#and considering some...war flashbacks due to past fandom experiences

[unreadpoppy]

Okay i just want to quickly add two cents into the conversation that's been happening today about asks and fandom.

If you're gonna request something of a writer, maybe go for something you know they write about? Like, it's very weird for me when I see someone I follow, who maybe only writes NSFW, getting a request to write fluff (or vice versa). Or requesting something about a character that person does not write about.

Like, idk maybe it's because I do that, but I assume that people would send requests/asks because they know that writer and what they like/what they're good at, and not...just because they're a writer.

I don't know if i'm expressing myself in a way that makes sense here, but you gotta go find the people who like the stuff that you do. Like, you gotta take in considerating what the person you sent an ask to likes and doesn't like. I see it almost as when recommending a book to someone. If I know that person doesn't like romance at all, I'm not gonna recommend them a romantasy.

idk sometimes it feels like people spam others askbox with the most out of whack stuff without considering there's a person on the other side, who has their own likes and dislikes.

Also, kudos to the people who close their askbox or turn off anon when it gets too much and set their boudaries.

[mountain-man-cumeth]

What Went Wrong: An In-Depth Analysis of Muriel's Route

*Youtuber voice*

Below are the opinions of an uneducated individual on what could’ve left the majority of The Arcana audience dissatisfied. I will explore the plot, tropes, themes and morals of the Muriel route and try to explain what may have gone wrong. I will be treating the game as a novel since it's advertised as one.

1. Consistency. If you are unfamiliar with the chekhov's gun; it's a story writing principle that dictates each element you introduce should come into play (foreshadowing). Now let's start with a few story beats that were later abandoned or concluded in an underwhelming manner:

Muriel's blanket

Muriel's magic mark (on his back)

Forest spirit (spirits in general)

Lucio's upbringing

Circumstances of MC's death

Figurines/whittling/charms

Muriel's blanket is teased to be a tapestry, which would tie in with his later fascination with them later on, as it had been the only thing he had left from his past. MC neither sees nor comments on the blanket, we only know it exists thanks to other playthroughs and short stories.

Magic marks are an important point in the game. Every main route emphasises on how it affects the chosen LI. It's reveal is important in a way that it serves as a passage to a new act where the reader explores magic and Arcana pantheon as they are a monumental part of the overall worldbuilding. This exact point applies to the Heart of the Forest and how spirits interact with the world around them as well.

Whittling and Charm making are the only hobbies we get from Muriel's isolated life, their introduction helps the reader humanise the character by giving us a crumb of his everyday life. It's never mentioned again after the scene where MC asks him what he does. He doesn't idly whittle during their journey and charms only come to play in an offhanded reference during reversed ending.

The other two are also ignored but I will touch on Lucio later on.

Why do these matter? A few abandoned plot points don't make or break the story but on a grander level it hinders the audience investment. When we read, we like to think the details we notice will come to play eventually, we like recognizing references that were introduced earlier. I'm sure I don't need to give examples on this one, I don't think anyone will disagree.

2. Themes. Thematic influences this story utilized are all over the place, and it seems to me like it stems from the improper application of certain tropes;

The Hero's Journey

Home Sweet Home

Shell-Shocked Vet

Last of His Kind

etc.

Some of these tropes tackle themes such as;

Slavery

PTSD

Survivor's Guilt

Genocide

I'm not going to try to explain How to Write any of these topics. I'm not remotely qualified. I think it's better if I just give examples from popular media because whether you know how to write it or not, you can still understand when it's written well;

AtLA deals with genocide and survivor's guilt. It's in the name; The Last Airbender. Aang is the sole survivor of a culture he'd only had an opportunity to engage in for a handful of years. He left them with a childish tantrum and now they're gone forever. I can't think of another mainstream series that shows the gruesome reality of war and genocide better than this one.

When Muriel realizes his true heritage and loses Khamgalai is the point of the story where Luke sees his family's farm burned down, Aang goes back to the air temple, Treebeard walks in on the demolished part of the forest. (The inciting incident)

(Could also have been forest spirit’s death but it was too early in the story so I don’t consider it a missed opportunity.)

Up until this point the hero has their doubts, they're going through the motions but they are either underestimating the enemy or they're a passive protagonist. Either way, this is the point where the hero has to take the reins of the story. What purpose does this serve in Muriel's route instead? It simply validates Muriel's beliefs. He's useless, he isn't strong enough. We as the reader need a point to see where the hero takes a step to drive the story forward or whoever takes that step will steal the spotlight, it will be their story. As it is, this is the point where it ceases to be Muriel’s story.

PTSD got the worst end of the deal. Since Dragon Age fandom has a huge overlap with the Arcana I will use Fenris as an example; for those who are unfamiliar with the character, Fenris is an escaped slave. After the sex scene he vividly describes an experience that most people can easily identify as a flashback. The game never tells us that he was abused, it doesn’t show us him having a panic attack but it shows us that whatever transpired between him and the player character clearly triggered an unpleasant memory.

Arcana tries and initially succeeds to do something similar. We see that the character is untrustworthy, sensitive to touch, easily agitated, can’t sleep outside of his perceived safe environment… It introduces us the cause later on and the story has two options, each will drastically change the moral of the story:

Remember these as they will be important later on

Portray Muriel fighting as a bad thing; You can’t fight violence with violence angle or the fact that the villain’s forcing him into a situation where he’ll have to fight again makes the villain all the more intimidating.

Portray Muriel fighting as a good thing; He has the means to defeat the villain and he just needs encouragement. With great power comes great responsibility. By not fighting he willingly condemns everyone to an awful fate and that he is selfish.

I’d like to take a second to explore the 1. Option, I feel like the game may have intended to implement that idea but failed because of the implementation of Morga and choices presented for the player character: Morga is an Old-Soldier, these characters are often push the hero out of their comfort zone in an aggressive way towards complacency, they are a narrative foil to the mentor. For the first option to work the story had to show Khamgalai acting as a mentor and having the protagonists challenge Morga’s teachings(see Ozai-Iroh). As it is, Morga’s actions are never put under scrutiny (narratively) and her death feels hollow as a result. She didn’t sacrifice herself for the heroes due to her guilt, she died because she felt a moment of sympathy for her son which wasn’t explored before, she showed no intention to change nor any doubt.

It is clear the game choose 2. Option, it is a controversial choice given Muriel’s mental condition and the game is acutely aware of this, which is likely why Muriel’s PTSD will get carefully scraped from the story from here on out. (I won’t address other instances where his trauma wasn’t taken into account, I feel like this explanation should cover them as well.)

3. Morals. Every story, whether the author intends it or not, has a moral. The Villain most often acts against that moral and in turn can change the hero's perspective. Morals are not ideals; the morality of Killmonger isn’t that marginalised people should fight for their rights, it is that vengeance is just. Whether it’s right or wrong can be debated but what makes an ideal the moral of the story is in the portrayal. How the narrator depicts the events, how people around the heroes react... all are a part of portrayal.

The story choosing “Muriel fighting is a good thing” earlier puts in the foundation of a moral. The story tells us Muriel has to fight, it’s the right thing to do. He has to be brave for the people he loves.

This choice affects how his past actions will be perceived; now, him escaping the arena to save himself is cowardly, abandoning Morga is cowardly.

The story tells us it wasn’t, but shows us that it was. This is the end of the midpoint of the story, at this point we need to have a good grasp on what we should perceive as wrong or right for us to feel invested. If we zig-zag between the morals we won’t know which actions we should root for. But more than that, the conclusion will not feel cathartic as it will inevitably demonstrate the opposing ideals clashing at its climax.

Villain doesn't necessarily have to be sympathetic and Muriel's route makes no effort to make him as such, but they need to be understandable. What danger does Lucio pose to the status quo, what makes him a compelling villain? Whether he conquers Vesuvia or not doesn’t drastically affect Muriel’s way of life, he’s been in hiding for years. He doesn’t threaten to steal MC’s body, Muriel is not compelled to pick up arms to save his beloved. He wants to protect the people from going through what he’s been through, right? That is what the story wants us to think. But what has he been through? Fighting was his choice, Lucio tricked him into it. Lucio later tricked Morga, his own mother, to save his own hide. This tells us that Lucio is a manipulator, but he doesn’t manipulate his way into Vesuvia, he barges in with deus ex machina monsters. He doesn’t demonstrate his skills as a tactician by making deals with neighbouring kingdoms to get their armies. We don’t know his strengths therefore we don’t know his weaknesses. If he seems to be losing he can just conjure a giant dragon to burn everything down, we just can’t know. That is why the application of deus ex machina is highly taboo, the victories don’t feel earned and defeats feel unfair.

4. Tone. Playing with the genre is not uncommon and a game such as Arcana has many opportunities to do so. It is a romance story, everything else is the back-drop. The tone works best when its overall consistent but tonal changes act as shock for the audience to keep them engaged and keeping one tone indefinitely gets us desensitized. We can’t feel constant misery if we are not made to feel tinges of hope in between. Good examples of dramatic tonal change (that I can think of): Mulan - arriving at the decimated village, La Vita e Bella - the father’s death, M*A*S*H - death of Hawkeye’s friend. Two of these examples are mostly comedy which is why this tonal shift affects us so, it was all fun and games until we are slapped in the face with the war going on. There are no one liners in those scenes, the story takes a moment to show appropriate respect to the dead, it gives its characters time to digest and come to terms with loss. Bad examples are the majority of Marvel movies.

In Muriel’s route there’s never such a thing, Muriel has a panic attack and MC kisses him. This unintentionally tells us, the genre being romance, that the panic attack only served to further MC’s advances. It tells us that he’s never had the control of his life and it’s yet again stripped from him by the decisions of player character. This is not the only instance this happens. The story shoe-horns in multiple cuddle sessions between important plot beats. And it does the exact opposite during a moment where he is having a heart-to-heart with the person he loves by having the ghost of Morga appear to give an ominous warning/advice.

When he runs off during masquerade it’s built up to be an important plot point. Muriel will finally face his past, he’s been running away from it all along, and he will have an opportunity to be accepted back in. MC is supportive but ultimately, it’s meant to be Muriel's moment. But as I mentioned above this is not his story anymore so he’s not given any time to address his problems, instead a ghost appears to tell him what he needs to do, again. Because we need to wrap the story up, we don’t have time.

Remember how I said the 2 Options will be important later on, well here we are at the very end. Upright and reversed.

“Portray Muriel fighting as a bad thing”

This suggests that the triumph of Muriel won’t be through violence. Maybe he will outsmart Lucio in a different way, he won’t play his games anymore. This option suggests that Lucio will not be beaten by his own terms.

“Portray Muriel fighting as a good thing”

This option concludes with Muriel finally overcoming his reservations on violence and doing what's right to save the people he loves. And bringing justice to people who Lucio hurt.

If you are wondering why the upright ending feels random, this is likely why. The ending plays out as if the story was building on the 1st option while we spent chapters upon chapters playing out the 2nd one. It is unearned.

(The reversed ending, being reversed, also uses Option 1 path but in which Muriel can’t achieve his narrative conclusion)

The Coliseum is filled with people who are on their side against Lucio’s shadow goons. Because we can’t have people being on Lucio’s side without addressing the duality of human nature, even though it’s an important part of Muriel’s story. The people who watched and enjoyed Lucio’s bloodsport are no more, they are all new and enlightened offscreen. We completely skipped the part where Vesuvia comes to terms with its own complacency and Muriel simply feels at ease because the crowd is cheering on him now. This is what happens when you give the character a chance to challenge those who have been complicit in his abuse (masquerade scene) and completely skip it to move the story along.

Muriel doesn't get justice, ever. The people only love him now because he's fighting for them instead of his own survival. Morga or her clan doesn't answer for the massacre of Kokhuri, Vesuvia doesn't answer for the sick entertainment they indulged in and Lucio doesn't answer for Muriel's enslavement. It is not even acknowledged, nowhere in the story (except the very end of reversed ending, and even then it almost gets him killed so its clearly the wrong thing to do on his part) is a choice presented where Muriel has an opportunity to get any sort of compensation where he instead chooses to move on.

I don’t intend to straw man anyone but this is a sentiment I’ve seen a lot; “It’s a short story, a dating-sim, what do you expect?”

I expect nothing, I’m simply explaining why some people feel how they feel. It is a short dating-sim but it seems to me like it was aiming to be something more by borrowing elements that were clearly far above their weight range to tease something more and under deliver. It is okay to feel content with the story, and it’s okay to feel let down. If we had a unanimous decision on literature we would never be inclined to write our own stories.

[conjuredarchive]

“you can’t say such and such is a trigger. use the word squick. it’s disrespectful and embarrassing to say everything is a trigger !!! i doubt a ship or character is giving you war flashbacks.”

what do you mean ?? do you not realize you’re policing other people ?? that almost anything can be a trigger due to xyz reasons and it’s rude to assume about people’s pasts and mental health like that ??? wtf.

i had a friend who considered rabbits a trigger. she had a traumatic experience with one when she was really young and as a result they were a trigger. i didn’t ask her to expand, or explain. i took her at her word and tagged accordingly since she made it known on the dash.

people can also have characters and pairings serve as triggers. think about how abusive some ships are, how racist some characters are, how some embody toxic masculinity and use lines that minorities hear irl. think about how some characters are bullies and white saviors and colonizers and despite this get glorified or woobified in fandom spaces. same for actors.

people don’t owe it to you to detail their mental health history, their history with assault, their experience with racism or abuse, etc. idk i’m just ?? it’s such a gross and condescending thing to say. if someone wants to avoid something it’s their right to mention it in their rules, and it’s up to you to decide to engage or not.

[indygotcha]

who in your opinion is the coolest mc ever?

IDK how to answer this truthfully, TBQH. This question landed right on my face during me suddenly feeling dissociated with my interests out of nowhere yesterday.

I more or less dunno if I can entirely distill myself to talking about who’s best among best when it comes to certain things and stuff. It seems like I can take everyone for who they are, and the ones I would love the most are the ones I might want to relate to the most, or have certain special connection.Like right now, your question brought reminded me that lately I haven’t bothered watching BNHA at all, and have had very.. “indifferent” feelings to it over these times despite having read all the chapters and everything

I think it has had to do with the time I had watched the 1st season and had overall on-going history with dissociating on liking fictional characters or relating to them and stuff. When I got into the series first time, I think it was because of its amazing shonen spirit that felt like simple, yet very reconstructed. I had been pretty depressed during that time and was already in middle of struggling through graduating high school. 

Thanks to my hard efforts though, I managed to get through and graduate with quite a bang. Quite amazing times too, especially since BNHA was still on-going and I had a blast watching it. You can read more about it here.

But again, what did happen? I think it’s an awful mix of me again having to start to thinking I’m nothing in a fandom if I can’t make myself well-known there in some way, or something. I guess because I tried to draw a BNHA OC due them becoming a trend, but then none batted an eye as much as I though they would despite me working hard on it, and it had me lose interest due war flashbacks on being rejected/ignored in some previous fandoms I was part in, and went on to go try writing some fanfictions in order to build a following. Even worse if something happens to become hated even when I liked it: Because TBQH, it’s hard for me to hate something to the point of bandwagoning on it out of spite -  I always believe they can be made better without changing the character outright most of the time.

This has been like this for the whole time now since being back in this fandom, and lately it had me lose interest on keeping up watching the newest episodes. I instead decided to follow my curiosity and watch something less intensive and prone for me to think I need to make myself “alive” here in this fandom.

Which um, leads to what I think is what reflects my feeling on this question: Kazuto “Kirito” Kirigaya A.K.A “Jesus-kun”

Most standard response on this would be “why would I even wanna a bat an eye on this dude, he’s nothing well-written, he’s clearly a stupid wish-fulfilment character, etc. Hell, why am I checking out what’s considered “the worst anime” of all time, at least in mainstream presence?

Perhaps the starting point was that I knew there was already better anime out there I can kick back into if it really is trash, and well, I have nothing to lose if I watch this incase I wanna go back to good stuff again. Might as well gain knowledge on how mainstream anime works today. TBQH, I had also had some subtle feelings of being tired of watching high quality stuff and wanting to kick back a bit. 

So something odd happened during certain moments in the show. I… had moments of “feels” for more emotional scenes and stuff.

I was, frankly, appalled. Because for longest time, I had been thinking that the overall reception to something is the truth. So there was no way this show would have me in feels. In fact, it should had been complete opposite because there’s clearly plot holes, deus ex machinas, etc.

In fact, I wondered what had me keep going watching this show, and I soon realized why: because the show wasn’t actually as bad as peeps made it to be.And frankly, the “wish-fulfillment” or other things that would feel unrealistic in some ways, felt actually more beautiful due their imperfection:  because they forced me to feel them instead of trying to dissect intellectually in order to allow myself feel them in a legit fashion (A.K.A every frigging argument on Tumblr other site ever).  

Like yeah, this is definitely a dumbest excuse for a family ever

But I again, feel like that the imperfection on how this family got together anyway, being stranded together by the circumstances that the world they got trapped and how they can be so sweet with each other makes it actually something I wanna find one day due coming from a rather broken family myself. It’s all in the feelings that this stupidly imperfect yet so cuddly and badass gave to me. 

Then come videos like this which dissect how it all is so illogical for it all to happen it is that frankly, I lose the sight of getting to it because “it’s unrealistc” and “stupid” and that feeling gets broken:

They keep piling on and on which frankly has me lose the sight of the feelings that these kind of things gives to me, from my own ground and personal past experiences + desires. And thus, I rather try to cover up my thoughts via intellectual reasonings among other things in order to stay on top instead of being forgotten.

And that’s how it’s been for most of my life, I had treated things I used to enjoy as something I need to analyze and find so objectively good that there’s no way I can be looked down upon for liking it because I was made fun of or treated like shit for just liking them for my own reasons (usually more emotional than intellectual).

But that’s not how it goes when you try to enjoy these things. It’s not about how objectively good they are - it’s about what they made you feel. The surprising part is… there usually is a reason. And it has something to do with yourself deep within. IMO, those reasonings are more purer and perhaps larger than life, compared to whatever objective reasons there are to say when something is good, reasonably explained, or other things to be allowed to be felt validly about.

So why Mr.”Jesus”-kun? 

Well, because… at first he and the series reminds me of the appealing things in anime. The keyword is on “appeal”. 

Like, you see a dude who gets some kickass moves or abilities, who seems like, liked overall by many folk and yadda yadda. Your usual mess and stuff. But overtime on always just analyzing these things instead of just taking them in, I kinda felt like a kid again wanting to be all those things that makes for a cool person even if they might appear to be some dumbass wish-fulfillment char. But it’s the feelings that matter - since in the end, they springboard you right away from there. Like, don’t think of how he got there. Think of the first impressions you had on some characters upon seeing them be awesome enough to hype you when you flicked a channel on randomly running these anime.

Now I would have dropped this whole series at once due harem shenanigans that were so brought in about as one of the series’ most notable “infamies”, yet frankly enough, there was no such stuff enough to make Certain Magical Index look a genuinely romantic series. It just kept on whatever plots it had, even if it had some controversial stuff going for it (like the whole cousin incest-shit, but they actually resolved it in pretty “okay”, dare I say, tasteful manner compared to your other animes with much heavier focus on such topic and never bring it up again ever since.)

I thought it’d be there, but since the show wasn’t apparently harem jazz and tried to tell story arcs as they came anyway, I decided to chug along since I had gone enough deep  -  yet later on in the 2nd season, Mr.Jesus-kun goes through some hard events and through that he went on to make an act of being a fucking DECENT PERSON  pretty damn admirable and heartwarming - something I always took for granted even if I do that a lot of the time. In fact, I think he’s quite a heroic guy for a “boring” person. 

Like, he goes to kick rapists’ asses even if you might say they rip that stuff of from better anime and it’s used for pointless drama. 

And if that wasn’t enough, he goes all the way to help a girl he bonded throughout the arc she’s featured with her severe PTSD to see a very positive flipside to the incident that led her to get one, which leads to one of the most satisfying endings for an arc I’ve seen in anime for a long while:

I think what took me most aback was how Jesus-kun himself felt so strongly about giving her opportunity such resolve, which is frankly admirable thing. 

In the arc, he had to deal with similar feelings due certain incidents in SAO that had him also kill folk before, much like this gal Shino above. He found resolve through as well after talking it out with his personal doctor:

Like, say what the fucking ever you want about this overly dumb MC, but this guy deep inside is a decent person throughout and tries to go all by helping others beyond virtual reality jazz that he’s given so much flack about. No fucking rocket science why girls fall for him. :P  Not that the anime is like the spinoff-games which has the harem mess people laud the series so much as for some reason.

For that, he’s been “coolest” MC for these past 3 days (and gets to join in ranks with others I know in similar being). And from what I heard about this series, it seems to keep on getting better, if only for the fact that the author (Reki Kawahara) appears to not be some stuck-up man and tries to address problems with his writing as series goes on, even to the point of rebooting the whole series for a new series of light novels. On that end, most peeps lauded anime as worse than original LNs, so I guess it means I can go fill in the blanks for these chars in them incase I get curious, and build my vision of them even further.

In short, I have a lot of MCs I consider cool.  Why settle on one only?

And now here comes the unfollows