#i’ll be real i don’t know what the INTENDED allegory was

[gibberishquestion]

The greatest living show is literally like a spiritual experience. i could write an entire essay on how that music video is like. oh my god. fuck. you ever see a piece of art that captures something so well it feels like they made it about you specifically

[excelsior9173]

Sleep Oil?

Ok so Sleep Prayer Oil (yes from sleep token)??

-olive oil for the vibes, I usually use grape seed as a carrier, but the vibes of olive oil are what I’m feeling for this.

-Pachouli (sleep aid, and also VERY sensual)

-Mugwort (for astral/dream work)

-Lemon Balm (love, dreamwork, healing)

-Lavender (sleep aid, but intense dreams)

-rosemary (creativity)

-peppermint essential oil (money/prosperity)

-Grapefruit essential oil (mental clarity)

Ok, so here is my list, copy pasted from my notes app so that is why the formatting and wording is all weird lol, of all the herbs and oils I’d include in a sleep prayer oil, and all my reasonings.

But I freaking. Listen, I don’t believe sleep is a real god, but when I was like ‘what would I put in this’ my mind kept going back to rosemary, and I was like ‘why tho?’ And the first thing that popped up when I searched for herbs for creativity was rosemary and I just said ‘ok. Sleep wants that in there’.

I cant make this rn, cause… I am not uhhh ‘practicing’ (my practice is gathering knowledge until I can move out), but I want to 🤣. I wonder if I could get by with substituting lemon oil for lemon balm, cause I have access to essential oils, but not herbs and putting them jars lol. I could honestly say this was a blend for seizures and I wouldn’t even be completely lying….. I’d actually just have to buy the patchouli and mugwort 🤣🤣🤣…. I’m so tempted. I’ll let you know if I do it or not😂 or maybe I just leave out the mugwort and patchouli for right now? I feel like the others have everything covered, but the first two where more like the pa-pow of the oil, idk if this makes since? Like those are the main two and if I was making this for real, I would do only a little bit of the other ingredients, and a lot of the main two, but if I’m not including them I’d do more of the others…. Fuck it I’m gonna end up making this, oops. (But probably with grape seed oil, since this is an essential oil blend… I’ll be back with more notes I’m so sorry).

Edit: this just keeps getting longer longer sorry; went to gather the oils, realized we do indeed have patchouli! But not rosemary… thinking of substituting oregano for rosemary…. And maybe clary sage for mugwort?? Hmmm. Lots of thoughts. Same associations for both things as the list above… ok I have to be done now I’ll come back and tell you if it smells good in a different ask lmao.

Sorry for info dumping to you about a silly little oil, but I was having fun with it.

What would go in your version of it, if you don’t mind me asking👀 I know you said you where doing your own research on it, and I’m curious🥰.

i have sat on this for waaaayyyyy toooo long but university was absolutely kicking my ass for the last… month and a half? idk i was going through it for a hot minute 😅

but! finally getting to tuck into some research now that i’m done school for the term and have a quiet day at work. (this is gonna get hella long cuz i’m having a lot of fun researching and i’m gonna use this as a sounding board a bit as i read)

so! first thing i’m learning is that intention is a huge part of this (i knew the intention part already, part and parcel with working with tarot!)

i think given that sleep is introduced to us as some sort of deity, i would probably make a ritual anointing oil.

the carrier oil itself is another question. i think since sleep feels like a deity not easy to commune with (the intensity and allegory in the music makes me think that, if we were worshipping a true god, conversing with sleep takes a toll on the devotee). with this in mind i think grapeseed oil might make a decent base. it is a good choice for anything used to anoint the body (which i feel would be part of this ritual oils use, if we must dream to encounter sleep then anointing the body makes the most sense to me!) and it is ruled by the moon and water element- making it very fitting for sleep token! grapeseed oil is also useful for blends that intend to boost/strengthen mental abilities (it also helps with fertility magic and given the lyrical content at times- seems somewhat fitting) another useful aspect for a ritual for sleep. i do like the vibes of olive oil as well, and it’s a very versatile ingredient but i don’t think i’d like feeling it on my skin so grapeseed it is! (also my local magick shop has grapeseed oil so easy for me to obtain lol)

now the fun part- the essential oils!

(i’m realizing as i write this that i need to purchase a grimoire so i can start recording my research and recipes…)

so this part has taken me a lot longer to fiddle with, not only finding the right associations but also smells i enjoy, but i think I’ve got it!

- sandalwood (its grounding, promotes inner peace, aphrodisiac) [i went back and forth here between sandalwood and cedar, same associations but i prefer the scent of sandalwood]

- lavender (promotes sleep, reduces stress, pretty straightforward lol)

- patchouli (grounding, sharpens your wit, good for prayer work) [loooove the smell too, i’d do anything to naturally smell like patchouli lol, hippy association be damned]

- mugwort (astral projection, lucid/prophetic dreams, meditation)

- lemon balm (love, healing, astral projection, it also amplifies the effects of other herbs)

- clary sage (vivid dreams, divination)

i keep going back and forth on whether or not to add clove, it’s another aphrodisiac and also good for treating insomnia so i think it would fit? but i’m not 100% sure on it yet lol. my familiarity with essential oils and herbs is very minimal

but yeah! now to get the oils and mix. not sure exactly how the mix will come about, will need some trial and error with it i think! again, sorry this took me so long but here we are! finally i did it!

[fleshengine]

It’s like… did SU get more hate than it deserved? Yes. Did SU deserve some hate? Also yes. I don’t think anyone is holding it on a pedestal anymore, every single SU fan I know from back in the fandom acknowledges that it’s flawed but still enjoys it for what it is. Ultimately, it’s a kid’s show, not even YA or whatever. Framing all of your issues with it like just any other media is a bad faith argument because you don’t take into account the ideological framework the show is working in. I’ll take one aspect for example, the forgiveness of the diamonds. A lot of people say it’s monarchist and genocide forgiveness and whatever the fuck. And like yeah. If you just examine the show as a plain text, that is what happens. But SU isn’t a show about genocide and monarchs, it’s a kid’s show about family and how we can hurt each other. Yeah there’s a dramatic story and it’s cool to imagine how it could’ve been different , but the diamonds are stand ins for your grandparents, not allegories for real world atrocities. There’s an argument to be made that all media is inherently political, and it doesn’t take txttletale to pull meaning from kid’s shows. But I think it’s infinitely more productive to look at what the crewniverse intended in their messaging.

[bomberqueen17]

plato’s allegory of the fucking sunrise

I woke irrevocably at 4:05 this morning, with no cat intervention, and I was happy enough to lie there and rest, as I’ve found that can help me from getting too sleep-deprived in situations like that, but then I started thinking about Current Events so whoooo ok I got out of bed then.

(So! Many! Innocent! People! Are Getting! Hurt! *sobs*)

Anyway. So my original plan was that I was gonna get my next chapter up on Friday like my old schedule was, but then the chapter wasn’t done, so then I was like fine I’ll finish it over the weekend and do it Monday, and somehow? despite me working on it? for kind of a while? it didn’t write the rest of itself! Shocked and upset.

So anyway I worked on it *quite* a bit on Monday and to my dismay it is still not done. Come on I wrote like a bunch! How come I couldn’t find the end of the scene? I even know what happens. C’mon can’t I just like-- come on fill yourself in the rest of the way all we’ve got left is the-- oh.

oh the sex scene. C’mon that’ll take like. no time. No worries.

Ha. Anyway. I did get a bunch more done on that. Normally when I wake early in the morning I just get ready and go in to work. But I could not actually leave the house before 5am that would be actually insane. So I sat at Dude’s work desk and looked at my computer, and after a moment I heard a noise behind me and realized, there in the dark, Chita had been asleep on the guest-bed in that room, and she had seen me there and started purring. So she came and head-bonked with me for a while, and then crawled into my arms so she could get kisses while I kept working. (I lost circulation in one arm, where she had her little paws carefully draped over the crook of my elbow, but it was a very small price to pay.)

And yet the scene still isn’t done, so. I can’t put it up today either, likely. (Somehow I have outstripped my poor betas, despite this crawling agonizing slow progress. Yes, I just have betas read the live doc, we live on the edge. Mostly it’s that they’re saints. Yes, I went un-edited for years, and it worked out sort of okay, but I never managed anything this long before. Shit eventually stacks up, where you thought you said something you didn’t, and then the thing doesn’t hold together, is my working theory. I don’t know, but I’m off the edge here.)

I’ve done all the hard parts. But. Yeah probably I need to do a sex scene here. It’s already almost 5k long so it won’t be a long one. But it’s-- that’s maybe the worst part, it’s not even like this is a long chapter, it’s just taking me for fucking ever. But if I finish this story, then we’re solidly in the I-already-wrote-this phase and I could make faster progress, probably.

Ha I can’t even bitch that if I don’t post I get no comint, there’s someone doing a reread of the entire Meet Death Sitting series leaving me paragraph-long comments on every fucking chapter, and this person is a hero or possibly a saint, am beginning my petitions for canonization even as I struggle to focus my eyes on an entire analytical essay in my inbox when I first wake up-- bless you, darling, I did intend that character point but I had not until this moment noticed the underlying theme.

Also. Like. if you aren’t subscribed, sassaffrass/ @cacheth has been updating inclusions and I kind of mostly just keep looking at the pretty pictures. Also boner jokes.

Anyway my mood is real shitty but it’s not because of this, it’s because I’m at work and I’ve just noticed a reflection on the wall in the other room outside the windowless one I sit in, and I’ve confirmed it’s the light from a very pretty sunrise I can in no way see any of, and I can’t see the sky or anything of the outdoors and I live in this fluorescent hell and it’s too cold in here and the VHS transfer is making annoying fucking noises and I’ve been freezing since I woke up so everything seems very bad.

But actually the writing is going well. Just, slower than I want. And I’m not beating myself up over that, it’s just that everything else is beating me up.

[ponett]

hi i watched the new my little pony movie and it was... pretty good! it was very cute, i like the new cast a lot, there were some nice heartfelt moments that had some surprising depth, all the locations were really pretty to look at, the poppy musical numbers were fun, the character animation is really lively. it's a solid little fantasy adventure flick for kids. i do have mixed feelings about the story though. here are some casual-ish thoughts. (i posted some of this on twitter last night but i have even more thoughts now. i'm sorry. i'm so sorry)

spoilers below the cut

okay so, i liked it a lot when it was just letting the new characters play off each other, but unfortunately my fears came true and almost the entire movie is laser focused on the oversimplified extremely on-the-nose trump era racism allegory plot. i do have to cut it some slack for their good intentions, and this is a 90 minute animated movie for 5-year-olds, so there's only so much they can do. it did also have a bit more nuance than i expected at points. (it's more nuanced than zootopia, for what it's worth. not that that's hard.) and hell, friendship is magic also screwed up its attempts at similar topics, and y'all know how much i still love that show. so it's not like i hate this movie. but it has such an oversimplified "we should all be friends!" take on real issues, and it frustrates me that it completely dominates the film, being the main focus of almost every single scene

there's some interesting stuff where they show how those in power are stoking peoples' fears to maintain their own power. like the big factory in the earth pony town is essentially an arms manufacturer capitalizing on the fear of outsiders, the cops mainly exist to uphold the laws segregating the ponies, the pegasus royal family pretends they still have the ability to fly and this lie seems to be the only reason they're in power (the queen literally gets arrested the second the truth comes out lol). but then they all just kind of... see the error of their ways shortly after meeting other types of pony, and there are no repercussions? not saying this toy commercial cartoon for little girls needs to fuckin kill the bad guys or throw them in jail or whatever, but we don't even get like a "they made them turn the arms factory into something else" type resolution, and no one even really acknowledges that these characters did anything wrong. no one is considered an oppressor, the movie takes for granted that these people in power who derive their power from bigotry were just misguided, and that they'll totally change their beliefs as soon as they're presented with new information. society is fundamentally unjust, but none of the individuals maintaining that unjust status quo are at fault for doing so

i also don't know if it's a good or bad thing that there's no explanation for why the ponies hate each other now. like on the one hand at least there's no historical backstory that inadvertently justifies the prejudices (like zootopia and its story about how the predators used to eat the prey). but on the other hand... how the hell did they get from g4 to here in the intervening centuries? at my most uncharitable it feels like this whole story about how equestria used to be this land where everyone got along and now everyone is divided is a heavy-handed metaphor for The Sudden Division Of America In The Trump Era as it's perceived by a lot of liberals. history didn't logically lead us to this point, no one is really at fault, everyone just arbitrarily started hating each other at some point and we just all need to put that aside and get along again. it's almost the FiM episode about how the cowboys and the natives should just learn to share all over again. (again: i will admit this is an uncharitable read of the film)

(sidebar with BIG SPOILERS: the very end also really bugged me, but that's more just a personal taste thing. in the leadup to g5 i was excited to see them make an earth pony the protagonist. i thought that was a nice change of pace after nine seasons of twilight. but then in the end of the movie, after sunny delivers the moral, she's magically turned into an alicorn... like oh we're just doing that again huh. okay. it also doesn't really gel with this story where the different types of pony are being used for a racism/xenophobia allegory)

i feel a little bad hyper-focusing on the way the allegory falls apart like this, but like. the allegory is the entire fucking movie lol. they are constantly talking about it in every scene, the first song mentions "building a wall," the main antagonist (who may or may not be intended to evoke trump???) manipulates the earth ponies' prejudices to make them all go full fascist, etc. it is not subtle. of course, this story isn't ALL bad - the adventures along the way were fun, i was relieved when everyone realized that the macguffin wouldn't magically make everyone get along again (although realizing this DOES make the macguffin restore everyone's magic which seems to mostly fix everything, so... lol), and a message about looking past stereotypes and misinformation to befriend people who are different from you definitely isn't a bad one for a kids' film. and obviously a story with this target demographic is ALWAYS going to have to simplify reality a bit. it's just extremely obvious that they wanted to go for a nuanced topical political story that would surprise the parents in the audience and maybe teach kids a thing or two, and it turned out messy

but again, i liked the characters. it was nice to look at. it was cute. i'll gladly watch a new show with these characters. i hope the inevitable show focuses less on this political allegory though lol

anyway there's a shot of fluttershy and rainbow dash in the opening scene so 10/10

[demons-fanatic]

Luca: Fish out of Water

Hi guys, this is going to go over the literal entire movie so if you haven't seen the movie... Don't go below!

This post will be a full film analysis of Pixar's new movie, Luca and how it is clearly a Queer Allegory more than anything else.

Disclaimer: This entire post uses Queer in a reclaimed sense, especially in a sense for the entire community. If you do not like that, sorry.

So... Fish People. Luca is a 2021 Film by Pixar and distributed by Disney on Disney+. Unsurprisingly, I did not watch Luca legally and do not ever plan to, I will never give money to a homophobic tyrant such as Disney... Ever. But, I do love this Movie.

So, first things first... Does this Movie really have that much Queer subtext? Yes, it does. It really does and I think it'd be impossible to deny it. According to the Director, the intention was not to be a strictly LGBT reading, as it is just a film about people who are different. Which is true, that's exactly what this movie is about. But with certain key events and even phrases, I find it so hard for the intent not being Queer people specifically.

TL;DR Plot:

The Plot of Luca surrounds the titular Character and his friend, Alberto as they manage to explore the Surface World. Luca and Alberto are Fish People who are also able to transform into Humans once they dry off on Land. This is called "The Change" and it's unclear why this happens.

The Movie starts with Luca going to the surface and meeting Alberto, a fellow Fish Person. They begin to dream about getting a Vespa, or a Motor Scooter. Soon, Luca gets discovered by his Parents for going to the Surface and is almost sent away to the Deep Sea. He leaves and him and Alberto reach Portorossa, a town in the Italian riviera. A town that is very Anti-Fish People.

There, they meet a brattish teenager named Ercole and a younger girl named Giulia. Alberto and Luca learn about a Triathlon event in the town that will net them some money to buy a Vespa.

Giulia introduces the boys to her Father, Massimo; who is very Anti-Fish People.

They boys train and Luca's parents come to search for him. During this time, Alberto during a training session goes awry with the bike and ends up crashing into the Sea with Luca alongside him. They make it but due to a building upset nature, Alberto reveals himself but to his surprise, Luca acts like he didn't know about Alberto's nature. Leaving Alberto to leave back to his tower.

After feeling bad, Luca visits Alberto to apologize but Alberto is too upset to accept much. Luca proclaims he'll win the race to win the Vespa and the next morning he starts the Triathlon slow but builds up in performance. During this, it starts to rain. At the top of a hill, Alberto calls out to Luca but is forced to reveal himself. Luca overcomes his fear and saves Alberto and wins the race.

Though, their identities are found out, Massimo, who has grown attached to Alberto, is accepting of them and so does the town. This creates a welcoming Fish Person Environment in the town and it's also revealed not everyone who appeared human in the town was either.

Finally, Giulia is forced to go back to School, but it turns out Alberto sold the Vespa to buy a Train Ticket so Luca can go to School as he previously expressed interest in. Massimo also practically adopts Alberto. The boys embrace each other in a very impactful event and don't stop looking at each other until they get far away.

The Allegory...

So, there is a lot of detail I left out in that description but on purpose, of course. In this part I'll be detailing all of the parts that allude to Queer allegory and what it means. Of course, most people can think on their own but this is just here to describe the parts of it that stand out.

Firstly, Fish People are obviously just the LGBT community. I mean, people who have to hide their identity out of fear, especially in a fear of being killed? It's basically staring you in the face. Fish People are able to turn into Humans, which is when LGBT members have to blend in. The two Women at the end are sort of the example of LGBT members who have fully assimilated into normal Society, especially in a Homophobic or Transphobic environment or "Comphet" and being Closeted. I personally can identify with this one. Other characters like the Grandmother can be examples of LGBT people who are comfortable enough they don't feel the need to hide but also understand living is better than dying, but have "fun" with it.

Massimo is definitely an example of the Homophobes or Transphobes who wholly make it their entire personality to hate on Gay People or Transgender People but they're actually exactly like that or one of them. Of course, Massimo isn't a Fish Person but soon after it's shown in the Credits he immediately becomes very accepting especially after having to confront with himself the person he found himself attached to like his own Child, was what he once hated.

Giulia is just an example of an Ally, someone who may not be LGBT but fully supports them. Most people if they hear about how bad something is their entire life will be afraid once first faced with it but she almost immediately becomes accepting after learning Luca is also a Fish Person, trying to protect him.

The Betrayal of Luca to Alberto is a good example of internalized Homophobia and fear of also being found out. As I will describe later, Luca and Alberto are a CLEAR example of a Queer Romantic Relationship. When Alberto reveals himself, Luca found himself in a situation of extreme pressure and anxiety. He just found a life he could be potentially be living and instead of revealing himself as a Fish Person(Queer...) he instead "plays it safe" as he sees it in his mind and acts like he had no idea Alberto was a Fish Person(Queer, again...). It's something that does happen in real life, unfortunately, being outed or having people just like you, reject you, even if they are exactly like you.

The Parents of Luca are representative of Closeted People and the fear that if you out yourself, you can at any point be rejected to the point of even death. It's this fear the perpetually stagnates and personal growth. Of course, in real life there really are situations where you cannot come out for decades in fear of the same thing. And it's not like his(Luca's) parents had a reason not the fear the same.

Ercole, obviously just represents a full homophobe or transphobe. Someone who is unwilling to change and will continue to be homophobic and never question himself even when people near him are accepting. He also represents the power someone who is homophobic may have. Even if the other people who he influences aren't homophobic or transphobic.

This one is a bit rocky, but the Vespa is possible an allegory for the idealized "Vehicle" of escape... If you've seen Adolescence of Utena, it's the exact same thing. However, in this one this Vehicle is achieved but then lost, willingly. It becomes a Vehicle still in the way that it helps Alberto and Luca in their lives, finding their own Paths. It helps them both in the beginning to realize a goal of escape or betterment then near the end kicks off Luca's path and Alberto's.

Lastly, we have Luca and Alberto themselves... Now, as I said before, they are a clear representation of a Queer Relationship, specifically a Gay Relationship. You can interpret it as a Platonic Relationship, but I do it in the romantic Sense. Yes, I am aware the boys never confess ever or do anything very romantic, like kissing or holding hands. But throughout the movie, it's clear, very clear. They start out with Luca become attracted to his ideals and his mission and both of them soon form a Mission where they want to do the Vehicle of escape as I just mentioned. Soon after almost being sent away, Alberto and Luca go to Portorossa together and continue to build their relationship. Alberto and Luca defend each other and obviously care about each other. Soon after, Giulia and Luca grow a closer bond but nothing as close as Luca and Alberto. It's obvious that Alberto really likes Luca. Like, really obvious because this goes on until Alberto crashes him and Luca into the Sea and then the betrayal scene happens. During that scene it's clear that Alberto is extremely hurt, like really hurt. It reminds him that not only is he the "Bad" one in his head, the only person he thought he cared for(or loved) would willing to betray(out) him so that he can assimilate safely into Human(Heterosexual) culture. It definitely makes him feel bad and revert a bit back into a lone wolf mindset. Nearing the end, Alberto comes back nearing the end of the race with an Umbrella to help Luca win. But he ends up being tripped and revealed as a Fish Person. This is definitely just forced outing, it's quite obvious. But then Luca overcomes his fears and basically dreams of a normal life to safe his Friend(or Boyfriend, whichever you want). Luckily for them, due to Massimo seeing how much of a good person Alberto is, instead of attacking the boys, he accepts them as he realizes they're nothing like he thought. On the movies' downside, the town does fortunately accept the boys and all the Fish People. This isn't really realistic in any sense but, it does just explain a theory of mass acceptance if one let goes of their prejudice. The Grandmother in the following scene also explains a perfect Queer-like line:

"Some people will accept him, some never will. But he knows how to find the good ones." (Not an exact quote...)

I think to anyone who is in a marginalized group, specifically LGBT for this case, will relate to this line. It's very basic, but means a lot. It's also a strong reason why I feel like despite everything officially said, with everything else, this IS a Queer intended allegory.

Finally, the end scene at the Train is a good one and explains how Alberto and Luca after finding themselves and growing as people, they find their own way and are happy about it. Alberto and Luca hug, devastated at the fact they have to leave each other, even temporarily. It's sad and very real. Leaving your lover even for the betterment of yourself is extremely heartbreaking and you don't think you can do it at first, especially if you've been through a lot together.

Final Thoughts

So, I know I am not the only one that has seen everything I just said. In fact, the film's popularity right now seems to be exactly because of that. Not to mention the Movie's visuals are fantastic as well as the music.

You don't have to view this as a Queer reading, but I find it almost impossible not to and I, again, am not the only one. You can view it as basically any marginalized group, especially the ones that have to keep their identity hidden. I do think it's great this movie can bring a good allegory and subtext about a possible Gay MLM Relationship even if unintentional. I know Disney would not allow it, but I hope in the planned sequels they do a bit more of subtext. Of course, not to the point of Queerbait. But, we'll see. I think that Pixar has an amazing opportunity to try and slip by the censors... But probably not. It is good, though, that the director openly accepts a Queer Reading, so we're not left in the dark with someone trying to deny all Queerness.

_________

If you read this, thanks! I might update this post with more or edit it to clear things up. If you want to follow me, go ahead. But I just normally do Soulsborne lore posts so you won't find much here. I am not a Pixar or Disney person either, I just did this so I can talk about gay fish.

[hatchetfieldtheories]

Return to Hatchetfield-Town – The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals Part 1

Alright settle down kiddos. Get comfy, find a warm blanket and hug your favourite fwendy-wend as we start our Return to Hatchetfield-Town series.

I’ll be rewatching all the Hatchetfield scripted content (i.e. not livestreams or interviews) and jotting down what happens, explaining some concepts and delving into some of the key theories in the series (and using the word “implications” that often it will cease to have meaning).

Even though I’ll be doing the rewatch by show in order they came out, there will be spoilers for all Hatchetfield content that is available as of the rewatch.  

I’ve also linked to a number of other blog’s theories here because they are amazing, but if you aren’t happy with your theory being included I will be more than happy to remove it!  Just let me know.

[Part 2]

The Guy Who Really Hated Brigadoon

TGWDLM starts off with the greatest song ever to feature dancing zombies… at least I can’t think of any other notable ones.

In the title song, the cast of singing and dancing zombies explain to us that all great stories have to have a hero, someone who knows right and wrong and that the best way to do this is through singing and dancing in musicals.  This with the later line of “they evoke the philosophical” make me think that Pokey took a class in Campbell’s Hero Myth in College and became that guy.

Hatchetfield Challenge: try not to shrug your shoulders along with the music at the chorus. Its impossible. No wonder the Hive spread so quickly.  Literally killer dance moves.

So then they introduce us to an awful Grinch named Paul and we hit the first point in the show where I laugh out loud every single time I watch.

I know TGWDLM was not originally intended to be the first Hatchetfield show but starting this series with a song which sets up the story so well is truly spectacular.   And is there anything more Starkid than introducing your main character by having other characters sing about how awful they are?

One thing I have noticed while writing, reading and collating Hatchetfield theories is that while most Black Friday and Nightmare Time theories are usually about the overall Hatchetfield lore, most TGWDLM theories are usually quite self-contained and focused on this one show.  TGWDLM – while so fully within the Hatchetfield extended universe, is definitely the show that can best stand-alone without the others.

It’s the end of the world, Paul

If you don’t sing

This is the bridge, Paul

Where we globalize everything

And the words will come to you

We swear we will teach you

What it means to love

What it means to obey, Paul!

On a first watch this is very funny.  On your 10th watch this is terrifying.

CCRP Technical: No-one here knows how to use their printer

Following the absolute bop of a title song we find ourselves in CCRP Technical and all feels very… normal. It’s very weird following all the revelations in subsequent Hatchetfield media, to be watching a show where there was genuinely nothing obviously fishy about CCRP.  We’ll obviously discuss CCRP more when we get to Nightmare Time, but for now all we know is that Paul works in the technical department of CCRP – an unknown corporation, with some key characters, Charlotte, Bill and Ted.

We also find out more about Grinch Paul’s personality and honestly, Paul is me pre-pandemic just outright avoiding social interactions and suddenly going for coffee in the middle of the work day. (I have become a changed woman in lockdown – someone please invite me somewhere… anywhere!)

For all the dark humour and death in the Hatchetfield series, Starkid do know how to bring the joy – I love how excited the town of Hatchetfield are for a touring production of Mamma Mia.  

Fake Fact: TGWDLM is actually an allegory for Europe in the 1970s, when we all became mind-controlled by Abba’s Waterloo.  (Find me a better explanation for Eurovision, I dare you!  The sequins were just too shiny!)

“The idea of sitting there… trapped in a musical.  That is my own personal hell.”

Two words: Emma Perkins – need I explain any more?  

Ah Hot Chocolate Boy.  I really look forward to finding out more about him.  Where does he come from?  He just appears out of the ether. What’s his story?  How old is he? How many hot chocolates does he have per day? I know we have since had some confirmation on who he is, but they raise more questions than answers. For now I will just point you to a gorgeous Mood Board by @hatchetfieldmoodboards which features a bit of a spoiler. 

For real though – is it just me who would love a full version of “I’ve been brewing up your coffee”?

Hatchetfield Challenge: Try not to sing “Shut the f*ck up” along with Emma.

“Watching people sing and dance makes me very uncomfortable”- oh boy Paul… you’re not going to enjoy the next hour and 40 minutes.  Also, Paul, you’re making me uncomfortable watching you throw your brand new coffee around as if you’ve just been given an empty cup.  There’s imaginary coffee everywhere.  Hopefully, HCB won’t slip on it before it’s cleaned up… he’s already having a bad day.

“Thunder and Lightning… very very frightening.  But a big rock hurtling through the clouds is no biggie.” – all the residents of Hatchetfield apparently.

The next sequence happens so fast and we get introduced to a lot of characters.  Notably Greenpeace Girl, Alice and Deb, Sam, and Hidgens (though we don’t find out his name until much later). This scene impresses me because they do such a great job of very quickly bringing out so many characters who nonetheless are memorable when they return later in the show.

Peanuts the Hatchetfield Pocket Squirrel is an Eldritch Being. I won’t go into Peanuts theories here as that could be a whole post in itself – and many a person more brilliant than I have written some fantastic theories on this. You can learn all about how a Squirrel took over the fandom in the following posts:

@dahlialupine : x

@frombothofmyhearts​: x

@abiimaryy​: x

And finally mine which is definitely a serious theory: x

It’s… A… Musical!

Now to remember we are actually watching a musical.  La Dee Da Da Day is such a happy joyful song performed spectacularly by a throng of the undead.

The song is about the Hive singing about how much of a great time they are having now they are tap-dancing zombies, and trying to find ways to convince Paul he should join them too. So the grins on all their faces are not at all terrifying.

 It’s worth noting also that according to the laws of the TGWDLM world, only those infected by the Hive can hear the music in the background.  This becomes important later when it becomes clear some characters have started being infected before they are fully turned into zombies, but for now it just paints quite a funny picture of what Paul must be witnessing. I definitely think for him, this whole scene just sounds like this clip of Greased Lightning without the music: x

The important thing here however, besides Mariah’s singing, is that the Hive leave Paul alone.  They don’t actually attempt to turn him at this point.  I have a theory on the implications of this, but note this has big spoilers for the end of the show and Black Friday.  It was written before we knew that the Hive (Pokey) was related to Wiggly but the content still stands: x

Charlotte, Honey, you don’t need that much sugar – you’re sweet enough

For reference:

@melchron​  noted that the lyrics for La Dee Dah sound very similar to the incantation for soul transferal read out in Jane’s a Car, which leads me to two possible implications.

The Freaky Furbies have a language other than English that they use for their incantations so this is why they sound similar.

There is soul transference happening to the souls of the bodies the Hive take over.

Or it’s just Starkid using similar sounding words for their content…. Three! There are three possible implications…

Paul – just print off another copy of the report

From this point on the musical numbers really do come thick and fast.  We move on to the first instance of Jeff Blim encouraging Paul to talk about his feelings, which I am sure is not important and isn’t worth discussing.  Paul goes through a musical rendition of a promotion interview, which is actually the Hive attempting to find out if he will be the “hero” of their story.  They picked out Paul for the role from the start. That he was chosen was inevitable.

What do you see for this company? I'm looking for someone with strong ambition Someone to sell their specific vision Someone to share with precise precision their thoughts 'Cause I want you to want…To want

So it turns out these will be looooong, so I will end here and see you in part 2!  I’m not sure yet what the upload frequency will be.  It takes quite a while to go through the show like this but it is a lot of fun!

Hatchetfield High Homework:

Where do you stand on the Peanuts the Hatchetfield Pocket Squirrel debate?

Why do you think that the Soul Transference Spell and La Dee Dah sound so similar?

Go follow all the lovely people mentioned in this post!

Bonus points if you know the reference in the post title.

[Part 2]

[aflyingcontradiction]

The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 164 - The Sick Village

They know in the guts of them this sickness has come from outside, that it is those from beyond the village that have done this to them. They brought it here, they whisper to each other (...) They couldn’t leave us well enough alone. They wanted what we have, our perfect peaceful life, and so they dragged their sickness here and damned us all.

Okay, yeah, this is NOT subtle. Gotta commend Johnny for skillfully combining the fear of disease with xenophobia, as it so frequently is in real life.

And people do still come to the village, for however thick the paranoia, however terrible the disease, there are worse things beyond. They are stopped, of course. Beaten and stripped and checked head to toe for any sign of infection. The village council sees to that. Most are uncontaminated, though that does little to save them

And here we've got the obvious (but still rather hard-hitting) refugee allegory.

A few are spared brutality, and treated with such cordial politeness you must have thought their inquisitors old friends. Though there seems on the surface no rhyme to such decisions, were you to look below their coats, you might see the patterns of their mold were matched.

Yeah, Johnny saw a theme that connected well with the Corruption and he ran with it. I'm actually rather impressed.

And the maypole watches over all.

I know this isn't necessarily intended to be taken literally, but this domain has such a strong aftertaste of the Eye (the constant watching and judging of neighbours by neighbours) that having the village set up as a small reflection of the Panopticon actually makes sense.

Their masks are blue and red and white

Okay, I see what you did there, but I think this line is genuinely a little TOO on the nose. Like "for those in the audience who still haven't figured out the allegory..."

Martin: What’s my middle name? Jon: Y– You don’t have one! (...) You – I actually believed you! “That’s ridiculous,” I thought, “That’s not a real name, but he wouldn’t lie to me.”

I wanna know what Martin claimed his middle name was now!

Jon: That’s – weird; I – I know the Web was wrapped around that phone, but, but I can’t – see her. A, At all.

Cause Annabelle's off chilling at Salesa's place.

Jon: I’ll be honest, I’m starting to feel a bit – self-conscious being a post-apocalyptic Google?

The phrase "post-apocalyptic Google" made me giggle so hard on my first listen.

Helen (very pleasantly): Hello, Jon!

I am rather fond of the Distortion in both of its "personas" so the return of Helen was an "Aw, yis!" moment for me.

Helen: Oh! I thought you’d know everything by this point. Jon: Yes, I suppose I do. Martin: And I don’t! So, care to enlighten me?

Oh god, now THAT is relatable. I loathe it when people in a conversation I'm in start sharing private little jokes and references and refuse to elaborate! Be cryptic on your own time!

Helen: What about hypotheticals? If they had known, what would they have done?

Ooh, Helen is WAY too good at her job...

Martin: Two, I know you can take two people at once.

I'm sorry but hehehehe

Helen: Just taking a moment to look. You two are just such an adorable couple –

Ooh, she ships it so hard!

Martin: Maybe she’s right! Jon: I am not, nor have I ever been, “adorable.” Martin: Okay, not true.

I'm not sure I'm as into Jon/Martin as some, but they really do have their adorable moments.

My impression of this episode

Well, this certainly hits differently when you listen to it in the middle of a global pandemic. Mind, I feel like, despite this being a domain of the Corruption (and having a whoooole lot of Corruption grossness in it), fear of illness and decay isn't even the main focus of this episode. It's fear of the other and of being othered, hence the immigration allegory. The brief "So how does this all work now?" conversation Jon and Martin have was not uninteresting and then there is, of course, the return of Distortion!Helen who, as I said above, is delightfully creepy. (Still prefer Michael, but the bar is high.)

[nadiapym]

Real Cost Ads violate YTs guidelines

okay so first off its 4am so apologizes for getting pressed abt the weirdest shit at the weirdest times but not really bc im right but anyway, you know those ‘the real cost’ ads that you see all the time on youtube? (if youre within the target audience) the really gross and gory ones that contain shit like (gore tw) baths of wormy blood, people ripping off their own skin/pulling out their own teeth to pay for cigarettes, being handed their own rotting gums and okay you get the idea if you know you know

those ads? ...are in direct violation of youtube’s very own community guidelines.

(and the target audience is minors/teen no less, which is especially gross considering what some of the ads show)

so, onto the specific guidelines the ads are violating:

suicide and self injury:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802245?hl=en&ref_topic=9282679

“ At YouTube, we take the health and well-being of all our creators and viewers seriously. Awareness and understanding of mental health is important and we support creators sharing their stories, such as posting content discussing their experiences with depression, self-harm, or other mental health issues.

“ We do not, however, allow content on YouTube that promotes suicide, self-harm, or is intended to shock or disgust users. “

remember the ripping off skin/pulling out teeth? yeah

didn’t they say they had a policy against self harm for shock value’s sake?

now, onto the next.

violent or graphic content:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802008?hl=en&ref_topic=9282436

given that you’ve read this far and likely seen these ads yourself, i don’t need to explain why this applies, so i’ll just cite some specifics

“Footage, audio, or imagery involving road accidents, natural disasters, war aftermath, terrorist attack aftermath, street fights, physical attacks, sexual assaults, immolation, torture, corpses, protests or riots, robberies, medical procedures, or other such scenarios with the intent to shock or disgust viewers.“

oh and would you look at this

https://www.marketingweek.com/government-pushes-boundaries-again-with-disgusting-anti-smoking-ad/

“ Sheila Mitchell, PHE’s marketing director, told Marketing Week: “ [‘We asked ourselves] ‘How far can we push it?’ And that’s what we’re looking at for this one as it is pretty disgusting.

“ “What we try to do is not shock but prompt what we call pavlovian disgust. It’s about communicating that every cigarette coming out the packet prompts thoughts of gunge and disgust. “ “

they’re literally admitting it themselves (also, “what we try not to do is shock”. really? what about those ‘only 1 in 4 teens will be able to escape smoking’ ads? theyre gorefests that dont even teach you anything except repeatedly hitting you in the head with ‘only 1 in 4 teens will escape smoking!!’, a point which could’ve been made many others ways. and the ends don’t justify the means, especially when the means can be so easily avoided)

and here’s some things that will get you age restricted (meaning that teens wont be allowed to watch your video) but are plentiful in real cost ads (which are, by the way, directed at teenagers?? hello??)

“Whether violent or gory imagery is the focus of the video, such as focusing solely on the most graphically violent part of a film or video game”

“The amount of time the violent images or audio is in the content (these are often unskippable, 15 second ads.)”

and the final flat out guideline violation

“Medical procedure footage where the content focuses on open wounds and provides no education or explanation to viewers.“ (you can argue that they get a pass on this one because they say smoking causes it, but there’s no education and just blaming smoking, though accurate, isn’t helpful. everyone knows smoking is bad)

these ads should not be allowed on youtube. youtube itself has made these rules. they’ve dug their grave, they can lie in it.

and all of this without even mentioning how triggering the content in these ads (self harm, abusive relationship allegories, the general gore and quick) could be for people with trauma. theres a bit more on that in here

https://www.change.org/p/the-real-cost-remove-offensive-and-triggering-commercials-from-air

and all of that goes without mentioning how easily it would be for a young child to see this content and be traumatized. they don’t need to have an account, someone could just be showing them a video and then bam. real cost ad. and don’t even get me started on the fact that its on some tv channels too apparently

https://freakonomics.com/2007/09/07/the-power-of-disgusting-advertising/

so you can read a bit on how that can affect kids (short term, at least) there

i dont doubt that theres more but its like 5 and im tired so im just going to leave this as it is for now. i said what i wanted to

i don’t support smoking. it’s terrible (and everyone knows that)

i’m on board with the fda trying to discourage youth smoking, but i’m having doubts as to whether or not they actually care about the youth they claim they’re trying to protect

oh, and one for the road

https://theweek.com/articles/799437/antismoking-ads-traumatized-life

[windstorm64]

Attack on Discourse I Guess

I swear to god if I see one more post on tumblr dot com saying that Attack on Titan is “pro-fascism” or “pro-imperialism” I’m gonna lose my freaking...

*deep breath*

Listen, I absolutely want people to be critical of the media they consume, especially from Japan. Due to their role in WW2 and their glorification of past military actions from their conservative side, there’s a lot of Japanese media that contains themes and imagery that would (ideally) not at all fly in the west. Sometimes it’s harmless, being simply misguided, other times it’s bad, containing some pretty horrific subtext regardless of the author's actual intention. Attack on Titan absolutely does contain themes of imperialism, xenophobia, propaganda, extreme nationalism, and more. But the all important distinction here is that Attack on Titan does it

with.

a.

purpose.

It’s NOT condoning them. Just like how Lolita isn’t promoting pedophilia, or the clockwork orange isnt promoting whatever the heck that movie is about, simply having these themes present in your story does not mean they are being condoned.

Do I blame people for not understanding that at first? No. AoT takes its sweet time when developing its themes, and is constantly overturning what you thought you knew about its worldviews. That’s just the kind of story it is. It will go incredibly into detail about a plethora of opposing views, some being downright deplorable, and takes extra care to make them all look inviting and sweet. You don’t realize it at the time, but what seems to be the only right answer at the time is secretly ushering in the worst that man can muster. That’s how it is in real life. That’s how these evils get into real society; “with thunderous applause”. The difference here is that AoT, even if it takes 100 chapters to do so, slowly but surely will overturn all these themes and let the right way show itself over the course of the series. It doesn’t hold your hand, it doesn’t sugarcoat it, and I’ll even admit that I was a little nervous during some parts over what exactly the author was trying to say, but every single time Isayama chose to let the reader decide what was right in the moment, until AoT’s own in-universe marketplace of ideas eventually worked as intended and snuffed out the unsavory.

Does that mean you personally have to enjoy seeing it? No. The marketplace of ideas approach often does not work in real life (punching nazis is good) and seeing it used in fiction might not be your cup of tea.

Does that mean I think all of its themes are handled well or tactfully? Absolutely not. There are some stories that I think are handled VERY poorly, with the redemption of Magath’s character, for example, being downright horrendous. But those aren’t the complaints I hear from you people. All I hear are the same tired arguments that have been countered in-universe time and time again.

You think the survey corps are an allegory promoting imperialism? Then you’ll love the part where the real villains are revealed to be actual greedy governments invading foreign lands to oppress and murder the populace and steal valuable resources. And how the main characters, in-turn to learning that there’s more people out there in the world, switch their goals from expanding their territory to understanding and allying with the outside population.

The titans represent xenophobia? Then you’ll love the internal conflicts of the main cast when they realize that the titans are just like them, and the constant struggle thereafter against the prejudiced countries outside the walls who seek to punish them for their ethnicity.

Nationalism? Propaganda? The story has just spent the better part of 2 arcs displaying just how evil, dangerous, and reality-warping these things can be.

Fascism? Y’all’s favorite arc would probably be the one where the main cast literally overthrows their own corrupt fascist government because it was, in fact, fascist and corrupt.

German influences glorify nazism? Germany does not equal nazi. The author is clearly a fan of all parts of German history, and is a fan of war memorabilia in general (which admittedly becomes pretty risky when looking through the lens of conservative Japan’s notoriously glorified WW2 outlook), but nothing about it supports Nazism, or any of their ideals. Misguided? Perhaps, I can’t say I’m a fan. But it doesn’t denote anything about the author's character that we can reasonably glean. Eventually the true villains of Aot were given clear similarities to Nazis, clarifying Isayama's true moral priorities.

And before any of y’all start trying to point out what the author said in the past- I KNOW what the author has said. Or rather, what he was rumored to have said. But even if the rumors are true, and that shitty ignorant take on Twitter about Japan and Korea was from him, it's 100% the kind of thing that can be called out and learned from. The tweet was like, what? 10 years ago? Maybe more? Even if it was him he has clearly been educated on the deeper implications of his statement, as evidenced by the way these themes are handled in his story. Attack on Titan directly condemns eugenics on multiple occasions. It tackles it in a surprisingly on-the-nose way too, compared to how the series handled its serious themes prior to that point.

That's why I WANT y’all to be critical of the media you intake. So you CAN call out the glorification of unsavory themes and bring them to the attention of those in charge of them. Because that’s how people learn and grow. That’s how you create an educated populace that understands the implications of the things they create. I am 110% convinced that all these themes were tackled in AoT BECAUSE of all the criticism he got in the past. 10 years is a long time, and we are still getting new developments to this day that challenge the themes introduced in the first couple of chapters. Whether or not these themes were planned to be tackled from the start, or were introduced later on after being called out, is something we’ll probably never know. But please do yourselves a favor and learn what the heck you’re talking about, and the context around it, before going off for years about misguided claims. Don’t cheapen words that should be reserved for the most grievous of behaviors when you really just want to make a point.

Attack on Titan is a brutal nuanced story that shows off the worst that humanity has to offer, and how hard it is to do the right thing in a world where the right thing doesn’t always work. But taking an honest, elongated approach to exploring how these themes interact with humanity and society is NOT the same as promoting it. If you like your stories more black and white, where the good and bad of real world themes are more clearly defined as opposed to AoT’s more nihilistic and gray approach to morality, then by all means go enjoy that other story. I’m not trying to convince anyone to like it. I’m not expecting everyone to enjoy seeing these themes shoved in your face every installment. And I’m certainly not expecting anyone to understand all of this right away, hell I’m constantly arguing with dudebro AoT fans on reddit who are SURPRISED that Armin and the Alliance are taking an anti-genocide stance. And somehow I’m the crazy one for seeing this plot line coming for literal years. There’s simply just a lot more to this story than you can understand at a glance, and I implore anyone who thinks that’s they can simplify the real world themes dealt with here in such a menial way to seriously reconsider.

You are welcome to dislike Attack on Titan. You are more than welcome to criticize it’s possible mismanagement of sensitive real world themes. I am not so enamored by Isayama’s writing to expect a young manga artist to be the forefront of knowledge on such complicated, disturbing topics. But please, cut it out with the crazy claims. I’ve been hearing these things for so many years and it’s all the same. AoT has risen to become one of the most popular anime/manga of the current era. If the story was really as deplorable as you claim it would not have become as popular as it has been. The fans aren’t stupid (well, not all of them. Together, we can beat the reddit dudebros and save the world). This didn’t happen by mistake. The fans aren’t ignorant of the messages it’s sending. Attack on Titan is just... good! Even if I can’t get you to agree with me on that, at least look at it honestly for what it is, and what it’s trying to be. It’s really, really, not at all what you think, or what other tumblr users are trying to get you to believe.

[chaserainbows]

🔥

Send me a “ 🔥 “ for an unpopular opinion.

So to add some context for this one I've dabbled in game design a few years ago and in general been the kind of Pokémon fan that Likes Making Things and looking up fan content pretty much ever since I joined the community, so the conclusion I got from all that is

The typical Pokémon fangame is actually garbage

(Under cut because it'll get long and also because I'm gonna spoil some plot points of Pokémon Reborn and Pokémon Rejuvenation)

First of all, the most common idea behind Pokémon fangames is "the canon games are too easy so I'm gonna make something Harder for The Mature Audience" and you know what? Fair! The difficulty in Pokémon games reached its peak in gen 4 and basically got tossed off a cliff in gen 6, so the idea of a game that actually makes you think is very appealing. However, this causes two main problems:

1) One of the main appeals behind Pokémon games is that you get to choose your own difficulty. Every regional Pokédex has literally over a hundred Pokémon, and while this means you can choose the stronger ones for an easier time and counterpick the main bosses' own teams, it also means you can make many different combinations on the same team and turn each playthrough into a completely different experience.

For example, Pokémon X/Y is typically considered effortless, but it can actually be a pretty tough game if you just... turn off the Exp Share. Likewise, if you think that the game hands you too many overpowered Pokémon too quickly, you can just not use them. There's like 450 Pokémon in Kalos, you don't HAVE to use the starters, the Kanto starters, the gift Lucario, the gift Lapras, an Aegislash or whatever it is if you don't want to. It works for Mega Evolution as well, if you feel like it makes the game trivial you're only forced to use it once. The same is true for literally any other Pokémon game, if you want a bigger challenge you can use traditionally weaker Pokémon, use a monotype team, use unevolved Pokémon, play a Nuzlocke, the possibilities are endless, but if you want a challenge while playing what's basically the game's easy mode then of course you're gonna be bored. And that brings us to our next topic:

2) The average Pokémon fangame dev has no idea how game balance works. Case in point: Pokémon Reborn, which is basically the most famous example of A Pokémon Game For Grown-Ups, With A Grown-Up Plot And A Grown-Up Difficulty, except it's not a hard game, it's an unbalanced one. Most of the challenge comes not from the actual battles requiring a high level of strategy or resources being so scarce that you need to be inventive with them, it comes from the fact that the game is just really inconvenient to play.

I'll prove my point: One of the main aspects from Pokémon Reborn as a game is that Pokémon are hard to find and the really good ones are reserved to the engame, so combined with the fact that the gym leaders and most important bosses have full teams and are fought in terrains that stack the deck against you, you have to get creative if you want to win. This is bullshit, the only thing this restriction really does is that you have to beat the game the way the dev intended (therefore removing the customization aspect of Pokémon altogether) or just find oversights to exploit, like how the Bug-type gym gets bodied by a Vulpix or how the updated version of the Ice-type gym couldn't do anything to a Magnemite, which usually get removed in a future update effectively turning your playthrough illegal. It's not even an impartial process, as Gardevoir trivializes several midgame bosses but never gets pushed back because it's the dev's favorite.

Oh, and you know what I said about terrains? Most of them consist of the bosses' Pokémon getting several buffs just by existing while all their weaknesses get nerfed or outright neutralized, which means two things: There's no real strategy involved, since all it really does is that you have to hit the enemy with neutral moves while getting blasted by attacks with x2.25 multipliers on top of STAB, and also the game gets REALLY easy if you just change the terrain because every important boss other than the first gym leader is completely reliant on it. Seriously, if you have an Ampharos with Electric Terrain you've won.

(though to be completely fair the engine's ai is HORRIBLE so the game can't have good strategies, but that really just proves that the idea is flawed)

The gameplay isn't all, though, there's also the story as one of the main appeal of Pokémon games is that they're more mature and able to handle themes like murder, corruption, mental illness and war.

THAT'S A FUCKING LIE THEY JUST READ LIKE IF MY IMMORTAL HAD A CHILD WITH CALL OF DUTY

Like the idea of a Grown-Up Pokémon League For Adults where the deck is constantly stacked against you and every challenger has to fight the gym leader at a disadvantage is flawed from the beginning no matter how you look at it. Pokémon battles are a sport, and gym leaders are basically professional athletes, meaning that they're subject to rules and most important, public opinion. If all your victories come from the fact that you're in top condition and the competition isn't, then you're gonna lose credibility REALLY fast because could you really win in a fair fight? If you have to issue a handicap against every challenger, aren't you basically admitting that you can't win without it?

And that's before we get into the fact that most of the time the league challenge is FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE for anyone other than the player to complete, even though it's supposed to be something that affects the whole region (oh and since usually those leagues are from 'the strongest trainers all over the world' it's implied that there's a lot of challengers from other regions as well). In Reborn, one of the gym leaders was TRAPPED IN A PARALLEL DIMENSION FOR 15 YEARS and that one is ironically one of the most accessible. Half of the league members were trapped in an orphanage and unable to accept challenges, several of them are part of the evil organization and end up on the run either before or after you defeat them and several of them (including the ones from the orphanage) follow you through the region. Then there's Rejuvenation where one of the gyms is only accessible through a dream world, several of the leaders ditch their gyms either to follow the player or to hide from the police, one of them tries to kill you and ends up frozen alive and you have to repeatedly travel back and forth in time to advance the plot. How is literally anyone other than the player supposed to complete the gym challenge? Even the rivals basically stop talking about getting badges because it makes no sense.

Then there's the evil teams. Despite the fact that they're supposed to be more realistic and gritty than the canon ones, most of the time they're gonna be some sort of cult based on offensive religious stereotypes (with Giratina as satan because OF COURSE), a blatant ripoff of Team Galactic or just a fascist allegory, which I ranted about before because those are the most irresponsible. Their biggest claim to fame is that their higher-ranked members are too strong to defeat because the writer usually won't do enough research about how crime syndicates actually work and makes the league members seem even more incompetent because they're supposed to be the best of the best and yet keep getting clapped by a bunch of thugs for no good reason. They're gonna kill a bunch of people, but conveniently 95% of their victims are gonna be extras that the player has no reason to get attached to. Oh, and the edgelord Gary Oak-esque rival WILL join them for reasons.

In short, they're made using a bunch of popular characteristics without putting much (if any) thought into how they actually work together, and the gameplay is built to be unenjoyable (which doesn't necessarily mean hard) because people play them for bragging rights rather than actually having fun. Most canon games have more mature storylines because mature doesn't mean pointlessly dark, and even though most of them are hyped up by ragging on X and Y, Lysandre is a more compelling character than like 80% of the fangame villains. Oh, and Big Boy Pants unfair leagues are ridiculous

[duhragonball]

State of the Damn Wienerfic

I’ve finally finished the “thousand years ago” section of my OC’s backstory, which is a big relief to me.    The first 141 chapters of Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan were intended to develop the title character as a protagonist in her own right, and not just a guest star or supporting player to the main cast, like Tapion in “Wrath of the Dragon”.   I was always worried that I’d meet some untimely end before I finished, and no one would know how things turned out for her.  

From 142 onward, I’m flashing forward to the events of Dragon Ball:Xenoverse.    It’s not going to be a total adaptation of the game’s story mode, but I did like the notion that if I ever reached this point, the fic has a tenative ending, and a curious reader could run Xenoverse 1 on Steam and get a general idea of what happens next.   But I’m still alive, so I guess I’ll go ahead and write my version.  

It’s still surreal to me that I’ve reached this milestone.   I’ve thought about it for so long and now it’s here.   I wrote the bulk of #142 last November, and some other material that still needs to be organized, and my goal for this year’s NanoWriMo is to plow forward.   A lot of things will be different, and I think one of them is that I feel like I can be more open about the creative process.   So if you want to see how the sausage is made, click the read more.    If you’d rather see how crayons are made, watch this video below.   

There’s a Sesame Street version of this, but those are all orange crayons, and I like yellow better.    Also I like the way Mr. Rogers says “crayons”.

All right, now that those weird crayon people are distracted, let’s talk about Luffa.

I came up with the idea around 2004, I think.   DBZ was done airing in the U.S., and I wanted to write some sort of fanfic about it, but I was having trouble coming up with ideas.    I felt like the main story had wrapped up very well with Z, and GT only seemed to prove that you can’t top the original story.    So I started thinking about the lore, and that led me to the Legendary Super Saiyan that Vegeta spoke of in DBZ Episode 66.  

There were a few things that bugged me about the DBZ fandom at the time.    Mostly I was just reading the GameFaqs boards to find any hot scoops about upcoming DBZ games, and no one really knew much of anything, so the board was mostly guys shooting idle speculation back and forth.   Occasionally someone would bring up the fact that we never saw any female Super Saiyans, which led some to suspect that such a thing must be impossible.    The one explanation that stuck in my craw was that “women can’t get angry enough”.    Usually, misogynists are always saying women are too emotional to do anything else, so by that logic, you’d think it would be much easier for Saiyan women.    They’d just flip out whenever a stray laser bolt fries their hair, like Daphne Zuniga in “Spaceballs.”

The other thing that bugged me was the Broly-worship in some circles.   One way or another, Broly hype reached American fans well before the Funimation dub of Movie 8.   I remember the official promotions from Funimation acknowledging that fans kind of already knew who the guy was.    For a few years before 2003, I think Broly became this mythical figure, like your friend whose uncle works for Nintendo, or “Q” telling 4-chan all about how everyone you don’t like is going to get arrested soon.     I’m pretty sure this is why you can still find Broly fanart where he’s beating up Galactus, Kid Buu, and Superman, to name a few.    I think a lot of fanboys got it in their head that Broly could kick anybody’s ass, which is weird because he can’t even win in his own movies.   

I think even the official stuff played into this idea, since Broly would often be used as a special bonus boss in a lot of video games, so you beat Kid Buu and then hold on, now you have to fight Broly.   So it’s not hard to get the vibe that he’s the real final boss of everything.    I’m curious how the 2018 version of Broly will affect the perception of the character, but it’s probably too soon to tell.   In the mid-2000′s, though, it felt like a lot of people believed that Broly was a more legitimate Super Saiyan than Goku or the others, by virtue of being green and irrationally violent.  

So this was on my mind when I thought about what to do with the Super Saiyan from 1000 years ago.    I felt like there were people who wanted to believe that this character was a lot more like Broly than Goku, which is dumb, because the whole point of Super Saiyan Goku was that he was taking on the same role as the last guy.   And, for my money, the moral of Goku going Super Saiyan was that he was the only Saiyan of his generation who understood the same thing all the old Super Saiyans did.   Something about his upbringing on Earth helped him reach that level.    All the other Saiyans were too contaminated by their own culture of ruthless dickery.  

And so I thought that it would really flip the script if I wrote a story about that Legendary Super Saiyan and made him very different from the fanboy perception of Broly.    And I’d make him a her, just to twist the knife.  Not only is this not Broly, but she’s one of those women Super Saiyans everyone thinks can’t happen.  I doubt anyone from GameFaqs in 2007 would even notice my fic, but I’d like to think they’d be pissed about what I’ve done. 

I tried writing some of this down in 2006, but I didn’t get very far, mostly because I was intimidated by the scope of the idea.   I didn’t think I could do a long story, but I wasn’t sure a short story could get the idea across.   So I just didn’t do it at all, and kept thinking about it from time to time.    I wanted to make Luffa as a custom character in a video game, if they ever made a game with CAC features.   Ultimate Tenkaichi had it, but you could only make a Saiyan man... which just reinforced my motivations for doing this kind of a story.   

Finally, Dragon Ball Xenoverse debuted a more robust CAC feature in 2015, and I could design the character properly.   I didn’t have much in the way of ideas, so I just sort of let the gameplay take me where it would.   The game is set in the future, and Trunks just wishes for an ally, so who’s to say that this ally couldn’t have come from the past?    You do a lot of grinding in the game, and there’s a lot of exposition, and that gave me time to think about what what Luffa had been doing right before she got to this place.   And slowly, I started to iron out what I wanted to write.   

Her costume was just a convenience, really.    I went with short hair because the long hair doesn’t “float” when you go Super Saiyan in the game.    I wanted some sort of old-school looking armor, but everything in the game was based on costumes from the show, and the “Saiyan” armor in DBZ was Frieza’s thing.   It wouldn’t have existed a thousand years earlier.    I might have gone for something like Cabba’s outfit in Dragon Ball Super, but that wouldn’t be available until a few years later.   So that left me with a choice between a baggy martial arts dogi or the skin tight Pilot Suit.    The Pilot Suit is kind of... distracting, since it’s just a skin, and the developers make you stare at the character’s ass the whole time.    On the other hand, a baggy dogi kind of made her look like Cell Games Gohan.   So I went with baggy pants and fitted shirts.  

The black and yellow color scheme was mostly so I wouldn’t confuse my character from the others appearing on the screen during fights. That ruled out purple, orange, and blue, since the Z-Fighters wear those.   I resisted yellow, because that’s my favorite color, but later I realized black and yellow is perfect, because that’s the color scheme of the giant ape in Vegeta’s flashback.   

Playing the game helped motivate me to actually sit down and write the story, because I finally had a fleshed out character that I could see and do things with.    And making her fight DBZ characters got me to consider how she would react to those concepts.   Would she respect Vegeta’s royal bloodline, or would she be unimpressed like Goku?    How would she feel about Frieza’s destruction of their home planet?   Would she even recognize it as her home planet?   How does she feel about the fact that no one remembers anything about her?   

My goal for the first 141 chapters was to build a world and a backstory that would set up the answers to those questions.  The villains in that part of the story are all misogynists of one stripe or another.   They view women as tools to be exploited, or as enemies to be eliminated, or as distractions to be ignored.    They see Luffa doing her thing and they all say “She can’t do that,” and then she does it harder.   

Now that I think about it, I suppose the appeal to the character, and the thing that frustrates her so much, is that she’s just trying to be herself, but all these buttholes in the universe are outraged by it, and yet they just can’t stop her.   They want her to die, or go away, or become something else, something they can accept, but she just refuses to do that, and she’s got the raw power to tell them all where they can shove it.   This whole thing is my ham-fisted attempt to write a feminist allegory with Saiyans in it, and I’ll never be good enough to get it exactly right, but you know, it’s not as hard as I thought it would be.    Along the way, some LBGT stuff started to get into the mix, and I thought “Well, I’m really in the deep end of the pool now.”    I’m sorry if I got anything wrong, but I think I did okay.   I’m not breaking any records, but I managed to avoid drowning, right?  

Anyway, that’s why the Saiyans hate her guts, because all the Saiyans in DBZ resented Goku as being weak and worthless.    Even when Goku surpassed Vegeta, Vegeta still thought he lacked the killer instinct to be a “““true”“““ Super Saiyan.    Luffa’s got plenty of killer instinct, but the Saiyans hate her out of jealousy and fear.    Vegeta accused Trunks of lying about being a Saiyan, because his hair wasn’t the right color.  I wanted to make a whole population of Saiyans who would quibble over those kinds of details.    “The stone the builders have rejected has become the capstone.”   

This is also why I made the Saiyan King the main villain, because I wanted to echo Goku’s conflict with Vegeta, and King Vegeta’s conflict with Paragus and Broly.    If there’s a Super Saiyan every thousand years, then what happens to the second strongest Saiyan whenever that day comes?    Does he stand aside like John the Baptist, or does he refuse to accept the changing times?  

The purpose of all of this was to explain why Vegeta remembers the legend of the Super Saiyan, but nothing about the person.   Why doesn’t he know Luffa’s name, or what color her pants were?   Because his ancestors hated her, and suppressed the parts of her story that they didn’t like.    Even as Vegeta recalls what little he knows, he thinks “I never actually believed it.”

Okay, but Luffa had friends, right?   Wouldn’t they have left a record for future generations?    Well maybe, but how long would it take to fade into obscurity?   And Luffa’s kind of a private person.    Everyone in her inner circle avoided the spotlight.   There’s a move about her, but it’s filled with wild inaccuracies.   Eyewitnesses to her battles can only describe a glowing blur.     Close-up footage just shows an irritable Saiyan woman with a strange dyejob.   Most civilians find regular Saiyans to be pretty extraordinary as they are.   A Super Saiyan doesn’t seem that much more impressive.  

What you wind up with is this legacy of battles that were fought and won by a single, mighty warrior, but no one can agree on what that warrior was exactly.   At some point, enough time passes where the Saiyans are willing to reclaim the legend.   “Yeah, that guy had to be a Saiyan.      Who else could do all those things?”   But the things she stood for and learned along the way, that’s all lost.    

I just didn’t think it’d take me 647,471 words to explain all of that.  But now I can finally write the part with all the popular characters in it.   Right now, my big problem is that I have to slap together a few more OC’s and I need to figure out just what the hell Towa’s deal is.   The Dragon Ball Wiki attempts to explain whatever happens in those Dragon Ball Heroes games, but it doesn’t seem like they wrote any of it to fit a coherent narrative.    I’d like to use as much official Demon Realm lore as possible, if only because that’s what Towa and Demigra’s fans would be familiar with, but I’m not sure how this is going to look.   I mean, they’re gonna get an ass-whoopin’, I know that part, but I’d like to flesh out their characters before the beating starts. 

Anyway, I got my work cut out for me.  But at least the soundtrack will be epic.

[rawliverandcigarettes]

Assessing Draft 2

Hi there tumblr,

We’re nearing the end of the dreaded 2020, and I thought it might be worth updating you all on what’s up with me and Halfway Home, for those of you still following this blog despite these centuries of waiting. Thanks to you, so much! You make it worth it to me, and I’m sorryyyyyy

Okay, so several things happened these last months.

First off, I finished the Draft 2 of Halfway Home. I’ve rewritten a good 75 % of Draft 1 over the course of a year, cut a LOT of stuff (maybe a bit too much, but we’ll get to that) and made several drastic improvements to the overall structure. It’s been some serious hard work, and it’s not over yet. But finishing it in 2020 opened the way for my Halfway Home 2021 plans, and I’m glad I managed to complete the project despite the kind of year we’ve been through.

Also, I quit my job, and left literally yersterday. I felt all sorts of way over it these past months, but right now I’m at peace with my decision. That means I’m going to leave Sweden and come back to France, and take some time off paid videogame development to recuperate and reflect on where to push my career next.

So yeah, this post is about what I plan my 2021 to be like (especially in regards to HH).

So first off I don’t want to make any promise that Halfway Home will be released in 2021, because I don’t want to overstress myself over this decision and want to give myself a mental backdoor in case I still don’t think the story is up to my standards by same time next year –but there is a very real possibility it might happen.

I’ve reread the story last week from start to finish. I wanted to wait longer so my mind was clear off it, but I also want to have a version to send to beta-readers by end of march 2021 so I can’t really afford to wait too long on that.

There are a lot of things that are better than Draft 1, and the rewrite was a notable improvement in most ways (the story never needed to be 275k long, that was insane of me). Every character is better, most notably Shlee who’s leagues better now that he’s not biotic anymore, and the batarian subplot is by far the best thing in this story currently. I’m starting to be really fond of Aria’s characterization, and I think some of the ideas are sort-of-working. Also, the prose has spiked in quality and I’m starting to do work I’m actually proud of!! Incredible I know. You can track my progress and figure out what has been written when by the quality alone, and even if it makes a lot of work of this very year outdated already, the drastic improvement is a good sign.

But there’s also a lot who still needs serious work, and I had to come to terms with some issues that exist at the very core of Halfway Home, at its very premise, and therefore might never be fixed and will never fully work. There will be balancing to do, and identifying what can be still improved and what needs to be let go will be an integral part of my next step.

The one thing I had to reconcile with was that I’ve been trying to write a story about sociopolitics from a single point of view character. And while this specific character could hardly be more at the crossroad of perspective and political shift than he is, we’re still dealing with a subjective view of the world, and my tendency to want and shoehorn every existing political thread inside his narrative to compensate mushes it up as a result.

I think the best thing to do is to roll with the subjectivity, and use that perspective and its uniqueness to heighten the perspective on the world instead of trying to be absolutely fair to everyone; and eventually challenge that with the coming next parts.

Also, I might have cut to much and made the world shrink too much as a result. This is also a consequence in trying too hard to abode by “normal” narrative structures and advice: while this resulted in tighter threading of plots (once again, may I gloat about the batarian subplot whom I think has that level of quality I wanted to reach), some of the story’s soul was lost, and my next steps will focus on trying to recapture it.

So yep. From now on up to end of march, I’ll focus on working on the Draft 3.

What I mean by Draft 3 is way less drastic than what I did for Draft 2 (which was a full rewrite). This time there will be some rewrites still–namely the entire beginning, which I did not dare to tear apart as violently as I should have the first time–, but otherwise, any developmental work will generally focus on scene-by-scene massaging; some will have to be revisited or replaced by a new one, but despite all that stressful juggling there are a couple of chapters that I think already work as they are, and that’s Quite Cool.

(me trying to fix the plot while also not breaking the plot, allegory)

During these 4 months, I will fix up some of the developmental problems, and also do a first pass of line edit for the very first time. Down with repetitions and sentence bloating and excessive adverbs: my scissors are sharp and ready. I also have this desire of doing very specific and intentional lexical work to enhance Shlee’s narration and development as a person, as I think it could do a ton for his characterization without being overpowering, and inform the way he looks at the world in general. But that’s gonna be intense shit.

When I’m at the end of March 2020, regardless of the state it’s in, I’m going to send Halfway Home to a couple of people who kindly volunteered to review it and give me feedback.

It’s like the first time anyone (besides one friend) will read the entire story, and I intend to give them 3 months to do so. Nerve-wracking, but I’m loosing all sense of objectivity on what the fuck is up with this story and need an outside perspective quite desperately.

Once this passes, I’ll assess the feedback and work on the final version. Depending on said feedback, that could be very long or very short (which is why I’m not promising anything for 2021, as people could tell me It’s Garbage Actually, and that might change my plans).

But yeah. Moving forward. Doing the writing thing. We try.

How are you all doing?

[pemmanop]

Aging Gracefully from the Sideways

I was probably seventeen when I watched Sideways (2004) for the first time. When I graduated college, I watched it once again. I was broke, looking for job and had my biggest break-up recently. I saw Miles (Paul Giamatti) as a big, old and vulnerable flower who constantly shaken and shattered whenever the wind blows. I thought he was silly to be so grumpy. And that was all. When I finally thirty last year, once again, I watched it again and I realized that films are wine-like: they reveal new tastes and meanings, depends on when you open and sip it. So I decided to write about Sideways, as a thirty-something woman living a solitary life.

Miles, a wine aficionado, takes his best friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) on a road trip to wineries. Jack is about to get married while Miles just got divorced, that explains why  Jack intends to take this opportunity as a bachelor trip. Miles, in a total hermit mode, constantly being upset about his ex-wife and keeps on "drink and dial" her.

The duo meets Maya (Virginia Madsen) and Stephanie (Sandra Oh). Miles, who seems to be only attracted to misery and wine, finds out that Maya has a thing on wine too. This familiarity allows Miles to carefully open up to Maya, while Jack and Stephanie’s steamy romance reaches its peak.

"I love how wine continues to evolve," Maya's eyes spark as she speaks, "a bottle of wine is like life itself - it grows up, evolves and gains complexity". They sit on the couch and drink some Syrah, while Jack and Stephanie moan and scream on background. Virginia Madsen's performance gives Maya's character a soul that dims warmly like a candle that lights up the dark. Her character is built upon an austerity. She's a waitress who commutes to nearest city to take her master degree on Agriculture and wants to work in a winery. Maya makes me believe that age could do a lot more than just being a number on my birthday cake.

Just like wine, there is something beautiful in getting older. Some of us can be young and craving for experiences, but there are some certain things that can only be possessed and processed in time. Probably time itself doesn't change anything, but it's us who finally give up to time and allow it to shape us. And of course, it takes a great courage to let time carry you to your next destination, a courage than can be obtained from years of adjusting yourself to the uncertainty of life. And also, the mystery of the upcoming possibilities is one of the things that can only be answered by time.

Sideways makes me think about what it means to be on time. Maya and Miles' struggle to be brave and foolishly in love once again after everything they have crumble. And also Jack, who chooses to live with the woman who could accept him rather than throw it all away and be with Stephanie. Looking at Jack, well maybe the motivational quote was right. There is no such thing called the "right person at the wrong time. The right person will make you throw away everything you currently have. But who am I to judge what is wrong or right? After several occasions, I no longer believe myself as a good judge of human character. I've met some people I believed was right, and when we came to different season, they no longer fit in. Or probably both of us no longer did. I also now understand that there would be some people I don't see fit, some day would evolve and become something compatible to the future me. Once again; the qualities that could only gained in time.

Watching Maya's resilience and Miles, who keeps on popping like a bottle of soda, makes me think about the options I have when facing my current situation. There are options to be grief stricken and surrender to the pain; or to embrace the pain and let it devour me really, really, calmly. Of course, I am always in between. There are days I would throw tantrums, but there are also days when the training and meditations actually work. Today I am Miles and desperately want to text him, but the next day I can choose to be Maya. I'll go home to my small room, find something to do and throw myself into the stream of time. The best part is I can always choose how I act.

Loneliness is a confusing state of mind: I have all the time and space to concentrate, but there's something painful in all the silence. I could scream really loud and they would come back at me as an echo, even louder and more deafening. However, compared to the loneliness I felt when I was thirteen, the current loneliness feels less frightening. After watching House of Hummingbird (2018), I realized that being a teenager is so fuckin' lonely. Everything was confusing and everyone was preachy (even today I still find some preachy friends). At least, now I have understood how to speak to myself before I decide to share it to the world.

Loneliness is also inevitable. Young or old. Alone or with a company. Locked in a cell or in the middle of a crowd. Even if I am married with twelve kids, there will be some sleepless nights and feeling of disconnected to myself. So, I think this is the time to say that it is a privilege to have the opportunity to be this selfish. The audacity to reject and refuse people to enter my personal space, something I probably wouldn't have if I was dating someone.

Sideways makes me believe, even if it’s as small as a pinch of salt, that even if I am no longer young, life still have so many things to offer. I am not a drinker, but through Sideways and wine, I try to understand that aging gracefully is actually the real deal. It’s also fine to be thirty without buying a house. Or a date. Or a cat. And empty bank account in the end of the month. It’s okay to be the mediocre people that live on the side of the road. 

And yes, despite of the mediocrity the business motivators tell us to avoid, I continue to live in whatever left to endure and fight for. I like the sense of victory I get from finishing the laundry. It doesn’t change the world of save someone from death, but making sure that I have clean panties for the next few days is a matter of life and death. The shift of meanings and what I called as achievement evolve too. Just like Miles and Maya, despite of the things they have lost on their younger years. Or the things I have lost on my twenties. In this film, wine works as an allegory for how both characters gain the taste that feels right to each other after passing the unfortunate events.

Maybe in ten years when I am forty and watch this once again, I will write with different tone. Maybe I'll have kids in ten years. Or seven cats. Or finally, a house and a car. Maybe I will hate this film. Or maybe I will die. For all I know now is how to evolve, and find the taste I want to have in ten years from now. Just like a bottle of wine and also Miles and Maya.

[runswith]

Travel notes: Italy (Rome). Entry 6 - March 3, 2003

When I woke up yesterday morning in Florence, church bells were ringing, rain fell. The rain followed me back to Rome where church bells continued to ring as showers came down intermittently.

I can't remember the last time I found myself getting lost as I have during these few days in Rome/Florence. (In terms of streets and such. This is not a life allegory.) (Or maybe it is -- what do I know?)  Happened again last night. I decided to go to see The Quiet American, which entailed finding my way through the tangle of narrow streets around my current squat to la Via Corso, a north-south main drag. Thought I had it all under control. HAH!!! Within minutes I'd gotten completely lost, the kind of lost you just can't fake your way out of. The upside: folks I've asked for help here have been models of good manners/good will. I speak Spanish, they speak Italian. They're patient, gracious. And I usually manage to get where I'm looking to go. Last night I got myself to the Piazza Venezia (meaning I wandered south instead of north, NOT what I'd intended) -- it turned out to an overgrown traffic circle wrapped around a monstrous, elevated, becolumned structure which, from the looks of it, suffers from a wild excess of testosterone. I grabbed a bus from there whose itinerary appeared promising. It pulled out, I took my Metro day pass from my pocket, ready to validate it for that ride. At which point three city employees, all dressed like Metro cops, announced they wanted to see everyone's pass, began checking all passengers.

Why, you ask? During the day, up to 9 or so p.m., passes can't be bought on the buses. They have to be bought at certain vendors (tobacconists, change shops, some newsstands). When you get on the bus, you go to the validation machine, insert your pass, it gets stamped. A system that lends itself to cheating, the odds being good a cheater won't get busted.

The Metro cop who made the announcement last night hit on me first. I handed my day pass over, he scrutinized it, handed it back with a curt, "Grazie, signor." An Asian couple to my left weren't so lucky. Their passes were invalid in some way, two of the cops closed in, began grilling them, demanded ID, wrote out fines. A strange, hard-nosed scene.

Meanwhile, the bus took me nowhere near where I wanted to go so that I finally grabbed a taxi, which took me north, thick crowds of Sunday evening strollers periodically making it nearly impossible to move. We passed the Spanish Steps, one of the infinite number of local tourist focal points, continued north, finally found the theater. The evening moved along from there.

Something I noticed up in Florence: poinsettias were everywhere -- in store windows, on tables at restaurants -- maybe in connection with Advent/Easter. Also banners in rainbow colors, emblazoned with the word "PACE" -- peace. I first noticed them on the train ride to Florence, hanging from windows and balconies as the train entered the city. They're here in Rome, too, though they tend to get swallowed up more easily amid the city's overwhelming size, movement and concentration of visual input.

And another thing: the streets in Rome, and especially Florence, are remarkably clean. Clean in a way that Madrid isn't. Madrid would be rapidly buried under trash if it weren't for the cleaning crews that toil heroically away most hours of the day and night. I've seen a few street-cleaning workers here, but nothing like the number of laborers in Madrid, and the Roman/Florencian streets are far tidier. I mean no unfavorable comparison between Rome and Madrid here. I'm not sure I'd want to live in Rome, or at least I don't think I'd want to move here without knowing anyone, whereas Madrid won my heart unconditionally within 12 hours of touching down there for the first time.

Something else: the Italians seem to be receipt-obsessed. They insist on foisting a receipt on me for every single thing I spend money on, no matter how small. Newspapers, cups of coffee, an orange. Everything.

On the other hand, as with Madrid, it's easy to find good food here. A bit easier in Florence, with the city more compact, easier to explore. Rome is so ^#*%!!! enormous that I find myself rendered a bit timid in the face of it, hesitant at times to try out an eating joint because there are just so many of them. There are two kinds of eateries I tend to avoid: any that use the word "American" in the name (i.e., a tony-looking dive across the piazza from here which has the words "American Bar" painted in the windows in large letters) and any that have a statue of a cute, rotund chef, face adorned with a big, curly moustache positioned out front. These sad distant relatives of garden gnomes usually hold signs emblazoned with things like "IT'S A REAL ITALIAN RESTAURANT!"

Maybe it is. Think I'll go somewhere else, though.

[bluerosesburnblue]

You don't have to reply, but I just want you to know that this line ("because the easiest way to legitimize those as 'canon' is to attach them to something that you think you can prove is canon.") sums up my thoughts on SRT so concisely. I'm glad someone else noticed how disconnected so much of it is, and I think you're right in your assumption about why.

Hey, I always want to make time to acknowledge people who take the time to let me know how much they appreciate what I do. I really appreciate the feedback from all of you, too! Don’t ever feel bad for coming into my inbox to chat, anon. It may take me a bit, but I’ll always find the time to answer. And thank you

I’m glad you don’t think I’m crazy for thinking that, because the way some people worship the creators and the theory and insist that there’s no bias there (and then come into my inbox and start calling me names for it…) makes me question it, but…

[Incoming discussion about stuff the theory creators have said that’s going under a cut because a lot of it can be seen as anti-Ka*ri/S*Kai and a lot of my followers don’t want to see that]

Look, I started this project intending to take the creators seriously. And I still intend to take the arguments they make in the document seriously.

But are you really telling me that a group of people who post things like “I can’t wait for the dudebros to realize that K/H is extremely gay to leave the fandom and if they don’t accept that it’s gay that they’re lesser people,” “Nomura’s interviews about how in K/H1 Ka*ri was afraid of her and her friends changing and stating in a K/H3 interview that the game would show how relationships changed confirms that S*ra and R*ku are drifting apart from Ka*ri and are going to drop her for each other,” “Peter Pan is an allegory for S*ra and Ka*ri’s relationship because she projects her fear of things changing onto him and eventually she’ll have to learn how to grow up and leave,” “The official translations of the games are bad and intentionally trying to obscure how S*ra and R*ku’s love is developing into a romance,” vehemently declare that SoR*ku is endgame and is the real relationship the games are leading up to, reblog an 80 page essay on how ONE LINE in Toy Box was “mistranslated” and confirms that S*ra is in love with R*ku, and literally have “sor*ku endgame actually” in their Twitter names

…that not even a single bit of bias got into the theory? That none of the things they say publicly on social media is reflected at all in the theory?

I’m not even saying that they’re doing it intentionally. I don’t know them as people, so I can’t make that judgement call! I still fully believe it’s possible that they convinced themselves so much that the series was going to deliver on some big climax for their ship that confirmation bias is making them only see things that support it and reinterpret things to fit that without even realizing they’re doing it. But when they state so clearly that they believe and have believed for a long time that SoR*ku is the intended “canon” ship, that the best course of action for Ka*ri is to get the hell away from their ship even as friends, and that the English translation team has an agenda and is trying to cover up their ship, and then all of this shows up in the contents of the theory, it’s really hard for me to say that there was absolutely no ulterior motive

So I’m going to be very transparent with my own biases here. I have absolutely no respect for the theory writers. I lost it the second I looked on their accounts because it was brought to my attention that people might use the links included in my debunk to send them hate and I wanted to check to make sure it wasn’t happening. These people are among the worst of the worst this fandom has to offer and I’m aware that some of this might leak into the debunk. I’m gonna do my best to make sure it doesn’t, because at the very least I refuse to sell myself short and half-ass my own arguments because I just don’t like the writers. And I still believe that we should look at works for their own merits (while not also ignoring authorial intent, to be clear, but not judging the work solely on it)

But if anyone tells me that this theory isn’t trying to push SoR*ku as canon or remove Ka*ri’s agency and force her away from the SoR*ku ship, they can get lost. Because I am certain that it is

(But also please, please don’t hunt the theory creators down and send them hate on social media. Let’s not stoop to the level of some of their supporters and send the negativity right back at them. This isn’t intended to be a callout post for them, it’s just to show why I’ve read certain things into the theory and how their own well-documented biases have shaped its writing while also keeping me accountable for my own)