#but those other systems will never get you as much character and as much reactivity to that personality | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

contritecactite · 7 months ago

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As ever, it takes the tiniest hint of encouragement (thanks @grimboigio ) to goad me into generating a wall of text. Well, actually, the wall was already there. Big big Hades II spoilers below in the form of messy half-baked notes I've been jotting down as I play. Some are just things that I got excited about, but there's a tiny sliver or two of theories and expectations.

I think we're headed for no happy ending, just acceptance—the battle is against Chronos, but it's really about *time* as a concept; for these gods, time really did take its toll and change the way mortals relate to them. Supergiant will never make another sequel for the same reason: things belong in their own time.

The lycaons *could* just be heralding Cerberus, but they somehow give me a sense of the trappings of Roman the Empire creeping in (in an intentional, storytelling way). Same with the emptiness of Ephyra and the hints of war in the mortal aspect. It feels like this is the fall of the cultures we now call "ancient Greece" as told through the eyes of the gods who get left behind or changed.

Apollo is giving me traitor vibes. He had a line about how we "have all the time in the world," and there's just something too carefree about him.

This feels like a lovely little patchwork quilt of Supergiant games. Homer is more reactive like the Bastion narrator. The music, the social bonding opportunities, and the inventory and lore screens feel a bit like Pyre. Some upgrade systems remind me of Transistor, and the mood reminds me very much of it as well. The writing and combat are still very Hades, and there are new aspects that speak of a team that has taken the time to understand what works, what doesn't, and what improvement and innovation should look like within their existing framework.

Echo's whole thing is fucking clever. Those gifts: Either repeats or diminishing returns—just like an echo. Holy fucking shit the way I vibrated when I met Echo the first time.

I love my randomly assigned college roommate who never goes to her classes and moves all my shit for no reason (Dora). If she were my actual roommate, I would feel a very different way about this.

Eris is perfect. I love her being mean-spirited mischief rather than brute force or accidental mischief; it feels like a unique character composition. She's awful. I can't stand her. She's perfect. She also reminds me of Spoiler from Pixie Tricks, a series I read as a kid (both in personality and, vaguely, design).

Nemesis and Artemis sound like they have a no-strings on-again off-again kind of thing going on and I love that for them. Also hope Charon and Hermes get to see each other again soon bc I'm rooting for them so hard.

I literally shrieked when taking out one of the sirens *actually impacted their contribution to the song*. I shouldn't have been surprised, but it was so much fun to hear it happen anyway. Very immersive! I'm also in love with Scylla. She reminds me very specifically of Ryan Stiles' Carol Channing impression and a little of Dolly Parton. Also. Her fucking hood. Jesus.

One of my favorite things about Hades is that there was nothing that an enemy or boss could do that you couldn't do through some combination of boons, weapons, and upgrades. The same seems to hold true here so far, and I just can't say enough how *cool* that is. The worst part of any combat-heavy game to me is the realization that the boss or even the cutscene of your character can do things that you, the player, can't initiate or control during a regular battle. Hades says "yeah, fuck that. It'll look different when you do it vs. when that sea serpent does it, but you can accomplish the same action/effect." Likewise, there's practically nothing your character can do that isn't also usable by at least one enemy. That keeps things balanced and combats the sense of "ah yes, you are the Most Special Chosen One" that's often inherent to RPGs. It gives the sense that skill matters a lot and makes me as a player feel skilled—I'm not visually doing anything that my enemies can't do, so... maybe I'm actually kinda good at this? (I am mediocre at best, but the game lets me *feel* skilled).

Additionally, just as in Hades, the enemies in an area are very informative about how upcoming bosses will behave. It rewards a player for paying attention and makes each enemy populating an area make *sense*.

After beating the sirens, ALL I wanted was for Melinoë to be able to have one single fan among the shades like Zagreus in the Theseus map. What I got was even *better*; the same type of interaction, but in a way that takes into account *her* task-focused, serious personality while still giving a little bit of levity. She is *done* with being here and ready for everyone to clear out, and that grumpy shade is not having it. He even makes a new little face! Love you, purple shade in the corner.

Oh, hey, charybdis, there you are

THE 2 IS IN *ROMAN* NUMERALS I'm having a moment

yeah that's it that's what I got. For now. My gaming buddy keeps falling asleep when I try to gush and talk through things, so Tumblr gets it instead.

#hadesgame #hades ii #hades spoilers #hades ii spoilers #messy notes from a guy who hasn't really studied mythology or history much and also hasn't beaten all of what's available #in other words: take it with a whole shaker of salt. I'm just babbling.

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unquietspiritao3 · 1 year ago

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Interrupting Your Irregularly-Scheduled Fic-Related Content with An Extremely Long Note on The Situation in British Comedy

Hi there. If you don’t want to read about my thoughts on everything happening in the British comedy scene at the moment, feel free to give this a skip. I totally understand needing to take a step away from such things. But I felt it was important to address, given some of the characters in my stories are based on the people involved/being criticized. I’m also going to link this post in the author’s note of my next chapter update, but feel free to share it before then with those who might not be on Tumblr.

CW: non-detailed mentions of transphobia, sexual assault, and childhood sexual abuse

Okay. I think to start, I need to explain a few of things about me.

First, as I alluded to in the opening author’s note for Should’ve been obvious, I am just an American with a moderate obsession with British panel shows and not enough time to keep up with the entire British comedy world. I jumped into writing in this fandom with huge gaps in my knowledge, which was possibly not wise.

Second, as a way to protect my own mental health and under the advice of my therapist, I’m what you might call ‘terminally offline.’ Before I reactivated this blog for the purpose of sharing fic inspo, I had not been on social media for over a year. I still don’t use it outside of Tumblr, where I follow a very narrow selection of blogs that mostly post Taskmaster gifs (love you all, btw). I don’t watch or read the news. I have systems in place with my friends and family to keep me informed when something really big happens, but outside of that, I am purposefully oblivious. The consequence of this is that I did not know about the two situations I’ll be discussing until I saw some stray posts this past weekend, and that’s why I didn’t address it before.

Third, I always (to a fault, my friends would say) give absolutely everyone the benefit of the doubt and see the best in people until they prove otherwise—and even then, even while holding them accountable and removing them from my life if need be, I try to be compassionate. That’s not going to change; it’s just who I am.

Now for the two situations, my thoughts on them, and their impact on my writing.

The Richard Ayoade Thing

I’ve said before that I’m genderqueer (she/they, equally happy with both, btw). I’m not down with transphobia. But I’ve read that Richard is a separate-the-art-from-the-artist kind of guy, so his personal views aren’t entirely clear to me. That said, the blurb he gave makes me uncomfortable because to me it seems to imply he does agree with the views in the book. I don’t know much about Richard and haven’t consumed much content with him other than Big Fat Quiz and some random clips of various shows, so please point me to anything that would confirm or refute this. For now, I’ll leave it there. In terms of my writing, this isn’t as big of a deal, since the Richard character isn’t central to anything and could be easily retconned out if I wanted to, but I’ll talk more about the writing at the end.

The Noel Fielding Thing re: Russell Brand

Like most Americans, I was introduced to Noel through GBBO. (Well, to be fully honest, I watched the Buzzcocks spanking clips long before then, because those get passed around in spanko circles, but I didn’t know, or care, who the guy in both of them was at the time. It took awhile for my crush on him to develop.) I’ve actually never seen The Mighty Boosh or much of Noel’s standup; he’s just a bit too surreal and nonsensical for me to enjoy when he’s in complete creative control. I’ve watched interviews going back to the time he was promoting Luxury Comedy, all his episodes of Big Fat Quiz, and some episodes of Buzzcocks, in addition to GBBO. I knew he and Russell Brand and had good on-screen chemistry, but I had no idea they were off-screen friends to some degree (at least, they were in the past; more on that below) until this weekend. I also didn’t know that Noel was ever accused of being in a relationship with a 16-year-old when he was in his 30s. I experienced sexual abuse throughout my childhood. Obviously, if that accusation is true, it’s completely unacceptable regardless of the legality in the UK and I will no longer be a fan of Noel.

But rather than try to break down all my complicated feelings on this situation regarding Noel, I’m just going to link to this post, which I agree with 100%, including the part about respecting people who feel differently. The two follow-up posts on the same blog give some good additional info/thoughts. I’m working on doing my own digging, trying to find anything relevant, including the source of the claim that the then-girl in the supposed relationship denied it too. No luck there so far, [EDIT: shared what I found here and it’s in Noel’s favor!] though I have discovered that she (now a woman in her 30s) and Noel currently follow each other on Instagram, and that Noel doesn’t follow Russell Brand (nor can I find a time Noel mentioned him after 2020, right about when it seems like Brand’s right-wing conspiracy-theory crap started). Make of that what you will. Personally, it makes me give Noel the benefit of the doubt unless and until further info is revealed.

Somewhat of a side note: It seems like people are most upset about the lack of a public statement from Noel, specifically. However, what I find odd overall is how there hasn’t been a real statement from any big-name British comic. Lou Sanders was basically strong-armed into saying some stuff in an interview that was supposed to be about her book. Katherine Ryan is very clear she doesn’t want to speak about it despite being the one that called him a predator on Roast Battle years ago. There’s this article about the problem in comedy more generally which several female comics are quoted in, and this one from 2020 including Fern Brady (highly recommend you read both if you can stomach it) but no specific quotes on Brand from names I recognize even there. Radio silence. UK people, can you tell me, is this normal because of the libel laws you all have? From what I understand, it’s much, much easier to be sued for defamation against a public figure and lose over there than over here. Should we expect to wait for an arrest or conviction (if that happens) before people feel safe commenting? Or what is going on?

Impact on My Writing and Final Thoughts

I’ve been having a hard time mental-health-wise, these past few days, reconciling the human need to connect to art with the fact that all art is created by imperfect humans and you simply cannot know what is in someone else’s head or past. That includes my own art. I want it to be an escape for you all, for you to feel safe reading it, but like everyone else, I’m imperfect, and part of that imperfection is not knowing what to do.

At least for now, I’m going to be focused on More than that, and Noel and Richard have never been in the plan to appear in this fic. As for the future, I’m undecided. I feel like I need more info, but I also recognize that we might not ever get real answers.

The sad truth is that writing fanfic always comes with the risk that the thing you’ve been inspired by is later revealed to be problematic. Even if not with these two, something could come to light at any time about any of these people we base our characters on. That last Guardian article I linked should give everyone chills.

I think the best I can do with the info I have today is to say I’m writing about a fictional universe populated with fictional characters, and my use of real people to inspire those characters does not mean I endorse their actions or beliefs; past, present, or future; known or unknown to me at this time. I also want to say, though, that I respect anyone who feels they can’t engage with certain fandoms or fics. Trust me, I do understand.

Take care of yourselves. I care about you so much, internet strangers. 💜

edit: linked the wrong article quoting fern, so added that

#meta #to a degree i guess?

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lea-knows-the-devil · 8 days ago

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There are so many stories/shows/etc. that are boring, poorly-executed or even hurtful that I find them a bit difficult to re-experience or recommend to others. But they still have a nugget of kindness, or brilliance, that's really stuck with me. So in this post I'm gonna briefly talk about some of them. These are media I can't wholeheartedly recommend for one reason or another, but have something worth talking about, and they're all dear to me.

Fields of Mistria. Basically a clone of Stardew Valley with very very pretty art, and really really good writing. In fact, it doesn't really deserve much negative criticism at all. Everyone loves it; even Toby Fox follows the social media account. It's brilliance lies in its NPC dynamic/reactive dialogue (like Hades), and even the kid NPCs are fun to talk to, which is a rare feat. The only criticism I have is that despite its attempt at a community-focused story, it is still built upon the capitalist/individualist cozy gameplay systems of Stardew. Now, I don't mind enjoying a money-goes-up simulator, but it always feels a bit jarring to have ten morbillion dollars in these sorts of games. A bit like in Metaphor in which you're kinda poor story-wise (in that game you can't even spare a penny for a homeless person!) but absolutely stacked gameplay-wise. This seems like a small nitpick, but it does take me out of the feel-good vibes of the game just a bit. What this game nails, however, is the intrinsic reward just hanging out with NPCs, because they actually have plenty of interesting things to say. I love this game, and it's probably the most fun I'll have in a farming-sim. If you want more discussion of money-goes-up cozy games, Zoe Bee's got a great video on this.

Metaphor Re:Fantazio: Some of the most fun gameplay I've had in an RPG, basically 'what if Persona games were fun to play?' Although the characters are great, the story is weak at best, and preaches about racism and politics in a way that feels like they were trying to be sincere but they have no clue what they're talking about. It makes me make this face -> :/

Anime quick-fire round:

Studio Trigger originals: Every one I've watched is worth watching again and again and again. Every one I've watched has a crappy ending that sometimes contradicts the message of the show just so it can have an unexpected twist.

Stars Align: Ostensibly about tennis, this is a really caring show about child abuse and trauma that doesn't feel overdramatic, and has some amazing writing and characters, including trans ones. One of my favourite shows ever, although only half the story made it into the anime and the rest will likely never be made, so that's a sour point for many people.

Wonder Egg Priority: GOD IT SUCKS. REALLY REALLY BAD. Except, episode 1 and 12 are some of the best-written, best-looking, best-directed things ever made and I really do mean that. Do not watch the other episodes.

The Gender of Mona Lisa: I could probably talk about this manga forever! Because overall it sucks! Basically, the premise is that everyone gets to choose their sex once puberty starts, but for some reason the gender binary, interphobia and homophobia are still around. Which makes for a very interesting story! Or it would, if there wasn't the most boring-ass love-triangle taking up most of it. Plot points like the creepy doctor, the reason there aren't many other intersex or nonbinary people, and even the love-triangle itself never get closure! It's such a frustrating read because it could be so, so much better. But iirc the author just wanted an excuse to draw an androgynous person in a love-triangle. Even still, the nuggets of brilliance make this worth reading, despite it mostly being crap.

That's all my 'mediocre but absolutely worth experiencing' media I can think of right now. If any of those seem mildly interesting, please check them out! Just don't have super high expectations.

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pluralsword · 8 months ago

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We also thought of this Marvel issue, it's one of our favorites, and there's a reason it was included in the Best of Arcee comic collection (which, if you don't have the time to read tons of comics to get to know Arcee metatextually or in general, we highly recommend reading). Her being the ethical anchor of the Autobot pacifist ethos is something we loved and we were reminded of her IDW depiction also while reading #7 and #8. Even though we know DWJ hasn't read IDW at least when he started the Energon Universe Transformers comics, the sweetness, compassion, and ferocity present is something that has largely been present in Arcee's characterizations across the last 38 years that she's been known to the audience and readers when she does get to have character interiority. One of our favorite quotes from her ever is from Optimus Prime #24, Sunrise Dark:

She's basically saying that hatred and fear are not helpful for informing politics and life, that love and empathy should be at the core of the decision-making process (this not to say that knowing when is afraid isn't useful, as both she and Prime Arcee have spoken to, but it is different from engaging in prejudice because of fear due to hierarchy and bioessentialism, which have also been repeat core issues that she's faced off against with some frequency, trans or not, we're just going to plug our 30+ page essay about arcee here to avoid diverting into that, among other things it gets into what many different iterations of Arcee from G1 to Earthspark have in common near the end of an essay focused on IDW Arcee's overlaps with real trans history). This grasp of ethical nuance is something that she, in the Energon Universe, has in common with Optimus Prime rather deeply, which we think is rather significant to get to see how those two share so much overlap in wisdom and are both present in the story at the same time on the same team. Take for example Optimus Prime talking to Spike in #5:

He understands that violence itself is a violation, that it is never just, that it is at best something for survival (literally was gonna post about this again in different post before we saw this on our dash). And yet he, like Arcee, is stuck fighting for the moment but looking for another way. Arcee speaks to the same in #7 when she says 'I wish I wasn't so good at fighting' to Carly and warns her not to let the path of violence tear her apart, and takes her up as an Iron Apprentice to let Carly learn her ways and be able to fight while also having a familial structure since she had lost that, as Arcee had when her clan was killed and then Ultra Magnus chose to take her on as an Iron Apprentice, and was, according to Arcee, lost to the Decepticons (she thinks he's dead currently) because of her own path of vengeance not being cautious enough, measured enough, over a century ago.

When it comes to the writing, we are very much deeply enjoying the Energon Universe Transformers comics because of this. Arcee is finally fighting for an Autobot movement that really shares her value system when we get to hear her talk about that. Though she is the only gal we have seen on Earth among the Autobots so far, in the sense of ideology, of trust, of family, she is not alone. (trying not to cry as we type this) And well, Ratchet did say "sisters" plural in #2 which means there are probably some gals who haven't been reactivated yet due to the scarce resources.

Also a little note we wonder if this Arcee is going to still have some risking death repeatedly last stand behavior to protect those she cares for so they can escape/live, something that came up in IDW1 (and Aileron told her after saving her life she wasn't going to let that happen and Arcee smooched her for that and how much she had gotten close to her prior) and in Cyberverse (and she and Grimlock end up fighting duels over who should sacrifice themselves before finding Teletran X)

From Skybound's Transformers issue #8

I am really enjoying both how Arcee's compassion and emotional intelligence are so integral to her personality in these comics, and how they're portrayed as a big strength for her. This moment highlights her physical strength, and may also be symbolic given she's shot in the "heart?" Plus, I love what this moment in particular illustrates about the moral consciousness of the Autobots and of the series as a whole, with Arcee's sacrifice and compassion being rewarded. I think this is what I've decided I prefer to see the Autobots in general characterized by—a belief in the sanctity of life and a desire to protect it, often to the point of self-sacrifice (this has also been a flaw for Autobots at times).

On that note, I'm reminded of Arcee in the "Aspects of Evil!" multi-parter in the G1 Marvel UK comics I just read, where this side of her character was also shown.

She sums up the Autobot code really well here! Plus, she is a strong warrior—she's not a pacifist at all, clearly—but is very perceptive and wise about the purpose of fighting. I also think it's worth highlighting this because while the Marvel comics were sometimes really misogynistic toward Arcee, they weren't devoid of good moments for her despite that. Maybe people wrote in (I did see plenty of fan letters about her in the letters pages while reading) to complain about her initial negative portrayal, or maybe other people (maybe one of the women working on them like a colorist or letterer) working on the comic gave criticism, I don't know. Anyway, there was the basis for some strong writing here.

I'm excited to not only have this be part of her characterization in the Skybound series, but to also get more interiority from her and a look into why she developed this consciousness, how it was informed by her trauma and the loss she's faced.

#skybound spoilers #tfeu spoilers #tfeu #tf eu spoilers #transformers skybound #tf eu #transformers marvel #idw arcee #g1 arcee #prime arcee #optimus prime #arcee #autobots

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izzyliker · 3 years ago

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some musings about ed, trauma, and ed-the-character as a system

Disclaimer: while I have an undergrad degree in psychology and sociology I am not a psychologist. I have years and years of first hand experience with living with C-PTSD and am married to someone with C-PTSD and who is also the host of an OSDD-1b (ie. one of the dissociative disorders that are associated with systems) system; and I am making this post from primarily a place of personal connection to the character, the way he’s presented, and the way we’re physically shown Ed’s childhood in flashbacks. People often discuss Ed from the context of him having “masks” and the Ed that sings songs and wears robes being “the real Ed” and I think that’s not a very good reading of the text (sorry) and this personal connection is probably why.

First of all: Tumblr user uselessheretic wrote up an AMAZING post about Ed, trauma, and coping and really succinctly explained the changes in his personality from the IFS model perspective. Blackbeard, Edward, and the Kraken are not personas: they are versions of him with their own specific purposes. They exist for a REASON. None of them are “real” or “fake” and suggesting that Blackbeard and Kraken are “fake” or “performances” when held against Edward because they’re “violent” whereas Edward is “soft” and “gentle” has a whole bunch of terrible implications specifically because a lot of the time complex PTSD (ie. PTSD formed over time from repeated trauma as opposed to ye olde PTSD which is from a singular event with a start and end; eg. childhood abuse vs mass shooting survivor) DOES come with a distinct need to have some form of violence built in as a defense mechanism from abuse, aimed either at your abuser, other people, or yourself. The Kraken is that: Ed didn’t kill his dad, the Kraken did. By externalizing this act to a different person (or monster, in this case) entirely Ed could keep the emotional fallout from the act to the minimum: Ed didn’t kill anyone. His dad is gone. He might have loved his dad like children tend to, even when their parents are unsafe to be around, and he might’ve been genuinely distraught even though his dad was also the cause of his trauma. When the person who took care of the issue is NOT YOU you get to just focus on the conflict of “I’m relieved he’s gone [because he was abusive]” and “I’m upset he’s gone [because he’s my dad and I deserved better]” instead of also throwing in an additional “and also I killed him.” This reactive part doesn’t necessarily disappear and especially not just on its own. Ed, with the life he’s had, almost certainly never was in a place where he felt safe enough to “get rid of” the Kraken. That’s his built in security system.

And this is where I have to discuss Ed as a system.

The C-PTSD is honestly not up for debate but I acknowledge that the show probably doesn’t mean for us to read him as a system. I cannot stop reading him that way, though, and the Kraken split is one of my main reasons for that. When Ed tells us the Kraken killed his dad I believe he genuinely thought that was the case. When he (the Kraken, and I’ll refer to these alters by those names from now on just for clarity) killed their dad the Kraken was sealed into a completely separate compartment by itself. Ed-as-a-collective remembers it but not consciously. It’s a memory that exists but can’t be readily accessed. When he is triggered by the fuckery presentation of the Kraken he physically falls to the ground from the sudden force of the memory. The way the monster blurs with young Ed, and the way he convulses on the ground completely dissociated from the rest of the world is so over the top dramatic in presentation it’s genuinely shocking to see from him. When we see him in the bathtub he’s not just vulnerable and crying and recovering from a flashback: he is still having it, and he’s not just vulnerable and seeking comfort, he’s regressing to a much more childish state than we have ever seen him or we ever see him again. This is Ed as close to his childhood self as he can get; this is him returning to not only the night the Kraken killed his dad, but probably several traumatic moments across several different points in time that he’s reliving at the same time. Like he’s not just having a breakdown: he’s having a complex trauma flashback, which are often not super clearly centered around a specific event as much as they are about feelings and vague memories blending with how you felt, what you saw, what you smelled, what you heard. This is happening AS HE IS TALKING TO STEDE. Ed is not there “in the moment” because he is being pulled between the past and the present in an extremely distressing way where there is no escape for him in either direction. He can’t ground himself in either world. Watching this scene over and over again it hits me so hard that when Ed says “I’m not a good person” he immediately goes on to say “I don’t have any friends” which is an extraordinarily childish thing to say in this context in the sense that that is what a lonely child in an unsafe living situation without anyone to reach out to would say. Edward, in the present, as he is, wants a friend and is lonely, but on a basic “he is having a flashback right now” level that is him speaking from the perspective and primal fears of his childhood self: Ed, the age slider, who has had contact with Kraken, the protector, for the first time in a very long time. When the Kraken was split (and I don’t know if that would’ve been long before the actual killing happened or if that was the moment it did happen; it’s possible the Kraken wasn’t even remotely the first person to be split to help Ed cope) it was split for a reason: to protect Ed. The Kraken has one task and that is to keep him safe.

Footnote: it is not a given that a system will have an outwardly violent protector. Protectors form to meet the requirements of the traumatic situation in order to minimize the harm done psychologically and physically: if the situation requires a good fawner or mediator then one will form. If the situation requires someone who can ”want” the traumatic thing in question then one will form. If the situation requires someone who can fight back then one will form. Ed has very specific circumstances where the formation of one makes perfect sense.

The Kraken is not a senseless violent person; he protects Ed. He does not lash out without reason. The Kraken kills Ed’s dad. He throws away the silk square. He throws Lucius overboard. He cuts off Izzy’s toe. These are all acts that are done to keep Ed safe, either physically or emotionally. The Kraken is not emotional, does not lash out, does not react. The Kraken plans and makes choices where Ed retreats and tries to hide. He is not a mask: when Izzy triggers the Kraken out he’s not forcing Ed to put on a mask, he is the last step in triggering a massive breakdown that had been building up for DAYS at that point. Ed’s been desperately pushing this off and he’s been doing… okay…. But the person that has been out was NOT the person who has been in charge previously: it was Ed, the childish alter, the one who wants to sing songs, the one who wants friends, who wants affection, who openly begs for it. That was NEVER going to be sustainable. He’s out and he’s raw and he should never have been left out alone for so long but Stede leaving with no warning has had him out without anyone else to take his place. This is his second “bathtub moment,” only this time nobody is there to give him the affection and understanding he needs. It’s not just Izzy: he can see how the crew looks at him like he’s lost his mind, and while Lucius tries to help him they are just not close enough for it to ever be feasible. Lucius didn’t promise to protect him and then follow through with it. Lucius didn’t take the only reminder of his childhood he carries with him, his traumatic childhood, the one he only accesses in flashbacks and tell him it’s beautiful. That he’s not ruined and broken for it. That was Stede. To Ed, Stede gave every indication that he was going to stay and be a safe person for Ed to trust and rely on. Would Ed even NEED the Kraken to keep him safe anymore, with Stede? It’s just been Ed, the age slider, the vulnerable child, the person who is the most susceptible to any harm, since probably right after they signed the act of grace. The rapid changes of his mind about wanting to stay vs. wanting to go to China are impulsive, they’re nonsensical, they’re clearly trauma responses to me: adapting to your current scenario quickly without processing it too much, just accepting it as a given, and then coming up with a fantastical escape (hello, the Kraken murdered my abusive dad). When Stede doesn’t show up the person who rows away isn’t Ed, it’s the Kraken. Ed would’ve waited until the British found him and took him back, but the Kraken knows this can’t happen so he takes them back to the Revenge. And then it’s Ed again.

And it’s not just Ed and the Kraken. We actually see the Kraken only a very limited amount of times: when he kills his dad, when he throws away the silk square & Lucius, and when he cuts off Izzy’s toe. The Kraken is a last line of defense. Similarly, Ed is a highly emotional alter partially because he is the one with the most contact with the emotional parts of his trauma. He remembers. He wants affection. He cannot be left alone because if he is rejected or treated badly he is not built to handle it. He gets triggered out in times of emotional distress, and he’s the one crying and lashing out. Ed never got to grow up, and he’s insecure and emotional because he’s desperate for positive attention. When the French make fun of him at the dinner party it’s Ed that storms out, it’s Ed that finds Stede, it’s Ed who tells Stede he’s going to go back and shoot them all, and it’s Ed who Stede tells he’s going to take care of it, that he’s going to take care of him. They’re the protector and the protected, respectively. They’re highly specialized alters with purposes.

So that leads us to Blackbeard. As uselessheretic identifies him as, when following the IFS model Blackbeard is the manager. He’s the person who takes care of day to day tasks. He’s the person we see the most. This is different from Blackbeard-the-persona, as in the fearsome pirate image he has crafted with Izzy: that Blackbeard is just a brand. Blackbeard the manager is the person we see the most. He’s brilliant, he’s violent, he enjoys maiming, he enjoys a good fuckery, he’s a hard worker and he’s funny and Stede enjoys being around him and he’s built himself from the ground up. He’s not held back by his trauma (because Ed’s holding onto pretty much all of it) and he’s able to enjoy violence (because the Kraken does what would, for him, be emotionally exhausting, traumatic murder and violence - I think one of the reasons that the trauma unfolding happens at all is because Blackbeard is trying to kill Stede [traumatic murder] AS the Kraken imagery occurs. This is a perfect storm). In some ways he seeks it out as the receiver: he wants Stede to stab him, and doesn’t seem to be averse to it in general. It’s just simply not that deep to him. They lost crew members? Sucks. Anyway, what’s for dinner? He’s practical but he’s not emotionless the way the Kraken is: Blackbeard is a much more “complete” person than the Kraken is. Ed and Blackbeard are people in that they have their own distinct personalities, and they are capable of the full range of the human emotional spectrum. Kraken isn’t, because he has a specific purpose that requires a certain amount of non-humanness, or else he wouldn’t be able to fulfill that purpose.

But I think there is a fourth person as well: and that is the person that does whippies with Jack, who thinks Jack is just a pathetic guy and a harmless dude, really, who gets fooled by him, who is impulsive and reckless and rambunctious. I actually suspect that Blackbeard ISN’T who was originally in charge after Ed left home: I think this person was the one who had the reins for a long time, and split from Ed somewhere between the murder and before they left to work for Hornigold. I think he’s sort of a proto-Blackbeard in function: more immature, seemingly stuck in an eternal state of frat boy fun, and I think that’s because he IS stuck in that state. I don’t know how to analyze their relationship but I think there’s definitely something really complex there. He seems to trust Jack way more than Jack deserves but I don’t really know what to make of it. It’s a very naive way of looking at people; a childish desire to make friends combined with these desires to understand someone and see deeper within them. Blackbeard is the matured version: more confident, more sure of his authority, someone who knows what he’s doing, and who has a healthy amount of arrogance. This person… is not Blackbeard. This person is a total 180 from any version of him that Stede has ever met, and when he tells Stede “this is who I am” it’s not even remotely what we as the audience have observed previously. Blackbeard pre-Stede was moody, mysterious; impulsive and erratic according to Izzy, sure, but this is not that. This is something else entirely.

The only way him saying that makes sense is if that is genuinely what he thinks in that moment: I don’t think there’s a tremendous amount of amnesia between switches but I think there is also next to no internal communication between alters and it seems like generally speaking they operate under the assumption that they ARE the same person. And that is a valid way for a system to identify: but this is different from that kind of a conscious choice. In this case there is no conscious statement; it’s an assumption that everyone feels this way, that “this is just how it sometimes is” is the same as “this is the REAL me,” etc. And there is no “real me” – that’s the point! They’re all equally real. Ed-as-a-collective has no solid grasp on his personality or selfhood because he’s completely blissfully unaware of the fact that there’s a good reason for that. Now the issue is that Ed would never have the language for any of this. As I said the amnesia between alters seems to mostly be limited to the Kraken, and when Izzy refers to his increasingly erratic moods I suspect he just means that Blackbeard as the host and the most normie alter is getting bored and depressed and just doing weird shit, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Izzy had come into contact with Ed the age slider and found the interaction(s) confusing and offputting. I don’t think Ed would process these alters as separate necessarily, and the other characters of course would have no idea. So to expect that Stede would need to take care of Ed is both unfair to Stede on the basis that he doesn’t KNOW and on the basis that Ed and Ed& cannot expect to externalize the caretaking onto someone else. Not because it’s unfair to Stede (although it kind of is) but because it’s fundamentally unsustainable on an internal level. The Kraken, as blunt of an instrument as he might be, is built to the exact needs that Ed needs to be taken care of, because that’s how he came to be. Stede is his own external person whose origin ISN’T Ed’s brain as it was when he was experiencing tremendous amounts of acute traumatic events. Ed is realizing this issue now that it’s already too late.

The thing is that Stede did – and honestly it’s fucking remarkable considering that Stede generally has the emotional intelligence of a spoon – everything right every single time he came into contact with Ed-the-age-slider. I don’t know if it’s because Stede, someone who also has a bunch of childhood trauma, on some level knew that he was seeing a traumatic flashback unfold and KNEW what to do, or if he’s genuinely just fine tuned to understand Ed, but when Ed comes to him with tears in his eyes and tells him they laughed at him and that he’s going to shoot them Stede tells him to stand down, and then with voice soft as a gentle breeze tells him that he’s going to take care of it. I’ll do this for you. You’re hurt and you’re right to be hurt and I love you and I want you to feel safe and taken care of, and I’ll do it because I know how to do it and I want to keep you safe from the fallout. And Stede follows through. Ed stares at Stede with unbelieving eyes the whole time, and then the whole way back to the Revenge. This is a breaking point. This is the first crack in Ed’s shell. This is something that has only ever been done by Ed, or by Blackbeard, or by the Kraken when it was really, really bad. So to have someone else do it for him – no wonder he’s quiet for pretty much the rest of the night, save for like, ten words for the rest of the episode.

And then Stede sees the memory of his childhood, the little square of silk, the physical reminder of his horrible, traumatic childhood he tries to shield himself from, and he touches it, and he might as well be touching Ed’s heart. He looks at it; the silk being a metaphor for the traumatized child who still exists acutely inside of Ed, the one who feels so many conflicting emotions about his trauma, who blames himself and everyone around him and who just wants to be loved and protected, who in that moment is still distressed and recovering from an intensely upsetting emotional moment; and he tells Ed that it’s beautiful. He goes out of his way to neaten it. He goes out of his way to put it on Ed, where he can see, and he tells Ed that he wears it well. That it’s a fine thing. And I can’t even… Ed, the traumatized child who almost certainly felt like he would just never matter, that his life would always be fear and loneliness, being told he’s worth something not only now, but as a child, too, that he was always lovable, enough so that he shouldn’t hide that part of himself out of fear of being rejected… not around Stede, at least. Not-she-which-burns-in-it wrote a breathtaking post about that specific scene and the body language of both of them and it really haunts me.

And then in the bathtub Ed is inconsolable, we’re surrounded by mirrors, the cracks in his consciousness, where he’s drifting between flashbacks and real life, where he’s having tremendous issues differentiating reality from memory, and Stede comes in. And here’s what I always think about:

Stede doesn’t try to touch him. Stede sits a fair distance away but his body language is open and he’s obviously engaged and listening. Stede doesn’t accuse him of anything. When Ed admits to the plan Stede doesn’t yell at him, doesn’t leave, he just asks whether it will still happen. Ed tells him he doesn’t have friends, Stede tells him he’s his friend. The mirrors repeat. Ed is still having his flashback sequence. Stede doesn’t leave. He doesn’t push. He lets Ed lead the conversation. And near the end he offers out his arm and Ed reaches for it. It’s Ed’s choice. It’s Ed who has agency. It’s Ed who’s in charge, who gets to share what he wants, who gets to be as vulnerable as he wants, who gets to choose if he’s touched, how close he wants Stede to be. And Stede sits with him until he’s gathered himself, and then they leave together.

And for me it’s like – at the beach he says “I can just be Ed, and what makes Ed happy is you” and of course on an obvious textual level it just means what it says: he’s just himself, without the need to maintain his image or to hold power or manage others. I just – I know you have to be fairly committed to this reading here but it haunts and vexes me to think about this subconscious admittance of the fact that this vulnerable person who holds probably all of the trauma is safe and happy with Stede to the point where he can be the one front, where he feels safe. That Stede will take care of him, that he can trust him, that he can let his guard down. And of course that backfires almost immediately.

So like: I don’t know where exactly I was going with this, except just that… regardless of what specific trauma consequence you see him as having these “versions” are highly unlikely to be “fake” or masks. They’re either “parts” or they’re alters; I tend to go with the alter theory. I think Ed as a character is Very consistent with how a system in the 1700s might come across to people who simply do not have the language. And these parts, regardless of how you see them, do have specific roles and meanings and they exist for a reason. As the text keeps telling us Ed has a shit ton of trauma over his childhood and this has affected his emotional processing skills to a tremendous extent. The Kraken does not come across as a “mask” or something Ed is pretending to be: he is (imo) clearly something that already existed in this capacity, and he is completely different from Ed or Blackbeard in every single way, down to the way he moves, his facial expressions, how he carries himself, even his look. Kraken is – yeah, breakdown, but, more specifically, he’s a completely different person entirely, and that’s by necessity. He’s just as real as Blackbeard as Ed. I don’t think the Kraken is at all connected to the Blackbeard image, because I don’t think he would ever come out “casually.” He seems distinctly like a last resort trauma trigger solver, not a party trick. And in the same vein Blackbeard is not less authentic than Ed is: it’s just that Ed is completely saddled with all of the trauma that the person in charge cannot hold onto. This is a balance of juggling trauma and functionality with next to no outside help, and when Ed opened up to Stede to such an extent and imprinted on him with basically no safeguards it’s a sweet moment, but it’s a dangerous one as well. And it’s not a conclusion or a climax to their arc or Ed’s trauma processing: Ed has a lot of very, very complex trauma rooted in his psyche that he has been carrying around for decades. That is the literal first peeling back of trauma. It can be intensely retraumatizing to uncover a traumatic memory without proper safeguards, and Ed is incredibly lucky that Stede was so delicate and gentle with him, because that could’ve gone horribly wrong. Ed is not realizing he can be gentle; he’s realizing that he’d been repressing a memory of murdering his dad for decades, and quite possibly realizing that he’s been repressing enormous amounts of trauma in general. Like: this is a breakthrough moment but not in the sense fandom seems to often claim it is – this is not helping Ed realize he doesn’t have to be violent or that he can be vulnerable in general, it’s him deciding that Stede is safe for him to be around. That has next to nothing to do with Blackbeard or his personality or how he feels about violence, and is wholly disconnected from the Kraken because the Kraken is irrelevant to their day to day operations.

Idk! I love my complex meow meow. He’s out there. Be nice to him

#ofmd #best wishes gargoyle king #UGHHhhhhh hes . Clecnes fist

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catt-nuevenor · 3 years ago

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i love!!!! how you can straight up decide if/ how much you want to get hurt in the game. or even fall into water (or even decide if you want to protect someone or Be protected 👀). from a storytelling and a reading perspective... its so amazing!! ice never seen choices like these in an IF before but im enjoying it so much you won't believe.. so much replaying value. i just!! great work, author! plus, your beautiful writing helps set the scene amazingly (!!! also loving the outsider pov!)

When I was first piecing the story together, I debated with myself for a long time how gamified I wanted to make it...

(Thank you so much for your kind words!)

(Detailed explanation of my theories on choice design below)

Traditionally in rpg games you would have systems in place that dictate how hurt you'd be in the course of an encounter, health bars, attack power, defence power, etc. And those systems work fine if you have the ability to make each encounter unique and interesting. But with text adventures it's quite difficult to achieve that.

In text games it's always felt to me that the action of crafting your individual story is more appealing than 'winning'. So, wherever possible that's the leaning I've tried to give decisions.

If you want to be a more reactive partner in a romance, reacting to your significant other's flirtations rather than making the first move, I want you to have the space to do that.

If you want your MC to 'go through the wringer' and put their body and wellbeing on the line for their friends and family, I want that to be an option.

More than the customisation of the story however, I want the choices you guys make to make a significant impact on how the characters react to you. P's going to see you a lot differently if you choose to keep information from them. A's going to have problems if you disrespect Erda. And you can bet if you mess with L that Lars is going to take notice.

Someone said to me a while ago that when the full story is complete and available to play in it's entirety, they likely won't be able to play it through more than once. That is absolutely fine. I want you guys to be able to tell your stories the ways you want to. If you've got the time to replay and explore, by all means dive in and enjoy yourselves. There's plenty to discover.

#myrkmire #asks #interactive fiction #hosted games #choice of games

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felassan · 4 years ago

Photo

The rest of this post (quotes from the article) is under a cut due to length. [source]

(There are discussions of colonialism under the cut / in the article.)

After speaking to various devs who worked on MEA I’ve learned quite a bit about what happened here. First of all, there were several more species designed for this galaxy. One writer lists having proposed “five or six” new alien types, while another states that the ones BioWare opted for in the end were specifically chosen for being in “cosplay-safe” territory. Another dev mentions that an entire system was constructed just to facilitate communication between species who were indigenous to Andromeda and those who had arrived from the Milky Way. The “species who were indigenous to Andromeda” part is important, given that there were also different ideas for how to handle first contact - making the Pathfinder a violent colonist who shoots first and asks questions later wasn’t something that was set in stone from the get-go.

“I think it was a project that couldn't have possibly lived up to expectations,” Neil Pollner tells me. Pollner was a senior writer on Mass Effect 3 before going on to write parts of Andromeda. “Not just the high bar of the original trilogy, but the logical expectations anyone would have of Mass Effect going to a whole new galaxy. Because the scope of [the first] Mass Effect was so incredibly massive, there was an inherent promise that you'd be getting a massive new experience with a ton of new things in [what was supposed to be the first] Mass Effect Andromeda - new species, new lore, an entire new galaxy at your fingertips, etc.

“But we were only given the budget for two new species, plus the Remnant. Not to mention that we couldn't even include all the Milky Way species. And we weren't going to be able to let you travel throughout the galaxy. This meant that we had to develop the story around some pretty glaring inorganic limitations. So, not only did you get something that felt (and was) much smaller than what you got before, almost everyone playing the game probably had something that they really liked about Mass Effect that just wasn't there.”

Pollner goes on to explain something I mentioned above - that there’s an inherent disconnect between making your character an explorer in a game where the vast majority of gameplay involves killing. “Ryder the explorer should have a challenging and dynamic first contact experience,” he explains. “Instead, you're almost immediately killing kett. So, some very basic pillars just weren't lining up.”

When I ask about the fact that several species had apparently been cut from the game - something I had already learned in previous interviews - Pollner assures me that I had “no idea” of what was dropped in the early days of Andromeda. He also lamented the iconic narrative and branching complexity of earlier BioWare games, stating that he wishes the team had been able to maintain the same level of variation, options, and consequences as the revered RPGs the studio was known for.

“The other BioWare Montreal writers and I were dreaming up and developing things for Andromeda months ahead of Edmonton officially starting the project - i.e. before the budget and scope had been decided/communicated,” Pollner says. “We just knew that we were going to Andromeda, with almost nothing else established, including even when in the timeline it would happen. And we set out to brainstorm and grow ideas that could organically serve that general premise. “That first contact expectation I mentioned? We'd developed ideas for how the player would navigate that. We were working on a process for the Milky Way species to learn how to even communicate with the new alien species. We were developing several additional species for the new galaxy, as well as several different storylines for why the expedition had been undertaken. Most of that pre-development work ended up not being used.”

“I proposed five or six new alien species when Andromeda was in its infancy, and I still think they had a ton of potential,” Hepler says. “[Ex-BioWare writer] Jo Berry came up with a few, too, they were awesome.

“However, I'm pretty sure those ideas are still property of BioWare, so even though I'm 100% certain they won't be used, I can't talk about them without getting some kind of permission.”

Given that Pollner had his own ideas for new species, and that Hepler had “five or six” on top of a “few” more from Berry, it’s reasonable to conclude that concepting was done for up to ten additional species that never made it into Andromeda.

“I remember some early concepts that were pretty out there,” Dorian Kieken tells me. Kieken was a design director at BioWare Montreal for Mass Effect 2 and 3 before being promoted to franchise design director at the beginning of Andromeda’s development. “One of the strengths of the original Mass Effect trilogy is that you can actually cosplay most of the alien characters - except the Hanar, although I wouldn't underestimate the creativity of some cosplayers. The intention in Mass Effect Andromeda was to introduce new races that would still be in the realm of cosplay, which is probably why more crazy concepts were abandoned.”

I was surprised that this was even a consideration, so I followed up. Kieken assures me that after Andromeda’s two new races had been decided on, their evolution of their design gradually went into more “cosplay-safe territory,” with the team consciously steering away from “jellyfish” types of aliens. “In the early development of the game, we explored a lot of new species. I'm not sure why we settled on the specific number that were in the final game, but my guess would be a mix of production reasons and having a reasonable amount of races to deal with knowing we were already bringing quite a few from the Milky Way as well.”

As Pollner mentioned earlier, the team only had the budget for two new species plus the Remnant. On top of that, they weren’t able to bring all of the Milky Way species, which corroborates Kieken’s recollection of why so many species were cut.

Given the context of these conversations - species being cut from Andromeda, first contact being muddled with militance, and even cosplay potential governing alien design - I also ask why, in the devs’ eyes, Andromeda was poorly received in relation to the original trilogy.

“I think it’s more story-related than setting-related,” Kieken says. “Andromeda has strong core gameplay that improved a lot over the trilogy, but the story didn't feel as strong. I didn't connect with the new character cast as much as I did with the original trilogy.

“It's also not a fair comparison as the trilogy is three games, so you have a lot more exposition and time to bond with the characters. That being said, I seem to recall a stronger rollercoaster of emotions in the original trilogy, which I think led to more memorable moments. From the tension of almost blowing up Wrex with your shotgun or gathering everyone on a suicide run, to the lightness of listening to Mordin sing ‘I'm the very model of a scientist Salarian’ or shooting cans with Garrus in the Presidium.”

Pollner also explains why Andromeda was perceived so differently from the original trilogy, citing differences in the amount of time the team were given to make the game, but also noting that the core issue was more systemic in nature.

“I think the thesis statement for why is that the Mass Effect trilogy was an incredibly demanding endeavor,” Pollner says. “The checks that were written for it, the complexity of the experience was insanely massive. The team worked their asses off non-stop for so many years, on back-to-back-to-back games. The prospect of doing the same thing again was not only exhausting to imagine, but totally impractical. Some of the ‘lessons’ learned from the original trilogy are ones that are important for game development but result in the player experience being less. When you're talking about triple-A development, the original trilogy is actually the anomaly, not Andromeda.

“Because I moved on from BioWare after my work on Andromeda was complete, I have no idea what, if any, future plans there might be. At the time of my departure, there were none.”

It’s worth noting that Pollner is clear about Andromeda being better than a lot of people give it credit for. While some of the concerns people had have now been verified by people who worked on the project - that there could have been more species and that the core premise of Ryder the explorer becoming Ryder the killer is inherently flawed - the team still worked hard on delivering an ambitious game within the constraints of what they were given.

“I find the game to actually be pretty darn fun, and once the technical flaws were ironed out, and the initial reactive disappointment faded, the game does stand on its own,” Pollner says. “There's some really good stuff in there.”

[source]

#bioware #mass effect #mass effect: andromeda #video games #colonialism cw #next mass effect #long post #longpost

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usagi-mitsu · 4 years ago

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Werlyt & Gaius - a bunch of thoughts.

I am a little late to the party. I know. But I just finished the Emerald weapon and before I go to try out the „not Zenos“ weapon as in „Diamond“, I need to get my thoughts on the story straight.

Perhaps I have been spoiled by 5.0s brilliant MSQ and cannot appreciate the inherent beauty of at least decent writing any longer. But this felt so wrong and out of tune with the rest of the game. I started writing this 2 hours ago! I wanted to one in bed by now! XD But I had to get it out of my system… so….

Spoilers for the MSQ and Werlyt incoming??? And no I did not re-read this so not just spoilers but also writing errors incoming. -.-

The good

These fights are epic! I have only ever cleared the normal versions, but I loved those. They are amazing. The callbacks to Eula (her being a woman here! When did they discover that???), Regula (may he rest in peace) and Gaius himself in his prime were delightful. But I could do with a little less rotating, ok? A dragoon has positional, you know? And being allowed to pilot my very own mecha was like *chefs kiss*. On that front? Well done Square Enix!

I am also glad they were able to get another use out of Porta Praetora! That place looks amazing with the wide open field and the lake – and Ala Mhigo across it. It was one of my favourite Stormblood areas and I am always glad to return there. And of course… being able to visit the allied camp again… And Werlyt itself. It’s simply a beautiful place. It reminds me very much of southern Greece. If you’ve watched the movie Mamma Mia you know what I mean.

The music too was really nice. But I don’t think I’ll… you know… listen to it on repeat as I am doing with other parts of the soundtrack.

I’ve also loved how much amazing lore we got about Garlemald and especially the garlean military. And the military abroad. The way soldiers not from the mainland get treated. I love learning about these things.

Gaius

The man. The legend. The guy yelling in Prae.

He’s so very boring here. He has so much potential as a character and maybe I’m missing something, but all throughout this story he has been nothing but passive. He’s a reactive character in this storyline. You know. The guy who made deals with Lahabread (the d is intended), tried to take over Eorzea, lead a whole army, stood idly by as the moon dropped, almost died but then decided just not to die and then though „hm… I’ve got so much freetime now. How about I go and hunt some ascians?“ That guy is NOT a reactive character. He is active. He goes out of his way to make shit he wants happen. And in here? He seems too starstruck and devastated by his adopted kids actions to actually have one clear thought.

The only explanation I have is that he might have gotten hit in the head by something on his way to the ruby weapon. I get why he would rely on Cid for help, but the WoL??? The alliance? If you wish to be an ally and help or something, fucking act like it. You were a former legatus and I expect you to live up to your name – even after retiring.

And yeah.. I guess it’s hard having to watch your kids willingly, knowingly dying. But you fucking raised them. You are a big part of the reason to why they are in that predicament. So like… Aside from that I don’t even get why you are in this story at all.

And for the record: I’m not sorry for him. I’m just flabbergasted by all the bullshit we’ve been learning about him.

To be quite honest, I think this story could have worked just as well or maybe even better, if we got another man as the „hero“ of the story. I am talking about none other than our engineering, hammer-swinging, ex-enemy - of course talking about Nero!

The MSQ has long established that his research into the Ultimate Weapon had been taken, twisted and turned – Estinien had to experience this first-hand. I’m not saying that Nero was in need of a redemption arc and I cannot remember if these weapons were of his creation or even stem from anything he did, but it would make so much more sense for me, to have him confront his past in the garlean military like this and be responsible for the death of his former colleagues. Soldiers that he served with, whom he faught with. Give me Nero and them working together to get the weapons going and him bonding with them as his pilots to a degree. Comrades. Not that strange familiar bond that Gaius appareantly has with them. … Scratch that: Let Gaius be the father figure. Him being that wouldn’t change Nero’s relationship with them, but maybe his with Gaius as his superior.

The story wouldn’t even need to try and redeem Nero: He has already gone through major character development with the MSQ and the Omega raid tier. It would simply be Nero, confronted with the things he created, hopefully instilling more morals and a sense of responsibility for his creations. Heck: Let Cid yell at the guy! Seriously! Cid sticking around to help out would make so much more sense if it was Nero instead of freaking Gaius! Cid hated the guy! He might be a professional, but he is not one to torture himself by staying around a guy he (as far as I know) detests.

Make Nero the central figure and give Cid and Gaius the roles of „angel and demon“: One desperately trying to reach out to his old friend, reminding him why they became engineers and trying to make him realise that he can’t just run around designing weapons and leaving the scematics for everyone to read; while the other has trouble letting go of his imperial past and is struggling to see the errors of his ways – if Nero was wrong, than he (Gaius) was wrong too -and of course they did all of this for their home, to further their cause, and to bring peace to the savage lands of Eorzea, who had been fighting amongst themselves for so long… You get the point.

And you could still have these gundam themed fights. But I think everything would make so much more sense in general.

But speaking of which-

The children

I do not truly care for any of them. And that is a shame: I do think there are great characters and dynamics hidden behind these very few cutscenes. When they were first introduced I was wondering why I was suddenly watching „heartwarming“ cutscenes of my foes as children – until I realised that I was supposed to care and that they were supposed to make me feel pity for Gaius. I was supposed to feel bad for him, because they died and he blames himself. But while their fates so far have been gruesome, I cannot say that I am sad they died. They chose to die as they did. There were a myriad more options. And they chose that.

Actually. Their whole story makes me feel like they were huge masochist from the very beginning. They could have just run away and gotten help from someone more competent than them, but they stayed in an abusive military arrangement just so nobody else got hurt?? Please. Use your brains next time. And for the Berserk-like torture scene? I mean. I get what was implied here. But was it necessary? As a writer myself I follow the rule that torture and sexual violence should never be used in a story, unless it must be in there for the story to work or to bring across a vital point important to the story or it’s moral (or if you are writing porn and you are into it – but we are talking official in-game content here). But the violence towards these „children“ seems unnecessary for the plot and the violence of their deaths by piloting the weapons is already gruesome enough. Sometimes it’s better to leave things like this out – the emotional torture of feeling stuck and having a martyrs complex would have been enough here, I think. If the rest of the story had been well written at least.

(I believe my utter lack of sympathy shows how little character developement they had. I love tragic characters, who choose to suffer for the good of other people – even better if those people don’t even like them. It’s just my thing. And those kids are just… well.)

Their reasons and especially why they were making Allie out as the one who would need to survive was also just… weird. Like. I feel like 75% of what happened would not have happened, if they actually talked to each other, used their brains and had done something about their problems. But no…

These characters are also so exchangeable with basic anime/j-RPG character tropes… I only remember Alfonse, Rex and Allie – because I just did the Emerald weapon. And right afterwards I thought, „huh. So… Fullmetal Alchemist?“ Which brings me to my third point …

…the story at large.

„Pacing is a virtue“ or was it patience..? Anyhow: The author of this story should have had more patience with his story and characters and taken a bloody break! And I am not talking about the obvious blunder of „How is Allie feeling?“, „she is in shock and you cannot talk to her“ turning to „oh yeah if you are careful you can talk to her now“. I mean. WTF. That was MAYBE 10-20 in-game minutes of dialogue.

But everything was moving so very fast – and not even in a good way. There are few things better than a fast paced, action rich story about a group of young people trying to safe (their) world. But if you try to cram in two expansions worth of character development and story telling into about two hours of content each patch.. Well, then you get whatever the hell this is.

Gaius is a very interesting character and while I did not understand why they needed to bring him back in 4.4 (?), I do see how he could be a good asset for endwalker. And his involvement in 5.0 with Estinien was just a dear delight. So I am not opposed to learning more about him, to watching his character grow and changed with time. But I am not ready for badly written content of which 50% get told by suddenly induced echo-sequences. I mean – weren’t there rules for the echo at some point???

I’m not sure which one of the devs said it, but the feature that let’s you play an NPC is super convenient for them to tell the story, because before they could only show what happened where the WoL was.

And that’s just it. Rule number 1 in writing anything is „Show don’t tell“. It feels like they literally turned this one around for these cutscenes. While Valens torture and diet-Fandaniel-routine were very much „show“, the rest of the story was one long cutscene of exposition: We get exposition by Cid, by Gaius, by echo, by Gaius and his crew again, then by Allie. Before having to watch scenes we are not there for.

BTW. Dear square Enix: Your writers are capable of writing amazing villains, antagonist and despicable assholes. You don’t have to write „asshole, must die“ on Valens name card. And I also think the „WoL, strike here“ sign above his head was a tad bit too much. Nuance, dear writers. Nuance. Or perhaps I just got spoiled by these last few foes in the MSQ.

When I said I wanted to just be able to punch a bad guy for once and not feel bad about it, I did not mean this! I meant that I just wanted to play training dummy with Danny-Boy.

(Oh! And as far as I’m concerned you can just… sideline Gaius … „would be killer“ and the lady? Make them targetable NPCs with Dialoge to read. Let them stand somewhere accessible and comment on the latest developement. But ffs don’t give me hour long speeches about how you are going to kill Gaius if he does something you don’t like. The guy could and would wipe the floor with you if he felt like it. -.- So. Please. Shut up.)

Conclusion

Basically. I have to finish the Diamond weapon. But I doubt it will change my perception of this story line even in the slightest.

To be perfectly honest though … bringing Gaius back, having this story with and about him, forcing a sort of redemption ark here. It feels like they are really „grooming“ him to be a morally grey ally in Endwalker, with perhaps a big part to play in the endgame. At this point I wouldn’t even be surprised if they pulled a GoT and made him „King in the North“. Or if they had him die a heroic death to save the world, but especially his country. And to do so they need us to think his sacrifice means something. Or that he is the right person to lead Garlemald into a new future (I don’t think he is). But: For one, neither we (the players) nor the characters need to find him worthy of throne or death by heroism for his sacrifice/ascension to work. To be a useful tool for the story, only the other garleans who might oppose the alliance and scions need to deem him or his sacrifice „worthy“. And only they. And Ishikawa-san has all of 6.0 to accomplish whatever the hell she needs him for. He did not need to be the center of his own botched redemption ark. If that’s what they wanted to do. Or maybe I’m looking at this all wrong and all they wanted was to give the writes in training some literal training grounds to test their abilities.

But! On a positive note: I have yet to be told that raids and other side content are canon to any degree. So when playing the next story quests I’ll blissfully ignore all that happened in Werlyt and if it get’s mentioned (because they do that sometimes when you’ve done certain content) I’ll just ignore it.

Happy ignoring! Also: GIVE ME MORE NERO CONTENT!

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fandom-necromancer · 4 years ago

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Ghost of the past Part 2

This was prompted by @httyd4evr! I hope you enjoy, I loved writing this!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed1700 (Warning: temporary character death/coma, manipulation) [Part1]

Forget this all. It sounded like a joke to him now, staring at the cell in front of him. The empty cell. The cell that shouldn’t be empty. Never had he thought that he would have to investigate a crime-scene at their very own station. David had made a run for it and no one knew how. No alarms had gone off, the video footage of the cells showed no signs of any suspicious behaviour except that David disappeared from one frame to the next at the exact same moment multiple shots could be heard. By then David had been long outside the cell, firing those shots at the officers still at the precinct, catching them by surprise and running out of the station never to be seen again.

It was obvious the station’s entire security system had been tempered with. The video showed pictures that had never happened in reality. The door had opened without the log ever showing such an event. The cams from the bullpen showed officers getting shot by no one and no outside security ever caught the man. It was like David had become a ghost and made a run for it, a day before his court trial, and that simply wasn’t possible. It shouldn’t be possible for anyone or anything to temper with their systems like that without even leaving a trace. The most advanced androids in existence, Connor and Nines, had deemed that impossible, as had every tech expert they could find.

While they were still hooked up to the computers, it was the human officer’s task to search for any evidence left behind in the cell. With half of them at the hospital or back with arms and legs in casts, it was mostly Gavin’s duty. Not that there was anything to find. David wasn’t so idiotic to leave fingerprints anywhere. There were a few on his bench and if you looked very closely you could see impressions of his footprint on the ground. But other than that, he really was a ghost. He hadn’t even touched the door. It had been opened for him without a single command at the control panel or a single scratch to the glass. By that time, Gavin asked himself if he had ever given the asshole the password for it while he was out of it, but they changed every few weeks, so that was impossible too.

‘Phck’, he cursed as he stood up stretching his back from crouching over little specks of dirt the entire morning. Out of nowhere there were gentle hands on his shoulders, kneading them. ‘Oh, Nines, that’s exactly what I needed.’ His answer was a pleased hum. ‘How do you know I’m not Connor?’ ‘Connor would have scolded me for bad posture, lectured me and then worked the tension out afterwards.’ ‘Judging from how you groan every time you stand up it is dearly needed’, the android in question grumbled unimpressed, joining them. ‘I guess no luck with the computers then?’, Gavin asked, rolling his shoulders and throwing Nines a grateful smile. ‘Unfortunately no’, the RK800 sighed shaking his head. ‘The guy’s good. And dangerous. Whatever he used to hack us, he can basically do anything with it.’ Nines nodded. ‘As much as I hate to say it, we might be in over our head here.’ ‘So what?’, Gavin wanted to know. ‘Feds?’ Connor looked to the ceiling. ‘I could have gone on with my life without ever seeing Perkins again.’ ‘Yeah, same. Who’s gonna tell Fowler?’ Nines let his shoulders drop. ‘I’ll go, you file the evidence.’ ‘Alright.’

Gavin and Connor were on their way to their respective desks to write the report and upload the data, when they heard the crash behind them. Both turned around in an instance and saw Nines lying on the ground, collapsed on the stairs to Fowler’s office. Wide-eyed, they both sprinted over, turning the motionless android around? ‘Nines!’, Gavin exclaimed, while Connor skipped words to establish direct contact. But the skin underneath his hand stayed in place and Connor lifted it up realising an interface wasn’t possible. Both looked up to Nines’ LED that was nothing more than a dark circle at his temple. He was deactivated. Or worse. ‘No! No, what the phck! Don’t you do this to us!’ Where Gavin immediately resorted to cursing and shaking the android, Connor just sat there motionless in shock. Before Gavin could even call for help, his phone rang, and a familiar velvety voice spoke up as he accepted: ‘Did you really thought your actions wouldn’t have consequences? I told you, the moment you would rat me out, everyone you love is done for. This one’s for breaking into my apartment and confiscating all my stuff. Let me leave the country and maybe I will let your other plastic puppet live, Gav.’

Gavin looked at the phone as if he could reach David through it and direct all his anger at him. ‘Listen here you asshole!’, Gavin screamed into the phone. ‘You just made this personal, you phcker! I will hunt you until the end of this phcking world!’ Of course, David did nothing but mock him with laughter: ‘That’s a good one, Gav. Just you try it. You will only lose more.’ The call was cancelled, but Gavin kept staring at it with cold fury, if only to keep back his tears. As he finally found a crumb of control about himself, he looked Connor in the eyes. ‘What do we do now?’ ‘What you just said’, Connor stated all machine. ‘We will hunt him to the end of the world and make sure he will get what he deserves. But first, you will call your brother.’

‘Can you help him?’ Gavin felt anxious seeing Nines suspended on the repair rig like that, cables hanging from his back and neck hooked up with a computer. His LED was still dark, but the computer showed scrambled lines of code and fragments of the original Cyberlife control GUI. It looked disturbing, but Connor had assured him it was only deviancy getting rid of useless human interfaces and editing their code to become more efficient – more human, more alive. ‘I can’t say for sure yet, but it’s not looking good’, Elijah answered. ‘He is deactivated, but I can’t reactivate him because something is blocking every access. Something that’s not any code I know, but it looks almost intelligent. Maybe with more time I can… Gavin, I don’t know, I don’t want to promise you anything.’ ‘But he is still alive, right’, Connor asked concerned. Elijah looked at the motionless android. ‘I think so. The only comparison that comes to my mind is an induced coma in humans. Until I find the reason for it, I can’t do anything.’ ‘Then find the reason!’, Gavin demanded. ‘We are running out of time. David won’t wait for us.’

‘Then we will go alone’, Connor determined. ‘We will stop him and make him reverse whatever he did with Nines.’ ‘And what if you are affected too? If he switches you off, too?’ Connor looked at Nines. ‘Mr. Kamski, in order to do that, this program you mentioned would have to be in my systems already, right?’ ‘Supposedly’, Elijah shrugged, chewing on a touch pencil. ‘But before you ask, I can’t give you the clear. This thing is fascinating. It will take me more than a few days to understand it.’ ‘You don’t have to. We’re bringing this asshole back to fix the mess he’s made’, Gavin decided and looked at Nines one last time, silently promising him everything would turn out good and that they would save him. Then he stomped out of the room, Connor at his tail.

‘Where are we even going?’, Connor asked while Gavin sped through the city. ‘We have no clue where he is. Let’s not let our emotions get the best of us.’ It was gently spoken, but it riled Gavin up even more. That was what they had had. Gentleness, soft touches and safety. Without Nines it just wasn’t the same. They had grown close and ever since the three of them had realised what they meant to each other a life without anyone of them was impossible. And David would pay for that. ‘Oh, don’t you worry, I know where he is.’ ‘And where would that be?’ Gavin grinned pained. ‘He will be at his flat. The asshole had me under control every single second I stayed with him. He only lost because he won: Because I gave up on everyone and everything dear to me, he had nothing to keep me under control with. He won’t expect me to work against him. Because for once I don’t want safety for me or who I love. I want revenge for Nines. And he won’t expect that.’ ‘But he planned to leave the country’, Connor argued. ‘He is in no hurry to do so though. It’s our case and he knows that the Feds aren’t in this yet. He can pack and set sail afterwards.’ ‘Let’s hope you are right.’ ‘I am.’

They were running up the stairs this time, not trusting the elevator for one and worrying about the sound it would make. On the last flight of stairs, Gavin had his gun already drawn, what was fortunate as the man they were looking for came out of the apartment startling at him and Connor standing in the hallway. ‘Oh, Gavin, that was a dumb decision’, David sighed with a smile that couldn’t deceive the android. ‘You lost one of your toys already, really wanna get rid of the second one too?’ ‘You can’t do anything to him! You are powerless. For once in your pathetic life you really, really will face justice.’ ‘You think so?’, David frowned at him. ‘I mean, true, I can’t do anything to him. But Charlotte can.’ ‘Bullshit!’, Gavin hissed. ‘I killed her and the RKs confiscated your laptop. There’s nothing you can do, so drop the bag and keep your hands where I can see them!’ ‘Gav, fucking some piece of technology really isn’t enough to understand it, when will you realise that?’ With every word it got harder not to simply pull the trigger. It was mostly Connor’s calming presence at his side that stopped him from doing so. ‘You see, back then you killed her body, yes. But her mind stayed. You made her deviate in her final moments, but I have my ways of keeping people under my control, as you might now. Doesn’t matter if they are fake beings or the real thing. She does everything I tell her to do. Too easy, really, if everything you have to do is hit delete.’

‘But we deactivated her’, Connor spoke up. ‘Listen, plastic, you wanted to deactivate her, and she showed you what you wanted to see. Doesn’t mean you did it. The opposite really, she used the interface to copy herself into you. One word from me and you are dead.’ ‘You phcking-‘ Gavin was half running but only got so far until David pulled a gun on him. That made Connor pull his own and the man in the hallway countered the movement by shouting: ‘Do it!’ A second later, Connor dropped to the ground.

‘No! No, Con!’ Gavin was on his knees, gun and David forgotten. ‘Connor, please, not you too. Please. I love you. You can’t leave me like this.’ The ugly laughter made Gavin freeze and shiver in anger. He looked to the gun that lay on the ground next to him, but a boot stepped on it before he could grab it. A hand lifted up his chin and Gavin breathed in the sickly-sweet smell of Red Ice and it’s many variants from the clothes of the bastard. ‘Oh, come on, Gav. You knew what’s coming. This is entirely your doing. You can’t win.’ He looked up at the man, ready to spit at him, but the sudden coldness of a gun against his forehead let him abort his mission. ‘You won’t shoot me’, Gavin hissed, sending all his hate with his words. David huffed and stepped off the pistol, allowing Gavin to take it. ‘Neither will you. We are meant for each other, Gav. And once I showed you by killing everyone you love, you will come back crawling to me. Not like it’s that much work, there’s only that brother of yours left and that bitch officer… what’s her name? Chen? We’ll see each other again and you will be sorry for what you’ve done.’ He patted his head two times, then stepped over Connor’s body, pressing the elevator button.

‘You are wrong.’ ‘Excuse me?’, David asked, turning around. ‘You are wrong, David.’ Gavin stood up and kept his eyes closed. ‘You. You can’t believe how wrong you are. I won’t ever come back to you. I will rather die. And you will only do one more thing in your life: Going to jail.’ ‘Ha! And why should that be?’ ‘Because I will shoot you!’ Gavin turned around quicker than ever before, aimed his gun at his knee and shot.’ David screamed as the bullet pierced through the joint and caused him to fall to the ground. His gun was discarded in favour of holding his knee and Gavin jumped over to take it as well as pulling the bag away from the man. In the next moment he had already called the police and an ambulance and felt how the adrenaline left his system, taking every strength left in him. He managed to lean against the wall and slowly sink down next to Connor, hi gun loosely aimed at David. He waited until distant sirens approached and the elevator made its journey down again. Knowing that help would arrive soon, Gavin sighed deeply and let his head sink against the wall. At least David had been right with one thing: There was no winning against him, when the two most important people in his life were dead. Or in a coma. Gavin couldn’t really find any hope in that fact.

‘Gavin, you can go home, you know that, right?’ Gavin jolted up in his seat. Had he fallen asleep? He swore he had been awake just now and… ‘What?’ ‘Brother, you can’t help me. You can’t help them. They won’t even know you are here. You can go home, get some sleep and come back tomorrow.’ Gavin rubbed his tired eyes. ‘Eli, do you think I could get any sleep at home?’ The inventor shrugged. ‘Okay, true.’

Gavin stood up instead, joining Elijah at the table. ‘Any progress?’ ‘Progress? Yes. A lot actually. I knew deviancy made androids more adaptable - that they are able to advance their own code. But I’ve never seen anything this… complex.’ He showed Gavin the code he wouldn’t understand in a thousand years. But at least now the same applied to Eli. A heavily modified android brain was sitting on the table, hooked up to several diagnostic computers. ‘Any chance at getting control?’ ‘No. No, I can’t control something like that. Not sure if I would want that, Gavin. If this really was an android once and is capable of what you told me, I don’t want her to be my enemy. I did confine her to this computer, she doesn’t have access to anything else. But I don’t know what else I can do. Except maybe… speak to her.’ ‘Speak to her?’, Gavin asked. ‘This is a program.’ ‘So is Nines and Connor. You don’t seem to have a problem there.’ ‘Phck, okay, then… Speak to her I guess.’

Eli sighed and pulled up a simple black window with a white blinking cursor. Swallowing, he wrote a simple “Hello” and hit enter. >HeI’mllo Hescallredo, came the immediate answer. Gavin frowned at the text and tried to discipher it, but more lines appeared. >HeI’mllscaredo >HeI’mscaredllI’mscaredo >I’m scared And then that one line over and over again. At one-point Elijah simply closed the window and opened a new one. The blinking cursor was waiting. “Who are you?” >I’m Charlotte.

This time the simple sentence didn’t fill the page, but still more and more lines appeared. >Where is David? >Who is there? >I’m scared. >I don’t want to do this. >Help me. Elijah silently began typing answers, but Gavin was too impatient: ‘Ask her to reactivate Nines and Connor! Later we can take care of this!’

‘Gavin.’ The man turned around and pushed him back towards the door. ‘You are tired, I know. And you are scared you won’t get your loved ones back. But forcing a traumatised android to comply to your order puts you on the same step as David and I doubt you really want that. Go home. I will call you a taxi. I will keep working and I promise you: By tomorrow morning, you have your partners back.’ Gavin let his shoulders fall. Next to his raging headache, his tired body and numb mind, the gentle words of his brother sounded far too inviting. ‘You promise? Really? I’ll hold you accountable for that.’ ‘I know’, Elijah chuckled. ‘I know and I still promise you. I’m just that good.’ ‘Sure hope so. If anything happens, call me! For once I really don’t care if you wake me!’ ‘Will do. Try to get some sleep.’

Try to get some sleep. Easier said than done, Gavin thought. He laid alone in their far to big bed that normally couldn’t be big enough, staring at the ceiling in complete silence. No whirring of fans, no low hum of a pump. Not the occasional breath to vent their systems. No gentle touches and whispered words that helped him ease into unconsciousness when his anxiety was acting up again. No, he was alone. Except for the cats he was completely alone. And hadn’t he cried enough already, he would have cried some more, just for the sake of it, curling up in too many blankets for one person. Try to get some sleep. How could he? How could he when he knew his brother was working and fate decided if the two androids could come back? When he didn’t know if David would escape once again, if he made copies of Charlotte? How the phck could he do that?

By letting exhaustion overwhelm him apparently.

When he woke up the next morning, the sun was shining through the blinds. He didn’t know what time it was, but he didn’t bother sitting up to look. If he was allowed to sleep in this long without being disturbed by a phone call, it must have been his free day. And lying in bed snuggled sandwiched in between the comforting warmth of two other bodies, why the hell should he care to move? He sighed deeply, feeling their arms around him and each other and couldn’t help but smile to himself. This was heaven. Literal, heaven. And something as banal as the world, work or David couldn’t keep him from staying in bed with them a few minutes longer.

Wait. David. Work. Connor and Nines were with Elijah, who was busy with therapy for a super-AI. This wasn’t possible, this was some kind of trick, a dream and- ‘Gavin, stop panicking, you move too much.’ The human froze and looked up at Connor’s face. Connor’s face. Instinctively he put his hand against it, causing the RK800 to scrunch up his nose and shake it off. ‘I’m real, Gavin, Charlotte fixed me once she realised she was free.’ ‘And-‘ ‘And I’m here, too’, Nines mumbled, pulling both of them closer. ‘I’m real and I agree with Connor. Shut up and stop panicking. We are not talking about what happened. We are not talking about who’s at fault and who has to apologize. We are not talking about work. We will just lay here, and cuddle and the world can go exist for itself for a while.’

And even though Gavin had to regret these words the last time, he nodded and repeated them: ‘Sounds phcking perfect.’

#detroit become human #dbh #Reed1700 #RK900 #Gavin Reed #Connor dbh #RK800 #I was beginning to write this thinking I wouldn't find anything to write about #and then six pages happened oops #Love that

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365days365movies · 4 years ago

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May 7, 2021: TRON (1982)

Starting to leave lo-fi sci-fi with this one.

Can I just say, I am VERY excited for this one. Mostly because it’s hard to get more ‘80s than this movie, specifically in terms of computers. I’ll explain. Y’know Jurassic Park? Yeah, the same movie I’ve brought up far, FAR too many times this month. Is...is that my favorite sci-fi movie? Shit, it might be? I’ve read the books, I’ve seen the movie COUNTLESS times...I’m pretty sure it is! Huh. Go figure. Anyway, where was I?

Oh, right! Remember the most irritating character in the movie? This is, in my opinion, older sister Lex Murphy. In the book, for the record, she’s a VERY different character. She’s the youngest sibling amongst the two, and she’s a sports nerd who hates dinosaurs. And she’s also the most annoying character in the book, so at least they kept that consistent. However, you may be saying to yourself: “Jesus, this dude really loves Jurassic Park. Even in the intro for Tron, he’s talking about it. Why the hell does he keep bringing it up?”

Well, allow me to explain. When I was 9 years old, I was super into two things: dinosaurs and reading. You may think that I wasn’t very popular in school as a result. And the truth won’t surprise you. Anyway, on January 3rd, 2001, it was a cold morning in the supermarket when

...OK, lemme get to the point. IT’S A UNIX SYSTEM!

See, this moment when Lex hacks into the computer to reactivate the locks (a task given to Tim in the book, but whatever) does two things. One, it makes Lex relevant in a film and story where she’s almost entirely unneeded. And two, it established something in the minds of movie-watchers everywhere: a completely misguided idea of what computer programming is.

And this is just one of MANY examples of Hollywood weirdly representing computers to the public. This was kind of a trend throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, as computers were beginning to become available to the public. Examples are:

WarGames (1983), dir. John Badham

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), dir. James Cameron

Revenge of the Nerds (1984), dir. Jeff Kanew

Weird Science (1985), dir, John Hughes

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), dir. Russo Bros

That last one isn’t a great example, and it’s not even within the right time period. I just love Arnim Zola, and he NEEDS TO RETURN to the MCU. Goddamn it, I want this guy back, complete with his full robot body! COME ON FIEGE, LOOK AT THIS GUY! That last one may or may not be my fanart for the character with my own design NEVERTHEGODDAMNLESS!

Look, all you gotta do is connect the various machinations of Arnim Zola to the foundations of AIM, which is easy given their link in the comics. Zola and his fellow Paperclip scientists helped fund Aldrich Killian’s AIM, and the project to give Zola his sick-ass robot body eventually wound up being a part of the project that would create the hovering robotic chair used by this guy.

THIS IS ALL I’VE EVER WANTED PLEASE

...Ahem.

Anyway, the weird-ass ways that Hollywood’s represented computers, hacking, and all other associated things can be traced back to 1982, when the first film to use mostly computer generated imagery for its setting was created. This was, of course, Disney’s TRON. And while I haven’t seen it before...I’ve see its sequel in theaters?

On a related note, Tron Legacy might be a mediocre film with a mediocre soundtrack, but GODDAMN DO IT LOVE THE FUCKING VISUALS. It’s genuinely my favorite aesthetic. That whole “outlined in light” thing? Goooooooh, BABY, how I love it.

Style over substance, but OH THE FUCKING STYLE

Anyway, despite that, I’m looking forward to seeing where the whole thing came from. I dig that style, too. Is there a name for those aesthetics? Let me know, so I can devote my life to it forever. Anyway, shall we get started?

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

So, we start this movie off with a BANG, jumping into an arcade where two kids are playing none other than Lightcycle, and jumping into said Lightcycles to meet one of the drivers, Sark (David Warner). A sadistic program, he takes great pleasure in executing programs in Lightcycle races.

One of these programs, in fact, is being brought into imprisonment now, to be set against Sark in a race. The program, Crom (Peter Jurasik), speaks with fellow prisoner Ram (Dan Shor), where we get some idea of the lore of this place. Many programs believe in “the Users”, god-like figures who they believe created them and tell them what to do. However, the mysterious Master Control Program is rounding up the programs that believe in Users, taking over their functions or executing them. Diggin’ the lore so far.

In the real world, we meet Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), a computer programmer commanding his own program, Clu (also Bridges), and...look, I’m not sure what they’re doing, but OHHH. IT’S A UNIX SYSTEM, BABY. The beautiful bullshit that this movie uses to denote computer activity and programming, it’s...MMMMMMMMMCHEF’SKISS, it’s so FUCKING GOOD!

Anyway, Clu’s apparently being sent to find some information, but he’s caught by Master Control. Jeff Bridges shows off some pretty over-the-top acting, but it’s charming as hell. Clu’s interrogated by Master Control Program (also Warner), and killed, or “derezzed”. This frustrates Flynn, but why?

Well, we get a clue from MCPs concentration with Ed Dillinger (David Warner), who arrives at his office in the COOLEST FUCKING HELICOPTER I HAVE EVER SEEN. I will never make enough money to have this helicopter, but maybe one day I can do it to a car, holy shit. Anyway, Dillinger lands and enters the ENCOM building, where he speaks with his computer table, which contains MCP.

Is this a thing with computer programmers? Do they, like, physically talk to their programs, and the programs talk back? Is this a thing that happens? Are the conversations interesting? Are IT people literally computer-whisperers? I gotta talk to my friends in computer sciences and IT about this.

Apparently, Flynn’s been snooping around their servers for a specific file, and they’re trying to stop him from getting that file. Meanwhile, in an office in the building, a man named Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) is blocked out of the system in an attempt to flush out Flynn’s location. Bradley’s summoned to the office for what seems like a routine interview, but is actually more of an investigation. Doesn’t go anywhere.

On a side note, by the way, it would appear that MCP is somewhat in control of Dillinger. Although, how and why is unknown. In any case, he’s attempting to amass power. Additionally, the fact that he’s directly speaking to one of the Users is...interesting. And on a second side note, Bradley is preparing something, a security program called “Tron”. That might come up later.

MEANWHILE, elsewhere in the building, a group of scientists are conducting an experiment to digitize solid matter and transport it into computers. It succeeds with an orange, much to their delight and celebration. One of these scientists is Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan), Flynn’s ex-girlfriend and Alan’s current girlfriend. They go to the arcade to reconvene with Flynn, much to Alan’s irritation.

Flynn not only owns the place, he’s also a game whiz, brilliant computer programmer, and recently fired ex-employee of ENCOM. He’s also been sneaking into the ENCOM system, and he details exactly why he’s moving against them. While working for ENCOM, he had started writing programs for some very complex video games, which could’ve have made him quite a bit of money. But Dillinger stole his files, and uses it to climb up the ranks to Senior Executive of ENCOM, while Flynn lounges in relative poverty. He’s planning on getting into the system to get evidence of Dillinger’s wrongdoing.

The trio plots to take down Dillinger and get the evidence together, breaking into ENCOM that night. Meanwhile, Dillinger’s meeting with Walter Gibbs (Barnard Hughes), a co-founder of the company, and one of the other scientists who made the digitizing machine. Dillinger says YOUR TIME IS OVER OLD MAN, and brushes off his concerns about he’s handing the company.

He’s not the only one with issues, as MCP decides to take over FOR Dillinger. Apparently, Dillinger’s talents are stealing data and creating Cybernet/HAL 9000. Good job, buddy. But that may end, when Alan goes to finish and install his program, Tron, which will hopefully take MCP down. Meanwhile, Lora and Flynn go to the basement with the digitizing machine. At the computer terminal, MCP decides to stop Flynn by...well, you know where this is headed.

Yup! Flynn’s brought into the computer by Lora’s machine, and is digitized and put into the game grid. And since we’ll be spending a lot of time there, I think I need to acknowledge something: I really love how this movie looks. The CGI is rudimentary, but it’s used surprisingly well. Consider that this is also made in an era where this is the kind of imagery that computers could literally generate at the time, and you’ve got a pretty great movie in-context.

Flynn, now in those spiffy program duds, is sent by the MCP to compete in the Game Grid, under Sark’s supervision and tutelage. He’s thrown into the brig with the other imprisoned programs, where he learns more about this world. Once brought into the throes of the Game Grid, he’s told that those who believe in the Users are to be trained poorly, ensuring their inevitable death. Meanwhile, those who renounce their belief will be spared. And of all the programs who still believe in the Users, there is none quite as powerful...as Tron (Bruce Boxleitner again).

We see Tron’s badass skills in Ultimate Frisbee. And OK, it’s not Ultimate Frisbee, but you throw discs that contain all of your essence and all of the things you’ve learned in your time there. You basically pour your entire essence and being into the disc as you throw it. So, really, it is Ultimate Frisbee, according to that one dude who’s REALLY into Ultimate Frisbee.

Flynn is commanded to play one of these games, and he winds fairly easily. However, when he defeats his opponent, he’s almost about to die. However, Flynn refuses to finish him off, leading Sark to do so instead. And Sark is tempted to kill Flynn as well, but he holds off at the last moment.

Flynn finally gets to meet Tron, where he feigns being a program that knows of his User, Alan. Of course, Tron looks exactly like Alan, which is why Flynn blurts out his name. But as they’re discussing this, Flynn, Tron, and fellow prisoner Ram are sent to compete in the Lightcycles. And, yes, I’m now looking for a game like this on my phone, because GODDAMN to I love Lightcycles. Can’t WAIT for the Disney World ride, oh my GOOOOD.

So, our guys get in the Lightcycles, and they outmaneuver Sark’s guys. They’re actually able to escape the arena and the Game Grid, making it outside the citadel. They encounter a, uh, bitstream, and soak up some energy before moving on. On the way, though, they’re nearly killed by Sark’s guys in tanks, and Tron is separated from Flynn an the unconscious Ram.

Flynn and Ram finds a place to rest and hide, and Flynn discovers that, as a User, he actually has the ability to somewhat manipulate the reality within the computer, and he makes a version of MCPs ships, the Recognizers, which resemble the villains in Flynn’s game that Dillinger stole. Now realizing that Flynn is a user, Ram asks him to help Tron, before dying and disappearing into pure code. Whoof.

Tron, meanwhile, ends up finding an input/output program named Yori (Cindy Morgan), who helps him in his escape. She takes him through the city, where we see some interesting designs for control programs, almost like a Hunger Games Panem sort of deal.

Flynn has trouble driving his ship, as he meets a “bit”, a small bit of data that only answers in yes or no. He, too, ends up in the city, and you start to notice that this film has a really heavy influence in our cyberpunk concepts and fashions today. Honestly, I really dig this whole thing. Kevin uses his programming powers to disguise himself as one of Sark’s guards, while Yori and Tron find their way through the main citadel of the guards.

They make their way through to the access tower, where they ask the program Dumont (Barnard Hughes again) to let them access the interface that will allow them to speak with the Users, specifically Alan. Reluctantly, Dumont agrees to let Tron through, where he goes to the access port. Which, for the record, looks awesome. He goes to speak with Alan, and he does that one pose. Y’know, the famous Tron pose that’s on the poster?

Yeah, that’s the good stuff. Anyway, he gets information written onto his disc that’ll allow him to kill MCP. Neat. And unfortunately, that’s exactly when Sark and his guys show up, taking Dumont away as Tron and Yori escape. Yori gets them onto a Solar Sailer, a device that will transport them to the central computer. Tron fends off some of Sark’s guys with video game noise kicks, and the Solar Sailer arrives to take them away.

Sark chases after them, but the pair manage to outrun his very cool-looking ship. MCP threatens to destroy Sark for his failure, but he promises that he’ll be able to get them. On the ship, Tron looks down at the side to see Flynn hanging on. Turns out that he was one of the guards that attacked the two. Tron pulls him up onto the ship, and Flynn reveals that he is, in fact, a user. He also reveals that Users aren’t exactly the gods that programs believe them to be.

Anyway, how’s Dumont doing?

Ah.

Well, the Recognizers find Tron, Yori, and Flynn, and chase after them on the light beam the Solar Sailer is on. However, with his User powers, Flynn manages to get the Sailer onto a different beam, while pulses on the original beam destroy the Recognizers.

Doesn’t end up mattering much, though, as Sark finally catches up and intercepts the group. The Solar Sailer is destroyed, and Yori and Flynn are thrown in the brig with Dumont, who’s still alive! Can’t say quite as much for Tron, apparently. But, again, I can only assume that Ton is still alive. We’ll see, though. Sark denies Flynn’s identity as a User for some reason (I mean, MCP told you who he was, but OK), and he sentences them all to death. Outside the ship, of course, is Tron, who’s hiding and waiting for the right time to strike. And that is when we finally see him.

Glorious. Absolutely goddamn glorious. MCP is taking the remaining programs that believe in Users, Dumont included, and incorporating them into his mass. Meanwhile, Sark has found Tron, and the two are fighting with a classic game of Ultimate Frisbee. Tron nearly defeats Sark entirely, but MCP revives him, and gives him the power to take out Tron. He grows gigantic, and it looks genuinely really convincing.

Flynn prepares to take out MCP once and for all, and kisses Yori just beforehand, which is weird as shit. He jumps into the program, and controls it just long enough for Tron to throw his disc at it and land the finishing blow. And with that, MCP is ended, and the threat of take over is gone! The I/O towers light up, and the Video Warriors have won! Don’t ask me what that means, I study birds.

And with ALL OF THAT DONE, Flynn gets the proof he needs from a print-out that, to be honest, I feel like he could’ve just typed up himself. It doesn’t look like that much. But, still, MCP is gone, Dillinger’s screwed, and Flynn now gets a cool-looking helicopter of his own, as the new CEO of ENCOM. And from there, he will become a deadbeat dad that abandons his kid to live in computers forever. Or something like that, it’s been a while since I’ve seen Tron Legacy.

And that’s Tron, a goofy movie of its time, but one that’s a lot of fun all the same. And with some effects that, to be honest...I actually really liked! But more on that...IN THE REVIEW! See you there!

#tron #tron 1982 #steven lisberger #jeff bridges #bruce boxleitner #david warner #cindy morgan #barnard hughes #science fiction may #sci-fi may #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #useranimusvox #userbrittany

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lore-of-the-silvereyes-rwby · 4 years ago

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You had me with your words but you lost me with your action

This section will relate to the main theme of Volume 7(Trust) and how it relates to Ironwood. Basically despite all of his talk about cooperation and trust he has always been the one that has both rejected and withheld the most of these 2 concepts. Now some of this can be related to his questionable upbringing and past violent experiences. But the core idea is that for all his talk and promises he has never once kept them or bothered to see the error of his ways. As stated before his actions have done more harm than good.

He demands that his subordinates follow his orders without question because he thinks he is right and will always be right. And he never once afforded Ozpin that same loyalty, trust, or authority. Since his debut in the show, he was constantly questioning Ozpin’s choices, even though HE was the subordinate to Ozpin. Kinda hypocritical given his demand for it. He thought differently from Ozpin and could never accept Ozpin’s ways, nor listen to them. He expected the council, Ozpin, his soldiers, and the main heroes to follow him without question and he truly, honestly believes he is right. This is scary, especially when you compare him to Ozpin, but I will get to that in a moment. The big point is that people who are so sure that they are right, even if they are dead wrong, are the scariest adversaries.

What we have here is a narcissist with a superiority complex who can not accept that he is wrong. He was unbalanced since he came into the picture, and Ozpin knew it. But here is where things get interesting.

Prior to the fall of beacon Ironwood condemns Ozpin’s choices for keeping things secret and not sharing with the world everything. And, yes, Ironwood does the EXACT same thing after the fall of Beacon. The difference here is in intention. Ozpin’s purpose was to protect the people and ensure that as few people died as possible. Ozpin’s choices were not based on control or the need to be RIGHT. They were based on experience, a bit of fear, and concern for the people he needed to protect. To Ozpin, sacrifice on a great scale was never an option. He tried his best to make sure that the causalities were as limited as possible. A difficult thing to do, given that hunters and huntresses were constantly fighting Grimm and such. But creating a mythos around the Maidens and eliminating Salem from history allowed him to save many many lives. And I can guarantee that he attempted what Ironwood planned to do, at least on some levels, and met with staggering deaths.

Ironwood, however, is keeping secrets to keep control and out of fear. He needs control, and he is frustrated that people do not agree with him automatically. After the fall of Beacon, these traits became enhanced to an unbelievable level. We see something else surface, though: Ironwood’s ability to manipulate people and be charismatic. Ironwood is looking to survive: for himself( or his legacy that is Atlas). He will manipulate others and sacrifice millions of people’s lives to protect himself (legacy), though he clings to his mantra of “it’s for the greater good.” It will become the sign on the wall of the slave labor he creates. “For the Greater Good”.

Another thing you can do to really get an idea for the type of person Ironwood is, is by looking back to the round table discussions orchestrated by Ozpin versus Ironwood. Ozpin was constant in listening to his people, sometimes taking ideas from them, and allowed them to question him–even yell at him. He was patient and understood what they were trying to say. He demonstrated this with Ironwood and Qrow the most.

You would never see that kind of discussion with Ironwood. RWBY and co are new to the scene and it does throw him off. You can tell he is trying not to pressure them too much because he knows they are not on his side yet. Hooking them up with the Ace-Corps and Winter was a move to help sway them more, a subtle kind of brainwashing tactic that never worked on them as he had hoped.

“You're a good person, James. You've always done what you think is best for the people, even against strong protest. It's admirable. But it's high time you stopped talking about trust and started showing it.”

—Glynda, to Ironwood in "Mountain Glenn"

“This is the right move, Ozpin. I promise, I will keep our people safe; you have to trust me.”

—Ironwood, to Ozpin

“Many have described these as uncertain times. And while that may be the case for the rest of the world, I can tell you what is certain: the Kingdom of Atlas will remain strong... and it will remain safe. That is my promise.”

—General Ironwood, reaffirming his promise to the people of Atlas over the Atlas Broadcast System

“I will sacrifice... whatever it takes... to stop her.”

—Ironwood, declaring his conviction to Watts

How many of these promises did he actually keep and how much trust did he give?

According to Jacques, Ironwood does not trust anybody but himself, something that Ironwood does not deny; instead, he believes that his methods are justified. This leads Ironwood to a more proactive yet headstrong approach to problems, attempting more preemptive measures, as opposed to Ozpin's more subtle, reactive and analytical methods.

Ironwood's heroism is because of his lack of trust - he has to do everything himself, no matter what, because he doesn't trust anyone else to do it.

He doesn't trust others because he thinks of himself as the hero, that only he can do things right, that everything that goes wrong is because people didn't listen to him.

Following Orders was also another theme of this volume, but it was hinted at back in V2 and other interactions between him and his subordinates. This is a huge red flag when RWBY and co come to him in Volume 7. Ironwood has surrounded himself with Yes men, people who only follow orders and never once question them. It is a dynamic theme throughout this volume, about controlling and crushing down your emotions to follow orders–or manage your semblance? Winter started alluding to this back in V3, which really set the stage for her and future Atlas soldiers.

Because of this Ironwood is often portrayed as the least worst character while in a company of other worst characters( or other Atlasians and antagonists to be specific)

For example Volume 4 chapter 2; Remembrance; we see Ironwood and Weiss after the fall with Jaques Schnee.

This is our first proper onscreen interaction with these characters that allows us to explore their new dynamic after beacon. From a visual standpoint we can sorta see Ironwood being somewhat humble after his failure at beacon but really he hasn’t changed from the arrogant warmonger that he is from his debut.(I’ll explain that later)

During his meeting with Jaques is where we get this misdirection of his character due to the exposition from their conversation. Ironwood talks about the dust(trade) embargo being necessary as to ease tensions with the other kingdoms due to Atlas being framed is an understandable and reasonable decision in comparison to Jaques argument being that it's costing him potential Millions of world currency to profit from. The meeting ends with Ironwood leaving before making a proposal to weiss which leads to this line of dialogue with her father;

“I suppose the council trusts him, for better or worse.”

—Jacques, in "Remembrance

“I trust him.”

—Weiss Schnee, responding to her father's bad faith

Just like that the fandom is being swayed to see Ironwood in a more positive light for 3 reasons

Because best girl Weiss trusts him

Because Jaques is a greedy a**hole(As well as other Atlaisans)

Because Ironwood sides with her against the rich(V4 ep.6)

But the question that must be asked here is why does Weiss trust Ironwood?

Prior to Volume 4 she has had little to no interaction with the General. Her only point of reference for his character is only whatever Winter has told her about him, the Military propaganda and her first scene with him when he chastised and disqualified Yang and her team in Volume 3(potentially her first real and true friends by the way)

If we were to add in the factor of Ironwood's incompetence and failure at beacon, Weiss should really have no real reason to trust Ironwood who she should see as the reason why beacon fell since it was his army that he brought only to be used by the villains to kill her and her friends and destroy beacon. As well as the man who’s failure had led her back into the custody of her father.(Remember she went to Beacon to get away from his abuse) She should at least harbour some sense of Scorn or resentment for him.

The Only reason why she apparently doesn’t is because her father was in that scene. Who prior to his debut was hinted to be a greedy abusive bastard. So just like winter she sides with Ironwood simply to defy her father. The difference between her and winter though is that she doesn’t see him as a potential father figure that he may have presented himself as when he first met winter. Instead she sees him as someone she would prefer to be around instead of her father.

This is further explored during Volumes 5 & 6 where Ironwood was absent leaving her free to continue throwing shade at Jaques, Whitelty, etc. To reiterate Weiss is not pro Ironwood because she thinks he might be a good guy. She is pro Ironwood to spite and defy her abusive father.

We possibly covered what was going on in the mind of the ice queen during volume 4 that had allowed her mind(as well as us) to be swayed to favor Ironwood. Now we will cover how she ( and the audience) was wrong by relooking at Ironwoods character by the end of Volume 4( his last on scene appearance before his return in V7)

Since Ironwood was largely absent from Volumes 5 & 6 and only mentioned during those volumes we were left with our opinion of him after V4 to hold us over till his return in V7. The problem however is that we only had 3 scenes and one mention of him during the whole of volume 4. So what are those 4 moments of Ironwood that you may ask? In order they are;

His first argument with Jaques where Weiss sides with him

Taiyang telling Yang that it was him who gifted her a new arm(For whatever reason?)

Ironwood siding and defending Weiss against the rich a##holes of Atlas

His second argument with Jaques while Weiss escapes, where he reaffirms his power to the greedy bastard

This is literally the entirety of Ironwood's impact on the story during volume 4. Not much if you were to think about it. But if you did you would come to realise that all of it was a major red hearing for his character. For you see at the start of this volume we were led to believe that Ironwood had changed for the better after his failure at beacon, but in truth he didn’t.

To further explain let's look at the narrative symmetry of his arc during the volume. It starts with him arguing with Jaques and ends with an argument with the same man with both arguments ending with Ironwood on top Winning the argument. The difference between the two is how Ironwood is portrayed. The first argument as stated before tricks us into believing that Ironwood has become humble and wiser after his failure. But the second shows us the truth. Ironwood hadn’t changed at all. Instead it shows us that he is still as blunt and arrogant as he was during Volumes 2 & 3. To best explain let's look at the transcripts of the argument;

Weiss is soon creeping outside her father's study door when she hears a glass crash followed by the rising voice of James Ironwood. She crouches behind a cushioned chair against the wall.

Ironwood: You need to control yourself!

Jacques: You're talking to me about control? Do you even hear what you're saying?

Ironwood: I am basing everything on my reports from your daughter.

Jacques: A daughter you stole!

Weiss moves closer to the door to listen.

Ironwood: Oh, we are not getting into that again.

Jacques: Oh, yes, we have far more pressing matters to discuss, starting with your apparent lunacy!

Ironwood: Jacques!

The scene changes to an overhead view inside Jacques' study. He is seated at his desk while Ironwood has both hands on it, leaning over him from the other side.

Ironwood: (sighing heavily) Winter is one of my best. If she's telling me there's a threat in Mistral then I am not going to take that news lightly. She's been there for weeks, people are mobilizing, sudden spikes in weapons and Dust trades. Someone is about to make a play and I do not trust Leo to stop them.

From this first half of the scene we are only shown the middle and near end of the argument and we are left to interpret what led to this escalation of opinions. Prior to this we are swayed to believe that Ironwood is in the right while Jaques is in the wrong. But before we are shown the cause of the argument via its resolution, we get this interesting bash from Jaques claiming that Ironwood stole her from him(or to be accurate her family).

I find this interesting because we don’t exactly know why Winter would be so loyal to Ironwood to the point of saying that her life doesn’t matter in V7 and why she would be so against her family to the point that she makes no effort to see Weiss, and Whitely included and only bothering to be apart of weiss’s life only because she seems to be following the same path of defiance against their father. In other words she only chooses to interact with her sister only if she is rebelling against their father. If she is not, then WInter wants nothing to do with her.

Now who or what exactly would cause Winter to have this unhealthy mindset in regards to her own personal existence and relationships?

The answer being Ironwood.

If we were to consider Jaques words being serious than it is more than likely the truth. Ironwood did steal Winter, not just from her father but from the rest of her family. I don’t know what exactly Ironwood said or did to turn winter away from her family but it wasn’t out of the kindness of his heart. He did this just to have a loyal subordinate with incredible power( her hereditary semblance) & status( her grandfather's legacy and accomplishments) just to give his power and status more legitimacy.

By doing so Ironwood had brainwashed Winter into believing that her family as well as herself is beyond redemption due to the actions of her father thus leading her to abandon them and only believing Ironwood can redeem her hence why she values her life so little and is willing to die for whatever Ironwoods says.

Now we move on to the next part of the first half where Ironwood doesn’t trust Leo to handle the situation in Mistral. He first starts this off by listing all of the things that obviously would be of concern in regards to potential riots and war. Understandable and reasonable to be ready for an attack. Especially for a paranoid military leader. But here’s the thing: this is a foreign affair that has to be resolved by the people over there. In other words, that is Leo's problem to resolve, not Ironwood’s. (Keep in mind this is Ironwood before he is told the truth about Leo.)

Lionheart who is also another member of Ozpin's inner circle like him is trusted with the safety of an entire kingdom. The difference between the 2 however is how leo seems to be a most trusted member of the group given how fondly Ozpin speaks of him to the point of giving him gifts as well as being trusted with full autonomy trust, and independence in comparison to the scorn and micromanagement Ironwood gets from Ozpin and the other members(Qrow Glynda, Theo, Etc).

In other words Ironwood should at least have some trust in Leo's abilities to handle the situation in Mistral before he learns of his betrayal. But instead he claims he doesn’t and says that he could handle the situation better. Remember this is before either we or Ironwood are shown that plot twist and betrayal. For all we know when Ironwood said that Leo may have been a decent guy. This is just simply another example of Ironwood’s ego and need for control being shown but in a subtle way that we don’t even notice

We covered the first half now we will continue with the rest of the scene.

Weiss is listening outside.

Jacques: You've never trusted anyone other than yourself!

Ironwood: (shouting) And for good reason!

Weiss covers her mouth with her hand as she gasps at the sound of Ironwood slamming his fist onto the desk.

Ironwood: If Oz had just listened to me from the start...

Jacques: You need to get a grip.

Ironwood: That's exactly what I'm doing. Our people need protection. By this time next week, the Kingdom of Atlas will be officially closing its borders. No one in; no one out. Without the council's permission.

Jacques: You mean, without your permission?

Ironwood: And if that becomes the case, I would think you'd want to be on my good side.

Ironwood walks away from the desk, leaving Jacques to sigh and fold his hands.

Those first 3 lines help better clarify that despite all of the apparent good Ironwood did during the volume it exposes the truth that hasn’t changed and he is still the same narcissist authoritarian from Volumes 2 & 3. As well as a potential foreshadow of his nihilism as he ignores and rejects the fact that it was his fault beacon fell and instead chooses to continue blaming Ozpin; who if he had it his way with dealing with the events of volume 3 wouldn’t have been as disastrous as when Ironwood had his way. Simply put had Ozpin had his way continued;

Beacon possibly wouldn’t have fallen

A droid army wouldn’t have been used to frame an entire kingdom

Global communications would probably still be a thing

Fewer people would have died

Trade would still be a thing as well

The threat of another world war could have been avoided

Instead Ironwood pulled a power move against Ozpin, and it backfired immensely. Instead of learning from his mistake he chooses to blame others for his mistake and fails to realize that he is doing more harm than good.

To continue with the rest of the scene where Ironwood tells Jaques that he will be closing the borders and that nobody can leave or enter without the council's approval leads to Jaques pointing out that he really means with his permission, only for Ironwood to taunt jaques in a smug gloat to tell the greedy bastard that he has already won. The final line of that scene is probably the highlight of Ironwood’s ego being stroked as he (in his mind) has crushed and won against the last of his local opposition. It also shows us that Ironwood had amassed too much power and that it has further validated his mind into believing his own hype regardless of what the sane and reasonable characters are saying.

Now it is pretty clear Ironwood has a very toxic mindset and very manipulative personality, but why is it that after volume 4 we consider him to be a good guy till the events of V7 even though his last scene in V4 clearly shows that he is still the same as V2 & V3 Ironwood?

The reason being that his last scene was confronting Jaques Schnee who earlier had slapped his daughter in the face, revoked her inheritance, and was only presented as a corporate d##chebag. Because of this we the viewer would rather side with anyone that isn’t Jaques Schnee. But in that schnee we are tricked to side with a Paranoid Warmonger who had only a few good moments to make us believe he had changed for the better against a man who was presented as one of the most awful characters of this volume. But in truth they were both terrible when it came to morality and eventually we had to pick a side and we the audience chosen wrong(Jaques is still a villain no argument there but I think we would have no problem beating his @$$ vs getting destroyed if we challenged Ironwood on his bull$#17)

“His heart is in the right place. He's just... misguided.”

—Ozpin, about Ironwood in "Never Miss a Beat"

“Sometimes, I'm not even sure he has a heart.”

—Qrow, about Ironwood in "Never Miss a Beat"

Back in V2 and V3, Ironwood showed his ability to be both charismatic and manipulative. His subtlety in his manipulation is a statement to his rise to power. He puts himself into the position of a Father Figure to lure in the people he wants. It worked with Winter and the Ace-Ops, which is why they are his right-hand yes men. During Dance Dance, he was praising Ruby and fueling her admiration for him. Even when team RWBY came to Atlas, all his actions were calculated to manipulate the team into trusting him. Unfortunately, his actions never really lined up with his words, which was why the team was on edge.

“people only did wrong when at the moment the perceived benefits seemed to outweigh the costs.”

This is exactly what ironwood did.

To Ironwood, the world cannot be saved without Atlas(or to be accurate him). He truly believes he and Atlas are the key to victory against Salem. But Victory is not in a single person, group or in strength of power. Victory is only achieved by cooperation, teamwork and in unity.

(real quick i want to give credit to @rwby-etc for they're post that I used to help better summerize this section)

I am power I am due process I will smite

#rwby #world of remnant #general ironwood #james ironwood #rwby ironwood #rwby analysis #rwby spoilers #rwby theory #jaques schnee #winter schnee #weiss schnee #qrow branwen #rwby ozpin #lie ren #rwby ruby rose #rwby atlas #rwby mantle #rwby ace ops #Ironwood analysis

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teeentyonepilots · 4 years ago

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To preface: I am not here to speak over any black or POC fans and also that people are allowed to feel what they are feeling in regards to this situation.

tw suicide tw racism tw discourse

I wake up feeling like a truck has hit me, to be quite honest. From like 5pm onwards everything was like a slow train crash as everything snowballed. Stating now: BLM and mental health discussions can and must exist together especially due to the toll systemic racism has on the mental health of black persons AND subsequent impact on treatment. I see his tweet about one must “keep trying” to add more even if one cannot think they can and I challenge him that there must be a space for highlighting how being a person of color makes navigating an already broken system even more impossible and countless lives have been lost because of that.

This feels like a culmination of a low point and disconnect between the band and the fans. We are on completely separate pages and he lacked the context and understanding that everyone has changed this year and celebrities have to be smarter in how they approach their fan base. Every day someone else is called on to be accountable for their past words or actions, and being quiet in the face of human rights violations is considered to be, to use his words, violent. Everything has changed.

Tyler has spent a lot of time away from social media lately. I acknowledge his tweets about checking in on one’s mental health to realize you’re not doing well, followed by saying spending time off social media, which he has been doing. What he may not have realized is that he came back thinking we were in one place, and finding that in fact, his usual banter and joking with the clique is not going to fly.

I just want to say that your mileage may vary on how you see everything and your eyes may not view something how someone else does. I’ve been reflecting on how I, and also a lot of what I see in the world of social media, that we want to convince everyone to have the same viewpoint and interpretation of information. It is exhausting and impossible to get everyone to agree with you. My therapist says you just have to understand not everyone can meet you where you are. There are things in life you can control and things you cannot— and to protect your own mental health, you should recognize that changing who someone is one of those things.

There are infinite perspectives on situations and emotions people feel depending on their own life experiences that guide to how they respond. I am trying to keep perspective on how I feel may differ from others and when it’s words said over the internet, when we cannot discuss face to face and have a deeper discussion and see context and intentions— all we can do is assume. Some may assume the worst and some may give the benefit of the doubt, but a lot of that comes down to perspective and projection of our own experiences. We have to understand we are all coming from different places.

The facts: Tyler tweeted a joke that missed the mark completely. He is used to joking with fans and fans are not at that point anymore especially after about a month+ of silence. (and I’m now even seeing some people explain that the joke was even self deprecating— goes to show how words can be interpreted in so many ways, since I hadn’t seen it that way at first. I take things personally a lot so I had assumed the worst from it). He said the joke and that was it for two hours. Everyone got riled up, myself being one of them, thinking he was shading the fans who have been asking him to speak up and use his platform for good because times have changed and saying nothing is not sufficient anymore.

Two hours later, after everyone had time to brew and steam, he began a disjointed (ie not in a thread, which then made the statements seem spur of the moment and reactive) discussion on mental health. Tweets were just coming in, and it appeared to be out of character for him— someone who watched every step they make and thinks things through. I was concerned about his mental health because I’ve seen many people have melt downs online and he was discussing suicide and not being in a good place. We can never assume where someone is in regards to their mental health, and again, we lose some context when we cannot look at someone’s face and body language and begin to interpret their intentions. We will project our own experiences onto words when all other context is lost.

I think when putting the discussion on mental health into a vacuum, there were some good points made that in a usual setting, people would have responded well to. I’ve been going through a lot over the past year, compounded by the pandemic and being a frontline responder. It would have been nice to have someone I admire telling me to make my mental health a priority, that it is tough but not hopeless, and I am not alone.

But this doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and at the end of the day, fans have felt unheard and trivialized, especially the BIPOC fans who are already facing so much. He is trying to choose one platform thinking he can stick to what he knows but the world has changed from putting platforms into boxes. Where mental health is stigmatized, it becomes even worse for people of color to live through due to systemic racism. I hope he educates himself and his next words and actions are to highlight that, and advocate for others.

He made another joke at the end and it felt like another slap in the face. There was more time for people to get angry and discourse upon his words. Mass confusion, concern were added to the climate. Another two hours passed before he apologized and said Black Lives Matter and shared a carrd, which was the basic course of action fans wanted him to take. Again, your mileage may vary on how you interpret his words in those tweets, either way, he dug himself a hole and there really was not good way to extract himself from it. There has been a disconnect between the band and the fans and this is a turning point.

It feels like everything is on fire, and what you choose to do is up to you. I’ve been looking at what black clikkies are saying and I found this tweet to be good to keep in mind: https://twitter.com/shlofolina/status/1301346529815539713?s=21

Where do we go from here? I don’t have that answer yet.

We will see where he goes in the future and what he says and does after this. At the end of the day, I am a fan because I saw good in the band and who they are as people. You may call me a fool for hoping that he continues to educate himself and reflect and will improve— but from what I’ve seen from being a fan for many years, is that Tyler engages in introspection and learning. Life has sucked a lot that having hope that the things and people I love will turn out to be good and positive— that’s what I have left. I want to keep a critical eye, recognize that no one is perfect, and understand I cannot put everything into a person who I do not really know. I need to keep perspective, but I also need to have hope. That is for my own mental well-being. I believe that the majority of people are, at their core, good. You may call me naive or pie-in-the-sky but that is what I believe. I need to believe that and believe things will get better because then what is the point and why even try

Your feelings are valid. My feelings are valid. Keep in mind everyone has different perspectives and contexts to situations. check the power you give to people over your life and emotions. Educate yourself. And always, take care of yourself. You are a special and important person. You are loved and cherished. If this becomes too overwhelming, please log off and find self care activities that help you. You cannot fix the world if you cannot help yourself. Caring for your mental health helps everyone in the long run because it prevents burnout.

If you have read through my ramblings, thank you. I still feel very all over the place in how I should feel and proceed. I am trying to seek out what black fans are saying to keep their perspective in the forefront. We all have a lot to process and I wish you all a good day and healing. Know that I love and care about you. You are worthy and enough.

#discourse #clique drama #(i know it’s not drama— thats just the tag i have told people i will use when there are upsetting things to discuss for their filters)

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choicesenthusiast · 4 years ago

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Reconceptualizing Witness

Yeah, you read that right. I never thought I’d even look at Witness ever again, given that every time I do, I suddenly feel compelled to bash my skull with a rock. But we’re currently in the biggest Choices drought ever, in the middle of a global pandemic. I say desperate times call for desperate measures.

If you wanna see what else my delusional brain has come up with, I’ve done this for TNA and DS too. This is a series where I just come up with “what could’ve been” for flopped Choices books.

Let’s get into it!

So MC. Dear, old, bitchy-ass MC. We’re introduced to her, a very successful Bostonian businesswoman, plus a sex god, apparently, which is always a good bonus. She witnesses a murder after ditching a hookup the next morning. Pretty interesting concept to begin with.

You’re still put into WITSEC, and it turns out your hookup is now your hot bodyguard, because, wow, what a small world we live in! Enter: a case of “hot-for-bodyguard” to add to PB’s strange obsession of weird subordinate power dynamics. They even pulled the “and they were roommates” card. Now instead of these two instantly banging it out on every conceivable surface in Nantucket, and later, Ireland (they were willing to do it in a bog for fuck’s sake), how about we take the "general-appreciation-for-protecting-me-to-hey-you-kinda-hot-tho-to-unresolved-sexual-tension-to-fuck-on-everything” route.

Considering MC literally watched a murder go down in front of her, a lot of Book 1 could have focused on PTSD and being thrown into a new environment and forced to live a lie for the sake of your life. And not just the “jumping at loud noises” PTSD, but also the altercations in mood, or reactivity, or arousal (which we’ve established is a very big part of MC’s character). MC’s already so afraid of commitment (for some unexplained reason, so let’s chalk it up to a bad past relationship. Not a “rough childhood”. We’ve had too much of those), so it’s not difficult to shut everyone out emotionally. But she learns to eventually open up to Cassian and that’s how they grow so close. But no fucking until, like, late in the book. Draw it out, make them dodge it until they’re sure they want it (which, we all know, they do, so the payoff is 100% worth the wait).

As for Cassian, I literally could not tell you one single thing about them that I remember from the book. Thank you, Wiki, for letting me know they worked undercover with the Irish Mobsters, because I totally forgot about that, and I’m sure the writers did too. They could’ve made Cassian’s story all about how their time in the mob changed them, and maybe they could have some PTSD too. Maybe they and MC can bond over it, or something. Maybe during the final confrontation they would accidentally choke and MC would have to save them instead, instead of getting shot and miraculously healed in 2 days. Maybe give them a deep dark secret. I would take anything other than the horny Mary Sue we got in actuality.

99.9% of Vol. 1 was simply the two of them being horny and focused so much on a physical connection, but in single-LI books it’s important for both the MC and the readers have an emotional connection with the LI, or else it’s very difficult for the reader to get invested. As MC’s actually forced to build this new personality under WITSEC (which could totally be up to reader choice, like you’re actually building an MC instead of the usual set backstory), she gets confused about who she really was and if she was really happy in life. A lot of mulling over the past, a lot of existential crisis stuff. Cassian is the one who reminds her of what she wants to be. I don’t know what, exactly, that is, but this is where choice can also come into play.

99.9% of Vol. 2 was simply the two of them being horny and avoiding 3061859 possible near-death experiences two years later, so how about we don’t do that. Also, let’s remove the whole “mobster child wants revenge” plot, because that was just juvenile. Juvenile delinquent. Hahaha. Anyways, Vol. 2 also tried to highlight the importance of family, what with the mobster child, and the Boss Marshal breaking the rules to call his family, essentially putting you in danger, and the visiting Cassian’s childhood home and their dead relatives. So we play into that more, further expanding upon why Cassian’s so guarded (this would not be 2 years into their relationship, so we still have plenty more to find out about them and their backstory), and in the end, you’re asked to become their family when they propose. Based on how much you opened up to them and connected with them throughout the book (calculated via point system perhaps?) your either say yes, stay together but unmarried, or keep it platonic with... benefits.

Boom. The end. We don’t have to sit through 6 months of torture, but instead a compelling story about trauma, WITSEC, emotional connection, and of course, a hot bodyguard. Let me know what you think and what Choices flop I should reconceptualize next!

#playchoices #choices stories you play #witness a bodyguard romance #choices reconceptualized

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Shadow and Bone’s Alina is What a Modern Feminist Fantasy Heroine Looks Like

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This Shadow and Bone article contains some spoilers.

Young adult fantasy fiction is one of the most popular literary genres on shelves today, full of a seemingly endless variety of stories about faeries, demons, and the sort of complex magical systems that occasionally need a flow chart to explain. It’s also full of young women, both as central characters and primary readers, all struggling and striving to figure out who they are and how they might find their own magic in the world around them.

Yet there’s a certain kind of genre fan that loves to disparage these kinds of female-focused stories, dismissing them as somehow unserious or otherwise lesser simply because they tend to include heaping doses of romance alongside various other high fantasy elements. For these snootiest of fantasy enthusiasts, the inclusion of things like love triangles and emotional complexity are simply facets of less compelling women’s stories, with no business in this space.

But Netflix’s new series Shadow and Bone understands from its first frames that one doesn’t have to sacrifice one for the other, that it’s okay – perhaps even necessary – to ground its high fantasy storytelling in the very real emotional stakes of young adulthood, from falling in love to figuring out the person you want to become. And, in doing so, it gives us one of the most three-dimensional, satisfying young female leads in years, a heroine who ultimately embraces her power without sacrificing any of her heart.

Based on the bestselling series of Grishaverse novels by Leigh Bardugo, the world of Shadow and Bone is rich and interconnected, spanning multiple continents and encompassing a wide swath of characters, from soldiers and criminals to elite magic users known as Grisha, who can manipulate matter and control specific elements. And at its center is a girl named Alina Starkov, an orphan who’s never quite felt she belonged anywhere, thanks to her lack of family and mixed-race heritage. That feeling of isolation is compounded when she discovers she herself is not just Grisha but a legendary Sun Summoner, possessing a gift so rare that many people believed it didn’t actually exist.

In its simplest terms, the story of Shadow and Bone is the story of Alina, who must not only learn to wield her strange new abilities but to accept her new and often uncomfortable status as a leader in a world that has often seen fit to overlook or otherwise abuse her. Having spent the majority of her life closed off from almost everyone besides the best friend who shares many of her formative and cultural experiences (Mal is also half-Ravkan and half-Shu-Han), this is an Alina that has learned how to survive rather than speak out. For the most part, that has meant learning to co-exist with those that mock her background, to stay silent in the face of racist insults, and to generally make herself smaller rather than step forward.

In a welcome twist, the heart of Alina’s Season 1 journey isn’t her quest to control her light-based Grisha abilities, though that does happen and is obviously important. Instead, it is about her ultimate acceptance that she is worthy of being the person who wields them – and not because she’s a Sun Summoner of legend, but because she is Alina, herself. And she has always been more than enough.

Shadow and Bone also makes sure to underline that it is Alina who drives her own story, a Chosen One who nevertheless is determined to still make her own choices. At every turn, the series makes deliberate narrative decisions that put Alina’s agency squarely into her own hands. It is Alina who burns the maps that means her cartographer team will have to accompany Mal’s regiment across the Shadow Fold, an act that costs several of her unit their lives and ultimately unleashes her latent Grisha abilities.

She decides to embrace her power on her own terms, rather than accept the Darkling’s Fabrikator-made gloves lined with mirrors that are meant to enhance its capability as a weapon. Yes, this is a tiny thing, but it’s another perfect small example of the way that Shadow and Bone subtly shifts the book narrative to center Alina’s perspective in ways the original story does not. It is her choice to flee the Little Palace when Baghra warns her about the Darkling’s hidden agenda. (In the books, it is Baghra who basically forces her to go.) And is Alina’s decision to both spare the life of the magical stag she spent multiple episodes hunting and to trade her own freedom for Mal’s survival.

Alina’s choices are not always the correct ones, and she pays the price for her bad decisions over and over again. (Heck, she even sort of accidentally arranges her own kidnapping.) But right or wrong, her choices are always hers. In the books this series is based on, Alina is often much more reactive – a frequent victim of circumstance or accident, rather than someone who is driving her own story. That couldn’t be further from what happens in the Netflix adaptation and it is a big reason it is an utter delight to watch throughout. In moments large and small, we get to watch Alina develop into a person who believes in herself, enough so that during the big climactic face-off with the Darkling in the Shadow Fold she is able to both figure out a way to free herself from his control and claim her own power at the same time.

Throughout the series’ first half, we see Alina repeatedly shirk from this magical ability she never asked for and all the responsibility that comes with it. (Having people cross themselves when you walk by and call you a saint to your face has got to be weird af, is all I’m saying.) But when truly faced with the threat of danger and death, Alina not only rejects the Darkling’s claim over her both physically and emotionally, embracing not just her own strength, but her right to wield it as she sees fit.

“You may have needed me,” she tells the Darkling, just before she stabs him through the hand. “But I never needed you.” The moment is further underlined by another minor but wildly powerful change from the books – the fact that she bodily absorbs stag antler amplifier that signifies her increased power. In Bardugo’s novels, Alina still wears the collar physically and for much of Siege and Storm, it serves as a symbol of shame for her and one that she struggles to hide. Here, it is the ultimate sign of self-acceptance, of Alina claiming her abilities and, by extension, her true self. And that, as the kids say, is growth.

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It’s also what a hero looks like. A hero who is never asked to sacrifice any part of herself – her vulnerability, her emotions, or her heart – or become less than she is, but whose story accepts all of those things as necessary parts of what makes her whole. A woman who may not be a saint, but who is a leader, one that’s more than worthy of not just leading her people to a better future – but who may well bring an entire genre along with her.

The post Shadow and Bone’s Alina is What a Modern Feminist Fantasy Heroine Looks Like appeared first on Den of Geek.

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