#i did it this way originally because of multiple biases in groups | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dailyanarchistposts · 4 months ago

Text

Editor’s foreword

This essay is not yet another one on "free love", the “affects“ or "deconstruction". It hopes to be more than that. Written in late July / early August 2013, it served, until October, to lay the foundation for many informal conversations. These discussions were deep and led to a more nuanced and full understanding, as well as raising many questions about the ideological relations that often govern the modes of thought and relationships of the French anti-authoritarian milieu. So if this text is not just another text on the affects, it’s because it is foremost a text on ideology, on scenes and milieus, on inconsistency and leftism. The way it managed to echo many and varied situations that do not necessarily involve emotional relationships, but numerous other issues such as power relations, the conformity of an anti-conformist milieu, how alternatives become the norm, social roles , individual patterns of consumerism, struggles and the tools of struggles etc., make it a text whose primary purpose is to open a debate that will exceed it. If we wanted to publish it today, after these few months of incubation and excited discussions, it is precisely to open this debate, consistent with the content of the text, beyond the limits of sub-cultures and affinity groups. And thus we hope that it will continue its adventure.

October 2013,

Ravage Editions.

***

It is reassuring to see that for some generations of anti-authoritarians, the dogmas which are too often used as our starting points, that consume us and make us go round in circles in a vacuum, are occasionally questioned, that when certain ideological principles end up causing human collateral damage, we are able to question them, abandon them or reformulate them. Companions recently released a text that likely caused excited and important discussions[[“ Amour libre “, vraiment ? Et après ? Published by Le Cri Du Dodo, June 20, 2013.]]. The strength of the writing was that it guided us back in some small way to individuality where it has more or less been replaced with dogma and ideology, and individuals with stereotypes. And when those discussions on free love, coupledom, polyamory, jealousy, non-monogamy etc. did take place between us, most likely in environments where people live together and have occasionally lost their sense of intimacy (squats, communities, etc.) than elsewhere, there was no will to make these discussions public through a text that would not just get passed between one or two groups of friends.

"Free love" is a term in use since the nineteenth century. It originally functioned to describe the anarchist rejection of marriage from the perspective of the individual emancipation of women and men. Its supporters rejected marriage as a form of slavery, primarily for women, but also as an interference by the State and the Church in their privacy, opposing marriage with the notion of "free cohabitation". It consisted in the assertion that two individuals could freely choose each other, love in an irreverent manner, without permission from the mayor and the parish priest and give the finger to all those who wished to interfere in their relationship. Once the concept interacted with educational and communitarian anarchist circles at the end of the Belle Epoque [i], in the form of so-called "loving friendship", it took another sense, though anecdotally, but we shall return to this.

It is really during the 1960s, in contact with the hippie movement, that the term’s meaning totally changed. It suddenly meant having various forms of multiple and joint relationships, as well as opening sexual intimacy to two or more people at once, especially in the form of threesomes and group sex, and most of the time the free-lovers added a dose of mysticism to it all (Tantra, sexual magic etc.).

But "free love" is an expression that is already, in itself, biased, used as it is in a world in which we are not free in any way. It is no wonder that this term prospered in both the educational and communitarian settings of the libertarian movement from the end of the Belle Epoque. Just re-reading that annoying rhetoric of the “en-dehors” [1].

These libertarians, who generally lived in fairly closed communities, where children were "protected" from the outside world (Amish-like) who succumbed to all the ridiculous fashions of the time (oil diet, banning of teas and caffeine, exclusive consumption of nuts, sickly Hygienism, absolute scientism and progressivism etc.), had the feeling of living apart from the world, of living freely. Given the quantity and quality of the revolutionary work necessary to change the world, they used fancy ideological footwork to find a most comfortable position: experience freedom now, among themselves and within their community. These were not the first [2] not the last [3] But we must speak of a total and indivisible freedom because what good is freedom of movement, for example, if there is nowhere to move but in streets filled with shops, surveillance cameras and cops? The same goes for love, how to be free in love when we aren’t free anywhere else?

The typical and historical error of leftism, which is to be satisfied with simply reversing the values of the enemy - to take money from the rich and give to the poor rather than completely abolishing classes, to reclaim the rhetoric of discrimination and turn it into sources of pride (workerism, ethnic, gender and territorial pride of all kinds, …), to do politics better than the official politicians, to invert patriarchy rather than abolishing it etc. - does not spare the arenas of romantic and emotional relationships. It seems therefore that the thing to do would be the opposite of previous generations, of all those parents who have sacrificed their desires and their lives for the institutions of the couple or of the family. It has long been felt that we can invent something new simply by suggesting new prototypes of relationships, modeled on negatives of the old, and then comply with them, as happens with each new norm.

The standard in place today in the way of love and emotional relationships within our milieu is the exhortation to diversity, the moral principle of non-exclusivity, the "creation of an abundance of affection" [4] and having multiple partners. The standard now having been reversed, recalcitrance to the new standard is too. A self-sufficient relationship between two people becomes the new deviance to suppress.

It seems important to reaffirm that two people can feel good together without experiencing the need to multiply their passionate adventures- while also not presenting faithfulness as a moral tenet or wishing to suppress “extramarital" sex because of thoughtless values. But there will always be the loud mouths who believe themselves more liberated than others who will cast down their judgment into the face of others: "they are a couple, shame!"

Basically, why express opinions, as the parish priest or bishop, on things that we do not own and which do not jeopardize our revolutionary project? On things whose issues do not concern us? That one is a believer in monogamy or of polyamory is not the problem of the other. Only one thing is important: everyone should find their fulfillment in their own way without being blinded by any ideology, whether from patriarchal society and its moral imperatives or the milieus of those, who, thinking themselves able to tell who is free and who is not in a world of cages and chains, believe they possess the recipe for freedom. Why refuse to see that the complexity of situations and the complexity of individuals mix together? That if a rule could encompass everyone, it would necessarily be defective and contribute to the negation of individuals? That since it would be a rule, it would once again impede freedom?

How many pamphlets are needed to explain how to fuck, how to love, what relationships one should have with one’s body? [5] How many narrow standards for our desires and perceptions? How many of us, now past the excitement of the misleading freshness of being sixteen or twenty years old, have not managed to find ourselves in these new models of pseudo-freedom? How many have had to suffer being told that they were not made for freedom because they liked only one person and were loved only by one person? How many have whipped themselves for experiencing jealousy, have felt consumed by the other under the pretext of their freedom? How many have felt uncomfortable under the inquisitive eyes of those who believe they are free while living in a social order based on domination? Forgotten in the sectarian and ideological confinement of small cliques, is that there are still billions of people around us.

As in any ideological diversion, even before examining reality, we fit reality to how ideology would like it to be. We do not try to do what we want, we try to want what we should want, and there are plenty of pamphlets, books and texts in the press catalogues of our milieus that explain what we should want, rather than urging us to follow our authentic, individual desires. So in this race for deconstruction and pseudo-freedom, it’s all about being the most open of all, trying anything, because we have to. Or more precisely, we have to in order to feel part of the narrative of deconstruction, better than others, armed, as it were, with a new form of progressivism. So we cannot see past the beam that is in our eye, to invert the biblical metaphor, and no longer see the infinite field of possibilities available to us in the destructive urge- as though the deconstruction of the individual and the destruction of this world could not do well together.

It was good old Kropotkin who said that "structures based on centuries of history cannot be destroyed by a few kilos of dynamite" [6], and he was right, in the sense that physical destruction is not sufficient by itself, that it necessarily must be accessory to a profound renewal of social relations. But nor did he want to express that a few kilos of dynamite could not themselves be helpful in the emergence of splendid possibilities.

Moreover, it is not a few visionaries of deconstruction, modeled on Zarathustra (who retreated into the mountains for ten years, and one day felt the need to share his wisdom with the little-people), that carry the potential to create revolution. Revolution (and to a lesser extent, insurrection) is a social fact, that is to say, like it or not, it will necessitate that at one time or another a large stratum of the population rises. It will be alongside the celebrated "real people" (as we sometimes hear them described) that we might make a revolution, not just with a few anti-authoritarian ultra-deconstructed types who will only be able to participate on their extremely limited scale. Revolution will be the work of these "normal" people, with their qualities and also their many faults, and who are often light years ahead on this issue (and many others …).

But let us return to our butterflies. Armand said that "in love, as in all other areas, it is abundance which destroys jealousy and envy. That is why the formula of unconstrained love should become that of all anarchist milieus." But how can we, then as now, afford to say with such arrogance and satisfaction, what is THE form (" formula "!) of love and sex to be adopted by THE anarchists (or any other social milieu)? The term "free love" already contains in itself this form of exclusion, since it implies that it alone is capable of bringing freedom, but we seriously doubt the possibility of finding freedom through love, whether it is called "free" or not. And is it really freedom that we seek through love?

We must not delude ourselves that in the post-modern era, the concept of freedom is unfortunately too often a pretext for denying individuality as well as the denial of any real will to change the world. "I don’t care and fuck you" seems to be the new freedom, in other words, the notion of a total and indivisible freedom, individual but conditioned by the freedom of the other (which has long been central to anarchist perspectives) was replaced by a sort of already pervasive liberal outlook. Add to this a normalization process which expresses its violence through the marginalization of individuals who are viscerally opposed to these standards, explaining that if this does not work for them it is because they are the problem. But there is nothing surprising in this. After all, this small milieu is the product of the social order, and it reproduces it in return.

But this liberalism has many facets, and goes far beyond the issue of emotional relationships. By habitually thinking in terms of acceptable and sanctioned beliefs and keywords, we ended up being no longer capable of anything other than navel gazing with self-satisfaction in a cozy little bubble where the billions of other humans are forbidden to enter, despite the façade of ultra-social, inclusive speech.

We are told that freedom is about wandering, that it is to flutter, but how then do we embed ourselves in a real revolutionary approach, with continuity, in a neighborhood, a village, a region, a publication, a place, a struggle? Are those who feel free to drift from one struggle to another aware that they can only afford it because someone else is maintaining the continuity? Do they realize that this romantic drifting is really just another form of comfortable consumerism?

And when we speak of the revolutionary process as a long process, one which requires substantial efforts and a little "sacrifice" of one’s time, sometimes of one’s freedom and often of one’s comfort, how many are they to be offended, exclaiming: "sacrifice, effort, yuck, dirty capitalist!" Then congratulations dear comrades and companions, you are free, you are not capitalists, you are super deconstructed, but why bother? History will remember that you had fun, but other revolutionaries will remember only that you consumed them, and in the deepest way, this is where capitalism is found: in the consumption of the efforts of the other, but also in the consumption of the body.

To clarify, so that the gossips do not spit their venom through my mouth, this isn’t about opposing revolutionary praxis to enjoyment. I especially want to point out that happiness is not necessarily found in the forms that the spectacle usually gives it. I am not here to advocate any asceticism because what good is it to have fervently critiqued activism only to reproduce it in other ways later. As the product of a certain diversity of experiences, I say that the revolutionary project is found elsewhere than in the false oppositions of leftist militancy and post-modern and subjectivist milieus. Let those who doubt know that we take pleasure and satisfaction in building subversive paths, and that the flutterers and butterflies do not have a monopoly on ecstasy and joy. For as beautiful as it is, the butterfly is an insect that lives only a few days, and whose capacity therefore to develop projects, to consider the future, is severely limited. Butterflies are attractive, and it’s certainly quite romantic to compare oneself to them, but one must choose between becoming revolutionary and merely reveling in the myopia and the immediate gratifications of the inconsequential of liberalism and anarcho-leftism.

We do not necessarily mean by leftism a specific milieu, but trends that are found everywhere in our circles, whether among anarchists, communists, squatters and even among the most ardent supporters of a complete break with the left. As we have said, one of the most important features of leftism is the reversal and inversion of dominant values, which when wedded to a certain form of libertarianism becomes liberalism.

May 68 has probably helped give birth to these new forms of self-absorbed leftism, sometimes in spite of it. In a bourgeois society with an entrenched and stifling morality, many have only sought to free themselves by doing the opposite of what society expected of them, in this way simply creating a mirror image of the same morals. If drug use is a social taboo, why not make a symbol of it and then feel free between two overdoses, one’s head in the gutter? Is the couple a cornerstone of alienation in this society? Then let us be free, orgiastic, fuck as often as we can, collect our passionate conquests and feel free while so many others have only loved people who have used them.

One just needs to open a brochure on "free love", on so-called "liberated" relationships, on non-monogamy, "emotional comfort" and the famous "affects" to realize that the only thing that is being proposed is the total negation of the individual and their use for the sole purpose of egotistical instant gratification, mostly in a ratio of economic accumulation, profit and social cannibalism. So it seems that freedom is having the opportunity to shoot fifty strokes and to "have choices". Reification on every level! Tonight it will be John, he is tall and I’d love to lay a tall one, I am saving Josephine for tomorrow because I like mature women and the day after will be my fetish trip with Billy. Joy unhindered! [7]

But this is a relationship of capital accumulation, of an emotional capital, where the goods are human, considered as social stock, emotional assets accumulated in a romantic bank account. So yes, we are free to exploit and be freely exploited, but then the word ’freedom’ has no meaning: social democracy has won, the economy has won, the time period has won, even our emotional intimacy and our inter-personal relationships have been penetrated to the point of nullifying any form of free association of individuals.

When this world makes us believe that our freedom is found in a supermarket, in the choice between several brands of shit brushes, it operates with exactly the same strategy. Free love or post-modern polyamory as they exist in our milieus are, for the most part, no better than this "freedom to consume". They are actually very similar to that of bourgeois libertinism or the sex friends and other fuck-buddies of urban gilded youth. However, one difference is that bourgeois libertinism gives its practitioners the exciting sensation of breaking or circumventing social norms and prohibitions, providing the thrill of non-conformity and of subverting dominant moral values, even if in a very limited and superficial way. Libertinism in anarchist milieus however is very different in that it enjoys a sort of majority support, which gives the individual participant a sense of complying with the ideological standards of their milieu, despite the unique desires of each person, which of course are perpetually changing, never frozen as with a milieu or any community that sets reductionist rules that must apply to all cases and to all individuals.

Do John, Josephine and Billy really share the same vision of the relationship I have with them, and under the sole pretext that we would have “clearly” discussed? Are we all coming from the same situation when we commit to this type of relationship? Does ideology, combined with the dumbed down language of a world of domination, really clarify everything?

Basically, there is little difference, if we ignore for a moment the differences in posturing, between the free-love consumer and the Emir’s harem from which he chooses every night who he will want to fuck and / or to love while the others prepare him food. There is perhaps one significant difference in our milieus, where an intertwining of leftism and feminism has had an influence: women sometimes have a wider tolerance in the practice of the harem. A bit like men in the rest of society.

The most ideological supporters of free love ultimately make the same mistakes as those who are blinded by ideology generally. They deny the uniqueness and complexity of real-life individuals by replacing them with interchangeable stereotypes. When two people start an ultra-defined relationship, that is to say with the expected discussions intended to “clarify” early on its terms and what each expects from the relationship, we first have to consider the balance between them. Does one of them already have several relationships and not the other? What if one of them is considered "ugly", "beautiful" or "charismatic" and not the other? What if one of them is only looking for affection while the other hopes for love? How is their balance impacted if one of them is happy and the other is unhappy and insecure, or if one is more articulate than the other? Can anyone deny the importance of these things?

How many people, not particularly eager to have a non-exclusive relationship, have accepted one just to match the desires of the other? But is this acceptance really freely chosen? For if John is in love with Jeanne and in a weak position, and Jeanne explains her desire for a non-monogamous relationship, John will accept. And Jeanne will have the impression that everything is simple and easy, without wondering if John would not have equally agreed to the opposite.

Is this weak yes so different from the "yes" that we give to the boss at work?

We affirm that it is the same, and that talk of freedom in such cases perpetuates what Nietzsche called "the sublime lie that interprets weakness as freedom" [8].

Ideas of sexual liberation are beautiful and noble ideas, but each of us, by passing them in the crucible of our own individuality and in the recognition of the uniqueness of the other, give them different forms. As we said earlier, we affirm that there is no single rule that can govern human relationships, for the same reasons that we oppose Law, because it can never take into account the complexity of the individuals it puts under its control [9]. This is also why we counter unlearned and undigested ideas from ideological brochures with an individual and visceral ethics. We also affirm that the only relatively emancipated relationship is the one with the welfare of each other as the center of its attention, free from self-absorption and free from the traps and imperatives of ideology. Why wouldn’t the only valid rule of love be to pay attention to the other, to treat one’s companion properly, as an individual, rather than foolishly applying rules intended to make ourselves free through personal enjoyment, but without any sensitivity to otherness? And why make the analytical error of confining criticism of the economy to the formal economy, rather than to flesh it out in the social relations that govern our alienated relationships?

In order to break the socially expected obligations of coupledom we choose ideological polyamory and manufacture a different norm that will last until new human dramas emerge. And it is no coincidence that the events of May 68, beyond the incredible experiences of occupation and destruction of factories and universities, the clashes and barricades and the generally wonderful experience of having touched the possibility of a real subversion of the existent, it is no coincidence that beyond the Image d’Epinal [10] hide many human tragedies; suicides, overdoses, betrayals and infinite sadness. It is no coincidence that behind every experience of widespread emancipation (or at least experienced as such by its protagonists) hide equally widespread human dramas, from May 68 to Woodstock, from sexual liberation to the Maoists and radical student movements in the United States of 1960/70. No wonder too that so many have bounced back on their feet, now forming the ruling classes of this order, while many others who took the ideas at their word find themselves languishing in jail in oblivion for over forty years, paying for not being inconsequential like the others, for not having merely sought pleasure and immediate gratification.

Those who were there merely to have fun, to flutter and navel gaze, have profited. Those who believed and still believe in revolution have paid the price. Profit for one group always implies the exploitation of another, be it with the arms of capital and labor or with those of ideology, whether autonomous or of the party.

While the butterflies forage, may the flowers revolt.

August 2013,

Aviv Etrebilal.

[i] La Belle Epoque is a period of Western European history. It is conventionally dated from the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 to the outbreak of WW1 around 1914. It was a period characterized by optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity and scientific and cultural innovations. In this climate the arts flourished, especially in Paris. The Belle Époque was named, in retrospect, when it began to be considered a Golden Age in contrast to the horrors of World War I. ; translator’s note.

[1] It literally means outsider. Some individualists who were prone to separation used to refer to themselves in this way. During the Belle Epoque, the individualist movement could be roughly cut in two. One, the ‘educationists’, advocated for communities, pacifism, lifestyle anarchism, social experimentations, etc., and another tendency known as ��illegalist’, the most famous of which were The Bonnot Gang. Other illegalists are Albert Libertad, Zo d’Axa and Renzo Novatore. Both tendencies referred to themselves in this way, but it had a much different meaning for each ; Tn.

[2] See for instance the followers of Fourrier, the utopians, etc.

[3] From the Kibbutzim, the post ’68 semi-rural communities to the pseudo-commune of Tarnac, etc.

[4] Cf. Contre l’amour (against love), Iosk Editions, August 2003, available at infokiosques.net.

[5] Not unlike the pamphlets circulated by the reforming church during the 1950s in the US.

[6] In an essay published in the journal Le Révolté in 1887. But let’s also remember that 7 years earlier in the same journal, he called for “permanent rebolt by word, by text, by the fist, by the gun, by dynamite”

[7] In French: “Jouir sans entraves” a famous May 68 slogan ; Tn.

[8] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, 1887.

[9] On top of which of course, it will always belong to Power and its maintenance.

[10] The expression Image d’Epinal has become proverbial in French and refers to an emphatically traditionalist and naïve depiction of something, showing only its good aspects. Tn.

4 notes · View notes

italianpersonwithashippersheart · 2 years ago

Text

Only Friends Pilot Trailer Vs The Show

Plus some other Only Friends Musing.

Given all the new post and takes on Only afriends on my dash thanks to @waitmyturtles and @bengiyo posts I have decided to post this.

WARNING: This will get negative in place. I am trying to get to a place where I can enjoy the good things about this show and live with the bad ones. And the only way to do that is for me to let go of the show we could have had. And this post is my attempt to do that.

Edit to add: Of course Pilot trailers always get changed I understand that. But I am more interested in this case to try to understand what got changed and why. Also trailer is what sold me on the show, more then the actual trailer did. I was sold on this show based on the feelings from the pilot trailer and the ideas it seem to be exploring.

Before we start:

I have always enjoyed both forcebook and firstkaho, I have enjoyed forcebook shows because of the two them even when the plot wasn't as good. This is not meant as a takedown on either pair

Like many others I wanted this show to break the brainded pairs. To finally crack the ceiling, let these boys act together multiple times, but also let them kiss other boys, let them act with other people. The show didn't do that.

But it did do something. It did put a crack on the ceiling. Let us not forget that despite the fact that everyone in the cast was willing, Not Me still didn't give us Gun with someone who wasn't Off. The fact that this show has so many different types of kisses between different actors is a step foward. And when we do get the show that breaks throught that glass it will be because Only Friends cracked it first. And for that this show will always be important.

Last point. I go a bit into Only Friends turning into a bl. Obviously I am not saying that BLs are a bad thing. This blog is basically all BLs at this point. What I am saying is that this show was sold to us as a messy queer ensamble show and that is not what we got.

Before we get into the pilot thoughts I will tell you my own personal biases because I want to be transparent about this:

It is my personal belief that the pilot trailer was written and conceptualzied with the old story, the one the team wrote before they got the brainded pairs. All the changes made to the story from the pilot seem to have aided the happy ending of the two brainded pairs.

WHETER OR NOT IT WAS INTENTIONAL the show ended up saying some pretty moralistic stuff. It is now my believe that it can partially be explained by the two storylines (the pre-brainded pairs one - the one I think the pilot trailer was hinting at and the post brainded pair story we actually have) mixing together, as in some of the conclusions (boston) might have made more sense in the original story and got kept anyway. THIS MIGHT BE WRONG!! I am just trying to rationalize what has happen for my own sake

The video is no longer on YouTube, apparently it has been made private. If I upload it the subs won't show up so I am going to link to the where I found the backup

If I find a way to hardcode the subs into the video I will edit and post the video on here myself. Now onto the list of differences.

There are no obvious lesbian characters in the group in the pilot trailer. That would explain why they felt so tacked on. Because they are. As in they obviously weren't part of the original concept.

The gang is all in the same faculty, and seems to be all already friends with each other. Side note this pilot trailer sold me on their friendship (especially Mew and Boston's friendship) much faster and better then the show ever did.

ONE OF THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCES: The pilot seemed to hint at Top and Boston having an actual secret relationship. That is enthustic, goes on for a long time and it is actively cheating.

Pilot trailer Top seems to be the player only in it to get Mew V card that everyone read actual Top to be. When the Top we got was a lonely poorly executed traumatized character that quicky became a simp for Mew. Granted I believe they were going for, initially he was there just for that but then he fell in love with him even in the pilot trailer. But still.

Camboy Nick >> I am reminded of Den saying what I can't say in Only Friends I will say in Playboyy

The fact that Mew is a virgin seems to be a suprise and something that Mew is not totally opposed to changing (at least that is the vibe I am getting)

Boston actually sets up Top and Mew, probably for a One Night Stand and not dating, but they end up dating anyway. Not just introducing him to the group and Top does the rest.

Sand and Ray have a conversation at the bar that they still have in the show. THE: If you want us to stay friends then no sex one.

Boston is a much bigger asshole to Nick in the pilot trailer then he actually was in the entaire show.

Ray's crush on Mew was not as obvious and seemingly much more of a secret. Mew seemed to be figuring out while he is already dating Top.

Again Top and Boston seem to have an actual friends with benefit relationship, whether it was while Top and Mew were dating or prior I can't tell.

Ray and Boston confrontation about Top is different. And seems to be impling a less rich background for Boston. IDK.

I think Title's character might have been Sand's friend in this version.

Sand is angrier more cynical and much more jaded. Ray might have been even more of an asshole in this version. Title's character is saying to Sand's "Don't let him do this to you" while Sand has bruises. Right before the Bat shot

Nick tells Boston, without you everyone would have stayed friends. It makes the thing the group was going to fall apart much more then it did. And again Nick and Sand seem to have been part of the group already.

Yo calls Mew's friend shitty. Implying a much bigger role as the group's mentor.

The confrontation between Boston and Mew echoes the pool scene but I actually like this better. It is much more clear and more obvious that Mew is actually in the right here. This version of Boston matched Mew and Top together and probably continued having sex with him.

The Dancing on the roof scene. >> I still love that

Ray gets arrested. The addicon story was proably already there, although it doesn't feel as strong. Ray didn't look as always drunk in those scenes then he did in the show.

We see at least one scene of Mew and Boston taking care of Ray.

Ray-Mew-Boston seem to be close to Yo (again giving the Yo was a bigger character and a mentor vibe).

There is a girl in the trailer, that is probably Cheum, or a version of her anyway. In only a second, and not with the rest of the boys.

Nick was the one that recored he and Boston fucking. > This they gave to Gap (Drake's character)

Top's insomnia and sleeping pills are also in the trailer.

A version of the Mew-Ray bath scene is in the trailer, although Ray is much angrier and less cathatonic.

Mew as glasses for the all thing >>> personal gripe.

Putting that list together what I was left feeling (again maybe this wrong, I don't know for sure this is just my impression) is that Sand and Ray were ment to have a much more "realistic" romantic relationship with an addict. This Sand doens't strike me as the kind of character that wasn't going to fight back all I am do but at least my owner loves me. See baseball bat. That Mew "revenge era" might actually be more dangerous (instead of throwing Boston in a pool, he straight up starts to beat the crap out of him) and Most importantly Boston is so much more of an asshole in this version.

Yes Boston still get recorded seemingly without his cosent (Not sure). But he is actually a much more clear asshole, he sleeps with Nick and then says I'll call you while getting dressed (much less clear then Show Boston, even if Boston was leading Nick on a bit). Boston sets up Top and Mew and gives the vibe they were still sleeping together when he did that. And probably for a while after.

The friendship group was a trio and as mentioned, sold me much faster on their friendship. The fact that Sand and Nick were in the same group as well, and Nick cares about the friendship breaking tells me that it was going to matter much more then it did in the show. It gives the vibes there were going to permenant consequences.

The biggest thing that I got from trailer is a sort of confirmation of what I already suspected.

The actual show started to have the SandRay story and Ray rehabilitation storyline took center stage. Wheter or not this is because a lot of Top and Mew and TopMew senes got cut, I don't know. But they have the most amount of screen time, the most completed arc and the most clear happy ending.

While the Pilot trailer actually focused a lot on Boston-Mew-Top and Ray's crush on Mew.

Another thing the pilot trailer did is basically made me believe we were doomed from the the start. The last scenes are all shots that had already been in the trailer of SandRay being happy, TopMew being cutsey and BostonNick breaking up. It doesn't strike me as an accident that SandRay end the trailer in one the their happiest scenes in that entaire thing. Even when the Pilot trailer implies that Ray actively physically hurt Sand (again bruises, baseball bat, don't let him do this to you) it just has the vibe that Ray was meant to be a much more toxic character. And they ended the pilot trailer basically reassuring firstkhao shippers with their cutest scene.

I don't know if this accomplished something. Or even what I am ultimatly trying to say baside this: I want the show the pilot trailer promised me, I want to see what the show could have been with no brainded pairs.

#only friends #only friends the series #ofts #ITA Original

15 notes · View notes

zypiris · 1 year ago

Note

I'm now very curious about your fascist jedi hottake.

Oh my GOD, I am so excited to tell the entire (shortish) sordid tale! But it's a fascist apologism hottake, since I don't want to disappoint you. The original thing was a member of a group I previously didn't know existed (Jedi Are Always Right fanboys) did a little post, and I put some tags on it, which they called me out to explain more. I don't necessarily agree with my wording now, I was a bit all over the place, but I still hold essentially the same stance. Sith and Jedi are stupid. Anyways, it ended with them being very "uh. yeah, whatever casual" and a third person (wooloo) taking great insult at my comparing the Jedi and Sith, calling me a fascist apologist, and then immediately blocking me.

Even doing my best with.. an attempt to make up for the lore I missed by getting (kidnapped) into the fandom late, there was no peace possible because my opinion is the Jedi are idiots (and I am arguing with people who will cut their own throats before admitting that). Like.. really big hypocritical idiots who've stagnated to a point their cultural beliefs are causing actual harm to the outsiders they meet AND themselves.

They've gotten so mired in *expecting* to be the final arbiters on what is good, what is evil, and what is redeemable... but actually they haven't. Because they've *always* seen themselves as the ones who are best able to make that choice. In The Old Republic, though, they at least admit they aren't the only ones capable of doing so (though still believing theirs is best). And that's stupid. Jedi, as an organization, are stupid.

Just as stupid are the Sith. You know, the cultural group (named after a racial group now long dead) which was hunted near to complete genocide by the Jedi multiple times and, as a survival strategy, drastically reduced their numbers and didn't move openly? Why are we surprised they're fueled by hate? Really. Truly, honestly. Why?

Throw *all* canon besides the original trilogy out the window, and this is still the actions of two (2) people we are told to hold against an entire group. And the information presented on *why* is all from a different group that speak of them in a way which, if substituted with two real world religious groups, would be accepted as biased at best and bigoted at worst.

But writing this out, getting all my various duck girls in a row, I am forced to grudgingly admit that bastard Wooloo was right. I am a Sith apologist. And with how each expansion of Legends lore and TOR era make Sith more Jew coded (and humanized in general)... I am perfectly ok with that.

#zyp stuff #star wars #swtor #this more or may not be sensical but at least you'll have plenty to read #the jedi do help. they provide valuable assistance and perspective to the republic #but their stagnation did nothing to assist the Republic's ongoing battle with corruption and colonialism.#but the Jedi give their version of help regardless of the feelings and desires involved (not that we get to see much of an average Jedi)#I can't say I don't feel a special kinship with Anakin though. Kid is so BPD and abused. Then he gets disabled and double abused =/

11 notes · View notes

mumms-the-word · 9 months ago

Note

Hi! I found your blog through your post about new DA fans in the tags! So I played through Origins and DA 2 as a mage for the first time and absolutely loved the combat and the gameplay, but I'm really struggling in Inquisition. It feels so choppy and like I have no control over anything, and on PC, you can't even see what the spells do when you hover over them on your toolbar. Do you have any tips or advice or know of any good add-ons?

Yeah I don't think DAI won game of the year for combat reasons, let's be completely honest here.

I can give you some advice but warning it is HEAVILY colored by my personal preferences when playing the game, which I mostly did on console (I only got the PC version a few weeks ago and haven't had much time to tinker around with it because I've been replaying DAO).

I'll put random bits of advice under the cut!!

Controls

First bit of super biased advice: If you're using the tactical gameplay mode and you hate it--just don't use it. Just don't! Unless it's a skill you want to keep pouring into, I'd just abandon it for now. It's terribly configured and I hate it so much. It's moderately better on PC but on console it was super un-fun to me and I think the only time I used it was to move party members out of the way of AOE attacks because their AI is wacky sometimes.

(That said, if you are a micro-manager who is like "No I need absolute control over this team" then the tactical camera IS for you. I am just a lazy gamer who plays DA games on casual or easy most of the time because I dislike the combat and want to get to cutscenes and dialogues faster. From what I remember about using it, though, it's definitely more like a "set up your next attack and then press play, then pause and set up the next attack, then press play, etc" kind of thing, which sucks for big group fights but works for big dragon fights or whatever.)

To me the game plays much better in live combat mode, but that was on console, where all I had to do was hold down the right trigger for endless attacks and then use the shortcut buttons. This is not the case for keyboard and mouse, because holding down a right click or R is tedious and isn't fun after a while.

Having messed around a tiny bit with DAI PC controls (and being a staunch console player for decades) I can say that I hate the PC controls, but I always tend to hate keyboard and mouse controls. I guess my advice here is to either remap the keyboard to suit you, which you should always do anyway for any game where they make that possible, or try playing with a console controller (which is what I'm planning on doing).

Controls aside, my issue with the combat is that if it isn't choppy, due to controls, it's...boring? At least until you get more abilities and specializations. I definitely played on casual for most of my multiple playthroughs because I just couldn't be bothered to learn the combat system forwards and backwards. I was playing the game because I loved the story and the banter and the open world concept, which was new to DA at the time.

The combat DOES get more fun/better once you start unlocking more abilities to use, but that does take a small bit of time. I'm not sure about any mods at the moment to help with the ability descriptions but maybe someone in the replies will know! For me, I think I just got used to memorizing them...which, now that I think about it, is poor accessibility.

Battle Advice

I can come back later with some PC-specific advice but for now, I can say that if you switch to live-combat mode, then it's a matter of playing the game as a damage control strategy. You're going to get hit, because there are no robust evasion options and no blocking at all (from what I remember), so you have to adapt with that knowledge in mind.

Keep up your Barrier and Guard abilities, because the temporary HP they give you is essential to surviving a fight. Potions suck. There is no healing. So it's better to tack on as much temporary HP through Barrier and Guard before enemies start chipping away at your actual HP.

Focus your efforts on crowd control (freezing enemies, stunning them, etc) and taking down distance fighters (archers, mages) first, because like I said, you're going to get hit, and every distance fighter has a near-perfect homing beacon on you with their projectiles. The squishier mooks need to go down first so they don't pester the hell out of you when fighting bigger things. Bigger things are slower, they can wait.

Also, adjust your companion's tactics (this is worth doing in any DA game) so that they use the abilities and spells you want to see more often. Having Barrier set as a preferred spell so your mages use it more often is honestly an essential tactic choice, and I'd say the same for upper-level Guard abilities.

A balanced party can make or break a battle encounter. The AI isn't always great (I guess that's what tactical view is for) but in general you always want a warrior to be up front taking hits while at least one mage and one other distance fighter (another mage, or Varric/Sera as an archer) is staying out of direct damage but still dishing hits and status effects. Your fourth companion (or you) can make up any difference that needs filling after that.

If you're playing a mage, use Fade Step to get out of range quickly and then get used to being the battlefield controller--you can deal damage, but you can also more quickly apply status effects (freezing, burning, etc) than anyone else. Fade Step + Tactical Camera to readjust + see what's going on the battlefield + then make your next move = might end up being your best friend, if you're a tactical mage player lol

Status effects and elemental damage do way more than you think. Way more than you think.

Don't be afraid to use grenades. They're more effective than they seem, and Jar of Bees is just fun in general.

And lastly, keep up with your weapons and armor. Schematics will be your best friend because they allow you to craft and upgrade weapons and armor until they're almost OP for your level. Nothing you find as loot will top a Masterwork version of a high-tier weapon or armor you make yourself.

I don't know if ANY of that helped, but maybe!! Hopefully you'll hit your stride soon and enjoy various aspects of the game!! <3

#asks #I tried my best #in this case I am actually quite useless at PC advice #I've always preferred DAI as a console game #but hey mutuals!!!#If you have advice or mods please put them in replies!!#we're a community for a reason <3 #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dai

5 notes · View notes

chanifesto · 4 days ago

Text

WHO's CHANIFESTO?

the swaggiest girl to ever rock your world duh

୨ৎ the basics

ALIAS: lee | originates from the second syllable of my name

TITLE: swag master

AGE: 21

PRONOUNS: she/her

RACE: south asian

MBTI: infj-a

BIG 3: sag sun, cancer moon, taurus rising

HOGWARTS HOUSE: slytherin

୨ৎ my fandoms & biases

ult groups

ATEEZ — san (bias) | yunho (bias wrecker)

STRAY KIDS — bangchan (ult) | hyunjin (ult) | felix (bias wrecker)

୨ৎ fun facts

i’m currently studying a double major in psychology and health science.

i looove the rain.

i’m an anime enthusiast! my first one was devilman crybaby (yeah..).

i used to be an athlete (past tense, thanks covid). i played ice hockey and soccer.

very big on matcha and london fogs.

my favourite movies are interstellar and spirited away.

speaking of studio ghibli, BIG BIG fan of miyazaki. i carry nothing but absolute adoration and respect for his art.

i advocate for creative expression. i deeply, almost innately appreciate creative individuals. i love when people try new things, openly express themselves, especially through art, any kind of art (hence the hyunjin ult).

i cry whenever i hear a piano playing.

which is silly because i used to play the piano.

but i am a very emotional individual, i let myself feel all my emotions, so i guess it's quite on brand for me.

i grew up athletic, but also very creatively and artistically active! i used to sketch, draw, and paint. i am slowly getting back into it, while also developing some skills in photography and graphic design.

big potterhead! my favourite book is deathly hallows and movie is half-blood prince.

i stopped swimming before my lifeguard courses because i developed thalassophobia.

i have adhd.

music is my everything!!!

୨ৎ my road to storytelling

2015: magcon was at its prime. i had just turned 12 when i started my first fanfiction on quotev. gradually grew to two fics, both of which somehow did well despite being literary disasters. from there, i migrated to wattpad like every other emotionally unstable tween with delusions of writing grandeur.

2016–2017: the beginning of my wattpad era. i was deep in my 5sos phase, writing multiple fics for each member like it was my job (it wasn’t), all left unfinished. naturally. tumblr was also thriving, so i made an account. i didn’t use it very much.

2018: grade 9, second semester: the 5sos flame fizzled. maybe it was a high school thing. maybe it was the novel stimulation of new expeirences. either way, i decided i had my fill. unpublished everything on wattpad. forgot my tumblr existed.

2019–2020: the dark ages. aka my hiatus years. i wrote here and there for myself—meaning about five sentences total across two years.

2021: the year of draco malfoy (at least, for me). i consumed fic like it was my birthright, indulged in whatever i could. manacled became my muse and oxygen (all hail senlinyu). inspired (and very much unwell), i clicked the ‘write’ button on wattpad again during grade 12. tried to write amidst exam hell. spoiler, it didn’t go well. no further questions.

2022–2023: my first and second years of university. my writing? prolific. my genre? lab reports. research papers. literature reviews. my creativity heroically died, but i took a creative writing elective and wrote five personal pieces. sometimes i reread them for the gaiety.

2024: draco malfoy makes a comeback. i revisited my previous wattpad works and, stunned by what i thought was “raw talent,” i started writing again. this happened to coincide with mcat season. i was describing voldemort’s mouth as a vent when i should have been memorizing glycolysis (or perhaps gluconeogenesis? glycogenolysis? war flashbacks.).

2025: need i say more?

#chanifesto's about me #i like to yap

0 notes

knockoff-edward · 9 months ago

Text

I think I might have turned into a grouchy old person overnight, because I watched a TikTok about the recent nightmare on elm street house incident, and I feel like I am completely on the opposite side of general consensus.

My main takeaway was that there was a group of influencers outside the house taking pictures and videos of it, a neighbor came by and was chatting with the group outside the house, made a comment saying how they wished the homeowner did more to honor its history, and then the homeowner came out and started yelling at them to go away.

Personally I wouldn’t make comments about someone else does with their property, but I get it, and I’m sure I would love it if all my favorite movie locations were exact recreations of their movie counterparts all the time (although it sounded more like they wanted like, a Freddy Krueger in the window or something more than just making the house match, but I can’t confirm that so I’m trying not to let that influence my thoughts).

Then the creator making the video continues on to explain that the new owner made some new additions to the house when they moved in, including repainting the front door to the iconic red, but also adding a front gate and privacy bushes across the front yard. The creator further shares that there’s a history of fans going and standing on the porch to take pictures, as well as stealing the house numbers off of the porch. To me, it sounds like the homeowner respects the history of the house, but wants to enforce boundaries and have people respect their privacy.

The creator then says that in addition to the other things blocking the view, the influencers in the video believe that the homeowner was placing cardboard boxes in front of the fence to ruin any of their shots. The creator making this video does admit that they don’t know for sure, and the homeowner could be putting out the boxes as recycling, but believes that the view blocking was intentional.

My thoughts in all of this was that clearly the homeowner feels like fans have crossed the line, doesn’t appreciate people making comments about how they want the house to look even when the house is well maintained, and wants to be able to use it as an actual home. To deal with all of that, they’ve implemented things to keep people at distance from the house, and they can take pictures in front of the fence (which in my opinion still has a decent view), and the creator showed pictures of themselves doing exactly that multiple times. But when a group of people are gathered in front of this person’s home and making comments about how they don’t do enough, they lose their temper.

While I don’t necessarily think the influencers in the original video deserved that treatment, I think it’s more of a reflection of selfish people ruining a good thing for everyone, and I don’t blame the homeowner for reacting the way they did.

Of course I may also be biased by other comments the creator made, such as justifying calling the city when someone doesn’t mow their lawn or do other things to make their house an “eyesore” (aka lower property value), but then later saying something like“technically I think in front of the fence is on public property, so I don’t know if the homeowner can really tell people to go away.” Those definitely rubbed me the wrong way, so I have no idea if I really disagree with the point in the video or I just don’t like the way the point was made.

So final thoughts are, if you buy a famous piece of property you need to expect some fans showing up, and fans need to understand that some of their famous locations have real people living there and they deserve respect.

#rant post #vent post #tiktok

0 notes

phoenixyfriend · 3 years ago

Text

Worldbuilding: The ASPIRE Method (Introduction)

Read here

Now available to all patrons!

I will likely make a version of this available in full on tumblr for free at some point. However, as this is currently my only source of income, I would like to keep it limited to just patrons. If you are a patron, please do not share to large groups of people; encourage them to subscribe (even just a dollar a month!) instead.

Preview:

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

Introduction

So you’ve figured out your main character. You’ve designed an alien species and planet, or you’ve reinvented the vampire, or you’ve just set up your latest fantasy world. Maybe your characters are purely human. You’ve got a few cities named, a few maps, and a basic idea of how you want society to work… mostly.

It’s time to start building your world.

There are many ways to approach worldbuilding, especially when you dabble in both original fiction and derivative.

One of my preferred approaches is what I refer to as the ASPIRE method. It is derived from the PERSIA method of historical analysis, a tool taught in the International Baccalaureate and American AP courses.

A – Arts S – Social P – Political I – Intellectual R – Religion E – Economic

I’ll be going through these in order and providing both historical and fictional examples of how they apply.

A key part of this tool is to remember that any aspect of a society is influenced by any or all of the others. Any aspect you want to analyze will be through multiple lenses, and the process of building your world will be influenced by all of these.

Not every story needs to have incredibly complex worldbuilding, but the more complex you want it to be, the more use you will get out of this tool. It is somewhat biased towards a Western perspective, as I grew up in the United States.

The Power of the ASPIRE Method

Why should you use this format to develop your fictional setting?

I hesitate to describe any approach to a creative act as ‘should.’ What I do believe is that this is a process worth attempting, to see if it is one that helps you understand your own setting, and finding the possible loopholes that your readers may find distracting.

This is a process that is primarily structured to help you break down what makes for a society, and build it up on the basis of what makes for a society or culture in a real world. The bones are built on an analysis method for historical studies, and so this creative method works heavily through analysis and formalization. You very likely are already thinking of some of these things—you may have decided that this is a monarchy, in a temperate climate, following a polytheistic religion—but this process helps you refine what you’ve already decided on, and then build out the logical consequences or expansions of those decisions.

What this allows you to do is take your vague thoughts or bare bones, and build on them until you have something that, even if you do not include it in your narrative, will hold up if you do touch on one of them, or will let you hide those little easter eggs that an eagle-eyed reader will delight in. Who doesn’t enjoy recognizing that an author did research on a subject close to the reader’s heart, even if it’s just noticing that two seemingly unrelated details mean a third, cohesive thing that suggests a wider world of thought in the background?

Why is the method based on these six topics?

As mentioned, this is a reformatting of a tool that I learned as a student in high school. There are things that are invariable facts in your story, like how your main species reproduces, or what your geography and basic weather are, but the things we build on those basics are all based on the ways that people interact with one another, and that is a different beast.

I believe that a world that has thought put into the ways its people function socially will feel more ‘real’ than one that has an extensive and complex rulebook for the laws of magic or the geological history. This will vary by the genre and the consumer, because a geologist playing a tabletop game with complex magic rules will likely prefer the latter, but for someone that is consuming a narrative, character interaction is a central part of the draw.

Society is just the wider net of interaction.

The nature of a society, and thus of the world you build, is in how people relate to one another and to the world around them. These things are either greatly formalized, like politics or academia, or vague and often undefinable, like arts and social dynamics. Others are somewhere in between, like economics and religion.

Most elements of society fall into more than one of these fields. Something like fashion or textbook design will be impacted by all six in obvious ways. Other things, like banking interest rates or agricultural trade, are obviously in one field, with less obvious ties to the others.

We as a society are rarely, if ever, without connection to one another.

We communicate thoughts and feelings in words and pictures.

We find ways to be better than each other, just as often as we find ways to better each other.

We set rules and regulations for our safety, and find people who do that as a job so the rest of us can focus on making the things we need to survive.

We learn, and invent, and teach.

We find things we can’t explain, in our minds and in our worlds, and come together to tell stories of something bigger than what we can see.

We take what we have, turn it into something new, hoard and share and trade, and tell ourselves that innovation is built on the backs of the search for more capital.

(You may want to put a pin in that one.)

This is all a very flowery way to say that humans are a communal species, and the ways in which we build and then define that community mean something.

(Continue on Patreon)

#creative writing #world building #writing guides #tutorials #worldbuilding #Phoenix Patreon #Patreon #Phoenix Files #original work

262 notes · View notes

shanethespirit · 3 years ago

Text

IDEAS ON HOW TO SPICE UP YOUR LEGACY

Sul Sul!

We've all been there, you have made your sim, built your home, had a few kids, but know you are bored. You find yourself opening the save only to close it within minutes or abandon it altogether. As much as we live the Sims, sometimes it's hard to continue a legacy. So I'm going to lay out a few ways to spice up your gameplay, so hopefully, you have one less abandoned save.

1. Challenges and Scenarios

This one may seem straightforward, but a lot of us don't start challenges mid legacy. However, they are a great way to give your gameplay long-term goals. Below I have listed and linked some of my favorite challenges for you guys to try out on your own.

Confine your sim to an 8x8 room, they can't leave and can't be loners. Challenge your ability to build your sim social skills without being able to actually socialize.

Now hear me out, this is a daunting task, but if you break it down to 4 o 5 generations it can be pretty fun.

Let's say your sim married an alien or was abducted, now here's a challenge with their little bundle of joy. Try and fit in and learn how to be human.

Gameplan: Marry rich, Get the bag, and Kill the spouse. Rinse and repeat until satisfied.

Made by James Turner (formerly "TheSimsSupply"), make the perfect sim. Complete every skill, every career, and every collection.

Want to move on to the next heir? Try the Runaway Teen Challenge, move out, and start over.

Build out 4 generations with this sort of legacy challenge, you can start it at any point. I'm a little biased as it is my challenge.

You can find more Challenges on the

Sims Community

website.

Of course, you can always try the scenarios in the game. They are fun and can spice up your game if you plan it right.

2. No Money Cheats

Alright, before you laugh, let me say I love money cheats. I love making homes that aren't budget-friendly, however, I notice having super-rich sims bore me. There is no challenge. No struggle or stress to pay bills. Try and use them in a limited capacity. Plus, if you only did it for a house, you can always use the cheat "FreeRealEstate on" to move your sim into their dream home, without breaking the bank.

3. Bankruptcy

Speaking of breaking the bank, break the bank. Drain their accounts. Have their siblings take all the money when they move out or inherit everything but the house. Tell yourself the sim made a bad investment and use the cheat "money" to set the funds to 0 or less than 1000 simoleons. It adds the challenge back to the game.

4. Adultery

I do not normally condone such behavior, but it can spice up the game. Have your sim or their partner start an affair full of close calls, unexpected pregnancies, and so much more. Maybe have them keep up multiple affairs at the same time. It can boost your drama level a whole lot more.

5. Wheel Spin Challenge

I didn't group this with challenges, because I don't think this has to end. There are a few different versions of this, and you can always create your own. I first came in contact with it, from Lilsimsie on twitch. It's a good way to switch up the game. Maybe you could list your favorite sims and spin a wheel of death.

Here is a link to a good website I found. They provide a spinner, a template, and Lilsimsie's original version.

Wheel Spin Legacy

6. Add More Sims

Maybe your heir isn't what you wanted, or they are just boring. Make a new sim in the save, and marry them off to your heir. Now you have a more loveable sim to continue the line without abandoning your family. Of course, after the next heir is born, there could be an accident to get rid of the boring sim.

7. Embrace the Negative

As a self-proclaimed goody two shoes, I tend to stay away from "negative" traits, aspirations, and careers. However, playing an evil sim or a thief can be pretty fun. Plus it shakes everything up. Or maybe just have a lazy, slob sim that infuriates you. It can keep things fresh and remind you how much you love your wholesome sweet sims.

8. Long Lost Relative

Speaking of embracing the negative, introduce challenging sims. My favorite is your sim second cousin twice removed has fallen on hard times, and just needs some help after being kicked out. This sim should be lazy and a slob. It's your sims' job to encourage them to move them out before they get too comfortable. How do you get them out? Get them to level four of any job or get them into a relationship and push them to move in with them.

9. Mods

I have a very mixed relationship with mods, but sometimes they help. If you are over 18 you can add some drama with things like Basemental Drugs and Wicked Whims. If you are looking for something more family-friendly you can always take a look at

LilMsSam's Sims 4 Mods

for some fun gameplay mods. They make some super cute mods that add little details that can change your game entirely.

10. Randomize

Do not be afraid to randomize traits. But if you want to randomize the aspiration, you can't in the game. However, James Turner has a randomizer that allows you to select your packs, age, and so forth to randomize your aspiration and traits. Randomizing is a simple way to diversify your heirs and simply add a little spice.

The Sims 4 Random Trait Generator

Let me know if this was helpful in any way, and maybe I will post more.

#Sims 4 #Sims 4 ideas #Sims 4 Ideas and Suggestions #Ideas #suggestions #sims4 #simblr #sims 4 articles #ShanetheFerret Articles

21 notes · View notes

seeminglyseph · 2 years ago

Photo

the blood is literally splatter from a steak his stepped on. but couldn’t cut. Most of this episode was kinda spent with Daphne and Velma trying to sell drugs and Daphne trying to show Velma that she jumps to conclusions about people and that her bias and prejudice mixed with her lack of tact which she believes makes her “real” but just makes her a huge bitch nobody wants to spend time with are problems she has to face and are likely the main reason their friendship fractured. And it feels like it was supposed to payoff with her realizing she was wrong to have judged Fred, but......... the show really just reinforces that Fred is a man baby with a hair trigger and no useful skills.

Also if he has a testosterone disorder why is he ripped? Like. They do actually do hormone therapy for cis kids who have hormone disorders. that’s a normal practice. Hormone disorders aren’t that uncommon and are rarely caused by ‘too pampered to bother having a puberty’

like there’s so much weird misdirected incorrect biased hate in this script that it’s plain old misanthropic. Everyone is awful all the time. Except Daphne who has to deal with the worst people all the time and her friends are being murdered and also Norville who is.... uh. There to be a Nice Guy who pines and is rejected. This episode featured him going on a mission to get money Velma needs without her asking to... it’s referred to multiple times as either buying her love or blackmailing her to go on a date with him in like a comedic light hearted way but he also is about to sell his kidney. Only to be rescued by a group of stoners who are big fans of his munchie reviews. Which he’s disappointed by because again, he *hates* drugs. Just so you know. That’s his joke. He hates drugs and is pining in a really sad way over Velma for seemingly no reason because she’s really mean to him.

She and Daphne develop sexual chemistry over the course of the episode and make out, so it feels like the weird press thing where Velma had a crush on Fred was Outrage Marketing considering how much this show hates Fred.

Also I feel like the art style falls into that like... teenage girl drawing anime problem where the girl characters are cute and good looking and the guys are like “I didn’t really know what to do if they aren’t cute.”

Also why did they decide to make the characters *younger* to tell a more violent and sexually charged story? I know the originals are teens and this is supposed to be an origin, but everything about this looks like it was planned to take place on a college and the fact that the characters are actually like 15 is completely forgotten. like I’ve seen adult programming with child protagonists where the joke is the juxtaposition of mature subject matter and immature characters, but like.... you know most boys aren’t finished puberty at 15, right? like..... it happens later for boys than it does for girls typically... like I’d say “have you met a teenage boy” but like maybe don’t. if nothing else you’d probably make him feel horrible about himself and want to die.

There’s only two episodes out, and part of me is like... *hoping* that this is like “everyone is awful because they haven’t had their character arcs yet” but so much about Fred feels like.... gross, mean spirited, sexist, kinda pervy, really odd about abuse and just.... idk.

They threw him in like an adult prison at the end of the episode and I feel like. in my bones like... are they going to go for the prison rape jokes? I genuinely can’t tell from the tone if they would and where they would take it and I’m like.... you setup that he’s hairless, tiny dicked and effeminate, and put him in prison with a very very large cellmate. I have no standards for this show. I don’t know how far they will push it and I am. Wary.

#seph watches velma #hbo velma

6 notes · View notes

curetapwater · 2 years ago

Text

CW for discussion of systematic oppression in a fantastical context. Also bear in mind that this is all just me playing with the text, not that I'm proclaiming this to be the intent of how these stories are written. That being said:

Considering they're largely segregated from humanity onto smaller islands, I wouldn't be surprised if the world of Sonic has some history with bias against animal people.

In addition to being a science experiment, I can imagine this having something to do with how GUN treated Shadow in the 1950s, like an unchecked monster or a volatile weapon. Heck, the fact that he was created in the image of a group of people to which the ARK residents didn't belong and was then classified as less than a person I think speaks loads. Other theories as to why he's a hedgehog aside, what if it's partially because they realized the Ultimate Lifeform needed to be a person rather than a beast, but it was legally easier to conduct what technically fell under "animal testing" so they made him something that's by all means a person but who wouldn't be classified as one?

Anti-animal bias, while I can imagine it's less overt now, seems to still color the world, if the nearest hedgehog either being genuinely mistaken for or being used as a scapegoat for Shadow's actions is anything to go by. And you can say "well that's GUN, of course they're awful" but they're the enforcers. They're the ones whose job it is to maintain order, and on multiple occasions they've taken that to mean keeping the animals in line.

I'm curious what people have to say about how Team Dark working for GUN might play into these thoughts of mine, it's a bit too early for me to unravel all of that.

I've been mildly contemplating to what extent the Robotniks themselves have this bias, as well. I think for each it's varying levels of complicated. For Maria, I think she doesn't have any room in her heart for bigotry. Especially considering how she dies and how she interacts with Shadow, she definitely sees him as a person. Like, Shadow took her wish to mean "protect humanity" but, at least in the English version of SA2 (unsure about Japanese), she says not "humans" but "people." "For all the people on that planet." Gerald and Eggman, hmm I think it's once again too early for that discussion but I'd love to see other's takes on what conscious or unconscious biases they might have.

These thoughts all arose because after seeing that one TailsTube, I just got so curious as to why the world is structured this way. I presume humans evolved on one of these big continents and migrated to the others over time like in real life, but how did the animals come to be? Did they all just individually originate from islands of different biomes (possible because the smaller islands are shown to have multiple different zones that have the potential to produce different walks of life)? Or as the humans conquered more land, did they choke the animal populations out and force them onto smaller islands?

Much to ponder.

#that one statement about the continents and islands in tailstube generally makes me happy #because i think the two worlds thing is unnecessary #but it also has some darker implications that i think are worth exploring #tap plays sa2 #ask to tag

6 notes · View notes

oumakokichi · 5 years ago

Note

What are the differences between the original and localization?

Hmm, that’s a very simple question with a pretty lengthy answer! I did answer some similar questions in the past, but that was a long time ago, much closer to when the localization was first released. There are probably a lot of people whose main experience with the game has only been with the localization, and who don’t really know or remember those differences anymore.

For that reason, I’m going to go into kind of a “masterlist” of things that were changed in the localization in this post. This will be very long, but I really want to explain the whole story behind the localization and its differences from the original to people who might only be hearing about this for the first time. I’m going to cover full spoilers for the game obviously, so be careful when reading!

Also, please feel free to share this post around, as I think it contains a lot of information that might be interesting to people who’ve only experienced the localization!

Before I really get into it though, I want to stipulate that the differences I’m covering in this post are mostly going to be things that I believe could’ve been handled or translated better, not every single line that was changed verbatim in the game. This is because a localization’s purpose is incredibly different from a literal translation.

Where a literal translation seeks to keep as much of the original authorial intent as possible and has the leeway to explain various Japanese terms and cultural specifics to the readers in footnotes or a glossary, a localization is usually much more targeted towards a specific target audience, usually one more unfamiliar with Japanese culture or terminology. As a result, some things in a localization are occasionally changed to make them more understandable to a western audience.

So, for example, I’m not going to fault the localization for changing Monosuke’s extremely heavy Kansai accent in Japanese to a New York accent in the English dub. It’s much easier for western players to immediately grasp that, “hey, this guy has a very specific regional accent that the other characters don’t,” and it works really well as a rough equivalent. Similarly, localization changes like changing a line here or there about the sport of sumo to be about the Jets and the Patriots also helps get the point across to players quickly and easily without having to explain an unfamiliar sport to western players in-depth before they can get the joke.

That being said… there were some liberties taken with ndrv3’s translation which I don’t believe fulfill the point of a localization, and which changed certain deliveries or even perceptions about the characters in a way that I just don’t agree with.

Let me explain first how the localization team actually worked, to people who might be unfamiliar with the process. Ndrv3 had four separate translators working on the localization. When NISA first announced that the game was being localized, these four translators introduced themselves on reddit in an AMA, where they also mentioned that they were by and large dividing up the 16 main characters between themselves, with each translator specifically assigned to four characters.

Having more translators working on a game might sound like a good idea in theory, but it’s often not. The more translators assigned to a game, the harder it is to provide a consistent translation. Translation is messy work: often there are multiple ways to translate the same sentence, or even the same word between two different languages. If a translation has multiple translators, that means they need to be communicating constantly with one another and referencing each other’s work all the time in order to avoid mistranslations: it’s difficult work, but not impossible.

However… this didn’t happen with ndrv3’s translation team. It’s pretty clear they did not reference each other’s work or communicate very well, and the translation suffers for it. I’m not just guessing here, either; it’s a fact that various parts of the game have lines completely ruined by not looking at the context, or words translated two different ways almost back-to-back. I’ll provide specific examples of this later.

Many of the translators also picked which characters they wanted to translate on the basis of which were their favorites—which, again, isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but which does raise the risk of letting character bias influence your work. No work is inherently without bias; all translators have to look at their own biases and still attempt to translate fairly regardless. But because translators were assigned four characters each, this meant that while they might be really enthusiastic about translating for one character in particular, they were less enthusiastic for others. These biases do reflect in the work, and I will provide further examples as I make my list.

This system of delegation also leaves more questions than it answers. It becomes impossible to tell who translated certain parts of the game, particularly in areas where the narrator is unclear. For example, did Saihara’s translator translate Ouma’s motive video, as Saihara is the one watching it in chapter 6? Or did Ouma’s translator do it, since it’s his motive video? Who translated the parts we see at the beginning of certain chapters, where characters from the outside world make occasional comments? It’s really unclear, and I’m not even sure if the translators divvied up these parts amongst themselves or if only one person was supposed to handle them.

To put it simply, there were quite a lot of complications and worrying factors about the way the translation was divided by the team, and the communication (or lack thereof) between said translators. It’s impossible to really discuss the main problems that ndrv3’s localization has without making it clear why those problems happened, and I hope I’ve explained it well here.

With that out of the way, I’m finally going to cover the biggest differences between the original game and the localization, and why many of these changes were such a problem.

1.) Gonta’s Entire Character

To this day, I still feel like this is probably the most egregious change of the entire localization. Gonta does not talk like a caveman in Japanese. He does not even have a particularly limited vocabularly. He talks like a fairly normal, very polite high school boy, and the only stipulation is that he’s not very familiar with electronics or technology due to his backstory of “growing up in the woods away from humans.”

Gonta does refer to himself in the third-person in Japanese, but I need to stress this: this is a perfectly normal thing to do in Japanese. Many people do it all the time, and it has no bearing on a person’s intelligence or ability to speak. In fact, both Tenko and Angie also refer to themselves in the third-person in the Japanese version of the game, yet mysteriously use first-person pronouns in the localization.

I wouldn’t be so opposed to this change if it weren’t for the fact that Gonta’s entire character arc revolves around being so much smarter than people (even himself!) give him credit for. He constantly downplays his own abilities and contributions to the group despite being fairly knowledgeable, not only about entomology but also about nature and astronomy. He has a fairly good understanding of spatial reasoning and is one of the first people to guess how Toujou’s trick with the rope and tire worked in chapter 2.

Chapter 4 of ndrv3 is so incredibly painful because it makes it clear that while Gonta was, absolutely, manipulated by Ouma into picking up the flashback light, he nonetheless made the decision to kill Miu of his own accord. He was even willing to try and kill everyone else by misleading them in the trial, because he thought it was more merciful than letting them see the outside world for themselves. These were choices that he made, confirmed when we see Gonta’s AI at the end of the trial speak for himself and acknowledge that yes, he really did think the outside world was worth killing people over.

Gonta is supposed to be somewhat naïve and trusting, not stupid. He believes himself to be an idiot, and other characters often talk down to him or don’t take him seriously, but at the end of the day he’s a human being just like the rest of them, and far, far smarter and more capable of making his own decisions than anyone thought him capable of.

Translating all of his speech to “caveman” or “Tarzan speech” really downplays his ability to make decisions for himself, and I think it’s a big part of why I’ve seen considerably more western fans insist that he didn’t know what he was doing than Japanese fans. I love Gonta quite a lot, but I can’t get over the localization essentially changing his character to make him seem more stupid, instead of translating what was actually there in order to more accurately reflect his character.

2.) Added Some Slurs, Removed Others

It’s time to address the elephant in the room for people who don’t know: Momota is considerably homophobic and transphobic in the original Japanese version of the game. In chapter 2, he uses the word “okama” to refer to Korekiyo in an extremely derogatory fashion. This word has a history of both homophobic and transphobic sentiment in Japan, as it’s often used against flamboyant gay men and trans women, who are sadly and unfortunately conflated as being “the same thing” most of the time. To put it simply, the word has the equivalent of the weight of the t-slur and the f-slur in English rolled into one.

This isn’t the only instance of Momota being homophobic, sadly. In the salmon mode version of the game, should you choose the “let’s undress” option in the gym while with Momota, he has yet another line where he says, “You don’t swing that way, do you!?” to Saihara, using his most terrified and disgusted-looking sprite. This suggests to me that, yes, the homophobia was a deliberate choice in the Japanese version of the game, as Momota consistently reacts this way to even the idea of another guy showing romantic interest in him.

The English version more or less kept the salmon mode comment, but removed the use of the slur in chapter 2 entirely. Which I have… mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I am an LGBT person myself. I don’t want to read slurs if I can help it. On the other hand, I really don’t think the slur was removed out of consideration to the LGBT community so much as Momota’s translator really wanted to downplay any lines that could make his character come across in a more negative light.

This is backed up by the fact that both Miu and Ouma’s translators added slurs to the game that weren’t present in the original Japanese. Where Miu only ever refers to Gonta as “baka” (idiot) or occasionally, “ahou” (a slightly ruder word that still more or less equates to “moron”), her translator decided to add multiple instances of her using the r-slur to refer to Gonta specifically, and on one occasion, even the word “Mongoloid,” a deeply offensive and outdated term. Ouma’s translator similarly took lines where he was already speaking harshly of Miu and added multiple instances of words like “bitch” or “whore.”

To me, this suggests that the translators were completely free to choose how harsh or how likable they wanted their characters to come across. Momota’s translator omitting just the slur could maybe pass for a nice gesture, so people don’t have to read it and be uncomfortable—except, that’s not the only thing that was omitted. Instances of Momota being blatantly misogynistic or rude were also toned down to the point of covering up most of his flaws entirely. His use of “memeshii” against Hoshi (a word which means “cowardly” in Japanese with specifically feminine connotations, like the word “sissy” in English) is simply changed to “weak,” and when he calls Saihara’s trauma “kudaranai” (literally “worthless” or “bullshit”), this is changed to “trivial” in the localization.

Momota’s translator even went so far as to omit a line entirely from the chapter 2 trial, which I touched on in an earlier post. In the original version of the game, Ouma asks Momota dumbfounded if he’s really stupid enough to trust Maki without any proof and if he plans on risking everyone else’s lives in the trial if he turns out to be wrong. And Momota replies saying yes, absolutely, he’s totally willing to bet everyone’s lives on nothing more than a hunch because he thinks he’s going to be right no matter what.

This is a character flaw. It’s a huge, running theme with Momota’s character, and it’s brought up again in chapter 4 deliberately when Momota really does almost kill everyone in the trial because he refuses to believe that Ouma isn’t the culprit. But the localization simply omits it, leaving Momota to seem considerably less hard-headed and reckless in the English version of the game. If anyone wants proof that this line exists, it is still very much there in the Japanese dialogue, but it has no translation whatsoever. This goes beyond “translation decisions I don’t agree with”; omitting an entire line for a character simply because you want other people to like them more is just bad translation, period.

3.) Angie’s Religion

In the original Japanese version of the game, neither Angie’s god nor her religion have any specific names. She refers to her god simply as “god” in the general sense, and clearly changes aspects of their persona and appearance based on who she’s trying to convince to join her cult. Everything about her is pretty clearly fictionalized, from her island to the religious practices her cult does.

Kodaka’s writing with regard to Angie is already a huge mess. It feeds into a lot of harmful stereotypes about “crazy, exotic brown women” and “bloodthirsty savages,” but at the very least it never correlated with a specific religion or location in the original version of the game.

This all changed when Angie’s translator, for whatever reason, decided to make Angie be Polynesian specifically and appropriate from the real religion of real indigenous peoples native to Polynesia. That’s right: Atua is a real god that has very real significance to tons of indigenous peoples.

In my opinion, this decision was incredibly disrespectful. It spreads incredible misinformation about a god that is still very much a part of tons of real-life people’s religion, and associates it with cults? Blood rituals? Human sacrifices? It’s a terrible localization decision that wasn’t necessary whatsoever and to be quite frank, it’s racist and insensitive.

As I said, the original game never exactly had the peak of “good writing decisions” when it came to Angie; there are still harmful stereotypes with her character, and she deserved to be written so much better. But associating her with a real group of indigenous people and equating a real god to some fictional deity that’s mostly treated as either a scary cult-ish boogeyman or the punchline to a joke is just… bad.

4.) Ouma’s Motive Video

Some of the decisions taken with Ouma’s translation are… interesting, to say the least. In many ways, he feels like a completely different character between the two versions of the game. This is due not only to the translation, but also the voice direction and casting.

A lot of his lines are tweaked or changed entirely to make his character seem much louder, less serious, and less sincere than the original version of the game. Obviously, Ouma lies, a lot. That’s sort of the whole point of is character. But what I mean is that even lines in the original version of the game, where it was clear he was being truthful via softer delivery, trailing off the end of his sentences, and seeming overall hesitant about whether to divulge certain information or not are literally changed in the localization to him pretty much yelling at the top of his lungs, complete with tons of exclamation points on lines that originally ended with a question mark or ellipses.

Tonally, he just feels very different as a character. The “sowwy” speak, lines like “oopsie poopsie, I’m such a ditz!”—all of these things are taken to such ridiculous extremes that it feels a little hard to take him seriously. Even in the post-trial for chapter 4 when Ouma starts playing the villain after Gonta’s death, a moment which should have been completely serious and intense, the mood is kind of completely killed when the line is changed from him calling everyone a bunch of idiots to him calling everyone…. “stupidheads.” These changes don’t really seem thematically appropriate to me, but overall, they’re not damning.

What is damning, however, is the fact that Ouma’s motive video is completely mistranslated and provides a very poor picture of what his motivations and ideals were like. I still remember being shocked when I played the localization for the first time and discovered that they completely omitted a line stating that Ouma and DICE have a very specific taboo against murder.

Literally, this is one of the very first lines in the entire video. The Japanese version of the game makes it explicitly clear that DICE were forbidden to kill people, and that abiding by this rule was extremely important to them. By contrast, the localization simply makes a nod about him doing “petty nonviolent crimes and pranks,” without ever once mentioning anything at all about rules or taboos.

This feels especially egregious in the localization considering Saihara later uses Ouma’s motive video as evidence in the chapter 6 trial and states there that Ouma and DICE “had a rule against killing people,” despite the game… never actually telling you that. It not only skews the perception of Ouma’s character at a crucial moment, it also just straight-up lies to localization players and expects them to make leaps in logic without actually providing the facts. So it winds up sort of feeling like Saihara is just pulling these assumptions out of his ass more than anything else.

I actually still have my original translation of Ouma’s motive video here, if anyone would like to compare. Again, translation is a tricky line of work, and obviously not all translators are going to agree with one another. But I consider omitting lines entirely to be one of the worst things you can do in a translation, particularly in a mystery game where people are expected to solve said mysteries based on the information and facts provided to them.

5.) Inconsistencies and Lack of Context

As I mentioned earlier, there are many instances of lines being completely mistranslated, or translated two different ways by multiple translators, or addressed to the wrong character. This is, as I stated, due to the way the translation work was divided by four separate people who appear to have not communicated with each other or cross-referenced each other’s work.

One of the clearest examples of this that I can think of off the top of my head is in chapter 3, where Ouma mentions “doing a little research” on the Caged Child ritual, and Maki in the very next line repeats him by saying… “study?”

On their own, removed from any context, these would both potentially be correct translations. However, it’s very clear that the translators just didn’t care to look at the context, or communicate with each other and share their work. The fact that characters aren’t even quoting each other properly in lines that are back-to-back is a pretty big oversight, and something that should have been accounted for knowing that four separate people were going to be translating various different characters.

This lack of context causes other, even more hilarious and blatantly wrong mistranslations. At the start of the chapter 3 trial, there is a line where Momota mentions that he couldn’t perform a thorough investigation on his own “because Monokuma disrupted him.” In the original, Ouma responds and tells Momota that he’s just using Monokuma as an excuse to cover for his own flaws. However, what we actually got in the localization was… this.

I don’t even have words for how badly this line was butchered (though I could make several hilarious jokes about Monokuma “over-compensating”). Presumably, this happened because Ouma’s translator saw Ouma’s line without any of the lines before it or the context of what Momota was saying, had no clue who Ouma was actually supposed to be talking to, and just ad-libbed it however they could, even though it literally makes no sense and doesn’t even fit into the conversation.

There are other similar instances of this, too. For example, did you know that the scene after Saihara faints in chapter 2, just before he wakes up in Gonta’s lab, is actually supposed to have Ouma talking to him? The narrator is unnamed, but there are several lines just before Saihara wakes up where Ouma tells him “come on, you can’t die on me yet!” and keeps prodding him and poking him to wake up. This is never explicitly told to you from the text… but it becomes pretty obvious when you look at the context and see that a huge CG of Ouma looking over Saihara as he starts to wake up is the very next part of the scene.

In the localization, however, Saihara’s translator pretty clearly had no idea what was happening or who was supposed to be talking to him, because they translated those lines as Saihara talking to himself, even though the manner of speech and phrasing is clearly supposed to be Ouma instead.

I could go on and on listing other examples: Tsumugi makes a joke in the original about Miu being able to dish out dirty jokes but not being very good at hearing them herself, but it’s changed in the localization to Tsumugi saying “I’m not so good with that kind of stuff,” and a line where Momota protests against Maki choking Ouma because she’ll kill him if she keeps going is instead changed to him saying “you’ll get killed if you don’t stop!” In my opinion, the fact that this is a consistent problem throughout the whole game shows that the translators weren’t really communicating or working together at any point, and that it wasn’t simply a one-time mistake here or there.

6.) Edited CGs and Plot Points

I have made an entirely separate post about this in the past, but at this point I don’t think anyone actually knows anymore: the localization actually edited in-game CGs and made some of them completely different from the Japanese version of the game. I’m not accusing them of “censorship” or anything like that, I mean quite literally that they altered and edited specific CGs to try and fix certain problems with them and only ended up making them worse in the process.

In chapter 5, Momota gets shot in the arm by Maki’s crossbow when trying to defend Ouma, and Ouma gets shot in the back shortly afterward when attempting to make a run for the Exisals. These injuries are relevant to how they died, but they’re not actually very visible in the CGs of Ouma and Momota shown later in the chapter 5 trial.

There are a whole bunch of inconsistencies with the CGs in chapter 5 in general: Momota gives Ouma his jacket to lie on under the press, but is magically still wearing it when he emerges from the Exisal himself at the end of the trial (I like to think he snuck back into the dorms Solid Snake style to get a new one from his room before joining the trial), the cap to the antidote is still on the bottle when Ouma pretends to drink it in front of Maki and Momota, etc. None of these things really deter from the plot though, and so I would say they’re fairly unimportant.

However, for some reason, NISA decided that “fixing” at least some of the CGs in the chapter 5 trial was necessary. They did this by adding bloodstains to Momota’s arm while he’s under the press, to better show his injury from the crossbow…. and in doing so, for some completely inexplicable reason, they changed the entire position of his arm. Here’s what I mean for comparison:

This is how Momota’s arm looked in the original CG from chapter 5, shown when the camcorder is provided as evidence that it’s “Ouma” under the press.

And this is how the localization edited it to look. I can understand and even sympathize with adding the bloodstains, but… changing the entire arm itself? Moving it to be sticking out from under the press? To put it nicely, this change doesn’t make any sense and actually makes it harder to understand Ouma and Momota’s plan.

The whole trick behind their plan was that nothing was supposed to stick out from under the press, other than Momota’s jacket. They waited until the instant when the press completely covered every part of Momota’s body, arms and all, and then performed the switch to mislead people. But the edited version of the CG in the localization just has Momota’s arm sticking completely out, hanging over the side, meaning it would’ve been impossible for the press to hide every part of it and the whole switch feels… well, stupid and impossibly easy to see through in the localized version.

Again, this shows a total disregard for presenting the facts as they actually appear and actually makes things more difficult for English players of the game, because they’re not being given accurate information. I really don’t understand why these changes were necessary, or why the bloodstains couldn’t have just been added without moving Momota’s entire arm.

7.) In Conclusion

This has gotten extremely long (nearly 10 pages), so I want to wrap things up. I want to specify that my intention with this masterlist isn’t to insult or badmouth the translators who worked on this game. I’m sure they worked very hard, and I have no idea what time or budget constraints they were facing as they did so.

Being a translator is not easy, and typically translators are not very well-paid or recognized for their work. I have the utmost respect for other translators, and I know perfectly well just how difficult and taxing it can be.

I am making this list because these are simply changes which were very different from the original version of the game, and which I believe could have been handled better. Personally, I disagree with many of the choices the localization made, but that does not mean that they didn’t do a fantastic job in other places. I absolutely love whichever translator was responsible for coming up with catchphrases and nicknames throughout the game: little localization decisions like “cospox,” “flashback light,” “Insect Meet n’ Greet,” and “cosplaycat criminal” were all strokes of genius that I highly admire.

I only want to stress that the Japanese version of the game is very different. Making changes to the way a character is presented or portrayed means influencing how people are going to react to said character. Skewing the information and facts presented in trials in the game means changing people’s experience of the game, and giving them less facts to go off of. Equating fictional gods to real-life ones can cause real harm and influence perception of real indigenous peoples. These are all facts that need to be accounted for before deciding whether a certain change is necessary or not, in my opinion.

If you’ve read this far, thank you! Again, feel free to share this post around if you’d like, since this is probably the most comprehensively I’ve ever covered this topic.

#danganronpa #new danganronpa v3 #dangan ronpa #ndrv3 spoilers //#ask #anonymous #this isn't meta but it's IS a comprehensive masterlist of translation comparisons #so i think it's okay to post in the tag #okay to reblog

737 notes · View notes

the-ghost-king · 4 years ago

Note

love seeing ur tags on my posts it means i get to think 🥰🥰 anyway mostly agree but at least to me nico’s constant need to prove himself is a sign of feeling like he’s not worth other people’s time and effort and he has to MAKE himself worth it. he does all he can in the hopes that people will notice him and tell him that he’s good enough because he relies on the approval of people he loves. he thinks love is something conditional for him and that he always has to be earning it because he doesn’t have enough worth to have it just granted to him. again this is more my own interpretation of his character and possibly a bit of projection

(Post)

I will not fail to acknowledge that I might also be projecting somewhat onto Nico, what is media but self reflection? I think there's a couple ways you can see Nico that are canonically "correct"

What I personally think happened with Nico is that he was aware he was worth more than the treatment he was receiving, but because so much rejection occurred he eventually just assumed he was the problem. There's things on this I would rewrite now but it holds up okay in what I'm about to try and explain.

The thing about being rejected is that the first time you argue it's the other person. And the second time you'll argue it's still them. If you're still arguing it's other people the third time, maybe but it's thin ice... But eventually you just have to accept that you're at fault.

I think this is something that really describes Nico. He is never able to nestle himself in the comfort of sameness after a certain point. He is not given authority in his own story in the beginning, he is thrust into solitude, he is told he is a monster already and if not then he has no choice but to become one.

And he takes this blame upon himself, believing that it's him who has to prove himself. He doesn't acknowledge that maybe other people have their own biases against him, he says "I have to prove them wrong," and then does his best.

It's important to note that Nico is definitely grappling with Childhood Emotional Neglect, he's in a broken situation- and he recognizes that nobody wants him around, and that he's just more stress for an already stressed group of people, so he just backs down and starts to figure stuff out for himself. We see him accept some help and friendship from The Stolls in TTC but eventually he stops doing this at some point.

His leave from camp and time with Minos is when he is used:

you unknowingly wear your heart on your sleeve and people will see this and take advantage of your trusting nature and unconditional love and they’ll never really love you they’ll just see you as an easy tool to be manipulated and used how they see fit and you won’t recognize that this is a bad thing because you don’t believe you’re worth anything more than this

This is something I would say is very true about this time period of Nico's life. Minos emotionally exploits Nico, emotional neglect and abuse (possibly physical abuse, who knows) are defining characteristics of their interactions. Nico talks about how Minos will just randomly leave him for extremely long periods with no assistance, and about how when he's around he's always telling Nico to try harder, to do better, do more. Note the time he tells Nico "you have no power over me", he's definitely holding things over Nico's head. I don't think it's wrong to assume comfort is a part of that, Nico is alone all the time at this point, and I'm sure he's starved for touch, and support, and connection- and he will take whatever he can get whether or not it is good or right.

At first he doesn't do anything against this, and it might be because he was so starved for attention that he was willing to endure abuse to receive somewhat a consistent form of it. I also think there's some evidence that points to the idea Nico was getting something from Minos, training and similar stuff, it's possible he was willing to form and upkeep a toxic relationship with him in order to gain experience.

However, I do disagree with "and you won’t recognize that this is a bad thing because you don’t believe you’re worth anything more than this" because Nico does realize eventually that his situation isn't sustainable and that he has to do something- so he takes his narrative back into his own hands:

“Minos laughed. "You have no power over me. I am the god of spirits! The ghost king!" "No." Nico drew his sword. "I am.” (X)

So Nico, if he ever thought he was worth the treatment of being used for someone elses personal gain, he definitely overcomes some of it here, if not all of it. Nico is manipulated and used for Minos's personal gain, but he recognizes that it's not sustainable and makes a stand for himself. And this is the first time in the series where Nico truly is able to take control of his own narrative, everything before this moment is Nico being forced, or Nico with something looming over him, Nico crowning himself is him claiming his story.

So let's consider Hades in all of this, I don't think Hades manipulated Nico to the extent Minos did- but nonetheless, he did manipulate and abuse him, and this hurt Nico more than when Minos did it. Again, in the situation with Hades this is also true, "you unknowingly wear your heart on your sleeve and people will see this and take advantage of your trusting nature and unconditional love and they’ll never really love you they’ll just see you as an easy tool to be manipulated and used how they see fit and you won’t recognize that this is a bad thing". By the time Nico and Hades truly start interacting, we see that Nico's heart hasn't been fully removed from his sleeve, but it may have been lightened.

Here's the thing about the way Nico approached Hades, it's not naïve to trust family. The text in multiple places implies that Hades was around for at least a handful of years when Nico was a kid, it's not unlikely that Nico may have taken naps on his shoulder, held his hand to cross the street, maybe called him "Papa", "Dad", or "Tata" (Italian, English, old Greek). It makes sense that Nico goes to him, what doesn't make sense to Nico at first is that Hades would manipulate him. Unlike many of the other demigods, Nico knows he was a choice, and that at some point he was something wanted, so he expects some level of okay treatment from Hades. Hades loved his mother, and Hades if not wanting of Nico would have wanted Maria's wishes fulfilled, and Nico probably remembers Hades treating him warmly- or at least not harshly. The way Nico went to Hades makes sense, he wasn't expecting open arms surely, but he also wasn't expecting abuse.

Hades emotionally exploits Nico by using information about Maria, what would a little boy want more than the safety of his mother? He's so starved for human contact, who ever held him more than his mother? Who ever loved him more than her? Once Nico delivers Percy to Hades, his father crushes him, not only by harming Percy but by exploiting Nico's trust through Nico's mother- one of the things he's most desperate for.

We see Nico's heart come off his sleeve at this point, maybe not fully, but enough to where a stranger couldn't recognize it at first glance, and in a way where he has the means to hide it from most.

Except we don't see much of this, because the series is narrated by Percy- and Nico can't hide his heart from Percy.

Almost everything Nico does, everything he tries to do, is for Percy. Nico is so desperate for contact that he is pliant, but in Percy's hands Nico actually wants that contact, he's not interested in imitations of love or substitutes- he's looking for the real thing.

And Mr. Oblivious does-Annabeth-like-me Jackson isn't in any headspace to realize that a boy might like him, let alone Nico. This concern that Nico will join Luke, isn't entirely because Percy is misreading signals, but it's definitely part of it. Nico likes Percy so much that at one point he is willing to go to Tartarus if not entirely for him, then partially for him.

If Percy had realized, and rejected Nico- maybe he would have joined Luke, or at least he definitely would have been more likely to. The perception of Nico we get in PJO from Percy is unreliable, because Percy looks at Nico through the lenses of a concerned older brother, and Percy feels guilty in some way for the situation Nico is in. This gives not only a skewed, but slightly falsified narrative of who Nico is.

The original post of mine I linked, although yes, I would like to rewrite aspects of it now it holds up in the sense that Nico is always trying to prove himself, and this is a bit different than being a puppet. Nico is so starved that it is present in everything, @/arabnico gets it right:

nico’s longing is just so raw it consumes him whole and he cannot hide it at all because it reflects in absolutely everything he does and is nico’s just the means of the way for them and he settles for being it because he doesn’t think he can be much better or even deserves to it is sometting so twisted because nico has this innate utalitarian desire to be useful and to do something and to do the right thing but in the game of things he’s reduced to that puppet in the hands of fate and deities millennia older than him that see a wounded wandering soul doomed to be forever alone by a destiny so cruel it keeps him on his knees

Nico, in PJO especially, has little control over his own narrative. His mother is killed in punishment for his father's "wrongs", Nico is forced to endure this. Bianca grows tired of caring for Nico and leaves him behind, this is not Nico's fault but Nico is forced to endure the consequences of her actions. Bianca's fate is decided on a quest Nico isn't even able to go on, he is forced to endure the results. Nico then breaks the cycle, declaring himself The Ghost King, and dethroning Minos. Nico is forced to endure Hades's manipulation only because he did not see it coming, this wasn't an aspect in which Nico didn't have his narrative (he had already taken ownership of his narrative) but a blind spot in his rational.

The place where we vary is why Nico behaves this way, we can agree that it's because he's starving for human connection- but you believe it's because he has no confidence he is willing to submit himself, while I see his submission as an act of desperation.

Personally, I think to argue that Nico is like this as a result of lack of confidence does a disservice to his narrative (obviously it's fine to view him however you wish, and I wish you all the fun in doing so!). To boil this down to starvation and lack of confidence removes some level of Nico's autonomy in his own life, but also strips him of one of his strongest characteristics- those qualities of him which are like Orpheus.

Nico willing to go to the ends of the earth for love is not a weakness but a strength, his ability to carry on beyond the point in which he needs a rest is not a weakness but a sign of strength. His ability to go to the ends of the earth to right wrongs, and to show his love:

"... Cupid struck, slapping Nico sideways into a granite pedestal. Love is no game! It is no flowery softness! It is hard work- a quest that never ends. It demands everything from you- especially the truth. Only then does it yield rewards."

Cupid is explaining Nico's idea of love in this scene, we see Jason say he prefers Piper's idea of love- but Nico only knows love in the way cupid describes, working desperately for a few moments with Bianca, working just to hear any scrap of information about his mother, always trying to prove himself to Percy- to overcome the way he feels about Percy (and boys in general).

Nico has only known love as something you walk to the ends of the Earth for, but he never stops fighting to be loved and acknowledged. Lesser men would give up and lay down, accept they are unworthy, but Nico keeps pushing to be acknowledged and accepted- to be recognized and loved without having to walk to the end of the Earth, but Nico knows he has to walk to that edge and face it before unconditional love will come to him.

To imply that Nico seeks love the way he does because he's unconfident in his ability to receive love ignores the idea that he's had his life forced into this position because of the fates. It loses acknowledgment to the strength it takes to pick yourself up and walk to the end of the Earth time and time again, because if he was unconfident then he would eventually lay down and accept he shouldn't be loved ever again.

I don't think confidence doesn't play into this at all though, it definitely has some impact on Nico, he does view himself as inherently less (he is overly self sacrificial- think Tartarus :/), and he does try to remove himself from others:

You yourself said: you blame yourself for the way people have hurt you, taken advantage of you, and abandoned you. they exploit your love and your naïveté time and time again. you tell yourself, surely, there must be something wrong with you. because—you are convinced—that people are good. “if they hurt me, it is because i am flawed. it is because i am weak. people will always hurt me—even people i love. it’s an inevitable truth for me.” (X)

And this connects to what I said: "The thing about being rejected is that the first time you argue it's the other person. And the second time you'll argue it's still them. If you're still arguing it's other people the third time, maybe but it's thin ice... But eventually you just have to accept that you're at fault."

I do think there's a reason Nico makes himself so "utilitarian", because he hasn't been handed unconditional love since Bianca. But again we disagree on the why, I see Nico's behavior in his utilitarian example of love as caring, the way more people should be in love. Too many people see love as something given without restraint, and yeah, love should be unconditional but in order for love to be unconditional you have to do the work to lay good foundation. To be utilitarian in loving is not an act of weakness, or a symbol of lack of confidence, it is a showcase of more care in love than most have to offer. We care for things, and place value on them determined by how much love and care goes into those things.

I also don't see Nico's self blaming for what happened as flawed, it's logical in his situation, and a common result of CEN. This self blame shows care and kindness, and this coincides with Nico's arcs, "If I am bad, how do I improve? If I have no choice but to be evil, how do I still be good?". Nico is always fighting not to be recognized for good or bad, but to be recognized for what he is.

Trust is not naivety either, the only reason Nico is regarded as naïve is because of the extreme circumstances of his life. People shouldn't have to expect abuse from people who are supposed to love them, people should have to accept abuse in order to receive love. If Nico's life had turned out different, his naivety wouldn't be viewed as a weakness but a strength- a kindness.

We're not actually viewing Nico all that different, there's this space where his character blurs together, and it becomes an individual duty to determine at what point a flaw becomes a strength, and a strength a flaw. Nico's stubbornness is a flaw if we're thinking about grudges, but it's a strength in his work ethic. Nico's ability to stand on his own is a strength in terms of questing, but it's a flaw when it prevents him from experiencing love in fullness.

#asks #gayleafpool #idk the ending of this is shit but idk how to close ends so hopefully you understand anyhow #also i don't want this to come off as there's a right and wrong way to view something because that's not true #i was just trying to elaborate further on why i view nico a certain way #i can definitely see why you view him how you do #i think we're both definitely projecting a bit because we're both right in a flawed wya #*way #but what is the human mind but flawed?#uhh to tag or not to tag?#i'll tag #nico di angelo #pjo #long post

129 notes · View notes