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300iqprower · 2 years

Note

So I was playing Elden Ring and just noticed how every boss is literally weakened by the passage of time. Is this a thing in all Fromsoft games? Elden Ring is the first one I've played and it's fascinating how Fromsoft made it a point to show bosses facing their end because they've been eroded by time.

Is that a thing mechanically? Like I know its open world so do the bosses you choose to do later get scaled down/dont scale to your new level to make it so the later you do a boss the weaker they are? If that's what you mean, no that is an Elden Ring thing.

If you mean lorewise, does the game show how these are ancient beings who are long past their prime and at best a hollow shell of what they once were pretending to be the legend described, oh yes that is very much a FromSoftware thing. And I dont know WHY IN GOD’S NAME I felt a need to systematically break down some examples, but I super did. So here we fcking go. [BUT THATS YOUR TLDR: “YES.” WTF IS WRONG WITH ME THE REST OF THIS IS LIKE 4K WORDS. Oh and sorry in advance for the length before the break but it only lets ya put one Keep Reading i guess...]

Gonna put a spoiler break only later on for heavy spoilers. In the meanwhile there will be light spoilers for Dark Souls 1, 2, 3, and Bloodborne. There will be no Elden Ring or Sekiro spoilers in this post (albeit only cause I've avoided spoiling myself as much as possible on both lol)

Again, the answer is basically “yes.” Like, that is Fromsoft design 101. That has been the core philosophy of every final boss across Dark Souls, Demon's Souls, and Bloodborne. Hell, most bosses in the series in general. It's even a thing in Sekiro, albeit a lot of it is presented very differently (As far as I am anyways. See above.)

> Light spoilers for Bloodborne follow.

Father Gascoigne, the first mandatory boss of Bloodborne, sets the tone very well for this sort of thing. Hunters are very clearly supposed to be the ones who keep order and cull the insane and the beasts during the Night of the Hunt, and when you encounter the only named Hunter thus far it starts out exactly like that, finding a priest in a graveyard with the same weapons you start with, dressed similarly to the default Hunter's attire and hacking at a beast...except, it becomes immediately apparent that it’s already long dead, less a hunter killing prey and more a butcher obsessed with a carcass. Upon noticing you, a fellow hunter, he says “Beasts All Over The Shop…..You’ll be one of them….Sooner Or Later….”

before turning around and revealing he's blindfolded as he lets out a raspy, feral growl. ...And then halfway through the fight he turns into a fucking werewolf.

Yeah, despite being a Fromsoft game, Bloodborne is very quick to make clear what's going on in it. Between the insane mob of villagers, the werewolves running around, the giant roaring abomination that's supposedly a Cleric, and now the first fellow hunter you meet (one working for the Church that is supposed to be the governing authority no less) is as crazed as the beasts themselves and several times as deadly in his brutality, this is clearly a place that has gone to hell long ago, and Gascoigne already told you why: "Sooner or later, you'll be one of them too." Between Gascoigne turning into a beast moments after telling us we'll eventually be one ourselves, and the cryptic lines from our hub dream world about how this is all happened before and is a tradition that will continue, it's pretty clear Bloodborne is about ‘he who fights monsters’ in the most literal sense, and it demonstrates that by having you fight people who have been fighting monsters for far too long to hold onto who they were. This world where crusading hunters once took up arms to defend their home from a plague of beasts are now as bloodlusted as the beasts themselves, to the point where the second mandatory boss ALSO transforms from human to monster before our eyes.

It's really the DLC that goes all in on this idea though. without properly spoiling anything (this is all stuff that is literally in the official description and its CALLED The Old Hunters), names that you heard lauded as great heroes finally make their appearance proper...but as twisted and broken beings who bear no resemblance to their legends and every resemblance to the things they were meant to destroy.

> Light to moderate spoilers for DS3.

You know how Elden Ring does that thing at the start where it shows you all these long fallen characters you yourself will eventually encounter and stuff? Yeah that’s something of a staple of Fromsoftware, specifically what they did with DS1 and 3. While 1 is a lot more coy about it and waits til like the halfway point, though, 3 makes it clear it’s doing the same thing DS1 did right out the gate. “The world is dying, you’re gonna face these guys, and you’re gonna catch on quick they’re all mere shadows of the legends they’re meant to be, in fact we are literally telling you this in the intro.”

And much as I love taking any chance whatsoever to rave about how the best boss in the entire series is The Abyss Watchers, it’s actually everyone’s favorite DS3 meme Yhorm the Giant who takes it. He’s possibly the most built up of all the bosses: Last of the giants and their king, a being who can’t even be killed by the weapons of men, a descendant of a conqueror and a warriors king in his own right...now nothing but a mindless, burnt out husk quietly waiting for death on a subconscious level. He once wielded a greatshield but now two-hands his sword, having long since stopped acting as a ruler in the face of all he’s lost and becoming nothing more than a weapon. Long ago he would give the Storm Ruler, the giant-slaying sword, to those who did not trust him to rule as an act of honor; now it lies carelessly strewn alongside his throne, and Yhorm will attempt to crush you long before you reach it. His one friend Siegward joins you because he knew from the start Yhorm would be like this, and seeks to put the husk out of its misery, even if it costs him his life. Siegward makes clear he would rather die than let his once friend Yhorm spiral ever further into a decay that he is too great to be consumed by yet not great enough to escape, and that’s the entire point. Greatness is a curse, not a blessing. Immortal Life can do nothing to stop the world around you from succumbing to erosion and decay. Just as Yhorm awoke from kindling to find his people still suffered, just as his empire inevitably fell and left him alone, so too did the entire world begin to die as the fire faded ever further. Hollowing is inevitable, because you will always be powerless against entropy in the end. Yhorm knows this beyond any other Lord of Cinder. Whereas the others all went astray in their selfishness or simply went insane from corruption, Yhorm is the one who truly despaired and simply...gave up, on trying to hold onto what he was. His body persisted as a hollowed husk of a once incredible being, but the mind within it died in the face of an immutable reality. Even in gameplay he’s just a walking shell, one of the easiest boss fights in sosulborne history thanks to him having kept a weapon designed for killing him at his side; the Storm Ruler isn’t some measly damage buff against an enemy type, this thing kills him in like 5 hits. From the start you weren’t ‘fighting’ something that was meant to be fought, but to be put down.

> Moderate spoilers for DS1 (middle third of the game or so)

DS1 arguably has the most wide scale example of this, since the entire point of the game is that every major boss is a once great god gone astray, and you have an entire city demonstrating this. At the start of the game we’re shown all these incredible being of old, and it’s made out as if we’re watching legends who created the world give us context on our upcoming adventure. These beings are made out as distant entities so much greater than any of us, meant to be acted in the name of as we kill dragons and stuff. But then, around the third to halfway point, it becomes clear we’ll be fighting them ourselves, and these ‘distant almighty gods’ have fallen from their glory and become what are simply more monsters to be cut down. Nito the lord of the dead is least changed but acts entirely in self interest at this point, dwelling the dark catacombs after imposing the very concept of death onto the world and not caring the slightest for what came after, to the point that what truly weakens him is not Pinwheel’s fucking about, but rather the sheer energy he is putting out to impose the concept of death onto an ever more undead world. The Witch of Izalith? Where to start, how about the fact that in her hubris of thinking she could recreate the first flame, that as a being who had lost their glory she could simply recreate that glory, she turned herself into a horrid abomination and shit-tier boss fight? Because of COURSE that happened. How could you reclaim the height of your power when even at the height of your power you could not hold onto it? How about Seath? Oh the things to say about Seath, what can we call him? Cruel, Jealous, Spiteful, literally and figuratively jaded, insane, pathetic, but of all the things we can call him those things are not “glorious” or “immortal”. He became desperate for the immortality he supposedly “proved” he didnt need by killing his scaled brethren. From declaring he did not need his peers’ immortality, to going insane over his obsession with cloying at whatever possible escape from death there might be.

From Nito’s indifference to Izalith’s hubris to Seath’s madness, they are all fallen in their own way. All their attempts to hold onto their glory only serve to further remove them from it. So many millennia and the god of Death has only become weaker as the world dies. The Witch’s magic that is meant to bend chaos to its will could only damn its wielder in the face of nature’s course. The crystal dragon’s immortality is exactly that: crystal, the fruits of his cruelty and madness nothing more than a feeble crystal easily shattered.

But to loop it all back around, it’s the final bosses of the series who really hammer the theme of ‘faded glory’ home.

> Major spoilers for DS1, DS2, and Demon’s Souls to follow, starting with DS1.

First though....Hey remember that bit I casually dropped about an entire city? You arrive to Anor Londo, carried from desolate undead asylum or the dregs of Blighttown to a great golden city illuminated perpetually by the sunset, powerful knights and cleric giants all over the place, lightning and miracle using enemies whose powers are synonymous with Gwyn’s legacy, and at the end of that gauntlet are Ornstein and Smough in their golden armor and every bit tough and lively as their legends portray. Beyond them, you meet the beautiful Gwynevere who gives you the Lordsoul to truly start your quest for the gods in linking the flame. Even if the gods are all fallen or helpless on their own, we can at least see the legacy they created and hopefully spread through the land. We can at least bring this light back to the rest of the world, knowing it can still be sustained.

Except, that was a lie. It was all a fucking lie.

A lie orchestrated by one feeble god desperate to maintain a literal illusion of his family’s grandeur. A god whose main tactic should you fight him is to run away forever in an endless hallway and blast you with magic because he’s otherwise powerless against a simple human. Should you find and successfully kill Gwyndolin, the magic he cast over the city fades, and we see Anor Londo for what it really is: Dark. The city of the gods, the capital of the Age of Fire that stands against the Dark, has itself gone Dark, and we can’t even begin to imagine for how long it’s been that way. The gods, their cities, their subjects, their champions, all of it is just a shadow cast so long ago that it doesn’t resemble that which cast it, and any evidence that their time hasn’t passed is just another lie you’ve been fed. (...Side note, watch this video I subconsciously almost quoted verbatim)

Thus enters the God who lived and died for that lie, unable to accept a reality in which he did not rule. Thus we meet Gwyn himself....or at least, what little is left of him. Because that guy the game has been building up as your ultimate challenge? That top god who by this point has Final Boss written all over him? That guy who STARTED all this crap and is basically Zeus the Dragon Butcher? Gwyn, Lord of Sunlight?

You don’t fight him. You fight a walking husk, and this time I mean that literally. Burnt inside and out with a body of charcoal and soul of ash. You fight one of the easiest bosses in the game, a boss the devs explicitly stated was designed to make sure any possible build would not struggle much with. You fight a guy who doesn’t have a single lightning attack. You fight Gwyn, Lord of Cinder. And by the next game, he doesn’t even have a name. The one who conquered the everlasting dragons and ushered humanity into their first age is barely a memory in Dark Souls 2, simply known as a distant sun god; his own miracles that were so crucial to his legacy don’t even acknowledge him. The one person we meet who remembers he properly existed regards Gwyn as a blind fool who did not save humanity, but damn it. And by Dark Souls 3, Gwyn isn’t even his own being, he’s just one of many nameless souls to link the first flame.

Once the most powerful of all gods and savior of humankind, now no more valued than the random undead schmuck you played as. Without a doubt the one you see fall the furthest in any Fromsoft game is Gwyn, and it’s exactly what he deserved.

> Onto DS2

Because while Gwyn is the definitive example, he’s not the most extreme example; I’d argue that’s Vendrick. You might disagree since his fall was not as far, but what we saw of him WAS harsher than anything we saw of Gwyn. If not the most extreme, he’s certainly the most tragic, because unlike so many other cases of this in the series, Vendrick knew and accepted that this would happen to him. He’s one of a handful of figures across the series who embody the idea that, among all these legends, the ones truly worth being remembered for their glory are the ones who recognized they must eventually let go of said glory.

What I mean by “what we saw” is...well, just like Gwyn, Vendrick is built up over the course of the game as the great king and conqueror who ruled over the world you’re travelling around, and while Gwyn is foreshadowed as the big bad, Vendrick is directly made out to be the final boss. You’re given a quest, you overcome trials, and it’s all directly in the name of reaching this ancient tyrannical being who as a mere man conquered giants and reigned dragons. And when you finally go through a gauntlet to reach him and break his seals...

...you’re met with a feeble, shriveled Hollow who can barely drag his sword.

Gwyn at least gave the player a sense of who he was. He was a husk, and he was weak, but he put up a fight. He was waiting for you, undeniably himself in body if not mind, and commanding the first flame as his own with a blade wreathed in those flames. He stares you down as you enter and rushes you when you approach, his iconic theme playing as he silently lashes out at you. He was a husk, but he was never completely without dignity. Vendrick doesn’t have any of that. He’s hunched and aimlessly wandering his small chamber when you find him, not even attacking until you’ve hit him several times. He has no grand, iconic requiem accompanying his battle. Instead there is the scant few piano chords of a whisper filled dirge fading in and out, as faded as the empty being before your that has thrown away all but his blade and his crown. His robes, his precious ring, all of it cast aside, knowing the fate that awaited him would have no use for them. He’s nothing more visibly imposing than a giant version of the most basic hollows. His only unique abilities are the incredibly durability and raw strength, both of which he can longer wield effectively as one of the most predictable fights in the game; the same bait and strike tactic that works on any starting grunt works just as well on him. The closest thing to a unique attack he has is a single curse spell that represents everything he was trying to defy.

Gwyn was a far cry of his once glorious self, but he was a proper final boss in atmosphere and presentation if not strength or challenge. There’s no comparison to Vendrick, who is downright unrecognizable and was never your true foe to begin with...just a poor hollow to be put out of its misery...

> But Wait There’s [one] More [thank god]! It’s finally Demon’s Souls time.

Demon’s Souls is very much the Proto-Dark Souls in a lot of ways and how it conveys its themes is no exception. The big thing about soulsborne games is how, as you said at the start of this essay, the things we fight have all been eroded by the passage of time. We don’t see what their true potential is. We never meet them in their full glory. We can only strike down what remains of that faded legend. Even when something like time travel gets involved with various DLCs, we fight things like the Burnt Ivory King and Artorias of the Abyss. Even in the past, the legends we face are already corrupted almost beyond recognition. You simply don’t get to see what their prime is, no matter how curious we may be, because that’s the whole point of the theme of fading glory: You can’t get that back. You can only accept that it’s gone.

.....Old King Allant is a massive, blitz speed, Final Explosion-ing, soul sucking exception to this.

Look at this. Look. At. This. LOOK AT THIS SHIT.

This is not a shell, this is not a husk, there is nothing faded about this Alabaster curb-stomper - he’s practically radiant. Whether he’s something exceptional in difficulty is up to debate, but what isn’t up for discussion is how he’s presented, because every. single. attack. of his radiates power. I’m talking, like, Vergil levels of P O W E R. He’s got a winged aura of storm winds, he delays his windups only to then lunge forward at breakneck speed, just the way he draws sword to face you gives off raw “I’m going to fuck you up” energy - the sword in question being Soulbrandt, a blade that he never once let go of out of his infatuation with the way it grew in strength as his soul grew darker. He sends shockwave projectiles, not magic sword beams, pure shockwaves from how hard and fast he’s attacking. He almost never gets stunned compared to any other human, he has resistances against just about everything including the ability to shrug off any magic you throw at him, and his own magic is so powerful he can either one-shot explode you or steal your levels as he kills you. Above all else though, he’s brutal. He’ll attack relentlessly and swiftly, taking out anyone who’s relying on heal-tanking or fucking around to find out. There are various exploits as there always are, but for most players, regardless of difficulty he’s the one boss we all fear: The kind where there is no trick, you just have to git gud at learning his patterns and countering them. And that’s the main thing that stick with you, just like with Artorias or Maria or Ludwig or Gael or every single bloody Sekiro boss [and from what I’ve seen almost certainly Melania], there’s a swiftness, brutality, and efficiency that truly conveys the power of this legendary figure you’re up against.

Not bad for an illusion, eh?

Yeah I’ve ignored that bit long enough. Old King Allant, or to give his other name, the False King Allant, is truly worthy of being called a warrior king at the peak of his glory....because he was created to be that. The game’s final boss, King Allant XII, is not some alabaster tyrant who conquers dragons and command the demons. He is something even lower than Vendrick in its own way, a mass of mutated, inhuman flesh that pulses and can barely so much as reach out to you let alone strike you, unable to even wield the Soulbrandt fused with its lower carcass, still desperately clinging to it even as the power of the Old One has overwhelmed his physical form. He sought ever more glory, ever more certain his could never fade, and so unlike Gwyn who was puppeted or Vendrick who was hollowed, he became something not just less than human, but unrecognizable as human. We saw him in his glory, and while he retained the strength and power to make that zenith seemingly eternal, intent on and complacent with ruling from his dwelling with the Old One as a mere specter goes forth in his image, when confronted he is not powerful at all. He is, if anything, completely powerless.

Gwyn retained his visage and his dignity, but lost who he was, a burnt husk who possesses none of his own legacy and was doomed to ultimately be forgotten for the very reason of desperately holding onto his glory. Vendrick never ceased to represent that which he believed in, but lost his visage, his dignity, his kingdom, his mind, and his soul, ultimately left with nothing but the acceptance of his own inescapable fate.

Compared to the both of them, Allant is still the most on the nose, because unlike the rest we see that glorious legend. We meet it and fight it before we then deal with the reality of what is left of that same legend. Allant is not a once great, now faded light. He is a blazing pyre snuffed out right in front of our eyes. We go back to back from the peak of his tyrannical and power-mad glory, to a wretched and pathetic abomination pleading for mercy and understanding he does not deserve.

.................................................................................................................................... sigh

There. It’s done.

Ideally I would either now go into how Bloodborne does this amazingly as well with its final boss, but i don't want to spoil it. Not even tagged. Bloodborne has what might be my absolute favorite final boss in all video games, both because of themes discussed here and so many other merits, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone under any circumstance. I don’t care if it’s a 7 year old game (oh god my back), I won’t be the person to spoil that experience for anyone, invested or otherwise. Of course, I could go into the much more willing to spoil Lady Maria because just about EVERYONE knows about her, and from what I’ve seen of Elden Ring she might even have been a sort of “Proof of Concept” for Melania, or I could talk about how Maria is an inverse of this philosophy of “fading glory” and how she stands against the idea of holding onto such…

….but i think i already spent far too long on this, especially when for all i know you were in fact referring to a gameplay mechanic in which case this completely unsolicited WHY DID I WRITE THIS-

#long post #very long post #wall of text #literal essay #I realized how stupid this was around the 1.8k mark but i also knew it was too late to back out by then #This isn't even systematic like I claimed but ya know I only have one life to live so-#i can talk about why Maria and Artorias are such iconic characters some other time #same goes for Abyss Walkers and Burnt Ivory King #I spent multiple hours too many on this #writing analysis #video games #game design #video game analysis #writing shit #dark souls #dark souls 2 #dark souls 3 #demon's souls #bloodborne #elden ring #fromsoft #soulsborne #never let me do this again #never thought i’d get an ask #YOU HAD BETTER APPRECIATE THIS I CHECKED THE WORD COUNT ITS FCKING 4075 #vendrick #father gascoigne #gwyn lord of cinder #king allant #normally im not one for mass tagging BUT I EARNED THESE TAGS DAMNIT

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abeautifulblog · 2 years

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What’s a controversial opinion that you have?

lol, mate that sounds like a trap, but sure, I'll step on that grenade.

I think the proshipping/antishipping discourse lacks nuance on both sides.

The bullying and the targeted harassment that antis have committed against creators they've deemed insufficiently morally-pure is no way to treat another human being, full stop. No matter what you think they're guilty of, that's mob justice, and like, remember how we generally consider mob justice to be a BAD thing...?

It's also a very simplistic mode of thinking, that both misunderstands the link between performativity and actual behavior, and is ultimately futile, because what they want is just not feasible in the real world.

Seriously, people, give me your actionable plan for how you intend to impose the kind of censorship you want on AO3, that wouldn't just turn into a blunt weapon to be leveraged selectively by anyone with a grudge. You can't. There is no place to draw a line in the sand, re: what kind of content is acceptable and what’s not (because everyone is insufficiently morally-pure for SOMEONE), and even if there were, there is no practical way to implement it on a website that is run by volunteers. Attempting to do so would be the beginning of the end for AO3, because once people start banning things, they don’t stop. The list of banned content is only ever going to get longer, its boundaries more nebulously-defined, until AO3 becomes just as stifling as every other social media platform has, in the name of respectability.

It’s oppressive to live under that kind of censorship -- where part of your mind is always keeping track of what’ll get you kicked, or shadowbanned, or quietly delisted. And the upshot of it all is that in the end, they don’t even need to censor us anymore -- we have been conditioned into censoring ourselves.

(Not to mention that all it does is drive problematic content underground. A platform that formally bans, say, rape content isn’t actually going to be free of rape content, it just means that creators aren’t going to properly tag for it anymore, because that would get it insta-deleted/banned. And now users who would like to avoid it can’t.)

Honestly, AO3 is a breath of fresh air in the current internet landscape, and so when I see people say that they "don't like AO3--" that is a red fuckin’ flag to me. How, pray tell, is AO3 insufficiently woke for you?

...

....BUT, on the other hand, the phrase "live and let ship" often gets wielded to demand that problematic content not just be free from harassment and censorship, but also free from criticism, and -- hoo buddy, I think not. 🙃 No, actually, I am not going to shut up about how I think your fav is shitty and toxic. You don't have to come onto my blog and see it -- and I would not dream of going onto someone else’s blog and starting shit, srsly, just stay in your own lane -- but this is my space, to do with as I want, and I am going to stand on my soapbox and nail the list of their sins to the church door.

Because the antis’ position (as I understand it), is 1) the fear that fiction about fucked-up content will either encourage/enable more people to do those fucked-up things IRL, and 2) the belief that anyone who writes about fucked-up content is endorsing that behavior. But the response that gets trotted out to that is "lol what idiots, they think people can't tell the difference between fiction and reality!" and arguing that there's no harm in people writing whatever weird and fucked-up stuff they like, because it's just a story.

My dudes -- I cannot convey to you how disingenuous "it's just a story" is.

We, humans, are so massively influenced by the stories around us. No, fiction isn’t reality -- no actual humans were harmed by the whumping of blorbos -- but we often look to it as if it were, and, consciously or not, often model ourselves after the patterns we see in stories. Fiction tells us what kind of behavior is acceptable or unacceptable; what men/women are “supposed” to be like; what ~those people~ are like. We internalize so much of what we see in media, without necessarily recognizing that these are someone else’s opinions being implanted into our heads, nor recognizing when we reenact those behaviors ourselves. As the kids say: You are not immune to propaganda.

When toxic and abusive relationships are being held up as the height of romance, that has real world consequences.

(That said, Hollywood’s rancid takes on race/sex/relationship dynamics have done infinitely more damage than even the most Problematique fanfic in existence. That is where the influence and impact is, so maybe let's point our guns at the real enemy instead of at each other, yeah?)

And proshippers will say "don't like, don't read," but it's not quite as simple as that. Indeed, I personally do not like [redacted ship], and therefore I don’t read it -- but we also need to be free to talk about the things we don't like, and why. When we see something that makes us go "hey wow that's kinda fucked up,” we need to be able to have that conversation without being told "then just don't read it! you’re being an asshole and a killjoy by spoiling it for the people who DO like it!"

Friends, I am not interested in spoiling anyone’s enjoyment of anything.

You can write and consume problematic content without being a problematic person. Fiction is not reality; you are hurting no one by hurting blorbo, or by enjoying watching blorbo being hurt, or by imagining your blorbos in a relationship that is, strictly speaking, somewhat less than healthy.

But you do need to be aware of what it is you're consuming -- and therefore unconsciously internalizing -- and honestly, AO3 is far better about this than mainstream media.

Part of the beauty of AO3′s tagging system is that it allows the creator to give a meta framing for the story, that may not be visible within the text itself. Take, for instance, how many, many people over the decades have somehow misread Lolita as ~a story of forbidden love~, but if Nabokov had been posting it on AO3, I guarantee you he would have tagged it with rape/noncon elements, pedophilia, child sexual abuse, grooming. He’s on record saying that Lolita is a horror story told from the point of view of the monster.

There is a world of difference between a story that knows it’s fucked up, and a story that doesn’t. The latter is What We Need To Talk About; the former, assuming it’s been properly tagged, is honestly a lot less harmful.

Depiction isn’t necessarily glorification. Oftentimes when people are writing about something fucked up, it’s to shine a light on that and go, HEY WOW, SO THIS IS PRETTY FUCKED UP, HUH? Whenever you see a fic with the tag “Dark [Blorbo]”, for instance, that is an explicit acknowledgment that Blorbo’s actions in this story are not alright. It is, once again, fiction telling us what kind of behavior is socially acceptable, and the message in darkfic is “...and this is NOT!”

So yeah.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that trying to suppress criticism and/or problematic content isn’t it. Nor is turning criticism into personal attacks. If you have an issue with a particular character, or a particular ship, by all means, get on your soapbox and start preaching. That’s what meta is. But take aim at the subject matter, not the individual fan creators who get a kick out of it.

And also just -- don't be a dick. Nothing in fandom is worth harming actual other people for.

Anyway, now that I’ve pissed off everyone on both sides, time to kick back with a nice relaxing glass of 4Loko. Cheers y’all. ✌

#tw: rape #tw: abuse #asks

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davidmann95 · 3 years

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Sooo… Superman and the Authority?

magnus-king123 asked: Your thoughts on Superman & the authority Give it to me...lol

Anonymous asked: Seeing Bezos take his little trip into space the same day Morrison puts out a Superman comic that touches on how far we’ve fallen from the days when we dreamed of utopian futures where everyone explored the stars was a big gut punch. Not used to Superman being topical in that way.

Anonymous asked: What'd you think of Superman and the Authority#1?

This is far beyond what I can fit in the normal weekly reviews, so taking this as my notes on the first six pages, with this and this as my major lead-in thoughts:

* Janin's such a perfect fit for Morrison - the scale, the power, the facial expressions selling the character work, the screwing around with the panel formatting as necessary to sell the effect, the numinous sense of things going on larger than you can fully perceive amidst the beauty and chaos. It's a shame he wasn't around 25 years ago to draw JLA, but I'll take him going with Morrison onto other future projects.

* His intro action sequence is such a great demonstration of why Black actually does have something to offer, and also how he's such a dumbass desperately needing Superman to save him from himself.

* While Jordie Bellaire didn't legit go with an entirely monochromatic palate the way early previews suggested, it's still an effect frequently and excellently deployed here. And glad to see Steve Wands carry into this from Blackstars since there's such an obvious carryover from its work with Superman.

* "Gentlemen. Ladies. Others." Great both because of the obvious - hey, Superman's nodding at me! - and because it's a phrasing that reinforces that this take on him (and let's be real Morrison) is old as hell.

* I'm mostly past caring about whether this is an alt-Earth Superman until it becomes indisputable one way or another, this and Action both rule so what does it really matter? But while there are still a couple signs in play suggesting some kind of division (the Action Comics #1036 cover, Midnighter up to time-travel shenanigans) the "lost in time" quote clearly thrown in after the fact to explain how he could have met Kennedy outside of 5G that wouldn't be necessary for an Elseworlds, the assorted gestures towards Superman's current status quo, the Kingdom Come symbol appearing in Action, and that Morrison would have had to completely rewrite the ending if this wasn't supposed to be 'the' version of Clark Kent going forward as was the intent when they first planned it all say to me that no, no fooling around, this is our guy going forward one way or another.

* Janin and Bellaire making the first version of the crystal Fortress ever that actually looks as cool as you want it to.

Anonymous asked: I like that Superman and The Authority is basically the anti-All-Star; instead of the laid back, immortal Superman who is supercharged, we have a stressed, ageing Superman whose tremendous powers are fading. The former will always be there to save us, but the latter is running out of time and needs to pull off a Hail Mary. Also, he mentions in his monologue to Black that he was "lost in time" when he met JFK, so maybe he is the main continuity Clark. Or he's the t-shirt Supes from Sideways.

* You're absolutely right - the power reversal is obvious and the ticking clock in play seemingly isn't for his own survival but everyone around him as he wakes up and realizes all the old icons grew complacent with the gains they'd made and he's not leaving behind the world he meant to. Both, however, are built on the idea of preparing the world to not need them anymore - it'll still have a Superman in his son, but that'll only work because of the others he empowers and inspires. The question is what happens to Clark if he's not going to live in the sun for 83000 years.

* Clark's 'exercise' here does more to sell me on the idea of Old Man Superman as a cool idea than however many decades of Earth 2 stuff.

* Intergang being noted alongside Darkseid and Doomsday speaks to how much Kirby informed Morrison's conception of Superman.

* This isn't exactly the most progressive in its disability politics but at least it makes clear Black's being a piece of shit about it.

* It's startling how much Clark can get away with saying stuff in here you'd never expect to come out of Superman's mouth. "I made an executive decision" "Privacy, really...?" "You have nowhere to go, Black. Nothing to live for." "There are few people in my life who I instinctively and viscerally dislike, and you've always been one of them." It only works because there's zero aggression behind it, he's just past the point of niceties and being totally frank while making clear none of these assessments preclude that he cares and is going to unconditionally do the right thing every time. He is absolutely, per Morrison, humanity's dad picking us up when we're too drunk to drive ourselves home.

* The story doesn't put a big flashing light over it, but it's not even a little bit subtle having the material threat of the issue be a ticking timebomb left by the carelessness and hubris of generations past.

* Manchester keeps trying to poke the bear and prove his hot takes about Superman and it's just not working. The front he put up under Kelley is gone after decades of defeats, and as Morrison understands what actually conceptually works about him as a rival to Superman underneath the aging nerd paranoia he's exposed as what he absolutely would be in 2021: a dude with a horrific terminal case of Twitter brainworms. I was PANICKED when I heard there was an 'offensive term' joke in this, I was braced for Morrison at their well-meaning worst, but it's such a goddamn perfect encapsulation of a very specific breed of Twitter leftist who uses their politics first and foremost as a cudgel and justification to label their abrasive, judgmental shittiness as self-righteousness (plus it's a killer payoff to a joke from way back in his original appearance). Cannot believe they pulled that off when they're so very, very open about basically not knowing how the internet works.

* @charlottefinn: Manchester Black using his telekinetic powers to force someone he hates to fave a problematic tweet so that he can screenshot it and start a dogpile

@intergalactic-zoo: “Once they cancel Bibbo, Superman won’t be *anyone’s* fav’rit anymore!”

* Friend noted this issue had to be fully the conversation because the whole premise stands on the house of cards of these two somehow working together, and with three 'silent' inset panels the creative team pulls off that turning point.

* So much of this feels on the surface like Morrison bringing back the All-Star vibes with Clark, but when he drops a "That's all you got?" in a brawl you realize what's underlining that bluntness and confidence in the face of failure is that deep down this is still the Action guy too. This dude ain't gonna get wrecked in his Fortress while the other guy chuckles about him being A SOFT WEE SCIENTIST'S SON!

* Bringing up Jor-El made me realize that Morrison already spelled out that this is the final threat to Superman, what he faces at the end of the road:

"Now it's your turn, Superman."

* A l'il Superman 2000/All-Star reference with the Phantom Zone map!

* There's so much intertextuality going on here even by Morrison standards - Change or Die with the old hero putting together a team of morally nebulous folks out to 'fix' everything, Flex Mentallo with the muscleman trying to redeem the punk, Doomsday Clock with the fate of the world hinging on whether Superman can get through to a meta stand-in for an idea of 'modern' comics cynicism, DKR and New Frontier and Kingdom Come and Multiversity and Seven Soldiers and What's So Funny and All-Star and Action and the last 5 years of monthly Superman comics and Authority and probably Jupiter's Legacy and Tom Strong - but none of that's needed. You could go in with the baseline pop cultural understanding of the character and not care about any of the inside baseball shit and get that this is a story about a leader of a generation that let down the people they made all their grand promises to as inertia and day-to-day demands and complacency let him be satisfied with the accomplishments they'd made long ago, looking at a new era and seeing the ways its own activists are dropping the ball. The only thing that fundamentally matters in a "you have to accept you're reading a superhero story" sense is that because he's Superman he's willing to own up to it and listen to people who might know better about some things and try to set things right while he and those who'll take his place still have a chance. And yes, the oldster looking back on their legacy with a skeptical eye and hoping for better from the next generation, hoping most of all that their little heir apparent can fulfill the promise inside of him instead of being a provocating little shitkicker, is obviously also autobiographical.

* The overlaying Kennedy reprisal is such a great visual of a sudden intrusive thought.

* The Kryptonite secret is the obvious "This is going to matter!" moment, but "He lied about his son" is a bit that doesn't connect to anything going on right now so maybe that's important here too? More significantly, the Justice League can't actually be the villains here but that Ultra-Humanite's crew are in an Earth-orbiting satellite makes pretty clear what's up.

* I've said before that between Superman, OMAC, and a New Gods-affiliated speedster this was going to use all of Morrison's favorite things. King Arthur playing a role isn't exactly dissuading me.

* Love the idea that all the antiheroes have their own community in the same way as the capes and tights crew. They definitely all privately think the rest are posers though and that they alone are Garth Ennis Punisher in a mob of Garth Ennis Wolverines.

* Manchester's fallen so far he's gone from trying to convince Superman to kill to convince him to dunk on people for their bad takes and Clark just doesn't get it. Official prediction of dialogue for upcoming issues:

"According to these bloody Fortress scans, the only thing that can restore your powers is an unfiltered hit of dopamine. Don't worry, Doctor Black has a few ideas."

"Hmm. Maybe I'll plant a nice tree?"

"...fuck you."

* Ok I already talked about how great the Fortress looks in here but LOVE this library.

* A pair of pages this seems like the right spot to discuss from Black's original appearance that underlines both his and Superman's inadequacies up to this point:

Responding to the problem of "the government and penal system are hopelessly corrupt" neither of them has any actual notion of what to do about it in spite of their respective posturing beyond how to handle individual outside actors - each is in their own way every bit as small-minded and reactionary as the other. Clark's coming around though, and he's holding out hope for the other guy.

* Superman: Have a lovely mineral water :) proper hydration is important :)

Manchester Black: *Is a dude who can get so mad he vomits and passes out. At water.*

* That last page is the one to beat for the year, and does more to put over the idea of this as an Authority book than that Midnighter and Apollo are literally going to show up. It also feels like Morrison tacitly acknowledging all the ways the premise could go or at least be received wrong - from Superman saying 'enough is enough' to who he's bringing into the fold to go about it - in the most beautifully on-the-nose fashion imaginable. Maybe they'll save us all! Or maybe they'll drown us in their vomit.

#Superman and The Authority #Superman #The Authority #Manchester Black #Grant Morrison #Mikel Janin #Jordie Bellaire #Steve Wands #Opinion

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a-womans-rhetoric · 3 years

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Natalie Wynn's "J.K. Rowling" and Disruptive use of Women's Rhetorical Tropes: A Defiant Reply to Transmisogyny

ContraPoints, surrounded by an opulent, candle-lit set and adorned in witch's garb, leisurely pours champagne into her glass — she's ready to breach the internet's hottest topic of January, 2021: her childhood idol being outed as a transphobe (link here). The video itself being over an hour and a half long, I would be hard-pressed to claim that I could ever hope to cover its entirety, comprehensively, in a single post. So to save-face, I'll be dedicating this space only to breaking down her most frequently used rhetorical tropes, one by one.

Irreverence

"Joanne, I wanna talk to you, Joanne! [Fans herself with a rainbow paper fan with the word "BIOLOGICAL" written across it] What is it about Joannes? I can't catch a break from these people" (00:23-00:29, emphasis added).

Wynn's introductory lines immediately open a dialogue with J.K. Rowling — however, this invitation of discourse is defiantly "irreverent" (reminiscent of Nomy Lamm's punk-feminist style in "It’s a Big Fat Revolution” (1995)). Contrapoints, herself a transgender woman, is aware that her very existence is considered in opposition to the TERF-ideology that Rowling subscribes to. Thus, she's rather playful — even openly disrespectful — with her diction: calling the British author by her first name in a mocking-tone and flaunting her own trans identity to the camera (in a way that would likely offend the fragile sensibilities of a transphobe). Her personal tone (with ample use of the pronoun "I") servers a duplicitous purpose: a simultaneous message of "sit down and listen" and a fair degree of "I don't care if you can't accept me."

"So, now that 2020 is finally over, I think we can let the record conclusively show that it was a year whomst is bad. And on top of everything else going on, truly the last thing we needed was the author of Harry Potter coming forward to announce there's two things she can't stand: bigotry, and the transgenders. (00:31 - 00:50, emphasis added).

Finally broaching the subject at hand directly, Wynn employs kairos alongside her irreverence. Kairos, or the rhetorical use of an "opportune moment," holds incredible weight in the first month after 2020: the year in which the whole world fell into a stasis. Characterizing Rowling's transphobia as a collective "the last thing we needed," is also rather dismissive — she unites herself with her audience with the pronoun "we" and invites us all to groan at the exasperating nature of Rowling's bigotry.

Claiming the Right to Speak / Personal Experience

"This is a painful topic for me all around because, as a transgender woman, I am honestly really hurt by a lot of the things Joanne has said in the last year. But I also know what it's like to be the target of a Twitter mob" (01:36-01:47).

As she begins to touch on the topic, Natalie Wynn claims the right to speak on the issue of Rowling's transphobia — a type of bigotry that directly effects her. However, Wynn also situates herself partially with Rowling in her acknowledgement that receiving Twitter backlash is a terrifying experience (an experience, she argues, that the human brain is not prepared to handle the scale of, 01:49-02:39). In treating her subject with such dignity — and adding her own deeply personal account— ContraPoints creates a credible ethos in the beginning of her video essay. The audience is inclined to listen to someone who has been directly effected by the subject of Rowling's controversy (transphobia) and someone who is, rather compassionately, willing to empathize with those who would wish her harm. Although the generally sassy, glamorous, and irreverent tone of the video still appears soon after (see: the above image), her opening up for this somber moment garners a fair degree pathos in the viewer — we, as human beings, are inclined to sympathize with people who are open about being hurt.

Metis (Embodied Rhetoric)

[The following ContraPoints quote is addressing the above J.K. Rowling tweet, content warning for transmisogyny] "Transphobes love to play this game where they pretend that trans people just don't understand basic biology, that's our problem! As if I didn't start taking female hormones because I'm acutely aware that my body is not the same as a cis woman's body, that sex is real. "[Fictional TERF character] You will never be a woman, Nathan. Every cell in your body is male and has a Y chromosome." Really? That's crazy. How you'd you learn so much about science? You know I don't really feel the need to have a second X chromosome, I get by with only one, I make it work. I actually like the Y chromosome, I think it's a little more dainty, you know, it's little softer, a little more petite. The X chromosome has a lot of extra appendages, and don't you think? I don't need anymore of those, thanks. No trans person thinks it's possible to change chromosomal sex and to pretend otherwise is to argue in bad faith" (08:47-09:34).

If you can excuse my gargantuan quote, I hope you'll agree that the dialogue ContraPoints builds here was just too good to cut short. Within this excerpt, we see Wynn's use of irreverance and personal experience blended seamlessly together. For this YouTuber, the personal is perpetually political — especially when her own identity is constantly taken as an ideological stance. She uses her own expertise in trans issues to pick apart just how disingenuous Rowling's assertions are — even accusing her of "argue[ing] in bad faith" with her reductive claims (later, taking specific issue with how Rowling treats trans-ness as a costume). But, here, she also directly invokes another rhetorical trope: that of metis, or embodied rhetoric. Natalie Wynn specifically references her transgender body as a sort of counterpoint to the condescending "sex is real" claims by TERFs. She cites her intrinsic desire to pursue hormonal therapy as evidence that she — and other trans people like her — are all "acutely aware" that there are chromosomal differences between themselves and cis women. With this salient statement, she then follows with some humor: which, again, utilizes her trans body in her rhetoric. Her characterization of the Y chromosome as "more petite" and playful declaration of not needing "extra appendages" lightens up the often dark tone that arguing for trans rights and liberation can take. The clever points she makes are by no means weakened by her humor — if anything, the audience is more willing to listen to someone who can "joke about themselves" (so to speak) while still arguing an incredibly important message.

Naming and Defining Issues

"When I see Joanne tweeting about how trans people think sex isn't real and they're erasing same-sex attraction and they're silencing women, alarm bells are ringing because I recognize these as familiar transphobic talking points, specifically TERF talking points. "TERF" means trans exclusionary radical feminism. God are we still talking about this? I promise this is the last time. So TERFism is a hate movement that disguises transphobia as feminism. ... The fundamental problem with TERFs is not that they're mean. It's that they're politically reactionary, they want to reverse the progress of trans liberation." (14:05-16:02)

In her definition of TERF rhetoric, Natalie Wynn outlines some dog-whistles that are obvious to her, as a trans woman. She calmly explains to the viewer that, oftentimes in the present-day, rhetorics of exclusion are thoroughly disguised; TERFs, specifically, hide their rampant transphobia as a form of feminism. However, she further clarifies that the specific "danger" that TERFs pose is not from their cruelty — it's from their fervent dedication to strip away trans rights through political means. By specifying this danger, Natalie Wynn shifts the conversation away from empty discussion of offensiveness/terminology, to issues which directly affect the lives of trans people every day.

[This portion addresses the picture above] Also an act of naming and defining, ContraPoints makes a distinction between "Direct" and "Indirect Bigotry." She argues that many people envision bigotry as a festering, public, frothing-at-the-mouth hatred — a phenomenon she dubs "the Westboro Baptist Church theory of bigotry" (20:06). In bringing attention to the human tendency to think of people as exclusively practicing "direct bigotry" — envisioning them as a sort of delusional "other" — she then forces the audience to contemplate the relative omni-presence of the more covert (and possibly alluring) "indirect bigotry." This definition, crucially, requires introspection. By allowing ourselves to think of bigots not exclusively as "Westboros," we're made to adopt a much more nuanced view of subjects (most) generally prefer to keep black-and-white. Natalie Wynn uses her J.K. Rowling case study to complicate this 2D view of "The Bigot," inviting others to more carefully examine how politically reactionary views develop.

Phew, this was probably the longest post I've ever typed up on tumblr! Hopefully, I succeeded in demystifying (or at least adding clarity to) some of the specific tropes ContraPoints uses (that are common to women's rhetorics as a whole). Thanks for reading if you stuck around this long, and my ask box is always open!

#contrapoints #tw transphobia #tw transmysoginy

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crybaby-book-club · 3 years

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breaking into the ice court | six of crows playlist

“Well, we’ve managed to get ourselves locked into the most secure prison in the world. We’re either geniuses or the dumbest sons of bitches to ever breathe air.”

playlist by @crybaby-book-club

track one: feel good inc - gorillaz

for that moment when wylan and jesper triggered Black Protocol

track two: super massive blackhole - muse

look ... this is the perfect hype song for a heist, don’t come for me!

track three: no church in the wild - jay-z, kanye west, frank ocean, the-dream

“Human beings in a mob What's a mob to a king? What's a king to a God? What's a God to a non-believer Who don't believe in anything?

Will he make it out alive? Alright, alright No church in the wild”

track four: you should see me in a crown - billie eilish

Brick by brick.

“You should see me in a crown I'm gonna run this nothing town Watch me make 'em bow One by one by one One by one by”

track five: i did something bad - taylor swift

“They say I did something bad Then why's it feel so good? They say I did something bad But why's it feel so good? Most fun I ever had And I'd do it over and over and over again if I could It just felt so good, good”

track six: bad guy - billie eilish

“I’m the bad guy, duh!”

- Kaz motherfuckin’ Brekker

track seven: on - bts

“가져와 bring the pain oh yeah (Eh-oh) 올라타봐 bring the pain oh yeah Rain be pourin' Sky keep fallin' Everyday oh na na na (Eh-oh) 가져와 bring the pain oh yeah, eh”

again, more heist hype music! don’t come for me!!

track eight: breezeblocks - alt-j

Kaz seized her hand, keeping it on the railing. He didn’t look at her. “Stay” he said, his voice rough stone. “Stay in Ketterdam. Stay with me.”

She looked down at his gloved hand clutching hers. Everything in her wanted to say yes, but she would not settle for so little, not after all she’d been through. “What would be the point?”

He took a breath. “I want you to stay. I want you to ... I want you.”

“She may contain the urge to run away But hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks Germolene, disinfect the scene My love, my love, love, love But please don't go, I love you so, my lovely

Please don't go, please don't go I love you so, I love you so Please don't go, please don't go I love you so, I love you so Please break my heart”

track nine: feels like we only go backwards - tame impala

“You want me.” She turned the words over. Gently, she squeezed his hand. “And how will you have me, Kaz?”

...

“I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all.”

“It feels like I only go backwards, baby Every part of me says "go ahead". I got my hopes up again, oh no... not again. Feels like we only go backwards, darling. I know that you think, you sound Silly when you call my name (my name) But I hear it inside my head all day. When I realize I'm just holding onto The hope that maybe Your feelings don't show”

track ten: make me (cry) - noah cyrus, labrinth

Speak, she begged silently, Give me a reason to stay.

“Couldn't hear the thunder, but I heard your heart race Couldn't see the rain, we're too busy makin' hurricanes Love ain't easy when it ain't my way But it gets hard, when you ain't here makin' me crazy

Baby, say the word, darlin' You know just how to hold the sucker down So I'll see you in the morning I can't watch you walk out”

track eleven: love on the brain - rihanna

“Oh, and baby I'm fist fighting with fire Just to get close to you Can we burn something, babe? And I run for miles just to get a taste Must be love on the brain That's got me feeling this way (feeling this way) It beats me black and blue but it fucks me so good And I can't get enough Must be love on the brain yeah And it keeps cursing my name (cursing my name) No matter what I do, I'm no good without you And I can't get enough Must be love on the brain”

This one is for the Nina-Matthias shippers out there <3

track twelve: new person, same old mistakes

I’m going to take my money, Kaz vowed. And I’m going to get my girl.

“I can just hear them now "How could you let us down?" But they don't know what I found Or see it from this way around Feeling it overtake All that I used to hate Wonder what if we trade I tried but it's way too late All the signs I don't read Two sides of me can't agree When I breathe in too deep Going with what I always longed for Feel like a brand new person (But you make the same old mistakes) I don’t care I’m in love (Stop before it’s too late) Feel like a brand new person (But you make the same old mistakes) I finally know what is love (You don’t have what it takes) (Stop before it’s not too late) (I know there’s too much at stake) (Making the same mistakes) And I still don’t know why it’s happening (Stop while it’s not too late) And I still don’t know

This song is for that chapter when the crows got double crossed by jan van eck. Dirtyhands had come to see the rough work done.

Hope you enjoy the playlist! Might update it once and while with new tracks so follow it on Spotify to stay updated. Feel free to share any songs you’d think would be a great addition to this playlist.

#six of crows #six of crows playlist #leigh bardugo #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #nina zenik #matthias helvar #wylan van eck #shadow and bone netflix #six of crows aesthetic #shadow and bone #grishaverse

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hlcreators · 4 years

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AUTHOR REC: creamcoffeelou / @2ofusmp4

Be sure to show some love by leaving kudos and comments!

last blues for bloody knuckles (34k)

“Hi, love,” A too-familiar voice greeted him from the other side of the door. He had a cigarette dangling from his lips that he brought between two fingers as his eyes raked over Louis. All Louis could do was stare, wide-eyed at the alpha that he’d left behind so many years ago. “Harry?” His voice felt far away, like it wasn’t him that was speaking. On the other side of the door stood the one man he never thought he’d see again, and maybe the only man he never wanted to see again. A few steps behind him stood Liam and someone else he didn’t recognize, with guns tucked into their front pockets. “I need you to come with me.”

Styles was a name everyone knew. It had evolved into something of a fairy tale, a far away problem that normal people didn’t have to deal with. Louis never thought he’d find himself falling in love with him. When he finds himself pregnant with Harry’s child, he knows he has to leave the life, and Harry, behind. For her sake.

He never expected Harry to show back up on his doorstep five years later.

A mob au.

Adore You (23k)

When they’d first come into this lifestyle, the being in their roles in their day to day lives, Louis had struggled with it. He’d found it hard to distinguish between what Harry was doing because he thought he had to, with Louis as his dominant, and what he wanted to do just because of them being partners.

Being ‘twenty-four-seven’ in the traditional sense wasn’t exactly realistic in their life, no matter how much they tried to make it work. They could do small things within their power dynamic, they could try their best to keep it going, but more or less, it wasn’t a constant thing. Harry called it submission with weekends and bank holidays, and it worked for them.

As different as it was from what he expected, no matter what, in the end, it worked for them – and that was all that mattered.

“Can I… take care of you?” Harry had asked, his eyes looking everywhere but at Louis. Louis had just turned twenty-three, they’d been exploring things, doing new things for years, and Harry still managed to surprise him. “Like… Just do things for you like you take such good care of me.”

OR: A canon-compliant fic where Harry wants nothing more than to take care of Louis.

Running In The Shadows (43k)

Harry had a plan for his life. Work his dream job, raise his family, and settle down one day. He thrived in the ordinary. But when tragedy strikes, he has to see exactly how far hes willing to go to help the person he cares for most. Louis was never a part of that plan.

technicolor (81k)

When the small town of Twin Lakes begins experiencing a string of serial murders, a team of detectives is called in to help. Louis is the head of the team and meets a hard-headed psychic who everyone else seems to believe is the one who will solve the case. Louis isn't so sure.

OR The slow-burn, hate-to-love, crime au where Harry is a psychic, Louis is a detective, and the world is against them.

Still Standing Still (44k)

Louis has long since been following the same schedule, the same program, the same everything. He works hard towards his goals and gives everything to those that mean the most to him. Harry was never a part of the plan, but Louis finds he loves unplanned changes.

Earned It (5.4k)

There’s something so uniquely captivating to being on stage - to being the center of attention. Louis has always craved it, always craved the feeling of being desired by all only to have his own pick at the end of the night. He knows people come to see him specifically - has been told time and time again - and maybe that’s why he’s so in love with what he does. He knows he’s wanted and he loves being able to manipulate the attention of the men and women sitting in the crowd around him.

Break Me Dow, Build Me Up (16k)

America, as it’s been told, is the world of riches. Men and women alike can come to the land of the free and achieve the American dream, regardless of their background. He wanted nothing more than to create a better life for his sisters, for himself, and perhaps for his future. Harry Styles was never a part of the plan.

[or: Louis moves his family to America to try and find a better life. Harry finds him instead.]

Just A Whisper (11k)

Strange things have happened around the castle since Louis was young. No one has ever been able to explain them and they've long since gone ignored. As the hauntings become more frequent, Louis finally reaches his last straw and calls a professional to help him.

Ready To Run (11k)

After being left at the alter by his boyfriend of five years, Louis goes on a vacation to try and clear his head and fill the empty spaces in his heart. On the way, he meets a new group of life-long friends, and maybe a little more than that.

Just To Feel (4.1k)

Reason #17: Your car's already at their place and you're too lazy to move it.

When he wakes up, his back hurts, his head is pounding, and his mouth is extremely dry. There’s too much light around him and he doesn’t remember falling asleep at all the night before, let alone getting home. But as soon as he opens his eyes, he realizes very quickly that he’s not home.

He’s managed to fall asleep on the floor of Harry Style’s flat.

The Brightest Star Shines Through The Dark (16k)

Harry and Louis build their life together from the beginning - but even losing everything can't tear them apart.

What A Feeling (2.9k)

“You know I don’t kiss and tell.” Louis says with a slightly forced laugh. “Yeah, cause there’s nothin’ to tell!” Liam replies with a grin, getting a cackle from Niall, and making Louis’ face flame. He can feel Harry’s soft chuckle, just because their bodies are touching. “Like you have room to talk, mate.” He bites back, but all three of them are still laughing. He really needs to get laid.

Across The Lines (28k)

With a camera in hand, Louis sets off on the road trip of his life to explore the most famous haunted houses of the UK. Things don't exactly go to plan.

End Game (54k)

Harry styles is the most feared man in London, notorious for always getting everything he wants. All of that changes when Louis comes around and opens his eyes to a new, beautiful side of the world.

Beneath These Sparkling Lights (Forever you’re mine) (5.1k)

"After years of being called a couple teasingly by both our families and friends alike, I know it was nerve wracking for the both of us when it finally actually happened. But for our entire lives we’ve always been HarryandLouis, never apart, whether we called ourselves best friends or best friends and fiancés or now best friends and husbands.” Harry’s smile is so gorgeous that Louis feels a little shake in his knees, “Through everything, the good, the sometimes weird, and the bad, I’m so glad it was you at my side. I know life is ugly sometimes, but you’re the beauty in the fight that is life, for me. My rose to my dagger."

Last Day Alive (42k)

Harry Styles was born to the leader of the Following - the organization that keeps their world peaceful and just. Without the Following, the world would only return to the ways of the Old Times and all of them would come to an untimely end. Or, so he thought, until he meets Louis, the leader of the Rebellion.

Gentle Autumn Rain (57k)

Louis Tomlinson moved to London with a big heart and a big dream. Harry Styles moved to London, fresh out of the police academy, with the hopes of helping as many people as he could in his eyes. When a deranged alpha forces their paths to cross, their ideas of what is meant to be will never be the same.

Down the Field (9k)

Louis, a pro football player of Chelsea, is forced to retire after a severe injury to his foot. After he recovers and is told the news that he'll never play professionally again, he decides to go coach at his old secondary school. Harry, the health teacher, loves to let him know how big of a fan he is.

I Promise (3.5k)

Harry has a promise to keep and a pair of arms to go home to.

[Loosely based on the drowning scene from Dunkirk's trailer. ]

I Chose You (13k)

When he wakes up, the room is much brighter than when he’d fallen asleep. He has to blink the sleep from his eyes and eventually he just tosses an arm over his face to try and ignore the brightness, but then he realizes that the bed has a decent sized dent in it that forms perfectly to his body and he’s comfortable. It’s – weird. He can’t remember leaving the blinds open, and it wouldn’t have made much sense for Zayn to have opened them, either, but he doesn’t think about it. Maybe he just hadn’t realized that he’d had such a nice bed when he’d fallen asleep.

After a moment, he groans and takes his arm away from his eyes and – wait. This is – this is not his hotel room. This is a bedroom.

[Or: Louis wakes up in another life.]

As We Are (48k)

Louis doesn't think much when he's asked to meet up with the alpha of the pack two hours from his own - he figures it's business as usual. But Harry Styles is anything but usual.

Written In The Stars (71k)

It was so different - the complete opposite of everything Louis had ever expected about finally being placed into the real world. Zayn defied every single thing he'd ever been told about vampires, about how he was supposed to be treated. This was nothing like what he'd expected.

[or: Zayn's the third oldest vampire in the world and found himself searching out the company of a human, so he took Louis as his keep. His maker Harry doesn't approve.]

Running (28k)

Louis was never ashamed of who he was - never had been never would be. But he never really was himself.

In The Heat of The Moment (36k)

The first thing that came to Zayn’s mind when he read Liam Payne’s file was that he was certainly, definitely going to die before he was thirty. The word they used in The Office for such a case was reckless; reckless meant that, perhaps, the person wasn’t at fault, but the universe and said person’s energy didn’t happen to match. That made terrible things happen to that person.

Liam Payne was a classic case of recklessness.

[or: A modern times AU where Zayn is a guardian angel and he's been sent down to protect the most reckless human he's ever met.]

#writer appreciation week #hljournal #1dsource #fics #author rec

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bangtan-sonyeonddaeng · 4 years

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Jaebum Prompt Scenario:

Prompt 36. Stop apologizing for other people! You’re not the shitty one!

39. You don’t own her/him/them. You don’t get to choose who they choose. I don’t get to choose who they choose. No one, but them, gets to make that decision.

It had been a while since you and Jaebeom had been out together. You had almost been caught by fans before, and decided to lay low for a while so as not to be seen out on dates. It wasn’t that there was any kind of ban against dating, just rather you wanted your relationship to be private. You were terrified of having your entire life out there for the world to see. Every move you made being scrutinized, the media looking for any little thing from your past to dig up and ruin your reputation. And what scared you the most was the thought of not being able to leave your house without being mobbed by people, never having any privacy again.

However in spite of all this, you wanted to spend the day out with him as a normal couple. You knew the risks, but thought you two had taken every precaution. You both wore masks, beanies, and heavy coats so as not to be recognized. However all it took was one slip up for your careful planning to all go down the drain.

He slid his mask down for two seconds to place a quick kiss to your cheek, and in that moment somehow a paparazzi had spotted the two of you and taken a photo. Now social media was blowing up about his mysterious relationship. Thankfully since you were still covered no one figured out who you are, but the backlash he was receiving angered you to no end. He just wanted to be happy, and people were acting like he didn’t have that right. Like he belonged to them. And you weren’t about to stand for that.

His company had asked him to write an apology, but he thought it’d be better to do a live and apologize so others could see his sincerity. They also recommended you two possibly staging a breakup. But he was not even willing to entertain that idea. You went with Jaebeom to the company building and were watching from the couch in the same room but out of view. You were getting angrier and angrier by the minute reading the flood of comments from people, saying that he shouldn’t be dating anyone and should be focusing on his career. That the only person he should be thinking about are the fans. Sure there were nice comments in support of him and your relationship, but the hateful ones were too much. You couldn’t stop yourself from having your emotions boil over.

“Stop apologizing you’re not the shitty one!” Jaebeom’s eyes shoot up in surprise hearing your voice.

“Y/n, what are you doing?”

“I’m tired of hearing you apologizing for being happy and living your life like a normal human being. You deserve to be happy. And if people have a problem with that they can just f-” A hand is slapped over your mouth.

“Are you insane? Do you want people to find out who you are?!”

“Go ahead and let them.” You move behind him so your face is now in full view of the camera. “Now you all listen to me and you listen good. You don’t own him. You don’t get to choose who he chooses. I don’t get to choose who he choose. No one, but Jaebeom, gets to make that decision. He’s a full grown man, who has dedicated over 6 years of his life to his career and you guys. If he wants to date and be happy. That’s his choice and you shouldn’t stand in the way of that.” Suddenly you both hear Bambam yelling from the next room over.

“YEAH Y/N YOU TELL THEM! STAND UP FOR YOUR MAN!” You both burst out laughing at that and Jaebeom turns back to the camera.

“Y/n is right. I shouldn’t have to apologize for being happy. I am however, sorry for breaking your trust by keeping this a secret for so long though. I did it to respect y/n’s privacy and my own. So we could just have a semi normal relationship for at least a little while. Um.. if they choose to stay with me after all this blows over, I hope you’ll be kind. Y/n is an amazing person and makes me so so happy and I have no intention of ever leaving them or you guys. You both mean the world to me along with the rest of Got7. I guess this would be a good place to end this. I love you all and hope you’ll continue to support me and Got7 in the future.” He bows to the camera and then turns it off. He slowly spins around in his computer chair to face you.

“You’re crazy you know that?”

“Crazy for you baby.” You say with a wink. He laughs at that and you are so happy to see him smiling throughout all this. He slides the chair closer to you and wraps his arms around your waist, resting his head against your stomach. You card your fingers through his hair and he sighs happily.

“I’m sorry for this mess.”

“It’s not your fault stop apologizing. It was only a matter of time before we got caught or decided to reveal our relationship to the public anyway. Was it sooner than I would have liked? Yes, but it’s okay. We’ll get through this. Together.” He lifts his head away from you to gaze up at you, hope shining in his eyes.

“Together? You’re going to stay?”

“Of course. I’m not going anywhere. I um.. I love you Jaebeom.” You’ll never forget the look on his face in that moment. The absolutely joy and relief on his face at hearing you say you loved him for the first time.

“Incase it wasn’t obvious, I love you too.”

“Mmm it’s still nice to hear you say it though.” He brings your hand up to his lips and kisses the back of it.

“So um... you can say no. But, it would be safer if you moved in with me. Our apartment building is well protected. No one can get in or out unless they have a code given by a resident that lives there.”

“Are you asking me to move in with you?”

“For safety!”

“Ah, of course. For safety. So after all this blows over I can move back to my apartment then?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves now! We don’t know how long this will take, even if people support us there will still be paparazzi swarming your building. You have no one there to protect you! No security or reception desk to screen who’s coming in or out of the building. And-” You cut off his rambling with a kiss.

“I’ll move in with you.”

“Really? That easily? Wow. Okay that was much smoother than I thought,”

“I just told you I loved you did you honestly think I would say no?”

“I mean.. maybe. I don’t know. Part of me still thinks once you see how it’s like openly dating an idol you are going to leave.”

“You have nothing to worry about. I’m not going anywhere. I intend to be with you for as long as you’ll have me.”

“So... forever then?” You smile and lean down to kiss his forehead.

“Forever it is.”

#got7 reaction #got7 scenario #got7 imagine #got7 #jaebeom #jaebum #jaebeom reaction #jaebeom scenario #jaebeom imagine #jaebum reaction #jaebum scenario #jaebum imagine

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of-wrens-and-whirlwinds-blog · 4 years

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Maybe Stay Home This Time

Commission for the ever-lovely @likearumchocolatesouffle !!! Good Omens this time. I hope you like it, luv! <3 Commission info is here [X]

“Angel, I just want to sleep,” Crowley groaned.

Aziraphale huffed and readjusted the “web camera” Anathema had forced on him last year. It kept trying to fall over. “I know you do, but we have to discuss what to do,” Aziraphale insisted. “How are we going to fix this?”

“There is no way we can fix this ourselves,” Crowley grumped. “Pestilence is out for a spin. Individual demons and angels can’t stop him. We can’t even protect the Isles.”

“Hmph.” Aziraphale gave up fussing and just let the camera fall on its side. “People are dying, though.”

“Yes, that usually happens when Pestilence hits hard.” Crowley rubbed his face with one hand; his other was holding the mobile through which he was communicating. He was apparently sleeping on the ceiling, which meant he was upside down on Aziraphale’s computer screen. “We can probably help with London, but it’s just going to keep coming back in.”

Aziraphale sighed. He’d known it would be a long shot, trying to save the world again, but he really did want to try. He would’ve asked Adam, but the boy was barely twelve; it wasn’t right to ask him if he had any demonic heritage left in him, let alone enough to banish Pestilence. “Fine. So we can’t do much ourselves. What can we do?”

“Follow the rules, I guess,” Crowley replied reluctantly. “Even if we can’t save the world, we can help not spread anything.”

“Oh, very well.” Aziraphale tugged his waistcoat straight irritably. He’s already been cooped up for months; it was beginning to feel like he was losing his strict control. What he wouldn’t give for a walk in the park and a fine dinner after… “I will contact you again tomorrow.”

Crowley groaned.

“Don’t take that tone with me!” Aziraphale snapped. “You can sleep in between. I’m...” lonely, he wanted to say, but he still couldn’t bring himself to. He missed Crowley’s presence. But this was enough, just hearing his voice, seeing him on screen. Aziraphale just needed a bit of grounding.

“Fine,” the demon replied, but not as angrily. He had his knowing-look on, the look that meant he could see through Aziraphale’s bluster. It was very annoying. “When will you call?”

“I don’t know. After noon.”

“Good. I can get plenty of sleep in before then.”

Aziraphale called Crowley at noon on the dot, and rambled to him about his newest books, desperate to speak to someone. Crowley told him all about the rules that had been laid down, which explained several things about Aziraphale’s favorite restaurants being closed, and agreed to another call the next day. He seemed lonely, too. Well, as long as they could speak to each other, they would survive.

It was two days later, when Aziraphale was having a nap of his own, that he had a nightmare.

He couldn’t really tell what was happening, except that Gabriel was laughing and there was the sound of enormous flies buzzing and the smell of brimstone and Crowley screaming—and then Aziraphale woke up, and threw himself upright, shaking and gasping. Without thinking, he grabbed the telephone by his bed and barely managed to dial Crowley. But because he needed and expected to speak to his demon, that’s who was dialed.

The moment Crowley said, “It’s fucking midnight, angel, what—” Aziraphale began to babble over top of him, telling him about his nightmare, about how he was sorry, about how he would never let that happen, about how he would destroy anyone who hurt Crowley. It took a long time for him to get his torrent of words under control, and he wished desperately that he could cry. But angels don’t have tears. So he hiccuped and hugged himself and trailed off, high-strung and still so very upset.

“That won’t happen,” Crowley said firmly. “You don’t have to worry about that happening. You won’t have to do any destroying or smiting or whatever. We’re safe, alright? Haven’t heard a peep from either side. We’re safe.”

Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut, but his chest was easing and he could breathe again. “Yes. Yes. Alright. We’re safe.”

“That’s right. Go make yourself some tea. We’ll talk more later.”

So Aziraphale did.

Three days later, Crowley called Aziraphale in a panic, and asked him sharp questions—“Anyone suspicious in your area? Have you smelled sulfur anywhere? Your books are safe? Shop not burned down? Are you safe?”—until admitting that, well, he’d had a nightmare too. Aziraphale soothed him as best he could, and promised everything was alright, and Crowley calmed, mostly.

He still called periodically for the next week, just to check. Aziraphale didn’t mind. If it helped Crowley cope, that was all he needed to know.

Some restrictions were, cautiously, lifted. Aziraphale didn’t feel right swanning through the streets though, not even with a mask, so he didn’t go out. Crowley went to the park and fed the ducks, and called Aziraphale to let him know that the park was still flourishing, even without Crowley’s threats. The ducks had almost mobbed him, trying to get at the mixed seeds he had brought; of course, no one feeding them for quite a while, they were hungry. Aziraphale still snickered as Crowley complained.

There was always something to talk about, since there was now nothing to do but read and learn about the world. Aziraphale was outraged at the people who were labeling the plague as “no big deal”; Crowley just reminded him wearily that sometimes, humans didn’t need demons to be evil. Look at Caligula. They would learn.

Except they didn’t learn, so the two beings turned resolutely away from the plague. There were other, just as important things to talk about.

Anathema called Aziraphale to tell him that Newt was sick. Not covid, thank God, just a summer cold, but she was worried. Aziraphale considered, then asked her carefully, “Can you ask him if he would be willing to be on the receiving end of a miracle?”

“You’d do that for him?” Anathema asked eagerly, and Aziraphale smiled, knowing that that was exactly what she’d wanted. “Yes, I’ll go ask him right now!”

A quick miracle, putting together a basket of baked goods and jams and sending that by miracle to them as well, and Anathema called again to say happily that Newt was better already and they were grateful, and also he’d sent them enough jam over the past year, they didn’t need more.

“But jam is useful!” Aziraphale protested.

Anathema chuckled. “Yeah, but we’re just two humans, and we can’t give any of it away to the kids. Relax with the jam. Newt likes digestive biscuits, for some reason.”

“What do you like?” Aziraphale asked, curious.

A startled pause. Then she cleared her throat and said, “I really have no preference. I don’t really like sweet baked goods, anyway.”

“Are you sure?” he pressed, sensing there was more to this moment than just reluctance to accept a gift.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she snapped, then sighed. “Sorry. Just… I don’t know.”

Aziraphale hummed in understanding, and said gently, “Let me know if you find something. In the meantime, it’s almost time for my call with Crowley.”

Anathema laughed for real. “Yes, go call your boyfriend. It’s fine.”

“He is not my boyfriend!”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Fell.”

It was almost August, and Aziraphale was going to explode if he didn’t leave home, so he arranged with Crowley to meet at the park.

It was a lovely day, and many people weren’t wearing masks. Aziraphale thought this rather short-sighted, and kept his on firmly, even though it made his nose itch. He tried to keep his distance, but the pavement was already too small for that.

The park was nearly empty, though, and he settled at the far end of the bench, as far as possible. After only ten minutes, Crowley sauntered down the path and sat at the other end, again slumping as if his spine was a limp noodle. It wasn’t six feet, but surely it was good enough.

“Well?” Crowley asked.

“Well, what?” Aziraphale retorted.

“Is this nice? Do you feel better?”

Sighing, the angel nodded. “I missed fresh air,” he said softly.

“Me, too,” Crowley replied.

They sat in silence, watching the ducks. It was more calming than Aziraphale had expected. Maybe he really did just need to open his windows more.

So that’s what he did. He opened his windows every day for three hours exactly, and “video-called” Crowley every other day on a set schedule, and learned how to close his eyes, listen to music, and just be. It wasn’t saving the world, and it wasn’t eradicating evil; but it was taking care of himself, so he didn’t fret himself into a breakdown, and making sure he did his part. That was important too, right?

#Good Omens #Ineffable spouses #commission #writing #commissions open

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katyatalks · 5 years

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Animestyle 2019/12 - MP100 Interview Translation

The December 2019 issue of animestyle contains ~50 pages of interviews, and I was lucky enough to be sent every page to read through. Interviewees include Tachikawa Yuzuru (director) & Kameda Yoshimichi (character designer). Contains a bunch of information regarding characters & topics like season 3, so please enjoy!

[Note that this Tumblr compilation misses out quite a few things from the original Twitter thread. If you’re curious, that thread is here.]

TACHIKAWA YUZURU (Director)

Wanted to go for a darker colour scheme for the characters and settings to fit the more dramatic themes in MP100, but Kameda disagreed, wanting to go for something more colourful

Considers S2 more ‘focused on humanity’ than S1

S1 was made without expectation of S2

When cutting bits of the manga from the anime adaptation, a “the viewer will still understand the point of the scene without these lines” approach was used

Considers S2 as having two parts; the character focused part, and claw arc. The decision was made to squeeze claw arc into 4 episodes as Tachikawa hated the idea of sacrificing content from the earlier part for a half-half split

He's well aware of how loved Reigen is; fans tell him so at mob events all the time

Considers the “who exactly am I” question that many of the characters deal with; finds it most impactful with Reigen, as he simply pretends to have powers, whereas Ritsu Mob Teru etc. actually have them

He holds Reigen arc dear to himself, in particular the “be a good person that’s all” conversation that gets put into the anime more than once

He considers Reigen’s growth one of the core themes of S2, alongside Mob’s own

Episode 8 was not in the original plan - S2 was meant to be 12 episodes much like S1.

The omake in which Tsubomi comes to the office was actually drawn for the purpose of giving the team something to put into ep 8 of the anime - team was struggling to find something from the manga to put in (“S&S team doing something for Mob”) so ONE created it

The reason why all the characters in Mob Psycho are so lovely is likely because ONE is a genuinely lovely person so it’s a reflection thing

In response to Reigen’s rant at Mob in ep 6 that causes their rift, Tachikawa says; “we’ve all had moments in which we know saying anything else would be the worst thing to do but we haven’t been able to stop ourselves”. It’s why the scene leaves an impression

In the manga you don’t get to see Reigen’s face after Mob tells him he’s a good person. They added it into the anime, and Tachikawa states that Kameda had a lot of trouble trying to figure out exactly what expression they should give Reigen

Discusses American highschooler Weilin Zhang (of ~17 years old), who drew up around 1800 frames for the purpose of S2E5

Reigen’s website was designed with the brief of it having to look cheap and shoddy

Considers Mob Psycho 100 as having the message “its okay for you to do the things you’d like to” at heart

Mention of not only Japanese fans but international fans increasing with S2

Describes Serizawa as becoming handsome after his haircut in the final episode of S2

On the topic of animating what’s left of the manga, says he’d like to give it a go

KAMEDA YOSHIMICHI (Character Design)

Slightly more time pressure on S2 than S1, which meant there was a bit of detail lost with the drawings for S2

Describes Shinra as a charming character

Goes on to say that he SUPER loves Shinra and really likes drawing him. Discusses how people tend to love attractive characters in anime and as a results there’s not many chubby characters, so he latched onto Shinra

Found the thoughts & feelings of characters a lot easier to read in S2 compared to S1, which made drawing their expressions easier. The more he worked on mob the more he found he understood the characters

Small discussion of Reigen’s behavioural shift from Ep3,4,5 to 6 & complexity of his character. Makes him hard to understand. But he understood Reigen’s feelings of regret in Ep7

Reigen shirt scene segment in Ep6 intended as fanservice

ONE has described Reigen & Mob’s relationship as being similar to that of the main character and the kid from the film “About A Boy” (Will and Marcus)

Compares Reigen to Sakai Masato’s character from “Legal High” (リーガル・ハイ), in that they both do bad things but aren’t ‘bad’

Regarding the choices they made with character shading (blurry on skin, but sharp-edged on hair & clothing), this was inspired by Disney (Aladdin, specifically). Originally they went for blurry-edge on clothes too but decided against it ultimately

Describes how each mob character is pretty distinct and it’s easy to recognise who is who; ie. if they have bobbed hair + no eyebrows, mob; a standoffish countenance, Ritsu; blond hair, Reigen

Describes how in contrast to the simplistic character designs, the atmosphere they’re surrounded by is complex

Amount of young animators working on mob psycho increased from S1

Final manuscripts for S2 were compiled in 2017

States that when he read the manga, Reigen Arc really touched him and it’s the main reason he decided to work on MP100. he was very upset that S1 ended without reaching Reigen arc, and he’s glad they got to tackle it in S2

He considers the growth that Reigen & Mob go through from S2E3 - E8 a principle part of what mp100 is all about

When asked about parts of the manga that haven’t been animated yet, Kameda says there’s a LOT he’d love to bring to the screen. He wants to finish off the anime as “we’ve gotten this far already”

Regarding a potential S3, Kameda is asked if there's really enough material left in the mp100 manga to fit 12 episodes... he agrees that there's probably not, so they could go for 10 episodes much like Attack on Titan S3 Part 2, or a movie. (This is not the first time Kameda has implied S3 could be a film instead.)

If/when they proceed with animating mp100 is dependent on director Tachikawa's schedule, as it's looking a little busy right now

TSUCHIGAMI ITSUKI (S2E11 storyboard, production)

Lead animators for MP100 tended to be young; mostly in their 20s, 2-3 people in their 30s, no one in their 40s

Never felt like he was in an atmosphere where he was under hellish time pressure to get things done

On being asked his thoughts on mp100 S2 as a whole, Tsuchigami says he enjoyed it but felt like it could've been longer. He was happy w the pace of E1-3, but felt dissatisfied with E4-5. Was happy with E6-8, but then with E9 onwards felt a bit dissatisfied

Felt like the story-related elements had to be cut down in order to fit the length of the season they were given; this is where his dissatisfaction stems from. Regardless, he very much enjoyed S2

OGASAWARA SHIN (Animation director, animator)

The staff working on MP100 were allowed a lot of creative freedom

Animation director for S2E3, and animated for E3 (from Reigen repeatedly pressing the doorbell of the stalker to Reigen saying let's go out for soba) and E11 (around the Justifiable Self-Defence Rush)

Reigen's Justifiable Self-Defence Rush was animated with the intention of giving it a manga-panel-like feel

S2 was completed without any huge blunder happening

UCHIDA NAOTO (Animation director, animator)

Originally did work for S1, but felt like nothing but a hindrance and wanted to crawl into a hole. But the workplace atmosphere was great and everyone was very kind, so it ended up being a good experience

Animation director for S2E4, and was split animation director with Nakamura Hayate for S2E10. Did animation for the opening, E1,4,5,10. E1 animation: around when Emi + pals are with Mob at the embankment. E4: from 'Nakamura's flashy explosion' ((Reigen cut by glass scene?)) to when the espers are being kicked around. E5: when Reigen and Dimple are having their back-and-forth. E10: layout of the awakening lab.

Found season 2 very enjoyable. Being an animation director was excellent. Character design? Godlike. Felt incredibly lucky that he got to take part

NAKAMURA HAYATE (Animation director, animator)

As stated above Uchida & Nakamura worked on S2E10 as animation directors. Uchida covered the first part of the episode, and Nakamura the latter half

Nakamura animated for S2E4 + E10. E4: around when Mob attacks Minori attempting to exorcise Mogami from her, E10: Suzuki + co's entrance, when Mob possessed by Dimple & Shibata exit the building, Telepathy Club scene, and from Mob + Body Improvement Club's parting to the final scene

Felt like he could've done a little better for S2. And on a personal level wishes he got to draw more action scenes

ETC.

We've had confirmation from ONE already that REIGEN is complete with a single volume, but we've got that confirmation again here too with the way the sales description is written

Thanks for reading!

#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #reigen arataka #kageyama shigeo #serizawa katsuya #is mentioned i suppose? they dont really mention too many characters #my stuff

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 5 years

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Humans are Space Orcs “Human Repellent”

While you are reading this one, I want you to be thinking and come up with another marketable idea that aliens can use to repel humans like in the story :)

Also a few people have asked me lately if its ok to make suggestions or prompts, and I just want to remind you all that that is very much welcome to please do so.

They landed at Revelation Colony two weeks after the prison riot ended. If this had been an old sci-fi movie, than this would have been exactly the place for your titular hero to make a shady business deal with an underground alien mob boss, but in doing so manage to insult him inciting a chase across space itself. However, Revelation didn’t exactly follow the tropes of old film. Sure, it was the center for the black market in this quadrant of the galaxy, but instead of organs or artifacts of power, it mostly dealt in undeclared souvenirs like snow-globes and commemorative bobble heads.

The criminal presence was so laughable that, despite being the hub of black market trade, it was most known by tourists for its low prices, great market deals, and as a major staging area for UNSC and GA interests.

This was their main purpose for being here: speaking with superiors, allowing the crew a break, and perhaps finding someone who might be able to help them with Conn. Ever since the prison riot, and the defeat of the Gibb scientist the starborn hadn’t moved to so much as scratch an itch.

According to Krill, the starborn was stuck in a state of unresponsive catatonia with brain waves similar to that of a coma patient. Commander Vir couldn’t help but feel responsible for the whole thing. In fact, Conn’s current state was in direct relation to the rescue attempt by the starborn to save the Commander from losing more limbs.

They had discussed the incident multiple times since it had happened, but could make no real sense of what had happened. The commander was under the impression the starborn had overloaded himself, and the Gibb with some kind of memory flood or something similar. He could only vaguely remember the feelings that had come upon him when the starborn had touched him, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Sunny had suggested that the starborn had used Vir’s own memories and emotions to short circuit the Gibb, but also ended up catching some of the backlash himself.

Commander Vir wasn’t quite sure about that for he didn’t feel that his memories or his emotions were strong enough to do something like that. He personally thought it was some last ditch defense that the starbor itself could employ, but who knew.

IN the aftermath of everything, the Gibb scientist had been locked back up as catatonic as Conn, Noctus had managed to escape, but according to corporal Ramirez, he wouldn’t be gong very far, or at least not going where he wanted.

As the Tesraki was escaping, Ramirez had managed to partially destroy the warp converter leaving the Tesraki flying blind even if he managed to survive.

So, after all of that, they had returned to somewhere with human influence to rest, relax, and debrief. The admiral had been as pleased with the outcome as he could be, and had eventually conceded to give the crew a well-deserved break. Commander Vir, however hadn't been so lucky, and was ordered to do the admiral a favor before he got his rest.

So that is why he was here, walking down the dark, crowded streets, surrounded on all sides by colorful neon booths containing wares from all over the galaxy. Hundreds of faces stared at him as he passed hawking their wares with raised voices and pleading beckoning motions.

Behind him Sunny walked with her head high examining the crowd for any perceived threats. it hadn’t been a question that he was going to bring her with him, for by this point, it had been openly established that she was his partner when it came to the smaller operations. Not only did they work well together as a team , but they very much enjoyed the other’s company.

“Remind me why we’re here again.” The question sounded more jenuine than it did annoyed, otherwise she seemed relatively happy to be off the ship, and out and about. He also had a feeling she was relieved he hadn’t been reduced to a catatonic mess like the other two, and may have been slightly worried, keeping watch on him to make sure he didn’t collapse drooling.

“I guess the GA has caught wind of a new issue cropping up in some of the marginal alien markets. Apparently, there is a high market demand for products that can repel, or incapacitate a human.”

Sunny blinked in surprise as they cut past a colorful rack of hats, and down onto another less-crowded side street.

“Why would they be doing that?” she wondered almost managing to look baffled.

“Well, it’s only to be expected, with the influx of humans in the galaxy they are bound to run into the worst of us.” It was true, in fact, humanity brought with it what might be considered the best and worst of the galaxy. Where there were men like Commander Vir, there had to be his equal and opposite in all ways. Luckily the GA understood the nature of humans, the best and the worst mentality, an entire species of ride or die types who could come out the best of the best or evil beyond comparison.

Of course, before this understanding was met, there had been some massive PR nightmares which came with the first inter-species murder, assault, robbery etc etc, but eventually things had straightened out, but aliens were no less frightened of humans than they had originally been.

“So are we here to confiscate their things?” Sunny wondered

“No, no of course not, even on earth we make weapons to repel other people. We are just afraid of us as the rest of the galaxy pepper-spray, tasers, knives, guns,, your own keys. We have been in the business of protecting ourselves from humans long before you guys thought of it. No, the issue here is whether the objects are legal and use reasonable force.” Though when it came to humans, reasonable force usually meant lethal force for any other species, “Ah, here we are.”

The commander stopped in front of a shop, whose door was covered by a beaded curtain strung through with neon orange lights. The effect was gaudy and blinding, but he shook the light from his eyes and pushed inside. Sunny followed after.

Their presence, and entrance, into the small store immediately halted everything in its tracks. The Tesraki proprietor had frozen mid way through his sales pitch to a rather shiftly looking pair of Gibb. A few of the other customers squealed and hid behind the stands.

It was clear that a human and a Drev weren't exactly what they hoped to see this morning, perhaps the last thing they wanted to see. Commander Vir tipped the brim of his uniform hat and tugged at the collar of his suit jacket where- on stood his wings, the insignia of the GA and the UNSC, “Morning. I’m Commander Vir of the UNSC affiliated with the GA and this is my weapons lieutenant Sunny Lumnusdaughter.”

The tesraki eyed them suspiciously as they stepped further into the shop. Despite being a human, Everyone knew the name Vir, and Sunny to an extent, so they didn’t cut and run.

“What do you want!” The tesraki demanded, “I have my sales license, and my customers have every right to protect themselves from brutes like you.”

The commander simply smiled, “Of course, I don’t deny that right, The GA just wants to make sure that it is being done within the constraints of the law.” He crossed his arms over his chest, “So please, go on with your demonstration, and pretend we aren’t here.”

Hesitantly, the Tesraki went back to his pitch eyeballing the human the entire time as he went. “Yes this little beauty right here is made BY humans FOR humans and can apply a force of about 50,000 volts of electrical current directly into the body. This causes the muscles to seize up immediately and the human will be grounded. Downside is the human can immediately get back up after the shock is discontinued, so while it won’t stop one, it will be a serious deterrent.” The Tesraki eyed the Commander, “Of course, the best way for ou to test if my products are legit and ethical….”

The commander frowned, “You just want a demonstration to help sell your product.”

The Tesraki shrugged it’s furry shoulders, “You can hardly go back to your superiors and say that you know for sure this is ethical if you haven’t tested it.”

There was a moment of pause and the commander sighed eventually looking at Sunny, “If he kills me, rip his limbs off.”

That dampened the Tesraki’s smug look, but the commander was already unbuttoning his uniform jacket which he pulled off and hung on a hook on the wall removing his cap as well leaving him only in a white long sleeve- button up shirt and the uniform slacks. Sunny didn’t much like this idea, but glowered at the Tesraki to let him know she meant business.

The human stood legs slightly bent hands out to his side. Sunny stood behind him.

“Watch closely.” the Tesraki began before stepping forward and jamming the contacts against the human’s stomach. There was a sharp snapping sound which repeated violently as the human immediately seized up only managing to bite a curse through his locked jaw before falling backwards. Sunny caught him as the human twitched and jerked violently. She almost worried he was having another seizure before the Tesraki pulled back, and the human immediately regained his body groaning only to slowly regain his feet.

“Ow that hurts like a bitch.” He cursed rubbing his stomach where the contacts had made.

The spectacle had drawn a rather interested crowd, and the Tesraki was looking very smug, “See quite effective.” he looked towards the commander, “Do you want another?”

“Hell no, what kind of question is that.”

The Tesraki ignored him and turned back to his crowd, “See, a fantastic deterrent.”

“Now lets see, this little spray bottle here is another human invention for humans and contains the poison capsaicin in concentrated doses. Now, while some humans enjoy small doses of this poison on their food they do not enjoy it sprayed in their eyes. It will result in a burning sensation, and an overreaction of the mucous membranes.”

The commander backed away his hands raised, “Wow, uh I am not demonstrating that. I would like to be able to see for the next few hours thanks.”

“See even the mention of it causes them to back away in fear.” The Tesraki said dramatically

Commander Vir rolled his eyes as the rest of the crowd oohed and aahed.

“Humans, you may have heard have more senses than any creature in the galaxy…. Accept maybe for the Drev.” He glanced at Sunny, “So what if I told you that I could make the human run from this room without lifting more than a finger.”

Around the room the crowd shifted in disbelieving anticipation

“The one sense they have that the rest of us do not, can be used against them. You see that weird protrusion in the center of its face.” The commander frowned, “That is a nose and it can be used to detect particles in the air. Everything sheds particles of itself, and if there are enough of them, a human can sense it. I would very much recommend this little device for those who come from the Iota quadrant, and are known to smell irresistibly delectable to humans. You see, when this pin is pulled particles are released into the air. When a human breaths them in they bind to chemical protein sights in the nose, and I am told that the smell is quite revolting.”

The commander looked a bit skeptical one eyebrow raised, but the tesraki reached down and smugly pulled the pin. The reaction was ALMOST immediate. For the first second he just stood there and then the man’s eyes widened a hand shot up over his face, and he gagged violently. It seemed as if he tried to adjust himself to the smell, but then gagged again and turned to race towards the door knocking over a stand as he went doubling over a few more times leaving Sunny sure he was going to vomit. He vanished out the door after a couple of seconds, and the crowd clapped politely. The Tesraki returned the pin smugly.

Sunny sniffed at the air. She could just catch a whiff of something, but having been born on a planet dominated by volcanoes, it hadn’t been prudent to make her susceptible to bad smells, as sulfur was common. It was more useful to be able to detect sweet and sour smells.

“Scientists believe that this reaction exists as a primitive way to keep the creature from ingesting anything poisonous. The human nose cannot tell the difference between a smell inside the mouth and a smell outside the mouth. If the nose detects a dangerous level of certain types of chemicals that could be poisonous, it demands that the human move immediately. It can even cause an involuntary holding of the breath and a regurgitation of the last meal i.e those horrible noises it was making as it left.”

It took awhile for the commander to return, and when he did, he was mad. He marched up hand over his mouth and nose and grabbed the Tesraki by the arm. His voice was somewhat muffled by his hand when he said, “That smelled like a HUMAN corpse, so explain yourself.”

The tesraki calmly brushed him off, “Calm down, Commander, its a simple chemical compound that mimics the bacterial breakdown of your human flesh. No humans were harmed in the making of this weapon. Though you have to admit, it is quite clever.”

“Quite disgusting.” The man commented, but backed away

The Tesraki continued unfazed, “Now this one is a might bit more expensive, and takes a bit longer to operate. See first you used this to scan the human, and then you press one of these three buttons. Or you can press them all at the same time see.” There was a sharp clicking noise, and three small drones launched themselves at the Commander,’s face. The man tried to duck, but the three little pieces connected themselves together and latched onto his head and neck. The bulk of the device was locked around his neck, but a few legs of the contraption gripped themselves over his face.

“What the hell.” He muttered

“Then you press this button.” The machine whirred, and the human shrieked in pain falling immediately to his knees as his head was forced back and to the side. Sunny snarled, and the Tesraki let go of the button.

The man fell to his knees, and the device detached.

“Pressure points, areas of inherent weakness and high concentration of nerve endings on the human body. If pressed they cause severe pain. Humans have more of these points on the body but TW-17, GV-26 and LI-18 are sufficient. The last one can even cause nausea and unconsciousness if worked hard enough.”

Commander Vir rubbed his neck, “AND they can be lethal.” The tesraki frowned, but the huan held up a hand, “Which is why that device requires testing, authentication, and review from the electronics board. If it is going to e used, it has to be a NON-lethal measure with a short burst duration. We don’t want anyone getting funny ideas that they can enslave humanity.” He glowered at the tesraki

Later, when they walked from the store, Commander Vir was looking more the worse for ware. Sunny watched him in pity, “Why do you always insist on hurting yourself?”

The commander rubbed the back of his head, “Do you think I do this for fun?”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“I am allergic to pain.”

She laughed, leaned over, and picked the human up. He yelped in surprise than looked at her, “Really.”

“You look tired.” And this is how I show my appreciation.”

“Ah yes, by bridal carrying me through the city.” He gripped halfheartedly

“I can do fireman or sack of potatoes, but I hear this one is more comfortable.” She said beginning her walk through the city

Commander Vir only argued for the sake of politeness before dropping it, besides, he didn’t really mind. He was exhausted, and besides he actually kind of enjoyed the attention.

Don’t forget to comment with your idea for repelling humans, if you have one.

#humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #humans are weird #earth is a deathworld #Earth is space Ausralia

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2ofswords · 4 years

Text

Since I am so tired of reading „I know Dankovsky sucks and his ending is horrible“, before every comment that defends him, I will now throw myself into the fires of discourse and write an essay about:

Why The P1 Utopian ending does not mean Danko is an asshole

(A bit of swearing and a lot of spoilers under the cut)

Since I already spoke about being tired of disclaiming a lot, here are some of them. Firstly: This is NOT a comparison and I am definitely not saying, that his ending is better than the ending of the Haruspex or the Changeling. That would be ridiculous and I wholeheartedly belief that the other characters have morally better endings. (Though I will make one ending comparison at the end of this essay just to make myself even more of a hypocrite and there will be a comparison of one aspect of all three P1 endings, that is not made to compare their general quality but… well… this specific aspect of the ending.)

Also this essay isn‘t about Dankovsky not being an asshole. This is not a character analysis, I am only talking about the ending and his relationship regarding his path towards it. There are entirely different arguments to be made about his character that I will not talk about. Surprisingly a character is not only defined by the outcome of their story.

And last but not least the weirdest disclaimer of them all: While my arguments try to defend Dankovsky in his ending I totally understand if you still think his ending makes him more of an asshole. Killing a lot of people is always a dick move and the decision is still a horrible one. I do not really want to argue that people are wrong for judging him based of his ending. I just want to explain, why we also do not have to feel ashamed for deciding to not judge him as a complete asshole based on the main outcome of his route and why his motivation isn’t only based on spite or even ruthless calculation. Also, I think that there is a lot to say about his decision, that isn’t really said and that these are interesting aspects. Sorry to say it, but I just wanted to have a catchy title. I just really love this ending and it’s complexity and wanted to discuss it aside of calling it the evil Danko ending.

So. Let’s start with the easy argument that some people are talking about.

Argument 1: Danko completely lost it and holding him accountable due to his rationality defies the point of his route.

This one is… one of the weaker arguments, but I will still elaborate on it. The entirety of his route is built upon loss and failure. While the Haruspex starts with a mob that wants to kill him and works his way up, the dynamic of his route is him seemingly starting on top of everything and slowly loosing his bearings and by the end of the story this man is already driven to madness. Being used as a pawn in politics, getting daily “fuck you”-letters from the Powers that Be, realizing your lives work is already destroyed and all of your colleagues are probably as doomed (and being the one responsible because he was their leader), realizing that Aglaya – who was the one person who seemed to be his ally at the end – used and betrayed him just like everyone else, having the one truly honestly kind person commit suicide at least partly because of his failures, witnessing his own helplessness against the plague (an enemy that should align with his expertise as a doctor), being hated from day one by almost everybody in town, realizing that the political allies are totally bonkers and also preparing to off themselves (Victor! You seemed moderately sane at the beginning. The betrayal!), getting almost beaten to death while trying to help the town while spending all these days in an hostile place that slips into chaos… yeah I think you really aren’t in the headspace for rational thought. It is a miracle that that guy hasn’t completely broken down and day eleven and to some extend day 9 and 10 are showing him as completely unhinged already, only leading up to a decision, that isn’t really made out of spite or coldness but rather desperation and blind tunnel vision. The day eleven mission involves him going on a rampage against a military squad because of a vague hint and he only checks after the killings, if Andrew is even there. That isn’t a calculated action it’s about a man being completely shattered and making everybody suffer because of that. (Which is also horrible, but an entirely different sort of tragedy.) By now he just shouldn’t be the one handling the situation at all but the local powers sure want to wash their hand of any guilt that they haven’t already attracted. Also – and more importantly – the Polyhedron literally is the one good thing happening to this man. After going into it on day 9 he thanks Khan for reminding him of a childhood he has forgotten! He has a shit week, he is completely beaten down (quite literally) and this is the one happy moment he finds in all this chaos. Clinging onto that is surely not rational, but it is human. We all know that the Bachelor has the tendency to survive on willpower alone and here clinging to the tower and its miracles is literally his only motivation to continue his route at all. Of course he is going to protect it at that point, if thinking about any other option bring nothing but utter misery and the acceptance of complete and utter failure. After all Dankovskys route is about the limits of his rational worldview and how it hinders him more that it serves him in a world, that isn’t defined by rational beliefs. Of course he will be out of it by the end and actually loosing his composure is an important part of his suffering and character development in the story. His ending is not a sign of rational thought but the last consequence of being enraptured in a web of circumstances that forbid him from making rational decisions in the first place.

Truth to be told, I don’t really like this as an argument. I love this thought as a peace of characterization. As much as I love his ending and the horrible consequences and the actual failure it imposes, when we look at the other playable characters. But it doesn’t really help us here. It doesn’t change the fact, that Dankovsky destroyed an entire town just for a dream, a man-made building, a promise of utopia that we never witness ourselves. He still destroyed so… so much! But… let’s look a bit deeper into the motivations behind that exchange.

Argument 2: The Trolley problem

“There is a runaway trolley barrelling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options:

Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person. Which is the more ethical option? Or, more simply: What is the right thing to do?” (Wikipedia)

There is a variation to this question and interestingly enough it is one of the morality questions Aglaya asks in Pathologic 2: Would you push a man down a bridge, to save the children from a train? The curious thing is, that we can see all healers giving the same answer, (even if we have the choice to choose differently, since it is… you know… a dilemma). Necessary sacrifice is a constant of all three routes and every single protagonist has to kill in order to save a larger amount of people. Still, the game never answers moral choices with a simple answer and here with the Utopian ending we can see the darker side of this moral dilemma in full force (to a lesser extend this also applies to the Humble ending, since it also involves the Trolley problem, albeit on a smaller scale.) If we take the Kain’s studies about the focus and the soul seriously and see the Polyhedron as a method to ensure immortality seriously – or if we at least assume that Dankovsky wholeheartedly believes in that concept – than protecting the Polyhedron at the cost of the town suddenly becomes the Trolley problem at a significantly larger scale. The Polyhedron could ensure the survival of humankind but only at the expense of the town and it’s infected inhabitants. After all death is to Dankovsky but an affliction that can be healed just like the plague and consumes far more victims (if not all of them even if one would survive the disease). And that poses the question: When does the Trolley Dilemma stop working? What if there are two million people on the tracks and one million on the other side? What if there are hundred people on one and ninety nine on the other? What about five million vs. four million and nine hundred thousand? Can a human life be counted against the life of several others? If we look at the game itself and the healers answer in their daily life, it seems kind of simple: Yes, it is possible. The effort of saving is worth dirtying your hands after all. Risking at least your own life seems like a fair deal and no route really works without at least some degree of human sacrifice. But on this larger scale… it seems absurd. And… well… it is. But still. If we just try to empathise with the Bachelors mindset. If there is a possibility to cure humanity’s mortality… if there is a sliver of possibility (and since Thanatica is destroyed the Polyhedron seems like the only possibility at this point)… what kind of sacrifice is worth preserving it?

I myself have my own answer to that question. In Germany the Constitution starts with the sentence “Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar” or: “Human dignity shall be inviolable.” (This is the official translation though a more direct translation would be “Human dignity is inviolable” which is more of a statement and less of a law) Even if the effect of that sentence in politics is very debatable and it is incredibly vague and not really a usable sentence as a law… I really like it. The human rights as a concept as well as equality can be concluded from the fact, that human dignity is something that cannot – under any circumstance – been taken away and is always a thing that must be considered just by being human. It is… nice. And it also means, that a human being cannot be seen as a mere object and has its own agency. A human being is not quantifiable in their existence by any parameter, be it birth, skin colour, gender, sexuality, religion, interests, talent, job, body, etc… It is incredibly important… and incredibly interesting in our scenario. Because if life isn’t quantifiable at any circumstance… the Trolley Dilemma has a solution. There is no way to tell, if one life can outweigh several others and deciding over their lives is something and judge over the worth of their live is something one should never do. Thus Dankovsky’s choice to save the Polyhedron and outweigh the lives of the infected seems morally wrong.

But… is that the answer the game has? Well… the artbook of Pathologic 2 states that the design of the game is about enforcing ambiguity and I would argue that the first instalment is no different. Firstly: In times of crisis lives become quantifiable. That is part of the tragedy. The healers’ lives are suddenly worth preserving, while others appear as nameless numbers in a daily statistic and caring about the individual dignity seems impossible. As already said the act of killing in order to preserve life is almost mandatory in every single run. So, what about human dignity? Can it even be preserved under such a dilemma? (And there is probably a point to be made about everybody being dolls and thus not even a being with dignity and agency at all… but I digress) Especially doctors have to face this dilemma and they have to make these judgement calls, weather they like it or not. The game doesn’t answer it but makes different variations of the same dilemma that we may judge differently. The Utopian ending is one variation.

What I want to say is, that – if we take the Kains’ believes seriously and see the survival of miracles against the law of nature not only as progress but as a question about human mortality itself – the question if the Polyhedron is worth saving is a very different one. I personally think that the idea of the focus still feels too esoteric to be a real point of interest but on the other hand… it is not like we haven’t some proof when we visit Khan and listen to his testimony. It is not that this place is above it’s miracles, and we know that a lot of the mysticism is grounded in reality, be it by the very real ways of the Kin or the past existence of Simon. So only thinking of the polyhedron as an abstract concept is… well doing it a disservice if we take the other parts as serious. Yeah it is made out of it’s own idea but… you know being like “it cannot exist but it can sure puncture the earth and kill everything” is… a weird way of thinking and it sure is a McGuffin (and even called that in the Artbook) but as we said, the game is about ambiguity and the only way to look at its existence is not only “evil tower of doom”. Is it worth keeping? Eh… I wouldn’t say so myself. I still think the Utopian ending is pretty shit and seeing the tower as salvation for our mortal lives is pretty farfetched. But the question for this essay is: Is it wrong to think, it is worth keeping? And from Dankovsky’s perspective, who sees it as the only possible chance of curing human mortality… Well… the answer at least isn’t as simple anymore. But – and now we are getting somewhere – the argument about the complexity of human value can be also made without even relying on Kain-Bullshit.

Argument 3: The Utopian Ending is the only ending, that completely gets rid of the plague (at least from Dankos point of view)

But wait you say, the other endings also defeat the plague! There even is a cure, something our beloved Bachelor of Medicine never archives. What is this lunacy?

Well here is the catch: A cure does not destroy its disease. Or at least it is an unreliable method. Sure, if everyone is cured and/or the disease helps to build antibodies, then it does help to get rid of it. But the sandpest seems to leave the bodies and not finding these remnants and antibodies is one essential part of the Bachelor’s route. It is the reason Rubin needs a living heart in the first place. The disease doesn’t seem to stay and no antibodies seem to be developed. (And even if I try to avoid material of Pathologic 2 in this analysis since there are differences in the Canon I still at least want to mention, that the Panacea as well as the shmowder do indeed not help against the disease after it is cured and a person can be reinfected. I do not know, if the same is the case in one and if you can test it out.) But if there are no antibodies, the cure could only eradicate the disease if every single infected person is cured at the same time. Good luck with that! That’s not bound to be a complete mess in this town!

This is backed up on day 12 in the Bachelor’s own route. When he is presented with the options the other healers have, he always asks both of them the same question: How does that ensure the future of the town? The Haruspex makes a cure yes. But what if the disease returns? After all the underground water he talks about still exists and there is no telling, if it will ever reemerge. It already happened once… The Haruspex doesn’t answer with “no, that will never happen”. He says that they will have enough cure if this is the case. An optimist, I see. And definitely not a satisfying answer if we consider a scientific perspective. What if the cure runs out? What if they find out too late and the plague spreads outside of town? A cure is not a waterproof system against plague. (You know what works better though? A vaccine.) Daniil’s mission was always to eradicate the disease and this would not do the trick. Having only a cure is risky. And it might not be a permanent solution.

The same applies for the Humble ending. If one asks the Changeling what would happen if the blood of their sacrifice runs out she answers “There will always be people willing to sacrifice themselves” Which is… just great. Constant human sacrifice just doesn’t seem that sustainable. And it also means that there will be constant loss of human life. Something that might even lead to more sacrifice in the long run (although that would be a reaaaaly long run considering how long the sacrifice of the Clara’s bound is supposed to last.) But it sure as hell doesn’t make the plague disappear. What if there are no willing sacrifices? What if Clara is gone and there is no one to perform a miracle? Clara’s ending relies on faith by nature and putting your trust in it is easy from a player’s perspective but even harder when there are lives at stake, the success unsure and these questions to consider.

Dankovsky’s ending is built upon uprooting the plague and eradicating it. The problem is that it is everywhere and not easily destroyed. As Lara very adequately realised: There is no source. His ending is the consequence of that goal and even if it loses in every other aspect, this is the one, where it wins. It actually destroys the problem itself. Building a new town and keeping the tower it cannot reach, actively minimalizes the possibility of the plague reappearing. And a more permanent solution might save more lives than one that sounds more humane at the beginning.

Okay, to defend the Haruspex for a change of pace: In his route he actually does believe that his method eradicates the disease as much as Dankovsky is convinced that his solution does the trick. For him the source is the Polyhedron and the way, it wounds the earth. With it removed the plague will not reappear. But why should Dankovsky share this belief? No one tells him! The inquisitor says that the Polyhedron is the root of evil but there never is any actual proof for that. Even If the Polyhedron is partially responsible and Danko actually does acknowledge this, it is the bloody mess of underground fluids that are in fact the source (which is ironically confirmed by the Haruspex himself). As he tells the inquisitor herself at the last day: The source and the cause can be too different things. It already seeped through Andrey’s spiral to the upper layers. The damage has already been done and in fact the Polyhedron is now the only save place, where nobody is infected. Everything else needs to be destroyed to eradicate the disease but why even destroy the Polyhedron? Wait. Why even destroy the Polyhedron? What good would that even do if we would consider it? What the fuck would Dankovsky even do with the destroyed Polyhedron, how would that save the town?

Argument 4: Dankos ending isn’t about the town vs. the polyhedron at all!(From his perspective. It totally is for the player though!)

I experienced something weird while playing the Bachelor’s route in P1. And with that I mean that I experienced something weird, that I wasn’t already expecting. After hearing so much about the fabled Polyhedron love, assuming that he sacrifices the whole town for its sake and hearing from the inquisitor in Pathologic 2 again and again how obsessed he is, I waited for the revelation. The moment Dankovsky would completely lose it and become utterly and undeniably obsessed with the children’s tower. That moment… never happened. Or well… it happened remarkably late and with less impact than I thought. Until day 9 the tower isn’t even a point of interest to the Bachelor, which is two thirds of his route. But even after you witness the miracles of the Polyhedron yourself, you still can argue against its glory. You can agree with Aglaya on day 10, that it seems dangerous (even if that could also be tactics, but until this point there is not really a reason for that). Hell, you can tell Peter on day 12, that his ideas will always only exist in his mind and blueprints and that the new town they will create will not work out! That is so weird, if the result of his run is, that he sacrifices the town for the Polyhedron! Why is there always an option to speak against the miracle we want to save? Isn’t that completely strange?

If we take the town vs. polyhedron conflict serious then… yeah it is. But is this all, what his end can be about? I would argue against it. Because what finally tips him to his solution and completes his view on the map of the town isn’t the Polyhedrons glory: It is the towns underground water and the Haruspex telling him, that the deeper layers are infected. That is, when he flips his shit and he even has an “oh no, it can’t be!” moment. Weird, isn’t it? If he would be set about destroying the town, why agonizing over this information? But from his point of view it is a nail in the coffin, the realization, that the whole towns ground is seeping with infection and if not eradicated, it will reappear. The Bachelor doesn’t have a cure and the Haruspex, while promising that he has a solution, sure as hell doesn’t explain how that would work and insists on arguing his own case without interference. (Which is completely understandable but doesn’t clear the situation.) The Bachelor has no means on his own to fight the plague outside of destroying the town. This is his only option to call of the bombardment of the Polyhedron and the tower and from his point of view, destroying the tower would archive absolutely nothing. It is free of infection, why destroy it? What would ripping it out do aside from letting even more blood seep out? In his own case, this would be completely useless, thus destroying the Polyhedron does not save the town! When the Bachelor flips the switch and guides the trolley in a different direction, he isn’t guiding it from hitting the Polyhedron to hitting the town. He guides the trolley from hitting the town and the polyhedron to only hitting the town! And by the way to only hit the town which his infected people while everybody else evacuates in the tower. (Which is confirmed by his ending cutscene, where people are actually present. After all it takes the healthy to built the new town). In his own mind, the Bachelor is saving people, not killing them! He does what he can so that the most of them survives and in his case, destroying the town is the only method to ensure victory at all.

If we stick to his own route – as I am doing right now – we have two counterarguments against this theory. The first one: But isn’t that only the failure of finding a better method? And: yes it is. As we already discussed in the first argument, the Bachelors story is about failure and the game itself is about necessary sacrifice, lose-lose situations and making the best out of a desperate hopeless scenario. Which leaves us with the question: Could Dankovsky have found a better solution? And… maybe. If he was more attentive, made different choices, would have been nicer to the Kin… There always are “ifs” but I would argue that the ones in this scenario are… pretty small odds for a change. He does genuinely try to inspect the abattoir and find a solution and ensure it’s safety and is almost punched to death as a result. The Kin regard him with absolute hostility, and for a good reason but it doesn’t help his case. Without Burakh’s knowledge and caste-rights making a cure would be (almost) impossible. He isn’t allowed to do any normal doctoring the one time, he tried to gain some blood from dead people, multiple guards had to die in order to ensure this absolute act of evil to go unnoticed. Thus he has to rely on Rubin’s secret lab. The possibility of Simon and his powers against the plague also aren’t usable… The Bachelor doesn’t even get to see his corpse after all. What choice does he have other than eradicating the cause itself? It’s definitely not the elegant solution that he was hoping for but there is a reason for him switching to inspect everything after ruling out a living plague carrier. These are the desperate means of finding a solution when his own knowledge of medicine has already failed him and the hopes of providing such medicine are already dwindling. Saving the town is simply not an option, the moment itself becomes the source of the plague.

The second counterargument is this one: Why not side with another healer, when they provide a better solution? And this is also a very valid argument. And thus, the moment it becomes an option, we as the Bachelor can choose to do so. If he has the cures that are necessary to ensure another healers victory, it is completely possible to avoid that ending. He doesn’t have to stick with it as well as the other healers do not have to, so judging him based on the other routes being better outcomes becomes obsolete. He has the ability to use these options, but if we lack the cures, his own solution is the only one. (Of course you can also save the other characters bound and then still decide to destroy the town, but using this scenario as his only motivation, when you can totally decide for yourself is a bit harsh, isn’t it?)

Of course, this argument collapses the moment we play any other route and he is trying to convince us to save the Polyhedron and abandon our own plans. However his own route can be considered his own perception of the story and our knowledge, how much he knows about the others paths is pretty limited and dependant of our choices as the player. Also, seeing his character and the changes made with that in mind, we can actually explain, why they appear. Of course, everybody tells Artemy how much the Bachelor is in love with the tower, when we’re not seeing it to that extreme in his route! It is necessary to fulfil his role in the Haruspex route. Of course, both the Bachelor and the Haruspex will appear as demons in Clara’s route. They do offer nothing but destruction from her point of view and both solutions seem destructive and spiteful, if they try to convince her. Everybody seems on board with seeing the characters in her route differently, but I think that the same applies to the Bachelor and the Haruspex in each other’s route, since their roles in the game changes. Or at least the perspective changes based on the others worldview. The Haruspex seems a lot more dangerous and his medicine a whole lot shadier, while the Bachelor seems to be more in love with the tower and ready to abandon everything for it, because it seems that way in comparison to the other persons knowledge of the situation. This is also backed up by the doll ending, where the Bachelor is being called out as the villain most of the time. In other routes he appears more villainous than in his own route, because we do actually have the means of comparison. But this is our perspective and not actual character motivation. We as the player do have the choice to work toward an ending. We can with our knowledge of the game go the extra mile to secure enough cures from the very beginning and help another healer. We are aware of the fact, that Clara and Artemy are other playable characters and we know from the very beginning that their beliefs have to be of value and their solutions will be backed up by their own routes. We know the opposition these characters stand in and while we see the different routes we may judge them for ourselves. And while Clara definitely knows and the other two healers show some sensibility towards this opposition (the “left hand, right hand”-quote comes to mind), at least the male healers are basing their decision upon their beliefs and not some outside point of view (while Clara watches and not-so-silently judges them). They even try to help each other and even provide the key insight to their own plan’s destruction (the Bachelor guides the inquisitor eyes to the Polyhedron and its structure, while Artemy outright tells Daniil of the underground infection). Of course they do not have the full picture! How could they, this entire game is about them not having it and making terrible mistakes! Dankovsky doesn’t have the ability to judge his own solution how the player does. And while judging his ending based on this information is completely valid and sensible, implying that he knows this detriment and still goes through with everything feels… a bit unfair to say the least. The conflict of the town vs. the polyhedron is an important debate in the game. And yes, Dankovsky’s role is being the advocate of the polyhedron, but man, this guy has the tendency to get manipulated into advocating random shit! The town vs. polyhedron debate is as present with him, as it is with the Haruspex. With the Polyhedron being the source in his route, he really has no choice but to remove it. After all, this guy really has no reason, to protect the Polyhedron. Of course he doesn’t! He would never sacrifice the town for the sake of his own ideology!

Argument 5: Let’s talk Nocturnal!

I promised one comparison, didn’t I? Still, we are now diving into abstract talk about the games’ themes and less about character motivation. Consider this more of a bonus and a different thought and less as an argument for Dankovsky himself. Comparing one ending to a different one does not make one of these characters more or less of an asshole. And comparing Pathologic 1 to Pathologic 2 obviously doesn’t tell us anything about the canon of either of those games, since they have vastly different results and we have no idea what the Bachelor’s endings will look like in Parhologic 2 (though I would be surprised if we couldn’t destroy the town and save the Polyhedron. But who knows, in Artemy’s case the army only pisses off.) Still, I think it is very interesting to talk about both of these endings side by side.

And I will begin this comparison by telling you that I love this ending! I am so happy that it exists and I think it is glorious and I think it’s existence is really important. I am so happy that Artemy has a reason to destroy the town. But is this okay? Or – as a comparison – is this a better idea than the one Dankovsky had?

I would argue that these endings have a lot in common. They both preserve their own ideals and establish a radically new order at the cost of the town itself. They both kill a shit ton of people for the miracles they have witnessed along the way. One could even argue that the Nocturnal ending is more horrifying. Firstly, more people die. While the Bachelor saves the uninfected, Artemy saves only those who “live with earths will” which seems to be like… the ten guys chilling in the abattoir and some of the kids. We know that there are only mere hundreds of people left of the kin and since everybody in the termitary doesn’t seem to count… who even gets saved? It’s at least as vague as the question who isn’t infected and can be saved at the Utopian end. But – more importantly – Artemy definitely has a choice in that matter and decides to sacrifice the town for the sake of the past. (If you’re not me. In my playthrough I got the courier note twenty minutes before 22:00 and the game was like “what are you going to do, such a hard choice” and I was like “I literally do not have the time to get this thing to town hall”. And then Aspity was like “you made your own conscious and completely willed decision” while Artemy just awkwardly stared at her…) But even disregarding that, the ending is surprisingly similar. Yet I see no one judging either the Haruspex or his ending for being overly cruel and well… killing a lot. Actually, I only read posts defending it and saying that it is as morally okay as the diurnal ending and could also count as a good end. And… I kind of agree. The sacrifice of the diurnal ending is pretty steep and destroying some species – while the worms, herb brides and albinos definitely show human qualities – is pretty fucked up as well and preserving them can seem worth the cost. (Oh my, do not say we arrived at the problem of human value again!) Still… It is destroying the town for its miracles. That is literally what this ending is about, yet our asshole sense does not tingle at all! Why is that?

I think there are two arguments for this difference between our outlook on the Nocturnal and the Utopian end. The first one is that the Kin and its culture is very endangered and protecting it just seems more morally sound than protecting some rich dudes. Which is very fair and the Kains are very fucked up. Buuuut, it isn’t like there is the termitary quest that preludes the diurnal ending. Finishing the game doesn’t exactly mean that we abandon the Kin. Part of its beliefs and culture, yes. Definitely, and as I said I still think the Diurnal and Nocturnal ending are pretty balanced. But a part of the Kin is assimilated and is coping and while protecting its culture and very real traditions is completely valid, the Nocturnal ending also destroys parts of the Kin (the Termitary part) as ill fitting for living with the earth…. So… hm… It’s not as easy as saying “but you help the Kin in one and some rich dudes in the other”, since the Kin itself are also torn and we are still only allowing a specific way of living. A specific worldview containing the miracles of the town… On the other hand, the polyhedron and its miracles can also be considered endangered and unique. It is a one of a kind structure as is the miracles it can provide. The Stamatins are pretty unable to reproduce it, as the game likes to tell us and destroying it would destroy all hopes of a one in a time event to come to life. Also there are talks about the Utopians being a faction of the entire town with one third of the population agreeing on their beliefs (as it is the case with the other ideologies). And the plans Peter and Maria make do sound interesting, dreamlike and… well unique. Something that can also only happen in this circumstance. But alas… we do not know that much about it and their word is only what we have. And this is the second aspect that makes the Nocturnal ending more relatable: Buildup. We witness first-hand what this Nocturnal world would be (sometimes for better and sometimes for worse), we know the beings and the miracles of the earth. We do not really get in touch which the utopian ideas and only have the rambling of good old Georgji which… yeah that doesn’t help their case! But there are kids calling this new town an “eternal adventure” a miracle that can come to live and I would say, that this thought is quite beautiful. And it certainly is unique, which is the main argument of the Nocturnal ending. Wonders, plague and miracles. Destroy one and the other will vanish. So… what is worth keeping a miracle? The answer now seems even harder to grasp. Maybe even impossible.

But we also do not have every puzzle peace. I still have hope for the two different routes and with them there are the possibilities of new realizations and also new endings. I myself am really curious if we either get an option to save the town or a reason to destroy the Polyhedron as the Bachelor. (And I am very curious as well, if Clara will get a second ending. What would that even be? An all destruction ending to set everyone free???) There also could be more elaboration on the Polyhedron and its inner workings. Maybe we will even understand what the Kains are talking about! There are some allusions to a more concrete Kain worldview. The nut-game while very disturbing makes the entrapment of the soul way more real and gives the focus some context. (It also doesn’t only connect it with the polyhedron since “anything can be a focus. A polyhedron, a room, a nut”.) The same applies to the clocks and their connection to the save system, which makes the miracles of the Kains way more real. And I digress. Only time will tell.

Conclusion:

I think it is clear by now, that this way too long text isn’t really about giving answers and more about perspective. I myself would say that the Bachelor’s choice is terribly misguided most of the time and the only possible method to save anything at best. But I do not think that it is made with its destructive force in mind. What I wanted to show is, that the motives and the narratives surrounding this ending are way more complex and also really, really interesting. (I just wanted to gush about this game!) As are the characters that comment on the situation at hand. And reflecting on how we judge them can say a lot about our own view and the world (this one as well as the Town on Gorkhon).

#pathologic #daniil dankovsky #repost because the first didnt show up as a search result

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theunderdogwrites · 3 years

Text

If you have a problem with Cookie Monster, then I have a problem with you.

Someone recently asked me how I come up with things to write about and post. Well, these posts are bona fide dumps of random thoughts that sneak in when I’m not engaging any part of my brain. I love them because they’re unpolished and exactly how my mind endlessly prattles on in conversation with itself. Truth be told, it’s usually in the shower. And the dumping of these words here is comparable to spring cleaning. It helps to declutter the mind too from time to time.

Last week my Mom and I were talking about the recent decision by Dr. Seuss Enterprises to stop publishing six of their books because of racist and insensitive imagery. For all the people screaming out there – THE COMPANY MADE THIS CHOICE. They were not forced by cancel culture, but rather listened and took feedback from audiences including teachers, academics and specialists in the field as part of a review process. This is called being responsible and allowing for growth through intelligent conversations. The company recognizes that certain depictions of Asians and Black people are hurtful and wrong and have taken steps to acknowledge these facts. They are NOT banning these books and have said they’re committed to listening and learning going forward.

Here is the list of the six book titles and the year they were first published:

- And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937)

- McElligot’s Pool (1947)

- If I Ran the Zoo (1950)

- Scrambled Eggs Super! (1953)

- On Beyond Zebra (1955)

- The Cat’s Quizzer (1976)

Have you ever stumbled upon a journal or something you wrote 10 years ago and it made you cringe? Anyone who says NO to this is probably in possession of some of the worst poetry by their hand, in the world. I know that if I was to release some of the stuff I wrote down from a number of years ago (and in reality, some stuff as recent as 3-4 years ago) I’d be embarrassed by their level of absolute lameness. I write with emotion and unless you’re Tucker Carlson or stunted inside from your head to your toes, you know what it means to evolve. It is what we’re supposed to do, otherwise we are simply stuck in one place forever and I for one can’t think of anything more grotesque than remaining the same.

“You are being presented with a choice: evolve or remain. If you choose to remain unchanged, you will be presented with the same challenges, the same routine, the same storms, the same situations, until you learn from them, until you love yourself enough to say “no more”, until you choose change.

If you choose to evolve, you will connect with the strength within you, you will explore what lies outside the comfort zone, you will awaken to love, you will become, you will be. You have everything you need.

Choose to evolve. Choose love.”

Creig Crippen

It is OK to make mistakes, especially when you don’t know any better. Applying how we have grown as a society to the way we behaved 80 years ago is absurd. We are allowed the opportunity to become better before an angry mob comes along and without discussion wants to rip our character to shreds. There are so many chances for real conversations to promote development that are not happening because people are being so quick to condemn and cancel. Fucking stop it! You’re not a crusader. You’re not the moral authority. You are not the Universe’s gift to man/womankind placed here to draw red circles and X’s on every little thing you deem ‘incorrect’. What you are, I suspect, is empty. And I do not know what it is you’re missing, but you won’t find it in a state of ‘over-wokeness’ and tumbling around looking to smite Cookie Monster for passionately enjoying baked goods.

There have been calls to tear down statues and eradicate movies and people for basically what is THE PAST. If you have an actual working time machine, I suppose you can go back to the set of ‘Dirty Harry’ because apparently:

“The film mocks liberal judges and do-gooders, and the villain claims police brutality, planting the seed that other such charges are fake moves to get sympathy.”

I can’t even with that one.

The removal of statues… ok, I understand this one. But I am not of the mind where these statues should be destroyed and essentially erased from history. I am fully onboard with placing the offending bronzed individuals into a museum with a plaque stating something along the lines of: ‘Once upon a time many of us had some crazy fear-based ideas and poor ethics that marginalized large groups of our fellow human beings and created negative stereotypes resulting in a great deal of hurt. We are trying to be better than those placed before you behind the velvet ropes.’

The past cannot be expunged. But it can be a teaching tool. And in some cases, the past can be used to say – “We still suck, but we’re at least trying to evolve into improved people!”

Sadly, instead, we’re taking down Pepé Le Pew. Let’s not believe women when they come forward with claims of sexual abuse, but let’s ban together and get this cartoon skunk with perceived rapist qualities, cancelled. Bravo. Has Pepé Le Pew been a naughty guy? Well, if you break down his actions through the lens of adults – he is incredibly aggressive and borders on being a pervert. I also suspect he’s a chronic masturbater. I grew up watching Looney Tunes (which should surprise NO ONE) and I never liked that skunk. But not because he was overly persistent in his search for love, rather because he was so obnoxious. Worst character on the show. If anything, the French should be offended because I grew up believing all French people were smelly, forceful jerks.

I am flabbergasted at what we are finding urgent and of significance these days. We allow ourselves to become distracted with the stupidest things; revealing exactly where our priorities are placed. Now do not come at me and accuse me of saying racism is not important. Sit your little crusading ass back down because that is not a thought I’d ever possess. This post is not about racism.

I do not give a flying fuck if you hate Megan Markle, love Megan Markle or think Oprah practices her reactionary facial expressions daily in the mirror, but the fact a pregnant woman went on TV in front of MILLIONS of people and admitted to being suicidal while pregnant with her first child and was met with indifference, ridicule and hate… is fucking disgusting.

The mental health status of a pregnant mother is less important than going after Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street because he is misrepresenting homelessness. Oscar is NOT homeless. He lives in a garbage can and if you knew anything, you’d know that garbage can is spacious and in terms of square footage, it is probably the most expensive home in the neighborhood. See? I can distract with silly things too.

I am going to end all this randomness with a warning…

Victor Frankenstein created his monster from old body parts and strange chemicals and it was brought to life by a mysterious spark. The monster is large and strong but with the intelligence of a newborn. Victor abandons the monster, leaving him confused and when he tries to integrate himself into society, he is shunned. Seeking revenge on his creator, he kills Victor’s younger brother. Then after Victor destroys his work on the female monster meant to ease the monster’s pain and solitude, the monster murders Victor’s best friend and then his new wife.

Ok, I think it is wonderful that our society is taking inventory of certain items and doing our best to right some wrongs… even though I believe many people are being persnickety assholes. But what has been created recently… let’s call it ‘cancel culture’, where “THEY” (please someone tell me who all the THEY people are because I’d like to know who is this organized) seemingly go in search of people, places and things to ostracise… is starting to create a monster of a backlash. (Again, this is not about race/racism so don’t start chirping about white privilege etc.)

If you listen carefully, you can hear the groaning. And the frustration. This isn’t about going after history or childhood memories and bleaching them clean of inappropriateness by today’s standards, it’s about trying to control what people are allowed to think, feel and speak. And the people are getting annoyed. Just like Frankenstein’s Monster when his grotesque appearance wasn’t accepted by society. And we all know what happened next.

#dr seuss #pepe le pew #cancel culture #frankenstiensmonster #oscarthegrouch #megan markle #covid

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