#essay coming maybe?

[ladyelainehilfur]

since it's on my mind, I'm going to list the pros and cons of the kdrama compared to the webtoon

Cons:

They took away aspects of Stephen's character that made him easier to sympathize with.

Gray is not really "weak", he's just short and kinda bad at running.

The runaway fam arc served as an unnecessarily long means just to foreshadow the government's corruption.

Stephen's ending was not as physically devastating.

Gray is driven by sadness instead of emptiness, lessening the impact of Stephen's influence on his personality.

Some of the new characters feel like plot devices.

Pros:

They really improved on Bryce's character as whole.

Stephen is charismatic and plays more of an active role in his ending.

Their families are far more fleshed out.

Gray shows actual care for Bryce.

Scenes of Gray and Stephen bonding weren't as montaged.

Stephen's living situation is more detailed.

They introduce illegal drug use, which makes a lot of sense for the union going forward.

[gerrykeay]

im not putting this post into words. beams into your mind The Parallels

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[thresholdbb]

I'm a Kai Winn apologist but not because I think she's a good person. She's a compelling tragic character

[catofoldstones]

Your father is your father until one of you forgets.

Jon I - AGOT // The Sun Is Also A Star - Nicola Yoon // Saturn Devouring His Son - Francisco Goya ( 1819-1823) // Daniel in his Den - Peter Paul Rubens (1613-1615) // Sink- Desireé Dallagiacomo // Jamie V - AFFC // Tyrion XI - ASOS // Game of Thrones S4 E10 titled “The Children” // Elektra - Sophokles (tr. Anne Carson) // Ocean Vuong

[youhavethesun]

one thing about me is that i’ll EAT UP younger siblings as narrative foils of the protagonist’s innocence every damn time !! the desperate protection of this version of themselves that isn’t corrupted/damaged, a version of themselves that can still be saved.. AHHHHHHH

[doomdoomofdoom]

Apparently there's currently discussion in science (humanities in particular) about whether video essays could be accepted as academic writing on par with the academic papers we currently have

I think that's awesome as fuck tbh

[5h0w1sh]

Cowboy AU! Designs

[froschli96]

You know what, fuck it, I have to speak my truth! (this is gonna be a rant, so anyone who actually likes assassin's creed revelations and/or the secret crusade, be warned or maybe don't read this at all)

remember how altaïr talks to king richard at the end of ac1, and richard is like "[humans] come into the world kicking and screaming, violent and unstable. it is what we are. we cannot help ourselves."? and how altaïr answers "no. we are what we choose to be." and how that ACTUALLY has meaning bc he himself was "violent and unstable" at the beginning of the game but he has learned and is now CHOOSING to be a better person who cares about others and humanity at large? remember how his calmness and gentleness was something that he ACQUIRED over the course of the story?

and remember how in revelations they then suddenly had a PRE-AC1 altaïr say about the first of his targets "no man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness." and be all wise and calm and collected during a nice little chat with al mualim, who suddenly acts all fatherly? (like, this is suddenly supposed to be a positive relationship? what??)

also, during the confession the target says to altair: "you put too much faith in the hearts of men, altaïr. [...] humans are weak, base, and petty." and altaïr answers: "no. our creed is evidence to the contrary." KJASJFJDKL???? like, it’s almost insulting how close this exchange is to the one with richard. you know, the one that was actually earned after a whole game of character development. like WTF??? cool congrats now that development means nothing. like, apparently that was just altaïr reverting BACK to being the exemplary assassin who understands and believes in the creed that he was apparently just born as. (i also hate how having a young inexperienced altaïr saying this implies that altaïr's faith in humanity is a sign of naivete instead of a sign of the wisdom he has gained after being confronted with counter arguments for a whole game, and also something that distinguishes the assassins from the templars who use humanity's supposed wickedness to justify controlling them like in AC1, but whatever)

altaïr’s development in AC1 mattered BECAUSE he is not NATURALLY a good person, it actually said something about humanity's capacity for both bad AND good and how humans don't have to be forced to be good through mind control bc they can by their own free will choose to be better when taught how and when allowed the freedom to grow. but no. apparently altaïr has just always been calm, wise and gentle. and he just sort of forgot about that during AC1 bc��. ? bc of adha?? bc of abbas???

oh don’t get me started on the whole abbas thing. (it doesnt even make sense that abbas is so hung up about his father and "his family’s honor", like what about the whole point of al mualim not allowing parents to be close to their children bc it would make them weak? like, my dude, you’re not supposed to HAVE any family aside from the brotherhood)

they used the throwaway character that had like 5 lines and made him into altaïr’s main antagonist in revelations… like, abbas wasn’t supposed to be this ONE dude who had personal beef with altaïr, he was just supposed to show how while altaïr’s revered by many, a lot of his brothers also hate him, bc 1) altaïr is a shitty person at this point and 2) bc there’s no real feeling of community and family in this version of the brotherhood, but just a pervasive sense of competition and jealousy — these assassins don’t care about their goal of safeguarding humanity bc they’re too hung up on petty squabbles and divided by rivalries (you know, the things that made malik hate altaïr even before solomon’s temple and that he overcomes in the end which enables him to forgive and to reconcile with altaïr so they can work together and stop al mualim? (you ever just think about "we are one. as we share the glory of our victories, so too should we share the pain of our defeat. in this way we grow closer. we grow stronger." and cry? bc i do. all the time. malik, the man that you are))

and now abbas is altaïr’s childhood best friend turned lifelong enemy?? like, bowden bent over backwards to come up with an explanation for why altaïr is an arrogant ass at the beginning of AC1, when the explanation is right there: he was raised to kill without asking questions and was constantly praised for how good he is at murder, which resulted in him becoming arrogant and disregarding human life. like, it doesn’t have to be some shakespearean family feud type shit. and guess what, this "simple" explanation actually plays into the story’s themes, who’da thunk!

(like, abbas might not have been a "fleshed out" character in AC1, but he had a specific function and now that function is gone. mr bowden, mr mcdevitt, you know characters are allowed to simply exist to tell us something about their worlds and the systems they live in and sometimes that’s more important and also more interesting than having every single character have a detailed backstory to explain all their behaviors, right?)

with all of this revelations loses all nuance in regards to the levantine brotherhood and also the creed in general. like, altaïr being a master assassin at the beginning despite being a terrible person and not actually understanding the creed is a criticism of the brotherhood and the creed itself. like, it said something about the order that someone like altaïr was able to get that high in rank, simply bc he's good at killing, which also tells us what is considered important in the al mualim era assassin order. when you make altaïr’s arrogance the result of his personal conflicts instead of how we was raised by a brotherhood that only valued one's ability to kill, you lose that characterization of the assassin order itself!

and by suddenly making al mualim a semi good "father figure" you also downplay his manipulation of not only altaïr but all those under his care. (altaïr says something about al mualim being "as a father" to him exactly twice in the codex, but he doesn’t mean by that that he WAS a father to him, what he means is that he was the CLOSEST THING he had bc HE DID NOT HAVE PARENTS, not because his mother died in childbirth and his father was executed when he was young btw, BUT BECAUSE IT WASN’T ALLOWED, like his parents actually lived but weren’t allowed to be close to him, he says he came to view al mualim’s "weak and dishonest" love as enough and even better BECAUSE HE HAD NOTHING ELSE, BECAUSE AL MUALIM ISOLATED HIS ASSASSINS FROM THEIR FAMILIES. al mualim "loved" him bc he was good at killing people for him! hm, i wonder if this could be trying to say anything about cults and indoctrination and the inherent contradiction in fighting for peace and free will by taking children away from their parents and raising them to become killers?? like, altaïr wasn't ~the special orphan boy~ taken in by al mualim bc his father died a hero's death, it was "the way of the order" to have al mualim be the closest thing to a parental figure for everyone to ensure absolute loyalty! altaïr saying al mualim was like his father is not supposed to make you go "oh, he must have actually been a good guy for altaïr to consider him a father", it should make you go "oh that's kinda fucked up that he considers the dude who made him into a killing machine and who manipulated him a sort of father figure"!)

and then in revelations they suddenly portray that relationship as positive and healthy??? like, it would be one thing to give it some nuance by delving into the psychology behind al mualim’s "love" and maybe showing how al mualim did care about altair in a complicated, fraught sort of way (like, you know, there’s a lot of interesting things you could say about al mualim at several points addressing altaïr as "my child" in AC1 and how that parallels Garnier referring to the people he drugged and abused as his "children", and what that says about how the templars view the people who they say they want to save and in whose best interests they supposedly act (in any case, al mualim doesn’t use that phrase because he has any real parental feelings but rather to patronize and to invalidate any objections, like in a "mother knows best" way))

but they even fucking DARE to parallel that relationship with that of altaïr and darim in revelations, by having the reflection in the puddle of darim hugging altaïr showing altaïr hugging al mualim…. like their relationship wasn’t inherently abusive but just tragically cut short because al mualim was just "corrupted by the apple"… like WHAT???? so it’s not the very real problems like grooming, manipulation and indoctrination and the hierarchical structure of the brotherhood itself (all of which are antithetical to the assassin ideology), it was just the evil apple all along. great. that’s DEFINITELY a lot more interesting.

god im sorry i really dont want to spread negativity but this is driving me INSANE. like, somebody please tell me im not crazy bc i feel like somehow most of the fandom is in agreement that revelations and the secret crusade have better storytelling and characterization than ac1.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, can we talk about how, even IF we completely ignore AC1 and treat revelations altaïr as his own character…. the narrative still doesn’t really work?

basically, the whole point of his story in rev is that "he gave his whole life to the brotherhood", this obsession led to him not using his time with his family which has him ending up dying alone in a dark library and this in turn makes ezio reevaluate his life choices…. except. he doesn’t? neglect? his family? or whatever? like, his devotion to the assassins is sort of painted as this tragic flaw that leads to a lonely death bc it supposedly comes at the cost of his family, but… his wife has joined the assassins, (at least) one of his sons is in the brotherhood and even when he goes to protect the assassins against the mongols, he takes his family with him (except for the son who stays behind bc he has a family of his own and who, ironically, ends up dying bc of that)… like, you can’t describe altaïr as a good husband and father in the database and have his son tell him that "everything that is good in me began with you, father" when they say goodbye, and then want to make us believe that he put his family behind the brotherhood and that that is a character flaw that leads to his tragedy.

because you HAVE to have a character’s tragedy be the result of a character flaw. like. that is how tragedies work. otherwise it just becomes tragedy for the sake of tragedy which is… boring bc it has no purpose. and we know it is SUPPOSED to have purpose bc ezIO FUCKING QUITS BEING AN ASSASSIN AFTER WITNESSING IT!

it’s like they want to have their cake and eat it, too — they didn’t want to actually make altaïr a bad husband/father, but still wanted to make his life a tragedy where he loses his family which is why instead they outsource all responsibility to abbas who now has to be the reason for ALL the deaths.

like, they try to make at least maria’s death kind of sort of the result of altaïr’s rashness or whatever but like… these guys KILLED THEIR SON and TOLD HIM THAT ALTAÏR HAD ORDERED HIS DEATH. like, altaïr losing it in response to that is not rash, it’s fucking logical and justified! if anything the scene made me angry at maria for trying to stop him. like, GIRL, he was YOUR son too??? but god forbid we give female characters actual real emotions, she has to fill the role of "voice of reason who dies for altaïr’s man pain" i fucking guess.

like, it’s this weird mix where his tragedy is simultaneously painted as his own fault but also not really bc abbas is the one responsible for all the shit that happens. it just… it just doesn’t really go together.

the only way to make his story make sense narratively and to give it actual purpose is by looking at it in the context of ezio’s story, bc the things he sees in altaïr’s memories are supposed to be a revelation (ha!) to ezio specifically. and i guess that’s maybe the crux of it all — altaïr’s story in revelations was conceived of first and foremost to support ezio’s story and development. which is probably also why many people maybe don’t notice bc, having skipped ac1 and started with ac2, the majority of people mostly care only about ezio and only really appreciate altaïr’s story in as far as it serves to push ezio forward. (tho i’ve also seen a few people say that ezio is also written kind of weird in rev, but i’ve never really been an ezio girly myself so i can’t speak to the truth of that)

like, altaïr dying alone in the library doesn’t really have to make sense for his character, i guess, bc it’s only really supposed to be a cautionary tale for ezio.

so, i guess, for once, they actually had a MAN dying for another man’s character development, which is pretty woke actually. ubisoft, i take everything back jksdsfjhgdsahfhsdhfghfdsgjhsdgjh

[itwoodbeprefect]

the great thing about falling really deep into a new media niche is developing opinions on many new things. the terrible thing about falling really deep into a new media niche is developing opinions on many new things

[raspberryusagi]

Me, rambling to my wife about this crackpot theory I came up with in the shower about how Les Miserables may have been an answer to The Count of Monte Cristo, or at least could be read as such: ... But then Valjean didn't personally screw Javert over like Dantes' enemies did-

My wife: Are you sure Valjean didn't screw Javert? I thought I read that on AO3 once.

[cillyscribbles]

i think i need to accept that what i actually want more than to write an essay called "adaptation theory applied to cats 1998 and 2019" is to write an essay called "CATS IS GOOD, ACTUALLY, AND IF YOU GUYS HAD JOY AND WHIMSY IN YOUR HEARTS YOU WOULD SEE THIS"

[fruitsofhell]

I used to be one of those guys when I first joined the Kirby fandom, but everytime I hear a discussion of the series writing that starts with "So the Lore is InSaNe-" and not like, "Kirby has a fun writing style that takes advantage of its cute exterior to tell cool stories that reward player's curiosity and leave lots of room for imagination-" I cringe so goddamn hard.

I kinda just hate that people approach things that encourage investment when they don't expect it as inherently absurd. Like it is fun to joke about how absurd Kirby lore can be, but it really often comes with an air of disrespect or exhaustion rather than like, appreciation that these games are made by people who want to tell interesting stories when they could easily make as much money just making polished enough fluffy kiddy platformers. And when it's not met with exhaustion, it's met with - like I said before - that tone that it's stupid for a series like this TO have devs who care about writing stuff for it. Which is a whole other thing about people not respecting things made to appeal to kiddie aesthetic or tone.

Maybe the state of low-stakes YouTube video essays just blows cause people play up ignorance and disbelief for engagement, but like I STG I hear people use this tone for like actual narrative based games sometimes. Some people don't like... appreciate when a game is made by people who care a shitton in ways that aren't direct gameplay feedback. And they especially don't appreciate it when it comes from something with any sense of tonal dissonance intentional or not.

Anyways, I love games made by insane people. I love games made by teams who feel like they wanna make something work or say something so bad. I love that energy, especially when invested into something that could easily rest on its laurels or which obviously won't be taken seriously. I love this in a lot of classic campy 2000s games, I love this in insanely niche yet passionate fanworks, and I love it in the Kirby series and its writing. Can we please stop talking about it like it's an annoyance or complete joke?

[shadow-the-crow]

I think i finally understand how the Distortion works. I mean, i don’t think it’s possible to ever fully understand it, and i don’t know the whole picture yet because i don’t know what Helen will be like, but i feel like i’ve just been granted a glimpse at the lovecraftian (as in ineffable) thing that is this being.

It’s not a person and a creature fighting inside one mind. There’s no Michael clawing himself to the surface to express his emotions and get his revenge.

Michael Shelley is dead. The Distortion became Michael. It sounds so simple, yet a least in my opinion it’s hard to fully understand.

I think what provides the best metaphor is a small thing the Distortion says after becoming Helen: "without a proper mind." The Distortion does not have its own mind. It’s only a what, but in order to really exist in this reality, it needs a who. It needs a body, but also a mind.

So if i understand this right, it’s like this: Michael Shelley is dead. His conciousness is not there anymore. And the Distortion got forced into that mind, an empty mind of a dead person. This doesn’t make it human, it’s still able to understand the impossible, it’s still the thing that was created to scare and kill. But in the mind it’s living in… the previous owner’s furniture is still there. It gets the dead person’s memories. It becomes Michael, in the sense that it has to be someone. Its existence got tied to being Michael, although Michael Shelley is dead.

When Michael got "emotional", that wasn’t Michael Shelley coming through. It was the Distortion grappling with the side effects of being someone - of living in a mind with all the memories and the human emotions that a human mind can’t fully turn off, even when the thing inhabiting it isn’t human at all.

The Distortion was Michael in the sense that it was thinking with Michael Shelley’s mind. When it became Helen, its consciousness, its being stayed the same, but it needed to adapt to this new mind. It could see clearer now, realizing that the windows of the previous house had been dirty, realizing that the wirings of the previous mind had driven it to do something that it actually didn’t want to do. The throat of the Spiral itself getting caught in the spiralling of its own, borrowed mind.

[blueberryspyder]

Gonna be so real: I adore the RQG characters so much BECAUSE they are flawed to hell and back. And I don’t mean “oh they’re all murderers!” No, I mean Zolf is a hardass. Hamid started out as a coward. Grizzop is utilitarian to a fault. Sasha can’t trust farther than she can throw for a good long while. Honestly I started the podcast obsessed with Hamid and by the time we got to Egypt I realized I would have HATED him IRL. But that’s why I LOVE them so much; they’ve GROWN. Hamid is taking charge and pushing past what he grew up learning. Sasha learns to open up and trust her friends without hesitation. I’ve currently just got to the part where Azu gives Zolf a bit of a dressing down. And I LOVE it. I love characters who grow and are ALLOWED to grow. I love seeing the people around them help them grow, and the people from their past either struggle with or embrace the change. It’s SO GOOD.

Also hot take but Lillian gets way too much hate, as a Hamid lover I think he deserved that slap.

[brain-rot-hour]

"I'm so sorry. Were you waiting for me?"

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

I'm not ready to shut up about Aveline and Carver--so, when you go see Aveline in Act 1, you can catch up with her a little bit and that's where this conversation can happen:

Aveline: "It's just one more change, though. The real end for me was Ostagar. What about you, Carver? You were there. Do you feel something similar?" Carver: No. Aveline: All right, then. Bit of a tit, your brother.

I wanted to see what she would say if Carver isn't in the party. Instead, she says this:

Aveline: Carver was there. I imagine he feels something similar. If he allows it.

......well, at least she didn't call him a tit?