#and i think thats where it gets weird in social contexts

[jailedmoonshine]

sometimes I'll wonder why i have a hard time making friends or fitting in and then I remember I have a physical visceral uncontrollable reaction to people who cannot understand when a bit is dead

[typekiku]

TSUKIHIME FASHION REVIEW 3!!!

under the dark crimson moon, i write this newest entry of the much awaited much beloved tsukihime fashion review.

it's a duty i must carry out for the sake of the generations of lost sheep both before and after my time that have yet to truly appreciate the true depth of style that is contained within the single greatest visual novel known to mankind (according to me)

yet, i feel as if i am not doing my duty to its fullest... how can i possibly adequately sum the glory of todays fashionista? how can i dare attempt to sum that up?? no! i cannot waver in my faith in my incredibly lacking writing skills nor fear people figuring out this barely has anything to do with fashion... I WILL PERSEVERE!!

on with the show as the youth say!

(SPOILER ALERT: i should mention ill probably end up spoiling a shit ton of oghime and whatnot here so watch out)

so without further ado todays subject is:

drum roll

MORE DRUM ROLL

thanks uhh whatever you are from

MICHAEL ROA VALDAMJONG

yes the one and only roa

BROA

the legend himself, the Serpent of Akasha, Uroboros, the founder of the burial agency, the infinite reincarnatior, and professional Arcueid simp.

we have gathered here today to judge his design and uh fashion ig and whatever else i feel like ranting today about.

lets get right to it.

look at this dude all shirtless and shit like cmon so shameless... cover em up damn. seriously tho this man has a thing for showing off his (or should i say others) bodies like you will see soon.

i guess this comes down to him enjoying the freedom of being fully in control of whatever body he is currently occupying actually?

maybe this is some super deep look into the merits of semi nudism or whatever idk im not smart.

probably takeuchi just wanted an excuse to draw some seriously ripped abs actually i mean this might seriously be the most abby abs we ever see in any TM work. its fucking shredded and roa probably knew that. weirdo

on the flipside that majestic hair is simply incredible. DAMN thats some 10/10 hair. only other hair in this series that compares is my wife arcueid's long hair before her mean little (Older actually but idc) Altrouge got all mean and shit.

umm who is this? what happened to my incredible haired roa?? TAKEUCHI WHERE ARE YOU??? someone please give me back long haired roa... this isnt funny...

do you see what we lost? long gorgeous haired roa should've stayed and im genuinely upset we lost him to this admittingly much better dressed roa. im ashamed of you serpent of fraudkasha

fr tho where tf did he even get this rockstar ass drip anyways? we know SHIKI has been locked up in the outside house for awhile before released thanks to a certain maid... did he just drop by the local hot topic or whatever? did he manifest it through sheer willpower and arcueid simpery?

understandable tbh i too acheive things through arcueid simpery such as dirty stares and social exclusion!!

for reference, here is SHIKI

yea

i guess he just uhh changes him which in hindsight is really fucking sad to think about so lets not

uhh ANYWAYS

ok so ignoring ciel on the right elesia or should i say roa decides the very first thing hes gonna do in poor elesias body is to strip it naked

huh?

yea roa is definitely a weird one. no wonder the other ancestors hate him (besides nero because he is #HIM)

sick cape tho

why is he so hot here actually? what the hell? i underestimated his looks like damn

no really why is he so hot anyways he should look like an absolute freak like he actually is. i see you roa. i see you got that long braid wrapped around your neck like damn son... you may have fallen in love with a literal killing machine and never even got to speak to her till the very very end but i see you.

rizzless bastard.

well thats enough from me so ill drop this classic mahoyo line because i found it very funny without context.

ciao!

[theholidayslingerlikebadperfume]

no because genuinely though, i had NO IDEA people preferred to cook things over bake stuff until very recently in my life and it genuinely BOGGLES MY MIND that is a common mentality for people to have because i think it genuinely exposes how autistic i am actually am for real. i

know people hate when you make your entire personality related to your disability issues or whatever but autism has genuinely explained SO. FUCKING. MUCH. of who i am and i find new ways to link my personality traits to it every fucking day i live with the knowledge of having this disorder [i hate this phrasing but i cannot think of a better way to phrase it rn] and it's genuinely like.

yall seen that elyse meyers video that's like "getting diagnosed at 29-ish or whatever with autism is like wow this changes absolutely nothing and everything at the same time and for the rest of my life" that is exactly, EXACTLY how i feel about my own autism diagnosis.

it's something you cannot understand, i dont think, unless you were diagnosed with a personality disorder as well [i personally think autism could be called a personality disorder but thats my unscientific and probably terribly uninformed opinion do not take this beyond a grain of salt ok] later in life where you're just like wow. holy shit. it's been autism [or other disorder] this entire time? it was just autism? im not an evil bitch? im just autistic???? how much of it was autism. was it all autism. holy fuck, it was ALL autism.

i think what a lot of it is that i had no context for any of my life experiences until i learned about ASD and i started thinking of my life in that particular context and it was a light bulb moment for me personally.

like, oh, im fucking normal, yall bitches are just fucking rude and mean for no fucking reason. got it.

and its like how do u NOT make everything about your disability when your disability affects literally EVERYTHING.

i prefer to bake over cook because i find baking to be more rigid of a medium than cooking is and i like that rigidity. it's like, of course, a lot of it, i think stems from people misunderstanding what disorders are and what it means to be mentally ill. people view it as being another "species" of human altogether. they view it as having either "normal" human traits or "abnormal human traits" they DO NOT view it as having an INBALANCED approach to handling your specific human traits that appear in everyone but appear more frequently to the point of detriment socially in you specifically for some reason.

and when you grow up being viewed at as abnormal but without a reason why because nobody wants to call you a weird freak to your face, it's impossible i think to not recontextualize everything in your life through the new lens of perspective once you're finally validated and taken seriously in your experiences.

anyways this is getting so long and boring but like i just.... even my desire for baking man. even that is because of the autism, huh.

[saturnniidae]

A lot of OS Ash's 'roasts' were just him being blunt. Like yeah sure, sometimes he was intentionally rude but a lot of them were just lack of social cue understanding.

There's two examples I see brought up a lot: when he asked Nurse Joy if she was the "oddball" in her family and when he said that Wartortle "doesn't look very smart". These clips get taken painfully out of context. The first one is from OS ep 30 "Sparks fly magnemite" where he was trying to get her to treat pikachu and she kept downplaying his concerns while yawning.

(he literally just saw her being weird and told her she was being weird. Sure it's not very polite but he probably just said the first thing that came to mind. It's not like,,, an "epic roast moment" or whatever)

And the second one was him responding to a Pokedex entry. In OS ep 60 "Beach Blank-Out Blastoise" again i doubt it was mean-spirited, just bluntness. Like he's 10 of course he's not gonna look at a turtle and think "wow thats peak intelligence".

[joculatrixster]

thank you for replying! -i understand where youre coming from but i feel like some of the points you brought up about scott can't just be boiled down to homophobia if that makes sense- like people see scott as calculated because he calls making allies/friendships a 'social game' etc . and obviously grian and joel berating and teasing jimmy also isn't entirely fine but i think toxicity in the context of an alliance vs a canon-explicit marriage should be weighed differently, but ultimately im not sure that grian is actually necessarily "worse" than scott; while i think grian and joel and jimmy do have an unbalanced dynamic alot of the 'berating' between them is more like 'jimmy you idiot you died to xyz' whereas with scott in 3l it felt a bit more manipulative likewhen scott purposely placed something to scare jimmy and then made fun of him for being scared but. idk

also i think everyone understands that they're friends in real life and nothing ccjimmy is actually uncomfortable with would make it into a video but this is just to think about/interpret their characters within the context of the roleplay/storyline

again this isnt meant as an attack or anything at all - i just wanted to talk about why some people would have a different interpretation of fh!

thats fair, i read ur reply when i was busy i dont remember it well but honestly a fair take ^-^b i dont think it ALL is sorry i didnt make it clear i think the reason its POPULAR is bc scott fans r not rlly the ppl doing this its jimmy fans who dominate the fandom way more, but the fact irs happening to the gay guy IS weird and something to raise a brow to especially when there r more weird extreme fans who take it wayyy too far

it feels unbalanced to me bc it is, grian and joel have more fans in the life series rlly than scott bc most scott fans r just not life series postinfg, so when grian or joel does something mean to others in a similar vien its seen less in a negative light. im going off of memory so forgive me if i get a bit fuzzy w it

scott teases jimmy their friendship is kinda rivalry type thing its rlly just how they r, but ppl r not as used to it which is understandable too. idrc if ppl think scott is a bit manipulative hes just like. vilinized for it or seen as cold when he clearly still cares for his allies? he sacrificed SO much time in lil, he let ppl kill him in secret life, i wish i saw ppl rlly speak more on those better parts of him but also its just more normalized to intpret his actions more cold than it is for say grian who could be seen as cold for how easy he sheds alliances.

every intpretation is fine but w scott it genuinely goes into character bashing territory or just making him the stand in vilian jimmy needs to be saved from in fandom spaces which is agian fine if it happened to other characters who r similarly manipulative or calculating(martyn, scar, impulse even...) but deadass ive never seen anyone but scott put in such a position. which is weird. to me. especially when framed as him being bashed or vilinized for his straight friend who ppl hc he abuses like...ok. but where is the same energy for scar who is deadass evil af in 3rd life and limited life..? scar who destroys the ranch and kills his mother and doesnt apologize for either??? is it bc ppl just like him more so it makes more sense wven he does manipulative stuff??? martyn who is notoriously devisive for his ending and playstyle but in fics like its not great but he tends to not be as hated or put in the same level of bashing pll do for scott? hes prob the closest ive seen to the way scott is seen as an easy stand in vilian but i have not seen it as bad for him?

tho anon no not everyone understands there is a group of ppl who genuinely think scott in real life is an abusive person and actually that inspired my original post bc pll said w their whole chest they think scott is bad and makes jimmy uncomfortable

sorry if this is jumbled the other anon message is turning me into the joker...i get what u mean and i DO think its naunced but ppl REFUSE to acknowledge how weird it can feel for others to see and while i do think there r other factors...this fandom has leaned into homophobia for scott especially more frindge jimmy fans, sorry i think i mixed up a lot of things in my replys i was busy and also i genuinely dont care enough about tumblr anon posting to explain every naunce of an issue ie why i put pearl as a tag on bc the mysongy of all that is not for today thank u ^-^b

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Oh so on the sour thing - there is a separate scale for acidity entirely. They are not actually considered opposites in this context. In fact there are 4 major factors considered by wine tasters: acid, tannin, alcohol and sweetness. And they all impact how each other are tasted but they can all be considered individually.

There's also a thing where one in ten wines that come from a bottle with a cork made of actual cork wood will be "corked" and taste all wrong - mum describes it as "musty". She has promised to let me try (I'm super curious!) if she finds one but my parents very rarely drink wine pretentious enough to have a real cork in the bottle - many wines don't these days - so I've never got to taste it myself. One of the reasons many companies are moving away from real cork even though nothing matches it for letting the wine develop is that they lose customers every time someone tries their wine and it's corked. Because instead of knowing this most people just think (understandably) "oh I don't like this wine, what the fuck was everyone who liked this on about. Must be some wine buff thing I'm not cultured enough to get I suppose" and then never buys it again. The pretentiousness of the wine community is its own downfall.

Fancy restaurants will give customers a taste of the wine before putting it on the table to check for this issue... Except most customers don't know this and many restaurants also just do it now because it's what you do, so they do it even with wines that weren't sealed with cork under the impression that you're testing to see if you like the wine not for this very specific issue. At a certain point I think that tradition has just become testing to see if you like the wine tbh but it was originally meant as a quality check. Also they would ALWAYS offer it to my dad because he's a man and he always gives it to mum because like. She's the person in the family who has an actual wine qualification (framed on our wall at home!). And just. Very funny. Every time. Back when corks were more common she had actually caught corked wine a few times. The whole extended family is suitably impressed by this.

Funny how growing up with someone who works with wine will give you a weirdly comprehensive knowledge of lots of wine-related things even though I DON'T DRINK WINE. I barely drink at all and wines give me a worse headache than other alcoholic drinks because they've got all sorts of weird and wonderful side-effects of the fermentation process in there (called secondary metabolites). I actually kind of like the flavours but it's not worth the suffering. Really looking forward to when someone invents a genuinely wine-like alcohol-free drink so I can drink something other than fruit juice at fancy social events. I have had some excellent mocktails and alcohol free beer is apparently really good but the food tech for wine just isn't there yet - alcohol free wines at the moment taste like very slightly more complicated grape juice at their best.

huh.

my entire experience with wine is whatever wine brand it was that my nan drank. i cannot remember any details except they sold it in morrisons and it was near a wine with yeti in the name on the shelf. so like, this is all new to me.

apart from the cork part which i had a vague idea about, from somewhere. it might be because i know a tiny bit about the fake vintage wine business where you can like test the cork to see if its age matches the supposed age of the wine.

the tasting at the table is so interesting to me. is it one of those tastings where you have to spit it out rather than swallowing? or could you like scam a restaurant and get yourself buzzed from tasting different bottles and then just end up ordering water instead?

...is that a thing people would do? my knowledge of drinking and alcohol culture is tinted through alcoholics georg tinted glasses so i dont know if thats a thing people would do with wine. i know wine can like get you drunk quicker or just have a more immediate effect on you? so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

also i have a mental image of a pub doing this with beer but with the tap. so you have to crane your head over the bar and drink a little bit from one of the various taps they have. and its a very funny mental image

[daenystheedreamer]

Are you RPF positive? How do you feel about ships like Gaylor or Phan or Larry? Phan actually turned out to be true LOL

short answer its funny and harmless long answer below the cut tldr its funny and feel free to be cringe but also everyone has a line they draw in the sand and even if you think you dont, you do. and me personally my line is further than others, nearer than some. if the rpf is fanfic where harry styles bottoms for louis tomlinson thats mostly just teenagers being silly and harmlessly cringe and if the rpf is AI deepfake of them its bad. also sometimes the rpf is real. and also phan is a can of worms im not touching with a ten foot pole. again long answer below the cut ^_^ rambling

ok so celebrities in general i roll my eyes at the thought of caring about them. everyone is just a regular human being who is kind of stupid and lame. everyone has positives and negatives etc. so to me when i see someone act parasocial about some youtuber/singer/actor etc im like thats just a guy. so already rpf is simply not for me.

secondly i think it is mostly harmless. if you are writing gay porn about frank iero and gerard way well that is between you and god and the ao3 staff. gets cringe and weird if you go up to jensen ackles at a con and say heh so which of you is the seme 😏 that is a socially insane thing to do sorry

thirdly it is super funny. gaylor is hilarious to me its like a bunch of generally progressive young girls who feel the need to morally justify why its okay to like taylor swift. Oh she dates weird men oh she has a bad carbon footprint Well actually she is a queer woman oppressed by her management and her conservative family. thats hilarious to me i love how there is no one on earth who isnt a little conspiratorily minded. tbc im not gaylorphobic i have gaylor friends.

fourthly i have seen the moral depravity of man. you can find genuinely deeply morally and ethically disgusting content about real life minors. 'its fiction its just writing they wont see it' grow up go talk to a therapist. AI deep fake porn is disgusting. its weird and socially inept to bother actual human beings about your kink. again fine to have that kink but dont go asking random people if theyre secretly in love with their friend.

hmmm fifthly and lastly i think often people just dont have a holistic view of the world they dont understand cultural/social context. there is a social barrier between you the audience and the people on your screen. also when you get into fandoms like kpop, you need to understand that its a product. these arent authentic human beings they are products they are actors they are selling you an idea. its yaoi in a way! its playing on homosocial/homoerotic tropes that female fans tend to enjoy. im sorry but seokjin and taehyung arent secretly boning they are coworkers. sorry.

that being said i think ben affleck IS in love with matt damon and i think theyve jerked off together or had sex by proxy via threesome. nothing will change my mind on this.

[cogbreath]

suicide discussion (im fine im just musing on it in a ethics and social context)

rlly weird the way some people view the concept of a loved one committing suicide like on this tv show this guy had hanged himself and his friend found him and my mom said "its truly the most fucked up thing you could do to someone who loves you" (referring to them finding you dead from suicide) and thats just. so bizarre to me actually. and also kind of sucks. like idk personally imho hypothetically i'd...want to be found? so people know what happened to me? i think it'd be worse if the person couldn't be found if it was unclear where they went ans what happened to them and then the loved ones often get attached to a sliver of hope that perhaps theyre somewhere out there alive and might come back someday...... i mean honestly end of the day though i wouldn't feel it's truly appropriate to criticize about the way it went. like yeah its tragic but i really do not enjoy when people think that way like truly it should be compassion for the victim because nobody gets to that point without being in a lot of pain or discomfort in life. so it feels like almost a post-mortem act of kicking them while theyre down. and ik ppl always say everyone greives differently but idk it just seems real fucked to sort of guilt someone for committing suicide because of how it's affecting you, especially bc of how many peoples last notes were apology after apology and begging their loved ones to not hate them for it and its just that the suffering they were in was too much for them to bear.

[ipoddymouth]

Wait bestie I want to know your thots on the matty healy being problematic thing he’s said a lot of weird/offensive stuff for sure but apparently some of that stuff is supposed to be satirical/ he’s an edge lord or whatever like the n*zi salute thing he did and it’s not a good thing to do no matter the context but I feel like it’s probably more harmful to call him a n*zi when he isn’t actually one it’s probably better to call that action antisemitic than a whole n*zi no?

wait gjargigjag you just basically summarized my thoughts but imma ramble more under the cut

i dont think matty is actually, truly, deep in his core racist or a n*zi (i'm also p sure he's given enough interviews explaining himself and his political ideologies bc he's annoying and never shuts the fuck up) BUT he also does say a bunch of shit on the side that doesn't help his case.

i think intent is a big issue in society in general bc it's like 'are you saying this shit to be funny? or are you saying this shit to be mean?' and people don't ask that question anymore. i remember when ariana dated pete and he made that joke about manchester and people were like 'he's disrespecting the dead!!' and, like, i can defs see where people are coming from for sure, and i can also see why he was like ???? in response to the backlash because his attention clearly wasnt to offend.

i will not lie and will fully admit that i am SENSITIVE lmao and there are some jokes in standup sets that i will straight up 😐 during bc i cannot separate the words from intent sometimes but im not going to say bill burr is a rape apologist or whatever because i sit and watch my silly lil 'offensive' robot chicken episodes without batting an eye. the problem with humor is that there will always be a faction that makes certain people uncomfortable. and that's okay!!!! not all of us (me included) need to watch cumtown or red scare because we will not find it funny!!! there's one drag queen who's yt videos my boyfriend cant watch bc he thinks she comes across mean even though i think the jokes hit!!!!

and to your second point i agreeeee like im black and grew up in a p white area so obviously people have said some SHIT to me, but that means you have to learn how to distinguish between someone being intentionally racist or someone being ignorant. i think matty says shit he thinks is funny because he's trying to be funny but the jokes themselves don't hit and just come across as....bizarre? rude??? multiple -ists???? but then he tries to explain himself and people (strangers to him) are either like 'fuck u this isnt sincere' or are just like 'but youre still wrong and horrible' and he just gets frustrated and deletes his socials in a lil baby fit gjlragjaglgj. and not to be a white apologist lmao BUT i kinda do understand why people turn to that 'anti-woke ideology' bc if every time i said something with poor phrasing and someone i didn't know called me a racist n*zi i'd probs go ape shit too.

there are real, actual n*zis like in real life who are actually trying to hurt people and people are pulling out all of their big gun ultra-bad labels for some scrawny boy band dude???? like what are we supposed to call the actual n*zis???????? like i l i t e r a l l y have seen a neo-n*zi rally down the street from my HOUSE and thats fucking TERRIFYING and they're just snatching up more people because of all of the culture wars bullshit

[but like to note im not saying that people need to be forgiving and understanding every time someone says something that pisses them off. some people need to be yelled at!!! they need to know they are wrong!!!! people should just be aware of the impact their words have. matty's words have made A LOT of people straight up hate him, but at the same time, some people have probably seen matty get called a n*zi and are now like 👀 bc the bar to being considered h*tler seems kinda low.]

anyway tl;dr racism is a spectrum, words have meaning, and we don't know these people. but if matty really is a racist and im wrong then i hope he chokes!!!

ALSO i am an adult and am not in the business of defending other adults so like im not gonna argue with someone if they think matty is racist. i am not doing dirty hit pr for FREE

[tornad001]

i love complicated - the perfect symmetry of text and translation, maintaining original meaning in a way others don't. i always got the sense translating and analyzing these classical-era epics that there was something off about the idea of these as stories for entertainment. cuz they weren't entertaining, and some of that is catalogue of ships bullshit, plus cultural differences that i didn't really think to account for at the time. but most of it i think was in the style of storytelling, almost like an adult who's bad at it telling a kid a tale where they just kinda rotely describe the plot.

i guess at the time i didn't think to challenge the basic assumptions id made. i kinda accepted that the ancient greeks and romans just liked a less nuanced and, yes, complicated form of storytelling. despite all the limitations i knew about translation fundamentally and especially across time as well as space, i always trusted my translator to account for these for me. and this isn't necessarily even to knock some of those; Robert Fagles' Iliad translation is one of my favorites. I love his strong word choices and his sense of gravitas - his opening lines had me from the start.

but now i realize that his is one of my favorites because he doesn't try too hard to stay true to the source. he cares more about telling a good story thats comprehensible than about more esoteric things like faithfulness. but in so doing i think he takes liberties to the point where im not really engaging with a classical-era epic. and to be fair i imagine its actually quite difficult to engage with a classic epic as a classic epic cuz thats not a form of entertainment or style of storytelling that we really do anymore.

but come on, its not like we approach something like the Iliad or the Odyssey with the intention of it being a simple task. that bitch dense and deep, even if taking it from a more modern interpretive framework. id love to go back and translate it myself with this is mind. what new words would i use? would i go with complicated? what new ideas would jump out at me? can i really try to understand how it would've been engaged with natively?

there's a similar issue with a lot of the ancient greek plays i've read like the Oedipus cycle. like reading them is strange first off cuz reading plays is always strange, it's not their native medium, but also i just don't get a lot of it. there's so many things that strike me as weird or off just cuz i don't have the historical social context in which to understand these elements, like the chorus. and with all those incongruities i do notice i can't even imagine how many other things i miss just cuz its invisible from my interpretive lens.

idk it's all kinda an intractable problem. there's better and worse answers there's different lenses of analysis but ultimately its all an imperfect science. like i don't think the analysis i did was invalid or anything, it was just a more limited and comprehensible framework for approaching a... complicated text.

Throughout her translation of the “Odyssey,” Wilson has made small but, it turns out, radical changes to the way many key scenes of the epic are presented — “radical” in that, in 400 years of versions of the poem, no translator has made the kinds of alterations Wilson has, changes that go to truing a text that, as she says, has through translation accumulated distortions that affect the way even scholars who read Greek discuss the original. These changes seem, at each turn, to ask us to appreciate the gravity of the events that are unfolding, the human cost of differences of mind.

The first of these changes is in the very first line. You might be inclined to suppose that, over the course of nearly half a millennium, we must have reached a consensus on the English equivalent for an old Greek word, polytropos. But to consult Wilson’s 60 some predecessors, living and dead, is to find that consensus has been hard to come by…

Of the 60 or so answers to the polytropos question to date, the 36 given above [which I cut because there were a lot] couldn’t be less uniform (the two dozen I omit repeat, with minor variations, earlier solutions); what unites them is that their translators largely ignore the ambiguity built into the word they’re translating. Most opt for straightforward assertions of Odysseus’s nature, descriptions running from the positive (crafty, sagacious, versatile) to the negative (shifty, restless, cunning). Only Norgate (“of many a turn”) and Cook (“of many turns”) preserve the Greek roots as Wilson describes them — poly(“many”), tropos (“turn”) — answers that, if you produced them as a student of classics, much of whose education is spent translating Greek and Latin and being marked correct or incorrect based on your knowledge of the dictionary definitions, would earn you an A. But to the modern English reader who does not know Greek, does “a man of many turns” suggest the doubleness of the original word — a man who is either supremely in control of his life or who has lost control of it? Of the existing translations, it seems to me that none get across to a reader without Greek the open question that, in fact, is the opening question of the “Odyssey,” one embedded in the fifth word in its first line: What sort of man is Odysseus?

“I wanted there to be a sense,” Wilson told me, that “maybe there is something wrong with this guy. You want to have a sense of anxiety about this character, and that there are going to be layers we see unfolded. We don’t quite know what the layers are yet. So I wanted the reader to be told: be on the lookout for a text that’s not going to be interpretively straightforward.”

Here is how Wilson’s “Odyssey” begins. Her fifth word is also her solution to the Greek poem’s fifth word — to polytropos:

Tell me about a complicated man. Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy, and where he went, and who he met, the pain he suffered in the storms at sea, and how he worked to save his life and bring his men back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools, they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus, tell the old story for our modern times. Find the beginning.

When I first read these lines early this summer in The Paris Review, which published an excerpt, I was floored. I’d never read an “Odyssey” that sounded like this. It had such directness, the lines feeling not as if they were being fed into iambic pentameter because of some strategic decision but because the meter was a natural mode for its speaker. The subtle sewing through of the fittingly wavelike W-words in the first half (“wandered … wrecked … where … worked”) and the stormy S-words that knit together the second half, marrying the waves to the storm in which this man will suffer, made the terse injunctions to the muse that frame this prologue to the poem (“Tell me about …” and “Find the beginning”) seem as if they might actually answer the puzzle posed by Homer’s polytropos and Odysseus’s complicated nature.

Complicated: the brilliance of Wilson’s choice is, in part, its seeming straightforwardness. But no less than that of polytropos, the etymology of “complicated” is revealing. From the Latin verb complicare, it means “to fold together.” No, we don’t think of that root when we call someone complicated, but it’s what we mean: that they’re compound, several things folded into one, difficult to unravel, pull apart, understand.

“It feels,” I told Wilson, “with your choice of ‘complicated,’ that you planted a flag.”

“It is a flag,” she said.

“It says, ‘Guess what?’ — ”

“ ‘ — this is different.’ ”

The First Woman to Translate the Odyssey Into English, Wyatt Mason

[jeducationjj]

Lets Figure out Subject Pronouns

I (First Person Singular)

I am happy.

私は幸せです。(Desu - To be [Formal])

Watashi is typically used by women outside of formal settings.

私は幸せだ。(Da - To be [Casual])

(Watakushi) 私 [Even More Formal]

(Atashi) 私 (Feminine Pronunciation [Informal])

僕は幸せです。(Masculine [Informal])

Can be used in second person to address young boys.

Kind of like "Boy" or "Garçon"

俺は幸せだ。(Masculine [Rough / Very Informal])

うちは幸せです (Feminine [Informal])

Typically used among one's own family. There's also "Uchi" in reference to one's household as a collective. Commonly associated with Kansai Dialect and Young Girls.

自分 は 幸せです [Casual]

Important to note depending on the dialect Jibun may also mean "you" or work as a reflexive pronoun ("Myself"). Typically denotes a person of achievement, rank, or  athleticism within a team or group.

Final Note on First Person Singular: also Important to know "I" is less present in Japanese than it is in English, so its commonly ommitted when speaking naturally and casually.

-----------------------------------------

You (Second Person Singular)

mostly rude

You are Kind.

あなたは優しいですね。[General / Potentially Impolite]

{Marking speaker's feelings/own perspective}

Anata isn't used often when speaking and it is more polite to just use the person in questions name most the time. Sometimes a pronoun might not even be necessary.

君は優しいですね。[Rude / VERY informal]

Mostly used in fiction. Denotes someone you see as inferior. Same goes for Anta (貴方).

Proper Formula for Addressing Someone.

[Last Name] + [Appropriate Honorific]

Koga is kind.

古賀さんは優しいですね。

Honorifics

San - Friends, Strangers, Associates, and Equals.

Basically the standard honorific thats not too polite, but not too casual.

Sama - People of higher role, occupation, or respect.

This is typically used in professional business environments.

Kun - Younger Coworkers, Peers of lower status.

Commonly used between Teachers and students. Sometimes used for women and girls in place of the word "Chan".

Chan - Small Children (typically girls), Close Friends, and Partners.

Used in informal contexts where one wants to note another's youth, cuteness, or socially lower disposition.

Sensai - Masters, Teachers, Educators, Experts.

Used for people considerably experienced in specific fields of work or education. Commonly used to address someone you're learning under.

Senpai - Seniors & Higher status students, coworkers, and colleagues.

Used to address members within a group that institutionally rank higher or hold more experience than the speaker.

Senshu - Athlete / Sports Team Member

Used for professional athletes and team members participating in competitive activities. (just kinda added this one for fun :P)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

He, She, (Third Person Singular)

Both mainly used in writing. Also translate to Boyfriend and Girl Friend making them more tricky to use when speaking.

He is happy.

彼は幸せです。

She is happy.

彼女は幸せです。

A better trick when trying to point to a specific person is describing them with a descriptive noun that fits.

My friend is happy.

私の友達は幸せです。

That woman is happy.

その女性は幸せです。

The doctor is happy.

医者は幸せです。 (There is no "The" in Japanese)

There are also Demonstrative Pronouns:

This, That, These,

Kore, Sore, and Korera (and Are)

which can be used to help describe people whose names you don't know and where they are relative to you as the speaker,

But we'll get into those another time.

Usually if the context of a situation is clear or already understood as the topic, some pronouns, and particles are ommitted.

If you know the persons name you can also just use their name again. Being too repetitive with a name can come off weird though, so the majority of a conversation is typically context oriented.

In other words He and She aren't really utilized the way they are in English, so growing comfortable in thinking about Japanese sentence structure through a more contextual lens is important.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

They (Third Person Plural)

They are happy.

彼らは幸せです。

Again. Typically only used in writing. English plural conventions don't really work the same in Japanese, but there is the suffix -Tachi

[Persons Name] + [ -Tachi]

Nanami and Others

七海たち

Its important to understand that -Tachi isn't necessarily needed to make a statement about many of one thing.

The cats eat.

猫たちは食べます。and 猫は食べます。

Are both valid ways to say a group of cats are eating if the person I'm talking to can also see there is more than one cat.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

We (First Person Plural)

We are happy.

私たちは幸せです。

Just like the conventions for "they" or more accurately a "subject" with the plural suffix "Tachi" this follows the same formula, but with the start of a first person word.

[playingonedchess]

actually saw an essay someoned written for uni and posted on ao3 about queerbaiting in ace attorney (in regards to narimitsu), like theyd cited sources and everything, but it was sort of a bit rubbish i thought where it was coming from. maybe i cant really comment not being from the right group to have a stake in the queerbaiting thing, and nothing they said was really off, it just seemed an odd way to approach it? like not only did they get the idea of shipping narimitsu completely wrong, like they literally just mentioned two things that were like textually in context really not romantic and went like cause of this (common shallow fandom misinterpretation) people are like thats totally romantic, like even i who already ships them wasnt remotely sold on that explanation they used, as well as on why they thought peopled ship them. and then they go on about unintentional subtext/ alternate readings in a way thats maybe just not how i personally see it. but they totally missed out on mentioning fanservice at all when talking about queer baiting, and went on like, obviously it 'should' be made canon but it isnt cause theyre too scared of backlash or couldnt fit it in or whatever reason, just not considering that it doesnt actually have to be, cause its an interpretation, and they were like, treating a video game way too much like a form of activism? like they can have different priorities for this fictional story and that doesnt have to be something theyd see as important just cause it would be representation or enough fans want it. like even in this case where from some of the interviews about the first 3 the creaters were like people ship them oh cool, it doesnt mean they have to even want to make it canon instead of just an interpretation they thinks fine. and like i even think itd be good if it was canon and would work and even be a possibility and stuff but i think that cause their relationship and fictional character story i think could work that way and i enjoy it, its a bit weird to think its like owed to be that way though? like i really dont think its that deep to be relevent to actual real world social issues and is actually about the direction for the fictional story?

[modularnra40]

I think maybe a slightly better way to conceive of it would be less 'technical rules players' vs 'social role players' and more like 'monolith' vs 'modular' players.

Like, I think this particular distinction*does* get discussed a lot (at least in contexts where people are discussing the meta of ttrpgs lol) buuuuut I think even with the best intentions to be evenhanded and fair and your-game-style-is-not-my-game-style-and-thats-ok it ... Still often comes across as kind of patronizing towards one group or the other -- see the classic roll-play vs role-play which tends to dismiss the creative drive of players who actually know all of the rules and want to use them, or as above where I think you unintentionally came across a little dismissive of the social players -- people dont play dnd on accident: if they wanted to hang out with their friends and free-form role-play.... They would do that. If they're deep enough in it to be looking for ways to mod the game they definitely get something out of the crunchy bits of the game, it's not a trivial aspect for them. BUT I do think you are right that there is some distinct gap between the camps you described - modularity.

Digression- I played DnD from itty bitty because my father was an old school nerd. I cut my teeth on 2nd edition, and never did you see a 12 year old so incredibly precious about ThAC0 as little me. But~ my father was an old school nerd so you know I was not playing DnD as strictly defined in the rules book! No! I was playing 2nd edition DnD + some 30 odd years of house rules lovingly conceptualized and play tested by my father and his various gaming groups starting decades before my birth and continuing to this day! At one point we tested out using rollmaster tables to determine the outcomes of successful hits! (Fun, but very clunky - the rolemaster aesthetic has a lot of baked in assumptions which didn't always mesh with our games tone)

And from that context, the main distinction I see is a somewhat philosophical difference in what a ttrpg rule book is -- ie something like a board game rule book where everything sort of must be taken as a comprehensive whole? Certainly most rulebooks assume that you will be using all of the pieces, and all of the given numbers and such are given in context to each other. But it's actually... Not that hard to take (many, not all) ttrpg rule book as 'modular' - ie I'm going to grab the physical melee system from DnD (roll a d20, add the attackers to hit modifier, compare to the defenders AC), but then use some fate like system for spell casting (there are meta 'aspect's attached to various things in the story which I can invoke to improve the chances of spellcasting success, with various mechanical ways of creating or adjusting these aspects) aaaand fuck it we're going to go with a home brewed super harsh but simple '3 strikes youre out' way of tracking damage, all hits are 1 strike no nuance.

Would this be "balanced"? That's an almost incomprehensible question, or alternatively the answer is 'absolutely not' but would it be fun to play? Maybe! If the group likes it. And if not, then whatever is not fun will get thrown out, or replaced, or mutated even further away from something that is found in any single rulebook. But it's also definitely NOT social game first lol - it's hella crunchy, just not super consistent - and weird corner cases are going to be handled on a case by case basis and reading a new player into the dynamic will be an absolute nightmare hahaha

There's also maybe something about like - how literally do you take the rules-- ie the difference between 'i want to create Naruto in a DnD game so I will go and find a magic ninjas rulebook so I can create Naruto the magic ninja who uses jutsu and kunai' vs 'I am rolling a warlock who is proficient in daggers, but for flavor reasons I will be referring to spells as jutsu and daggers as kunai and my DM has given me a feat which lets me replace all material component requirements with somatic component requirements'

I think I came across as like very pro this 'modular' approach I described, and it's definitely one of my first instincts when I come across friction at the table.... But also the best game I ever ran was one where we were playing by the book Blades in the Dark, given setting, no bells and whistles, accept no substitutes etc. Lots of bullshit house rules and weird frankengames can be super fun, and are fun to conceptualize but generally speaking your group has to be really familiar with each other for it not to just cause more problems then it is trying to solve, and it's absolutely not friendly for newer players -- ymmv lol

Seeing @thydungeongal constantly wrestling with people interpreting her posts about D&D in ways that seem completely alien to me has convinced me that there are actually multiple completely distinct activities both being referred to as "playing D&D" Before we begin, I want to stress that I'm not saying one of these groups is Playing The Game Wrong or anything, but there seems to be a lot of confusion and conflict caused by people not being aware of the distinction. In fact, either one works just fine if everyone's on the same page. So far, I think I've identified at least two main groups. And nobody seems to realize the distinction between these groups even exists. The first group of people think of "Playing D&D" as, well, more or less like any other board game. Players read the whole rulebook all the way through, all the players follow the instructions, and the gameplay experience is determined by what the rules tell each player to do. This group thinks of the mechanics as, not exactly the *whole* game, but certainly the fundamental skeleton that everything else is built on top of. People in the second group think of "Playing D&D" as referring to, hanging out with their friends, collaboratively telling a story inspired by some of the elements in the rulebooks, maybe rolling some dice to see what happens when they can't decide. This group thinks of the mechanics of the game as, like... a spice to sprinkle on top of the story to mix things up. (if you belong to this second group, and think I'm explaining it poorly, please let me know, because I'm kind of piecing things together from other people saying things I don't understand and trying to reverse engineer how they seem to be approaching things.) I think this confusion is exacerbated by the fact that Wizards of the Coast markets D&D as if these are the same thing. They emphatically are not. the specific rules laid out of the D&D rulebooks actually direct players to tell a very specific kind of story. You can tell other stories if you ignore those rules (which still counts as "playing D&D" under the second definition, but doesn't under the first)And I think people in both groups are getting mad because they assume that everyone is also using their definition. For example, there's a common argument that I've seen play out many times that goes something like this:

A: "How do I mod D&D to do [insert theme here]?" B: "D&D is really not built for that, you should play [other TTRPG] that's designed for it instead" A: "But I don't want to learn a whole new game system!" B: "It will be easier to just learn a whole new system than mod D&D to do that." A: "whatever, I'll just mod D&D on my own" And I think where this argument comes from is the two groups described above completely talking past each other. No one understands what the other person is trying to say. From A's perspective, as a person in the second group, it sounds like A: "Anyone have some fun inspirations for telling stories about [insert theme here]?" B: "You can't sit around a table with your friends and tell a story about that theme! That's illegal." A: "But we want to tell a story about this theme!" B: "It's literally impossible to do that and you're a dumb idiot baby for even thinking about it." A: "whatever, jerk, I'll figure it out on my own."

--- Whereas, from B's perspective, the conversation sounds like A: "How do I change the rules of poker to be chess, and not be poker?" B: "uhhh, just play chess?" A: "But I already know how to player poker! I want to play poker, but also have it be chess!" B: "what the hell are you talking about? What does that even mean. They're completely different games." A: "I'm going to frankenstein these rules together into some kind of unplayably complex monster and you can't stop me!" ---

So both people end up coming away from the conversation thinking the other person is an idiot. And really, depending on how you concieve of what it means to "play D&D" what is being asked changes considerably. If you're only planning to look through the books for cool story inspiration, maybe borrow a cool little self contained sub-system here or there, then yeah, it's very possible to steal inspiration for your collaborative story from basically anywhere. Maybe some genres are kind of an awkward fit together, but you can make anything work with a little creativity.

If, however, you are thinking of the question in terms of frankensteining two entire board games together, then it becomes a massively difficult or even outright nonsensical idea. For example, for skill checks, the game Shadowrun has players roll a pool of several d6 at once, then count up how many rolled above a target value to see how well a character succeeded at a task. The whole game is full of specific rules about adding or removing dice from the pool, effects happening if you roll doubles, rerolling only some of the dice, and all sorts of other things that simply do not translate to rolling a single d20 for skill checks. On a basic level, the rules of the games work very differently. Trying to make them compatible would be much harder than just learning a new game from scratch. Now, neither of these approaches is exactly *wrong*, I guess, but personally, I find the rules of TTRPGs to be fascinating and worth taking the time to engage with all the weird little nuances and seeing what shakes out. Also, the first group, "TTRPG as fancy board game" is definitely the older and more widespread one. I kind of get the impression that the second group largely got into D&D through actual play podcasts, but I don't have any actual data to back that up. So, if you're in the second group, who thinks of D&D as basically a context for collaborative storytelling first and a game second, please let me know if I'm wildly misunderstanding how you approach D&D. Because I'm pretty sure it would save us a whole lot of stupid misunderstandings.

[dumbbitchfrommars]

i really wonder what the context was of my last post. cause if it was about the girl who had a crush on me thats unfortunate. but if its someone else im gagged. im such a baddie. idk. idk. i think recently ive been in such a defensive state. like im waiting for something bad to happen at the hands of another person, and im expecting the absolute worst from them. i want to see the best but i also dont want to get hurt. i dont know where this stemmed from. i guess my people pleasing has gotten out of hand, because it hasnt been succeeding. 

my job is kind lowering my vibration beyond repair. i weirdly enjoy it though? i dont know. i must be too in my masculine. and of course, completely disconnected from my spirit and higher self. i cant bring myself to talk to my sister cause i know we will only trigger eachother. 

so here i am. sitting in the silence. tired of it all. 

i cant even bring myself to physically write in my journal. and working out isnt as meditative as it used to be. though im so glad i can still get my ass up and do it. its not as fun and exciting. i kinda feel guilty for sexualising myself and loving my own body. literally, yesterday i was trying to force myself to be comfortable with my skin out, that i ruined my opportunity for a relaxing walk. the entire time i was self conscious and felt like the entire world was watching me. completely uncomfortable. 

my anxiety is in a rough period at the moment. i dont even smoke weed anymore. that used to be such a spiritual practice for me and now im afraid of it. im kinda afraid of everything. especially people. 

its weird, because i seem like i love people. i tell myself im good because i am so social at work, and i perform well and i connect with customers. but in reality, i cant hold onto any kind of relationship. if i do it has to be superficial or im uncomfortable. 

i think if i shifted my focus to the good things about the relationships i do have, and the things that make me happy and comfortable and at peace, these issues im creating wont seem so huge anymore. its always like that. i should talk to my psych about all of this. i need to see her... i cant believe its been so long. like, my fucking dogs died. they both fucking died. 

they contributed to my focus on isolation at the moment. i suddenly had the ground pulled from beneath me. they were my stability and my safety. now i feel so alone, at my core, that its all i can think about. its made me realise how short life is and how quickly things can change and slowly everyone is slipping away... when i pushed them out. i forced them to leave. theyre barely even leaving when we were nothing to begin with. 

i get the feeling ive said all of this a million times before. it never really changes. 

i feel like im a really driven and motivated person. i am smart and self controlled, and responsible, and im good at the things i try my best at. im gifted. but at the same time, i cant change the things about me that cause me the most stress and worry. i am stuck. i have been stuck, for so, so long. im tired of it. im so TIRED. 

this loneliness is comforting. its healing in a way, cause i can avoid all the drama and stress of attempting to tell anyone how i am feeling. but that in itself is so fucking pathetic and toxic and weak. its like, i failed at the most fundamental human thing. communicating. connecting with others. creating a community. 

maybe one day someone will piss e off enough that i blow up on everyone. why does the idea of that bring me so much relief? 

i cant even bother myself to consider spiritual practice right now. oh im stuck in the past and its holding me back from opportunities and the blessings from the universe? bitch, im trying to fight depression! who gives a fuck about opportunities right now?! i have nothing to fucking live for besides europe. thats so pathetic. i need to get my head right again because this is such a huge mess. im under so much pressure. i have no time. time, time, time, time. 

i need to be more social, i need to be more this and that. its a fucking exhausting thing to be in my mind right now. where did all the love go? it literally died with them. grief is consuming me. i cant pause life but its consuming me and im trying to pretend to be happy but im also trying to find the happiness again but its gone. they took it with them into the afterlife. or just into the fucking ground. 

it poured so heavily today and my heart hurt with the anxiety i felt that you were cold and alone out there. that you were getting wet and without cover. why does it keep on raining? youll be so cold. i remember you laid in the rain the night before you died because you could barely move or notice it was happening. my poor babies. i miss you so much. 

this is why ive been avoiding planning my birthday like a fucking plague, like a fucking disease. how can i even think about celebrating my life when yours have ended? to even celebrate without you? its too painful. i cant pretend like this anymore. but of course ill keep on acting like im fine. its the only way. i fucking hate this world. 

[team-council-two]

So how is Spy a special case?

*is excited*

(for context, in a previous post, i added the tags " i could write an entire book on how unfamiliar french people in medias seem to actual french people, spy is an odd case; ask me about him")

aiight, you know what you signed up for, get ready for one hell of a presentation, ft terminal verbosis frenchosis ! this will be in three parts, of course, because three is a good number and the mere concept of having 3 parts should give you all a headache (look ray i didnt add a n this time)

wait shit im not even sure mistral is a spy, hold on,

aw fck thats for real ones

anyways femme fatale trope, next question

HA gotcha, you didnt think id let yall go with just one sentence huh ? so. our fella is french. our fella is a spy. our fella is a huge piece of shit. extremely common, alright ? outright overused archetype. eeeexcept that the combo's execution here REALLY stands out. how so ?

well, let me ask you a quick question. do you think the fact that he is french, and the fact that he is an evil bastard, and the fact that he is a spy are linked ?

well ill answer that for you. nope. valve treated these three traits remarkably separately. the way he speaks french in game is relatively polite, and the insults he throws around are, i checked, exclusively in english. he is surprisingly free of the usual way medias make "being evil" and "being french" be a hand in hand thing, and similarly free of the one that seems to indicate that Because you are french Of Course you are a spy. in other words, rather than being a walking glamour stereotype of sorts or an obnoxious asshole the likes of which we have seen hundreds of, this is a godawful guy that also happens to be a french snob, and that also happens to be a spy.

compare with, say, our lady mistral above who has a shitton of taunts in french, who embraces that whole sexy lady deal, deliberately plays on it and so on. difference is miles.

and now if you followed you did catch i said french snob rather than just french, there is a reason behind this, so allow me to get on part 2, which i promise will be WAY more verbose-

so

im not sure why but american medias love to have peppy rich french fashionistas in their shit. theyre cute, hyper, sheltered as fuck, and the entire deal is weird bc these people seem like aliens to actual french people who tend to care about fashion in pretty normal amounts and definitely do not have that many grands to bust into it. *yes* we pride ourselves in having a pretty neat fashion industry, but in a similar way as the american and the german boast about their cars. we are NOT obsessed with it okay. anyways, sometimes writers have the decency of making these characters cunts, but not always. but what doesnt vary is the trope seems to play out like ah yes, your average french- which is fucking baffling. and is the part taking us aback.

see, we HAVE the evil breed of those characters too in our shit. comedic shit, to be precise. a rundown of our humor is it often is situational humor - stupid outlandish situations with equally stupid archetypal characters, their personality equally pushed into the absurd, all of that more often than not thinly veiling some pretty heavy social commentary. in other words, you often laugh at the evil cop/rich factory/big restaurant owner/politician/etc getting karma'd in mind boggingly bizzare and hilarious ways, while clearly showing them as evil for mistreating subordinates (and often getting shit for it sooner or later) and as simpering cowards towards literally anyone who has any kind of superior position to them whatsoever.

in other words, context matters. where in american shit they are often allies or friends or comedic relief of sorts through being french/annoying or just villains, in french shit they more often than not are *targets* of some kind of events and shown to be ridiculous through other means than their obsession for fashion or whatever.

am i saying that valve did this ?

...yeah. thats a very bold statement, but yes. i mean, cmon,

see, i am overall basing this on the fact that ingame spy is so fucking similar to many, many, many of Louis de Funès' roles, and even his face, it outright had me searching around the wiki for some kind, any kind of claim of inspiration from valve-

he reads exactly as one of them ! rich cunt obsessed with money, constantly mocking people, constantly complaining about everything ever, fakely polite, not opposed to doing vile acts to have his way, extremely menacing face, *the same fucking laugh*, and the fact that characters played by this guy have remarkably often have what we call a couillon de fils, a dumbfuck of a loser ass son, if you will.

the only differences really are from comic spy, who reads far less like this. he's still well executed mind you, but he (especially @miss pauling) reads as far kinder than this dude's characters usually are, and he is a bit more... stretched, both physically and in behaviour, than the actor's goblin build and attitude, as game spy seems to be unable to stand straight whereas the comic one seems to have no difficulty with this, and the similar range of expressiveness that also ports 1:1 is game exclusive as well. and finally, comic spy also was not given the occasion to cuss people out, so.

anyways my point mostly amounts to, if you manage to make french people think of an emblematic actor beloved by many, rather than just make us go through the usual whiplash of "how is that a normal french person to american people ???", you are probably doing something right.

in addition to this wall of text, i am begging you all to watch this, it should help understand what i meant by our breed of humor, and what i mean by "spy could have been played by this dude no problem"

now, onto part 3,

well once you said he is a pathetic wet cat man you summed it up really.

for all the class he has, for all the money he has, for all the. everything ? he still is pathetic. he still is simply seen as a mean as fuck loser either trying to drown his failures as a father with expensive tastes, or simply amoral and unsympathetic because of his concerns being about money rather than about humans. he still is headcanoned as stinking by most of the fandom. nobody respects the fucken spy. he comes across as haughty and it only makes people want to shit on him some more.

really, it is pretty much everything I explained in the two points above. the patheticness helps with making it so he is not a stereotype, and it helps making it clear he is supposed to be representative of rich pretentious cunts rather than of french people.

so, he is a huge bitch, and ironically, this makes him a blorbo to us, bc who doesnt love a good ole flawed character ?

his whole french deal is not shown as eccentric or what makes him a loser but just a coincidence, in a sense. and you'd be surprised by how much of a breath of fresh air this is to french people. shitty in a realistic way rather than a made up clown, and in a way we can recognize in our own medias. it also is neat from the, err, fandom pov ? because you get to develop his frenchness and assholeness and spyness separately, since they are elements implemented for the sake of themselves rather than as a stereotypical whole. you get to have *fun* with him.

SO i think i ran out of things to blabber about. hope it makes sense tho. but i guess it really is about. not *quite* representation because we do not see ourselves in spy, of course, but way more about our culture not being bastardized and being turned into a joke about eccentrics at best, or hatred about seductive women and effeminate/homosexual men at worst, + having a fresh execution on tropes that else usually would get our eyes rolling.

alpha, over and out

[paradoxspaces]

yes i am aware that lately this has just been back-and-forth protest/activism related posts and my chemical romance and that that is maybe a little jarring but, to be fair, it is a pretty good reflection of what my life is like these days