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c-is-for-circinate · 4 years ago

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For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

#I don't actually know how to tag this #representation #maybe?#C needs help feeding the dinosaurs #because this is very much about being a fandom old #probably also #driveby meta attack #because that's where I keep my impromptu rambles #CR spoilers #technically I guess?#there's one line that references the finale #fandom history

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chainofclovers · 3 years ago

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Ted Lasso 2x8 thoughts

I am so lucky that the creators of Ted Lasso decided to make this entire show specifically for me. #blessed

If last week felt like a bit of breathing room (albeit tense, poignant, character-progressing breathing room) with distinct narrative lines, this week’s episode was a chaotic yet tightly-written swirl of pain and hope and sadness! No neat subject headers for this one, y’all. Just my brain and heart in the inadequate form of a bulleted list. It is the medium available to me at this time.

I am going to remember the moment when Ted calls Sharon and tells her his father killed himself for the rest of my life.

(I could say a bunch of stuff about his face and what he says and how he tries to hide his tears from Beard right after and how insanely much I adore this character and ahhhhhhhh but I’m just going to leave that scene there in our collective memories.)

Jamie. JAMIE. Higgins has given some great advice about love on this show, but his musings about his up-and-down relationship with his own father were not helpful in the context of Jamie’s dad, who is an abusive piece of shit. I really adore that all of the main AFC Richmond staff members are realistically a bit hit-or-miss with their advice and life philosophies (some are mostly miss this season, of course).

And I am completely in awe of the moment when Jamie punches his father. The way he just stands there after Beard kicks his dad out of the locker room. The way you can hear a pin drop. And Roy—Roy who is learning in so many areas of his life about his influence on people, learning that the things he needs aren’t necessarily the same as the things other people need—is the one to cross the room and hug him. Hold him, really, with the tenderness Ted used when he hugged Rebecca outside the gala in 1x4. God.

I’ve thought a lot about how s1 was about giving people a soft place to land. There’s always an angel there when you need one. There’s always an opportunity to be kind. If you look for someone, you find them. If you look for the good in someone, you find the good. And as everyone works through their individual journeys in s2, that can’t always be the case anymore. But there are still so many moments of angels on this show, and it’s not about chance and serendipity and fate [not that it was about that in s1] but about the effort it takes to become someone who can be there for someone else. Or who can be there for yourself. I’m so proud of Jamie for physically fighting back against his father. I’m so proud of Roy for being the one who recognized what Jamie needed.

I have every feeling in the world about how Ted is almost totally frozen both times (s1 and s2) he witnesses Jamie’s father abusing him. In s1, he was still there for Jamie after, and I have every reason to believe he’ll be there for Jamie after this incident as well, but that frozen stance HURTS. He’s in so deep with his pain about his own father that it’s like he physically cannot snap out of it to act in the moment. It seems entirely outside of his control, and it breaks my heart, because Ted wants so badly to be a good father, a good coach, a good friend, a good partner, a good patient. He’s there for people in all kinds of ways, even in his current less-than-capable state. He takes care of Sharon post-concussion and even gets her a new bike! During the disastrous match at Wembley his coaching is ineffectual and everything is chaos but he’s the last one standing on the pitch! But this really awful thing keeps happening to Jamie and Ted is just…frozen in the face of it. Like one of those nightmares where you’re running in place.

The frozen-in-place nightmare also kind of applies to the way the total separation between Ted and Rebecca feels, too. I have never for a moment doubted the writers’ intentions in setting these characters up as soulmates on parallel journeys, and I’m actually really digging (on a story level) how disconnected they are right now. It is IMPRESSIVE that their absence in each other’s lives feels like such a glaring loss, one we cannot forget even as there are so many other things happening onscreen. It is 100% not just shipper goggles making me process information about Ted while thinking about Rebecca and information about Rebecca while thinking about Ted. I know there are a lot of really angry and frustrated people in the fandom right now (both T/R shippers and T/R antis and non-shipping fans who don’t get why s2 is different from s1) and while I understand being frustrated by choices characters make, and frustrated by the feelings the show makes us feel that we just want to feel more of or less of, I continue to agree with pretty much every narrative choice happening right now.

Agreeing with the narrative like this?! This is such a unique experience for me as a viewer—to feel like I’m on a ride that is at once absolutely wild and incredibly sensible and well-crafted, and to feel simultaneously completely invested and anticipatory and speculative but also totally willing to trust where it goes. I long for Ted and Beard to really talk. I long for Ted and Rebecca to stop missing each other. I long for Roy to have a serious conversation with Ted about what’s happening with him. I long for Keeley to find a vocation, something that drives her beyond her projects. I long for so many things! But I wouldn’t long for them if this show was less good. If the show was less good, I wouldn’t have a wish list a mile long because I wouldn’t be so attuned to the details and potential lurking in every scene. THIS IS SUCH A GOOD SHOW, I CANNOT HANDLE IT, I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

(To that end, a great deal of the Ted Lasso tag and so many Twitter reactions reactions to the show feel super stressful right now and I am kind of just trying not to look?! I love this fandom so much because of the amazing conversations that happen and because of brilliant fic and because there are some awesome people I never would have encountered were it not for this show. That little bubble is wonderful and I’d stay in this fandom no matter what in order to keep experiencing those things. But fans’ catastrophic reactions to every little thing that happens, every little choice a character makes that isn’t the “perfect” choice? The takeaway that the writers—on this show of all shows—wake up in the morning ready for another day of torturing shippers rather than another day of writing a beautiful story they genuinely want to write? I do not enjoy those parts at all. I would like to opt out of those parts. I’m having such a magical experience watching this show and talking about this show and listening about this show and writing about this show with a variety of people who feel all kinds of ways. I truly wish I could somehow transfer the energy of this experience onto all the people who are hating it right now. I don’t mind at all that people are having vastly different reactions to this show and are sharing their honest feelings, including the really angry ones (I can appreciate something and disagree with it!), and I get that sometimes the language of fannish reactions is intentionally, ironically hyperbolic. But there feels like this very serious trend of people legitimately thinking writers on this show are targeting shippers and have lost respect for their characters, and I just feel like an alien from another planet when I see that stuff. I guess I just feel like people make art because they want their art to be visible to other people and to themselves, but that doesn’t typically involve specifically catering to or torturing a subset of that audience?)

I am more fascinated by Sharon Fieldstone than ever before. I have been running through every single action with her and Ted so many times. The confirmation that she’s living in club-provided housing (that could not look more different from Ted’s club-provided flat). Ted clearly noticing the many bottles. Sharon’s face while she tries to casually recycle them. (Sharon could legitimately have a more problematic relationship with alcohol than Ted does, and I find that extremely interesting and am very curious to find out what happens there.) Sharon leaving him voice notes while she’s concussed, probably because she’d been thinking about him shortly before the accident. The way Ted calls her and does all the funny voices and it’s not frustrating like all the times he uses his silliness and allusions to deflect during their prior conversations because this time, those behaviors are just a part of him showing care for another person. The way they stretch each other, and Ted is still wrong about the things he’s been wrong about, but they both grow all the same.

While it is pretty much impossible for me to imagine that this show would include an actual romantic relationship between Ted and Sharon (it would be beyond unethical even if they could write it well, and Sharon in particular is so professional and committed to her work, and it would erase so much of the powerful message about the importance of seeking therapy from a professional who is not your friend or partner, and I would totally hate it), watching this episode was the first moment I had this queasy little feeling that it’s possible that Ted could end up developing really complicated feelings about Sharon since, at this point, he’s been honest with her about things he’s hardly spoken about before and you can really form an attachment to people you feel safe with in a new way. (I mean, I’m sure Michelle knows what happened with Ted’s father, but I’m not even certain if Beard does.) He’s so broken right now, and Sharon is such a great person and so different from anyone else in his life (even though Rebecca is also different, and Beard is also different, and Roy is also different, and so on), that I could see things getting really fuzzy for him. I continue to have faith in the way the storylines on this show are handled. I’m just. Putting this here.

(In saying that, though, I also wanna make it really clear that I don’t just automatically assume anytime a new female character is introduced that they’re going to end up becoming a romantic complication. Like, Phoebe is allowed to have a teacher who is an attractive woman and AFC Richmond is allowed to have a sports psychologist who is an attractive woman and Keeley is allowed to talk to Jamie Tartt without it threatening what she has with Roy and all these people can exist as human beings without the introduction of romantic drama.)

Isaac gives every player one haircut per season, OH MY GOD. The JOY during the haircut scene. YES.

KEELEY AND REBECCA. Their text thread. The affirming video call right before Rebecca goes into the restaurant. The way Keeley sits all snuggled up against Rebecca in her office.

I was pretty thoroughly spoiled for the Sam and Rebecca plot through 2x8, and I was bracing for something far more problematic and tortured than what happens in this episode. The words I would use to describe their scenes: awkward, cute, cringy, and understandable. There are a million reasons why this relationship isn’t sustainable, but I felt completely understanding of both their choices here. This show has a lot of thesis statements, but I keep going back to the idea from 2x1 that there are people who enter your life to help you get to the next point, and I think it’s entirely possible that Sam and Rebecca will mutually be that for each other.

I find comparisons between Rupert and Rebecca super upsetting. There are absolutely meaningful things to say about the irony of ending up in a situation with an uncomfortable resemblance to certain taboo elements of an ex’s situation. But that ex is abusive and manipulative and cruel and Rebecca has exhibited NONE of those behaviors, and it makes me really sad to think that people feel that the writers on this show have betrayed Rebecca in giving her this storyline.

As always, I reserve the right to keep blathering about this show. I’ve had a headache for a couple of days, but my head is also so full of 2x8 thoughts that I couldn’t keep them in even if the circumstances for writing this were not ideal. I kind of hate that I’ve included frustrated fandom thoughts within the analysis of what I felt was an absolutely gorgeous, complicated, heartbreaking, near-perfect episode of television, but if ya can’t be a little dramatic on your own tumblr while you’re feeling raw and under the weather, where can ya?

#ted lasso #ted lasso s2 spoilers #meta by me #ted lasso 2x8 #a lesbian watches ted lasso #cw: suicide mention #cw: alcohol abuse mention

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thexfridax · 4 years ago

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Wynonna Earp Boss Hopes Syfy Finale Made You Feel 'All the Things' — Plus, Scoop on One Happy Wedding Accident

By Matt Webb Mitovich, tvline.com / April 9 2021, 8:02 PM PDT

The following contains spoilers from the Syfy finale of Wynonna Earp.

After four years of protecting Purgatory with her Peacemaker, Wynonna Earp got to quite literally ride off into the sunset. And she did so while straddling a motorcycle, with Doc Holliday seated behind her.

Mind you, the two almost didn’t wind up together. Following the simply beautiful “WayHaught” wedding, Doc (played by Tim Rozon) was determined to put Purgatory in Charlene’s rear view mirror and get to living life as “just a man,” and Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) felt compelled to stay put as Purgatory’s protector. But with an empowering nudge from li’l sis Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley), Wynonna caught up to her man and professed her love, after which they decided to travel light, for the first time in a long time, and pay their daughter Alice a visit in MIracles, Montana.

TVLine spoke with series creator Emily Andras about crafting this very fine finale, at least one “happy accident” that wound up stirring many emotions, and more.

TVLINE | The finale has just aired…. What emotions do you hope the fans are feeling at this moment?

Just head-to-toe body warmth, and love, and affection, and wistfulness…. And a little bit of bittersweetness. I feel like joy has to be paired with nostalgia, so I hope they’re feeling all the things. But hopefully not hungover!

TVLINE | At what point over the years did you ever envision Wynonna and Doc riding off into the sunset?

Ahhh! I almost never even let myself envision it, you know? It’s so funny — when you start doing a show, you have all sorts of ideas about what pairings are going to rise to the top, who’s going to end up with whom, and one of the joys of Earp is that so many different things have happened. But those two characters have certainly earned the chance to try to be happy, whatever that means to them. I never knew that I would be allowed to end such a romantic pairing with the woman driving the motorcycle and the guy on the back.

TVLINE | I’m watching that final sequence and it almost feels alien, seeing the two of them head off into what I think of as “the real world.” But I also found that viscerally exciting, to see so much ahead for them.

That’s so lovely, thank you for saying that. I feel like having the world ahead of them and being such an unusual couple, I would love to see what happens next for them. I’m sure there will be lots of crazy sex and crazy arguments and crazy laughter. So, godspeed! Godspeed.

TVLINE | When throwing a season-ending wedding, what is Emily Andras’ marching order? “Above all else, this wedding has to be…”?

It has to honor to all of the characters — and by that, I mean it has to try to find a moment for every special pairing on the show, not just WayHaught. I think it’s important to pay due respect to how far Waverly and Doc have come; she never gave up on him, she always saw a better man in him — and now he gets to be the best man! Nedley (Greg Lawson) and Nicole’s (Kat Barrell) relationship, that paternal/daughter bond is so special, so honoring that was very important.

And at the end of the day, I still think the real love affair of the show is the Earp sisters, so I ended to make sure that that was honored. I really love the parallel with the pilot, where Wynonna came into town against her will and was so hungry to leave but was forced to stay. And now you have Waverly secure enough in how their relationship has evolved, that she knows Wynonna deserves to leave again — because she’ll come back.

More than anything, it was about giving every character a moment of happiness. Even Jeremy (Varun Saranga) becoming deputy chief of Black Badge and maybe finding a new date…. It was all about finding everyone a moment of potential joy, after they’ve gone through so much after four seasons.

TVLINE | Talk about the decision to have empty guest chairs laid out with the names of those who are no longer with us or didn’t make it to the wedding.

That was such a happy accident. We were on-set, it was very much in the middle of the pandemic, and we knew we were going to have a limited number of people for the wedding. But then we put out chairs so you could understand where the aisle was, and they looked really empty. So my incredible director, Paolo Barzman, who also did the pilot, and my art director Trevor Smith, pitched this idea to me. I had sort of joked about, “Wouldn’t it be cool if you had the ghosts of characters past?” In the moment, they said, “What if we hung names on the chairs?” and it was just one of those goosebump moments, like, “That’s brilliant.” So then we have people writing up these cards, rushing them out, and it’s honestly one of my favorite things. Whenever I see that Dolls chair, I just can’t help but feel things.

TVLINE | But Mercedes (Dani Kind), to be clear, is still with us.

She’s just out, like, being her best vampire self. She’s out being an amazing vampire, yeah. I still have that spinoff if you want to help me sell that!

TVLINE | If anything caught me a bit off-guard, it was us getting a song from Rachel (played by Martina Ortiz-Luis).

The thing about Martina is that she is a phenomenal singer. She is the anthem singer for the Toronto Maple Leafs — so she’s quite a star here! — and she was on Pilipinas Got Talent back in the day…. It seemed like a waste to not have someone with such an exceptional voice perform! And what better song to lay over the necessary wedding montage than a WayHaught classic (Fleurie’s “Wildwood”), the song that was playing the first time WayHaught kissed. It’s a bit of an Easter egg for those hardcore WayHaughters!

TVLINE | I don’t think anyone would have ever felt like a “Dark Angel Waverly” detour was missing, if you hadn’t spent time on it the episode prior. Why did you feel it was important to go there during one of the final hours?

The truth of it is that honestly we’ve been balancing the spectre of whether we were going to have a Season 5 or not. When we started breaking Season 4 two years ago, we were looking down the barrel of about 24 episodes, so [when you get half that] you’re like, “What are we going to keep, and what are we going to pitch overboard? What can we live without learning about?” I would argue that this idea of Waverly having a darkness inside of her did have to be highlighted after four seasons. I completely agree that in a perfect world I could have done eight episodes of Dark Angel Waverly, exploring that and seeing it come to pass. But if we ever get more story, I don’t know if Waverly has complete control over that part of herself. I dont think it’s “gone.” If Nicole puts mayo instead of mustard on her sandwich, who knows what’s going to sprout out!

TVLINE | I mean, if only to see what other outfits Dark Waverly has.

As long as she keeps her thigh holster, she’s ready to go.

TVLINE | Looking back at these last few episodes, what are you most proud of?

‘m so proud of this cast. It’s so boring, but God, just to see them grow and thrive and shine…. performing comedy and emotion, seeing their commitment to the show, and the feelings…. It’s just been such a joy to see such an amazing group of people get their due. They really are that wonderful, off-screen as well.

I’m also pretty happy — in this day and age, and despite all the fights the show has been through — that if this is the end, I feel like that’s a pretty nice finale, a pretty good topper on the cake. I feel like the fans will feel like they went on a journey, and they left the characters in an interesting, good place. And look, that’s really rare in TV, to end your story the way you want. How can I be anything but grateful, at the end of the day?

TVLINE | When I was writing my tweet the other morning, I wanted to call it a “very fine finale,” but I worried you’d think I was saying it was only “fine.” But it was a very fine finale!

No, you have to keep me hungry! You get to challenge me, Matt. Listen, I just didn’t want to risk…. I’m the queen of 75 cliffhangers, but I feel like the fans have worked so hard for us, for so many years, that it was more important that they got closure, just in case. But there’s always another demon, there’s always another thing to trigger Dark Angel Waverly. There’s always more story, but at least you have this, no matter what.

TVLINE | And if some network or streamer does ride to the rescue, would there be something that brings Wynonna and Doc back to Purgatory? Or might a Season 5 be without the two of them?

Look, the show is called Wynonna Earp, so you need Wynonna Earp. She’s still the champion, she’s still got the magic gun and the best hair on the show — sorry, everyone else!

There are a couple of unresolved issues. We still have Eve, who we kicked out the the Garden very early in the season, and who can kind of shapeshift; she could take on the appearance of any one of our characters! That would certainly throw a wrench in the works in Purgatory. There are a million different reasons to bring Wynonna back, to help out her sister.

TVLINE | And lastly, was there anything you had to cut or just didn’t have room for, or any returning cast you couldn’t fit in?

Oh, tons. But look, you kind of hit the nail on the head earlier. I’m always striving to be better, and some stuff at the end felt a little rushed, with Dark Angel Waverly. I think if it hadn’t been a pandemic, there would have been more people at that wedding. I would have loved four more episodes to round the bend there. But look, that’s Wynonna Earp, man — perfectly imperfect! So that’s what we did, and what a ride it’s been. The ride of a lifetime for me.

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cordeliaflyte · 4 years ago

Note

Would love to know your thoughts on the rutger bregman book when you finish it!!!

dearest merle! it took me months to answer this ask - something i'm ashamed of - but i finally got around to finishing the book today.

the below is a condensed version of the ten pages of notes i took while reading it, which are rather chaotic and repetitive at points - but in my defence, bregman repeated his own arguments too.

one of the main arguments that bregman makes is that "evil" or "immorality" - which we'll define as causing unnecessary harm - are rarely caused by the individual, but rather the society they live in. i agree - nothing exists in a vacuum. however, society, as a nebulous concept, isn't imposed on us by some imperceptible power - it is crafted by people. people in society have different levels of power, and the harm they can cause to others is directly proportional to said power - but be it on a micro or macro scale, our actions have an impact on others and while they are influenced by the society we live in, we must nonetheless strive to minimise the harm we cause - and few of us do.

bregman illustrates many of his arguments with heartwarming stories about people coming together in times of crisis - take, for example, natural disasters - and overcoming adversity, selflessly looking out for their neighbours. but crisis very often leads to the creation of divisions, an us vs them mentality, and a complete disregard for the safety of others. the current pandemic is a prime example - see the widening of class differences, the rise in racist hate crimes, and people refusing to take safety precautions because they are inconvenient to them.

another argument repeated quite often throughout the book is the fact that media cherry-picks the most sensationalistic and senseless acts of death and despair, because human suffering is simply more interesting that the mundane - people talking to friends, creating art, laughing and learning. again, i agree with him - many of the more tabloid-adjacent news outlets would have you believe that the everyday norm is dismembered heiresses being found on riverbeds and charming, precocious children being held for ransom in tiny basements. the news doesn't often focus on the mundane - but the mundane isn't just love and work and friendship and boredom and chores, it is also, for billions of people around the world, sexual violence, familial abuse, workplace and housing discrimination, etc. these things aren't sensationalistic either - they're frightfully common, frightfully boring, and thus, they're rarely reported on.

throughout his book, bregman mentions that when he told people what he was working on, they approached the idea that humans are good with a large dose of cynicism, simply because we are raised to believe humans are selfish (which isn't the case worldwide, not all cultures are individualistic). they pick the easier choice - accepting the image of the world and their fellow humans that they are presented with at face value. i'd argue that it is the tendency of humans to pick the easier choice, to obey, to avoid challenging their worldview that leads to - for a lack of better term - immorality (see definition in point 1).

often, when bregman presents his feel good stories about people cooperating in adversity, he also mentions troubling details that, again, show undue harm being done. one of the examples he used were six boys from tonga, aged 13 to 16, who were shipwrecked on an island, and instead of descending into a "lord of the flies" style madness, they built their small community on the basis of communication and cooperation, never resorting to violence, and acting mature beyond their years. after a year spent on the island, they were rescued - and promptly arrested, an event which was probably racially motivated. and the reason they were shipwrecked in the first place was attempting to flee their school, where, according to their reports, they were neglected.

bregman contrasted the example of the boys forming a peaceful society on a small island with the chaos that always ensues when adults in reality shows are put in similar situations. the contestants are pitted against each other by the show runners, who seek to frustrate them and make them lose control for the amusement of the audience. whenever contestants try to cooperate, form a mutually beneficial society for a short while - a radical idea - they are punished. "goodness" - i.e. harm reduction - and radical thought being punished just don't seem like particularly helpful examples for the "humans are inherently good" thesis

bregman seems to be a big fan of primitivism, constantly citing civilisation as a source of harm - a position i'm always sceptical about, because personally i love vaccines and dental care, but i know this is a knee-jerk reaction and bregman isn't plotting a return to a land without dentists. but what i do take ire at is the idea that humans are somehow "corrupt" versions of their natural selves and that our lives have grown too complicated, and only a return to "primitive" society can return us to the aforementioned natural selves.

tied to the previous point - his arguments remind me of the "noble savage"'... archetype? he seems to paint a picture of "primitive" indigenous people as role models for those "corrupted" by civilisation, who in turn must be saved by a return to their "purer" selves, instead of individuals with flaws and agency.

speaking on indigenous populations - bregman also invokes the inhabitants of the easter islands. for a long time, the world at large believed that a hundred years or so before colonization, the islanders effectively perpetrated a genocide, killing off a large proportion of their population - a claim which was later disproven. yay! humans can live in peaceful societies without committing genocide, and thus, are not inherently evil! disregarding the fact that european colonists later massacred a large part of the islands population, and sold most of the survivors into slavery?

i was very excited for one of the chapters, entitled "after auchschwitz". i was interested how bregman would reconcile his argument with the tragedies of the twentieth century - the holocaust, but also genocide, and to a lesser extent war in general.

(this chapter, i might add, was preceded by a quote by anne frank - you know the one, about the inherent goodness of people. i was hoping that bregman would comment on the fact that anne wrote the quote before she and her family were sent to a concentration camp)

so you can imagine my surprise when the chapter was not, in fact, about concentration camps or genocide. but rather about. unethical 70s sociological experiments.

no really! a chapter titled "after auchschwitz" was, in fact, primarily about the stanford prison experiment. an experiment that was, granted, inspired by concentration camps, but still. it's misleading to invoke "real", large scale violence, and focus instead on "simulated", small scale violence.

we all know that the stanford prison experiment was, as far as experiments go, rubbish to legendary degrees. it doesn't prove anything - but it does, perhaps, show that people under large psychological duress are capable of evil, even when they themselves are not "evil".

it is, i'd argue, the human tendency to obey authority and especially to conform to societies standards that poses the largest danger. disobedience is man's original virtue and whatnot.

and when he does briefly refer to concentration camps, bregman treats them like a very 1940s phenomenon, disregarding the fact that they have been around for much longer and still exist today.

in cases like that one experiment with electric shocks. you know the one. do not, perhaps, show an innate tendency to violence, but rather people succumbing to pressure. but history is full of unprovoked instances of violence, of pogroms and lynchings. there is usually an instigator, yes, but judging from reports, people in the right mindset don't need much persuading to butcher other people.

also re: electric shock experiment - those who thought they gave the assistant lethal shocks showed extreme guilt and some even cried but like... so what? what use is a conscience if it doesn't stop you from, to your knowledge, killing someone? are your feelings really more important than your actions?

he doesn't say this, but a lot of the arguments he presents do seem to boil down to "people aren't evil, they're just stupid!" which doesn't sound more encouraging, i'm afraid.

an alternative takeaway would be "people are good, unless they have power" - which isn't exactly a radical, revolutionary idea. most people have heard the maxim "power corrupts". but the thing is that almost everyone holds some amount power over others - the oppressed factory worker in a poor nation who works 12 hours a day for pittance might still execute power over his wife, who relies on him for money, and she in turn might hold power over her children, and so forth. and that power is often used to cause undue harm and exercise control.

he criticises machiavellianism, saying it doesn't reflect how society works, and one of his proofs is that his philosophies were espoused by bismarck, churchill, and stalin - hardly admirable figures in terms of (you guessed it!) causing harm. but i don't see how that discredits machiavelli? like all of the above were very succesful

and he keeps repeating the primitivism argument throughout the book which gets tiring. like i'm truly sorry you were born in the last 5% of human existence thus far when, in your opinion, humanity started going to the shits, but it's getting a bit tiring

he cites money and nations as concepts as harbingers of the current (negative) state of humanity, saying they're very recent concepts and have no basis in reality. they're artificial concepts, sure, but their effect is very much real, and while achieving a nation-less, money-less society is possible on a small scale, i think that at this point they are such large aspects of life that reigning them in seems impossible.

and invokes the noble savage again and again, showing himself in favour of tribal societies, depicting them as egalitarian - i'm sure many of them are, but many also have a strict hierarchy or like. practice fgm. once more he seems to treat tribal people as a monolith of goodness as opposed to... people.

he also cites prehistoric people, their egalitarianism and low rates of violence but. forgive me for my ignorance because i did not research this. how do people know. doesn't the definition of prehistory include a lack of records??

he also mentions that in small, tribal societies, conformism can be a good thing, as it makes people act for the communal good. this is another knee-jerk reaction of mine but i think of conformism as society's most significant vice, so this strikes very much against my beliefs

later on, he also says reproduction is another proof of humanities goodness. perhaps it's a controversial opinion, but i disagree. i find it hard to find reasons for reproduction that aren't egoistic. it's survival instinct, sure, but it's not an "inherently noble pursuit".

later yet, he brings up schools which grant large degrees of freedom to students and shows how they're good for developing their minds. this might be a me thing but i know from experience that when i'm granted freedom without structure, i do nothing - though perhaps that speaks ill of me, and not humanity.

there have, in fact, been many studies on schools like this being helpful to student development and i certainly won't argue with them - but let me nit-pick. bregman says that fewer students have adhd in these schools, as it is a condition caused by being locked inside a room all day which is not only offensive, but also just plain wrong

and also while showing how granting children freedom lets them develop (which i naturally agree with) he brings up that "dangerous playground" study. you know the one. this isn't a coherent argument, this is just my bias speaking , but as a child, i promise i had no desire to play with rusty nails in abandoned warehouses. i liked my boring playgrounds with wooden swings.

then there is a chapter on communism and how it could be a remedy to societies ailments. but bregman and i seem to operate on very different definitions of communism. he naturally starts with saying maoist china and stalinist russia and cambodia under pol pot weren't really communist which... sure, if you want to argue semantics, i'm all for it, but it's an old and essentially useless argument. if "real communism" has never been tried (as the author claims) - why?

and then we pass to perhaps the most bizarre fragment of the book. paraphrasing only slightly: "but why are we now so opposed to the word communism? when we pass each other salt at the dinner table, is that not communism? when we selflessly hold a door open for someone, is that not communism?" i.... no?? no it's not. that's not what communism is girl stop

he then also says facebook is actually communist in many ways since a lot of its value comes from photos people willingly share for free. i could not make this up if i tried.

i think that in most terms i agree with bregman on policy - direct democracy, school and prison systems, changes to the criminal justice system - and our reasoning is partially similar, but i don't think the information we both have access to proves that humans are inherently good.

and then come perhaps my least favourite arguments because i for one am a spiteful bitch but yes. it is time for christian ethics 101 and turning the other cheek.

he cites ghandi and mlk as examples of turning the other cheek working. i think ghandi went too far with his policy, what with saying "jews ought to have marched silently to their deaths or committed mass suicide to make nazis feel ashamed" and like. we do remember they killed mlk, right?

as an example of turning the other cheek, he cites humane prisons in norway, where prisoners are granted much larger freedoms than usual and are on equal footing with the guards, who aren't armed and act more as councillors. i don't really see how this is an example of turning the other cheek, though - the guards are not the victims of the inmates (it was a prison for violent offenders - many of them murderers). i agree with him that prisons, if they must exist, should treat inmates humanely and with respect, but i don't see how this relates to the turning of the cheek. statistically, many of these men probably murdered their mates in a drunken dispute, or killed their wives - and i don't think turning the other cheek would have helped their victims.

he also cites south africa in the sixties as an example of turning the other cheek, when anti-apartheid activists would meet up with pro-apartheid activists and talk - this included nelson mandela who had frequent talks with the leader of a white supremacist paramilitary organisation of afrikaners staunchly opposed to black south africans getting the vote. and it worked - the man, whose aim was starting a civil war, relented. but racism isn't a simple matter that can simply be solved by talking. and it is often a pragmatic policy which i don't disparage, but turning the other cheek and having to treat someone who refuses to acknowledge your humanity with an exorbitantly disproportionate amount of respect is inherently degrading.

skipping ahead, in the epilogue bregman lists ten rules he tries to live by, and one of them is, i shit you not, "don't punch nazis". and punching nazis doesn't stop them from being nazis, but turning the other cheek gets people killed

the rise of fascism is perhaps one the largest threats we are dealing with and fascists are not just isolated and misinformed (and in this day and age, ignorance is a choice). they are dangerous.

this is by no means an essay or an exhaustive list, just a slightly chaotic and much overdue collection of opinions which i don't know how to put under a read more. take care <3

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sun-daddy-yoriichi · 4 years ago

Text

Kimetsu no Yaiba Role - Reverse AU : Pillar Version

I’m not planning on this being long as all hell but let’s see if it gets out of hand or not :)

Sun Pillar : Yoriichi Tsugikuni

I ALMOST WASN’T GONNA INCLUDE HIM BUT I HAD TO-

My entire account is named after his come on have more faith in me.

Okay but I feel like the twins would get a lot of outside attention

Not because they’re Demon Slayers but because they’re hot as fuck

But that could also just be me

Nobody knows how or when Yoriichi learned Sun Breathing. It hasn’t been used in hundreds of years, and it’s supposed to be incredibly difficult to master, and he’s like twenty-five being able to wield it with complete ease.

Michikatsu thinks his brother is the most annoying thing ever

They spar constantly

Yoriichi thinks that Nezuko and Tanjirou are the cutest things ever, and Nezuko knowing what Dance of the Fire God is, is really only a huge plus.

The twins fight over who gets Nezuko as a tsuguko constantly.

Moon Pillar : Michikatsu Tsugikuni

Everyone’s favourite motherfucker y'know-

Jk we love him

His Moon Breathing is not like his Blood Demon Art at all, really. His Blood Demon Art was a corrupt form of his Breath Style. In actuality, his Breath Style is much finer and more graceful.

If I’ll be honest, his breath style is actually quite beautiful.

Like Breath of the Sun, his Breath of the Moon almost looks like a dance.

Michikatsu and Yoriichi fighting together is a sight to behold, and a force to be reckoned with.

If only Michikatsu could stand to be in the same room as his brother for more than five seconds at a time.

When he goes on missions, he tries to keep it as low-key as possible. He hates having people looking at him

And he’s not the type of person to fail on his missions at all. Which is why it was so surprising for the others to figure out that he had let the Kamado children go.

Mostly because Tanjirou reminded him a lot of Yoriichi, so he couldn’t help himself from sparing them both.

Ice Pillar : Douma

Another favourite, surprisingly. A lot of people like Douma and it’s very confusing.

Other than Rui, he's one of the youngest Pillars (16).

Of course he still uses his fans rather than a Nichirin blade. And effectively, too.

Douma is one of the fastest Pillars out of them, aside from maybe Yoriichi and Michikatsu.

Obviously, Ice Breathing is descended from Water Breathing. Rather than flowing attacks, however, most of them have more strength added to them, in order to pack quite a punch.

He’s a bastard and we all know it.

Usually, Douma is given missions that are difficult even for a Pillar’s standards, but still out of the way of civilisation.

Because his breath technique is DESTRUCTIVE.

He’s basically the same as his demon counterpart, except he doesn’t eat humans.

But he’s still a damn sociopath

We all love him though

Soryu Pillar : Akaza

Haha I didn’t know what else to put for him-

His fighting style is strongly based around the Soryu Style he was taught before he became a Demon Slayer. He ends up using hand-to-hand combat a lot more than he uses his Nichirin blade.

Which means he rarely has to commission a new blade if his breaks, because he only uses it slay the demon near the very end of their fight. Nothing more.

He’s a very respectful opponent. Unlike other Demon Slayers, he won’t goad or insult his opponent. He doesn’t hate demons, like some Pillars do.

Because his fianceé was turned into a demon, and he would want to respect her if he ever ran into her during one of his missions.

Thus, all of his missions are ended quickly, and with great respect. Any demon that’s run into him and lived to tell the tale always holds him in such high regards (for a Demon Slayer, at least).

His main job is to keep Douma and Enmu in check, though.

Urami Pillar : Hantengu

Can you tell that I have no inspiration for some of these names

Urami means 'resentment' which makes sense for Hantengu since he hates demons for killing his family and deforming his face.

Despite visiting several doctors, the appearance of the pair of horns on his head remains a mystery.

Some Demon Slayers think he's got demon blood in him, but nothing has been confirmed.

He doesn't have a designated Breath style at all.

Rather, you could call his technique 'Universal Breathing'. If he's had enough training with a certain Breath style, he can use it. Which means he can basically learn all of them if he wants.

He's mastered two : Wind and Flame. He knows bits and pieces of others, but usually wimps out before he can continue training.

His sword gets broken a lot for no reason at all. His swordsmith hates his guts, but always pulls through with a new blade.

His crow is old and cranky, but they get along just fine.

Water Pillar : Gyokko

I mean that’s basically what he is-

He's fabulous

And he'll make sure everyone knows it right after they meet him.

(Nezuko lowkey hates him)

Most of the time, he's not given as many missions as his teammates. He's left to his own devices.

Which means that his territory to patrol - perhaps just around the capitol - is very well protected.

His tsuguko, Sabito, is cute as all hell, but will kick your ass if he needs to. He looks up to Gyokko, and thinks really highly of him.

Most of the other Pillars think there's something wrong with Sabito-

But he's a strong Demon Slayer, so they don't question Gyokko's teaching methods.

Blood Pillar : Gyuutarou

Irritable as all hell

But he loves his sister and would do anything for her.

Rather than use swords, he uses sickles

Yes yes very dramatic thank you Gyuutarou-

He gets cold easily (being so skinny and all), so he stays bundled up often

Daki gets mad at him if he’s not careful, so they often get into fights with one another

Which ends up with Akaza pulling them apart and putting them in time-out

Missions that he’s sent on are often ended quickly and precisely. He’s usually paired up with Rui or Daki, since both of those two Pillars are incredibly good at long-ranged combat, while Gyuutarou is more adept at short/mid-ranged combat

Blood Breathing is derived from Water Breathing, but Gyuutarou also equips the use of the poison that Daki makes in order to get the upper hand on his opponents.

He’s had a tsugukos before, but his training was so harsh that they quit on him. He hasn’t taken another one after that.

Silk Pillar : Daki

Designated medic in the Demon Slayer Corps.

She’s very skilled at not only making antidotes but making poisons out of wisteria. Other Pillars, like Enmu and Gyuutarou, use them in combat. She’s just making them to pass the time.

Rather than use a blade, she uses special sillks made specially from Crimson Iron Sand and Rui’s spider silk. They’re soft and heat-insulated, and Daki wears them over her Demon Slayer uniform.

However, much like Rui’s spider threads, she can manipulate them with ease, allowing them to become as sharp as a blade.

Honest to God nobody knows how she and Rui do it. Perhaps it’s brute, strength, or their Breathing techniques.

Either way, it’s quite a new experience to be on the receiving end of her silks. Daki is fast, and agile. She can get from one point to another in a matter of seconds. The only person faster from her at all is Douma, and even then it’s by seconds at a time, maybe not even that.

Daki doesn’t care to sympathise with demons. She’s never thought of it. Usually, her missions consist of her yelling insults at her target while she battles them.

Biwa Pillar : Nakime

Pretty girl pretty girl

With two eyes this time

She doesn’t often use a sword at all. She has one, but it’s only used for worst-case scenarios.

And when you are Nakime, you don’t get to the point where you can consider something a ‘worst-case scenario’.

Her Biwa is her main weapon, and she has the special ability to create music that harms demons.

The strings are crafted specially from spider silk (courtesy of Rui) and Scarlet Crimson Ore, but they’re also infused with Wisteria incense (courtesy of Enmu) in order to ward demons off.

She’s a master at her craft, and at her best, she is a force to he reckoned with.

She is often paired up with other Pillars on difficult missions, or if there’s more than one Demon in a certain area. Nakime’s music travels a lot farther than a sword does, after all. But a demon has to be within fifty feet of her to actually die from it.

She doesn’t exactly use a Breathing technique for her Biwa. But her base Breathing technique is Water Breathing, so she practices using her sword often so her skills stay sharp.

Dream Pillar : Enmu

I’ll start this off by saying that no, it’s not quite the same as his original Blood Demon Art. But it does use illusion in order to confuse his target.

Enmu is, to say the least, a sadist.

(Nobody likes him)

He toys with his prey and usually ends up taking a long time in order to complete a single mission because he loses track of time.

The Corps wouldn’t like that if they ever found out, but it’s not like they can just stop him.

However, his technique is extremely effective if they ever have the opportunity to gain information from a demon with a high rank.

Which is probably the only time the Corps would let him do as he pleases.

He doesn’t really have a reason for joining the Demon Slayer Corps. He had no family or loves ones to worry about, and he was good at killing demons. What more could he say?

(That’s probably even more depressing than his family dying or smth)

His Dream Breathing is descended from Flame Breathing, because honestly anything destructive is a plus to Enmu.

He uses a Nichirin blade, but he also uses poison on occasion. Not the type that Shinobu uses to kill them, since that’s not the kind of person he is. He uses hallucinogens to make his Breath style more effective.

Spider Pillar : Rui

A surprising amount of people like him, but I can’t say I don’t know why.

Rui’s one goal when he became a Demon Slayer was simple : protect his family.

None of them are actually blood related, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t fight tooth and nail in order to protect his siblings.

It’s not fake like it would be if he were a demon. Rui deeply cares for those that he sees as his family.

His Spider Breathing is descended from Wind Breathing, and is very unpredictable.

Rather than use a traditional Nichirin blade, Rui opted for a more experimental approach : threads.

To the touch, it’s fine and hard to miss. But when he uses it in battle, alongside his Breath Style, it’s hard as diamonds. And Rui controls is expertly, though there’s not really any way to just cut a demon’s head off.

He usually ends up slicing them into tiny bits and pieces, but that does the job as well.

Listen

CAN and WILL adopt any lone child that he sees

That's all for him lmao

Demon Slayer Corps Leader : Muzan Kibutsuji

He's So Done with everything and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

Bedridden or not, he’ll beat someone’s ass. On more than one occasion, he’s somehow chased after Daki and Gyuutarou for fighting.

But don’t worry, he’s a very good leader. He’s just temperamental at times, is all.

However, he is a strategic genius. He does everything for a reason. Nothing is done without purpose.

He does know how to wield a sword, but he can’t do it often. His body wouldn’t be able to sustain that kind of physical strain.

The Pillars are incredibly protective of him. They respect him deeply, even if he can be quite stingy and a little aggressive at times. It’s just how he is. He’s never angry just to be angry.

Despises demons. They’re the reason that his body is as weak as it is, so he can’t help but hate them for everything they’ve done.

#demon slayer #kny #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer imagines #demon slayer headcanons #demon slayer oneshots #kny imagines #kny headcanons #kny oneshots #kimetsu no yaiba imagines #kimetsu no yaiba headcanons #kimetsu no yaiba oneshots #kny roleswap au #role reverse au #so the demon moons are now the pillars #and muzan is the leader of the demon slayers #how did this get so fucking long #help me god

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rpgmgames · 5 years ago

Photo

April’s Featured Game: Nobody's Home

DEVELOPER(S): oates ENGINE: RPG Maker MV GENRE: Survival Horror SUMMARY: After a night of extreme drinking and partying, you wake up in stranger's bed to discover... Nobody's Home.

Buy the game here! Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *oates: Hi, this is oates! I'm a pixel artist and game developer, I've started making games with rpgmaker in 2016 with VX Ace and now currently using MV for recent projects. Previous projects I've worked on were the FNaF-inspired Souls-like One Night at the Steeze, my first rpgmaker game and it's prequel, the FNaF-inspired roguelike No Delivery. Other games I've worked on include the fangames Day Dreaming Derpy, made in VX Ace and Spike's Day Off, made in MV and the latest in a series of previous fangames previously developed on Adobe Flash.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *oates: Nobody's Home is largely based on my experiments to find and apply horrific elements in modern situations or phenomena. The scenario being explored here in Nobody's Home is the aftermath of some crazy party. Sound design is especially important when crafting a horror scenario, so I often look to music to draw inspiration. Much of the atmosphere and house design was inspired by music and imagery associated with '70s yacht rock (a sub-genre of soft rock). Another important note is a lot of the general mood and 'weirdness' was inspired by a band I listen a lot to, Dance Gavin Dance, specifically their "deathstar" album. However they have a tendency in all their albums to switch genres mid-song, often going from their post-hardcore sound to funk, pop, and even rap; aside from that, some of the subject matter covered can range from disturbing to unpleasant to nonsensical, but combined with the amazing music, it creates an experience that pulls the listener in all different directions. It got to the point that I was naming events in the game after some their tracks so I had to be careful not to inadvertently make a fangame haha But there are some easter eggs in Nobody's Home that were intentionally left in, and I'm fairly certain players have identified it already.

How long did you work on your project? *oates: I used much of the same framework left over from my previous project No Delivery for this development cycle, so the hassle for setting up asset pipelines was very much mitigated. I started in earnest, making assets back in January this year so it took roughly 2+ months to finish development for this project.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *oates: Aside from the previous music inspirations, I was really intrigued with the way Resident Evil 7's Beginning Hour demo was able to pick up where Konami's cancelled PT left off in terms of survival horror games to look forward to back in 2017. Prior to later updates, the initial demo really only included a few set pieces, basic item interaction, and almost no puzzles from the full game. It was largely able to pull off scaring players from almost atmosphere alone (if you exclude the Jack Baker and ghost encounters). It was later in the full game that it was able to show off it's metroidvania-esque design to its fullest. After my previous project, I wanted to step away from roguelike design for a bit and focus a little more on an exploration-based experience, so I took a few notes from the way RE7 and RE2: Remake handled map design and progression.

Did you come across any challenges during development? How did you overcome or work around them? *oates: I was coming off a severe cold last year and it took most of January for me to recover, so it was a little hard to start full-on development immediately like I normally would on top of other career matters. And looking at events today, it's even more imperative that developers practice healthy habits during development.

Did any aspects of your project change over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *oates: I've had the idea for Nobody's Home as a concept for a while, but filling in those gaps with actual gameplay between centerpieces was a big variable. I went back and forth between the turn-based item combat from the previous project to cutting out combat entirely. While I didn't implement it, I also brainstormed a few concepts for overworld action and combat ala Zelda, but it seemed too complex given the time frame I set for myself. Eventually I settled on a middle ground between full combat and separate encounters, with "enemies" acting as essentially a toll gate. The rest of the game followed suit with various tolls and "mouse traps" for the player to trigger at their own behest. This wasn't necessarily the design I had in mind at first, but it helped to concisely fill a relatively small location with specifically "deadly" content.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *oates: I largely work solo for both development and art, but I do regularly work with a few musicians for an original soundtrack. I first started working with other composers for the fangame Day Dreaming Derpy, where after the initial demo was released, I received emails from a few musicians volunteering to contribute some tracks for the game. In all, the original soundtrack contained 9 tracks in total, with 3 tracks from each composer; each of them doing an amazing job and, in my opinion brought the project back then to a higher degree of quality. This was how I met some of the composers I still work with today and they all have some really great work! TheNGVirus @NGVirusNG1 Kaminakat @thekaminakat dRedder @HornyGremlin

What is the best part of developing a game? *oates: It's a toss up between the initial brainstorming/research and the first run-through when you have your desired maps linked together. For the brainstorming, it's pretty fun to learn about subject matter you want to do justice to as well as stretching your creative muscles for the first time in service to a certain concept. However this obviously wears off when you devote too much time to a particular concept, but it's still enjoyable nevertheless. For making that run-through, it doesn't necessarily mean to have all the events implemented, but to experience your game the way players will experience it for the first time does give a sense of completion/cohesion to what you, as a developer, are trying to accomplish. It essentially puts what you're working on into a different perspective for you.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *oates: I do keep an eye out for what other rpgmaker projects are doing, and to see what others can do with the engine helps get the creative juices flowing; it's also fun to try to mentally reverse engineer how certain mechanics or effects were made. And it's always great to see fellow devs showcase what's possible with the engine.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *oates: Nobody's Home has a relatively small cast of characters, whom you do interact with but never see, this is largely to done to create a sense of "un-relatability", but if I had to pick a character, it'd be "car guy", the guy you find stuck in the car. They have a good line, " ...there'd be a good reason for this, but there isn't..." Story of my life.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *oates: There were a few areas I would have liked to expand on or add, specifically- the attic + roof, the front lawn, behind the walls, and an entire second floor. Unfortunately that meant potentially adding more questlines and NPCs while the first set of questlines were pretty interwoven so it would have been way more complex, also again, given the time frame I set, it would have extended the development cycle way beyond what I had time for. But if I had implemented those extra areas, the game's length would also go way beyond the 30 min - 1 hr it takes to complete the game as it is now.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *oates: I'd like to do both really, each installment of the VCRPG line of games is definitely a stand-alone story, or an isolated incident, but I would love to explore the aftermath of the game's events and how the passage of time ravages and twists the story into urban legend. I like to treat places and environments like characters as well, capable of making memories, being misunderstood, preserved, destroyed, and ultimately capable of change.

What do you most look forward to upon finishing the game? *oates: Both the fan reaction and free time honestly speaking. Once the development cycle finishes and the game is published, your work isn't really finished as there's always a chance someone's feedback can apply to immediate changes or patches you can implement, even during the release period. Marketing is also another large step to take into consideration after release, this includes tweeting, sending keys for lets plays, etc. Watching playthroughs is also a really good way to collect data on what parts of your design fall through and what fail to land. But after all that is said and done, some free time really helps the brain recuperate.

Was there something you were afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *oates: Just whether or not I handled the game's subject matter tastefully. Like horror cinema, everything done is in service the the themes and message of the piece as a whole.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *oates: The game engine is essentially a tool, and like any tool you can find plenty of creative ways to get the same result. And don't be afraid to research whatever it is you need help with, it also helps to be specific with what you want.

Question from last month's featured dev @moca-pz: If you can collaborate with any game developer in the world, who would it be? What would be their role(s) and what would be your role(s)? *oates: Game developer I'd like to work with: Hidetaka Miyazaki His role: Story Lead and Director My role: Drinking buddy Game we're working on: SciFi Souls

We mods would like to thank oates for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Nobody's Home if you haven’t already! See you next month!

- Mods Gold & Platinum

#rpg maker #nobody's home (game)#nobodys home #nobody's home #game #rpgmaker horror #pixel horror #horror game #indie game #gotm #game of the month #oates #gotm 2020 #2020 #april #april 2020

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alfafilly · 4 years ago

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New Year New Me

I want to make a small New Years Resolution this year aimed specifically towards my role in the Sly Cooper fandom. It’s gonna be kinda long and venty so warning!!

As a bit of backstory, I haven’t been in a fandom/actively drawing fanart since like... 2012 maybe? Like in terms of drawing fanart for the same series routinely. I went through a really stupid phase where I thought fanart was a waste of time because I had been hounded over and over again by peers and those I looked up to that only ORIGINAL © DO NOT STEAL content mattered. I looked down on fanart and used every excuse to belittle fanartists. I dunno if this was also in part due to the last fandom I was in being extremely toxic (that being the Invader Zim fandom. Booooois them 2006-2008 deviantART IZ days were something else) and my college experience constantly telling me “fanart in your portfolio is stinky bad no do that” (which is hotly debated btw).

Anyway... jumping into the Sly Cooper fandom has been extremely positive for me and helping me shed a lot of that negative attitude. Dare I say there was character development?! And while, for the most part, Sly fandom isn’t that toxic, there are elements of it that have caused much chaotic negativity within me that I am hoping to get rid of.

Maybe it’s a result of my former opinions about fanart, but I have always felt a sense of inadequacy, or as if I NEED to make my place in the fandom for me to be relevant and to matter. I have vented about this in the past. My first fanart piece was a compilation of my interpretations of the cast, and it was well received, and everyone talked about how they wanted me to draw more characters, to see more designs, etc. Which is why I said I wanted to redesign ALL the cast because the people DEMANDED IT!! This could be my way of placing myself in the fandom!!! HELL YEAH!!!

But it didn’t make me... happy, I guess? I DO enjoy redesigning, but when I do it under my own terms, with no pressure. I think coming out of art school made me put on blinders and tell myself what I used to believe in: “If you’re going to waste your time on fanart, better make it good. You know, people can hire you if you show good fanart! These redesigns could get you a job in the industry! You gotta ONLY do work that will benefit your end goal and nothing else!!”

This often made me feel extreme guilt when I started drawing more of my Arpeggio content, or my Arpeggio AUs because despite how much fun I was having, that little voice in the back of my head was saying “No!! Stop drawing that!! Draw stuff that everyone will care about besides just you!!! You’re not going to get anywhere with this!! Drawing sexy Arpeggio won’t get you a job in the industry KJSNJKGNSKNGKJNAJ!!!!”

This mentality also crafted some uhh... extremely negative competitive attitudes towards other artists in the fandom. Certain artists would piss me off every time they posted to the point I would have to block them to stop seeing their work just to prevent these feelings. There is a notable artist I won’t name, but they do Sly redesigns too. I was fine with them initially, but after they blatantly stole one of my designs without crediting me I was LIVID. I called them out and they did apologize and changed the design, but every time I saw their work from then on out I had this insane urge to “beat them”. It was a sick competitive game. I felt jaded they ripped my design and kept getting popular anyway. TBH it’s rather petty and I am trying not to harbor any ill will towards them because I don’t think they meant anything by it and the design was rather insignificant in the whole scheme of things. But I still have them blocked or muted everywhere because I am still struggling to ignore that great urge every time I see their designs to drop everything I’m doing and draw my own redesigns out of unhealthy spite.

And I’m only briefly going to go over the god damn Deceit of Thieves drama. Apparently they are still making it into a legit game? They have a Patreon apparently and are posting stuff about it? I found out about that and the same sort of fiery rage filled me. But this was much less personal. Sure, I had given a critique to them but I honestly wanted the game/story/whatever to flourish? After seeing their poor reactions and being attacked by their white knights, my taste towards them grew bitter and I think my fellow Sly fans having the same bitterness fueled me to flat out grow a hatred for them. That’s kind of awful? I never expected to want another member of the fandom to have their project fail. What kind of asshole am I for wanting that?? I don’t want that. I want them to learn from their mistakes and make something great. Not hold some ridiculous resentment. I can decide not to support them if I wanted, but wishing failure is a whole other horrible thing.

So realizing this I knew I needed to... change my perspective on how I see myself in the fandom and how I process my feelings towards it. I don’t want to be here to produce soulless portfolio worthy content. I don’t want to compete with other artists or wish them ill. I just want to draw some god damn fanart of a series I love and that makes me happy!

I’m posting this here as a way to hold accountability to myself and be honest. I started drawing Sly stuff again in 2017 so it’s been an issue appearing on and off the last 4 years and that’s... sad. It needs to end! I appreciate everyone in the fandom who has supported me in my endeavors, as ridiculous as they are. I can’t believe drawing and writing about a dumb bird man and cat lady and throwing my stupid OCs into the fray for my favorite childhood game has made me learn so much about myself, my work, and gained me so many great peers and friends. I definitely don’t want to stop any time soon! And I apologize profusely if I ever hurt anyone in some way because I lost sight of that (or was just a dick for whatever reason).

Thanks for your support, and I hope 2021 will bring me loads more positivity into my content!!

#sly cooper #vent #rant #text post

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bluecoloreddreams · 4 years ago

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(Disclaimer: this contains spoilers for the Fruits Basket and Fruits Basket: Another manga, as well as taking into consideration tidbits from Takaya’s twitter.)

So, okay, first of all we have to address the YMMV aspect: Some people don’t like this ship. As long as they’re respectful, I have no beef with that. I’m well aware that some people cannot/choose not to make the distinction between “real life” and “fiction”— I have the luxury of this choice, so some of the “problematic” ships/character aspects within Furuba don’t bother me (for the most part). It’s fiction, and I’m aware of this.

Again, some people cannot/do not make this distinction, and that’s none of my business because that’s their personal life. I’m aware that people dislike aspects of Akigure, and that’s fine.

Personally? I’ve been reading Furuba since like, basically the dawn of time. I was reading scans on, like, MSN groups. I remember a friend at church (of all places) telling me about the Akito reveal because I was behind on updates. It’s literally engrained upon my shipping heart at this point.

(Headcanons ahoy! Like literally, this is all headcanon/my perspective on the series as a whole. YMMV/YKINMK/Dead Dove, the whole works, if you know you know

YES I wrote it like it’s an actual research paper because I have No Chill At All, please forgive me. It’s long and pretty rambling.)

Addressing the first elephant in the room: Given my limited interactions with the fandom, my impression of Akigure from a generalized fan POV is that it’s pretty divisive. Every episode she comes up there are “I hate this kid” comments and I cry

Akito is a favorite of mine, and it’s impossible for anime-only’s to make a deep, informed call on her character. On the other hand, a lot of manga-readers dislike her too.

So, why am I talking about whether or not people like Akito as a character?

I’m of the opinion that it impacts people’s ability to view her character arc as one that deserves a happy ending. That she doesn’t deserve to have love, happiness, or forgiveness, all of which are given to her when she and Shigure finally end up together on equal footing. (Do I think the way it’s rushed in the original Furuba ending? Yeah, but hey. Sensei had like a huge ensemble cast to wrap ends on. Now there’s Furubana to look to and it’s just chef’s kiss.)

There’s a mental aspect in this, involving the dichotomy between “reality” and “fiction”.

There is absolutely zero argument that are a lot of things that Akito does that uh, listen, if it was IRL she’d be in jail! Jail for terror baby! Jail for life!

Fortunately, Fruits Basket is a work of fiction. These characters aren’t real, they’re idealized brushstrokes of human nature created to move a plot and a message along.

That’s why Akito and Shigure work as a couple and as characters:

They’re both incredibly deep characters that get passed off as one-dimensional by a lot of people (and the original anime, woof). Some of it is again, because anime-only fans just don’t have the whole story, since Akito’s arc is one that builds gradually until it hits a point where all hell breaks loose, which we are a ways away from.

So what’s the message that their relationship and characters are supposed to pass on?

Well, it breaks down into two categories: world building and thematic arcs. The latter is more important and what I’ll be focusing on, while the former is just a little spice that I, personally enjoy, and won’t really talk about in depth. (It’s that the magical realism in Furuba sets up the idea of soulmates, it’s just…. Something I enjoy and it’s really heacanony, so I can’t really justify spending more words on it!)

When discussing Fruits Baskets in any capacity, I feel like we must first keep in mind the thematic “lessons” of the series:

There is an inherent loneliness in living as a human being, since loss, grief, and hurt are indelible parts of the human experience, and learning to cope with these feelings in a compassionate manner is a life-long lesson

People react differently to the loneliness of existence, and their reactions are based upon their personalities, their upbringings, and their own choices

Everyone is capable of change and learning, if they choose to do so, however:

Personal agency is taught, but in the vacuum of positive reinforcement, the ability of a person to choose to be compassionate is stifled or outright inaccessible

Therefore, if you are not taught to deal with your grief and existence outside of others, your ability to connect may become warped, manipulative, or abusive, and this is not the fault of the child but instead the parental figure

Eventually, you will be aware of your actions, and then it is your burden to choose—some people do not take this choice (the head maid, Ren, Kyo’s bio dad, Rin’s parents, Sawa’s mother in Furubana)

Abuse has long lasting effects on the psyche and can be physical, emotional, and/or mental in nature and must be dealt with in order to grow as a person

“Dealt with” does not mean that it goes away, but that it is acknowledged and given a positive outlet (Yuki’s garden, Aaya’s shop, Rin’s art, Momiji’s violin playing)

Forgiveness is not linear

Forgiving yourself is a long and arduous process, and happens independent of other people’s forgiveness

This is really brought to the forefront in Fruits Basket: Another, when Shiki talks about how his mother interacts with the rest of the Sohma family. It’s shown she’s done what she can to make amends, but recognizes that while she can individually hold relationships with certain family members, as a whole, it's best if she allows them to be away from her.

This is a whole tangent on its own, but there’s a certain blanket of casual forgiveness given to Akito by the entirety of the shown Zodiac in Furubana, in that they trust that she’s raised a kind and thoughtful son and allow him the grace of his own family.

Again, in Takaya’s tweets post-series that acknowledges that Akito’s friends with Uo-chan, despite her relationship with Kureno (and it shows a depth of awareness on Kureno’s part that he stays away

People flourish in environments where love and positive reinforcement is given freely, even when people are in the wrong

This doesn’t mean that no one is ever scolded: see Komaki and Kakeru, Kisa and Hiro, Hatori chews out Shigure all the time, but never ceases being his confidant

So okay, that’s A Lot. But every single character in Furuba follows these themes in their own manner, because the series is about healing and learning how to heal from abuse, neglect, and isolation. Someone’s gonna have to be doing it. Point blank, the end, to tell a story there must be conflict, and boy howdy, there’s a lot of conflict in Furuba. Every personal thematic arc in the series ends up tying into a romantic one, because Furuba is a romcom drama.

There’s a loop that goes “personal betterment”->”crush”/”friendship”->”conflict”->”personal growth”/”relationship growth” in the series for every character. That’s the bread and butter of Furuba.

But anyway. To the question:

I love them because they work, they’re both their own people with their own narrative focuses, motivations, conflicts, and flaws. Both Shigure and Akito are believable in their own right in the context of Furuba, and I think Takaya did wonderfully in crafting a story where their personalities mesh well and give each other reasons to better themselves.

To talk about them together, you have to talk about them separately.

I’m gonna start with Shigure because, truthfully?

I just want to lament about how often he’s simply passed off as either comic relief or absolute trash. He’s so underestimated!

“He’s a joke of a grown man… He is reliable and I trust him.” (Another, v. 3)

He’s incredibly intelligent when it comes to interpersonal relationships, which is why he’s able to do what he does. He’s also incredibly kind—no one made him take in Yuki or Kyo or Tohru. He could have just went “ah, I’d prefer not to” and moved on. But he didn’t, made up some bullshit so Haru would feel like taking in Yuki was a transaction, and let me just tell you, I am the same age as Shigure and if you gave ME three teenagers to be the guardian of?! It would be a full on disaster.

He’s actually incredibly trustworthy (if he wants to be), insightful, and a genuinely good guardian despite his jokes and wisecracking.

He forced Kyo to go back to school, knowing full well it would be good for him. He lets a whole host of children run rampant through his home. Kids who actually enjoy his presence. He’s shown as having a good familial relationship with Rin (who tries to warp that for her own means), Kisa, Haru, and Momiji. His advice to Tohru is genuine, insightful, and ridiculously helpful.

Shigure is good with people. He gets up at the crack of dawn to drive Shiki to see Sawa in Furubana. He’s who Mutsuki and Hajime immediately go “holy shit you need to do something about this” to when they find out Shiki’s getting nasty notes about Akito. He’s who Shiki goes to when Sawa fell down the stairs as a child. As much as Shiki and the others make fun of Shigure, he’s obviously someone who’s trustworthy. And that’s not some new development, he’s always been trustworthy in regards to those he loves. No one asked him to show up to Tohru’s teacher conference, he volunteered. Like this dude loves people, he’s the dog spirit after all, and rightly so.

Does he have his own motivations? Of course! But so does everyone else in Furuba. He’s a complex character, man!

He laughs and jokes a lot because he’s projecting this image of a laid back, doofus. When you think about who he’s friends with, the whole middling goofball act makes a lot of sense. Just like some of Ayame’s over the top behavior is a defense mechanism, I believe that Shigure casts himself as a generally unappealing man to keep himself safe from advances when he was in school, but also to temper the wildly unequal personalities of his other two friends. He’s the sort of person who would just go “eh, whatever makes it easy”, and that’s just how he is.

He doesn’t mean the creepy school girl thing, it’s a bit and I think the only people who don’t realize he’s running a bit are Yuki, Kyo, and Tohru who are absolutely too stupid to realize he’s playing them for reactions. He thinks it’s funny.

Anyway:

When the older Zodiac had the dream of Shigure, Shigure is the only one who made the active choice to seek out that feeling. His soul was touched, and he decided that he wanted that and only that. This doesn’t necessarily mean he went full Jacob from Breaking Dawn, but it does mean he acknowledged there was a bond, and he wanted it.

When you get into the technicalities of the curse, it’s mentioned that their Zodiac spirits influence how they interact with Akito, and that going against her can cause physical and emotional pain. Yuki cries when meeting her, and it’s mentioned that that’s just the normal reaction for the Zodiacs.

It’s hard to say how much of their early interactions are influenced by the curse, but it’s obvious that Shigure has genuine fondness for her. She wasn’t always absolutely broken, as shown in Yuki’s backstory, and was a precocious child, one who sought affection openly.

Shigure has an indulgent personality, and is shown to love being adored. Guess who loves him! Akito! Guess who wants lots and lots of affection! Akito!

Their personalities are very well matched as they get older: They’re both intelligent and coy. They both have fairly sharp tongues when needed, and have no qualms about doing whatever it takes to get what they want.

Shigure wants Akito to be independent from the curse. He’s made it clear to her he doesn’t want to be her father, he doesn’t want to be her friend, he wants to be her lover. Those are boundaries that Akito’s never been given before, and his frankness with her and his jealousy with Kureno is something she agonizes over, simply because she’s never been given any sort of serious interpersonal boundaries, or repercussions for her actions. He’s always kept himself separate from her, because of those boundaries, even when they were children.

That’s important. It opens the door to the idea that her actions have consequences, and is a persistent nagging in the back of her mind.

“Even though you hadn’t realized it, I was waiting for that day.” (ch 101)

For the bulk of the series, the only person who sees Akito as a person separate from the curse, and sees a future where she can grow is Akito. He has an extraordinary amount of patience for her, and forgives her for a lot.

There are only two incidents that Shigure cannot forgive: Her sleeping with Kureno, and at the very end of the series, I’m of the full opinion that if Akito had pushed Tohru off the cliff, Shigure would have been done with her. Look at that expression, that is the look of someone who is toeing the line of throwing away all his hopes and dreams. If she really had pushed Tohru, I just...... The series would have taken a much darker tone.

OKAY that’s enough about our favorite terrible author! (Okay, an aside, Shigure, please share your work ethic, you goof off so much but you’ve published so many things…how…)

ONTO AKITO!

“I’ve finally realized… she hated her own shallowness all this time, from the very start.” // “It’s frightening because you have no choices.” (ch 121)

A lot of people dislike Akito because she, for the bulk of the manga, is violent, manipulative and just downright unpleasant. And that’s fine, but it’s not the point of her arc or the themes of the manga. (It is, however, the point of Rin’s: you don’t have to forgive everyone.)

She’s not the only violent person in the series. If we as readers can forgive Uo-chan and Kyoko, or even Hana-chan for her moment of violence, why can we not extend the same grace to Akito?

Violence is often shown as a knee-jerk reaction to fear and sadness: Kyoko, Uo, Hana, Kyo, Rin, and Akito all react violently to negative situations and feelings. Even Kisa reacts violently when she’s at her worst, biting both Haru and Tohru when she’s in her tiger form, which is shown to actually cause pain like a real tiger would. (It’s played for laughs, but has anyone been bitten for realsies by a house cat? That hurts! How much more would a house-cat sized tiger hurt!!!)

Out of all of them, Hanajima and Kisa are the only characters to show immediate remorse, because they have what the others don’t: A positive support system. Once positive role models and support systems are in place, all of the others begin to learn how to react differently and ease out of the knee-jerk reactions that were ingrained in them.

It’s made explicit in the manga that you have to be taught how to react positively, you have to learn and choose to be good, to be friendly, to love yourself outside of others’ perceptions of yourself. Look at Yuki’s arc. Look at Uo-chan’s. Kyoko’s.

Yuki sums it up nicely in the last chapter of the manga, where he tells Tohru that she taught the Zodiac how to become human. She allows them to grow into people who can make the choice to be loving, compassionate individuals.

Just because Akito doesn’t interact positively with Tohru for the bulk of the manga, it doesn’t make it any less true:

Akito is kept in a juvenile state of being: No one teaches her to suck it up, that the world exists outside of herself, that other people are people and not things. In fact, she’s actively encouraged to act the way she does. She’s incredibly broken, between the maids of the Sohma estate just… allowing her to do whatever the fuck she wants and her absolutely jacked up relationship with Ren and Akira. She has no moral compass at all. No one bothers to teach her that her actions have serious consequences.

She knows, in a roundabout way that hey, these people don’t like me. There’s a serious mental dissonance between what she latently knows—these are all people with no connection to her other than the bond of the curse. This is why Tohru is able to break through to her at the climax of the manga:

She knows she’s wrong, but no one has ever told her she’s wrong but understood why she’s doing it. Akito just didn’t have the words to explain herself. What do children do when they cannot communicate? They lash out. Kids will bite, scratch, yell, kick, fall to the floor and have screaming tantrums out of frustration. Eventually, most kids learn that there are other ways to express frustration, and move along. (Not all, though, but most.)

Akito was taught that this is acceptable, allowable, and is her right as god. She is actively broken and kept that way through the neglect of the Sohma family maids, Ren’s abuse, and how Akira framed her role in the Zodiac.

I can go on and on and on and on why the way Akito was treated for her role in the Zodiac by her parents and the rest of the Sohma estate was just awful. I hate it, it’s terrible, she never had a chance to learn and grow and be the genuinely thoughtful woman we know she grows into.

She doesn’t force her path of forgiveness onto others and is fully cognizant of what she did, the repercussions of her actions, and lives her entire life after the curse breaks trying to right what she did wrong.

“Even if she gets hurt, she says she deserves it. She tells me not to let it bother me, but… I’ve always, always loved her so much.” (Another, ch. 13)

Tohru opens the door for Akito. She extends her hand, offers her friendship despite having seen the absolute worst of Akito. She tells Akito that everyone is lonely, everyone wants bonds, and acknowledges Akito’s worst fears, that Akito herself is selfish and dirty for wanting something assured and unending because she, Tohru, herself is dirty and selfish. Tohru knows what Akito has done, knows she’s injured some of her beloved friends, had plans to lock up Kyo, hurt Hatori.

Tohru still forgives her. One of Tohru’s striking traits in the manga is that she is suffering, every day, she struggles with the grief of losing her mother and the fear of being alone in the world. Through nothing but her own empathy and realization that loneliness is universal, she’s able to forgive people. She forgives Akito and cares for her, and through Tohru, Akito is introduced to the realization that she’s been wrong and that maybe, she shouldn’t be forgiven.

Shigure also forgives her, and this is the crux of their ship.

To me, that itself is wildly important.

They’ve always circled around each other, and Shigure has always been waiting for Akito to be able to come to him again, in full control of her life and choices. He wants Akito the woman, not Akito the god.

He’s been waiting for the day Akito can meet him as an equal. Akito wants it too, and has wanted him to turn and see her for a very very long time. But she’s been terrified, the entire time, that when he does see her as herself, Shigure won’t like what he sees, and will leave. She’s aware of what she’s done post-curse, she’s aware of the impacts it will have on the former Zodiac members, and she’s aware that once the “bonds” of god and the animals is gone, there may not be anyone left for her.

Neither of them are under any illusions at the end of the series: Akito knows she has to atone for what she did, Shigure knows she has to learn to grow into a person who can function alone. They both know that there are people who are against them changing the oppressive structure of the Sohma family.

Neither of them care. There are things that they want, together, and it’s enough. There’s a whole new world for them to explore and learn about. And in Furubana, this is shown to be a lifelong effort on their parts:

“She said after meeting me, she learned so many things for the first time. She smiled happily as she said it.” (Another, #13)

To close, I’d like to take a moment to talk about the curse and Shigure, and how he set things in motion.

Without Shigure, the curse would have devolved on its own, yes, but the circumstances would not have allowed for the freedom the Zodiac had at the end of the manga. It would not have ended with Akito being able to learn and live freely. Allowing Tohru into the Sohma family cracked open a door to compassion and kindness none of them had ever experienced before, because the Sohma family seems to exist in a vacuum of stability and love.

It wasn’t that Shigure knew instantly that Tohru was kind and loving and thoughtful, if anything, his read on her was “completely normal, albeit strange, teenage girl who obviously has a rough life”. But she was normal, she was from outside the Sohmas, and he knew that was enough. No one in the family was stepping up to change the status quo and how stifling and abusive it was, so he did it himself.

He did it because he loved Akito.

Not because he felt bad for himself, or Hatori, or any of the others, but merely because he loved her to the point of manipulation. It backfired in his face, because he got a big ol’ dose of “loving and respecting” juice from Tohru, but he still got the end he wanted.

What I mean to say is best summarized in chapter 123:

“It would be nice to live in a kind world, without any troubles, without any fear, without hurting anybody, without ever being hurt, only doing the right thing. I wish I could reach this kind world by the shortest path possible. … “That’s wrong”, or “that’s stupid”: If it’s someone else’s life it’s so easy to make such irresponsible comments. ...It would be great, but it doesn’t exist. … Little by little, walking one step at a time, is all you can do.”

We get to experience the roughest part of the path with Akito and Shigure, we got to watch them be terrible people who were lonely and in want of love struggle and learn how to get up and move on.

They tease each other, Shigure is thoughtful of the distinction between “the person Akito was raised to be” and “the person who Akito is”. He’s seen her at her messiest, and she’s seen him at his most jealous. They still chose each other, despite the hurt they caused each other, and others. They make up for it, reflect, and live a life that demonstrates that they have learned. They have friends who are thoughtful and loving and would not hesitate to drop everything and help them, lend an ear when they’re frustrated, help them not to make the same mistakes.

And then we get to see them be wonderful, kind, thoughtful, loving parents in Furubana.

We got to see their adorable, kind, compassionate child be friends with the children of the people Akito hurt, because everyone in the former Zodiac’s family collectively decided “never again, no”.

Their child adores them. Shiki in Furubana #13 radiates love for Akito and Shigure the same way Mutsuki and Hajime do.

They are genuinely good parents, even when they tease Shiki, and I think that is testament for how good they are for each other and how much they’ve changed as adults.

I think that’s enough of a reason to ship them, don’t you?

#Mitkun writes stuff #fruits basket manga spoilers #fruits basket another #fruits basket spoilers #akigure #fruits basket akito #fruits basket shigure

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johannesviii · 4 years ago

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A Useless Post Rating the Preppers From Death Stranding

Because I can and I will. I got super attached to some of these bunches of pixels while playing, and I want to share my useless and extra subjective opinions

No plot-related spoilers. This is only listing the Preppers and not any Bridges employee from the various cities and facilities. No reasonable individuals to be found here, only strange people living in bunkers, baby

Let’s go

The Ludens Fan

Shelter placement: On a mountain, right between a Timefall zone and MULE territory, and not on any obvious delivery route. Not great. The view is super nice, though. 6/10

Prepper: A cinnamon roll who believes the world will be saved by fandoms and games. Always happy to see you. Gets super excited when you find old figurines for him. Sends lost stuff to people he doesn’t even know. Has toy dinosaurs.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: He is a Friend. 9/10

The Musician

Shelter placement: Hidden behind a little cliff, on a mountain, in a patch of nice fresh moss, next to a cool waterfall, overlooking the whole valley. Not on any delivery route whatsoever but come on. This guy is living the dream. 10/10

Prepper: Talks to you as if he’s known you since highschool. Has an emo haircut. Very passionate about rock albums from the “beginning of the 21st century” so I’m assuming he’s a fellow MCR fan. The walls of his shelter are covered in vinyls. Wants to create and share the music of the future for free. Streams his concerts on the chiral network.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A harmonica. You can play it. I’m in love

Opinion while playing: Hell yeah what a cool dude 10/10

The Engineer

Shelter placement: In plain view right next to a huge road and two MULE territories. Dude didn’t even try to hide and his packages are stolen all the time. At least the weather is nice? 3/10

Prepper: Has spent his entire life inside of this bunker since birth. Polite and a bit shy. Has a friendly smile. Judging by the amount of alcohol we deliver to him, feels lonely. Sometimes you’ll find gallons of lube with his name on it and he’ll refuse to give any kind of explanation and to be fair the guy probably uses it for all his mechanical inventions. But deep down, we know.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Upgrades for the Power Skeleton. You know you want them.

Opinion while playing: Another Friend. I will judge him silently every time I have to bring him his lost lube though. 9/10

The Craftsman

Shelter placement: Next to a huge road on a plain ravaged by Timefall, between two MULE territories and a voidout crater choke-full of BTs. Can potentially see the nightmarish ruins of a roadside factory and a traffic jam where everyone clearly got killed. I don’t know if I hate it or respect the shit out of it. 2/10

Prepper: Suspicious of us. Sends us on a suicide mission to fetch old equipment in a terrifying place. Hates Fragile, so we can’t be friends. Likes to fix broken watches, apparently. A lot of his lost packages seem to be special reinforced underwear. I’m curious but also I don’t want to pry.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Custom hematic grenades. Can’t live without them.

Opinion while playing: A suspicious little shit and I don’t trust him but he’s still a good ally. 5/10

The Elder

Shelter placement: On a majestic plateau in the middle of the region, overlooking everything. Not on any obvious route, which is a problem, but also away from danger, Timefall and MULEs. A green little patch of heaven. 9/10

Prepper: Old and kind but takes no shit from anybody. All of his emails are like “anyway, f█ck the government and f█ck this country” and I’m living for it. Will give away old photo albums, books and games predating the Death Stranding, in hope they can be shared with other people and their kids. Wholesome as hell.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: The most valid boomer you will ever see. My adoptive grandfather and I must protect him at all costs. 10/10

Peter Englert

Shelter placement: Not on any obvious delivery route but right next to Lake Knot City on a plain ravaged by Timefall. You can see Middle Knot City’s crater from there. Not a bad spot, but also no good vibes whatsoever. 6/10

Prepper: Never at home, has no hologram and keeps finding terrible excuses not to be there, which is rude. Possibly imaginary friends and relatives. Writes extremely long and well-spoken, obsequious, smarmy emails to you and you’ll receive them at the worst possible moments, like he just knows. Only interested in pizza, and you.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Hope you like high quality guns, and very disturbing journal entries.

Opinion while playing: Was literally calling him my nemesis even BEFORE learning anything about the guy. The best and the worst prepper at the same time. Go f█ck yourself, dude, I love you. Pizza/10

The Timefall Farmer and the Environmental Scientist

Shelter placement: Right next to a huge MULE territory. There’s the Tar Belt in the distance and no city, road or friends for miles. Very awkward. 4/10

Preppers: Planned to study the effects of Timefall on plants and became farmers instead. They are not enjoying it one bit and you’re under the impression they occasionally get on each other’s nerves even though they’ve been colleagues for years. The concept of their farm is a fantastic bit of worldbuilding, though, but they are a bit bland themselves.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A goose hologram. I need it

Opinion while playing: They’re super nice but their general weariness is too contagious for comfort. 4/10

The Film Director

Shelter placement: In the middle of jagged rocks, reasonably far away from local MULEs and Timefall, but also from any kind of road or decent delivery route. The ground is a poisonous reddish brown with occasional smoke. Ominous. 5/10

Prepper: Really worried about ancient media getting lost and forgotten, and will do anything to save old movies from oblivion. Trusts you instantly. Is always surprised you brought something for him, or just thought about him, and it’s heartwarming to see. Geeks about things he likes in your emails when he isn’t low-key flirting with you. Has the most epic beard you will ever see in your life.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A rock hologram. Uh?

Opinion while playing: Came for the geeking, stayed for the flirting 8/10

The Collector

Shelter placement: Inside a cavern two-thirds up a vertical rock face in a canyon slap bang in the middle of MULE territory. Invisible from ground level, and invisible from the bottom of the canyon. The MULEs live literally next door and don’t even know the guy is there. No chill whatsoever. Incredible. What a king. 10/10

Prepper: Shaped like a friend. Loves videogames and loves geeking about them. Fascinated by pre-Stranding press like “people were buying newspapers? On real paper?? :O”. Really wants you to read his emails because he’s got nobody to share his special interests with. Wants to write about your adventures to inspire other people. Occasionally you’ll find a lost package with a vintage playstation and you know it’s for him even without looking at the name on the tag.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A backpack cover to protect your stuff from Timefall?? holy shit?

Opinion while playing: We have no choice but to stan. 9/10

The Junk Dealer

Shelter placement: On a heavily polluted, rust-colored hill in the middle of a scrapyard full of broken down cars, overlooking both MULE and BT territory AND some f█cking terrifying ruins on all sides. It’s metal as shit, but also, the dude’s got a death wish. 3/10

Prepper: Tries to emotionally blackmail us with videos of his supposedly dead girlfriend. Very rude. Sends us on a suicide mission in BT territory to look for junk just for a laugh. Is such a piece of shit he got divorced by a woman who was willing to be carried under heavy Timefall through a horde of BTs to see him. Killed his girlfriend’s parents and didn’t tell her.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Upgrades for the Speed skeleton, and also chiral ladders, which are both life-saving, and I hate the fact that I need those so much.

Opinion while playing: A piece of shit and a terrible human being. Go sit on some rusty metal in BT territory, my dude. 1/10

The Chiral Artist and her Mother

Shelter placement: Overlooking a bottomless lake of tar and depressing ruins plagued by Timefall, far from civilisation but also far from trouble. Depressing, but safe. 6/10

Preppers: A little ray of sunshine. Capable of planning a journey on foot while avoiding Timefall and BTs after having done the trip exactly once (1) and on our back, which makes her one of the bravest Preppers we ever meet. Talented as hell with chiralium. Very awkward speech patterns and elocution which I always find relatable. Makes extremely bad choices regarding her love life. Will send you likes in a cringy but cute way. I don’t really trust her adoptive mother too much but she seems to be friends with the Cosplayer and any friend of the Cosplayer is my friend.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Chiral boots. Literally the most useful thing anyone anywhere gave me in this game. No matter how far I am from her and her mom I will backtrack to get some brand new chiral boots from her every time I need them. They are that good

Opinion while playing: I love her but she’s making extremely bad life choices and it’s giving me mild anxiety 8/10

The Cosplayer and the Wandering MC

Shelter placement: At the very bottom of a long, narrow canyon plagued by Timefall, inside a vertical hole in the ground. How they haven’t both drowned yet is beyond me. This is the worst idea ever. 1/10

Prepper: Both of them are always super excited to see you. Trade a ton of art and crafts supplies back and forth with everyone in the region. Organised a goddamn post-apo cosplay convention through the chiral network. She considers cosplay to be ‘the art of transformation’, and he’s a big fan of you, and also otters. Otter facts. Dad Jokes to the max. Legends only

Will I get something nice if I help them: Backpack custom options. And the otter hood. Come on. Who doesn’t want to look like an otter. According to the MC it was “threaded and triple stitched by [his] cosplay partner using silk”. I don’t deserve this gift

Opinion while playing: Just because it’s the apocalypse doesn’t mean you can’t look and feel your best 10/10

The Doctor and the Medical Device Engineer

Shelter placement: Overlooking a little river in the mountains, right before the snow starts. Extremely close to Mountain Knot City. Practical and beautiful. Lovely spot. 8/10

Preppers: She invented and crafted a medical terminal that allows doctors to examine patients remotely through the network, and distributed it for free. He’s sitting on years of medical knowledge and stockpiles of meds, and also sharing both with everyone. Got married because they admired each other so much and shared a common hatred of the lack of medical assistance post-Stranding. Two absolute angels. We don’t deserve them

Will I get something nice if I help them: Custom blood bags. A must during boss fights.

Opinion while playing: A bit too serious, but mad respect. 7/10

The Photographer

Shelter placement: In the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, overlooking the valley, but away from everything and everyone, next to BT territory and daaaangerously close to the biggest Demens camp in the entire country. Who told you this was a good idea. 4/10

Prepper: The walls of her shelter are decorated with photos of beautiful landscapes. Friendly but takes no shit. Constantly trying to go out to take pictures of cool places and weird paleoart and stuff even though there’s a whole gang of terrorists outside firing live ammo at anyone on sight. Her cameras get stolen all the time, and yet she keeps doing it again and again. Judging by one delivery she sent to Mountain Knot City, she even has footage of Edge Knot City. You know. The unreachable nightmarish place beyond the f█cking Tar Belt. HOW

Will I get something nice if I help them: Guns because she clearly has no chill

Opinion while playing: This woman has more nerves in her left pinky than I have in my entire f█cking body. We stan a queen 9/10

The Novelist’s Son

Shelter placement: In a vast, beautiful green plain full of rivers and lakes, kind of in the middle of nowhere but also at a safe distance of the Demens territory. It’s painted the same green as the rest of the plain, which is a stroke of genius. 8/10

Prepper: Considering his title and the fact that the walls of his shelter are full of bookshelves, I expected a pretentious writer of sorts. But no. He doesn’t write. He’s just a soft boy who wants to save the world with plants. Will make sure you read his emails because he’s very passionate about gardening, gourds and mythology, and wants to talk about it with everyone. Too good for this world, too pure.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Special cryptobiotes! Pretty cool. I want to save some for Fragile

Opinion while playing: I love him I love thinking about him 10/10

The Roboticist

Shelter placement: High in the mountains, but in some sort of hollow, surrounded by snow and rocks on all sides. There’s also a nice hot spring nearby. Feels strangely safe and pleasant for such an isolated spot. 7/10

Prepper: Super approachable and quite friendly. Clearly a genius considering how good the all-terrain skeleton is. The stuff she’s looking for goes from stuff for her projects to a plush for her kid or a vintage coffee machine. Her emails, meanwhile, are shit-your-pants terrifying, like her wondering if machines should replace humans, or pranking you by pretending she was dead the whole time and her hologram is an IA. Thank you for the heart attack.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Upgrades for the all-terrain skeleton, hell yeah baby

Opinion while playing: I’m very conflicted because her emails are scary as shit but if she stepped on my face I’d say “thank you” 8/10

The Mountaineer and the Mountain Guide

Shelter placement: On top of a mountain but in a relatively flat and safe area, very isolated but also far from Beached Things, with good visibility. There’s logic to the madness. 6/10

Preppers: Initially in panic mode due to a medical emergency. Tough outside, but soft inside. He gives you precious advice about whiteouts and how to deal with them and stay alive in the mountains. We don’t know much about her, except she used to explore the mountains using chiral climbing anchors. Just speculation but I’m under the impression they met one day on a super dangerous expedition and ended together because they were both tough as nails, or maybe because they saved each other. Their kid is going to be unstoppable.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Chiral climbing anchors.

Opinion while playing: Wholesome couple of adventurers. A bit bland, but in a good way 7/10

The Spiritualist

Shelter placement: On a mountain peak in the middle of a whiteout area, but sometimes the weather can be decent and the view pretty nice, if you squint. Getting there feels like a test to join a secret cult and I don’t like that one bit. 3/10

Prepper: Twin sister of the Cosplayer, but gives off a very different vibe, like some sort of white suburban mom who’s discovering new age stuff. Has a very mystical approach to this whole apocalypse thing but seems to be wayyy too much into it for comfort. Really wants to see the Beach and tries to do so through meditation. We can receive chemicals from her. I do NOT want to know what’s in there.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A RACCOON HOLOGRAM?? I LOVE IT

Opinion while playing: Harmless but she scares me. 3/10

The First Prepper

Shelter placement: On a nearly inaccessible mountain peak battered by snow storms. The slope is so dangerous I straight up died once while walking on it. Absolutely nothing for miles and no visibility. That’s not a shelter, that’s a coffin. 1/10

Prepper: Apparently his family has lived in shelters ever since the beginning of the Cold War, then decided to stay there in case the world would end in the year 2000, then because of the Bush era, and long story short the guy is like “I did it before it was cool” and he’s literally gatekeeping other Preppers and calling them amateurs. Tries really hard to convince us to stop helping people and get our own shelter. At least he admits self-sufficiency is a mirage in the end, which is more than I expected from this clown.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A hat, and a wolf hologram

Opinion while playing: When the nicest thing I have to say about a Prepper is “well they’re not hurting anybody”, you know it’s bad. What a jerk 2/10

The Evo-Devo Biologist

Shelter placement: On an isolated snow slope away from civilisation, overlooking ruins and geysers in the distance. Not far from BT territory and terrorists, but still at a reasonable distance. Next to a hot spring. The view is majestic as f█ck. 9/10

Prepper: Looks strict and gives off severe teacher vibes, but you’re under the impression that’s purely because she hasn’t seen or talked to another human being in years. Polite but distant. Thinks the sixth mass extinction is a golden opportunity for science, and inevitable, and that we should study the shit out of it even if we end up dying. She’s not wrong exactly but also, yikes

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: I genuinely have no idea. An enigma. 5/10

The Geologist

Shelter placement: High in the mountains on a desolate snowy slope, completely isolated from everything. I think I’ve seen a movie about that kind of place once, except it was a hotel. 2/10

Prepper: The first package we bring to him is a shipment of meds to fight chiral contamination. No more nightmares or suicidal thoughts after that, so he’s ok. Also he’s obsessed with Heartman to the point you wonder if he’s got a crush on him, belittles himself and his work constantly, and also thinks saving the world is a waste of time and effort. No no he’s still ok, he swears. But yeah uh. Dude is clearly one small step away from blowing a fuse and going full Demens, we need to sit down and talk about your problems my friend

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: I like him but he worries me a lot and I’m a bit scared for him 7/10

The Paleontologist

Shelter placement: In a little valley in the mountains, where grass and snow meet, miles away from civilisation and roads, but also miles away from problems. If there wasn’t this pit full of toxic gas literally next door, this would be perfect. 8/10

Prepper: Likes to complain about everything and everyone. A bit rude but more in a familiar way than an unpleasant way. Extremely passionate about fossils and prehistoric stuff and gets super excited about ammonites in particular. Mentions exploring a place full of toxic gas without any kind of protection just to fetch some neat rocks once, so we both clearly have the same level of survival instincts when our special interests are involved.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really, unless you count level 2 Hematic Grenades

Opinion while playing: Relatable as shit. I feel like I’d be this guy if I existed in this game’s world. 9/10

The Veteran Porter

Shelter placement: Nowhere Man lives on a very abrupt slope full of rocks in the middle of Nowhereburg, Nowhere State, Nowherica. You get the feeling he knows the region like the back of his hand and picked that spot exactly for that reason and frankly, I have to respect that. 7/10

Prepper: Ex-Porter with a damaged spine. A retired adventurer, exhausted after carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Higgs used to be his boss back when he was still working at Fragile Express so the dude has massive trust issues now and I won’t argue with that. Initially suspicious of us and Bridges, for good reasons. Every time I found a super isolated bunker signed under Fragile Express I was like “woah their employees were hardcore to find all these places that Bridges couldn’t find”, and he’s one of these guys, and I get it now. And he’s tired. So tired. A whole mood.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: Unlike the First Prepper I respect the shit out of him and I want him to enjoy his well-earned retirement 8/10

#death stranding #long post #eye contact tw

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justaddgame · 4 years ago

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Cooldown: The Other Monster in Monster Hunter

I don’t remember which monster it was, but just mere moments after its introduction there was this sudden “Aha!” moment as this nagging feeling I’d been having during my early hours with Monster Hunter Rise finally clicked. My Hunter was staring out into the depths of Shrine Ruins as he shouted to his cohorts “Let’s do this!” and this mystery feeling I had been wrestling with before finally had a shape to it. While the nature of Capcom’s popular Monster Hunter franchise appears cruel to some, I think there’s something worth considering that could help add a layer of depth for those wary to give a try.

We are the other monster in Monster Hunter.

The Other Monster in Monster Hunter Rise

Allow me to explain. The launch of Monster Hunter Rise on Nintendo’s Switch this year was met with critical acclaim from both critics and fans alike in a landmark entry—recently shipping 7 million units worldwide—in the long-running Capcom franchise that was born decades ago on Sony’s PlayStation 2 in 2004. Soon after its release in late March, however, I noticed a familiar conversation had developed among a few online outlets over concerns of the game’s main hook. Calling itself Monster Hunter leaves no surprises, and for some it evokes an uncomfortable feeling of relentless slaughtering. I think it’s worth considering the persistent theme existing throughout the series that depicts the monsters as something to be respected as much as they are feared. Because of this, nothing is wasted upon a kill, whether it’s in the use of new gear or vital materials to improve the lives of the community.

Still though, this discourse that surrounds the nature of the game seems to have persisted. Honestly, I get the feeling. I don’t think it’s unnatural at all to feel sorrow for the slain as you stand over them triumphantly. In Capcom’s defense, the monsters are endless—even the flagship monsters that adorn each game’s cover art—and the context behind the quests is often in the aid of the community under threat somehow.

Whatever your feelings may be on the subject, however, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for some to be put off by the context of these games. But my hope is for just one like this to find comfort in visualizing the Hunter in a different light. During my time with Rise so far, I like to think of the Hunter sharing a deeper connection to Monster Hunter’s world than as just a brutal killing machine.

My opinion? Hunters are no different than the rest of the monsters.

The Brain Thinks, The Limbs Fight, The Heart Races

I keep saying that, but what does it mean? So far it sounds like I’m only confirming those fears, right? But I don’t mean a monster in the tyrannical nature, but instead something like anything else you’d come across in Rise’s numerous quests.

In Monster Hunter Rise, players take the role of a Hunter within the village of Kamura, which has been bearing the brunt of monster attacks, all while a greater threat looms from the shadows. Like previous entries, you don’t have to take the task on alone. Palicos, the anthropomorphic felines of the Monster Hunter world, can be called upon to assist you in these hunts and provide numerous advantages in your quests. New to Rise is the Palamute, canine companions that are not only combat trained, but provide extra maneuverability to hunters allowing them to ride away from danger and climb to great heights much faster than on their own. The Hunter remains as the lead of the party, but this partnership is more ingenious than it appears on the surface.

In fact, I think it helps to illustrate the bigger picture: Hunters are not just mindless antagonists to the wildlife. On the contrary, one of Monster Hunter Rise’s fiercest monsters is the trio of Hunter, Palico, and Palamute and also one of many within the greater ecosystem. Each member provides a functional part and adds up to a greater sum to create something that as fearsome as any other monster.

First, take the Hunter, who provides advanced weapon handling skills as well as the vast knowledge of Rise’s bestiary necessary to topple each one efficiently. The Palico, meanwhile, provides crucial support when up against overwhelming odds. For example, think of some of the real-life animals and insects out there that have a defense mechanism—poison, quills, webbing, stingers. That’s the Palico. It’s the Hunter’s mechanism by way of laying traps and afflicting statuses to slow their target. Finally, the Palamute provides transportation and operates like a hidden hand to the Hunter, often distracting the monster so the other limbs can move in.

Working together as one, they create a unique and powerful team that’s awesome to observe and more so to be a part of it. One bout with the wily Bishaten and you’ll begin to appreciate the similarities these three share with the other monsters. When it comes down to it, they all rely on tails, claws, and whatever other tools are in their arsenal. The difference in appearance is merely for show.

Thriving in What Feels Like Home

This characterization only gets stronger as you take your first steps outside Kamura’s walls and into the Shrine Ruins, Rise’s initial area of exploration. It’s difficult to get a sense of these characteristics while spending time in the village, but this changes once out in the wild.

This is especially true for both Rise and its predecessor, Monster Hunter World, which first adopted open environments for players to freely explore, as opposed to individual zones from previous entries that loaded on demand. Quests are generally limited to a generous 50 minutes, and though you’re not likely to spend it all on one quest, especially given Rise’s ramped-up gameplay, it can be time well-spent gathering materials, studying the land, and engaging the wildlife.

But I think it’s in these two games where this extra time can be truly appreciated.

Like every other monster, Rise gives the player the opportunity to live on the terrain, if only briefly, and tap into the monstrous side of their crew. It’s the natural environment for a Hunter, where any restrictions fall away, and they can do what they do best. These moments are best illustrated by Rise’s soundtrack—lying still in the background while environmental ambience fills the void during gathering expeditions—before crashing in at the moment you’re spotted by something larger than yourself. After spending enough time out in the wild, Kamura begins to feel like a sanctuary from the dangers of reality. But that’s the most likely message, isn’t it? Any other monster has a place of security to retreat to, and Kamura certainly fits the bill for the Hunter.

The Titular Monster, Magnamalo, Stares Back at You

While the Monster Hunter series doesn’t necessarily dig down deep for a backstory to the player’s actions, it has been played around with here and there, while relying mostly on player actions. Rise is a more significant step this time around, with Capcom leaning on the tools provided by its in-house RE Engine to construct fun, if only a few, cutscenes to weave together enough engaging narrative in the single player component. Residents of Kamura have names as well as roles, and there’s a shared urgency to everyone’s efforts. Another one of those narrative elements is Rise’s flagship monster, Magnamalo, serving as something of a rival to the Hunter. You eventually tangle with it after a series of events foreshadowing the showdown, and the outcome serves as the game’s soft ending that leads into further adventures online with friends and strangers.

***Spoilers for Magnamalo’s fight***

I thought Magnamalo was a fascinating fight for several reasons, most of all because I saw things in this particular monster that wasn’t shared by others. For example, Magnamalo has a few characteristics that share an interesting similarity to the Hunter. First, we learn that it takes advantage of The Rampage, an event Kamura’s leader, Master Fuegen, alludes to as one of the greatest threats to Kamura’s survival. During these moments, several monsters siege the outer gates protecting the village in a coordinated attack. Magnamalo is apparently cognizant of this and is said to appear during these Rampages to feast on monsters, and we witness this ourselves as the story progresses.

Like Magnamalo, the Hunter participates in Rampages to acquire resources.

Upon coming face-to-face with Magnamalo for the first time, you may notice it fights with patience unmistakably like Hunters. Series veterans will be the first to tell you that best practice is to pay attention to what the monster is doing at all times in order to learn how to react. Magnamalo almost does something similar, choosing at times to fight at a distance, taking pot shots of energy released from its tail. It never seemed to be in a hurry until there was a sure opening.

In some ways, Magnamalo was like catching my reflection in the mirror. Our goals weren’t so unlike, and our methods were carefully crafted and considered. If Magnamalo, a monster, was like myself, how could I not be the same?

Don’t be Afraid to be the Other Monster

None of this is to say you can’t be uncomfortable with Monster Hunter.

I can understand people drawing real-world connections to the gameplay of Rise, I just wouldn’t take it that far myself. I can only take the context of the game and view it in my own perspective, and rather than concluding Hunters as sadistic, I choose to see them through the same lens as a creature like Magnamalo and the many others like it.

There may be other ways to help contextualize these games, I would welcome it. I think a counterpoint could be made from hunts never being depicted as sport, but, Arena Quests, admittedly, are hard to overlook considering these take monsters out of their natural environment. I can chalk that up to it being a video game—of course there’s challenges to do the thing as quickly as possible—and there’s numerous other things Monster Hunter does to gamify the experience all things considered.

I would like to see people try to crack that one. In the meantime, I’ll continue to believe, as I did in that moment on the Shrine Ruins cliffs, that we’re simply the other monster in Monster Hunter. Not a blight on nature, not an unfeeling killer, but a rival in a competitive environment for survival.

#writing #long post #video games #monster hunter #capcom #opinion #Cooldown

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jrenvs3000 · 4 years ago

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Personal Ethic as a Nature Interpreter

Here we are, delving into our last blog posts of the semester! I have truly appreciated this course for so many reasons. Sharing perspectives and ideas about nature interpretation and the beauty of this marvelous planet with my classmates has really inspired me. It has been exciting to read about all of our unique experiences and I do feel as though it has allowed me to view aspects of nature in new ways.

In order to describe my personal ethic as a nature interpreter, I must start out by stating my core personal ethics that I carry with me in my daily life. These are as follows: compassion, empathy, kindness, honesty, dedication, respect, responsibility and fairness. These are the values I actively strive to live by every day, and certainly try to bring forth into my role as a nature interpreter. As a wildlife biology and conservation major at the University of Guelph, some of my greatest love and passion is found within nature. I have a strong desire to learn all I can about the animals and plants with whom we share this planet, and in doing so I hope to play a significant role in environmental sustainability and education.

I believe that we as humans have a profound responsibility of preserving and honouring the creatures we share the earth with. Nature is their home, and though we all enjoy its beauty, it is essential that we take our knowledge as nature interpreters to do our absolute best to care for it. I have always had a great deal of empathy for wildlife, from little bugs to majestic eagles. I also love plants, and I feel connected to nature each time I am out in the world and take the time to look around at the world of greenery around me. I love using plant identification apps on my phone to learn about new species and share this information on the apps so more people can learn of the whereabouts of these species! It is so incredible to bring people together through a love of nature. The same goes for birdwatching, which is another activity I really love. I love tagging the location of birds I see in nature so it can provide data for others to share. In case anyone is interested, I really enjoy “Seek” by iNaturalist for plant identification, and Merlin Bird ID from Cornell Lab of Ornithology for birdwatching. It is always exciting to hear a familiar call of a favourite bird when out enjoying nature, and sharing this information with people who are with you.

The Black-Capped Chickadee (30 seconds)

(A 30 sec clip of a black-capped chickadee from Hinterland Who’s Who- you can learn so much in half a minute!)

Reviewing the main questions continually asked throughout this course, I believe it is relevant now to answer them on a personal note.

Who am I as an interpreter?

I am an advocate for wildlife, their habitats and trying to bridge a connection between nature and humans in order to create a better world.

2. Who is my audience?

My audience is people of all ages who can contribute in a meaningful way to wildlife and their environment. As mentioned in the course, kids always seem like the most impactful audience because the influence we can have when they are young and learning about the world can stay with them for the rest of their lives.

“Whether you introduce a child to a pileated woodpecker, you provide tools to allow them to make safe decisions when on a hike with friends, or something else, you are offering a spark to be fanned and developed” (Hooykaas, A., 2021

3. How can I make this experience meaningful?

My experience as a nature interpreter, as a steward of the earth, can be made meaningful by making connections with others. In forming connections with other people and educating each other, holding each other accountable, and speaking for the voiceless (ie; nature), this experience can be extraordinarily meaningful.

I feel a great deal of responsibility in my role as a nature interpreter. As a young woman who is incredibly passionate about our natural world, I know my education is a privilege and a tool in my belt that can be used to connect people to nature. It is a circle, the importance of wildlife to people and vice versa. Humans take comfort in nature in order to recharge, whether that be out birdwatching, hiking, or canoeing. On some level, we all take comfort in nature and amongst our beautiful wildlife. However, wildlife really depend on us to ensure their survival based on how we value them and their habitats, which we coexist in. Wild animals are so important to us, not only on an emotional level, but their wellbeing is also a direct correlation to the health of our ecosystems and even our economy (Hinterland, n.d). Education is power, and the responsibility of teaching fellow Canadians about our natural world is one I am more than happy to take on.

Hinterland Who’s Who from the Canadian Wildlife Federation, courtesy of Environment and Climate Change Canada has an incredibly informative website regarding the importance of wildlife, and I will include it in my citations for anyone who is interested to read!

Some statistics from this particular page made me a little bit emotional. As we all know, working and studying in the field of nature interpretation, can be very daunting and sometimes feel hopeless. When we are constantly bombarded with news of environmental destruction and loss, it feels like we are fighting a losing battle. However, I will share these statistics in this blog post so at a glance it may lift your spirits a bit to see just how many Canadians truly care about our natural world!

-14.5 million Canadians (70 percent of the population) participated in wildlife-related activities around their residence or cottage. These activities included feeding, watching, studying, or photographing wildlife. Some 6.6 million people put out special feed for wildlife.

-3.9 million people made trips or outings whose primary purpose was to enjoy wildlife.

-1.9 million Canadians belonged or contributed to wildlife organizations.

-17.7 million Canadians (85 percent of the population) took part in activities such as watching wildlife films or television programs, reading wildlife books or magazines, visiting game farms, zoos, aquariums, or natural history museums, or purchasing wildlife art, crafts, or posters.

(Statistics Canada, on behalf of the Canadian Wildlife Federation)

As I have come to realize, the approaches to nature interpretation that are most suitable to me are those that are hands on and directly helpful to nature. Throughout my hopefully very long career in wildlife research and conservation, I plan on learning more about our beautiful natural world and making it a better place.

A final note, I want to thank everyone so much for a great course! I feel like I have learned so much about myself and others and my perspective of nature interpretation has broadened so much.

Citations

1. Seek by inaturalist · inaturalist. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2021, from https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/seek_app

2. Hinterland who's who - benefits of wildlife. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2021, from https://www.hww.ca/en/issues-and-topics/benefits-of-wildlife.html#:~:text=Wildlife%20is%20important%20to%20natural%20processes&text=These%20ecological%20processes%20are%20essential,and%20by%20preventing%20waste%20accumulation.

3. Merlin Bird ID. (n.d.). Home page. Retrieved March 29, 2021, from https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/

4. HinterlandWW. (2010, March 23). The Black-Capped chickadee (30 seconds). Retrieved March 29, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjl9MUojYzY&t=30s

#final blog post!

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comicbookuniversity · 4 years ago

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My Problems With X of Swords So Far....

SPOILERS!!!!!

As of this post, we are 16 of 22 chapters into this crossover event, the first of the Krakoa Era. I want to start off by saying that I have largely been enjoying this era of X-Men overall; I came for Jonathan Hickman taking over the franchise, but spent some of my quaruntine time catching up on the other titles and mostly enjoyed them. I am by no means an X-Men expert or superfan, but I know my lore pretty well and am a fan. That being said, let’s dive into this mess.

I want to give credit where credit is due, the first half of this event has been well crafted. The writers, as apparently led by Hickman and Tini Howard, have worked to create a consistent tone across all of the books and it shows. This is clearly an event crafted with care and skill. And aside from the error on Bogdanovic’s part, the art teams have been on point delivering great looking books. Considering this, the pedigree of the teams, and again, Jonathan Hickam, the guy who Marvel trusted to end Stan and Jack’s creation in Secret Wars, leading this event- this is should by all measures be much better than it is. Even if it didn’t live up to the aforementioned event, it should still be better than what we’ve got because of the ideas we’ve got on the page. I think these are all interrelated problems with the event, but I’m going to list them individually as I see them.

The Problems

1. Pacing- This largely effects the first half of the event, considering how the backhalf has changed, but we spent nearly 10 issues of the X-Men simply gathering their prophosized swords as ruled by the host of the tournament between the two sides, Saturynye. During this time, we did not get a lot of ideas of strategy or spycraft to learn more about a largely unknown enemy. We got a lot of decompressed character introspection, and even a set up to Al Ewing’s upcoming SWORD book (looking majorly forward to that book). This meant that we didn’t learn a lot about these characters that we did not already know to try to drive up the emotional tension that I don’t believe worked as the internal stakes did not match the scale of the external threats- the end of a utopia. This might have worked more if there were less of it and thus getting right to the heart of the matter. But the event spent so much space on spinning it’s wheels for.....what reason? Why was it necessary to give so much time this aspect compared to other possibilities? This brings me to my next problem.

2. The Promise of the New- One of the great things about this event is how it rewrites what we know about Apocalypse to make him more interesting while giving us a huge new set of characters and lore to get to know and love with the revelation of a whole secret history of mutants on Earth and then the history of the exiled mutants to what basically amounts to a Hell after fending it off from taking over Earth. It’s genuinely a great addition to Apocalypse and the franchise as a whole. I am supremely excited about the future of the Arrako people, but we spent 10 issues of the X-Men gathering swords while learning very little about this new land and new people. We learned about Solem a little bit and how he relates to the rest of Arrako, but that’s basically it. We are 16 issues in and we don’t know a whole lot about this lands or even more specifically the histories of Swordbreakers of Arrako. We know a little, but in all that time where the characters of X-Men and Arrako could have been interacting and building relationships to actually have drama beyond one side is coming to dominate the Earth for ancient reasons, we got next to nothing. And even as the tournament has started, the information and drama between the new side is minimal; enough to make the move the narrative forward but that’s it. I’m not saying I need a whole history course, but I definitely feel like we should know more than we do know about Arrako. I think we’ve in fact learned more about Otherworld than Arrako, which brings me to my next problem.

3. Otherworld....Why?- Seriously, why? It’s pretty clear both before and after Secret Wars that it isn’t necessary to travel through Otherworld to travel the multiverse. So...why? Because they want to build up Otherworld as a new playground for future stories and to connect othe ongoing drama of what had been happening in Excalibur, which...ok. Look I get that it helps to develop long unused properties to breath new life into them, but what does Otherworld have to do with Arrako other than apparently you have to travel through it to get to it? That seems forced to me and it does nothing to heighten the drama of the battle between Krakoa and Arrako. It forces a war to become a tournament, but other than that....again, it really doesn’t add anything. Otherworld’s role in this story is completely unnecessary. It’s easy to imagine this story without Otherworld. If Otherworld played a less forced role and a role that made more sense to the conflict, I wouldn’t have a problem with it’s inclusion or learning as much as we have about it. But, we’ve been given more information about various parts of Otherworld that have not been important and we could have spent that time learning more about or developing the relationships of Arrako/Krakoa.

4. A Tournament of the Absurd- I know I complained about it taking ten issues just to get our two sides into the same room for conflict, but then it took another three before we got to our first conflict. We were over half way through the crossover and no one had drawn their sword against their would-be enemy in favor of an overly theatrical and long dinner where we finally got some relationship building but were still not at the main draw of this attraction- the duels or whatever type of conflict it would really turn out to be. Literrally anything that involved the swords being used for combat got pushed back until like 60% through this story, which is squandering the promise of the premise. But finally, this week get got the to the action, and it was nothing like anticipated. Our first match lasts less 3 pages, which could be exciting if we understood what was going on with how the nature of the loss, but then it ‘s undercut by a plot point that makes very little sense and does not give the characters involved any real agency. An unexpected romance or marriage is always a nice surprise in a story like this, but this crossover doesn’t earn it. The characters are literally whisked away against their wills and told to marry each other without knowing a thing about each other, nor can they communicate with each other. If the marriage was a solution because of the two sides coming to an arrangement by the two sides talking it over or if it had been the two newlyweds plan based on their own insights and choices, then this idea would have been wonderful. But again, literally taken against their wills without warning and forced to marriage for the sake of two societies without it even being clear that this really advanced the cause of or guarnteed the safety of either side. Then we move forward to a fight that has promise only to be immediately stopped from fighting to participate in a childish contest between two obviously mismatched opponents that makes the contest one sided. Like, What The Actual Fuck? Why avoid the fight in favor of that contest? One clearly has more entertainment value than the other. Fuck it, fine, let’s see if Wolverine is given a fun fight. His first match (yeah, we’re getting too much Logan here) has potential, but the creative team decides to make the fight more psychedlic to the detriment of clarity of choreography and thus removes tension. It’s a style choice that pulls away from the fight and then the victory is undermined by a bullshit twist of the rules that compounds the lack of clarity into greater frustration. Then Wolverine is transported to a drinking contest against a teammate? Like, why? What does this do for the story? There’s a brief line used to justify it and the next thing it sets up, but it’s weak. It’s fucking frustrating, because developing the relationship of these two characters could have easily been handled differently rather than wasting one of the spots in the tournament for a point that is given instead of earned. I will give the third match a pass as that was actually what the story promised; intrigue and violence between the players.

At this point, unless something major changes, I’m calling it here: X of Swords is bad. It wastes is promised premise, it wastes it’s time, and it wastes it’s potential. The problem is that this is clearly crafted by people who generally know what the hell they’re doing, but for some ungodly reason their talents are not being put to their fullest. We’ve seen all of them write better stories; heck, the ongoing stories before the crossover started were better. Even if something major happens to really hook me back into this story that will only change my opinion from bad to mediocre because we’re already 75-ish% done with story, and that means all these problems will always be true. I really hope the characters of Arrako stick around after this story, because I think they have immense potential, but this is just a bad start. I know there are people out there that are happy with this story, and I’m happy for them. But, I hope I am not alone in seeing these problems. Let me know if I am not alone.

#x-men #marvel comics #x of swords #spoilers #wolverine #storm #apocalypse

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adrunkgiraffe · 4 years ago

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I have been through this journey before, so I get to be actually frustrated about it.

IUnder a read more because im not subjecting y’all to this. Also: I should caveat I haven’t watched the episode cause I’m waiting till its on Netflix but I have watched way too many other episodes of Supernatural so I have a right to say these things.

TL;DR: I mean you all knew Cas’ confession was fucking bullshit and that SPN is...hm. But I’d like to actually express my genuine frustration, for a moment? I’m going to say things you already know, but I have too much knowledge of this show and too much stupid meta in my brain about a series I haven’t genuinely enjoyed for at least 5 years which makes this not just blandly bad but disgustingly insulting to me not even as a gay just as like. A writer?

Or, even shorter: Cas’ confession is just a Charlie Bradbury Speedrun

So. As some of you may know if, for some reason, you followed me back in 2013 (and till...okay fine 2015), I used to be, uh. Really into SPN. Really, I was into Destiel. Like, as in, I slogged through seasons 1-3 to get to Cas and am also really vulnerable to the Sunk Cost Fallacy and projecting onto characters. (I was in 8th grade in 2013, okay? Get off my back)

Also, because I monopolised use of the TV, I kind of...also got my parents into it? In a “this is silly but fun” kind of way.

Over time, critiques of the show from viewers, learning what queerbaiting is at all, fatigue with how long it was going, and also fatigue from how characters I enjoyed, like Rufus, or Crowley, or Ellen, or Jo, or Kevin, or Charlie, or Cas a few times, kept getting killed off. As time went on, it didn’t escape my notice that, aside from Cas, all of these characters fit one or more of the following criteria:

They were a woman

They were a person of color

Were Queer or Queer-coded in some way (listen Crowley was bad rep but at least Mark Sheppard actually kissed a man on screen)

I also just...generally got tired of the way the show treats women and sidelines people of color.

The final straw really came with Charlie’s death. It got us all excited, because she hadn’t been back in a bit! And it was interesting to see how reuniting with her dark side from Oz had changed her! (yeah remember the fucking Wizard of Oz storyline? The writers sure don’t!) And maybe she’d get developed! Because at this point, Charlie and the fairly good writing of her character was a major upside for the series! Charlie was cool, fun, gay, and morally complex in a way...none of the female characters had been before her, in large part because by definition, her relationship with the boys would always be platonic.

And then. Offscreen. She is violently murdered. For no damn good reason. Like, literally, her being brought back in this episode after fucking off to europe after having returned from fucking off to Oz seems to have filled two purposes in total.

The codex is solved (but Sam doesn’t know till next episode)

Charlie is dead, which means Dean can be angry, specifically at Sam, and kill more people because he’s the big bad this season.

That’s it. Two things. Twooooo whole reasons to do this episode. Whoopee.

But you didn’t come here for this, you came here for me to rip this reveal to shreds. Don’t worry, I’ll get there. What I want in your minds is that Supernatural already had a really good anddynamic queer character. And then they killed her off to make Dean angry. No, it doesn’t matter that they brought her back in season 13 or whatever. They made that decision.

After the rage this incited, I started realizing general flaws in the writing (I had probably already noticed them but now I was angry enough to complain.) Every conflict is born of Sam and Dean not communicating/taking on burdens and Dean being angry at Cas for reasons that ranged from good to ridiculous, but in a way that always went way too fucking long, (which...yes, does make the “you do it for love” gifs fucking hilarious). It didn’t help that seasons 11 and 12 were next, which meant Demon Dean and GOD’S FUCKING SISTER, plus the decision to resurrect Mary, which, while I do like her later scenes, as a season 12 finale it...well I’ll be honest it kinda sucked. It undercut the majority of the Winchester’s’ arcs and their slow and painful journey out of their father’s toxic vengeance quest and knowing Mary as a person when it’s too late to know her was one of the last semi-compelling grounders of the narrative.

By this point it was a hate-watch for my parents and I.

So then, I’m at college, and I’m not watching anymore cause I don’t have the motivation or access to Hulu to continue, and SPN is bad. I watch the Scooby Doo crossover when it comes out and my friend and I make fun of it, and we also continue making jokes about Dean and Cas and queerbaiting because we’re queer, but I don’t keep up. My Dad does though, so when I return, I watch some with the fam and lads. It’s even more tiring without context.

So flash forward to Quarantine, my sister, the only one with taste, has left, and we have run out of netflix to watch. So we return to the well, and seasons 13-14 are. I’m gonna say it. Bad. Really fucking bad. The cycle of bad communication continues, season 14 has like seven antagonists and the way it’s structured makes it so I literally cannot remember the timeline of a season I watched 3 months ago. Oh also, they have a queer coded cannibal snake monster for...well I guess Jack’s snake bud was cool but like. Huh wow it’s almost like these writers don’t handle queers well.

Our one saving grace is Cas, but he’s barely in any episodes, though I did note that his deal with the empty, being happy completely for one moment killing him, that struck me as “this has potential and I know they’re gonna half-ass it somehow.” Also Jack and Mary, but then oh...plot….The most compelling it gets is literally the finale.

But then, 3 days later, the first half of season 15 comes out on Netflix and it’s...actually kind of acceptable. The new character they give Jack’s actor is fun to watch him play until they make him evil. Exploring just how toxic Chuck can be gave the series direction again. The alternate future was genuinely scarring, and Eileen’s return was genuinely moving. Most of all, though, Cas got the opportunity to tell Dean no, that Dean was being unfair to him, had always been unfair to him, and he was sick of it. I had no illusions, I knew Destiel was never gonna happen, and Cas was gonna die, but giving him that bit of agency, letting Cas grow and be self-sufficient, and be angry with Dean not for existential reasons but interpersonal ones, was such a good sign for me, and Dean grew too! Dean fucking apologized for being horrible and Jensen Ackles had a...yknow what, ill give it to him, he had a good acting moment.

But the thing. About. The “I love you.”

Let’s take it in parts.

What was good: I’m gonna admit it, lads, “Wanting what I can’t have” - AS A LINE - is good, and, structurally, there is something to the Empty Deal that could have been an interesting aspect of Cas’ arc when it comes to self actualization and being on even footing with Dean. The problem is, this is Supernatural, and that arc only comes up when I bring it up because character study, even in bad media, is fun for me.

What was bad:

I mean. Like. All of it? All of it.

Okay. Fine. I’ll be specific.

Cas dies immediately when - possibly because- he is revealed as having feelings for Dean. They kill him as they queer him, that’s a Bury Your Gays Speedrun right there.

Like the least they could have done is have him mention it to someone in another scene or something to establish some romantic feelings on the part of canon a full episode beforehand. That would have been the literal bare minimum.

When Cas starts praising Dean, for some reason both the writing and Misha’s acting take a bit of a downswing (from...where it already was). Cas, whose most powerful moment this season was acknowledging that Dean’s anger at him is cruel and unfair, flatly praises him for doing everything out of love and it reads with a misunderstanding of both Dean as a character and Cas’ understanding of Dean. Dean is angry! VERY ANGRY! And it’s a problem he needs to work on and rarely does.

Talking out of my ass, a better speech would have been about how Dean is angry because of his love for Sam, family, and the people around him, how, for better or for worse, he can’t help but be angry on behalf of others, and that his journey of moving that tendency towards the better is what made Cas care so much. Guys this alteration to the metaphor took 2 minutes to write tops I am an Art History student and these are TV WRITERS WITH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE CAN YOU TELL THEYRE NOT TRYING YET?

A better speech would, of course, have come out of a better series. My point: this part was half-assed. Poorly written. Wow it’s almost like the series is also poorly written.

Also, Misha is the better actor of the three(***OF THE THREE), but his choices in that scene are jarringly out of character which. Makes the bad writing worse. It doesn’t help that they cut to the same fucking shot of Dean 3 times. The chemistry in that scene makes it feel so fucking hackneyed. Because it is.

This combines lead me to the point: (wait there was a point to this?)

As someone who does not have the luxury of watching this capsized ship fall into boiling seas from a distance, it is less insulting to me that they did this so last minute and then sent Cas to the Void than it is how they did it. They had ingredients for something that could have been compelling enough to me as a former fan of the show to think that they had put effort into it, that they had decided months, perhaps even years ago to do this, and had crafted a storyline around it. That this was an intentional decision they cared about. It wasn’t. It was barely even pandering, because it’s almost insultingly blatant.

SPN kinda proved to me that it didn’t care about queers when Charlie was killed off. It proved it to me again when Cas, not only died in confessing his love for Dean but did it in the weakest result of what could have been a surprisingly strong story.

#destiel #i don't fucking care im tagging it #bury your gays #queerbaiting #homophobia #also: i should say there are a lot of moments where i refer to aspects of the writing as good #this either means i was 14 when I watched it #or #it's something that i find compelling #that #IN ANOTHER SHOW #OR IN A HYPOTHETICAL WHERE THE WRITING ISNT LADEN WITH HOMOPHOBIA #could be fun to explore #like there are these structural motifs #and themes #which could have made the show good #could have made that confession...passable #but they didn't even write it well by supernatural standards #is my point #My other point is i get to actually be mad about this because I actually watched and put emotional energy towards this show #i shouldnt have but i did #so now I get to write about it #and if you reply we been knew to this post #youre correct #but also #wow do you maybe think I was already aware of that?

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munchies-for-thought · 5 years ago

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The reason your favorite character is flawed and how it changed how I saw my life

Jun 18, 2020

Context: I’m a huge fan of the anime “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure”. (Reading Part 6 pls don’t spoil kthx bai). Don’t worry. You don’t even have to know about anime to get my message. It’s just the example closest to me.

The revelation behind each flaw

Rohan Kishibe is a character that is incredibly talented as a manga artist. He is so obsessed in his craft that he goes to terrifying and ethically questionable extents to get inspiration for his stories. Sometimes a villain, sometimes a hero. His art is everything for him. Well worth risking his or someone else’s life. He is generally a good guy, and wishes good upon the world. He just won’t go out of his way to make it happen. He is also defeated almost immediately after we meet him.

Rohan Kishibe is indeed one of my favorite characters of all times for a multitude of reasons, yet when describing him, he clearly is a flawed character. Yet this is NOT about him. While you read this blog, please think on the coolest fictional character you can think of. Do you have one in mind? Can you answer the following about your favorite character?

Has your favorite character failed?

Has he been hurt badly?

Are some things out of his control?

Do most people in his world generally understand the struggle they go through?

You’ll see when comparing with friends that we mostly agree on these answers even when thinking on different characters. The interesting truth lies in the common factor behind these answers, and learning a bit from the power of good storytelling.

One of the most precious things that I have gained from playing videogames, watching anime and playing Dungeons & Dragons all my life, is the first-hand knowledge of the power of a good story. Although it is in the HOW you make a good story, where I found this revelation that helped me so much.

What I am trying to say might be simple and even obvious when read, but not truly understood. If you bear with me a bit longer, I will attempt not to say, but to explain. I’ll show you the building blocks of how I learned so you truly understand as I did.

Dungeon and Dragons’ Character Backgrounds

The first time I made a new character in Dungeons and Dragons (Drow Elf Bard btw) I was blown away when I found out that whereas you get to pick from options that greatly impact your likelihood of winning, you also had to pick background and personality options that held no significant impact on your success.

You could choose to be a triumphant noble, a devote acolyte, a successful guild merchant or even a lying charlatan. Hell, if you wanted to you could even pick an orphan who had lost it all in the edgiest way known to man!

The book was also quite good at giving you specific quirks that brought that character to life. All of this happened because D&D is focused on group storytelling. Everyone wants your character to be interesting so their adventure gets 10x cooler when their complex characters interact with yours in intriguing and unexpected ways.

For example:

The secret beauty behind flaws

I was just a tad... confused. I had to chose a flaw? Why would I want to do this? All of these options look just like ugly parts of your character’s personality and could easily affect them negatively within the story.

Was this a balancing feature? A rule simply put there to make you less awesome, so no one is too overpowered? I just could NOT wrap my head around it. I couldn’t understand how this could make things fun. They were ruining my character.

It was until I started maturing as an individual and learned more about game design and storytelling that I started to appreciate how genius that was. No one cares for the story of perfect, bland, basic individuals who always succeed and have never made mistakes before. Because that is not real, it doesn’t work for an interesting story if there’s no sadness. If there’s no pain, you can just simply look away.

It was to be expected of the game designers of the best roleplaying game in the world to know that having flaws, failures, challenges, weaknesses, mistakes, all of them are ESSENTIAL for a great story to be told!

Was there a moment in your favorite character’s story where his failures and his pain made you love them on a whole new level? Aren’t those failures what drives your characters to become who they are? Would it be a better story if they had always succeeded?

So who is this Rohan Kishibe and, as an artist, what is his take on good storytelling?

Rohan’s Philosophy

Not only is Rohan a good example of a flawed character, but he also has a very interesting philosophy. He is a famous and wealthy manga artist. You’ve got to understand that, to Rohan, his craft is EVERYTHING. It is the thing he does best and what defines him.

Let me just show you one quote of his, so you understand his artistic philosophy:

“Reality is the energy that breathes life into a piece of work, and reality itself is entertainment. People often think that manga are drawn from imagination and fantasy, but that’s not actually true! For me, drawing something that i’ve experienced, or something that has moved me, is what makes it interesting!”

His pursuit for inspiration is so great, that he constantly goes to insane lengths to gain inspiration. This unrelenting desire is why he was originally a villain. Yet even when the protagonist defeated him, all Rohan could think of was of how this set of unfortunate and unlucky events was within itself a hell of a REAL story to use as inspiration. He saw value even in his misfortune as long as it was honest, untapped, unadulterated and pure reality. That’s his trade secret as a famous and successful storyteller.

Understanding reality, storytelling and our identity

Warning: We’re about to get metaphysical. You might wanna take that bong hit right now. You’ve been warned.

Talking about reality is like opening Pandora’s box. It is such a massively complex topic that before we can even get to the nitty-gritty of it, let’s just agree on the following for the sake of this conversation:

Depending on how skeptic you are, reality could be mostly subjective or arbitrarily objective. So just follow my lead on this one and match your understanding with mine at least while you read this blog.

NO ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSES OR REALITIES

Fate is merely the belief that there is a predestined way things will happen no matter what. Since its only requirement is also its only consequence, (which is also impossible to prove) then even thinking on fate is pointless or even harmful to an individual as it removes agency from himself and turns him into a bystander in his own life.

Facts are limited to the provable physical world. If you can’t prove it, you don’t KNOW it is real, but you could still believe it to be real.

Our understanding of ourselves, comes partly from how others perceive us and their own subjective view of reality.

As mere humans we don’t completely control reality, but we control how it affects us.

Your own experiences and passions have a gargantuan influence on your interpretation of reality.

Storytelling could be simplified as “the way in which reality is described”.

Changing how you tell a story doesn’t change the facts.

That last one sounds a bit anticlimactic doesn’t it? Specially since we’ve talked so much about storytelling just to find out it can’t change reality. You might even wonder if its uses are only limited to art?

Fret not! This is where it all starts coming together.

My story

Before you disregard storytelling as just an art form, or an overglorified logbook, let’s think outside of the box and take a few leaps with me. Let me show you when was it that it clicked for me:

“Just when the COVID-19 lockdown was about to begin, I was at one of my lowest. I’ve always been someone very adamant on living life as he sees best. Even when friends or family wouldn’t understand my decision, I would still pursue my own path. I was proud of this and felt it made me immune to what other people thought. Yet, years of failed relationships were starting to make me doubt myself.

After an emotional breakdown at Denny’s after being stood-up (Great story for another day) I started worrying that the problem might be me. I’ve always been open to feedback as long as it makes sense to me in a logical way, but I had built so much thought behind who I was, that I didn’t even consider that maybe, I was more flawed than what I had originally assessed.

Maybe if all these bad things kept happening to me, there was a constant behind it all. Judging by the fact that these happened throughout the span of years and with different people, it was only reasonable to assume I was the only constant. Maybe my relationships, both in love and in friendship, were failing not because of individual and complex reasons, but because I was involved in all of them.

Maybe I just won’t build close friends or a family, but I guess I can still find a way to enjoy life. It’s just a lonely life, a very lonely life, but it’s best to face reality head on. That’s what I have always taught myself, right? It would be foolish not to do so when the answer is an inconvenient one. It’s still reality. Better get used to it I guess.”

Wow, that went to a very dark place didn’t it? It’s crazy looking at it in retrospective, but while it happened, it really felt like that was just the facts. I sucked at friends and love. That was just the cold hard reality to me. I mused:

“It’s like if I was a D&D character with low charisma doomed to suck at social encounters... “

and then a sudden realization froze me to the core...

Even if by mere accident, I ended up thinking of myself as a D&D character. Remember all that talk about flawed characters? Well, what if I would see myself as a flawed character? We already agreed that the best characters fail, struggle, suffer, cry, rage, and they make mistakes!

It’s like I had opened a whole new dimension that brought new light into who I was. Those weren’t horrible memories of things that broke me down and I wish no one would ever find out anymore. Those were just wild chapters on the bizarre adventure that is my life. These are badges of honor of what my very own story is!

Storytellers are already influencing your reality

I won’t stand here and tell you that everything bad happens for a good reason. Please be careful not to take the wrong message out of this. That wasn’t what I realized at that moment. I finally was able to see that there were two storytellers that had been affecting me all my life, and I hadn’t really seen their influence before!

Let me unmask these two powerful beings that through their storytelling, had changed my reality.

Powerful Storyteller #1 - Those close to you

Did you notice how the story that I was listening from my friends and love interests was sounding aggressively negative towards my self-value? I thought I didn’t care but I was indeed interpreting my life through their stories.

Since we already understand that we each have our own interpretation of life, good and wrong, then it’s not that hard for us to understand that we will never fully agree on what’s cool. Some of us love things that most people don’t even understand. So when they talk to you, they are inadvertently telling you a story about how you’re weird, instead of fascinating.

If only you could have friends or people who DID understand you, then maybe the stories about you would be seen in a much more positive light. It’s not your friends fault for not understanding, you were just asking something unreasonable from them.

Get yourself surrounded by those who are weird like you. You’ll notice that for the right crowd, you’re just the coolest person just for being who you are. That feeling is just invigorating in every sense.

Powerful Storyteller #2 - Yourself

Back in my story, you can see how I took a lot of my own “interpretations” as “facts” or even “reality” when I told myself my own story. You could have just as well told my same story but in a different way with a much more positive light:

“My relationships did fail, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect on my self-worth. I can continuously fail but love the fact that I’m the type of character that is still hopeful and positive even after repeatedly failing and suffering pain each time.”

It’s important you understand what makes you cool as a character. Because it is your job to tell yourself the story of who you are, what you’ve done, and who you will be. You have already been doing so for as long as you can remember, so you don’t even notice it anymore. You are STILL, to this day, re-telling yourself your story and changing how you feel about some parts of it.

What can we do about it?

So if you already are in charge of such a crucial and delicate task, why don’t you apply what we’ve learned so far? Can’t you see how you as the audience (from your own storytelling) would feel when seeing your main character in emotional pain? Don’t you feel empathy and love towards it because of all it has struggled?

You have the power to choose whether or not you will tell your story as the sad log of things you suck at, or as the crazy adventures of someone who’s just trying to do their best. Someone who is AWESOME because you do understand why he gets so excited when talking about that thing, and why he is so disappointed that that other thing didn’t work out again.

Those dark painful memories are beautiful crystallizations of true art! You already have what Rohan Kishibe is willing to kill to get. You already have an amazing REAL story, you now just have to use your storytelling skills to make yourself some justice, and talk about yourself like the amazing character you are when you tell that story to yourself next time you go to sleep.

At least when it comes to my story, well, the only reason why I would ever even think of writing a blog this long, is because I’ve changed the way I tell my story. I firmly believe that most people will never even have the opportunity to read this, but I have also seen value in these thoughts even if there’s no one besides myself who will listen to my story. If anything, at least I hope my story helps you love your character a bit more, just how I have learned to truly appreciate mine.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to my story. I would always love to hear yours.

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