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txttletale · 1 year ago

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bundletober #13: blazing hymn

alright i've fallen behind on bundletober (the series of blog posts where i review and talk about a ttrpg i got in a bundle every day) and am hoping to make up the difference by putting out two entries today. this is the first one, and i'm looking at the mecha-piloting, synthetic-armour wearing, blaspheming-against-God-and-his-angels game blazing hymn by peach garden games.

now sadly this game is not a lyric/blackout poetry game about rewriting church hymns to be about gay sex. someone should make that btw. no it's just about wearing highly advanced battlesuits powered by the song of your heart to kill aliens with weapons of pure energy. which is about as cool.

first off, the layout of this game is unique and stylish. there are hexagons everywhere:

the game puts sparse splashes of dreamy pastel colours amid a constantly shifting set of black and white hexagons. it gives the book a visual identity that is at once both visually distinct and also changing massively from page to page. it's a really cool way to mix things up and keep you wanting to turn the page if just to keep seeing what the next one even looks like.

what's the game about? simple. angels have come to earth to destroy it badly. with the power of song, young people can power specially designed battlesuits, called Hymnals, that when not activated collapse down into crystal necklaces. it's a pretty anime concept--the game is pretty open about being inspired by Evangelion and Symphogear, neither of which i've actually seen--but it's cool as hell. the aesthetics of the layout really help bring the aesthetics of the game itself, of technology and ethereal mysticism merged into one thing, to life.

the game uses a pretty simple three-stat system where you build dice pools with a state relevant to an action and can get a full success, mixed success, or failure, depending on what you roll. your characters have two resources, Health, which is what it sounds like, and Gain, which is essentially magical power. because you can swap Health for Gain and Gain for Health at a 1-1 ratio with no restrictions, i'm not really sure why they're separate things--seems like a missed opportunity to not only simplify the mechanics but also create a strong mechanical narrative element by making Gain the only thing that keeps you going--once your song is silenced, you're out.

to create a character, you pick from one of six unit classes--here's where i'd describe the six classes, but honestly, they don't quite feel distinct enough. a lot of the powers you can pick for each hymnal class feel very similar, or are outright overlapping in a lot of cases. this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the descriptions of the hymnals, while trying to clarify their combat roles, all end up seeming to repeat themselves or say contradictory things. i think some direct ties between those descriptions and their mechanics would have helped--i'd find it a lot easier to remember that, for example, the 05 Xyston type "brutal in combat" if that flavour text was followed by a direct reference to one or more of its abilities. they do all have pretty different stats--which, in a game with a very simple and elegant combat system, means i'm confident they play very differently once you hit the table. but just looking at them, as a prospective player, i struggle to tell the difference.

i don't have that problem with the next character creation mechanic, though, which is choosing the songs you sing to power your hymnal. each song, as well as a thematically appropriate set of stat boosts, also prompts a pair of revealing character questions. they're the kind of mechanic that i want to get my hands on because they make it fun to create characters, giving real mechanical expression to the emotional fundamentals of who they are.

the combat system itself seems really, really good. it's astoundingly simple--you're encouraged to use a map, but there's no fiddly grid or distance tracking, just the ability to move between being Close, Near, or Far from an enemy. it keeps the numbers low to keep it getting silly and doesn't bother with any of the unecessary bookkeeping and fiddliness that plagues TTRPG combat as a whole. no initiative, no separate turns--there's a 'player' turn and a GM turn, and during the GM turn the GM picks from enemy's listed actions until they've done two for each player. players can use their abilities on the GM turn, and the game encourages the GM to take enemy actions that wil lforce them to--so nobody's ever standing around twiddling their thumbs waiting for the whole table to rotate back to them, and having a lot of enemies doesn't mean the players listen to the GM talk for fifteen minutes.

there's two unique mechanics that i think are very interesting-- Civilians and Condemnation. Civilians are--well, exactly what they sound like. on their turn, players can use an action to evacutate up to 5 of them. this extremely small and simple mechanic is fucking genius. so many games tell you they're about saving innocent people, but yet the only mechanical verbs you have to interact with anyone are violent ones. as elaine scarry says in the body in pain:

so in a way i think blazing hymn puts its money where its mouth is in a way very few combat rpgs with emancipatory or heroic aspirations bother. angels are said to attack populated areas--you're sent to preserve life as well as destroy the enemy. it makes the game feel fundamentally different, like despite the questionable ethics of hymnals (after all, they only work on young people, who then have to be sent into deadly combat situations) there is something heroic you can do.

the second cool mechanic is condemnation, a reality-warping toxin that angels use to destroy the places they're sent to. this rocks because it adds a ticking timer to the battlefield, a passive threat that forces the player characters to be proactive. if condemnation gets too high, not only is the fight going to get harder, but civilians are going to die en masse. it's a great piece of game design that gives the GM a great lever to pull for pacing and urgency.

i also really like that one of the steps of the GM turn is to 'change the situation', whether that means something happens in the narrative or something on the map changes (a train arriving is the example the book gives) or more angels attack. in general, one of my biggest complaitns about d&d is that unless a DM takes it upon themselves to design additional mechanics and encounters outside of anything the game actually gives them, combat inevitably turns into two lines of people hitting each other with sticks until one of them dies. i love dynamic, progressing combat, combat where the stakes change moment to moment. and blazing hymn delivers.

anything else? oh yeah, the angel designs are cool as fuck.

god damn. anyway despite a few minor issues with the hymnals themselves, the core of blazing hymnal is fucking good, a nice tight and razor-sharp combat system wrapped up in pulsing pastel crystalline aesthetics. if you like cool anime fights and like having the rules to back it up but hate complexity, crunch, and tedium, this might be the perfect game for you. it's certainly given me a lot of cool design ideas to take foreward into my own projects.

blazing hymn is available for purchase as a digital download through itch.io

#tattletxt #bundletober 2023 #ttrpg #bundletober 14 will of course be shorter

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onesnoopyaday · 4 months ago

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Hi, welcome to my blog!

I'm going to be posting one drawing of Snoopy every day for a whole year, starting from October 2nd 2024 until October 2nd 2025. This may seem like a totally random date, but it is in fact the 74th anniversary of Peanuts today, and if I successfully keep this up for a whole year, this project will take me right up to the 75th anniversary. Feel free to follow along for the journey!

Here is the first Peanuts strip, published October 2nd 1950 :D

I'm super out of practice with drawing, so part of why I'm doing this is to start drawing again on a regular basis, like I used to do as a kid. I chose Snoopy as my muse because:

He is cute

In addition to drawing, I also spent a lot of time reading Peanuts as a kid, so it holds a very special place it my heart <3 It seemed like a thematically relevant thing to base this project around.

Did I mention he is cute?

This is inspired by onetigeraday, which in turn was inspired by 1coweveryday. Also inspired by ms-paint-garfield!

Snoopy #1

2/10/2024

#peanuts #snoopy #a.txt #1 #art

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lotus-tower · 1 year ago

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okay so. i've always thought it was obvious that yoshiwara in flames arc's main relevance to gintama's overall narrative is as the prelude to rakuyou. like it's not thematically very interesting on its own, right? but it exists mainly for kagura and kamui's sake, establishing the sort of parallelism that gintama lives off of. it isn't really that connected to the red spider arc even though at first it might seem to be.

but i had no idea about the meaning of the name "rakuyou" until i saw @suchira 's post about it earlier today. and before that i also hadn't thought about utsuro's connection to the sun, which they've also talked about.

given everything that happens in rakuyou, this has expanded my thoughts quite a bit! i'm going be thinking through this as i go, so this is going to be me rambling.

housen is one of the few big arc villains who don't feel related to gintoki. jirocho, jiraia, oboro, takasugi--these kinds are obviously meant to be foils to gintoki. isaburo functions differently as a character, but even he gets directly compared to gintoki by nobume. but housen isn't really there for gintoki--he's there for kamui. he isn't a particularly interesting character, nor is his death very satisfying because of the wishywashy writing about hinowa showing kindness to him at the end. previously i'd thought that his thing with the sun was just a weaker example of craving something that would destroy you, and/or running away from one's weaknesses and vulnerabilities to the point that you become a sort of husk.

that's probably still a thing, but the introduction of the sun motif on the much more meaning-dense end of gintama adds so much more. because now the pre-existing thematic framework of gintama can do the heavy lifting for housen (who is, again, a pretty uninteresting character), hinowa (who is cool, but suffers from both Woman and Mom in shounen), and tsukuyo (who is very cool, but suffers egregiously from Woman in shounen).

so what is housen, really? he's the guy kamui chose to go with when making his very bad life decisions, the end result of the path he decided to pursue. for simplicity let's call him kamui bad end, though they aren't very comparable in canon itself because housen doesn't come across as nearly self-destructive enough. but the basic logic is that housen is one of those characters who gave up everything in single-minded pursuit of power--he's a flat character because he already "emptied himself out", as kamui says, before the series started. (but then he got scared and lonely, and all that.)

what's funny is that if housen is a bad end, then the guy who he considers his rival automatically comes to mind as an opposed route. i think it would be a serious stretch to call umibouzu the "good end" for kamui, and that's definitely part of the point in how the yato are written. but in any case, kamui clearly looked both ways (insert roads leading to two castles meme) and saw housen stereotypical villain bad end on one side, and his dad on the other. so obviously he chose housen.

rakuyou is a planet where it's always overcast. you could say that kamui chose to leave that "safety" in order to pursue something that shone much brighter to him, even if it would disintegrate him in the end. or, since rakuyou's name invokes the sun, you could say that he chose to flee the place of his weakness and pain, where his family was, like housen deciding to flee the sun and build an underground paradise.

when i go over my gintama cast tarot assignments, i always hesitate over hinowa. is she the Sun? or the Empress? how can i choose? and i think this is essentially the same conundrum. and i think the fact that she's both (thankfully, actual gintama storytelling isn't restricted to 1 character = 1 arcana) also provides us with the best answer here. hinowa is the object of yearning of both housen (as the sun) and of seita (as a mother). obviously, as i said before, the whole seita-hinowa thing is meant to lay the groundwork for kamui's motivations, and is also why he's introduced in this arc in the particular way that he is. but kamui is both seita and housen. he's the child yearning for his mother, but also the warlord who fears the sun so much he'll lock not only himself but countless others into the dark forever. but housen also desperately longed for the sun. kamui looks down on seita for being weak, and he looks down on housen for choosing to drown himself in vices at the end of his life. in the end, he doesn't kill either one of them.

if the sun is what kamui yearns for, he wants to leave rainy "rakuyou" behind--and/or he misses his home, his childhood, his family, even if these things feel like they will destroy him. or, if the sun is what kamui seeks to avoid, he wants to turn away from "rakuyou", all the things that hold him down so that he can throw himself into single-minded pursuit of self-destruction--and/or he's afraid of the weakness and pain that the sun inflicts on him, and desires to be strong enough that he won't feel them. see, a whole lot of words to say the same thing over and over.

i've always assigned housen the Emperor arcana. and i've often wondered, should it be umibouzu instead? should it be utsuro? and that, i think, is another illumination. thank you tarot for being an icon. it's so effective here because gintama is predictably built on parallels, and overlapping arcana assignments are bound to make you think: why?

in the end, housen builds a city underground in order to avoid the sun, but he also severs hinowa's ankles so that he can hold her, the sun proxy, captive in his grasp. he can't bear to feel sunlight, but he can't bear to let it go either. kamui is much the same, but he's young--he thinks he can let it go, his fears and regrets haven't caught up to him yet, because he still has so much to reach for. housen attained the peak of his strength and notoriety, and then there was little left for him.

what else happens in rakuyou? well, oboro and takasugi fight. oboro is sort of a seita figure in his own right, if seita had burned down yoshiwara in hopes that it would drive hinowa running to him. of course, seita didn't know that hinowa couldn't run; and oboro didn't know that shouyou couldn't, either.

but aside from seita and housen, there's another character in yoshiwara who yearns for the sun--not to possess it, but to protect it, to serve it. tsukuyo is an interesting character heavily let down by the realities of living in shounen jump. from my own understanding of sorachi's character, i don't think the following was intentional on his part. but i do think there are real reasons why these parallels are textually present (mainly through gintoki).

tsukuyo is the closest oboro has in this series to someone similar to him. not in the sense of a reflection in the mirror or hole-sided adjacency, but as in someone who sort of has a similar job and background to him. or had, anyway. as i implied earlier, the few, specific, clearly intentional similarities she has with gintoki (hello red spider) bleed over into her similarities with oboro, of course, because gintoki and oboro are... you know. just look at them.

tsukuyo swore herself to hinowa, but technically she was working under housen. she led housen's paramilitary force--fortunately, the hyakka loved her a lot more than the naraku were probably ever able to have an opinion about oboro. i don't think tsukuyo and oboro would ever get along--but they did have the same job. oboro did it in the heavens, tsukuyo did it underground. anyway, hinowa "saved" tsukuyo by teaching her about fighting from inside one's cage, and so tsukuyo gladly walked into the cage, just like oboro returning to the naraku without shouyou. because they thought it would be worth it. and also because tsukuyo had been groomed from a young age for the Hole (apologies to those who haven't read my ouroboros essay), to give up on her selfhood, and also to kill her sensei (hello gintoki). but hinowa remained around, unlike shouyou. tsukuyo never thought she could really free her--but protecting her, being able to see her, was enough.

oboro's life problem is a bit like if hinowa and housen were the same person. but kamui would see in that pairing only a reflection of his parents. and also, kouka is a bit like if hinowa and utsuro were the same person. but utsuro is already like if shouyou and utsuro were the same person--because oboro's actual life problem is that shouyou and utsuro are the same person.

i've spoken a lot about tarot, but the moon in gintama has little to do with the Moon arcana. in gintama it's the backdrop, the symbol of promises--promises made, promises fulfilled, promises held on to dearly whether they can be fulfilled or not. i don't truly think that the sun as represented by hinowa interacts directly with this. but tsukuyo and oboro share moon-related names, and their promises (or rather, their vows of devotion) towards hinowa/shouyou are one-sided. one-sided promises aren't a problem in gintama--our silver-haired protagonist wouldn't be alive if it weren't for them.

if the naraku, if utsuro, if oboro under utsuro is associated with the sun through the yatagarasu, perhaps it's because of the evaporation of the promise through the eclipsing of the moon. shouka sonjuku, after all, burned down, and utsuro emerged from a pyre. and though i think that the sun is overall a motif much more strongly associated with the yato--that which they avoid, are weak to, and secretly long for--i don't think that's incompatible with the crow-meaning.

rabbits can die of loneliness, you know--or they can die from overheating in the sun. i think the question here is, is this a trick question? are those two the same thing?

#i love starting a post with no idea of what my conclusions will be. thoughts can only be sharpened through writing #gintama #kamui #tsukuyo #oboro

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chloeangelic · 1 year ago

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Why does it seem like everything you've put out lately is just trying to rip off netherfeildren? Like the art, the plots, the aesthetics... Especially weird since you used to seem to always hype them up

I went back and forth on responding to this but I’ve decided to because I don’t appreciate having my integrity questioned. I kind of expected that I'd get something like this because there are some thematic similarities between Seeking and SWITBOSH. However, I won’t respond publicly to anything else like this cause I think we’re all very over The Discourse, and tbh it’s a massive fucking insult to accuse me of ripping someone off when I’ve spent seven months writing ca 200k words of fic and developing my own unique style of writing. If you can’t see the difference between two writers, just because they write emotional depth and full sentences, then please read an actual book and not just brainrot fic. I’m gonna properly address everything under the cut - anon domming is back on the menu today.

That being said, because this feels weird and uncomfortable for me and likely for Vic, I’m turning off anons for the time being and I’m taking a posting break to decide whether I want to continue posting here at all or continue posting purely on AO3. I post there anyways under the same name. If you still have a bone to pick with me or my writing, please message me directly. Please do NOT pester Vic about this, I know very well that she does not enjoy The Discourse or any sort of drama. Everyone is sick of the copying discourse - please have some trust in writers’ self awareness.

Firstly, the words “recently” and “plots” should be defined here - I personally don’t see how stepdaddy Joel, pornstar Tim, sex addict Dieter, baby daddy Javi or any of Love Me back is similar to her works at all. The Seeking teaser I posted yesterday was similar to her Pink teasers purely because it had text on a photo - my text wasn’t even from the fic, it was a quote that represented the series as a whole and the quote that finally made the series crystallize in my head. It’s the quote I want people to have in the back of their mind when they go into reading it - it’s from the song that I consider the series theme. Our formatting is not the same. Yes, I have quotes at the beginning of the chapters - my friend sent me a bunch of poems and a couple, I felt were relevant to the story so I wanted to add them somehow. Several writers do this. I stopped putting in previews above the cut cause it was making it difficult for me to write the beginning of the chapters. My masterlist art is the same as, like.. Everyone’s else’s masterlist post - the norm on here is to have an artwork from Pinterest, the title slapped on top and the writer’s name. I literally just loved Pascalisbaby’s masterlist art so much I decided to do it too.

When you say plots, I’m assuming you’re drawing parallels between Seeking what is desirable and Someone’s Wife in the Boat of Someone’s Husband because cheater!Joel (or maybe even Pink cause DDLG, but I’m literally in a DDLG-type dynamic irl and I decided to incorporate it into a fic for once - there were CLEAR ddlg undertones in Love Me Back, it just wasn’t explicit. I also wrote several chapters of Seeking before Pink even came out, and I wrote a cheating + father in law oneshot this summer).

The MC in Seeking is based on myself and my own life, moving away from my parents in order to live with my boyfriend at the time very far away, who ended up being extremely absent and shitty. MC+Jeremiah relationship is based on Adam and Hermine from EXIT, Jeremiah is based on Tony Soprano, Gwen is based on Janice Soprano + a story I heard from my cousin about how his wife let him do all the childcare while she went on a women’s retreat. They are not in a marriage of convenience, the MC doesn’t feel bad about the affair at all, she never pushes him away, and Gwen has no plans on leaving. Sarah and Ellie are both 16 and living with Joel in Seeking. The MC does not have similarities to Sarah like she does in Love Me Back (which was also literally based on my own life) or Someone’s.

MC is a teacher who cheats with Joel - so is the MC in my post outbreak series I wrote many months ago. They're drawn to each other immediately cause I hate slow burn fics and I didn't feel like writing two chapters of him fucking someone else this time around. She goes out intending to cheat, and he thinks it'll sustain him for the next several years. The first thing I thought up in this entire series was Jeremiah - I had his character crystallized in my head for weeks before I planned anything else.

Of course Joel is unhappy in his marriage - neither Vic or myself would write a Joel who cheats for fun, that’s just not something either of us finds interesting. It actually started as a Sopranos AU, but I decided against going that route cause I don’t know enough about white collar crime. Also, if you are familiar with my writing you’ll know I love writing infidelity - it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m writing a series with this as the central theme. The central question for Seeking is when is it okay to cheat? That’s what the entire fic is about. It’s not about him finding the love of his life after marrying someone else (like the summary of Someone’s), it’s about two instances of cheating and how we justify those two scenarios. Of course it has a happy ending - I’ve used up my non-happy ending quota for the year.

I’m not sure what you mean by aesthetics - Vic actually edits really nice graphics for all of her Mando chapters. She spends a bunch of time on those, and you’re doing a disservice to her by overlooking how unique her artwork is and how much effort it takes. She also made really cool teasers for Pink. I’m way too lazy for any of that, I just slam a moodboard together. I started doing 3 slot moodboards cause the 6-7 slot ones were a hassle. The fact that only art pieces are used in this series is half coincidence, half me being sick of trying to fit Pedro pics into the moodboards when the colors are often wrong.

I literally texted with her when I planned this series, saying I was afraid people would accuse it of being a ripoff of Someone’s, purely due to the Joel infidelity + uninterested wife factor, and she did not think the overall plot was similar enough to be of concern. I still hype her up, she just doesn’t post as often now so I don’t reblog as often, that’s pretty simple. I’ve also asked Iris, my editor, SEVERAL TIMES if it reads too similar to Someone’s or anything Vic has written - she is extremely familiar with both of our works and she did not think so. What exactly am I supposed to do when I’ve gotten the green light from everyone?

This specific anon didn’t mention the actual writing, though, which is funny and it makes sense because I don’t write like Vic and I don’t try to. Her vocabulary is way larger than mine, the diction and syntax are not similar at all. She actually uses metaphors, I use them very rarely and only when it’s super dramatic. My writing isn’t poetic, it’s not flowery, it’s not formal - it’s literally just how I think inside my own head. When I read my own writing, I imagine Charles Gross doing a dramatic reading. I learn like one new word every month and eventually I’ll add it to my writing when it’s something I’m confident using irl. She has a lot of depth to her fics, I also try to write with emotional depth - I’m sorry if that’s unfamiliar in a landscape of dbf porn with no plot and 5 word sentences (I’m shading my own first series here). Seeking reads more similar to the first series I ever wrote, which I never posted, than anything else I’ve written. Half of Seeking is also straight up daydreaming sequences cause that’s literally how I think - the MC lives a boring life and daydreams, so do I.

I’ve learned a ton from reading Vic’s stuff - I don’t read that much irl cause I rarely find English novels captivating, but her writing has really made an impression on me. I talk constantly about how much her writing makes me cry, and it really does. Reading her stuff has absolutely influenced me to be more confident about weaving in actions and little plot points that are more vulnerable and personal to myself, and that adds a lot of depth it otherwise wouldn’t. I’m very inspired by her, of course I am - but I know the difference between being inspired and trying to leech.

I’m sorry my writing style has developed. I’m sorry I no longer write like I did in April, with matter-of-factly short sentences and little emotional depth. I have short series and long series because some plots deserve more emotional depth and some don’t need it. I wouldn’t bother writing anymore if all I did was shady lawyer Joel or Father Joel and I never improved.

If you don’t enjoy my writing, please just unfollow. I’ve seen other fics on this platform that read similar to mine, some that have exactly the same plot points/origin stories, and at no point have I thought they were ripping me off. At some point, this specific fandom needs to realize that it’s possible for two writers to have similar ideas without it being one person copying the other. My personal opinion is that if you copy someone’s plot, you won’t be able to execute it well because you don’t have the ideas necessary to actually flesh it out. If you’re familiar with my writing, you know damn well I’m capable of coming up with my own ideas and plots. I feel zero need to rip other people's in order to gain traction - I have enough followers and idgaf how many notes anything gets. Please don’t overestimate my ability to give a fuck about my popularity in this fandom.

Anyways, thanks for making me want to vomit, anon, you truly made me feel like shit today and I hope you have a great night! I’m not sure how much I’ll be checking tumblr for a while so feel free to message me on discord under the same name.

#chloe answers

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crusherthedoctor · 1 year ago

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Get a Load of Traits - PART 1: Sonic the Hedgehog

Way back during my Tumblr infancy, I made a series by the mouthful of What Makes For A Good Incarnation, in which I listed the main noteworthy traits that I consider integral for crafting, at the very worst, a still above-average portrayal of the character in question. By "series", I meant I did exactly three of them, then forgot all about it. In the words of Moneybags, I seemed to have temporarily forgotten.

In the years since however, I've went back and forth on going back and redoing them - as well as providing entries for those who didn't get one the first time around - because shall we say, a few recent portrayals have caused me to believe they're in need of some additional points or further elaboration. So now here I am to actually do it.

For the DX: Director's Cut, and for the sake of not dragging them out too much, I've decided to keep it all thematically consistent by sticking with 9 main points per character, in terms of what I personally consider the highest priorities for each of them. These will usually not be listed in any particular order of importance or relevance unless stated otherwise, and while there may be other major traits that might not get mentioned (in which case, feel free to bring them up yourself if you see fit), this keeps things simple and focuses on the points that have the most flexibility with how much of the character they encapsulate.

It should also be noted that these posts will be made with the game portrayals in mind, because the games mark the core of the franchise, and as such, they objectively contain the purest essence of the cast. Adaptations generally like to play by their own rules, some more gratuitously and inexcusably than others, and this will inevitably crop up with certain entries. All that being said however, I'll attempt to stay focused rather than devolve into another rant about this adaptation or that adaptation, only directly referring to them if I feel it's necessary for the point being made.

So without further ado, for today's installment, we're jumping right into the main Crush 40 enthusiast himself: Sonic.

Since Sonic was one of the characters covered in the past, much of this will be retreading old ground. If you know me well though, I'm sure you'll be able to tell which of it is new or expanded upon.

He's meant to be fun.

"Psst, the mandates don't exist."

We'll start with one so easy to get that you'd have to be purposefully contemptuous of the franchise and the character to suggest otherwise: Sonic is a fun character. He's all about having fun. He looks at virtually everything, no matter how precarious, as a thrill ride first and foremost. He is perpetually filled with a carefree love for all that life has to offer, has never been shy about it, and is known to enjoy fighting the baddies as well. Nothing keeps him down.

It's a large factor into why the franchise itself commonly boasts a sense of energy and wonder. If you don't acknowledge this aspect of Sonic's character... what are you even doing here? Why are you writing for him? What character are you seeing?

But he also knows when it's time to get serious.

Oh look, Super Sonic when it still had milk left in it.

Sonic's knack for making snarky quips of debatable quality can lead some into thinking he's incapable of taking anything seriously at all. This is how we get writers who seek to humble him for it... but unfortunately for them, they're not breaking any new ground: Sonic does get down to business when the situation calls for it, and even when he's joking around with whatever villain he's currently facing, he's always got his wits sharp, never going out of his way to be sloppy. And no, this isn't limited to the one-off villains and Godzilla-type Pokemon we know and begrudgingly tolerate: he more than acknowledges the very serious threat and crimes of the deceptively jovial Eggman's actions as well.

After all, do we not recall some of the near-death situations that Eggman has found himself in upon defeat, and how Sonic usually shows no concern over whether he survives or not? Do we not recall Sonic interrogating Zor over what happened to Tails? Do we not recall what he did to the Erazor Djinn when he refused to YouTube Apologise for abusing his former lover?

Sonic takes a lot of things quite seriously. More than he tends to let on. He just also likes to have fun at the same time.

He does not loathe technology.

"You're telling me this board was made with... SCIENCE...?"

Yes, Sonic is the nature foil to Eggman's scientific scheming. It's been a constant with the franchise since its inception, all the way to modern entries like Colours. But if Sonic hated technology itself, he wouldn't be best friends with a tinkerer. Nor would he own a plane.

The series as a whole has always been sensible about the matter compared to other green aesop-spewing media of the 90's. Rather than demonize technology outright, it understood the strengths it had, and how it could be used for nature's benefit rather than its detriment. Sonic CD visualized this wonderfully, as the Good Futures were fond of showing them side-by-side, in perfect harmony, with no cost to the land's health and beauty.

So with Sonic, he doesn't oppose technology. He opposes Eggman, whose methods involve technology. If you want Sonic to preach about the evils of tech as he drops a mahogany log in the woods and scrambles for a leaf to wipe his ass with, just go on DeviantART. Or watch SatAM.

He has selfish needs, but he's not a selfish person.

"Shit, I forgot the third paragraph of my principle monologue."

Sonic knows what he wants, and that something is his freedom. He's not going to be anchored down, he's not going to live a mundane life, and he's going to adventure and explore the world and beyond for as long as he can. This goes both ways: it's further reason why he confronts oppressive sorts like Eggman, but on the other hand, it can be hard to keep up with him at times, and since Amy has a clear vision on how she would want their future lives to be like as a couple, it's no wonder Sonic hasn't shown much serious interest in his friend in that particular way.

Don't get the wrong idea though; this doesn't mean Sonic is a selfish person full stop. In part thanks to several adaptations, a common misconception with the Blue Blur is mistaking him for a pure egotist through and through, who only cares about his adrenaline-fueled ecstasy and nothing else. Cause y'know, he's firm about his needs, and he has a cocky side, therefore he's full of himself, right?

Well no, not at all: his opposition to big bad villains would surely be enough on its own to confirm that he cares about everyone else's freedom too, so long as said people aren't doing anything malicious themselves. Yes, he fights villains because it's fun to him, but he also has a genuine hatred for injustice. He doesn't think like a typical superhero, where he fights evil and saves lives because he feels he has an obligation to do so, he does it simply because he wants to. How is that not selfless?

But it's even more than that: he's proven himself to be humble in spite of his cockiness, right down to dismissing any and all formal terms for himself when others use them. Half the time he tells the people he's saved to not sweat it, and the other half, he's already bolted before they can even thank him. Sonic largely doesn't care about the fame and attention that comes with being a repeated world saviour, and in more intimate situations, he's full of compassion there too. Hell, even in Black Knight, despite initially intending to slice Merlina in half in a furious response to her betrayal, he was later willing to show empathy to her defeated self, recognizing that she was an extremist, but not like the other villains he had faced.

Also, he doesn't have a history of treating his friends and accomplices like garbage. He might not see them all that often due to his globe trotting ways ("Long time no see!"), but he clearly values each of them. Even the ones he pokes light fun at on occasion, like Knuckles and Shadow.

He's impulsive, but intelligent.

Remember when Eggman had a conch? Starline didn't.

Like any character, Sonic does indeed have faults. Sonic is a guy who, when he sets out to do something, he'll do it, no questions asked. If Sonic thinks he knows the solution to sorting everything out, then that's all there is to it. This has worked in his favor more often than not, but it can also just as easily lead to mishaps, like the moment pictured above from Lost World. His cockiness has also been taken advantage of on several occasions, like in SA2 and Unleashed. Both of those were by Eggman, by the way. Just wanted to throw that out there.

However, Sonic is not an idiot. Just because he's a speedster doesn't mean he can't think straight, and his moments of recklessness are often born out of not knowing the full story rather than blindly charging in after already knowing better. If he makes a mistake, he'll acknowledge it and attempt to rectify it as soon as possible, and if he thinks someone else has good advice, then he'll be willing to hear them out, especially if it's coming from his life-long buddy, Tails.

To put it generously, Sonic's intelligence is prone to be heavily downplayed in certain adaptations, most notably in SatAM and Prime. This is usually done for the sake of forcing him to learn a lesson that a character like him doesn't really need to learn, or to prop up another character as the brains behind his operation. Or because Hurr Hurr Vroom Vroom Character Dumb. In reality though, Sonic is actually very intelligent: certainly not a super-genius like Tails or Eggman, but he's quick to pick up on details, and experience has taught him how to optimize his speed and acrobatics effectively and gracefully, while making it look completely effortless. He's also emotionally intelligent, being able to read a room with little issue, and when placed in a new situation, it doesn't take long for him to adapt.

So Sonic is a very bright person who just so happens to occasionally make impulsive decisions, for better or for worse. This does not translate to him being a Funny Penis Man. That's a vast simplification that tends to come from people who take the archetype that describes him at face value.

He only cares about how others perceive him when it's based on deception.

"Surrounded by evil knights and a girl I've never met before... better inhale the worst cuisine they've ever seen with my goatse mouth."

To paraphrase the hedgehog himself, he doesn't mind having to play the bad guy if it's necessary to do what he thinks is right. This doesn't apply in a meta sense - WE know he's doing the right thing - but what it means is that in-universe, he understands that some people might think he's the villain due to their perspective on the situation. And he accepts that, because he doesn't care about how his true blue self is perceived by strangers one way or the other. He doesn't expect or demand the rest of the world to live by his own personal beliefs unlike some iterations, but since they're his own, he holds no shame in sticking with them personally. He can only be who he truly is, and if some people have a problem with that, then he'll just have to take it smoothly with a Winston break.

But, as proven with Shadow inadvertently framing him in SA2, he does care when it involves Shit That Isn't True. Because if you're going to judge him, it better be for stuff he's actually done, and for who he actually is. Sonic doesn't care about attention, but he does evidently care about his identity.

The real super power of teamwork.

"Because... we're Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric!"

Sonic Heroes is a game that frequently gets referenced in side-material, which is an impressive feat considering it condemned itself by dressing Metal Sonic like a wanker. Yet for some curious reason, despite all the Heroes referencing, writers have trouble remembering the entire theme of the game, because their idea of Sonic needing to learn the benefits of teamwork and friendship is... lol...? Lmao...? Dare I even say... rofl...?

Sonic is the last person on the goddamn planet who needs to learn this, and you'd know that even if you weren't familiar with Heroes. Other games have shown time and time again that he appreciates the contributions of his allies, and gives them the appropriate kudos with no shred of reluctance, all without placing himself above them in the process. And while he may not be quick to ask for help, he's usually willing to accept it when it's offered to him. Like in '06, in which he casually allowed Trunks the Hedgehog to help out despite his attempting to kill him when they last met.

Sonic knows the super power of teamwork just fine. It's in his business card. Him of all people needing to learn this aesop is a non-development, a cheap way to make it seem like the writers are doing something ~deep~ with him. Giving back something he should have had to begin with is not character development.

His thing about emotions.

"A tall girl. My weakness."

Despite his outward demeanour, Sonic has a lot of introversion deep down, what with showing himself a contemplative side on a regular basis, and most of his dialogue being fairly straight and to-the-point. As it happens, this extends to how he manages his emotions, aside from his alleged temper. Sonic is obviously not stoic, but you're not likely to see him break down in hysterics, or publicly show tears at all unless it's in private.

Some writers and artists - or should I say, certain writers and artists - consider this an abominable sin that must be rectified. They'll get it into their heads that Sonic shows no emotion at all, but never fear boys and girls, they'll fix that pronto. They'll give him the emotions that SEGA couldn't. And what do you know, the end results end up looking absolutely ridiculous, and simply not in-line with who and what our hero is. Fact of the matter is, not everyone wears their emotions on their sleeve, and not breaking out the waterworks is not the same as being an unfeeling machine altogether. As it applies to real life, it applies as well to fictional characters. Because they're not all going to be the same.

His introversion doesn't just relate to himself though. It also seeps into his visible discomfort in dealing with the complex emotions of others, especially those who can't shake themselves off as easily as he can. Notice how, during moments where someone else is upset by something he can't easily fix - such as Tails lamenting Emerl's demise, or Shahra grieving over Majin Ganondorf despite him being a terminal shithead - he often finds himself at a loss, needing a moment or two to think of what he should say or do to console them.

It's possible that, with his canonical tendency to not be all that open about whatever might be troubling him, under the belief of not wanting to make his problem their problem by extension, he might not consider himself the most well-equipped for someone else's anguish. Or maybe that's just a Game Theory. Either way, whatever awkwardness there may be on his part, he always does his best regardless, as he would for any other situation.

...unless it involves one-sided sadness. Then he's not as sympathetic.

He's an ideal.

"Fuck sake, another argument over voice actors."

Sonic is a static character. Deliberately so. He is also not meant to be a relatable character, at least not in the sense of what Twitter members who have never played a Sonic game in their life consider relatable, which is basically making the character exactly the same as them, beat for beat, including the mismatched haircut, announcing their pronouns every three sentences, and the compulsive thirst to speak to the manager.

Needless to say, this doesn't work with the fastest thing alive. Everything about Sonic - his refusal to give up, his refusal to let distress overwhelm him, his freedom to go where the wind takes him - all of it, and more, serves to make him an inspiration. And guess what? Characters are allowed to be that. Inspirational characters are just as important as relatable ones, because by seeing what they can accomplish, we can strive to become our best selves. Why would you want to take that away?

Every character, the good ones anyway, have a defined purpose. Sonic has his. Other characters in the series might be considered relatable, but that's not where Sonic himself lies. It's better to leave that occupation for others, such as those who were inspired in-universe by Sonic himself, like Tails and Amy.

------

If you understand all of these points, and if you can take to them, then I believe you should have what it takes to write a good, or even great, portrayal of Say Yes to the Dress the Hedgehog. No portrayal is going to be one-and-one with that of another, there'll always be subtle distinctions depending on the writer, but you'll be fine as long as he's not a holier-than-thou dipshit who speaks more words than The Great Gatsby.

#Get a Load of Traits #Opinion #Sonic the Hedgehog

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trainsinanime · 2 years ago

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The Movie - The Bad Parts

Based on discussions with @emsylcatac earlier today, let's talk about Miraculous Ladybug & Chat Noir - The Movie (also known as Miraculous Awakening), and specifically what sucks about it. I want to clarify that this post is meant to be unfair on purpose. It's all about complaining because complaining is fun! Overall I think the movie was perfectly fine, I had fun and I recommend watching it on a big screen because it is really pretty. This post is full of spoilers, and I'll put it in the queue for the 29th so people who watch on Netflix can see it then.

Let's get to it. There are a number of different directions from which you can criticise the movie. Too many fart jokes. Too many Volkswagen cars. Not enough metro trains. Uninspired songs. I'd like to pull it back a step, though, and ask fundamentally: What was the movie trying to do, you know, as a story? Because I don't think it knows.

About something

The movie has set itself a fairly difficult task, trying to fit a monster-of-the-week show into a single cohesive narrative. This isn't impossible, other superhero movies from Marvel and sometimes Sony and even the odd DC one do that all the time. They do that by finding a core story to tell about the people involved. Tony Stark goes from war profiteer to taking responsibility. Shang-Chi fled his father and must now face him. Jessica Jones faces her trauma. Kamala Khan must figure out who she wants to become and what it means to be a hero. Hawkeye must shoot an arrow out of a bow. Stuff like that.

As a show, Miraculous Ladybug doesn't really have that. Marinette isn't standing on the wrong side of a central dramatic argument and must learn to find and believe the correct answer. Her only real problem is that she isn't kissing Adrien right now. Similar things go for Adrien, who has plot attached to him, but not really any arc beyond going from not kissing Marinette to kissing Marinette. And that's perfectly fine for a show like that, there are plenty of arcs for each individual episode. And sometimes you don't even need that and can just save yourself with twenty minutes of being fun.

The movie is exactly like the show in this regard, and in my opinion, that's a mistake. Marinette is clumsy and afraid of being awesome, but that is just basic hero's journey stuff, that isn't a real character arc. Adrien doesn't have an arc at all. So really, there is nothing here, no theme, no arc. Stuff just happens. The stuff that happens is very adorable in my opinion, but most of it doesn't mean anything.

And really, that seems to be the main point of the movie: Have adorable stuff happen. There are a lot of great trailer moments, but then if you see how they fit together in the movie, well, they mostly don't. There are some cute Adrinette scenes, but they are just here to be cute, they don't actually matter. There's some excellent Ladynoir banter, but it doesn't actually change anything or tell us anything about the characters, it's just here.

The movie certainly pretends that there's an arc here. Marinette gets an "I want" song that tells us she's unhappy about being clumsy, and she'd like to design clothes. We have a bit of a hero's journey. We have a tiny bit of a conflict when Chat Noir is in love with Ladybug, but she can't be in love with him because she's in love with Adrien, and he reacts poorly to that (oh god, are we going to get Adrien discourse again? Please, anything but that!). We defeat the villain, and Marinette learns the "Miraculous Ladybug" healing power. It feels like an arc, but the things don't connect to each other in any thematic way.

And sure, the movie pretends there is a theme here, which is "we're stronger together". Except being together is not really that relevant for the conclusion, and besides, nobody ever said they weren't stronger together.

Weirdly enough, there is one character who gets an arc, which is Gabriel, who realises his mistakes when he sees that Chat Noir is his son. That's nice but comes a bit out of nowhere. And the way Adrien forgives him that easily also feels unearned to me. If you go strictly by which character learned the most and changed the most, you could technically argue that this is Gabriel's story more than anyone, which is just silly.

So it all feels a bit lifeless. Many subplots start and stop at random, and many scenes in between the trailer moments feel too short and lifeless.

The Changes

The other thing that feels weird is all the ways that the lore was changed. I'm totally okay with changing the lore to fit into the movie, but so many of the choices just feel less interesting.

Most crucially, when Marinette falls in love with Adrien in the show, it's the culmination of a mini-arc in which she was wrong about him, and he was bad at social interaction, which they resolve with a ritual umbrella exchange. That is really meaningful. In the movie, Marinette falls in love with Adrien because he's handsome and he asks her if she's alright after she drops some books. That's less interesting.

A smaller detail, but in my opinion even more important, are the Akuma villains. There's no doubt that the gargoyle looks great… but it's a random person who we don't know. We certainly didn't know Ivan that well at the end of season 1 either, but we had at least some connection to him. Most importantly, Marinette had a connection to him, and so her fear for this guy she knows felt real and important. That's gone here. Same for the other villains. They're all just some guys Hawkmoth found somewhere. They don't matter to us or to the heroes, they're just around. In their fight for great visuals, they made the story less interesting.

There are plenty of other examples where the show weirdly forgoes personal moments. The Adrinette montage, for example, is sweet, but it passes by way too quickly. And it's not like the movie didn't have the time, I mean, have you seen these fart jokes?

When it comes to the superhero fights, I am mostly stumped. The movie invented completely new rules, but these rules are for the most part not better or worse, just different. It feels like they feared they'd infringe someone's copyright, but doesn't Zag own the copyright? I think the lack of insane plans prompted by a lucky charm was a bit sad, but I wouldn't call it a dealbreaker.

The Music

I think the songs were alright, I'm just mentioning them here because I know others hated them. My main issue with them is that they felt so unmotivated. It felt like someone had said, "this is where a Disney movie would have a song, so we'll put one here as well".

The Ending

Cutting there? Come on. Not gonna lie, that part got a big groan at my cinema.

The Nachos

Mine didn't taste that great.

In Conclusion

I really should have written this Sunday or Saturday when my memory was still fresh. But I think you get the gist of it. It was a fun experience, but I think it squandered most of its opportunities. There were fun moments, but the connection between them wasn't really there. Most importantly, the movie just didn't really have any story to tell other than "that Ladybug one". But while that is a fine story to have as the premise of a show, it doesn't really work well for a single movie.

#miraculous ladybug #ml movie #ml awakening #ml movie spoilers #ml awakening spoilers #ml salt #ml movie salt

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mirror-to-the-past · 2 years ago

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So.... I bolted to the finish line of Dream Drop as I had nothing else to do today.

I am still collecting many thoughts, sentiments, attempts at analysis, etc, as I always do, but this game just had a lot to offer so I'm still weeding through the freshly tilled flowerbed that is my brain at the moment. Holy mother of run-on sentences (you're gonna see a lot of those).

First off, I wanna thank this game for doing so much for Sora and Riku's characters. The inverse development they had through the course of the plot was really interesting to follow, actually, and none of it's out of nowhere!

Since KH1, Sora's had the repression subplot and embracing the strength of others as his own. Here, he tried to do the same, but with everything that's happened to him since, all of which he doesn't even necessarily remember, and all of the emotions and memories he's been touched with and made more and more aware of- he's on shaky ground and the same ol' methods don't fit like they used to! Understandable! And Xehanort/13 Darkness gang just feeds into that. He expands on Sora's questioning of his identity, suggests the lack of validity of his emotions. Everything that could be used to describe Sora in a positive light in wake of what's happened to him, he finds a negative spin on it to really dig at Sora's core:

'You're confused about the direction your life has taken? Hm, wonder how much of you is even real. Your emotions? Memories? Could be fabrications. Or someone else's. Who knows...'

'Your heart is a refuge for lost souls, hoping to find a new future? Nah, screw that. Your heart's a prison. Your very existence binds people, Sora. And of course, you just love holding people back.'

'Aw, you follow where your heart leads? Cute. People's feelings have never led them astray before, huh? Why don't you just keep being a precious little idiot though, it works great for us.'

Xigbar particularly, was brutal as always. Loved the scenes with him and Sora in The World that Never Was. So well crafted. He towers over him, gets all up in Sora's business and you can see how uncomfortable Sora is. He pokes directly at Sora's two biggest insecurities:

Weakness; being incapable and helpless.

Not being wanted/needed, or dragging others down.

He goes on his whole spiel where he specifically highlights how Sora's pretty much leftovers. He acts like he's a good for nothing- "As if the Keyblade would choose a wimp like you." And childish for simply feeling the pain of others: "Oh... thank you, Sora's heart, for pushing him right into our clutches. Aren't hearts great? Steer us wrong every time." (Love that line) And Sora figures out that Nobodies have the capability of essentially learning to gain their own heart (CALLED IT, YES- BUT ALSO 😭 you poor guys. I think every party that could have benefitted either didn't care or didn't figure it out.), only to be further disparaged by Xemnas essentially being like 'Yeah, and then they got manipulated anyway, hah. Just like you.' Just two grown ass men bullying and gaslighting a teenage boy to heighten his insecurities. Because "possession" just seems to be a symbol for one losing themselves.

Xehanort as a character just gives those vibes of an individual who takes, takes, and breaks someone down until they don't feel like themselves anymore, becoming an extension of their manipulator. He preys upon vulnerability and lack of self assurance and it's so good, hah. So, that's the reading I find most appropriate for his thematic relevance, in relation to KH's continuous crisis of what makes up an identity. I mean, just look at how Xehanort describes the others they were considering as a dark vessel- Riku's "immune to the darkness," in other words, immune to obfuscation/has more solid connections. Roxas was considered as too driven, assured in his place in Sora's heart when he forged his own trial-by-fire path. Both people that came to peace with themselves and what they wanted through hardship, one way or another. Now, I'm not saying Sora hasn't felt hardship, but when your theme is "repression," he's up against amnesia, feelings of others encroaching on his own, and a lack of self evaluation. He has more of himself in others, at the moment, and that's leaving him vulnerable.

So, you can only imagine how Sora feels at the game's conclusion, denied a rank of Keyblade Master, those words lingering in his mind as one of the most recent things he's heard, near death(?) experience, and Sora had been filled in I'm sure on how Riku was endangering himself for Sora's sake. I'm sure he feels super great about all that.

(His "What do you want me to see?!" line after Roxas disappeared... haha... I'm well.)

Meanwhile, Riku. His whole arc was the polar opposite! By the end of this game, he was the most self assured than we've seen him the whole series! 🎉 Hooray! At least someone gets to be happy! :'D

But for real, *wow.* Personal quip, I doubt I need to go heavily into the queer connotations of Riku's journey to easier vulnerability and self acceptance, especially in this game, because I'm sure anyone who takes time to read this can probably see it, but wow. The way he learned to change his reflexes and actions throughout the course of the story in a number of small, meaningful ways was so sweet. It was cheesy, sure, but him openly laughing with the other teens in Traverse Town. Him admitting to the nature of his insecurities to help another, and then getting comforted by Esmeralda in return, who assured him it was understandable to have walls around his heart/keep parts of himself separate from the world when he was still unsure and figuring out his feelings (lines that drive me crazy, 2023). Him rolling his eyes at the "All for one and one for all," motto before reflecting on Sora's openness and inclusion, and deciding to give it a try, himself. So many little things where he learned to laugh and reminisce freely and it reminded me of the snippet of how he was when he was younger in BBS, which, speaking of- all those steps towards healthiness made it so that throughout the entire game, unlike CoM, where he fought in darkness with self hate, and Days, where he lost himself completely, he never battled with notable levels of internal darkness to try to win anything. He found his strength to protect the things that matter, like he always wanted, by being himself, unapologetically.

...I wish I played this game in middle school or something. Alas.

(Also Riku Dream Eater theory was a go, boys! Also like how there was no explanation other than *X. Heartless voice* "Yes adopted son of darkness, you were down so bad you changed species to protect Sora from bad dreams as soon as you subconsciously felt suspicious vibes." And that's all we're gonna fucking get, so deal with it *mic drop*. 😂 Was pleasantly surprised Sora's clothes were also plot relevant, and I feel better about disliking them now. They branded him, eugh.)

Speaking of being yourself, but perhaps being too many of yourselves, in this case, here's my obligatory "cries at the endgame" sentiments. This one was less hype than the others, but punched me directly in the heart instead. Oh. My. GOD? That whole sequence of Riku diving into Sora's heart (with all of his memories floating past? Lord I'd be so embarrassed if I was ever in such a situation- it's so personal, y'know?), entering its innermost reaches, answering the questions... holy guacamole guys I think I left a part of me on those sunset beaches, there. That whole scene was a KH1 reference with the questions (I answered in terms of how I best thought Riku would answer), Riku and Xion's sitting placements on the Paopu tree (also Riku saw Xion as Sora *fist pumps in sad success*), and I'm almost *certain,* especially since it was right before "What are you most afraid of" that my theory of Riku overhearing the Sora&Kairi dock convo in the first game was valid. I mean, just look at the dude's face after staring out at the sunset. M'boy Riku looked downright melancholy and I trust KH microexpressions with my life. (And speaking of microexpressions, Sora's smile looked suspiciously forced when congratulating Riku on becoming a Master, poor fella. He was trying so hard to be a good sport about everything with that messy situation.)

Dream Drop Distance did so much with how we're finally having all of the separate plot points converge and it was so surprisingly satisfying. Sora seems to be picking up more about Naminé, he's aware of Xion and is trying to figure out who she is. Roxas seems to be losing himself or doubting who he is outside Sora and aaaahh?? No?! My beautiful boy, don't do this, we'll get you out! I miss Axel, but we've got Lea, who keeps getting deadnamed (he got chosen as a Wielder by the universe for his troubles). I want to see more of Ienzo, he endears me, especially when he's told "shut up nerd" by Lea. Foreshadowing about Ventus (when he smiled upon feeling Sora's happiness with the Dream Eaters post-credits, something got me in my core about imagining Ventus experiencing all of Sora's joys and hurts while he grew up. I wonder if he'll feel any affection for Sora's friends as if they were his own, as well.). We finally got Ansem's data he implanted within Sora. Kairi is being brought back into the plot since KH2!! HYPE! *On my hands and knees*

Anyway this game was good. I probably have more to say because there was just so much but yeah.

Edit: Almost forgot the thing I groaned at my TV for earlier! ^_^

*ahem*

They composed a Heartsong and each of their hearts play a piece of a Duet version of Dearly Beloved, which is the Title Theme for the Entire Franchise, and Definitely Doesn't have any romantic connotations as a phrase or anything. Also they Definitely do not have a Two-Part-One-Whole Keyblade that isn't (so far, I'll catch up) explained, and is a phenomena not previously noted throughout the games, that has a Paopu Fruit hanging off the end.

Man, all this stuff tuckers an epic gamer out. Think I'll go replay Hades, Stardew Valley, Undertale/Deltarune as a break, considerably less gay games. (Har, har)

#kingdom hearts #dream drop distance first playthrough #dream drop distance #kh ddd #kh riku #riku #kh sora #sora #xehanort #happy pride to sora and riku I guess #what a month to first play ddd in

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staringdownabarrel · 11 months ago

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So I just saw Spaceman. It's just really good science fiction: it's thought provoking and relevant to current social issues.

I think it's also like the anti-Adam Sandler movie in some ways, despite having him in it. In a lot of his other movies, especially his early ones from the '90s, there was this thing where the leading woman would end up falling in love with him despite his character being a loser and her character having her shit together. The alternative was that she'd reject him in some way, but have a comeuppance at the end.

This wasn't really the case here. While not as much of a loser as in some of his other movies, Adam Sandler's character in Spaceman was still a loser. Like, he had this wife that he coveted, who was clearly into him, but in a lot of ways, he barely knew her. When he was in space, he wanted nothing but her; when he was on Earth, he couldn't wait to be gone again.

It also wasn't a given that Lenka would stay with Jakub at the end. She could have left. She wanted to leave. Even at the end, after his personal growth, it was an open question if she actually would leave or if she'd give their marriage one last try.

When I say that Spaceman is relevant to current social issues, this is exactly what I mean. There are so many men going around today that are just like Jakub. They have all kinds of trauma they haven't dealt with and are refusing to look at, and they spend their entire lives finding new and interesting ways to run from it. Relationship after relationship fails, and they never quite seem to pick up that they're the problem.

The thought provoking angle comes from how Jakub comes to acknowledge that he needs to start dealing with his trauma, though. While on his mission to this mysterious cloud in the solar system, he finds that this spider-like alien is also onboard. The spider, Hanus, ends up becoming his therapist.

I'm sure most people reading this will have seen that post where it's the screenshot of the Antarctica base website where it says, "Antarctica is not the answer." In a lot of ways, Spaceman is the movie version of that post. Jakub was clearly doing this kind of thing over and over, looking for the resolution to his trauma out in the void the same way an alcoholic might look for it at the bottom of a bottle, and wondering why it never came.

But also, because this is the one time Hanus was there, it also becomes the inverse of that as well. As much as this pattern was clearly destructive for him on a personal level, a kind of unintentional self harm, it also ended up being what saved him. He needed someone to be there and say, "Hey, you need to deal with this, and one way or another, you will deal with it."

It also clearly had to happen in this exact way to some extent. One of the people working for the space agency on Earth offered him the chance to speak to a psychiatrist over the radio, but he declined. So while Jakub was the kind of person who would have benefited from some level of professional help, he also wasn't going to accept that. His ego wouldn't allow it.

This is an aspect that I think is very true to life. There's a lot of people who are kind of like this, where they clearly need some kind of professional help, but they won't accept it until some very specific circumstances have been met.

Depending on what kind of cult following this movie gets in the long term, I think this could end up being the "Was Deckard a replicant?" point for Spaceman. I think Hanus was very clearly a figment of Jakub's imagination brought on by social isolation and a lack of sleep. The movie was also very clear about the ship starting to break apart, so the broken toilet that was keeping him awake and driving him mad was clearly literally driving him mad.

Ordinarily, this kind of thing where there is some level of interpretation available as to whether the thing is real or fake annoys me. Usually it seems like there isn't really any thematic reason why that ambiguity has to be there. Here, it makes sense though. While Hanus was likely a figment of Jakub's imagination, the ambiguity is necessary--if there was an explicit denial of his existence in the plot, he would have been sent to a padded room and that'd be that. With the ambiguity, although small, it allows for the statement to actually be that it doesn't really matter if Hanus wasn't real. What mattered is that he was there when Jakub needed him.

This aspect also ties into what COVID lockdowns ended up doing to a lot of people. It wasn't really to this extreme, but a lot of people did end up going a little bit mad during lockdown isolation.

I don't think Spaceman was necessarily the deepest movie ever made, but I think it is a lot better than most people are giving it credit for. There's a lot happening here, and I think it lands more often than it doesn't.

#spaceman #rant

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woodsfae · 1 year ago

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B5 s03e07 Exogenesis table of contents • previous episode

I try to pay attention to ships' names because they can give hints to the nature of a character or a thematic element, but today's is pretty oblique. The shuttle Dyson. Is it for Dyson physics? The interactions of quantum elements with physical matter from a quick wikipedia romp. Or is it another dyson that I don't know the reference for? Fun theorizing.

This newly minted Lieutenant seems plot-relevant!

Marcus the Ranger is hanging out on B5, it seems. I wonder if it's one of those times they talk about someone to remind the audience they exist, but they don't show up in the episode.

Yikes! The Dyson people are doing weird alien bugs melding into humans shit. Dr Franklin's probably gonna do more coke-fueled medical work.

Corwin the new Lieutenant is going to get Susan Ivanova's best subtle grilling as to his allegiances. Can't wait. But till then, some Marcus harassing a sleeping vendor by quoting the Scottish play to him.

And then a meeting with another Ranger who gives him the funniest information report imaginable. Not so much sharing information as making sly allusions to what may be. Funny and dramatic. It is interesting seeing Marcus work. He's like a local liaison, coordinator, recruiter, and information gathered all at once. I guess you have to wear a lot of different hats when you're in a small start-up with limited staff and a ever-widening scope.

I love the sheer medical garb and ppe, and also like the new mesh arm and shoulder layer Dr Franklin is modeling. Also like the 3d imager! The alien bug is now wrapped around the dead guy's spinal column and is imaged like criss-crossing threads. I enjoy this medical mystery for Dr Franklin. He could use some enrichment, and if there aren't mass causalities it might be almost relaxing for him.

Looks like Marcus's absent colleague/contact has fallen in with a new crowd. A crowd of people all infected with this new-to-Stephen parasite? What would a parasite's agenda even be? And the vendor who wasn't feeling well is missing as well.

Listen new Lieutenant. Listen to me closely. Susan Ivanova is not hitting on you right now. She is the second in command of Babylon 5. Obviously she wants to informally assess a new Lieutenant under her command!

Funny that Garibaldi was enthused about the idea of hanging with Marcus and inviting him to things, but now that Marcus himself is asking him to do something, he doesn't wanna hang. And I actually laughed at Marcus's clever wordplay. He didn't lie at all, but strongly suggested that Garibaldi cares a lot about the issue and is asking Dr Franklin to help Marcus. He must have studied at the same Aes Sedai school as Delenn!

Shenanigans are afoot at the old vendor's quarters! His shirt is all jacked up and his back is pulsing! I don't like that! Or all the parasite-distributers with guns.

Stephen and Marcus are asking the same questions I am. What are the parasites' motives? What are their aims? What are their actual effects on the humans?

Dr Franklin thinks the parasite takes control of their neural system. I wonder if they are trying to transport themselves somewhere, or survive somehow. Garibaldi's point about why they would be targeting people from Down Below is a good one.

Marcus is sassy! I like him. He's very roguish. He and Dr Franklin will be fine. I hope they enjoy their field trip together!

I hope Susan is fucking with this guy right now. Just tormenting him over the roses because he panicked and lied and said he found them lying on her doorstep.

An unsettling conversation with the person who says he "was once Duncan, but is now Vindrizi." And he says they are just trying to survive. dun dun! This still has the potential to be a mostly enriching field trip for Dr Franklin. And it's a great further introduction to Marcus. I like him tremendously.

Susan's testing the insubordinate waters is kinda sorta subtle. But she does get the necessary information. He would report another officer whom he say speaking or acting against Earthdome. They will have to work around him!

Oooooh, gossiping about Susan Ivanova! Franklin likes her. Marcus is concerned that she seems more distant now than when he first came on board.

Marcus: "I sense in her a key as yet unturned." Dr Franklin: "What does that mean?" Marcus: "I don't know, but I think it will be fascinating to find out."

dude is just saying allegorical things and then admitting he doesn't even know why he thinks that. Lol. But somehow it's charming?? What a little smartass (affectionate). Dr Franklin thinks so, too. And I love that they're failing the reverse bechdel test (I jest, I jest).

Stephen is right that Marcus is not Ivanova's type. We all her know her type is blond and telepathic with a tortured backstory.

This has been a very fun plot. Stephen has two patients in one, and Marcus just took out two guards in one plot! And got Stephen's Link and triggered a security protocol! Finally, some backup is on the way. There's just enough time for Marcus and Stephen to discover the aliens' tragic backstory and suddenly be required to negotiate for their safe passage to the recently-arrived security team. But they do have wrap up their little prison break first!

Aha! Information sharing! The person who was once Duncan says that all the humans there volunteered, and that they will all have a better life this way.

Aww, and they have a hell of a backstory! Less tragic, and more epic. Living histories. Less parasites, and more a holy order of record-keepers.

This is a wonderful little story. Very epic. Another of those cool details of worldbuilding. Also it's fucking hilarious how Stephen Franklin is like "I will only allow this if I get to medically oversee it every step of the way."

Oh, and here does come the tragedy. Duncan's…symbiote? left him so Duncan could convince Marcus and Stephen they were telling the truth, but the separation caused damage and he wouldn't be able to rejoin without permanent damage. But at least he feels inspired to go really live and see some amazing things with the rest of his life. And I think he's wise to say that we should all wake up and decide to be special.

Lol, Susan wasn't fucking with the Lieutenant Corwin about the roses. Inadvertently, that guy has played a hell of a prank on both her and Marcus! Hah!

Ivanova, throwing the roses on the bar: "Keep em!" Marcus, beaming and picking them up: "Thanks! I will!"

Really laughed hard at that one.

Alright, I'm starting to see where some of you acquired your crushes on Marcus! He's cute and charming! And very nonthreatening. I wouldn't mind being buds with him. He seems genuinely really an entertaining person to hang out with.

This was overall an interesting and fun episode. I enjoyed theorizing about it. I can't discern a connection between the name of the shuttle the symbiote record keepers arrived in and any plot. If you have thoughts on that let me know! It also isn't often you see symbiotic relationships with bug-like critters. I know now that DS9 was accused of lifting a lot of details from the original B5 pitch, but I wonder if this isn't a nod back the other way, especially since Trill symbiotes were introduced in TNG, which predated the B5 pitch if I'm not mistaken.

next episode

#woodsfae b5 #marcus cole #stephen franklin #michael garibaldi #susan ivanova #vindrizi #babylon 5

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zeeckz · 6 months ago

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sorry for compliment bombing you, just wanted to say again that your drawings are amazing (especially pencil ones). after discovering your profile a few days ago i scrolled it all night long until dawn, and today i was thinking about your sketches again and it urged me to do few hours of sketching from photos myself (i'm not an artist, just do it sometimes to keep my friends company or for fun). your drawings of characters are neatly composed of shapes and the poses are so lively it really excites me, also i like the face expressions and the shoulders, on any gender. i came for mgs fan art but now i like even still life pics (which i'm indifferent to as a genre). also thank you for posting english translation for spanish texts. your posting frequency is impressive too! i hope a message this long isn't creepy or smth, and have a nice day. looking forward to seeing more from you (no pressure though)!

Hi anon! I'm glad to see my art has gotten you to do more art yourself!

It surprises me to see what calls your attention about my style are the shapes, 'lively' poses and expressions, because my impression of them is rather the opposite (except the shoulders, I like the shoulders), but regardless of this it's nice to know that I've even gotten you interested in still lifes! Wouldn't say it's one of my favorite topics, but I invite you to have a look at more art of it, you can find a lot of interesting pieces whether technically or thematically (as it more often than not is embedded with symbolism) ^_^

No probs! Spanish doesn't seem to be much of a tumblr language (I swear I've seen ×100 more posts in Russian than in Spanish in all the years I've been here, and most of said time I lacked any knowledge of Russian), so I try to translate the somewhat relevant nonsense I write for the people

I do post rather often! So much that I've been referred to as Sonic or Flash by my friends several times, and they (jokingly) bully me for how much I draw

And don't worry - I don't find this creepy at all, I find it cute actually, that you wanted to share these thoughts and feelings with me) thanks again! have a wonderful day! <3

#few days ago woke up to roughly 60 notifs of the same person and now I wake up to this - maybe it's you or maybe not but #reminded me of someone liking and sharing my stuff for over 2 hours and just. leaving. no comments and no follow. it was funny odd #(I was actively seeing my notifs go up when this happened so I KNOW it was really for that long)#<- i don't really mean anything by this I'm just talking nonsense #hope you did get some sleep though!!!#ask

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asinglesock · 2 years ago

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what from the poem is relevant to Jeremiah? please i must know

Louise Glück, from “Blue Rotunda”, Averno

Copying the text above for context.

Thank you for asking! (watch out. dangerous levels of interest.)

One thing we're talking about in my Jeremiah class is that the book of Jeremiah is a piece of trauma literature. Depending on your view of scripture you can be more or less set on the authorship of the book--you can definitely make a case that Jeremiah was a real person with real prophecies about the Babylonian conquest before it happened, but often historical-critical perspectives will use knowledge of historical events inside a text as evidence that it was written (or revised to its current form) after that event took place. And Jeremiah has. uhh. a lot of that.

But even from a literalist perspective there's lots of evidence that the book of Jeremiah was gradually compiled over time. For example, in chapter 36 there's a narrative of YHWH telling Jeremiah to write, Jeremiah telling Baruch what to write, Baruch spreading the message to the public & to officials, and Jehoiakim getting his hand on the scroll to destroy it bit by bit as he reads because he views it as a political threat. After the scroll is destroyed, Jeremiah and Baruch get right back to work and "many similar words were added" (36:32). The earlier draft is destroyed but a new version, with some new content, is created. (I LOVE when there's a text about the creation of the text.)

There's also that lots of bits seem to be out of order--we go from oracle to wisdom saying to narrative to oracle again to narrative from later to narrative from earlier and it's not always clear why. Sometimes things are grouped for thematic reasons instead of being ordered chronologically. There was a redactional tradition in the generations after the first pieces were written--a generation that lived, as the remnant in Judea or as exiles in Babylon. Either way, the editors of Jeremiah lived through the trauma of the Babylonian conquest.

Why does it matter that they lived through the conquest? The Babylonian conquest could potentially overturn all the assumptions a believer in YHWH might have about YHWH establishing the throne of David and defeating all of Judah's enemies. It's theodicy: if God is on my side, why are bad things happening to me? One pretty straightforward explanation could be that YHWH is not as powerful as the gods of Babylon, and that the Jewish population ought to assimilate and worship these gods instead. But instead, the book of Jeremiah argues that YHWH was always supporting the Babylonian conquest, because it was to punish the people of Israel and Judah for breaking their covenant with him. Weirdly enough, this makes Jeremiah's insistance that the people should not fight back into a text of resistance (against the eradication of the people, but also against assimilation).

Here's where the self-blame comes in. If Judah broke the covenant with YHWH, then YHWH never abandoned them. He was punishing them, according to the terms of their covenant, and ultimately would always bring them back to prosperity and wellbeing. (This is the context of Jer 29:11's statement "I know the plans I have for you...")

So the Jewish communities in exile ought to prioritize keeping their people alive and well, and also keep their ethnic & religious identity intact since YHWH still cares about them. Now the problem is something they can control--not that they're a tiny little nation dangerously placed between big, hungry empires--but that they as a people need to wholeheartedly worship YHWH and live justly in their communities.

God is still powerful, God still likes them, and the only problem is something they can address in their behavior. It's a great solution.

It's great that this narrative helped sustain Jeremiah's community through a trauma with effects that are still felt today, but we should be aware of this context when we read the harsh rhetoric against the people of Judah. It's coming from within, and it's coming from people who blame themselves for what happened to them. Taken out of context, this rhetoric can turn into victim-blaming pretty easily, and I'm sure that it has been historically used in antisemetic ways. If it's in the victim's power to fix things and things don't get fixed, doesn't that mean it must be the victim's fault?

I've seen this kind of victim blaming in Christian faith healing contexts. I think praying for people who are injured or sick can be an act of love, but when you have absolute faith that God not only can but will heal someone unless they lack faith, suddenly it becomes the fault of the injured/sick/disabled person when they are not miraculously healed. That is not love. So I can really see the appeal of framing something as your own fault, because you can change your own behaviors and expect a different result. But it can be a dangerous line of thought, because you risk perpetuating self-hatred if/when things are out of your control.

Personally, when I read Jeremiah and other biblical texts through this trauma lens (a lot of Hebrew Bible was put in writing or revised into recognizable forms around this period) it makes me feel more inclined to look at the people of Israel and Judah with more sympathy. They weren't uniquely wicked so much as they were self-critical.

Here's a source on trauma in Jeremiah that I'm using for my research project:

Claassens, L Juliana M. “Preaching the Pentateuch: Reading Jeremiah’s Sermons through the Lens of Cultural Trauma.” Scriptura 116, no. 2 (2017): 27–37. doi:10.7833/116-2-1313.

#a sock speaks #grad school tag #long post #biblical studies #hebrew bible

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checkoutmybookshelf · 8 months ago

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Rereading The Fellowship of the Ring for the First Time in Fifteen Years

Ok, NGL, I was not entirely sure what to do with this chapter. Like...Tom Bombadil is cool and all, but like...this chapter literally grounds the plot to a screeching halt and while there is thematic nuance and foreshadowing here, it's...it's a weird little chapter, y'all. It would absolutely get cut from a book being published today, and frankly I can see why. But let's just jump on in and talk about "In the House of Tom Bombadil."

So one thing writers Philippa Boynes, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh were absolutely clear on is that their film adaptation is the story of Frodo taking the ring to Mordor. And in that context, it makes absolute sense to lose Tom Bombadil from the story. He is important (in my read) for two key reasons:

First, he is here to clearly show that there are greater powers in the world than those of Mordor, Men, Elves, and Wizards. Tom is so OP that literally none of that matters to him, and the One Ring is just...kinda there. It has zero effect on him, it doesn't factor into his life in any meaningful way, and he has zero skin in the "yeet the jewelry into the volcano" game. The fact is, he's worldbuilding and a reminder to readers that no matter how grand or life-and-death their struggles are, there are greater powers and the natural world has been here long before you and will be here long after you. It's a way to contextualize and comfort when the world seems on the brink of ending. ...I would be lying if I said I found that personally terribly comforting, because if you zoom out to that scale, literally nothing matters, but then I live in 2024 and I'm not carrying any rings around. I think there's a better balance point between "the world exists and you don't matter on that scale" and "this ring is the only thing in existence that matters" but I haven't written a three-book epic fantasy to sort it out yet, so I'm just spitballing.

Second, and this might just be a crack theory on my part, Tom is to the hobbits after their first real encounter with evil what Tetris is to soldiers trying to avoid PTSD. Tom literally hijacks the hobbits' brains, offers them comfort, and addresses any potential fears and triggers that almost getting murdered to death by a tree might spark in the hobbits. They are safe, they are secure, they have the things that make hobbits happy, and Tom literally does not give them an environment in which any fears or trauma can fester into PTSD (that's for LATER in the trilogy, I guess). He is a distraction in a safe space, and he gives them context and information that should help them navigate the next little leg of their journey.

That second reason might have been enough to keep Tom in the film adaptation if they kept Old Man Willow, but frankly something had to go and this is pretty easy to lift out, because the next thing that is overarching plot relevant is the Prancing Pony. So we have to leave Merry, Pippin, and Frodo not getting PTSD this early in the trip on the cutting room floor.

Sam was fine though. Literally he slept like a log and did not dream. No trauma for Sam "I will take this tree down with my teeth if I have to" Gamgee.

This is probably a good moment to talk about the dreams though. I find it interesting that while Frodo was the one Old Man Willow tried to drown, Merry is the one who gets the dream of drowning, not Frodo. Pippin is over here flashing back to being inside Old Man Willow. Both of these dreams absolutely suck, and I empathize with them. I also point out the sensory grounding they get before Tom's repeated words of comfort in their ears, because the body needs to feel safe before the mind will believe reassurances.

Frodo's dream though, is less a trauma dream from attempted tree homicide, and more a vision that tells us what is happening with Gandalf. This is kind of cool, so I'm just going to let Tolkien tell it:

In the dead night, Frodo lay in a dream without light. There he saw the young moon rising; under its thin light there loomed before him a black wall of rock, pierced by a dark arch like a great gate. It seemed to Frodo that he was lifted up, and passing over her say that the rock-wall was a circle of hills, and that within in was a plain, and in the midst of the plain stood a pinnacle of stone, like a vast tower but not made by hands. On its top stood the figure of a man. The moon as it rose seemed to hang for a moment above his head and glistened in his white hair as the wind stirred it. Up from the dark plain below came the crying of fell voices, and the howling of many wolves. Suddenly a shadow, like the shape of great wings, passed across the moon. The figure lifted his arm and a light flashed from the staff that he wielded. A mighty eagle swept down and bore him away.

So yeah, Frodo is having dream visions again, and he NOTABLY does not get comforted by Tom's words as Merry and Pippin do, which seems like a hell of a raw deal. Frodo literally wakes up questioning whether he will be brave enough to leave Tom's house, and I feel like a little comforting wouldn't go amiss here. But at least us readers in the know get a Gandalf update, I guess?

The chapter closes out with Tom offering some advice about crossing the Barrow Downs that feels like it should be important:

Keep to the green grass. Don't you go a-meddling with old stone or cold Wights or prying in their houses, unless you be strong folk with hearts that never falter!

I feel like the "unless" did more harm than good, but Tom also gives them a rescue rhyme so they can call him if they get really into trouble. As a former theatre major, I am unspeakably grateful that Tolkien skipped over the memorizing session, because I was taught how to learn a monologue by ear with a partner, and while it is DAMN effective, it's not a fast process and it is tedious as all hell. So thank you Tolkien, for just handwaving the memorization homework the hobbits got.

We're going to leave it there for now, and pick up next time with what I'm calling now is Pippin staying off the green grass, fucking around and finding out with old stone and cold Wights, and poking his nose into a barrow after being explicitly told not to.

#reread #the fellowship of the ring #lord of the rings #lotr #chapter 7 #books and reading #books #books and novels

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imaginarypasta · 1 year ago

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Coming into the new show, I was really curious how Luke was going to be characterized this time around. We’ve seen a mixed bag between the original series, reflections in later series, and the different adaptations, all of which regard him from different angles and places of emphasis. Overall, the show is quite true to the novels—if not directly including certain details, then in spirit (which I would argue is vastly more important). Every change they made was apparent to someone familiar with the books, but it was also very clearly meaningful. The way that things like Percy and Grover’s relationship, Annabeth, Luke, and Thalia’s backstory, and their encounter with Medusa, were changed were distinct from their literary counterparts, yet there was clear thematic reasoning behind this. Because the threads that will connect to his story are not yet settled, the reasons behind the changes made to Luke’s character are not nearly as clear—namely, the change of his status as counselor to camper.

I want to stress the positives of the changes more broadly—the buildup to the eventual ending, the increasing complexity through which we get to examine his character (a complexity that was absolutely present in the books, but also came in as the series progressed and Percy began to unpack some of the ideologies he had built up earlier on, something that at least so far seems to be taking a different route in the show), the way it allows us to examine different (perhaps more overlooked) aspects of his character. This last point is especially interesting as Luke has quite a few sources for his motivations all at once, but those don’t always get the same amount of consideration.

For me, the most interesting of those was his role as a caretaker-mentor-etc. central to his position as a counselor (and to some extent, in the family dynamic he has with Thalia and Annabeth), which is why it was so striking to me when I realized this seems to be changed. If he’s not a counselor in the adaptation and is just instead another camper, that allows us to examine these more overlooked sources of motivation, but also removes a massive aspect of his character—or, as I will posit, may just relocate it. Today I will examine Luke’s current appearance in the show with analogous moments in the novel in order to unpack how this role functions in the novel, how it remains (if reformed) in the show, and finally suggest how this change impacts the rest of the story.

On whether or not Luke is a camper in the show

Before we begin this journey, it is important to first decide whether this change even exists at all, which will then allow us to examine why it is so important. The first novel explicitly calls Luke a counselor—and the moments this occurs are relevant and will be discussed soon—whereas in the show, his role is not so clearly stated, but we can make assumptions based on a select few moments. The first moment is his introduction, in which he doesn’t seem to take on any sort of big leadership role in camp. When we first see him, he’s in the midst of a conversation with other campers during which one of them points out, “That’s the kid.” It seems difficult to believe another counselor would talk about a camper so unambiguously, so we can deduce that the speaker is a camper, but that does not inherently tell us anything about Luke. What does is how Luke responds: approaching Percy while his entourage, who we will see in a few other scenes, lingers nearby silently, watching and listening. This is clear from their body language and that they literally are not speaking or interacting with anything else. Luke makes no effort to dismiss the other campers at any point, supporting the idea that they are more of an entourage than his charges.

Something similar occurs in their interaction with Clarisse. When she begins to pick on Percy, Luke diffuses the situation, but as a peer world rather than someone tasked and trained with monitoring and being responsible for children. He says, “Knock it off,” but Clarisse continues on with no repercussions or further attempts to have her stop. Even when he debriefs about the situation with Percy after, he cites his credibility and skill as reasons for others not giving him a hard time rather than the possibility he’s literally in charge of them. With the idea that he is a camper in mind, let’s examine how the caretaker/mentor/authority role he takes on in the books is altered in analogous moments in the show.

Luke’s role at camp

Luke’s initial appearance in the book is quick, and yet so dense. His first spoken line, “‘Now, now, campers. That’s what we’re here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there,’” (84) does quite a bit of work. He has immediate authority over his campers, chastising their unwelcoming attitude, and then affirms the purpose of the Hermes cabin. This is something of an innate connection, too, but to see these two ideas together—that he is both an authority/caretaker while at camp, but also that being tied to the job of the Hermes cabin—will set them up as something critical to Luke’s character. They are, after all, literally the first two things he says in front of Percy. Annabeth then explicitly mentions that he’s Percy’s counselor for as long as he’s in Hermes cabin, affirming the authority he has demonstrated over the campers in this scene is echoed by his official position at camp. While Luke doesn’t acknowledge that authority by name himself at this moment, he commands it with ease. We also get a small tidbit here when Percy mentions the traditional camp necklace he wears. Looking back, we might assume Annabeth would mark the first mention of this, but it’s actually Luke. No explanation is given yet, but as Percy later learns what it stands for, this retroactively ties this symbol of camp—and not just that, but years spent there—to Luke first and foremost.

The relevance of Luke’s role as a counselor comes up again when the trio Iris messages him and he brings up the field trip some campers took late last year. This is the second mention of such an instance; the earlier one comes from Annabeth, who says, “‘Some of us year-rounders—Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others—we took a field trip during winter solstice’” (99). Luke, however, brings a slightly different perspective to this anecdote in that later scene. He explains, “I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw [Hades]” (223). It is a subtle change, yet adds an important detail onto Annabeth’s earlier explanation. This tells us two really important things about Luke’s relationship to his job. For one, it is absolutely tied to how he sees the world; this makes a lot of sense, because going on and chaperoning a field trip are super different. Luke identifies himself as that authority/caretaker figure in relation to the campers, whereas a camper like Annabeth makes no differentiation. Second, it tells us that Luke’s position at camp and his role as the lightning thief (and further as part of Kronos’ plot) are tied together. Luke “theorizes” here about how difficult it would be for someone to steal the bolt, going into detail how someone might do it, accidentally implicating Annabeth and quickly taking it back. He is the son of the god of thieves, and has a natural ability to be better at this than most, but that’s not to imply the task was easy. It would be even more difficult if he was responsible for supervising a bunch of children, no matter how well-behaved they are. Luke’s use of his father’s talents does not come up too often, both practically but also in how he defines himself. We know from “The Diary of Luke Castellan” that these skills are not ones he likes to exercise, and yet they are critical to his role in Kronos’ plan. But they’re also critical in another moment.

Luke as a thief

One part of Luke that I find really interesting is his parentage. I know, I know, necessary comment that he would hate me saying that. But really, the way he seems to define himself as a caretaker/authority and through skills he chooses to hone like his sword fighting (we will discuss this soon), as opposed to doing so through the inherited traits from his father in the style of the other demigods, is really fascinating. Still, he cannot seem to manage to get away from this aspect of himself. He steals the bolt, yes, in service of something that would destroy the very systems that gave him the ability to do so, but he also steals something else, something much smaller: toiletries.

While they are waiting for dinner, Luke gives to Percy toiletries he says he stole for him from the camp store (110). At the start of the scene, Percy is unsure if this is a joke, but by the end, he’s grateful and at least humoring him if not outright believing him. It’s a very small detail and on a first read, really serves to just define Luke in relation to the Hermes cabin. But with the knowledge that he has such an aversion to using these traits and skills he inherited from his father, this action takes on new meaning. Much like he is using them to participate in Kronos’ plan, he is also using them to address a very rampant issue in camp: the lack of resources for the campers. Percy comes to camp with nothing more than the clothes on his back; he doesn’t have any of the necessary things for living here. At least of mentioned things, the camp only provides him a spot to sleep, not even a sleeping bag (85). It is Luke who finds him one later, and who goes against his preferred methods in order to provide Percy with resources for comfort—the fact that what this entails is literally basic toiletries is so telling.

Now seems like a good time to mention that Luke might just be lying. And while I do agree that we should take everything he says and does with a grain of salt, I don’t think there’s actually any reason to believe the camp is not providing campers with basic necessities (aside from food and a roof), even in situations like Percy’s where he comes there with nothing. Even if the camp isn’t starved for resources, it may be for staff. The only authorities there are Chiron, Mr. D, and the counselors. Whether the counselors—all college-aged kids—are given the proper resources is unclear, but the fact that there seems to be only one counselor for an entire cabin of kids (the biggest cabin at that) is massively revealing. As is the fact that counselors really aren’t mentioned for the rest of the books (quite possibly a large part of the reason this was cut from the show). If you start looking for this element, it starts to appear everywhere. I don’t want to get more sidetracked by this point than I already have, but I want to posit the idea that the support and resources are not there and wonder what that might mean for Luke’s motivations and for the campers who turn to his side. We know that the kids are not getting attention or even acknowledgement from their parents most of the time, but what does it mean if they are also not being supported in any way? This gives us a great insight into campers whose parents are minor gods especially.

A hidden darkside

One of the most fascinating changes to me between the novel and its adaptation is how Luke’s—pardon the word choice, I’m aware it’s cheesy—darkside makes its appearance. In the novel, Luke is introduced as this relaxed, calm guy. A few scenes later, he approaches Percy and begins to discuss a bitterness towards his father that really surprises our narrator based on how he sees him (100). Not only does it surprise Percy, but Luke’s attitude and body language actually scare him. He recalls, “... for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal” (101). While he mentions this fear, Percy doesn’t really address it besides those momentary fear responses. Otherwise, he continues to trust in Luke, going so far as to be grateful for his attention and even ask him clarifying questions about things that have been bothering him.

We get a similar bait-and-switch in the episode, but it ends very differently. Percy’s immediate reaction to Luke approaching him for the first time is worry he’ll be given a hard time. This is due to a lot of things—Percy’s experience with bullies, the part of the conversation he overhears, the way Luke approaches him—but is immediately assuaged when Luke compliments him. This marks a huge difference to the books, in which the change doesn’t come from Luke’s attitude, but from Percy brushing it off. As viewers of the show, we almost feel silly for believing Percy’s instinct when Luke is so immediately friendly. Even his bitterness at the gods is tempered by soothing comments about not trying too hard to understand them; that coolness is maintained, but in an entirely different way.

The best swordsman in the last three hundred years

Perhaps one of Luke’s most infamous scenes in the first book (though hardly the most lasting) is when he teaches Percy’s sword-fighting lesson. This scene is cut entirely from the show, and I’m quite curious as to why. Luke is a mentor figure to Percy—we’ll discuss soon just how this manifests—but he does not directly teach him any tangible skills. We see him accompanying Percy to find “[what he’s] good at,” but this direct impact on Percy’s abilities is nowhere to be found. There’s not even an analogous scene for me to compare it to. Rather, let’s take a look at the initial scene, how it comes up in later books, and what it might mean that it’s removed.

During this scene, as Percy and Luke spar, Percy mentions that, “Luke deflected it easily, but i saw a change in his face” (110). The exact details of the change are small: his eyes narrow and he uses more force, but Percy doesn’t even have a guess as to why that might be. Perhaps it’s increased focus, perhaps something more insidious, but there’s an ambiguity there that’s challenged in a few lines. When Percy disarms him, Luke responds, “‘By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!’” while grinning (111). At the end of the scene, Luke “[appraises Percy] with an entirely new interest” (111). The general sense here is curiosity, intrigue—and yet we have no way to gauge Luke’s actual thoughts.

At the start of this scene in the book, we hear from another camper that “‘Luke’s the best swordsman in the last three hundred years’” (109). While this could easily be hyperbolic or indicative of the sheltered world of camp, we get confirmation of this in later books. The only person who truly gives Percy a hard time in terms of sword-fighting skills is Luke (including much later when he’s possessed by Kronos), and even later than that with Chrysaor in The Mark of Athena. This scene with Chrysaor is so revealing because it allows us one of a few sympathetic looks at Luke after quite a bit of time has passed, and it’s framed through the sword skills Luke taught Percy that he never had need to improve because Luke was simply the best teacher that there was no demand for it.

A camper in the show makes a similar comment, but that is really the most we get of Luke’s sword-fighting abilities. He doesn’t train Percy here—in fact, Percy seems to have no formal training in this skill whatsoever, yet we can assume he’ll improve over the course of the show. This disrupts a huge point of comparison between Percy and Luke—that Luke’s skills seem to be self-taught and cultivated through hard work while Percy, though he has some training early on, largely operates through innate skill. Even if we change the basis of that comparison, it’s not one we’re naturally drawn to make anymore because we don’t even see Luke with a sword, except in passing. The role Luke takes on in relation to Percy must take on an entirely new angle, which begins with what we learn about Luke before he knew Percy.

Revealing his backstory

The choice for which aspect of his backstory Luke reveals plays a huge role in the differences in his characterization between these two versions. In the book, right before he walks Percy through the ropes of dinner, Luke mentions his failed quest. In the show, while preparing for capture the flag, Luke explains his backstory with Annabeth and Thalia. Choosing these different moments to define him before Percy meets him gives us an entirely different view of Luke. The change does quite a few things: defines his relationship to Annabeth from his viewpoint (something we’re not really given in the books) and redirects the question of glory in regards to his character. Not only that, but it makes that question so much more explicit, but also doesn’t acknowledge where he’s already failed in achieving that goal by his father’s terms. We get the introduction to Luke’s glory aspect so much more directly: in his explanation of kleos. This is perhaps the most explicit way Luke’s role is redefined in the adaptation.

Redefining Luke’s role

Though he does not have the same practical role in camp as in the books, Luke still manages to take on a mentor role towards Percy; it just looks a little different. Quite a few of the moments given to Annabeth (and others) in the novel are given to Luke in the show, like being the first and main person he talks to at camp and just generally his point of entry and explanation there. Scenes between the two of them are Luke reassuring and encouraging Percy, such as that they will find “[what he’s] good at” and introducing him to camp activities like capture the flag.

Aside from his practical expository role, Luke becomes relevant to how Percy is feeling/conceptualizing his time at camp. He affirms Percy’s anger, but suggests a more relaxed approach to it, not always explicitly but through example and advice. Overall, he really lets Percy come to his own conclusions about his feelings but absolutely hints at an alternative approach to the sort of reaction other figures are expecting/even leading him to have. Notably, we can see a line developing between Percy’s friendship with Luke and his feelings towards his father with how quickly Percy pivots between these ideas in his prayer to his mother (an idea discussed in-depth in the Seaweed Brain podcast episode about Episode 2 from 12/23/23). It’s very subtle, but as we find these two very distinct things in the same conversations, we can notice the way they’re becoming associated in Percy’s mind without him even noticing it.

Relocating his sympathies

Of course, if we consider how Luke’s relationship to Percy changes in how his role at camp changes, then we must also consider how it changes in regards to other campers. That is, if we are to assume that his role as counselor for the Hermes cabin is critical as a main pillar of his motivations, what does it mean for his connections to the campers and to his own ideals that this is now different?

One way to look at this is through the framing of the scenes in the show. We often see Luke coming out of these hushed conversations with other campers (who we likely presume to have a bit of an idea of what he’s up to, based on who we know the named ones to be). In the book, I never interpreted Luke as a loner, but he seemed so singular in his actions at least to start, that to have these hints of discussions we are not privy to with people we know will be tied to Luke’s cause in the future, really makes his cause seem bigger at the start than I at least had imagined. And while we hear later of his influences on the camp when he was there or “visiting,” these come in later books and force Percy to sort of reimagine his influence that has been slowly growing during the series but always present. In the show, he is not as unique in his opinions, but perhaps the role he’s able to take on is (i.e., as a counselor in Hermes cabin), which of course opens the very interesting question of why him (his allegiances, after all, don’t necessarily seem to be his first choice).

Before I conclude, I want to suggest where this sympathetic element of Luke’s motivations may be relocated to. I’ve mentioned briefly that I find it pertinent that Luke is not only a counselor, but also of the Hermes cabin. Removing this aspect, for me, was removing a really interesting aspect of his characterization. However, we’re not just cutting things from his character but rearranging them entirely—including the ability to now see his relationship to Annabeth (and to a lesser extent, Thalia and perhaps even Grover) from his perspective. Especially because he hints at this in his character diary, I wonder if that aspect of care that takes one step beyond his righteous anger at his father & perhaps the gods more broadly, and is now placed in defense of his self-identified family.

Conclusion

As for what all this offers for the show at large… I don’t want to get into my thoughts about why Luke’s characterization is so important to me, both in his role in the plot and as a foil to Percy because we will simply be here forever, but it really does offer us something different from the novels. One of the easiest things to get out of Luke in the books is his disappointment with and anger at his father, but one of the clearest things we see about Luke in the show is his interest in glory. We know this because he explicitly introduces the concept, because he shows us how it can be put into place (his position in camp irt characters like Clarisse), and because of how he reacts in small moments like in capture the flag (with a lot of excitement! I think he enjoys the game, or at least winning it). I’m very curious as to how this will manifest later, especially when discussing something like his quest.

It’s not impossible that the ideological aspect of Luke’s motivations comes without him being a Hermes counselor, but it is a position that gives him a unique angle to develop those feelings, but also a unique position to enact them (i.e., he gets to meet basically every camper that comes through, or at least a lot of them. This means he’s simultaneously relearning the sort of circumstances demigods have, but also can develop personal relationships with many of them); I have to wonder how it will manifest in the show, as we redefine what sort of relationship he has with Percy, the other campers, and his family, should they choose to even keep this aspect. I am especially curious to find out how his motivations will be changed further when we’re no longer conceptualizing this as a question of Western civilization, but instead one of different “worlds.”

#personal #ok i rewrote this because it didn't touch on everything i wanted it to and also it was poorly organized #i did also double the length. so it's just shy of 4000 words #but this is just sort of... a lot of my thoughts on the thing that stood out to me the most my first time watching the eps

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pynkhues · 2 years ago

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What is your take on the recent trend of including POC actors in shows like Bridgerton, Hamilton, etc.? I feel conflicted about it...ie. Bridgerton is supposed to be escapist fantasy, but the existence of the upper classes at that time in England was predicated on a highly unequal society, the subjugation of the lower classes, and also colonialism/the UK's involvement in the slave trade. And so I feel like having POC actors kind of washes over all of that? And similarly with Hamilton, the founding fathers were literally slave owners, and having them portrayed by POC just sort of sweeps that under the rug. I'm all for diversity in TV/media but I feel like the recent trend is having POC actors play characters that are themselves oppressors, like very much the sort of hollow Obama era representation politics (despite drone strikes, record number of deportations, etc.) What do you think?

Funnily enough, I've actually been thinking about this a bit since I saw the Australian production of Hamilton earlier in the year and had, y'know, Thoughts on it.

Look, full disclaimer immediately - I'm white, and I'm Australian, and so my opinion of all of this matters very little, but I did feel Some Sort of Way about the production here casting many lead roles with First Nations actors and having them sing about being immigrants in a country they're from, and a country that's still currently in the Commonwealth. Hamilton is a Civil War and Independence narrative! And to cast First Nations actors in those roles in a country still technically under British rule lowkey broke my brain, but again, look, I don't think it's my place to comment on that.

But it does kind of lead into this whole factor of context, right?

Hamilton worked in the US, and while I'm not the biggest Lin-Manuel Miranda fan, it does seem to me that he set out with the right intentions when making that very specifically American production. Threading the modern immigrant experience and modern racism into the quote-unquote American Quilt by recasting key historical figures with non-white actors is, I think, saying something. It's not without it's baggage, of course it's not - those men were themselves slave owners and the narrative he builds is romanticised to put it lightly - and it's absolutely fair if people have an issue with that, but I also think using race bending to pull on thematic throughlines and create relevance and resonance with people today is of admirable intent, even if it doesn't always land.

If nothing else, it starts a conversation.

Things like Bridgerton, Anne Boleyn, Mr. Malcolm's List - - I think the conversation's a broad one. I think when it leans into the full fantasy of itself like the second season of Bridgerton or Mr. Malcolm's List it's just good fun, and I love seeing POC cast in roles where they get to wear beautiful things and lean into a bit of cheese, but I do think when the stories try to be inherently capital-p Political, it does become an issue. Doing that divorces the story of the fantasy, and intrducing reality means - - well. It has to be Addressed.

One of the reasons I struggle so much with s1 of Bridgerton is the heavy, graceless hand it takes to Queen Charlotte and King George's racebent wedding as Having Solvied Racism, which we all know is absurd, but that does tend to be the approach with racebent historical fiction. It's the explanation that diminishes the racism of the era, not the story itself.

As a result, in shows and movies that do operate in a realm of fantasy like Bridgerton, maybe it's okay just to let the hot people kiss a lot and not bog it down in discourse.

Which again does thread back to intent. As much as Bridgerton likes to be a hand-wavy mess about it all, I do think they're at least trying something out in terms of the genre, whereas I think something like, say, the Anne Boleyn series with Jodie Turner-Smith was setting her up to experience horrific levels of online abuse in an adaptation that was never going to be seen as remotely authentic in order for them to score a few woke points and get new views on a story that's been told a zillion times before. I think Jodie Turner-Smith probably was excited about being offered that role, and I think they probably saw her as a marketing device, both for better and for worse, and I think the show treating her race as invisible when they knew casting her would be the opposite is cruel, shallow and opportunistic.

So yes, I guess I'd say overall I think context is important, not just in the sense of the stories that are being told, but the choices creatives make along the way (including the broader social context of where you make something, perhaps), but I also love to see stories - particularly romance - getting more diverse.

But! Bringing it back to Bridgerton, Khadija Mbowe did a good segment on it, so I hope you don't mind me sharing that here too:

youtube

#welcome to my ama

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