aside 1) Personally, I just see those as probably what they are and assume that it is someone trying to indirectly attack someone they don't like. You need proof in absolute terms that the people you are damned to death are guilty, if you take conjecture as fact, accusations as true, there are no limits to its inherent potential for abuse. I'll give you a very good example. I simply say you are a pedo and now I guess you're getting "brutally and painfully murdered." beeeecause "It's the morally correct thing to do". I hope you see the problem there.

I'll try to make it simple, it is a very complex topic so I will do my best to to oversimplify it. All considered I don't think many people understand what makes someone a pedophile or a rapist. Most people think that wanting, thinking about or fantasizing about/to rape and/or molest, children specifically for pedophiles is the grounds by which one is guilty. That is not, however, the case. We do not police people’s thoughts or words but their actions or when possible preempt those actions. You can talk about whatever you want to whoever you want until it becomes a situation where you have undoutable intent to violate the law or have violated the law. Any adult can talk to any child but when you try to set up a meeting to violate the law you can now be arrested when you show up, you have created undoudtable intent by planning the meeting and showing up. Even then there is legal wiggle room by which one can attempt to obfuscate punishment, ‘you can’t predict the future, therefore, how could you know what he/she would have done once in the room’ but it's generally absolutely damning.

There are and should always be lines between fantasy and reality, thought and action. It is by that same coin that the person that sent me this is safe from legal repercussions for advocating for murder. Until they murder someone or are caught under a circumstance that would suggest that their intent was to murder someone they are free from legal repercussions. Law is reactionary and meant to give benefit of the doubt to the accused, that is why it is innocent until proven guilty and not the other way around. That is why rping, making statements, most forms of artistic expression, excluding photographs/video of child pornography and/or actual rape, is not illegal because there is no victim. Laws are to protect people from victimization. Everything from copy write law to industrial practice law to immigration laws to rape laws are made for the protection of people and legally defined entities. Think about any law you can that is not meant to protect a person or people, there aren't any that I know of. Even tax law protects people by defining the values one owes or what the government of your nation owes you. It's to protect you from your government coming in and saying I will now take 90% of your capital because I say but it also protects them from you failing to pay by imposing a penalty on you for not doing so. You will not, however, be faced with legal action for saying "I'm noooot paying taxes" until you have actually failed to pay at which point when the law catches you, you will face legal repercussions.

Words are not rape, thoughts are not rape, pretending to rape is not rape but actual rape is rape or undoubted intent to rape is technically rape as well. The same is true for every crime and should stay true for every crime. When a nation begins to police thoughts of its citizens and does not have to wait for action it opens up every avenue for an abuse of that power. Never try to impose on others things you would not wish visited on you.

It's the same reason I am so opposed in every measure to any change to the presumption of innocence. It opens up the system for abuse in absolute terms. The best example I can give the US, California, 'Yes means yes' laws. Under 'Yes means yes' if you are falsely accused of rape which I'm sorry to say is more likely then actually being raped, in the US at least, be you male or female you must now prove that your partner said 'Yes' and consented to have sex with you. There are two scenarios you can exonerate yourself by proving that at the time of the alleged rape you where not there and therefore could not commit the crime if it is an entirely unfounded accusation or you had what you and your partner considered consensual sex at the time but now have to prove it was consensual. I've talked to a couple legal professionals and in the second scenario, your only defense is to counter-accuse your accuser of rape. If you can't prove that the sex you had was consensually then they probably can't either and if they can they have exonerated you by admitting they wanted to have sex with you and the case is thrown out either way. Any legal system that requires that you have to make counter false accusations to prove your innocence is flawed in absolute terms.

Aside 1. Just as a public service announcement. If you think someone's a pedophile send your proof to the appropriate authorities, do not make a Tumblr post about them, especially without proof. You are insiting harassment and defaming them, defamation of character which is actually a victimization of them by you and there are legal ramifications to such actions. You are knowingly spreading misinformation if you cannot prove the allegations your leveling and even then sending a hate mob is not how you deal with them. Report them to Tumblr staff who are really good at dictating what is allowed on their platform. If they have been reported to the staff and the staff has reviewed your case against them, if they are still on here then I'm sorry but you where wrong, be a grown up and stop sending people to harass them. You were mistaken because Tumblr staff takes this far, far more seriously than anyone else. On top of them like most humans really, really not liking pedophiles it can cost them their jobs, their site, their lively hoods. They have more invested then you ever could in stopping those kind people on here. If your sending hate to people on the word of someone else demand proof of them right now and then hand over a copy to staff and if they can't prove it, stop, ask them to stop because you are wrong in every definable sense of the word.

Storytime.Now, since we're on the subject and it fits really well here. This is very important and a major reason why I as an individual do not believe in advicating for what you see in the ask above. I knew someone who spent 27 years in a US prison. That is a long, long time. They had gone to jail on a first-degree manslaughter charge, they had a rough childhood and teen years. With a lot of run-ins with the law, got in with some bad crowds in their time and at seventeen (17) they crashed their truck which killed his best friend. The truck rolled down a hillside and his friend was decapitated. Wasn't wearing a seat belt, window down, his shoulder caught the window frame and the head was removed when that side of the truck impacted the ground during one of the flips. The driver was driving drunk, third strike and that along with drugs found in the truck made a 50-year sentence. The judge was not feeling lenient. Served 27 and was out on good behavior.

That is all preamble to this. So roughly 20 years into his sentence his block of the prison gets a new arrival, prison guard gets the info, the guy who's budy-budy with him gets that info and it gets spread around. New arrival, 25 years, pedophilia. Child rapist. The first one the cell block had, had since my acquaintance had gotten in. They tortured him in every sense of the word beatings, they tied him to his bed in the night and pissed on him, my friend didn't state it but the guy was probably raped and sexually assaulted himself. Everybody in the prison block had a younger sibling, a kid of their own, or they had nieces and nephews. This man, child raping scum bag that he was, still calming he was innocent through it all. Everybody says that the only person in the prison that didn't, funnily enough, is the person I know. They owned their mistake. But the child raper didn’t and had been given an inhumane death sentence to be carried out at some point in the next 25 years, probably much, much sooner. About the time when the people in the block get bored of the game, they will kill him. Six months into it, no one was board yet. The guards didn't generally intervene either. They have children they loved, family, their own kids, etc. Midway through the month, the guy’s gone. Every body's wondering what happened to him, word gets spread around like it does. He was innocent. Wife accused him to get custody of the kids and the lawyer proved it.

The person I know had to kill people in self-defense. They had to do all kinds of fucked up shit to stay alive in the US prison system. They told me they never regretted any of it, ever. It was a requirement to live. The only thing they ever regretted was that. Everyone in the block down to the hardest of the hard regretted that he said. Doing that to an innocent man that didn't deserve it. A decade after the fact, they had been out three years when they and I were talking and that, the exact thing you suggest is what they regret. That is why I disagree with you in the strongest terms. While they may deserve it it’s a penalty that would be too easy to abuse. I hope you understand.

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