#and it would be horribly ableist and inaccurate

[winterprince601]

very funny to me that grrm went "here is my geopolitical fantasy epic loosely based on the war of the roses. i've elevated the fraught family dynamics, elaborated the dynastic tensions and imbued the entire thing with a magical dimension that pushes the action into the mythic. what are the names of the feuding houses that started it all? uhhhh (looking at smudged writing on hand that reads: york vs lancaster) stark and lannister. one of them is in the north. another features a vilified disabled man but ohoho it's not the one you'd expect!"

[actual-changeling]

Hey, have you seen pen`s recent post about her own experience with suicidality? Do you feel differently about your own post now? Where do we draw a line between advocacy for accurate and respectful depictions of mental health problems and policing other people’s writing and by extension their experiences? I agree with many of your points, but I also feel like there really is no one right way of writing about things like that and people don’t owe us their life stories, so maybe in this case “don’t like, don’t read” is the right way to approach it? Dunno, just my two cents.

Hi anon!

I have not and I will not look at it because it won't change anything. I'll put the rest under a cut, I am tired of the drama, too, and I will tag it "too tired to care" for those who wanna block anything related to it.

This might end up sounding a but rough or angry but it's not, definitely not at you, anon, I am just trying to be as direct as possible.

I have said before in my posts, several times, that I do not care about her personal experiences, the way she writes it is ableist, dangerous, and outright horrible in some ways. There is nothing that justifies that. Which, btw, I did put in one of my posts that writing inaccurate portrayals to cope is alright and I thought it would go without saying that this stops mattering once it starts being harmful.

I don't care if she wrote it to cope. I don't care about her. Her content is still harmful, it is still triggering, it is still dangerous (especially considering how many minors follow her).

If she has personal experiences with topics like this she should know better than to write content that endangers other people. The fact that she continues to do so time and time again and ignores any and all feedback she gets means it is no longer accidental ignorance, it is intentional bigotry.

If you write something to cope and it is hurtful/harmful, fetishizing, or offensive in some way then keep it private. Do not publish it. THAT is the point. Taking responsibility and making sure your writing is safe for people to read. Everything else belongs in therapy.

And if any of her followers are reading this I am politely asking you to stop quoting me out of context and twisting my words, it is not my fault that you are incapable of applying common sense and seeing nuance, this isn't preschool, I will not spell everything out for you.

Once again, on the off-chance you are reading this pen, please block me because you still have not done so and I would like to not see your content in any shape or form for my own mental and physical safety.

[lichenaday]

The Reprehensible Racism and Ableism of Ernst Haeckel

So I have been avoiding this topic for quite some time even though it has been pressing on me. I believe that lichenaday should be all about the joys of lichens! But recently I have seen a resurgence of fascination with the illustrations of Ernst Haeckle, and I think it is important that people be informed on the darker side of science history to be more aware of where it still exists in the present. So if you prefer to skip this topic because you don’t have the emotional energy for it, go right ahead. I don’t blame you.  CW/TW: Racism, ableism, eugenics, abuse of power, violence against infants, etc.

Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was a German naturalist, zoologist, anatomist, artist, and unfortunately, eugenicist. You may have seen some of Ernst Haeckel’s beautiful illustrations floating around the internet. Most of them are from his book Kunstformen der Natur (1904) (Art forms of Nature):

He is relevant to this blog for his contributions to the field of lichenology. 

I myself have relogged the above image to this page before. 

I have seen a lot of folks talking about buying these prints, getting tattoos based off them, and buying his books. But before you do that, you should know:  ERNST HAECKEL WAS A SOCIAL DARWINST, ABLEIST, RACIST, AND EUGENESIST! 

He believed in creating committees in charge of weeding out and killing off the undesirables of society in order to perfect humanity. Some of these ideals related to the right to euthenasia for individuals suffering with terminal illness, but these beliefs went well beyond that. An actual quote from his book Die Lebenswunder (1904) (The Wonders of Life): 

“What good does it do to humanity to maintain artificially and rear the thousands of cripples, deaf- mutes, idiots, etc., who are born every year with an hereditary burden of incurable disease? Is it not better and more rational to cut oil from the first this unavoidable misery which their poor lives will bring to themselves and their families?”

And if you want to argue, “OK, but he was a product of his time, this belief was not uncommon,” he says in his own words that this viewpoint “oppose[s] the current prejudices and traditional beliefs” of his time. He is trying to persuade the masses to think like this, and received push back in his own time for not just holding, but spreading and ADVOCATING FOR these beliefs.  

Along with his rampant ableism, he was also a practitioner of scientific racism (using shoddy scientific “evidence” to justify the superiority of certain races above others). He believed and CIRCULATED THE BELIEF that the inferior races would die out, and the “highly developed and perfect races” would thrive. Gross. Just one actual quote from a myriad of horribleness from his book Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte (1868, Vol. 2 1914) (The History of Creation):

“At the lowest stage of human mental development are the Australians, some tribes of the Polynesians, and the Bushmen, Hottentots, and some of the Negro tribes. Language, the chief characteristic of genuine men, has with them remained at the lowest stage of development, and hence also their formation of ideas has remained at a low stage . . . . All attempts to introduce civilization among these, and many of the other tribes of the lowest human species, have hitherto been of no avail; it is impossible to implant human culture where the requisite soil, namely, the perfecting of the brain, is wanting.”

Not only are these theories WILDLY scientifically inaccurate, but also morally and socially reprehensible. And they are as much a part of his cannon as his beloved illustrations. Ernst Haeckle wanted these ideals spread just as much (if not more) than his pretty little drawings. 

Why does it matter? Why can’t we just appreciate his pretty drawings and move on? Because, people STILL BEILEVE AND SITE THIS SHIT. The contribution of these and similar beliefs are still circulated among modern eugenicists and Nazis and social Darwinists. And I figure there are other people out there like me, who when they learn about all this, feel less inclined to praise his art. I refuse to let his pictures go by without informing folks who maybe don’t want to celebrate a man who spread such horrendous false science, and like, just straight up pure evil. 

Sorry, I know this is barely lichen adjacent. But I am a scientist attending graduate school in Germany, where I became aware of his infamy. And I hate bad science--especially bad science used to oppress others. It is an affront to the profession, and I believe it is our job as scientists to alert others to the existence of bad science and bad scientists, be they modern or historical. 

[rekindled-rqau]

!!Welcome!!

This blog is 100% only for my Rekindled!AU in which Maven x therapy is canon ❤️

But in all seriousness, I’m making this post before anything else as an FYI because I can already smell the comments I might get if this gets any attention at all.

•1st, this is not an x Reader blog and I will not be doing anything with a y/n type character! If that’s what you’re looking for, then you might want to look elsewhere— buut if you stick around anyway thank you and please don’t complain about it!

•2nd, I don’t have any end goal ships! I may joke about this being a self-indulgent Self-Insert x Maven fic, but I promise it is not. Yes, this fic will include OCs, and yes, one of them is a self-insert of sorts. The main purpose of OCs is because in the canon of the book, there is no character or ability that could really help Maven. I made my self-insert before I even thought of this AU, so I’m just using them since their ability works.

•3rd, feel free to send suggestions or requests! I only have a few things in mind at the moment and I’m open to ideas so long as it pertains to the main focus of this AU, Maven getting therapy and being reintegrated into the main cast or maybe just into living. The only things I absolutely will not do are NSFW, reviving characters, or killing off characters [So no, unfortunately no !!surprise!! Thomas is alive and no murdering anyone— as for NSFW, I primarily mean explicit description of that type of tango] I am open to adding other people’s OCs, though I’m not likely to unless it makes sense for them to be added.

•4th, and possibly most important, this is not an apologist blog! Maven, while an interesting character, is still bad as a person! Like, worst of the worst type of bad! This is not “Maven gets therapy because uwu owo he did nothing wrong and everything is Elara’s or Mare’s fault!!” this is Maven gets therapy and help BECAUSE he did do horrible things largely due to his severe mental trauma AND of his own volition. Hell, I don’t plan on most characters even musing the idea of forgiving him for his actions because nobody owes him forgiveness even if he does improve in this fic! So I should break it to y’all now, while I have no final love interest for anyone in mind yet, Mareven will not happen.

•5th, in the same vein as 4th, I will not be diagnosing any of the characters with mental illnesses. Although some of their experiences could be comparable, I am not a trained psychologist and it would not be right of me to risk inaccurately depicting mental illnesses. Additionally, any word of Maven “not being whole” is not to call someone with mental illness “incomplete”— He is literally incomplete due to his mother altering and removing things from his mind. If I catch any of y’all being ableist on my blog it’s on sight.

with all that in mind, the info on updates and asks + an AU summary!

Updates will be as frequent as possible, though that can range from a couple days to weeks depending on how much time I have to write, how clear of a writing idea I have, and how long a chapter is. I will find time to do filler posts whenever I can either with non-canon to the AU content or [after the dynamic is pretty settled] one-shots that take place in between cuts or one-shots of parts of chapters from other perspectives

Asks are very welcome!! However, I ask that you don't send your asks in replies as this is a secondary blog and I don't feel comfortable making my primary blog public. I love seeing your feedback, but if you want a response you're going to have to send it into the ask box!!

Cal saw through the facade. Maybe he could’ve just been seeing what he wanted to see, but his brother had to have been acting to some degree. He couldn’t deny himself even the faintest glimmer of hope to have his little brother Mavey back, especially not after receiving word from Davidson about a newblood ability that might just be able to undo a large part of Elara’s work, however it would not be as simple as a whisper making him whoever he could’ve been. The statement that you can’t finish a puzzle with missing pieces holds true; however, if someone had an ability that allows them to accurately understand the pieces of the puzzle to where they could repair, remake, and find the missing pieces, then it may just be possible. What Maven has done and who he is now can’t be undone, but with enough time and work, he can in-fact grow as a person once he is quite literally whole again. The plan, although temporarily cast aside due to broken alliances that were resolved after the battle with the Lakelanders, is for Maven to remain on tuck, guarded in the Colonel’s old bunker as he recovers. Nobody outside of the process is to be informed until it’s certain that he’s getting better. Afterwards, that’s where things get murky. Cal isn’t sure what he wants to do, what he could do— all he knows is that he wants his brother back, even if it means hiding him from every nation on the continent. Even if it means Mare can’t know that he’s still alive.

[swampyswan]

Mr Enter’s Review of ROTTMNT Is Actually The Worst

I used to be a fan of Enter’s when I was in middle school, but as I went into high school I lost interest and didn’t check up on him for years...then I heard he reviewed ROTTMNT (which I love). I watched his review and then promptly unsubbed.

Look, I think people are allowed to have and say whatever opinions they have, and I don’t think Enter HAS to like ROTTMNT; but virtually all of his criticisms were either very nit picky, very far fetched, or flat out untrue about the show.

It was made apparent that he’d only watched a few episodes and was HEAVILY biased against it because it’s so different. If he was trying to look at the show objectively, he failed HORRIBLY.

Some points he made:

1. “The weapons the new turtles have are too futuristic”. Apparently, the Rise! Turtles have weapons that are not traditional ninja weapons, which is just...inaccurate. Mikey’s Kusari-fundo, Raph’s Tonfa, Leo’s sword and Donnie’s bo staff are all traditional Japanese weaponry. They aren’t necessarily made for ninjas in particular (Leo’s sword is more associated with samurai), but they’re not any less accurate than previous incarnations that use Sai and nunchucks.

2. “April is only black to seem progressive”. This speaks for itself. April is apparently only there for political reasons because...she’s black and exists?? As a black woman, this point just confuses me. The show literally never comments on her being black (why would it? This show is for kids). Her being black is literally just a design element, not some kind of statement. It’s a reach for sure.

3. “April has no reason to hang out with the turtles.” Yes she does. You know what that reason is? Friendship. They like each other’s company. This is another bizarre point that I just don’t get.

4. Apparently to Enter, Rise! Splinter is a “bumbling dad persona”. I’ll give him this one in that Rise! Splinter is kinda this, but where this falls short is that Enter assumes that you can’t have a compelling character out of a cliche. Anybody who watches the show would recognize that there is more to Splinter than just being a “bumbling dad.” By this logic, I guess that would mean that EVERY splinter in EVERY incarnation is bad by default, since they’re all derivatives of the “wise Asian mentor” stereotype. Even stranger is that he makes fun of this Splinter for being “cliche” without acknowledging that virtually every iteration of TMNT is FULL of cliches. That’s not a bad thing; there is practically no piece of media that is free of cliches, and being cliche is fine as long as what you’ve made has a motivated plot related goal.

5. “The animation is bad”. As an artist myself, this one hurts a little. While I can get not liking the character designs, the actual animation is SPECTACULAR. He also doesn’t elaborate on what makes it bad, just complains that it’s “too fast.” It’s because...it’s an action show?? And a comedy?? It’s supposed to be fast?

It should also be known that he only watched like a couple episodes and got all these bad takes from that alone. He could have made it look better if he had titles it “ROTTMNT First Impressions”, because I can understand not liking the first couple episodes, but don’t try and claim stuff about the show that you’re not interested in.

I remember now why I lost interest in Enter; ALL of his criticisms are in absolutes. Everything is either perfect masterpieces (Like Hey Arnold) or completely irredeemable garbage (Like his TTG reviews). ROTTMNT is not perfect, and I’m open to hearing about its flaws, but I don’t find it to be anywhere near the same level as some of the other stuff he’s reviewed. It’s so obvious that he’s in love with the earlier iterations and it’s making him biased.

Edit: I’m not inviting people to harass Mr Enter, and please refrain from saying anything ableist about him. If you don’t like him for his thoughts, that’s one thing, but making fun of his condition is crossing a line.

[akari-hope]

If it is all stemming from that one person, it honestly strikes me as them....(I’m not sure quite how to phrase this)- I guess projecting their past negative fandom experiences onto, from what I could tell, all fandoms in general, therefore all fandoms are inhabited by toxic older white people who have nothing “real” or “adult” to do with their time. (I’m not trying to minimize her experiences at all- if that is reflective of what happened that is tragic & inexcusable, but it doesn’t mean

2/2 that all fandoms or people are like that, so painting everything with such broad strokes seems very counterproductive. (And frankly, I would go so far as to call it harmful at this point, considering that it seems like people are just being continuously harassed with really similar, inaccurate, ableist rhetoric. I’m sorry for everyone who’s had to deal with it, & whether it’s just them, or multiple people, I hope they stop soon.

couldn't agree more. 100% all of this. i know plenty of people who've had horrible fandom experiences, and i understand having an aversion to fandom bc of this, but it's zero excuse to harass others. i hope they find something better to do with their time.

[blackbirdpaw]

We all know that there isn't that much representation in Warriors. There are few lgbt+ cats, none have been explicitly written, the disability representation is selective and poor, and there is very little mental illness representation. So the characters who are neurodivergent/lgbt+/disabled need to be celebrated! But unfortunately, this isn't the case with this fandom. I'm specifically talking about mentally ill cats because there's a frightening theme in this fandom. That's right, folks. I'm calling bullshit.

There are three mentally ill cats I'm going to talk about. There are many characters who can be headcanoned with a mental illness but these three characters, in particular, are criticised or celebrated for their mentally ill symptoms. Let's talk about Alderheart. Alderheart hasn't been confirmed to have generalised anxiety or any kind of anxiety disorder but he clearly suffers from high levels of anxiety and him having G.A.D is generally accepted throughout the fandom. People love this guy! People love the fact that he's anxious. They can relate, and it "makes him cute." It's endearing! But two other characters have not been met with that same reception.

Palebird is the only character confirmed to have a mental illness. Kate Cary stated on her blog that Palebird suffered from postnatal depression which was furthered by her grief for Finchkit's death. This is clearly shown in canon. Though it wasn't in focus, Palebird seemed tired and sad all the time. Tallkit had to be careful not to exhaust her or upset her. It showed her healing over time with the help of Woollytail and her new kits and finally being happy. Now, I'd think this could be something relatable for readers. Depression is incredibly common, and while readers wouldn't have Postnatal Depression and most likely have Major Depression or Persistent Depressive Disorder, they are both depressive disorders and therefore share a lot of the same symptoms. I also thought readers would be happy that there's actually some canon mental illness representation - but I was very wrong. Readers disliked Palebird because she was emotionally distant to Tallkit, a symptom of her disorder, calling her a horrible parent and even abusive. She gets more hate than Sandgorse, which I find absolutely absurd. I completely and utterly disagree with all this hate.

The last character I want to mention is Bluestar. Bluestar is the most blatant mentally ill cat in this series. She undergoes a significant change in personality and behaviour. Vicky Holmes stated on Facebook that Bluestar had dementia, which I disagree with one hundred percent. Bluestar had some of the symptoms, yes, but those symptoms fit the diagnosis criteria of ptsd much better. I could give you a full analysis, I've done it before. Because I'm a nerd. But it really comes down to a few things. Bluestar's actual memory was fine. Dementia affects memory. Graypool showed a much better representation of dementia and she had pretty much one scene! She had wandered away from her Clan and was extremely confused and seemed lost in the past. Bluestar, on the other hand, was paranoid. That paranoia distorted her perception. That paranoia stemmed from a trauma she went through - Tigerclaw's treachery and attempted murder of herself. Dementia has links with trauma but nothing concrete has been discovered yet. But enough about that. Bluestar has ptsd and clearly displays ptsd symptoms. It's obvious she's suffering greatly. But does Bluestar get given with sympathy? No. Fucking Scourge gets more kindness then she does. The fandom hated this change in Bluestar. "I loved Bluestar until she went crazy," "Bluestar got so annoying omg." "Bluestar was selfish" "Bluestar was such a drama queen!" This change in character elicited no positive response but rather an outcry of hate.

Yeah, but what's the problem here? They're different characters and they act differently. Two of them hurt others and their actions are harmful, irrational, and, well, bad. The other doesn't. Bluestar and Palebird portray ugly symptoms! Alderheart doesn't, he's cute, he's a little softboi.

Here's the thing though: mental illness is ugly. It isn't pretty, it isn't cute, and it sure as hell isn't uwu softboi. It isn't "my poor smol bean." Praising one character for their mental illness while condemning others is hypocritical. You are not being an advocate for preaching about how Alderheart is a great character because of his anxiety whole simultaneously shitting on Bluestar and Palebird for exhibiting negative symptoms. In doing so you are actively harming mentally ill people by supporting only a romanticised narrative of mental illness. By only accepting the mental illnesses that you deem "socially acceptable," you are being horribly ableist. Hey, it's like in real life, when people preach about how they support people with depression and anxiety but turn around and call people with borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia abusive demons. Mental illness isn't fucking cute. It isn't a good thing. It should be portrayed as a negative thing because that's what it is, generalised anxiety included. Mental illnesses are ugly. They're hurting other people with paranoid accusations. They're being so disconnected from others that you're being neglectful to their needs. They're being irrational. They're frightening.

I'm not saying we should praise mentally ill behaviours. But we should have sympathy for characters like Bluestar and Palebird. We should say, "hey, this behaviour isn't right and it's hurting others! But I understand it's rooted in mental illness and while that doesn't excuse the behaviour, I recognise it's a symptom of a mental health issue and I hope this character recovers and gets help. I'm really happy the authors gave us mental illness representation because that's important!" I'm also not saying that we shouldn't have likable mentally ill characters. Positive representation is a good thing! There are plenty of mentally ill people who exhibit symptoms and are still good people. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't treat mental illness in characters like a desirable thing to have or an adorable personality trait. You cannot say "I like this character because they give us mental illness rep," and then say: "not this one because they're a meanie." Mental illnesses can be scary. We shouldn't pretend they're not. We can't demand something and then reject it because it doesn't fit our idealised version of that said thing. that we should be happy with what representation we get and acknowledge this!

There is a difference between a negative portrayal and an actively dangerous and stigmatizing portrayal. A negative portrayal of mental illness, in this case, would be a character who hurts others because of their mental illness but is still shown to be human, have likable traits, and is an accurate portrayal, like Palebird. A stigmatizing and inaccurate portrayal is what we should be condemning, like the awful attempt at portraying Dissociative Identity Disorder in the movie Split.

At the end of the day, I just think it's so hypocritical the way the fandom treats the mentally ill characters written into the books. All of them deserve acknowledgement and all of them should be received with sympathy, especially because all of them recover, which shows that while they were negative portrayals of mental illness and were hurtful to others, they were capable of getting better and righting their wrongs, which is such an important message and so accurate to those suffering from mental health issues. Bluestar's recovery was... inaccurate but at least it happened. Palebird's was pretty well executed! Romanticising mental illness isn't at all okay and you're not a mental health advocate by doing so. You're not helping the community, you're harming it. You don't have to like Bluestar and Palebird. But give those lovely ladies the props they deserve!

(I'd also like to mention that Alderheart being a romanticisation of G.A.D is not a fault of the authors as they didn't write him to have clinical anxiety! It was just a widespread headcanon that proved my point. Another point to note is that this isn't about younger fandom members who can't grasp the complexity of Bluestar's character and instead just sees her as a drama queen or annoying. This is about readers who can identify mental illness in characters and praise Alderheart while not treating Bluestar and Palebird equally.)

[nightcoremoon]

"Don't tell the stories of minorities if you're not a part of them" okay I guess

"Don't write soft effeminate trans men if you're a cis man" I mean you have a point there

"Don't write butch masculine trans women if you're a cis man" well yeah it could end badly if you do it wrong but

"Don't write academically inclined asian kids with a rough relationship with their parents" oh so now that race is a part of this if I disagree I'm a racist so yeah don't ever write characters parts of demographics you're not a part of even if you take precautions in order to not have an offensively godawful portrayal because it will always be harmful and problematic. got it. don't bother with diversity ever. in fact don't even write anything. give up on your dreams because it's bad to not write minorities so no matter what you do fuck you and eat a dick.

look I get the whole "don't be a bigoted fuck and stereotype demographics of people" thing. I've read way too much shitty f/f fic written by cishet men who have never spoken to a woman much less fucked one. but like. what the fuck. I've read some really good f/f fic written by cishet men. in fact I read one that had three f/f ships, two f/f/f ships replete with some serious discussion on polyamory, an f/f/m ship, and two m/f ships with all the same levels of quality, and the dude who wrote it is the most cishet human on the planet probably. he also wrote a lot of other fics with f/f ships that were also really good. I mean to be fair the fandom has like 600 female characters compared to like a dozen men but still. he shouldn't be dragged down into the filth and muck just because a lot of cishet white men are fucking idiots and bad writers.

the problem here seems to be that bad writing done by people in the same demographics isn't blatantly offensive, it's just bland garbage. if it's inaccurate or stereotypical portrayals of parts of demographics that are regularly victimized by antirerepredentation, then it's bland garbage and also racist or queerphobic or ableist or whatever. if men weren't allowed to write women because women are disenfranchised compared to men, there would never be any fucking women in media considering media is wrongfully dominated by men because sexism in every industry imaginable. granted women have always been at the forefront, pioneering literally every genre of every medium known, but like. middle easterners, africans, east asians, latin americans, and brown skinned people all over the world invented culture, but that doesn't negate the effects of colonialism (thanks for nothing you asshole british fucks). queer history has been erased countless times but we've been behind a lot of revolutions in history. neurodivergent people as well.

to avoid going on tangents, I totally understand the point being made in the first passages. it's usually a bad thing when cishet white men try to write characters who are not cishet white men. it's usually horribly racist, queerphobic, misogynist, ableist, culturally intolerant, and oh yeah TERRIBLE. but only some of it is done so on purpose. some of them aren't bad people, just bad writers, and literally don't understand other human's perspectives on life.

on the other hand it makes sense being tired of white people writting the same cookie cutter carbon copy stereotype everyone has seen a million times before. and there is the whole "you don't have to portray diversity as long as you fight to make way for authors belonging to underrepresented groups to forge their own creations" aspect, but like. I feel like it's up to people part of majorities to do more than that.

personally, I won't say that I'm a master at all foreign cultures or experiences. I know jack shit and fuck all about islam and hinduism. lesbian [as opposed to just bi/wlw] system of attraction eludes me. I'll never understand what it's like to grow up asian-american or black or latinx. I'm not even sure how a brain without depression and anxiety or autism ever thinks about things. but if I only ever wrote about depressed white bisexual christians, that would be pretty boring and... shit. you know, like most YA novels that are written nowadays. not to toot my own horn here but I wouldn't say that I'm a bad writer. I'm not the best and I wouldn't go so far as to say excellent or amazing but I'm pretty good. okay at least. a little put off by how simplistic and dry and boring as fuck at things that are way too fucking popular for what they are but whatever.

I'm also kind of okay at knowing what's bigoted and what's not. so I'd like to think that when I write about an irish-catholic punk bassist, a gay latina drummer with a degree in electrical engineering, a canadian guitarist, and a korean-american lesbian buddhist who discovered grunge through a google search on western concepts of nirvana, or a black trans man allied with a scottish bisexual, a chinese princess, and a token straight white dude to take down an imperial totalitarian state, or a pawtucket woman smuggling potential rape victims out of 18 century massachusetts, or a japanese time traveling assassin from 1940s america and the russian teenager he saved from sex traffickers joining forces with a bisexual muslim woman to fight french bioterrorists, or a small army of a dozen bulletproof brown skinned lesbians who set off to kill god's evil twin, I'd like to think I'm not being a racist asshole, being a dumb white girl, throwing a bunch of violent stereotypes at a dartboard for the sake of exploitation and fetishism, and just writing characters who I feel have interesting and probably not very often seen in media backgrounds in situations that are usually dominated by boring cishet white people.

but, you know... I'm not trustworthy because I have a character that follows a trope every now and then. guess I'll just throw away all of my notes on every single thing I'm working on and only write the characters that match me perfectly.

wow, this leftover mayonnaise stain sure does seem like it's fun to read.

holy shit literally the only oc I have that's left over is a dead elf... and she's fucking cis.

the end I guess

[sanriosratz]

Richard’s diabetes.

idk I was bored, anyway! @eldritch-hall-asylum look it's your horrible stinky guy!!!

(idk any dates, years or ages so if anything is inaccurate to the time, please tell me!!🙏🙏)

Richard Windroe (stinky!! horrid!! boo!! 👎👎🍅🍅)

* Richard would probably be diagnosed after (maybe?) falling into a diabetic coma due to hyperglycaemia.

* He probably tested via a blood glucose strip and correct with insulin if high/need be or eat some sugary snacks if low.

* I think he was be pretty bad at managing his diabetes; he'd go a while without checking his blood sugars and end up almost going into ketoacidosis or a diabetic coma. Elspeth has had to force-feed him sweet things and orange juice or correct his levels with insulting multiple times. He's pretty ableist, is he not, so wouldn't he have internalised ableism?

* His diabetes would probably be what caused his stroke (and, therefore, death)... thoughts on this because I'm unsure?...

[mana-burns]

You Can’t Go Home Again: An Analysis of Resident Evil VII

I'm comin' home, I've done my time Now I've got to know what is and isn't mine If you received my letter telling you I'd soon be free Then you'll know just what to do If you still want me

Introduction

Resident Evil VII is deceptive. Resident Evil, as a series, is deceptive. Numerous spinoffs and unnumbered entries turned the franchise into a tangled mess of intersecting characters, monsters, and conspiracies.

From the original trek through the Spencer mansion to the bombastic high-stakes setpiece-fest that is RE6, Resident Evil, after three console generations, had descended into itself, becoming bloated and seemingly incorrigible, impossible to nail down and define.

REVII was positioned as a return to form. Like the original Resident Evil, it is a straightforward story set in a spooky house, starring an inexperienced protagonist, Ethan, there with a simple but sympathetic and relatable mission: Rescue his girlfriend and get out. But REVII can’t help but dip into massive conspiracy as it navigates through what should be a relatively easy-to-digest story.

As Ethan searches for the missing Mia, who was away on a, get this, babysitting job, he encounters the deranged and inhuman Baker family, who have been granted a twisted immortality. There’s a pervasive black goo simply referred to as the Mold that seems to be infecting the family and their estate, spawning undead creatures and giving the Bakers supernatural powers. It’s not long before Ethan himself is infected, too.

The game then becomes a series of fetch-quests and races to various Macguffins as Ethan hurries to assemble a cure for himself, Mia, and their newfound ally, the Bakers’ daughter Zoe.

Resident Evil VII is a game running from its own past. As a linear narrative, it works fine, but it works better as a mood piece, a love letter to American horror films. It is meant to emulate a series of tropes and conventions. It's the product of two cultures—East and West— colliding head-on, and as a result it feels disjointed, dissonant, and yet wholly unique, fascinating, and, ultimately, compelling.

Resident Evil VII is an allegory for itself. It is a battle for the series’ soul.

Aesthetics

Let’s get one thing out of the way first: Resident Evil 7 is not concerned with realism. It’s about simulating a horror movie; recreating their grit, visuals, and mood. In this way, it is a simulation of a simulation, and it leans heavily on the history and conventions of the American horror film without ever fully understanding them. You see this in direct, 1-for-1 tributes, such as the chainsaw fight with Jack that evokes Evil Dead 2, or the Saw-like machinations of Lucas Baker’s deathtraps, or the body found in the basement corner in the Derelict House Footage tape, positioned just like the victim in Blair Witch Project. And practically the entire front-half of Resident Evil 7 is pulled straight from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

This is par for the course for the Resident Evil series. The first game was a pretty standard take on haunted mansion horror, with some limited ventures into ‘80s action films, casting STARS as the badass special forces team in way over their heads a la Predator or even Aliens.

Resident Evil has always been about taking American horror and action tropes and sort of sifting them through Japanese culture. It is a imitation of American conventions, and it works precisely because it is so imperfect. Its dissonance happens to work perfectly for the mood of the genre. There’s something unsettling about how the details are just off; Louisiana looks like a still frame from an episode of True Detective, but it’s still evocative of how Americans perceive the swampland. Little mistakes regarding the area’s history and culture—the strange references to football, the inaccurate Civil War uniform—make things uncomfortable and strange. It’s like taking an English sentence, running it through Google translate into Japanese, and then translating it back into English again. Some general meanings are there and you may even be able to gleam some sense out of it, but it has lost all context and syntax and turned into something that isn’t quite English and isn’t quite Japanese—something that occupies the space between, something that has become a totally unique method of communication, with its own new signifiers and meaning. That’s Resident Evil. And that may explain a bit of the franchise’s ongoing identity crisis, too.

On a more surface-level reading, the aesthetics of REVII are vastly different from those of its predecessors, an approach to horror that’s a bit brighter but no less terrifying than previous entries. Remember, VII tells us, sunlight casts deeper shadows than darkness. This approach to horror is largely possible due to the wonderful lighting and particle effects at Capcom’s disposal, and though their tech struggles with faces, the uncanny valley works in their favor for this particular title, elevating that otherworldly feeling of imperfect simulation.

The Baker mansion and its surrounding area are dirty, grimy, grotesque. It’s southern gothic. The word “squalor” comes to mind. They choose to live in filth. Is there something ableist and maybe even contempful towards poverty about this dehumanizing of the Bakers? Maybe, but any sort of prejudice that the designers might be preying on here comes from a degree of separation, in that their only knowledge of that context, as mentioned before, is through American horror films, through simulacra. It is seperated by multiple layers, and so I find it hard to condemn their visions of the impoverished American South as anything but pulpy horror. Whatever the case, the true antagonists of the story betray any idea of prejudice against the lower class.  

Perspective

Resident Evil 7’s protagonist is a camera. The series shifts to a first-person perspective for the first time, placing the player behind the eyes and within the mind of the game’s lead, Ethan. Despite this, the game has no qualms separating the avatar from the controller; there’s a sense that Ethan is his own character, with his own motivations not necessarily in line with the player’s.

I’ve heard the argument that what Ethan sees within the first half hour of the game would be enough to make anyone turn back. Why does he choose to go in alone? Why doesn’t he get help, or at least arm himself before he starts literally wading through corpses? No justifiable motivation could explain that.

Ethan is ostensibly motivated to look for his lost love, Mia. We’ll talk more about Mia later, but first I want to challenge the idea that this surface motivation is all that is propelling Ethan forward. Of course, you and I, and the developers, know that Ethan’s true motivation has nothing to do with Mia, and in fact nothing to do with Ethan himself, as he has no autonomy in the story. No, the motivating action propelling Resident Evil VII forward lies in the hands of the player. In a horror movie, the sort of films REVII is explicitly invoking, we can feel smarter than the protagonists. We know not to take a shower, we know not to look behind the curtain. In a horror game, we must specifically put ourselves in dangerous situations, and we do it because it’s fun. Without doing that, we can’t participate in the game. In REVII, since there is a degree of separation between player and avatar, our attention is specifically brought to Ethan’s flimsy-seeming motivation. In fact he moves forward because we push him forward, we keep him fighting. There’s a sadistic, manipulative relationship between Ethan and the player, but it’s also more complicated than that.

We sympathize with Ethan because of his love for Mia. Still, in some of Ethan’s barks and challenges to the Bakers, he expresses confusion, true ingenuity, sincerity, and a surprising and inspiring amount of courage and mettle. These motivations are enough for us to bind with Ethan, more so than in any other game in the series. Ethan is dumb, and we love him for that.

Mechanically speaking, first-person allows for some admittedly cheap but still fun jump scares, but it more importantly creates room for and necessitates an extreme amount of detail. Players can inspect drawers, cabinets, and cracks in the floorboards, unlike ever before. Monsters have a more threatening sense of scale, and so Resident Evil VII frequently plays with perspective and height, making its signature footsoldiers, the Molded, lumbering, giant masses of black knots, while also making its primary villain surprisingly pint-sized.

The first-person perspective also gives way to an effective new move, the block, crucial on the higher difficulties. The block gives Ethan a defensive verb and sort of grants the player a satisfying “cower” button. It doesn’t always make sense (how could an arm block a chainsaw?) but it paces out the game quite well against melee enemies, and it lends a visceral clutter to an already elegantly messy game screen.

Speaking of visceral—the new perspective’s greatest strength is probably the way it facilitates body horror. In RE7, you’ll have limbs chopped off, knives driven into your ribcage, and horrible masses of crawling grubs shoved down your throat. It’s a very personal, intimate horror, one that wants to gross you out while it makes your controller shudder and vibrate in resistance. It brings the player deeper into the shell of Ethan, and it creates a atmosphere of trapped, hopeless dread.

In a way, Resident Evil has been grasping at this perspective since its inception; think of the first encounter with a zombie in the first title, how the game shifts to Jill or Chris’s eyes, how the undead slowly turns to face you, its rotted mouth stuffed with human brain. This moment of body horror was essentially our introduction to Resident Evil’s mood. The perspective in Resident Evil VII, and our mouth being stuffed full of rotten flesh as we watch on, helplessly, brings the whole thing to a complete circle.

Kinetics

The movement in Resident Evil VII is deliberately slow, almost plodding. There’s a sense of weight to Ethan and his actions, necessitating such things as the aforementioned block button as well as a dedicated turn, a verb that is becoming more and more common in triple-A games, it seems. There is a sprint button, but there’s no real way to get Ethan to break out into an actual full-on run, ironic considering the urgency of the situation he’s in.

You could hand-wave away his plodding speed by saying it has something to do with his recent infection, but the Resident Evil series has always inhibited its protagonists in order to simulate the physical ramifications that fear has on the body. Despite arming the player to their proviberial teeth, early RE games aren’t about player empowerment; they still want to be a struggle to survive. So the series balances its arsenal of weapons by inhibiting the avatar’s movement. This is of course subverted in Resident Evil 4, further dismantled in 5, and completely out the window by the time 6 rolls around, but 7 is, again, intended as a return to form, and so we see a slower pace to all of Ethan’s movement. It makes up for the increased precision in aiming that the first person perspective allows.

REVII’s movement and control schemes are nowhere near as innovative and revolutionary as RE4’s over-the-shoulder controls or even RE1’s tank controls. But they still work remarkably well, and this is largely due to how the environments are designed to accommodate them. RE7 is filled with little nooks and crannies that demand careful consideration. Most of the time, they’re empty, but they are so discomforting they feel like intrusive negative space. A quick-turn button means that you always have a way to quickly glance over your shoulder. It creates a paralyzing set of blindspots to the player’s immediate left and immediate right.

Some of the guns in RE7 feel flimsy to fire, unsatisfying and cardboard-thin. The pistol has little weight or feedback, and despite the fact that the submachine gun is one of the most effective weapon in the game, it never really feels great to pull the trigger. It’s all just a bit too high-tech and light, and it clashes with the game’s mood. The shotgun, on the other hand, is incredibly satisfying, with a wonderful kick and a beautiful cascade of gore and blood to compliment each round. Meanwhile, swipes with the knife feel weak and desperate, appropriate as the knife will be little more than a box-breaker or last-ditch effort for the player.  

I want to note how well the sound design compliments the movement in Resi 7. Each creek of the floorboard that comes with each step enhances the mood. Everything works harmoniously towards a feeling and an atmosphere, even if it isn’t, by the strictest definition, realistic. Remember, Resident Evil VII doesn’t strive for realism. It strives for a different sort of immersion, one that engulfs the player in familiar iconography rather than relatable and recognizable situations.

The puzzles in Resident Evil VII include the lock-key affairs that are synonymous with the series, though some of them work in interesting or subversive ways. Take the shadow puppet puzzles, that ask the player to rotate a certain key until it casts a shadow that fits into a mold or image. It’s clever to ask the player to think about the game’s lighting; it weaves together the environment and the objective. It draws attention to light and shadow, it takes time and manipulation. What it doesn’t quite take is the lateral thinking necessary for most of what you’d call puzzles. No, the puzzles in REVII are slave to the game’s pace, not its challenge. They give you tasks to do, things to fetch, and moments of quiet discomfort to break up the sometimes bombastic noise of gameplay.

Doors

Doors play a significant role in the Resident Evil series. In the first title, they masked loading screens and acted as gateways for player progression—a lot of that game’s pacing is defined by finding and using keys. In REmake, some doors will shake and slam as you walk past them, implying that enemies are waiting for you on the other side.

But doors are also important tools for survival; each door in Resident Evil is a barrier to keep enemies at bay, because each room is treated as its own discrete environment. Zombies (mostly) can’t get through doors. If you can’t deal with an enemy or enemies, you flee towards the door and use it to place a divide between you and them. Doors are powerful mechanically and thematically in Resident Evil and REmake.

In RE7, they work in a different way. You press a button to initially crack them open, but the game makes you physically push them open as a separate action. In this way you must commit actual movement to the action of entering a room to open a door. You need to make a serious mental and physical investment in order to progress.

This is nothing short of brilliant. You can’t back away from a room after opening the door and survey it for safety before plunging in. You have to go in headfirst, and this gives the game control over moment-to-moment player progression. The doors in Resident Evil VII area synecdoche for the game’s entire design; a mindfulness in mood, movement and control that services a feeling rather than a sense of realism or accuracy.

Videotapes

Resident Evil 7’s obsession with horror films extends beyond the game’s aesthetics and into its mechanics. It is fascinated with the concept of video tapes, beyond simply using these tapes as a way to evoke the mood of found footage horror. Rather, it finds a mechanical purpose for the tapes, turning them into puzzle pieces that help Ethan escape.

When we are first introduced to the videotape mechanic, it’s in the initial shack area, part of the demo that was released before the full game. The tape belongs to an unlucky film crew, working for some imaginary (but wholly believable) reality show about plumbing the depths of abandoned houses. In what is RE7’s most obvious expression of its main purpose—placing the player in a horror movie—the player takes control of the cameraman, and indeed the camera itself, and by proxy—through the method by which Ethan diegetically experiences this scene—the tape. We are the footage, and though it supposedly happened in the past, we are now controlling it in real time.

Disturbingly, the crew goes through almost exactly the same paces that Ethan went through just moments ago, and since we see how it ended up for them, it suggests that he is probably in a great deal of danger.

But the tape shows that there is a secret passage in the fireplace, one that the player could have totally missed without its aid. This establishes a pattern; the player will encounter three more tapes during their journey, and each one will convey a little more information and context to not only the player, but to their avatar, Ethan, as well. Not all of the tapes are mandatory for progression, but they are a wonderful way to present missing pieces of the puzzle to the player, through methods that are thematically appropriate and never wrestle control away from the protagonist. The tapes are essentially keys, but they are infinitely more interesting than a simple progression lock.

The most effective and interesting tape is perhaps the most well-hidden one. “Happy Birthday” is buried in a cupboard in the attic, and it is disturbing footage kept safe and secret by the Bakers’ son, Lucas.

The footage is of an elaborate deathtrap set up by Lucas, who’s positioned as a sort of genius psychopath as an in-universe explanation for some of the game’s puzzles. Lucas has captured one of the poor erstwhile documentarians, and the player takes on this victim’s perspective. Interestingly, all semblance of artifice—a camera recording the footage—drips away in favor of this perspective. Through the magic of movies, we become this character, one-step removed from our hero Ethan, yet still somehow viewing it through his eyes. If the intro tape had us jump back in time to where Ethan has been, this tape foreshadows where he will go.

Since we already know that the victim of the trap doesn’t survive, it’s not a failure to participate in Lucas’s machinations. Instead, it’s presented as the scripted, linear path that we must follow. The lethal puzzle culminates with a task that requires the victim to uncork a barrel of oil, leading to the explosion that ultimately kills the victim in the tape. But the action that springs this trap just yields a password. If one were to go into the trap with some prior knowledge of that password, one would be fine. And that’s exactly the position the tape leaves Ethan in. Since he, by way of the player and the tape, already knows the password, he’s able to escape Lucas’s trap unharmed.

This means the tape isn’t necessary for success. If the player somehow fails to find the tape, they just have to play the death trap twice. Once they continue the game and run through the puzzle a second time, they’ll realize they can just skip over the deathtrap, since they already know the password. It’s a puzzle that is proofed against stumping a stumbling player.

It also extends the horror movie motif pulsing at the heart of Resident Evil VII. It’s an attempt at creating something that the series has sometimes dabbled with, but never fully explored–the idea of elaborate, claustrophobic death traps. You’ll see spiked walls and bottomless pits in other Resi games, but never something quite so sinister and unique, not to mention devoid of enemies or threats beyond the traps themselves. It is a quiet, challenging horror, one that pits the player against themselves, and I think it’s more than strong enough to stand on its own as a full game.

The video tapes in Resident Evil VII stand hand-in-hand with the tape recorder save points and evoke a certain era of technology, a halted progress that crystallizes the Baker mansion at a moment in time, and suggests that they’ve paused their evolution. It also subtly reminds players of a time and a place, the same crucible of factors that led to the creation of the horror films that inspired Resident Evil VII. It’s a horror born out of grime and dust rather than shadows and moonlight.

Jack

Jack is the first member of the family you encounter; you catch a glimpse of his form plodding through the woods, and he eventually kidnaps you and brings you to the centerpiece of REVII’s introduction, the family dinner, where he makes himself known as an intimidating and controlling presence.

After Jack’s pulled away by the arrival of a deputy, you escape from your binds and start to move through the mansion, but of course he quickly catches on to your plan. What follows is the most compelling, proof-of-concept sequence in all of RE7; a game of cat-and-mouse through a tightly wound series of narrow corridors, with the slow-moving but ultra-powerful Jack following you close behind.

The wing of the house that Jack chases you through is a well-thought out arena, with a few hidden escape hatches and multiple ways to double-back. It makes movement and navigation feel clever and fun, while still keeping a sense of looming dread. You’ll double-back multiple times, and you’ll always have the plan b of escaping back into the safe room on the opposite end of the hallway, as far from your objective as possible.

This scene is marked, most notably, by a few scripted scenarios designed to catch the player off-guard; one, Jack can burst through a wall and surprise the player, but only if both characters are positioned just right—some players will never even see this sequence.

It takes courage to develop entire sequences that some players will never see. It’s difficult and resource-intensive to design and place such moments in a game. But it pays off in REVII; these moments are some of the most memorable in the entire game, and you can tell a lot of care and time went into making Jack’s sequence pitch-perfect. It’s truly the highlight of the game and a Capcom more willing to take a huge gamble might have used it as the entire framework for the game. As it is, it’s the stand-out chapter in the game.

After a bit of exploration and a few confrontations, you’ll encounter the now most certainly undead Jack Baker, during an otherwise slow-paced hunt for a few statues. He catches you off-guard and the game challenges you to once again play cat-and-mouse. As a result, the entire Jack encounter sort of plays like a three-act structure in its own right; you encounter him once, run away, quiet exploration, encounter him again, more puzzles and exploration, and a final, bombastic, Evil-Dead-as-hell encounter in an enclosed space.

The fight challenges how well players have learned to navigate tight corners and small spaces while evading a slow-moving Jack. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to present them with a cat-and-mouse challenge, one that added new wrinkles in order to act as a sort of final exam for the Jack chapter. But it’s hard to argue that this fight isn’t a trippy power fantasy for the player, and the way it flips the player’s relationship with Jack works.

Ethan has now escaped the mansion, but finds himself in the Baker grounds writ-large. The game doesn’t open up or become less linear, but it does explore some novel new locations. Unfortunately, that variance comes at the cost of some consistency. Before moving on to the next location, the player encounters a trailer belonging to Zoe, who ostensibly sets herself up as a mysterious ally. We first encountered Zoe through a phone call in the Baker house, where she warned us we were in grave danger. Zoe is not that interesting as a character, and mainly serves to complicate the game’s narrative, which starts out simply and becomes more and more complicated, to its weakness. Zoe is an element of that. She’s not well fleshed-out in the main game, and she’ll later be part of an arbitrary and superfluous player choice that feels tacked on. Here, however, she’ll play the role of mysterious sherpa for a while.

After a short break to resupply and catch their bearings, the player will soon enter the second house, the old house, and the domain of Mrs. Marguerite Baker.

Marguerite

Pacing-wise, Marguerite’s domain is when RE7 really starts to slip in its footing. It’s not exactly bad gameplay, but it does sag a bit, and a few fetch-quests lead to the previously mentioned flamethrower and a pretty frightening if rhetorically uninteresting tape starring Mia.

Marguerite’s gimmick is insects, cockroach-like bugs that swarm Ethan, fly around the damp wooden shack, and build nests that the player must flush out using the burner. The bugs create some variance in the enemies that RE7 will throw at the player, but they aren’t terribly fun to fight. What’s more, the old house doesn’t feel quite as well-thought-out as the larger Baker Mansion, and though it also follows a somewhat circular layout, its hallways and doors are less distinct, and its rooms are less geometrically interesting.

Jack is horrifying because he feels threatening and powerful. Marguerite is horrifying because she’s unpleasant to see or hear. It’s a skin-deep horror that relies on physical reactions rather than mental ones. Marguerite is repulsive, not necessarily terrifying.

Perhaps most disappointingly, we don’t learn very much about Marguerite at all, before or after her infection. Jack gets a moment of redemption later in the game, and Lucas and Zoe are fleshed out in conversation and flavor text around the Baker estate. Marguerite, on the other hand, only gets bits and pieces of story—she’s really more about an image than a fleshed-out idea. The DLC supposedly characterizes her out a little better, and gives hints to what she was like pre-infection. There are glimpses here and there that suggest she had an affinity for religious iconography; she has a habit of creating small shrines to Eve’s “gift.” This was a potentially rich vein that Capcom could have explored in more detail to make Marguerite feel like more than just a wife and mother.

The highlight of Marguerite’s section, by far, is her boss encounter. Set in a small two-story greenhouse, the boss fight begins when she startles you by popping through a window and grabbing your legs. At this point, she has mutated into a Junji Ito-style horror, with long arms mimicking spider limbs.

Her boss arena is a work of art. While Jack’s pit is somewhat simplistic, Marguerite’s stage has a layout simple enough to grok but complicated enough to provide ambush points and blind spots. There are doors that are blocked from one side, but give the player a route to double-back. There are ceilings and walls and windows for Marguerite to crawl on and climb through. There’s ammo hidden in cabinets, but there’s a risk-reward of wasting burner ammo to open these cabinets—though the burner is the most effective weapon against the matriarch. And, echoing the gameplay in her larger domain, the boss fight is dampened by moments of quiet stalking, though here the line is blurred between cat and mouse; you’re fighting back, and if you can control the tempo of the fight you’re frequently on the offense.

There is some sexual imagery to Marguerite’s final transformation, as her weak point is a hive-womb, and she crawls around on all fours while stalking you. It’s RE taking a page out of Silent Hill’s book, and it might feel a little cheap and grotesque if it wasn’t executed with the grimy style of a western grindhouse horror flick. No, REVII has little reservations about what it is by this point; it fully accepts that it is campy gross-out horror, but never to the level of shtick. It still takes its scares seriously, and this level of sincerity lends it a lot of heart. It makes no apologies for being disgusting, and in that way it’s lovable, just like the shlock it’s based on.

After a grueling fight, Marguerite calcifies and crumbles to dust, leaving behind a lantern for Ethan, who is free to move on to the next chapter of the game.

Eveline (Part 1)

But before Ethan moves on, he makes a detour to the attic and the kid’s bedroom.. Demonic children are nothing new, horror-wise, but REVII sows the seeds of its main antagonist achingly slowly, placing her quite literally right under the player’s nose while still breadcrumbing morbid story details to keep the hook. It’s not a deep story, or even all that unpredictable, but it is compelling enough to push Ethan forward.

You’ll notice I’m not paying much mind to the grand details of the plot, and that’s precisely because the story is secondary to a mood. This is why so many of its characters are so tropey. They don’t need to be real people, they need to serve a purpose.

If this is all sounding a bit harsh, let me assure you; I fully believe anything other than REVII’s broad strokes narrative would probably feel a little too fiddly and intrusive to serve what the game is trying to be. There’s just enough dressings of a compelling story to keep players interested in what’s going on, and that’s exactly the way it should be.

The Baker’s son, Lucas, plans to make you work hard to reach his lair, and as a result there’s a quick and gruesome return to the main mansion to fetch a key out of a corpse and battle some extra molded. This largely feels like filler and fluff, but it goes a long way to building Lucas up as a bit different from his parents. He’s more sinister, more cunning, more self-aware and human. You’ll also encounter Grandma a few more times, placed within the critical path, always watching and always silent.

RE has always been noteworthy for its clockwork puzzles, and the series has frequently lampshaded these puzzles in cute if unbelievable and ultimately unnecessary ways. The police station in RE2, for example, was supposedly a decommissioned art museum, as if that makes any sense.

In REVII, though, it’s the machinations of a character, the inventive, sociopathic Lucas, who, as it turns out, is a major antagonistic force behind the game’s entire plot. His reveal as the true antagonist of the game is brought on with little fanfare. It’s mostly revealed in DLC and notes. But it’s similar to Wesker’s heel-turn in RE1. It doesn’t purporte him to be the main villain of the game, but it sets him up as a possible series-wide antagonist.

Your mileage may vary out of this twist. Some might like having a face to the horror, and the stories of Lucas as a child, spying on his sister and setting traps for neighborhood bullies, are chilling in a lasting way. But the game doesn’t do a great job of selling Lucas as a planner, and the whole thing feels a bit contrived in the face of REVII’s greater narrative.

Lucas

In the Videotape section, I discussed the happy birthday tape and how it uses the conventions and structure of a video game to set up REVII’s most interesting puzzle. I briefly glossed over how the tape and Lucas as a character invokes the found footage aesthetic so important to Resident Evil VII’s style, but in the Happy Birthday puzzle—and through the rest of Lucas’s death traps—we see another piece of horror movie inspiration come to life; the complicated, convoluted deathtraps of films like Saw and Cube.

  This sort of claustrophobic psycho-horror came about out of budget constraints. The first Saw was hugely influential because it allowed for an inexpensive yet wholly effective reworking of the slasher flick. It was successful commercially, and it was appealing to producers because it had the built-in simplicity of a few simple sets and some inexpensive practical effects. It was a streamlined reworking of the genre for the 21st century.

If Jack stands in for the ‘70s-era slash-fests like Texas Chainsaw, and Marguerite is a melding of ‘80s and ‘90s body horror from the West and the East, then it’s temporally appropriate that Lucas is the representative for 21st century gore flicks. In a way, REVII is a tour of the genre’s modern history, an exploration of its tropes as they evolved. It’s a love letter to three eras of horror.

Mechanically, Lucas challenges the player to stop, move slowly and deliberately, and fully assess the environment. There are tripwire bombs and spike traps littering the hallways of his home, and though you will still fight standard molded, they’re sort of a trivial threat by this point. No, Lucas demands that you think about the game’s environment as hostile and unforgiving. This is something of a change when compared to the circular, narrow hallways in the Baker Mansion and the Old house, where the game’s architecture and hidden pathways were one of your only weapons against your pursers. Here, Lucas isn’t following you, but he’s attempting to anticipate your movement. You’re not being chased, you’re being funneled.

Lucas leads you into the Baker barn, which he’s set up like a gladiatorial arena. If you needed any further evidence that the game is now fully banking on Saw homages, the hanging pig-corpses should be proof enough. This environment is incredibly quiet at first, but its architecture betrays its true nature; the intersecting, stacked hallways are layed out too perfectly for it to not be some sort of combat arena. In most games, this discord can be laughable; in Resi VII, it builds tension and suspense, and therefore works a little better than it might in, say, a pure action game or a shooter.

Depending on your difficulty, you’ll face some number of a new type of enemy, the fat Molded. These are bulky, powerful enemies who spew bile, one of the few projectile attacks in the game. Overall, they’re more intimidating than actually threatening. By this point, you’re armed to the teeth, and the barn’s layout gives you plenty of ways to obscure line of sight and take cover. But this boss encounter most vitally introduces the fat molded into the ranks of foes you’ll encounter. Resident Evil has a history of introducing powerful minions with such fanfare; they bring around a new, tough enemy type, build them up as an intimidating, powerful force, and then later seed them into the ranks once the player is more capable. It’s a way of ramping up combat challenges and creating an interesting endgame.

Next up is the happy birthday puzzle. Once you beat Lucas’s escape room, he gets angry and tosses a bomb into the room, which you can use to blast the wall and escape. By the time you make it to his control room, Lucas has already fled. There’s a short trek to the boathouse, and a fully-loaded safe room is a pretty good indicator that a big fight is about to go down. There’s a sense of finality to the proceedings, considering that you’ve now worked your way through the main Baker family. Still, there’s something like a quarter of the game left, and it’s when most people say REVII really goes off the rails. The pace and mood of the game is about to undergo a major shift. But first, it’s the final battle with Jack.

Jack’s Return

Ethan’s final encounter in the Baker residence brings his time with the family full-circle. Jack has come back from the dead yet again, and he’s mutated beyond any recognition. This is the beginning of REVII’s slide fully into the conventions of the series, away from the new-age slasher flick pastiche and into the gamey, japanese bio-horror that defines the series.

The fight with Jack is a fairly standard boss battle that asks you to shoot the glowy parts when they start getting glowy. There’s a smart sense of player-enemy placement and blocking and a clever use of levels that keep the fight from feeling dull.

The barn burns over the course of the fight, and eventually it’s all but completely destroyed. Once the fight wraps up, Jack will grab you as a final deathrattle, and you’ll be forced to inject him with one of the two cures you’ve cooked up. This means you only have enough serum to cure one other person, and the game is going to make you choose—do you fulfill your promise to Zoe, or do you stay loyal to your original mission, and rescue Mia? It’s a dull, binary, choice that simply determines the ending of the game, as well as what amounts to an optional boss fight. It’s set up to either reward or punish the player, rather than challenging their conceptions of the game’s world and Ethan’s place in it. Put simply, there’s a right answer and a wrong answer, which makes it fundamentally uninteresting.

Whoever the player chooses, the pair will then make their escape down the river.

Mia and the Tanker

The boat crashes, and REVII plays its final third-act twist; a shift in perspective, moving the action behind the eyes of Mia, who is all-too-familiar with the washed-up tanker. The twist is that Mia is much more than she seemed and was hiding a few secrets from Ethan. She’s a mercenary, hired to escort a bioweapon on a commercial tanker in a covert operation. That weapon is Eveline, the main antagonist and the driving force behind the sentient Molded force that both corrupted the Bakers and created the monsters the player has battled this entire game.

This twist is nothing short of baffling. It is unexpected, but it is not a subversion of any player expectations; it’s a twist that devalues the previous rising action rather than usurping it, and it inflates the scale of the game’s conflict beyond ‘creepy house’ and into ‘international high-stakes bioterrorism.’ It’s disingenuous and exhausting, as Ethan is now relegated to a bit player in a bigger conspiracy.

All that being said—it’s Resident Evil sinking back into its traditional mold. Wesker’s heel-turn and the Umbrella conspiracy elevated the first game’s spooky mansion into a secret megascience lab. That twist set the pace for the series as a whole; a convoluted narrative rooted in a distinctly Japanese anxiety over superweapons.

Here’s the thing; I don’t think the twist is all bad, actually. I think there’s something charming about how RE feels it is so vital to create a wide, entangling conspiracy to tell such a tight and quick narrative. It’s an impulse that the series truly cannot escape, for whatever reason. It is never content to tell a story about horror on a small-scale. It needs to dip into some kind of worldwide threat in order to tie all its narrative strings together. Would REVII be stronger without the tanker chapters and the larger ramifications of its effect on the narrative? Probably. Would it really be Resident Evil without such a grand mega-conspiracy at its heart? I’m not so sure.

It’s a complicated issue, because it begs the question; how much can you mess with a series’ DNA before you have an entirely new product? Is a mood enough to connect a series, or does there need to be an underlying thread that connects all the titles to its past? Is there simply too much baggage attached to such a massive beast of a franchise for it to ever escape its own legacy?

Ostensibly, the theme of Resident Evil VII is family. It’s the driving force that causes Eveline to throw off her controllers and drive the game’s plot forward. It’s the bond that causes Ethan to go after Mia, and it's the question that Zoe struggles with as she turns against her mutated clan.

Conversely, then, it is appropriate that Resident Evil VII struggles against its predecessors and the legacy they have created. Like Zoe, it is fighting for its own identity while still maintaining a certain loyalty to its origins.

Eveline (Part 2)

The last location in the game is the salt mines, which act as a sort of final combat dungeon, overrun with Molded. Unlike the tanker, however, the salt mines afford the player a ton of firepower and ammunition. It’s all about player empowerment now, as the scales have been tipped in Ethan’s favor. Fighting the molded is now trivial.

The mine is also set up as a sort of ground zero for the Molded. There are secret labs and documents filled with research on the molded dotting offshoots and chambers.

There’s a thrilling race up a spiraling column and a few more fights with the fat Molded between Ethan and Eveline. She’s in the guest house, and this final confrontation acts as more of a cathartic emotional highpoint than a final gameplay challenge. The mines were the real final test, and though there are some small challenges to the encounter with Eveline, it’s more in position to wrap up REVII’s mood and story.

The player is now up against Eveline’s psychic powers, and it’s about as hokey as it sounds. However, the audiovisual presentation is strong enough to suck the player in, and it still feels emotionally resonant and threatening, even when dipping into the absurd.

After the player figures out how to guard against Eve’s blasts, they reach her decaying body. Like Lisa trevor in REmake, Eve is positioned as a victim of larger, sinister forces, a capitalist war machine that took a little girl and turned her into a weapon. This sympathy for the devil ultimately induces genuine pity for Eveline, and it, again, shifts the focus of the story onto a more worldwide conspiracy and less on its play actors.

Eve’s final form is massive and grotesque, but most poignantly, it is part of the house itself. The Baker estate has been Ethan’s sometimes-ally, sometimes-enemy, and it’s only appropriate that it takes a leading role for the final moments of REVII. The final set piece is one of a massive scale, and it brings attention to the sky above, where dawn is beginning to break through what has been a seemingly endless night. Evenline mutilates Ethan one more time as choppers begin to fly in overhead, and finally, a deus ex machina in the form of a massive handcannon lands next to Ethan’s head. He fires a few rounds and Eve crumbles to dust with a final deathknell.

Ethan is rescued by a man introducing himself as Redfield and working for the series’ signature villians, the Umbrella corporation, and REVII, despite itself, insists on teasing its place in the series’ overarching, complicated mythology. A brief epilogue showcases some more lovely, True detective-esque air shots of Louisiana over narration from an exhausted Ethan, before fading to credits.

Resident Evil 7 is a revisioning of the series that coined the term survival horror. It’s an invocation of a mood and aesthetic, brought into interactivity. It is a product of its technology and time, as such a detailed and intimate horror wasn’t possible even in the last console generation.

At the same time, it’s also a troubling return to form. Resident Evil can’t seem to escape the baggage of its prequels or the conventions of massive conspiracy that provides the framework for its otherwise small-scale horror. It is an antithesis to itself, as it attempts to invoke personal intimate horror through large-scale conflicts between massive capitalistic and militaristic conglomerates. A Resident Evil game will inevitably go off the rails at some point, but its mood and method determines if the player will be along for the ride. RE4 went from moody creepout to action-packed campfest, and it never missed a step. REVII stumbles a bit more, but it promises a strong return to what made RE great, especially after a few strange forays into action in RE5 and 6.

Yet REVII didn’t enjoy the commercial success of those two titles, though it did see a fair bit more critical acclaim. It’s a bold move to shift a tentpole franchise as dramatically as capcom did between RE6 and REVII, but the game is clearly a love letter to its inspirations. REVII is a celebration of Western conventions seen through a Japanese lens, It is a product of dissonance, and that’s what makes it so compelling.

Despite its flaws, Resident Evil VII is one of the best horror games of the latest generation. It provides genuine moments of horror and a piercing, inescapable atmosphere of tension and horror. It is cathartic and wild, moody and visionary, and awe-inspiring in its execution.

Maybe the next entry will lean further into the horror aspect of survival horror, and will have the courage to shake off a messy legacy of legions of the undead.

[goodguyjean]

Oh! I wasn't aware that could be considered derogatory but that makes absolute sense. Thank you for the reference- it's important for all of us to share info like this! And since I don't have a lot of character space I'll try to describe the manga post-anime changes (everything else you said=yes!). I think I might have described the animeisms a bit inaccurately and it's kind of hard for me to summarize.

Hiya anon! No worries on the ableist discourse front! I figured you were unaware of the origin of the word and, as I said, these kinds of things are pretty embedded in our discourse and I’m unlearning them myself! :)

Also, your interpretations make sense and no need to apologize for length! I actually apologize for the relative shortness of my response–I didn’t want to leave you waiting too long but I can’t quite manage to dig into as much detail as I would otherwise like to at the moment, I’m sorry! :(

I think I see what you mean about the emotionally reactive bit, particularly in the scenes you mention here: however, Isayama does not seem particularly committed to those brief flashes, as they cease after the shooting incident. And even if post-anime Jean does seem more reactionary than pre-anime Jean, the emotions don’t seem to be on the scale of the anime for me? Jean in the anime is kind of absurd at points (like … . I know this is season 2 and therefore kind of outside of the bounds of what we’re discussing, but that extreme reaction to falling of his horse during the titan charge? Where he’s making a weird face and bleeding out of his nose? Kind of over the top ^^’), but I don’t think even his more dramatic moments in the manga ever quite compare. And I hesitate the roll the Marlowe and Hitch confrontation scene in with the others (the bread-stealing/”hey, you could’ve hit Mikasa!” scene), because he is, at that point, acting in order to test Marlowe and Hitch.

(Isayama’s editor might have also suggested a bit more levity? I.E. Sasha stealing bread and referring to people as “prey” and Jean reacting strongly–these chapters are very heavy and maybe there was some call to try to … lighten the mood if it was possible? But even these moments seem tainted by Eren’s depression and the horrible experiences of Jean and Armin … and they’re not incompatible with his manga character, even if they play more to his emotional side).

I also agree with your assessment that anime Jean is arrogant to cover up his insecurities and that this is less the case in the manga. I think, however, that his confidence faltering in the uprising–a questioning of his beliefs and his abilities to protect his friends–is coherent with his overall development. His whole ideology is under pressure, and he goes through some very stressful circumstances. He doesn’t seem humbled from undo arrogance or revealed as insecure–his morals are tested and he comes to a more nuanced understanding of the world, I believe. His reaction to Levi and opposition to him also makes sense to me–it builds on his distrust of Erwin, as seen in the titan forest, I think. Jean has a problem with authority even as he grows into an authoritative role himself. It makes sense to me that that circumstances of the uprising would cause him a lot of tension, and I don’t think his confusion and self-questioning is about him overcoming his blustery side, if that makes sense?

Sorry if this isn’t the most coherent response! Thank you for the note, anon!

[sillyandquiteawkward]

Hello silly, I'm here to say please continue on making Villainous fanart and continue to enjoy the show. What aroace forget to inform you that lemonteaparty apologized for their actions, they made a horrible decision, of course but succeeding to change. It's amazing people can learn from their mistakes and grow up from it. It horrible how this site can let people grow and do new and better things. The thing with Markiplier, is also wildly misinformed and inaccurate. Markiplier made a (1)

Made a tweet which jokely asked to see "bewbs", the young ADULT, send supposedly nudes to him through Snapchat. She she said she panicked and Gmail Markiplier. Markiplier being confused on her response, and told he got nothing. Additionally, this young lady is well known to harassing popular YouTubers. She even has a twitter page stating such fact. Her statements were quickly debunked and she never came forward with proof. I would try to find links for this but it's such old news. (2)         

Also Pewdiepie should be responsible for his own accountability and racial slurs. It was disgusting what he did, and was dealt with immediately. Pewdiepie faults should not be held accountable towards Markiplier. That is just petty and ignorant. For Demencia being a "misogynistic ableist caricature" is far fetched and really hitting the left field. She no ways displays such behaviors in the shorts. Dr. Flug and Black Hat relationship is problematic, but it may change or may not. (4)  

It's entirely up to you if you want to watch Villainous and make fanart, your art style is beautiful, but I didn't you want to be given information clearly not researched and biased. I hope your day is wonderful and continue being amazing. (5) :)            

i never got a 3, idk if you forgot it or not but yeah

i see what u mean but what i think they were trying to do was just warn me of the current Discussion about the series and that there are problematic things associated with the shorts thus far.

im still not sure about how i feel about all this so idk if im gonna draw more or not but yeah thank you for giving the other side of things

[taketaemtoyourleader]

im noticing a lot more disabled characters in fics in this fandom, and while i would like to just be happy about this development, because representation, im concerned about some of the ableism ive observed as people write these characters.

im like incredibly deeply uncomfortable with fanfics that use disability as a plot device by having the disabled character magically Cured at the resolution of the fic, or having the non-disabled love interest Save the disabled character because the disabled character had no agency or self-esteem or resources before they met their non-disabled love interest

there’s a way to tackle disabled characters needing accommodations or aid, or having internalized ableism, or what have you, without flattening and dehumanizing disabled characters into objects that exist only to give a story extra drama or pathos or conflict, or to give the non-disabled protagonists a Purpose, or teach them to have Perspective or be Grateful that they arent disabled, or to portray them as being gracious / heroic / etc for being not utterly horrible to a disabled person

if you’re going to write a disabled character and you do not share their disability, Please for the love of god please please please do your research. it is really fucking obvious to disabled folk when someone doesnt know the first thing about their disability beyond a few canned (and most likely very inaccurate) stereotypes that they probably learned from a hallmark movie or some ableist documentary / news articles. if you’re writing about blind people, for example, and you don’t seem to know the first thing about the many kinds of technology and accommodations that blind people have developed or advocated for themselves, and all you can seem to write about is how Sad and Helpless your blind character is, you are gonna come across as an ignorant patronizing ableist fucko. Please Don’t Be This Writer.

alternatively, if every disabled character you write is superhuman in a way where their disability has no impact on their life, that’s also really unrealistic? disabled people face real oppression and they need real accommodations, and the myth of the superhuman disabled character who overcomes all obstacles with ease is a myth that non-disabled folk like to perpetuate so that they dont have to deal with the fact that they are complicit in the societal oppression of disabled folk.

disabled people are complex humans with a range of experiences. please don’t dehumanize them by erasing that complexity. engage with them on their own terms, respect their boundaries and autonomy, acknowledge their abilities, and work with them (under their direction and leadership) to make sure they get the accommodations they ask for. dont assert for them what kind of help you think they need, and dont act like they should bootstrap their way out of being affected by ableism.

TL;DR: dont take this as me saying Dont Write Disabled Characters. we need more disabled characters!!! just do your research and be aware of the ways in which your writing could potentially perpetuate ableism, particularly if you are ignorant bc you dont share that disability and havent done your research. also, please listen to correction/critique from disabled folk when they offer it.

[moontheoretist]

Choujin Koukousei isn’t the first isekai anime I ever watched, thanks to what I can compare it in my head to any other series I watched till now. 

From them all Choujin Koukousei has the best foundations for storytelling lied down, because even though it is about seven genius teenagers whose abilities and knowledge are far beyond anybody else in their world it doesn’t lose focus and always lies down the storyline in a way which makes you realize how deeply author focused on all topics mentioned in the series. It doesn’t though mean that this anime doesn’t have flaws. One of them at the start was portraying fatter people as evil and only recently we got more slim evil people to balance it out. There is also blatant sexualization of women and fanservice made for young boy audience, which I could live without off. The third though happened to rise its head from a place I didn’t expect it to even appear. 

Dr Keine, the genius surgeon of the group was revealed as yandere type of character, whose desire is to make humanity perfect. The yandere trope is nothing new in anime as a medium, but in this case yanderism isn’t the problem. The problem is why she yanders in the first place and where she comes from. Even though I disagree with everything she stands for as a person who once wanted to be perfect myself and realized it’s not worth anything I still understand her frustration with human race. I just  do not subscribe to anything she wants to do in order to change humanity. I also never believed in God myself, so it’s not weird for me that she came to the conclusion that “if just God made everybody’s minds and bodies proper and healthy there would be no diseases or wars”, hence why he is responsible for humanity’s suffering and should be despised. I very much feel that as an atheist. 

The problem with Keine’s attitude and beliefs is that our flaws are exactly what makes us human. The potential to dehumanize others, start wars, murder and hurt other people just lives in us all, but it never just comes out of some evilness or improperness. It all comes from the place of unity and compassion inside the group. One group tends to despise and dehumanize other groups, especially if their values or look differs from theirs. That concept is called “otherness”. We can murder other people for the sake of our own goals, desires and loved ones, which means that empathy is our greatest strength but also the greatest flaw when we do not direct it at anybody else outside our own group. It is also exactly what makes people into terrorists. They all feel empathy and desire to protect what they and the people like them believe in. And to top it all, all of those people are also completely sane. They aren’t mentally ill, which excludes the idea that only mentally ill people are prone to violence. That’s bullshit, we all are dangerous and prone to violence, because it’s just how we are as a species. 

So even though I understand Keine’s desire I cannot really stress enough how wrong she is about everything she does to achieve that. There are better ways to make people stop dehumanizing others, eradicate wars and violence than messing with someone’s brain, which was all on its own violation od someone’s human rights, because Keine manipulated a person, took their autonomy and flipped a switch inside their head to make them as she desired them to be. It’s very much an abusive technique pushed to the extreme and tossed into a jar with a nameplate “surgeon”. It’s interesting though that her inner face was revealed in the very same episode in which Shinobu showed Jeanne the evilness behind Azure Brigade. I think it’s supposed to convey that even Seven Lights Faith has a dark side and this dark side is military power (supposedly atomic bomb which Ringo made) and Keine.

The Healer Angel isn’t a machine though. She is a person, not much different from everybody she targets, because just like them she will cross the line and do morally ambiguous things in order to achieve her goal - help others. It though doesn’t make her much different than the guy she threatened, who did bad things for his Guild, for something he built, for his own goal - business. Yes, she did something horrible for a noble cause, because she did it to ensure that nobody else will suffer because of guy like him, but in the process she lowered herself to the same level on which he was and became the exact same. She may not want to murder people as she is a doctor and her work is to protect people, but she still did something unforgivable to another human person – changed them by force. Squashed their human rights and made them “proper”. 

That is though not only problem with Keine as her desire to change humanity and make everybody into perfect proper humans is even worse. It’s worse all on its own, because it’s inherently ableist.

There are stereotypes, generally inaccurate, associated with either disability in general, or with specific disabilities (for instance a presumption that all disabled people want to be cured, that wheelchair users necessarily have an intellectual disability, or that blind people have some special form of insight). These stereotypes in turn serve as a justification for ableist practices and reinforce discriminatory attitudes and behaviors toward people who are disabled. Labeling affects people when it limits their options for action or changes their identity.

Keine is a person who wouldn’t be able to live in a world in which disabled and mentally ill people exist and are happy as they are, because it’s against everything she stands for. It would be impossibly hard pill to swallow for her as  her desire basically boils down to eradication of disabilities, mental illnesses and “evilness” of humans by curing them by force and all due to the fact that she assumes it will make all human kind not only happy, but also flawless. The problem is that she doesn’t take into consideration the idea that she may be wrong and it’s not what those people truly desire. 

It is just naive and narcissistic of Keine to think that she can change everybody, mold them to be as she envisioned them to be and reach perfectness of human kind in the process, because that’s not how world works. Changing people to achieve such a goal is also cruel all on its own. 

Perfection of human kind means no flaws, which we can equate to the world in which only good, healthy and “proper” humans exists. It also means that humanity as a whole would never have to learn how to not look down upon disabilities, because they would just not exist. It just screams “I care too much about other people” at best and “Eugenics is great and just” at worst.