#i did it this way originally because of multiple biases in groups

[dengswei]

thinking i should redo my bias page & have it in alphabetical order for the idol's name rather than the group

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

HIII I KNOW. A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ANNIHILATION. PERIPHERALLY. ive seen like part of it but i do NOT remember much. except that its one of the prettiest movies ive ever seen. that being said im so eyes emoji abt ur au..... r there any specific scenes frm the movie ur thinking about?? how would the character dynamics differ from either canon?? etc etc etc!!!

GOD I FUCKING LOOOOOVE ANNIHILATION. ONE OF MY TOP 5 FAVORITE MOVIES OF ALL TIME EVER. yes yes yes yes yes OK. so this is. all encompassing crossover jrwi au which means I'm pulling characters from different campaigns. which. usually im not a huge fan of but i think i pulled it off rlly well in a limited sense here bc i have very specific reasoning behind why i put each character where. u will know at least two of them and they WILL cause you psychic damage so trust me when i say the other ones will too. putting this under a cut bc im gonna ramble

BASICALLYYYYY it's gonna follow the plot of the movie pretty closely just with slightly altered character dynamics + each of their reasons for going into the shimmer. so each person on the Current Team has lost someone on a previous expedition, and basically all of them are trying to find answers for what happened to their loved ones.

im gonna talk mainly about the ones you know because youll understand where I'm coming from the best with them but just know I am OBSESSED w the roles I have put gillion and chip in here. god I miss riptide every day .

DAKOTA COLE AS ANYA. Anya is the retired paramedic !! she's the one that. hold everything. gets killed by the fucked up bear. smile. that was just a fun little coincidence for me . ORIGINALLY I was dead set on having the pd representative be william bc im biased and I love him but after rewatching the movie I just think dakota fits in anyas place so perfectly. she's the most outgoing of the group, she's the one that initially invites Lena to join their team (also side note there is a pre-existing dynamic between dakota and chip because they've had MULTIPLE interactions in various what if crossover episodes and their dynamic is one of my favorite things ever). she's also the most aggressive. she's the first one to snap into action mode after finding the body in the pool, she's the one to take josie away from it and has a very protective stance over josie for the rest of the time after that (this is going to be relevant i am gonna talk about josie next) . once the group starts arguing about whether they want to continue further into the shimmer, anya shifts into a VERY black and white mentality, pinning ventress as The Bad Guy immediately for wanting to continue. and then when Lena shows some hesitancy over what she wants to do, anya snaps into a "youre either with me or against me" mindset. she also has this growing sense of paranoia ever since they find the tape of what appears to be the previous crew killing each other, and after she learns Lena is lying to them about her connection with Kane she goes way overboard with tying them to chairs and threatening to kill them. while i don't think dakota would necessarily go that far I DID say this to jonesy when we were rewatching the movie together so. bfu connecting two dots meme

anyway i think dakota is in the shimmer looking for william AND vyncent. parallels to the "dakota leaves for 10 months without telling them" which is why the three of them would be separated in the first place. william somehow finds out about the southern reach and his draw toward a mystery is what causes him to join the first expedition. vyncent goes with him because he can sense it's dangerous (and basically a suicide mission) and doesn't want william to go alone. I have. ideas. for what happens to them in the shimmer but they are vague at best right now and even then. dakota never finds out what happens to them before he's killed by the bear. the bear uses their voices to draw him out btw. smile. he dies protecting thr rest of the group even immediately after his paranoid breakdown.

OK THAT GOT LONG. OOPS. ONTO THE SECOND ONE

SHILO AS JOSIE. ohhhhh josie radek one of my favorite characters in media of all time. God I love her so much. anyway she's the only one of the current expedition with no previous combat training, so she's often seen by the rest of them as someone who needs to be protected. if I'm remembering correctly she's also the youngest. (in this. au. dakota would be older than shilo. feels better in my mind. none of them would be Kids they'd all be adults at this point but I'd put shilo in early 20s and dakota maybe in mid 20s. so . still young.) shilo is in the shimmer looking for his twin brother who went missing. somehow he was able to track down the southern reach and find out emizel was part of a previous expedition, and desperately wants to get him back. he's the one with the LEAST amount of knowledge going into the shimmer. he doesn't realize it's a suicide mission. he just wants his brother back. anyway when they get to the first outpost they find the remnants of the first team's base of operations, with names on a guard patrol rotation and leftover weapons and. a video camera. with a tape in a plastic bag labeled "for those who follow". josie is the one holding the camera when they watch it. the tape shows members of the previous party in the abandoned pool, one guy tied to a chair while the others cut open his abdomen to show his intestines moving around like snakes or worms. in the movie, the guy who cuts him open is Kane, Lena's husband. the rest of the party doesn't know her connection to kane, and she knows now if she tells them they won't trust her (and is proven correct by this when anya eventually finds out her connection) ANYWAY I'm going off track. sorry this is my favorite scene in the whole movie I get distracted. ANYWAY so when they see this, josie is the most immediately horrified by it because she's the only one who hasn't seen anything as gruesome as that before. for shilo. well. he gets to see the one being cut open is emizel. and then later when they get to the pool and find the body still there (again. josie is the one to find this. she's also the one who reaches down into the old dirty water and accidentally picks up the knife. which was still left in the same place they saw it be dropped in the tape) corpse plastered to the wall by all kinds of multicolored fungus and lichen, I think shilo doesn't immediately break down, he doesn't really. process it right away. I mean it's completely unrecognizable. it's not until he accidentally picks up the knife that it all clicks into place in his mind and he realizes "that thing right there used to be my fucking brother" and completely shuts down. runs out of the complex, dakota has to chase him down because they all know its dangerous to go anywhere alone, etc. after this he loses any sense of purpose, the only reason he came into the shimmer in the first place was to get emizel back and now seeing what happened I think he just gets. hopeless. which is the beginning of the end for him . i haven't decided if his exact death is the same as josies but i want it to be peaceful in the same sort of way. "imagine dying frightened and in pain and having that be the only part of you which survives... i wouldnt like that at all" "ventress wants to face it.. you want to fight it... im not sure i want either of those things...." josie radek i am in love with you. anyway. annihilation pool scene for you because I love this image more than anything

[italianpersonwithashippersheart]

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.

[zypiris]

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.

[mumms-the-word]

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

[seeminglyseph]

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.

[curetapwater]

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.

[knockoff-edward]

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.

[vtori73]

I did forget one thing though to go into and that is why biphobia should be considered on equal grounds to other oppressions. Obviously, this is directed at those who don't find the answer obvious because honestly it should be VERY obvious why but biphobes will be ignorant!

Most people who are biphobes TRULY believe we are basically the white people of the LGBT community even though the white people of the community already exist... actual white people who can be found across the whole community! I've even seen people more specifically call us the "biracial people," of the LGBT community which also makes no sense because you can't use race in place of sexuality and as POC have pointed out multiple times it is offensive/racist. Bi people aren't in any capacity "part straight," that's just biphobic rhetoric you like to push to erase our identities but that doesn't make it true. You cannot be part straight & gay in any capacity (im trying to leave room for anyone who could id this way like genderfluid/multi gender people) and gain privilege for it because at the end of the day our society won't see you as straight unless you're 100% straight (and you only get that privilege if you are also cis).

One thing also that you biphobes do is only focus on what you consider miniscule/small issues that to you prove we some how have privilege even though it's more correct to say your perspective is very wonky/biased. What y'all consider small problems is part of the bigger problem of you all minimizing us as people. Reducing us to these "small" issues just helps to perpetuate the false idea that these are our only "true" issues and only gives you and others more reason to ignore us when we speak up about the actual problems we face due to being bi. This attitude towards us only helps contribute the fact that we as a group we get much less funding and support from LGBT organizations (nothing too recent though, I think the newest data I found was from 2018). It's just another form of erasure because you can't stand we exist, why else continually lie about our issues and reduce our identities to either straight or gay when it most conveniences you?

Not to mention the way LGBT organizations conduct research leaves something to be desired because while it has gotten a tad better it still isn't great that, for example, The Trevor project, for some reason lumps all Bisexuals together even though Bi women will have different stats compared to those of Bi men. It's exactly why Lesbians & Gay men are and should be analyzed separately because otherwise your data isn't being conducted correctly or fairly. Sure, they do have a category for gender but that it is sperated and contained to its own thing to go along with trans related statistics which isn't a bad thing necessarily but it's also not great because people can & do face more oppression based on their various identities COMBINED not separately.

Let's for research/argument purposes combine both the Lesbian and Gay rates on who considered suicide in 2023 and we get 40.5% which is VERY different from the original stats with Gay being 35% & Lesbian being 46% so it's only reasonable to believe this kind or similar enough difference could be found for all the other sexualities listed because again gender plays a part in how we are treated and needs to be considered with sexuality studies to get fair rates of discrimination and issues we have because otherwise you're combining people that have no reason to be. This survey also fails to address how differently these stats would be if you included cis stats vs trans stats WITH the sexuality stats, even race would change these stats a lot if included with sexuality. I know that would make it a tad bit more difficult to conduct & graph & would require much more research but I do believe it is doable and the only way to get the least biased stats but I'm also not naive and see why they might not want to do this.

Look, I don't actually expect to win over the biphobes or anything I'm just taking the time to basically try and explain why they are full of shit. I don't actually expect them to listen, I know they will mostly likely move the goal post or just stoop to saying bigoted things/name calling like any other bigot who is only operating off of feelings and vibes with no actual logic, reason, or facts to back them up. I'm just doing this to try & cover as may angles as possible because this is the Internet and if you don't people get annoying, lol

Oh and for any bisexuals who want to disagree in favor of biphobes your opinion is noted and discarded, I don't care to listen to anyone who internalizes biphobia while y'all are technically victims y'all turn around and go after us so you can feel better about yourself and be accepted by bigots which is not only bullshit but harmful and personally? I believe people like you, assimilations, exclusionists, & radfems/terfs, racists, Zionists, & ableists & fatphobics are our weakest and most dangerous link to solidarity and having true community with one another. Part of me wants to say most of this is online but obviously it is not and to believe so is also a very naive mindset it's just much more overt online vs off (might depend on other factors though).

You know what I find a tad confusing? When groups more oppressed hate another group like... you do realize if they don't like us it's VERY likely they don't like y'all?

This happens kind of often but in this case this is about trans people who are biphobic and honestly it makes NO sense. Like are y'all really THAT desperate to be like and assimilate with the LG✂️BT groups/individuals that y'all will stoop to hating other queer people for no real reason (yes, bigoted reasons aren't real reasons). Sort of similar to when poc are bigoted towards LGBT people, like do you think this will make white Christians/bigots like you? More often than not these people are racist, and the extreme kind and will hate you no matter what.

Also, I'm going to say it despite it probably being controversial but biphobia is NOT just some minor issue, it should be treated on the same level as homophobia and lesbophobia (but as it's OWN thing). Anyone who says otherwise is just ignorant on what our actual issues are and are just full on biphobes. No one wants to admit it though because then they have to reckon with how entrenched LGBT communities are in perpetuating and encouraging biphobia and they don't want that they need easy targets they can punch at to relieve their anger at the allocishetero patriarchy and its MUCH easier to do that at an oppressed group then at the dominate ones actually in power.

"Well bi people ARE privileged," no, they aren't only straight people get privilege for their sexuality and no, passing privilege isn't a real or valid concept and only is used to excuse people's bigoted treatment of an oppressed group. Sure white bi people hold privilege but that's because of their RACE which means none of you other white LGBTQIA+ people are exempt. If you are white you have more privilege than most, but considering these online spaces are mostly made of white people they will always try to divert attention away from that fact and instead find ways to talk about privilege in ANY other capacity to the point of applying in ways that don't make sense at all (basically almost to the point of appropriating the term like they do often with other terms/word like medical ones or aave) and because they REALLY want to believe (or want YOU to believe) they cant oppress others.

Passing privilege, even if a valid concept, would only really benefit white people (or benefit them the most). Same thing for when (usually) white people try to apply it to trans people the only ones who can obtain that privilege are middle class or up white people because gender affects poc much more differently because the standards our society seems out and upholds on us are influenced by whiteness. Like when white trans people & allies gang up on trans poc by calling them transphobic or something they accuse the POC of even though all they did was call out their racism and how much what they said/do is influenced by whiteness.

It is interesting to note also how most of this "privilege" talk only ever is selectively wielded at one specific group even though it doesn't make any sense to do so. Bi women are ALWAYS brought up as being henchmen to the patriarchy even though more often than not white cishet women the ones who are actually the lackies to the patriarchy but also literally everyone has the capacity to be, yes, even Lesbians because doing so isn't dependent on what type of sexual/romantic relationships you are in (shocker I know)!

Also the fact that bi men are never considered in these conversations, by that I mean why is it no one ever stops to think the man in the relationship is the queer one and not the woman or is also queer? It's always "bi woman and their het boyfriends," never the other way around or both and its because this response isnt just based on biphobia but misogynistic biphobia. The boyfriend due to biphobia is assumed straight for being in a relationship with a woman (or maybe more precisely his possible queerness is erased because people assume bi men are just gay & so when a man is with a woman they aren't willing to believe he could possibly be queer). Bi women though deal with that and misogyny on top and because of that are targeted more because yes misogyny adds on to the bigotry we face.

"But bi women are only targeted because het men are dangerous," I won't argue that a lot of cishet men are dangerous but a LOT of these conversations always hinge on assumptions made on people's LOOKS which is bad, you can't assume someone isn't queer based on looks and doing so only feeds into binary thinking on presentation of gender and sexuality. How exactly do you know for sure the man in question is a cishet man and not a closed trans woman, or bi man, or nonbinary person or trans masc/ man or combo of these identities? Or the woman, how do you exactly know she is a cis bi woman?

And also, not going to lie but this really just seems like nothing more than the continued rhetoric that came from political lesbianism. Also ALSO, not to mention if these cishet men are dangerous their first victim isn't going to be a stranger they don't know, that type of thing is in general a pretty rare occurrence, because even if they are homophobic statically speaking their victim is going to be people closest to the cishet man aka THE BI WOMAN, the PARTNER! If he is biphobic there is no way in hell he isn't biphobic, and it makes sense considering how high our rates of abuse are, straight women don't even have as high of levels which just helps prove we face this amount of abuse BECAUSE of biphobia + misogyny & not just because of our "proximity" towards men.

Which moves me to my last point in which this supposed panic and concern for others in the LGBT community over these hypothetical cishet boyfriends let in by bi woman seems nothing more than a lie to openly attack bi woman for what on the surface seems like a reasonable concern and at best performative because if there REALLY was a concern the person you should all be most concerned for is the bi woman but instead they get ridiculed, attacked, and accused of being enablers of homophobic predators.

And again, this all just comes down to ideas and beliefs that came from political lesbianism but let's also take a moment to realize just how eerily similar this is to the trans panic rhetoric of evil men (the cishets boyfriend) pretending to be woman (bi woman pretending to be queer while in a "straight passing" relationship) to get into safe but public spaces designed for cis women (queer public spaces like pride). Both the conservatives and queer people even shift the blame onto the marginalized person instead of the actual person at fault (cishetero predators)!

It honestly goes to show just how much our society will whether intentionally or not protect predators first and foremost over anything else and would rather shit on marginalized people who are often more times than not victims themselves. But it makes sense because our society REALLY hates victims.

[phoenixyfriend]

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:

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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.

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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)

[pumpkinpaix]

mdzs fandom, diaspora, and cultural exchange

Hey everyone. This post contains a statement that’s been posted to my twitter, but was a collaborative effort between several diaspora fans over the last few weeks. Some of the specifics are part of a twitter-localized discourse, but the general sentiments and issues raised are applicable across the board, including here on tumblr.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ve probably seen a few of my posts about this fandom, cultural exchange, and diasporic identity. For example, here, here, and here. This statement more directly criticizes some of the general issues I and others have raised in the past, and also hopefully provides a little more insight into where those issues come from. I would be happy if people took the time to read and reblog this, as the thought that went into it is not trivial, and neither is the subject matter. Thank you.

Introduction

Hello. I'm a member of a Chinese diaspora discord server - I volunteered to try and compile a thread of some thoughts regarding our place and roles in the fandom expressed in some of our recent discussions. This was primarily drafted by me and reviewed/edited by others with the hopes that we can share a cohesive statement on our honest feelings instead of repeatedly sharing multiple, fragmented versions of similar threads in isolation.

This was compiled by one group of diaspora and cannot be taken to represent diaspora as a whole, but we hope that our input can be considered with compassion and understanding of such.

For context, we are referencing two connected instances: the conflict described in these two threads (here and here), and when @/jelenedra tweeted about giving Jewish practices to the Lans. Regarding the latter, we felt that it tread into the territory of cultural erasure, and that it came from a person who had already disrespected diaspora’s work and input.

Context

The Lans have their own religious and cultural practices, rooted both in the cultural history of China and the genre of xianxia. Superimposing a different religious practice onto the Lans amidst other researched, canonical or culturally accurate details felt as if something important of ours was being overwritten for another’s personal satisfaction. Because canon is so intrinsically tied to real cultural, historical, and religious practices, replacing those practices in a canon setting fic feels like erasure. While MDZS is a fantasy novel, the religious practices contained therein are not. This was uncomfortable for many of us, and we wanted to point it out and have it resolved amicably. We were hoping for a discussion or exchange as there are many parallels and points of relation between Chinese and Jewish cultures, but that did not turn out quite as expected.

What happened next felt like a long game of outrage telephone that resulted in a confusion of issues that deflected responsibility, distracted from the origin of the conflict, and swept our concern under the rug.

Specifically, we are concerned about how these two incidents are part of what we feel is a repeated, widespread pattern of the devaluing of Chinese fans’ work and concerns within this fandom. This recent round of discourse is just one of many instances where we have found ourselves in a position of feeling spoken over within a space that is nominally ours. Regardless of what the telephone game was actually about, the way it played out revealed something about how issues are prioritized.

Background

MDZS is one of the first and largest franchises of cmedia that has become popular and easily accessible outside of China. Moreover, it’s a piece of queer Chinese media that is easily accessible to those of us overseas. For many non-Chinese fans, this is the first piece of cmedia they have connected with, and it’s serving as their introduction to a culture previously opaque to them. What perhaps is less obvious is that for many Chinese diaspora fans, this is also the first piece of cmedia THEY have connected with, found community with, seen themselves in.

Many, many of us have a fraught relationship with our heritage, our language—we often suffer from a sense of alienation, both from our families and from our surrounding peers. For our families, our command of the language and culture is often considered superficial, clunky, childish. Often, connecting with our culture is framed as a mandatory academic duty, and such an approach often fosters resentment towards our own heritage. For our non-Chinese peers, our culture is seen as exotic and strange and other, something shiny and interesting to observe, while we, trapped in the middle, find ourselves uprooted and adrift.

MDZS holds an incredibly important place in many diaspora’s hearts. Speaking for myself, this is literally the first time in my life I have felt motivated and excited about my own native tongue. It's the first time I have felt genuine hope that I might one day be able to speak and read it without fear and self-doubt. It is also the first time that so many people have expressed interest in learning from me, in hearing my thoughts and opinions about my culture.

This past year and a half in fandom has been an incredible experience. I know that I am not alone in this. So many diaspora I have spoken to just in the last week have expressed similar sentiments about the place MDZS holds in their lives. It is a precious thing to us, both because we love the story itself, and because it represents a lifeline to a heritage that’s never felt fully ours to grasp.

It’s wonderful to feel like we are able to welcome our friends into our home and show them all these things that have been so formative to our identities, and to be received with such enthusiasm and interest. Introducing this to non-Chinese friends and fans has also been an opportunity to bridge gaps and be humanized in a way that has been especially important in a year where yellow peril fear mongering has been at an all-time high.  

History

However, MDZS’ rise in popularity among non-Chinese audiences has also come with certain difficulties. It is natural to want to take a story you love and make it your own: that’s what transformative fandom is all about. It is also natural that misunderstandings and unintentional missteps might happen when you aren’t familiar with the ins and outs of the culture and political history of the story in question. This is understandable and forgivable—perfection is impossible, even for ourselves.

We hope for consideration and respect when we give our knowledge freely and when we raise the issue of our own discomfort with certain statements or actions regarding our culture. Please remember that what is an isolated incident to you might be a pattern of growing microaggressions to us. In non-Asian spaces, Asian diaspora are often lumped together under one umbrella. In the west, a lot of Chinese diaspora attach themselves to Korean and Japanese media in order to feel some semblance of connection to a media which approximates our cultures because there are cultural similarities. This is the first time we've collectively found community around something that is actually ours, so the specificities matter.

There is a bitterness about being Asian diaspora and a misery in having to put up a united front about racial issues. Enmity towards one group becomes a danger to all of us, all while our own conflicted histories with one another continue to pass trauma down through the generations. Many of us don’t even watch anime in front of our grandparents because of that lingering cultural antipathy. When the distinctions between our cultures are muddled, it feels once again like that very fraught history is flattened and forgotten.

Without the lived experience of it, it’s hard to understand how pervasive the contradictory web of anti-Asian and, more specifically, anti-Chinese racial aggressions are and how insidious its effects are. The conflation of China the political entity (as perceived and presented by the US and Europe) with its people, culture, and diaspora results in an exhausting litany of criticism levied like a bludgeon, often by people who don’t understand the complicated nature of a situation against those of us who do.

There is often a frankly stunning lack of self-awareness re: cultural biases and blind spots when it comes to discussions of MDZS, particularly moral ones. There are countless righteous claims and hot takes on certain aspects of the story, its author, and the characters that are so clearly rooted in a Euroamerican political and moral framework that does not reflect Chinese cultural realities and experiences. Some of these takes have become so widespread they are essentially accepted as fanon.

This is a pattern of behavior within the fandom. It is not limited to any specific group, nor does it even exclude ourselves—we are, after all, not a monolith, and we should not be placed on pedestals to have our differing opinions weaponized against one another in fandom squabbles. We are not flawless in our own understandings and approaches, and we would appreciate it if others would remember this before using any of us as ultimate authorities to settle a personal score.

It is difficult not to be disheartened when enthusiastic interest crosses the line into entitled demand and when transformative work crosses into erasure, especially when the reactions to our raised concerns have so frequently been dismissive and hostile. The overwhelming cultural and emotional labor we bring to the table is often taken advantage of and then criticized in bad faith. We are bombarded with racist aggressions, micro and macro, and then met with ridicule and annoyance when we push back. Worse, we sometimes face accusations of hostility that force us to apologize, back down, and let the matter go.

When we bring up our issues, it usually seems to come with the expectation that there are other issues that should be addressed before we can address ours. It feels like it’s never really the time to talk about Asian issues.

On the internet and in fandom spaces, Western-coded media, politics and perspectives are assumed to be general knowledge and experience that everyone knows and has. It feels like a double standard that we are expected to know the ins and outs of western politics and to engage on these terms, but most non-Chinese have not even the slightest grasp of the sort of politics that are at play within our communities. We end up feeling used for our specialized knowledge and cultural background and then dismissed when our opinions and problems are inconvenient.

As the culture represented in MDZS is not a culture that most non-Chinese fans are familiar with, we’d like to remind you that you do not get to decide which parts of it are or are not important. While sharing this space with Chinese diaspora who have a close connection to the work and the painful history that goes along with being diaspora, we ask that you be mindful of listening to our concerns.

Cultural erasure is tied to a lot of intense historical and generational trauma for us that maybe isn't immediately evident: the horrors of the Pacific theatre, the far-reaching consequences of colonization, racial tensions both among ourselves and with non-Chinese etc. These are not minor or simple things, and when we talk about our issues within fandom, this is often what underlies them. This is one of the first and only places many of us have been able to find community to discuss our unique issues without feeling as if we’re speaking out of turn.

With the HK protests, COVID, the anti-Chinese platforms of the US election etc., anti-Chinese sentiment has been at the forefront of the global news cycle for some time now, and it is with complete sincerity that we emphasize once again how important MDZS fandom has been as a haven for humanizing and valuing Chinese people through cultural exchange.

Experiencing racial aggression within that space stings, not just because it’s a space we love, but because it feels like we’ve been swimming in rapidly rising racial aggression for over a year at this point.

Feelings

This is a difficult topic to broach at the best of times, and these are not the best of times. Many of us have a wariness of rocking the boat instilled in us from our upbringings, and it is not uncommon for us to feel like we should be grateful that people want to engage with something of ours at all. When we do decide to speak up, we’ve learned that there is a not insignificant chance that we’ll be turned on and trampled over because what we’ve said is inconvenient or uncomfortable. When it is already so difficult to speak up, we end up second-guessing and gaslighting ourselves into wondering whether there really was a problem at all.

We’d like to be able to share what we know about our culture and have our knowledge and experience be taken seriously and treated with courtesy. This is a beautiful, rich world built with the history of our ancestors, one that we too are trying to connect with. When we find it in ourselves to speak up about it, we would appreciate being met with consideration instead of hostility.

We don't have the luxury of stepping away from our culture when we get tired of it. We don't get to put it down and walk away when it’s difficult. But if you're not Chinese or Chinese diaspora, you get to put this book down—we'd like to kindly request that you put it down gently because of how much it matters to all of us in this fandom, regardless of heritage.

What we are asking for is reflection and thoughtfulness as we continue to engage with this work and with one another, especially with regards to how Chinese issues are positioned. When we raise issues of our own discomfort, please take a moment to reflect before reacting defensively or trying to shut us down for spoiling the fun—don’t deprioritize our concerns, especially in a fandom for a piece of Chinese media. We promise most of us are not trying to start shit for the sake of a fight. Most of the time, all we want is acknowledgement and a genuine attempt at understanding.

Our hope with this statement is to encourage more openness and understanding between diaspora and non-Chinese fans while we navigate this place that we’re sharing. Please remember that for many of us, MDZS is far more intense than a typical fandom experience. Remember that the knowledge we have and research we do is freely and happily given, and that it costs us both materially and emotionally. Please don’t take that for granted. Remember too that sometimes the reason for our discomfort may not be immediately evident to you: what seems culturally neutral and harmless might touch upon specific loaded issues for us. We ask for patience, and we ask for sincerity as we try to communicate with one another.

We are writing this because there’s a collective sense of imposed silence—that every time the newest round of discourse crops up, we often feel as if we’re walking away having created no meaningful change, and nursing new wounds that we’ll never get to address. But without speaking up about it, this is a cycle that will keep repeating.

This is not meant to shame or guilt the fandom into throwing themselves at our feet, either to thank us or beg for forgiveness—far from that. We’re just your friends and your fellow fans. We are happy to have you here, and we’re happy to create and share and play together. We just ask to be respected and heard.

Thank you. Thank you for listening. Several of us will be stepping back from twitter for a while. We’ll see you when we get back. ❤️

* A final addendum: here are two articles with solid practical advice on writing stories regarding a culture other than your own.

Cultural Appropriation for the Worried Writer: Some Practical Advice

Cultural Appropriation: Some More Practical Advice

The thread on twitter is linked in the source of this post. Thanks everyone.

[shanetheferretgaming]

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.

[oumakokichi]

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.

[the-ghost-king]

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.

[gayfrenchtoast]

Okay fine we're doing this. I havent read the books and I'm probably not going to I've only seen the movies so I'm sorry if anything I say is contradictory or has already been stated.

So! Descendants 3 was kinda shit and I dont like it but especially because of the ending because everybody was like "oh yeah island is open and we're all happy with no worries or implications about free villains or people being spiteful about being imprisoned for years!" In fact if anything they joked about those things.

The island is basically its own culture, I can't say how long it's been around, long enough for some almost adult kids to be about and to develop a kind of community.

The Isle is a place of poverty, people are dirty and on the street, eveyone steals from each other and most people don't put much effort into appearance upkeep (personal or of the sourounding area) not because of laziness or being "evil" but because they clearly don't have time or luxury to do such things or possibly even the clean water. Does the Isle have clean water?? How to they get electricity??? Someone tell me!

Another thing that I've noticed is easy to see but is not much explicitly said is the unique style of those on the Isle. As previously stated they don't have much but those who have the most "power" and such on the Isle are the best example of this As they have the most colourful outfits. However these outfits are often made out of patches and ripped things put together, even salvaged things like nets and chains as we can see on thing like Uma and Harry's outfits in D3 they make the best of what they've got and they do fantastic because their outfits are intricate and detailed and just tell you everything you need to know about them. Which is why it's a damn s h a m e when the original VK's ajust their style to be more like Auradon's. That's not an improvement! Be proud of where you came from!! It's like they forgot what it was like being on the Isle in D3!

Moving on, here's something that was touched on in D2 but not enough. Equality. On the Isle there is basically equal opportunity as in saying everything is shit and nome cares what gender and presumably what sexuality you are as long as you can work. Sexism is shown to be almost casual in aurodon from the looks of it, Chad makes sexist comments and litterally none else says anything or seems to see anything wrong with it except Jay who caves to pressure from peers and expectations. He does redeem himself because he's from the isle and he knows you shouldn't give a shit about anyone's gender or anything. If they can do something and ask to be included you give them that opportunity. The sexism is also implied in the way that the rule book has men written specifically in the first place and that it has taken until then for anyone but boys to be allowed on any kind of sports team. We never see it! It seems to be the hetronormative veiw where the boys do sport and girls do cheerleeding and other genders? What other genders? Never heard of that? BAD AURADON!! I bet there's so many trans folk on the island just living their lives, thinking Aurodon is the better place and not knowing that it's a cis het filled nightmare.

Okay no I'm headcannoning now, if their are now a bunch of Isle kids at auradon prep they find it fucking aweful the way all these preppy royals are treating them and make the first LGBT club in Auradon. There is lots of pushback and they get bullied a fuck ton for making themselves the most prominent queer folk in the school until a fight breaks out and the club demand that they should be treated better, taking all the evidence to fairy godmother who is very hesitant because COME ON she's never been that great she is biased to Auradon kids and if putting away those in the Isle is brought up she is all on it, she is jelly spined about doing anything against the royal kids. So the kids are like "Fine, if you won't help us we'll take this to the King himself!" Well mainly the queer mom's of the group (you know the ones I'm talking about) who lead the others and protect the anxious queers as they storm to Ben at his fucking locker and demand an audience because they are being harassed and bullied and none is doing anything. Ben had no idea there was even a LGBT club (too busy ig) and is gassed there is one for a moment before he's like "wait people are harassing you?" So Bisexual King Ben gets his lovely Bi wife and they start coming to club meetings and investing in the pins and stuff the club makes. Most club members are pleased but the queer mom's are apprehensive that this will help until some assholes come to the club to do their usual bullying only to find King and Queen Beast themselves siting there with rainbow bracelets and bi pins and all trying to have a nice old time eating their fucking cupcakes what the fuck are yall doing? The bullying dies down quick once they realise it ain't gonna fly, the other OG VK's that hear about this become members and very protective over their queer children. Did I mention Dizzy and Ceila are a part of the club? They're girlfriend's. Celia is one of the queer moms. Harry becomes one of the biggest protectors over the group as the pan dad. He's been going around snogging everyone and anyone wholl snog him everyone already knew he was queer they just didn't have the balls to try and bully him over it as much as they bullied the lil club members. But now Harry can often be seen in jackets and shit with pan and general queer patches and pins and running around with his gay children yelling "MOVE WE'RE GAY!!" He totally calls them his queer crew. Anyway as a result lots of queer royals start coming out of the woodwork, obvs Lonnie is one of them, and the club eventually serves to bring members of Auradon and the Isle close together.

Where was I? Yada yada auradon expects girls to be pretty princesses and boys to be brave knights or dashing princes. It's shit and should stop being portrayed as good. Moving on!

Food! One of the things we'll established in all movies is that the food of the Isle is shit compared to food of Auradon. The Isle has no fresh fruit which likely means its almost impossible for things to grow there which is fair because again there doesn't seem to be much fresh water and there are always clouds overhead so no sun. Maybe there is some people trying really hard to grow stuff but the general attitude of the Isle seems to be "there is no time for that" and fruits are forgotten so much that the VK's litterally don't knownwhat they are when they come across them. That and anything containing sugar. Actually it's mention by Dizzy and Celia that they enjoy the fact that the cake dosent have dirt or flies so basically food there is terrible. We don't see much food on the Isle but what we do see seems to be beans, eggs, chips and shellfish. Basically protine and carbs that can be easily stored and produced. To be fair beans are kidna good for you but they're likely a sign that if they get any imports from the mainland it is canned stuff. Prison food. There's probably some chef villain that is trying their best to make good food out of the shit but honestly the Isle dwellers should be angry that they've been deprived of good food for so long not happy they're finally been given decency.

Moving on, music! Auradon dosent have nearly as many musical numbers it seems, the Isle songs have a distinct style, to them, the villains that basically "founded" the place were masters of the dramatic songs (with backup or solo) so banging music is basically ingrained in the music's culture, even for battle as we see with the fight between Mal and Uma in D3. Meanwhile Auradon seems to have mainly romance and "I want" songs. Even Audrey's villain song is basically an I want song.

Okay let's talk about the Villains. We've established that the VK's are not inherently bad. However not all of them can be totally good and there are legit OG Villains just kinda chillin on the Isle. They've obviously lost quite a bit of their power, motivation and sanity (isolation will do that to ya as they lost everything and the VKs know no different) but deadass? They were bad guys. You can try to rehabilitate them sure but you've basically just let them free roam, they could make a runner and you wouldn't get the chance. They were also shitty patents which is brushed over/joked about in the interaction between Carlos and...man I feel bad I forgot her name deadass their relationship seemed to come out of nowhere in the second film she didn't seem interested in them at all and friendzoned them multiple times I'm pretty sure Disney did that becaue queer kids were relating to Carlos and headcanoning them as queer (which they deffinatly are) but deadass their mom is an attempted animal murderer and has hurt her child as we can see from how they're afraid of her and her rhetoric and yet it's "haha I'm afraid to meet your ma!" "Me too cus im a dog! Lol!" Fuuuuck offfffff

I think I'm running out of thoughts so here's a last one for now; with the magical barrier down a bunch of magical Villains kids should be coming out for the woodwork. We know Mal has magic basically stored in her so it's is possible, she technically doesn't need the spellbook to do magic it is just inherent to her. So with the diverse range of people from the isle there are deffinatly magic folk in there. Actually if we're following Disney movie law I saw something mentioning Jay being half Genie and yeah! He should be half Genie! Jafar got turned into a Genie he's probably only human because of the barrier! Oh also Ben should be able to go beast on command as long as he had a better beast form than he did in the movies. And give him back the beard and fangs like fuck you he looked so much better

Okay I'm done for now

[patchesthegothictramp]

Feather Seeker and the Okinawa Jail

So anyone who’s been talking to me knows Feather Seeker is a game that’s perked my interest from the get-go, and I’ve been thinking of talking about it for a while. Now that I’ve been able to replay Royal and play Strikers, some other things have come out in the meantime and I’ve been paying more attention to additional media, I want to make a meta post about Feather Seeker, the Okinawa jail from Strikers and it’s connection to Akechi specifically. Be warned, this ended up being a very long post.

Let’s start with just getting a few questions out of the way:

Isn’t it just a mini game made to raise your stats?

Yes, absolutely, it’s optional and honestly if you don’t care for playing the video games it’s easy to miss. I don’t think it was honestly intended to be some massive breakthrough on a character’s backstory but rather an Easter egg that gets you to think about it.

It’s just about Neo-Featherman, there’s references to it in all persona games, so why is this one different?

It’s not different. There’s been plenty of times when Easter eggs have led to something bigger in this game, even specifically featherman ones. There’s an episode of Featherman that describes exactly what happens in the 3rd semester, where a character loves another so strongly it brings them back to life. Now whether you want to apply that to Futaba and her mum, Ren and Akechi or whoever it still fits- there’s an entire semester where at least one character loves another one and wishes them back to life through Maruki’s power. So having another piece of media, like the Feather Seeker game, be another allusion to something else isn’t entirely unjustified.

Feather Seeker is just detailed cos it’s about Featherman, why are you comparing it to other games?

See, here’s the thing and why I needed a second playthrough to make sure I was right about it. Feather Seeker is the odd one out. All of the games have some kind of plot or something going on (except for Golf sim but y’know... it’s a golf sim), but they’re all very, very basic things. Train of Life is just board game with very simple characters, the Goemon game has you just walking through hell but doesn’t really go more in depth with characterisation. Whereas you find out so much about what’s going on with Gray Pigeon and Osagiri in Feather Seeker that it feels a little… weird to simply ignore it. Do I think that the simplest answer, that they just wanted some plot in there for fun, is the right answer? Honestly I think that’s highly likely. But it’s the boring explanation too, it’s easy enough to just write any kind of intrigue like that, so whether what I’m writing about was intentional or not, I still want to discuss Feather Seeker and see people’s own thoughts on the possibility that it could be more than just a basic game.

So with that out of the way… let’s get into it.

First, there’s establishing who’s who. I can pretty confidently say that Gray Pigeon is Akechi in this entire metaphor. This one is the most obvious for multiple reasons, first of which being that it’s the exact same costume Akechi gets in the featherman outfits DLC so there’s the direct correlation there. Beyond that, Gray Pigeon is a character who awakens to a new power and wants to become a hero of justice, just like the feathermen, the hero’s he’s heard about before. Ring any bells?

Also the final revelation of Feather Seeker is that actually the Feathermen see Gray Pigeon as their enemy, who ends up sacrificing himself so they can keep fighting.

Which brings me to discussing who Osagiri and the Feathermen are. Given the timeline presented, I don’t think it’s possible for them to be one specific character or even group of characters. I think these aren’t supposed to be characters, but rather the major influences in Akechi’s life. Osagiri is a scientist (possibly Wakaba, I’ll get into that later), but also the one who pushes him to do bad things. Osagiri starts by training Gray Pigeon to become one of the Feathermen, the good guys, but eventually ends up manipulating Gray Pigeon into trying to kill them. Osaigir at the bare minimum has to be two people- the cognitive scientists who were able to uncover more thanks to Akechi’s escapades in the metaverse and the people who pushed him to commit crimes- the conspiracy.

The Feathermen, at the end of the game, have to be the Phantom Thieves- they’re the ones Gray Pigeon/Akechi ends up sacrificing himself to save but… that can’t be possible. Gray Pigeon’s journey starts with him gaining a new power and wanting to use it for good like the Feathermen do and of course the Phantom Thieves weren’t an inspiration for Akechi to do what he did. I think then the Feathermen are what Akechi aspired to be- the heroes of justice who fought the bad guys.

I can’t lead myself to believe that at 15, Akechi thought of this overly convoluted plan where he would help Shido to become prime minister only to then ruin him, there’s way too many factors in this that could change. I think originally Akechi wanted to avenge what happened to him and his mother, make sure that the man who wronged him would face justice. That’s what the Feathermen would do, right? They fight bad guys. Translating it from Feather Seeker, Akechi was angry, furious even and that rebellion woke hm up to Robin Hood, the embodiment of justice for him.

There’s plenty things that point to Robin Hood being first, his placement when Akechi awakens to Hereward on 2/2 being in the same spot as everyone else’s, the fact that for all of the other Thieves their third tier personas are different versions of their initials personas and that applies to Hereward/Robin Hood and that the trend of initial/second awakening personas is that the first is a fictional who was considered a criminal (Robin Hood) and the second is described in game as a ‘mythological trickster’ (Loki).

Here is where I want to get to the Okinawa jail and why I didn’t post this theory/metapost sooner.

I mentioned earlier that Osagiri could have been in some part Wakaba, Futaba’s mother, and when I initially wrote this I didn’t have all that much to go off of. There’s concept art in the original p5 artbook of Wakaba experimenting on someone. There’s no context given and it’s sort of the odd-one-out. Of course, human subjects would have been necessary to study the cognitive world but this research is so under wraps it seems it’s almost impossible to get. There’s no military connotations anywhere so why is it such a secret? Well, illegal human experimentation would certainly be a good reason to keep this away from the public. They must have figured out somehow that killing a shadow can cause a lot of damage, even death, to a person, we know that from the research notes, but Wakaba was a scientist, working in a lab, she must’ve done experiments that weren’t entirely legal.

Here I wasn’t sure because accusing Wakaba or anyone of illegal human experimentation was a pretty big reach but the Okinawa jail in Strikers shows us that illegal human experimentation is something that was used for cognitive research. I don’t think that Akechi was experimented on there or that was where Wakaba worked, there’s no indication of it but… Konoe and Owada seemed to build on the work that Shido and his scientists began. That being said, I think the Okinawa lab is a continuation of that human experimentation, with whatever lab Wakaba worked in being its predecessor before Shido probably shut it down to prevent it from ever being discovered. Which is also why he had Wakaba killed- the research was only meant for him and no one else.

Beyond what we see in Feather Seeker of Osagiri/sometimes Wakaba experimenting on Gray Pigeon/Akechi, we’re also told (albeit this is of course biased information), that he only targeted people he deemed deserved it but… Wakaba is the odd one out here for the most part. Okumura was hardly a good person and the principal decided covered for a sexual abuser, most of the others were survivors except for accidents which are mostly uncontrollable and unpredictable. Wakaba however, like Kobayakawa and Okumura, were targets that were supposed to die, Akechi intended to kill them. How then was Wakaba a bad person? Illegal human experimentation would explain that, especially if it was done on Akechi himself.

So then, Akechi was experimented on by Wakaba. I don’t think he was fully informed about what he was doing either. Gray Pigeon certainly wasn’t. Akechi was still trying to be a good person, using his power for his own vengeance yeah but I don’t think murdering random people was part of his initial plan at all. I think that Feather Seeker also emphasises just how little he knew about what his actions were doing. How would he know what his effects of shadows are on the real world? He could only know that from the scientists, from Shido. Of course he did find out, eventually, and that rage he must have felt about being used and lied to gave him the power to awaken to Loki, as Futaba puts it, the representation of his anger. It’s only then that he forms his plan, to get back at Shido for all of this, not just him abandoning him and his mother but for using him for his own means as well.

And we know how the rest of the story goes.

The overall story presented in Feather Seeker, as I see it, is this: Akechi awakens to Robin Hood, and realises that his anger is no longer a hopeless endeavour, he can use it, show that he’s useful and get acknowledged by his father. Shido sees this, sees that he can use this power and subjects him to experimentation, as someone who can actually survive the cognitive world and even have an impact on it. Wakaba sees what he can do, tests him but he’s never told what he’s done. He’s manipulated through praise and lack of information. One day he does find out, he realises this wasn’t getting him any closer to vengeance or getting acknowledged by Shido, he’s just another test subject being used by them. He’s angry, he awakens to Loki and now with the unique power of psychotic breakdowns, Shido recognises him and hires him as his assassin.

Granted this is all just my own theory, I think there is a lot pointing us to at least something similar but of course I also think this is wishful thinking as well. At this moment, my biggest wish is that Atlus makes a game that actually delves into what happened to Akechi. All the explicit information we have is given to us from biased sources, ie. Akechi himself, and it’s really the only question I have left for persona 5’s continuity.