#not really sure how to even approach these discussions since it's a pretty nuanced thing

[bayesiandragon]

It seems that navigating the duel truths that 1) certain environmental circumstances and life experiences, especially if experienced at an early age, tend to predispose certain people to antisocial behavior at higher rates within the population, and that 2) it's ultimately one's own responsibility to be a good person and going one way or the other involves series of choices in which you have agency, is something that many have trouble with. So I often observe debates over it just ending up in increasingly polarized exchanges that devolve into the extremes of "you think circumstances excuse/force <behavior>!" vs "you think circumstances have no meaningful influence and doing <behavior> is a completely arbitrary decision!" Like homies, both can be true, they aren't mutually exclusive!

[animehouse-moe]

Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective Episode 2: The Case of the Locked-Room Piggy Bank Theft

With two episodes under its belt, the inner machinations and ideas of Ron as a series are better understood. Its formulaic approach and comedic routines are further exposed, and viewers get to grasp what the season as a whole will look like. And it looks like it's going to be a whole lot of fun, for quite a few different reasons.

Just to get it out of the way, I'll chat about the episode direction to start today. Where the previous episode focuses on three dimensional space through more nuanced depth of field and blur, this episode does so by placing objects in the foreground. It's a simple idea, but decidedly different from the previous episode as it uses something more concrete to create that awareness. Similarly, it has more angled shots compared to the flatter style of the first episode. Coincidentally, the usage of faceless characters appear, which I always think is a fun style since it presents the challenge of expression.

But lets talk story for this episode, the direction is pretty closely tied to the "gear" that the story's in.

We get exposition on Ron's past, actually. It's a really really cool idea, providing a fancy detective school that Ron attended where he was top of class... before he got kicked out for being attached to a string of suspicious deaths. Even more than that is the stake that Ron raises with the discussion of his past: if he's discovered to be doing detective work, he'll be put to death.

In concert with the talk of BLUE, we're reminded that Ron does not have his tattoo/mark on his neck during his early days. With his comment of being banned from BLUE, it brings forward the possibility of being a marking in relation to his expulsion. Can't say for sure, but what I am certain of is that we'll explore its origins and meaning at some point.

Let's talk humor though. Crass, heavy handed, and plain silly. Ron delivers in spades with things you'd not expect at all, and pieces you'd see coming from a mile away. This one's definitely the former.

However, with more of a taste for the humor with this second episode, you can begin to realize how pivotal the humor is to the mysteries. It's able to hide clues in plain sight, covering them up with the excessive comedy expressed largely by Ron. It's a really cool idea that plays to both extremes of the concept incredibly well.

And that's not all for the humor either, no. Diomeda isn't a bad studio, which is something quite a few people can't seem to agree upon sometimes. Regardless, they are able to deliver expressive and fluid cuts, just like this one. They don't comprise the episode by any means, but they add to the energy a good deal, keeping spirits high and momentum going.

I think that finally brings me to the formula though. Key pieces like Ron answering his door before Toto can knock, or the waffling of Ron during Toto's attempts at explanation, stuff like Ron laying down next to the dead bodies, and of course things like Ron ordering the suspects to die. They're all pieces of the routine that exist within this detective mystery series.

But they present a challenge. How can you make something that happens routinely interesting, how do you make it fun. Well, it's a two part answer for which we only have one piece. Subtle differences with heavy handed humor. Bringing intense energy and individuality to these pieces creates an identity, one that you'll associate with Ron. You'll grow accustomed to the introduction and its purpose. And that's where the second part will come in down the road: the shake up. We're only 2 episodes in so we won't see it yet, but the further we get into this series, and the more its behind the scenes scheming goes on, we'll see a changeup in the routine. Like I said though, that's still a ways away though, so I'm more than happy to savor what we have currently.

[skillbard]

Drone

Noun: A Deep Sustained Or Monotonous Sound

The following is an excerpt from Drone director Sean Buckelew's much longer in-depth behind-the-scenes article found here.

Drone is concerned with some pretty lofty concepts and we wanted to be sure we fully understood the director Sean Buckelew’s point of view before we dove in, so we requested a reading list and pounded through some relevant literature in front of a log fire on our Christmas break. We found Frankenstein to be the most fruitful reference, paralleling so many of the key ideas in Sean’s script in an equally lyrical way.

To kick us off, Sean sent us a WIP along with some spotting notes. In true Buckelew fashion, they were fun & casually worded but extremely well thought-out.

His first note: “Overall, I think the sound/music oscillates between two modes: one is kind of bureaucratic and banal, the other is dreamy, impressionistic and poetic” presented to us the idea of a duality at the heart of the story. So, borrowing a technique from David Sonnenschein’s book Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice, and Sound Effects in Cinema, we plotted a table of two columns with relevant motifs aligned with the two main ‘modes’ that Sean discusses. We thought the film a little too nuanced to label “good vs evil” or “man vs machine” so we decided upon the much broader terms “Inside” & “Outside” to name the two forces.

Our “Bipolar Evaluation” of Drone:

We then mapped out the timeline of the film with colour-coded slugs that tracked the two main polarities to help us plot the emotional beats of the story arc, forming a solid guide for us to follow while we worked.

A couple of weeks later, we presented our first sketch to Sean: We went big from the outset, unabashedly invoking signifiers from the sub-genre of ‘hollywood flying music’, Namely: a soaring melody, vivid chordal gestures, and rich, lush strings over a floaty waltz feel. This OTT feeling seemed to elevate Newton’s monologue into the realm of fantasy, contrasting with the cold cynicism of the office scenes.

In a previous collaboration with Sean, Lovestreams, we relished the opportunity to create an  Enya-inspired, floating & ethereal ‘semi-New Agey’ score that could perform on a dual level: Being playfully ironic while legitimately tugging at heartstrings. We approached Drone with a similar sensibility.

Sean’s response was very enthusiastic: “you guys are fucking brilliant, skillbard strikes AGAIN!!!!”. Smashed it first time!

But really all credit goes to Sean for making it easy to get right. When a filmmaker  understands their message, thinks things through as thoroughly as Sean does, and takes the time to communicate so effectively with collaborators, it starts to feel like all we need to do is go away and start pressing the buttons. He had notes, of course, but nothing major, so we pressed on, fleshing out our demo and writing cues for the rest of the film, sending regular WIPs to Sean for his thoughts. We also started work on the sound elements, focusing mostly on the bombing scene to establish overall dynamics of the film, since that’s the loudest/most intense bit.

Now we had established the musical DNA for Newton’s journey and we set about extrapolating, variating and developing outwards to set up the other cues.

EG During Newton’s death cue we rendered a sombre, minor-key variation from the core motif.

As usual, music was the most noticeable emotional & atmospheric signifier but every sound you hear was considered in terms of how it contributed to the story emotively, narratively & even conceptually. Perhaps the most obvious example is processing of the dialogue EG: a feeling of alienation was often achieved through tactical intelligibility of dialogue. It’s not always clear what Newton is trying to tell us while he’s delivering his manifesto because, ultimately, it was never heard or understood outside of creating a spectacle.

Similarly, a lot of the dialogue in Drone is heard through speakers, we’re not sure if this is something we discussed with Sean but our perception was that this was an expression of technology’s power to create distance between people. It seemed important that this is something that is felt by the audience. We did a lot of ‘reamping’ by hacking gritty, small speakers to make this talker—>listener detachment palpable.

Once all the music was written and demoed and approved by all parties, we sent our sample-based mockups to our talented orchestrator Finn McNicholas (Midsommer, Daniel Isn’t Real, Swansong) and briefed him on how we’d like them to end up when played by the orchestra. Finn listened carefully to what we’d programmed in MIDI, transcribing it to page to achieve everything we were expressing in a way a room full of 30 people can understand and play without complication.

See the full scores for this cue here.

To invoke Newton’s destructive intentions, Finn helped us pin down and notate a number of ‘extended techniques’ for our orchestra to try; often ‘unmusical’ playing styles that push the instruments outside of its regular usage into more savage tones.

This musical thread begins during the night time cue ‘Alienation.’ Newton’s monologue describes an “interwoven fabric” while we see a spaghetti junction. We wrote a long sustained drone featuring an airy random textural movement from the string players, giving a musical sense of threads rubbing together.

Later in that cue when Newton describes the destruction he is about to bring forth while we see a field in flames, we wrote two powerfully opposing chords with a tense and nervous tremolo, going between ‘sul tasto’ (string player playing close to the neck) and ‘sul pont’(string player playing close to the bridge) to express his destructiveness and contradictory nature.

In the death scene after he crashes we hear a scratchy gnarly string articulation, Newton’s full destructiveness wrought…

When we had worked through exactly what we wanted with the orchestration, we attended and directed the session with the Budapest Art Orchestra (Queen’s Gambit, Locke & Key, Godless).

A portrait of two composers and orchestrator on the day of recording

Covid prevented us from attending the session personally—which was a shame because a pint of beer in Budapest is like £2!

Unfortunately their live room camera fell over immediately upon starting our session so this is the best angle we have.

Hear each cue in isolation here:

[uncloseted]

so i'm a college freshman and in my lit class discussions, i realise how little nuance i really have, we talked about a book and i realised i thought characters made choices because they were either horny/selfish/stupid/evil even after understanding their backstories or ways of thinking, it always come back to one solid core reason that causes them to be/do which is always one of the reasons which i already know, i've never had my paradigm shifted by a book but i want it to be, any tips?

I'm not totally sure I understand the question but I'll try my best... I think to understand a character, whether it's in a book, a movie, or a TV show, we have to understand what they're afraid of, what they're motivated by, and why they developed those fears and motivations. Generally when a person is acting selfishly, stupidly, or evilly, it's not because being selfish, stupid, or evil is a core, unchangeable part of their personality. It's because there's something they're afraid of that they're trying to prevent from happening, or because they stand to make a big gain towards something that they want.

Once we have some understanding of their fears and motivations, we can ask ourselves how those fears and motivations fit into the decisions that the character makes. If we were the character, with the same motivations and fears that they have, what decision would we make if we were in their shoes? We can also start to track how those fears and motivations change over the course of the story.

Taking an example from Skins, let's look at Emily. Emily fears being unwanted and unloved, and she's motivated by feeling needed and appreciated. This probably comes from the fact that she's a twin, so she's never had to develop her own sense of identity and she's never had to learn to be alone. A lot of her actions come from being afraid of losing the people around her, especially Katie. Throughout the show, we see this come up. Emily always lets Katie get her way- she's "a doormat" - and she hides the fact that she's gay from Katie because she's afraid that if she doesn't, Katie will stop caring about her. But as the show goes on, Emily starts to realize that a life outside of Katie isn't as scary as she thought, and she starts to feel more secure in standing up for herself. In episode 308, she takes the shrooms even though Katie tells her not to, and in episode 309, she finally tells Katie that while she loves Katie, she's her own person and she's in love with Naomi. In series 4, we see this same dynamic play out when Emily is afraid of losing Naomi- Emily made some progress on this fear in series 3, but she's still not over it entirely. In series 4, she selfishly tries to prevent Naomi from doing the things that she wants to do, but it's because Emily is afraid that if Naomi grows as a person, she'll grow out of Emily and eventually leave.

You can do this same thing with pretty much any character. If you're having trouble figuring out what their fears and motivations might be, I think assigning them an Enneagram type can be a good shortcut to start out with, since it categorizes people just based on fears and motivations. Once you get some practice doing this, it will become easier to understand characters and to approach them in a more nuanced way.

The other thing that I would suggest is just trying to empathize with the characters. If you were in their shoes, what would you do? If you were Emily and you were in love with someone that your family didn't like, how would you act? Why would you act that way? What beliefs do you have about yourself that inform the way you would act? What has happened in your life that would cause you to act like that? I think we tend to view ourselves with a lot of nuance because we usually understand our own thought process. And after doing that, I think it becomes easier to ask ourselves, "in which ways would this character act differently than me in this situation? Why would they act like that instead of acting how I would act?" Reading, especially reading fiction, is an exercise in empathy more than anything else, and so I think that's a really good place to start.

[reanimatedcourier]

How to Write Indigenous Characters Without Looking like a Jackass:

Update as of December 26th, 2020: I have added a couple new sections about naming and legal terms, as well as a bit of reading on the Cherokee Princess phenomenon.

Boozhoo (hello) Fallout fandom! I'm a card-carrying Anishinaabe delivering this rough guide about writing Indigenous characters because wow, do I see a lot of shit.

Let's get something out of the way first: Fallout's portrayal of Indigenous people is racist. From a vague definition of "tribal" to the claims of them being "savage" and "uncivilized" mirror real-world stereotypes used to dehumanize us. Fallout New Vegas' narrated intro has Ron Perlman saying Mr. House "rehabilitated" tribals to create New Vegas' Three Families. You know. Rehabilitate. As if we are animals. Top it off with an erasure of Indigenous people in the American Southwest and no real tribe names, and you've got some pretty shitty representation. The absence of Native American as a race option in the GECK isn't too great, given that two Native characters are marked "Caucasian" despite being brown. Butch Deloria is a pretty well-known example of this effect. (Addendum: Indigenous people can have any mix of dominant and recessive traits, as well as present different phenotypes. What bothers me is it doesn't accommodate us or mixed people, which is another post entirely.)

As a precautionary warning: this post and the sources linked will discuss racism and genocide. There will also be discussion of multiple kinds of abuse.

Now, your best approach will be to pick a nation or tribe and research them. However, what follows will be general references.

Terms that may come up in your research include Aboriginal/Native Canadian, American Indian/Native American, Inuit, Métis, and Mestizo. The latter two refer to cultural groups created after the discovery of the so-called New World. (Addendum made September 5th, 2020: Mestizo has negative connotations and originally meant "half breed" so stick with referring to your mixed Latine and Indigenous characters as mixed Indigenous or simply by the name of their people [Maya, Nahua].)

As a note, not every mixed person is Métis or Mestizo. If you are, say, Serbian and Anishinaabe, you would be mixed, but not Métis (the big M is important here, as it refers to a specific culture). Even the most liberal definition caps off at French and British ancestry alongside Indigenous (some say Scottish and English). Mestizo works the same, since it refers to descendants of Spanish conquistadors/settlers and Indigenous people.

Trouble figuring out whose land is where? No problem, check out this map.

Drawing

Don't draw us with red skin. It's offensive and stereotypical.

Tutorial for Native Skintones

Tutorial for Mixed Native Skintones

Why Many Natives Have Long Hair (this would technically fit better under another category, but give your Native men long hair!)

If You're Including Traditional Wear, Research! It's Out There

Languages

Remember, there are a variety of languages spoken by Indigenous people today. No two tribes will speak the same language, though there are some that are close and may have loan words from each other (Cree and Anishinaabemowin come to mind). Make sure your Diné (you may know them as Navajo) character doesn't start dropping Cree words.

Here's a Site With a Map and Voice Clips

Here's an Extensive List of Amerindian Languages

Keep in mind there are some sounds that have no direct English equivalents. But while we're at it, remember a lot of us speak English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese. The languages of the countries that colonized us.

Words in Amerindian languages tend to be longer than English ones and are in the format of prefix + verb + suffix to get concepts across. Gaawiin miskwaasinoon is a complete sentence in Anishinaabemowin, for example (it is not red).

Names

Surprisingly, we don't have names like Passing Dawn or Two-Bears-High-Fiving in real life. A lot of us have, for lack of better phrasing, white people names. We may have family traditions of passing a name down from generation to generation (I am the fourth person in my maternal line to have my middle name), but not everyone is going to do that. If you do opt for a name from a specific tribe, make sure you haven't chosen a last name from another tribe.

Baby name sites aren't reliable, because most of the names on there will be made up by people who aren't Indigenous. That site does list some notable exceptions and debunks misconceptions.

Here's a list of last names from the American census.

Indian Names

You may also hear "spirit names" because that's what they are for. You know the sort of mystical nature-related name getting slapped on an Indigenous character? Let's dive into that for a moment.

The concept of a spirit name seems to have gotten mistranslated at some point in time. It is the name Creator calls you throughout all your time both here and in the spirit world. These names are given (note the word usage) to you in a ceremony performed by an elder. This is not done lightly.

A lot of imitations of this end up sounding strange because they don't follow traditional guidelines. (I realize this has spread out of the original circle, but Fallout fans may recall other characters in Honest Hearts and mods that do this. They have really weird and racist results.)

If you're not Indigenous: don't try this. You will be wrong.

Legal Terms

Now, sometimes the legal term (or terms) for a tribe may not be what they refer to themselves as. A really great example of this would be the Oceti Sakowin and "Sioux". How did that happen, you might be wondering. Smoky Mountain News has an article about this word and others, including the history of these terms.

For the most accurate information, you are best off having your character refer to themselves by the name their nation uses outside of legislation. A band name would be pretty good for this (Oglala Lakota, for example). I personally refer to myself by my band.

Cowboys

And something the Fallout New Vegas fans might be interested in, cowboys! Here's a link to a post with several books about Black and Indigenous cowboys in the Wild West.

Representation: Stereotypes and Critical Thought

Now, you'll need to think critically about why you want to write your Indigenous character a certain way. Here is a comprehensive post about stereotypes versus nuance.

Familiarize yourself with tropes. The Magical Indian is a pretty prominent one, with lots of shaman-type characters in movies and television shows. This post touches on its sister tropes (The Magical Asian and The Magical Negro), but is primarily about the latter.

Say you want to write an Indigenous woman. Awesome! Characters I love to see. Just make sure you're aware of the stereotypes surrounding her and other Women of Color.

Word to the wise: do not make your Indigenous character an alcoholic. "What, so they can't even drink?" You might be asking. That is not what I'm saying. There is a pervasive stereotype about Drunk Indians, painting a reaction to trauma as an inherent genetic failing, as stated in this piece about Indigenous social worker Jessica Elm's research. The same goes for drugs. Ellen Deloria is an example of this stereotype.

Familiarize yourself with and avoid the Noble Savage trope. This was used to dehumanize us and paint us as "childlike" for the sake of a plot device. It unfortunately persists today.

Casinos are one of the few ways for tribes to make money so they can build homes and maintain roads. However, some are planning on diversifying into other business ventures.

There's a stereotype where we all live off government handouts. Buddy, some of these long-term boil water advisories have been in place for over twenty years. The funding allocated to us as a percentage is 0.39%: less than half a percent to fight the coronavirus. They don't give us money.

"But what about people claiming to be descended from a Cherokee princess?" Cherokee don't and never had anything resembling princesses. White southerners made that up prior to the Civil War. As the article mentions, they fancied themselves "defending their lands as the Indians did".

Also, don't make your Indigenous character a cannibal. Cannibalism is a serious taboo in a lot of our cultures, particularly northern ones.

Our lands are not cursed. We don't have a litany of curses to cast on white people in found footage films. Seriously. We have better things to be doing. Why on earth would our ancestors be haunting you when they could be with their families? Very egotistical assumption.

Indigenous Ties and Blood Quantum

Blood quantum is a colonial system that was initially designed to "breed out the Indian" in people. To dilute our bloodlines until we assimilated properly into white society. NPR has an article on it here.

However, this isn't how a vast majority of us define our identities. What makes us Indigenous is our connections (or reconnection) to our families, tribes, bands, clans, and communities.

Blood quantum has also historically been used to exclude Black Natives from tribal enrollment, given that it was first based on appearance. So, if you looked Black and not the image of "Indian" the white census taker had in his brain, you were excluded and so were your descendants.

Here are two tumblrs that talk about Black Indigenous issues and their perspectives. They also talk about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

However, if you aren't Indigenous, don't bring up blood quantum. Don't. This is an issue you should not be speaking about.

Cherokee Princess Myth

"Princess" was not a real position in any tribe. The European idea of monarchy did not suddenly manifest somewhere else. The closest probable approximation may have been the daughter of a chief or other politically prominent person. But princess? No.

Here is an article talking about possible origins of this myth. Several things are of note here: women from other tribes may have bee shoved under this label and the idea of a "Cherokee Princess" had been brought up to explain the sudden appearance of a brown-skinned (read: half Black) family member.

For a somewhat more in depth discussion of why, specifically, this myth gets touted around so often, Timeline has this piece.

Religion

Our religions are closed. We are not going to tell you how we worship. Mostly because every little bit we choose to share gets appropriated. Smudging is the most recent example. If you aren't Indigenous, that's smoke cleansing. Smudging is done in a specific way with ceremonies and prayers.

Now, a lot of us were forcibly converted. Every residential school was run by Christians. So plenty of us are Catholic, Baptist, Anglican, Lutheran, etc. Catholicism in Latin America also has influence from the Indigenous religions in that region.

Having your Indigenous character pray or carry rosaries wouldn't be a bad thing, if that religion was important to them. Even if they are atheist, if they lived outside of a reserve or other Indigenous communities, they might have Christian influences due to its domination of the Western world.

Settler Colonialism and the White Savior Trope

Now we've come to our most painful section yet. Fallout unintentionally has an excellent agent of settler-colonialism, in particular the Western Christian European variety, in Caesar's Legion and Joshua Graham.

(Addendum: Honest Hearts is extremely offensive in its portrayal of Indigenous people, and egregiously shows a white man needing to "civilize" tribals and having to teach them basic skills. These skills include cooking, finding safe water, and defending themselves from other tribes.)

Before we dive in, here is a post explaining the concept of cultural Christianity, if you are unfamiliar with it.

We also need to familiarize ourselves with The White Man's Burden. While the poem was written regarding the American-Philippine war, it still captures the attitudes toward Indigenous folks all over the world at the time.

As this article in Teen Vogue points out, white people like to believe they need to save People of Color. You don't need to. People of Color can save themselves.

Now, cultural Christianity isn't alone on this side of the pond. Writer Teju Cole authored a piece on the White Savior Industrial Complex to describe mission trips undertaken by white missionaries to Africa to feed their egos.

Colonialism has always been about the acquisition of wealth. To share a quote from this paper about the ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples: "Negatively, [settler colonialism] strives for the dissolution of native societies. Positively, it erects a new colonial society on the expropriated land base—as I put it, settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event. In its positive aspect, elimination is an organizing principal of settler-colonial society rather than a one-off (and superseded) occurrence. The positive outcomes of the logic of elimination can include officially encouraged miscegenation, the breaking-down of native title into alienable individual freeholds, native citizenship, child abduction, religious conversion, resocialization in total institutions such as missions or boarding schools, and a whole range of cognate biocultural assimilations. All these strategies, including frontier homicide, are characteristic of settler colonialism. Some of them are more controversial in genocide studies than others." (Positive, here, is referring to "benefits" for the colonizers. Indigenous people don't consider colonization beneficial.)

An example of a non-benefit, the Church Rock disaster had Diné children playing in radioactive water so the company involved could avoid bad publicity.

Moving on, don't sterilize your Indigenous people. Sterilization, particularly when it is done without consent, has long been used as a tool by the white system to prevent "undesirables" (read, People of Color and disabled people) from having children. Somehow, as of 2018, it wasn't officially considered a crime.

The goal of colonization was to eliminate us entirely. Millions died because of exposure to European diseases. Settlers used to and still do separate our children from us for reasons so small as having a dirty dish in the sink. You read that right, a single dirty dish in your kitchen sink was enough to get your children taken and adopted out to white families. This information was told to me by an Indigenous social work student whose name I will keep anonymous.

It wasn't until recently they made amendments to the Indian Act that wouldn't automatically render Indigenous women non-status if they married someone not Indigenous. It also took much too long for Indigenous families to take priority in child placement over white ones. Canada used to adopt Indigenous out to white American families. The source for that statement is further down, but adoption has been used as a tool to destroy cultures.

I am also begging you to cast aside whatever colonialist systems have told you about us. We are alive. People with a past, not people of the past, which was wonderfully said here by Frank Waln.

Topics to Avoid if You Aren't Indigenous

Child Separation. Just don't. We deserve to remain with our families and our communities. Let us stay together and be happy that way.

Assimilation schools. Do not bring up a tool for cultural genocide that has left lasting trauma in our communities.

W/ndigos. I don't care that they're in Fallout 76. They shouldn't be. Besides, you never get them right anyway.

Sk/nwalkers. Absolutely do not. Diné stories are not your playthings either.

I've already talked about drugs and alcohol. Do your research with compassion and empathy in mind. Indigenous people have a lot of pain and generational trauma. You will need to be extremely careful having your Indigenous characters use drugs and alcohol. If your character can be reduced to their (possible) substance abuse issues, you need to step back and rework it. As mentioned in Jessica Elm's research, remember that it isn't inherent to us.

For our final note: remember that we're complex, autonomous human beings. Don't use our deaths to further the stories of your white characters. Don't reduce us to some childlike thing that needs to be raised and civilized by white characters. We interact with society a little differently than you do, but we interact nonetheless.

Meegwetch (thank you) for reading! Remember to do your research and portray us well, but also back off when you are told by an Indigenous person.

This may be updated in the future, it depends on what information I come across or, if other Indigenous people are so inclined, what is added to this post.

[tundrainafrica]

Do you think levihan is canon?

I’m guessing you’re not asking about my overall opinion on 139, so I’ll just leave it here as a Levihan opinion. I could probably do another rant about my overall opinion of the ending but probs another time.  

And I have been meaning to make this meta for a while and I kinda wanted to wait for the last chapter cause for some crazy reason, I was a clown hoping that Levihan would just suddenly happen? Like maybe in the paths, she walks to him or something 

But woop. We have to search again for the crumbs like we’re on some scavenger hunt. 

And you know what? I like it this way. Thank you Yams for not butchering your characters over one ship. Thank you for portraying so realistically what romance between two mature adults with responsibilities is actually supposed to look like. 

So yeah, before we go into it, I did go around asking about other ships and I realized, maybe we have been using the word ‘canon’ incorrectly. Or so, that’s the first thing I thought. 

I had a conversation with my sister a few days back (who hates Levihan if it isn’t obvious), and she used to be an avid Klaroline shipper back in the day (The Vampire Diaries), and she explained that a the fandom actually don’t see Klaroline as a canon couple even if they were teased throughout the show (fucked, kissed and everything in between) since it isn’t end game. 

So to lay out my terms here and just be incredibly clear about it. I consider Levihan canon, but I do not consider them end game because they obviously aren’t, 132 happened and Hange didn’t come back.. 

So what do i mean by canon? 

There are lots of nuances here to consider when we call them canon. 

For one, fandoms wait for the couple to be ‘official’ kiss and all. Other fandoms wait for the end before they say it, because no matter how many times two characters fuck, kiss and declare their undying love, if they don’t commit, if they don’t make it to the end, then it’s not canon. 

When I say Levihan is canon, I clearly mean,  even if they didn’t end up together, they probably could have still been in a relationship, they probably could have still been in love. They probably actually held a stronger and much more nuanced bond than whatever main couple we watch in some sappy romantic drama. 

And maybe they actually did fall in love behind closed doors? Maybe they meta-ed their own relationship together and maybe they’ve discussed it and maybe they were aware. ( have a meta about it here)

But here’s the thing, we’ll never know, because in Season 4, after A LOT of the development of their relationship could have been implied, Levi and Hange were separated from each other so we actually didn’t get a lot of scenes of them closely together until 115, 126 etc. 

And here is the part where people call me delusional? Because people who invalidate our ship like to do that.

Because yes.. They’re just ultra mega besties. 

AND I GET SO FRUSTRATED AT THIS TAKE. LIKE SINCE WHEN HAS ROMANCE EVER RUINED FRIENDSHIPS?

It doesn’t make any sense??? Like I have no idea how people are having relationships when the first they think when they get into a relationship is “I don’t wanna ruin this friendship,” 

I get confessing and rejecting can ruin a relationship but getting into a relationship? How does that ruin a friendship. 

I’m sorry I know that is such a trope but like yo, half the time when people ask about me and my boyfriend (who started of as bestfriends) WE GOT INTO THIS RELATIONSHIP BECAUSE WE WANTED TO BE ‘BESTIES’ IN OTHER DIMENSIONS AS WELL. 

AND WE WANTED TO BE SUPER ULTRA MEGA BESTIES (lovers in short). 

It is inevitable that you will be best friends with your partner. Yo, if your partner aint one of your besties or one of your most trusted confidants, you might wanna... you know, reevaluate your relationship???

There are so many layers to love than just kiss kiss smooch a

Like, I’m incredibly choosy with romance ships like if people noticed, I only ever have written this much for Levihan. 

And one main reason for this really is because writers have a tendency of messing with a story, doing things that don’t make sense so the couple that is slated to get together, actually ends up together.

And the development never seemed natural half the time? Because some writers are just obsessed with making their pair happen. And what do they do after? They put them into so much drama which makes me question the overall health of the relationship.

nd I dunno, media is probably messing with this perspective of love by saying obviously problematic relationships are canon. So yeah even if he punched his girlfriend ONCE, and even if she cheated on him ONCE, they probably still loved each other so they’re canon lmao.

And call me a puritan here or something but there are certain things people do in a relationship and when it happens I will just sit there and say, that ain’t love, do you guys even love each other? 

And sorry I’m probably that asshole friend who would probably hate your toxic partner and will probably just tell you I’m not showing up to your wedding if I don’t like your partner.

I will not condone cheating AT ALL. I personally do not want to consider ‘canon’ any relationship where two people cheat on each other. I personally do not wanna consider ‘canon’ a relationship that thrives on miscommunication issues either because I dunno if I just got into the wrong relationship or something? But like at the age of 24, we actually talk stuff out 

Like woah, there are couples who don’t talk things out? Like what do you do when you’re stuck with each other 24/7? NOt TALK? 

I will consider canon any ship that runs on implicit trust, this belief that they should be constantly there with each other. Because that’s what love is. That’s what a relationship is and I’m gonna live my whole life believing that these are the only things that make up love for me. 

Love is trust. Love is a strong bond. Love is just two people giving and taking and sacrificing for each other. And Love is this commitment to make something work with the other person. 

And if it isn’t any of the things above, ‘sorry for invalidating’ but it ain’t love and by extension, it ain’t canon for me.  

Tbh, I think that’s the reason Levihan has been incredibly uneventful relationship wise actually made it so much for me that I thought they were pretty much canon. I still have issues with how Eremika was pulled off even if they were blatantly canon and had more than enough blatant crumbs. 

Because sure Eren and Mikasa did love each other but I guess their relationship was just so problematic since the start that even I was like ‘do you guys really love each other?’ half the time and I was constantly thinking about Mikasa’s mental health there like yo, why you so obsessed with him. There’s literally a Jean there who would probably treat you 124543x better,  

But for Levi and Hange we had parallels with Eremika. And we had crumbs

With putting his crumbs for Levihan, from the airplane, unrequited titan love, let’s live together, Hange’s longing face and the Levi’s dedicate your heart and the fact that HANGE NEVER LEFT HIS SIDE UNTIL THEY DIED, come on, I don’t know what people aren’t seeing. 

But the point is, (Okay understandable since Levi and Hange are older), Personally I just believe Levi and Hange approached their relationship more like mature adults than hormonal teenagers. Like so sorry, they decided to approach their relationship like adults instead of some teenager who bird poops on any guy who tries to cheat on Mikasa. 

Here’s the thing, Hange probably never would have complained like Eren. I honestly believe it was totally in character for her to just look down on him longingly from the paths. And I personally believed Levi had approached their relationship with a kind of acceptance like ‘ ay yo, we’re too busy for this but maybe after the war?’ that’s why even towards the end, the only way he lets himself be reminded of her was through watching the airplane and thinking of her. *fudge I’m tearing up* 

I guess the fact that they really approached this relationship and this bond like how they’re characters were supposed to, the fact that they threw everything away for the sake of the war. Yet the fact that we saw ALL THIS CRUMBS that there could have been something more if they just weren’t captain and commander in the middle of the war, just makes this so fucking canon to me. 

I would probably be speculative if we just had 115? Or maybe just 126? Or maybe just 132? But the thing is, the crumbs never stopped coming. There were so many things Yams could have CHOSEN not to do. But he did everything so deliberately from ‘let’s live together’ to ‘unrequited love’ to the Eremika parallels. 

Did he have to draw that airplane in the air and Levi making eye contact with Onyakopon? Okay I wonder why he did that? Cause really what connects Levi to Onyakopon? WHAT PLANE SCENE CONNECTS LEVI TO ONYAKOPON? 

I dunno man, but really at this point, this is so canon. Like sure Eremika takes the cake for most blatantly canon. 

But given the terms I’ve stated above for what I believe romance, love, relationships and canon is for me. 

Levihan is canon and it probably is the most canon relationship for me. Because the blatant lack of drama in the portrayal of their relationship for me just proves, Levi and Hange were very sure about their relationship with the other, I could probably say they were the two surest people in love in the whole damn show. 

THEY JUST COULDN’T GET TOGETHER BECAUSE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. (WHICH MAKES THEM ALL THE MORE ADMIRABLE ANYWAY)

So thanks for reading and sorry about this major ass rant. 

[renaroo]

Other History? More Like Other MYSTERY

as in it’s a MYSTERY how the hell this got past an editor the week before Pride Month are you fucking kidding me?

I was kind of hoping for more than like... a week of being back on tumblr before I breathed fire and ripped a comic book to shreds. But we all know why I’m here.

There are so many preemptive things to get out of the way before I rip into this thing...

John Ridley as a writer in other forms of media has been incredibly accomplished and an important additional voice to entertainment industries. I do not wish to take away from that or to minimize the impact of voices like his.

But, you know, he’s a voice in media. Not the end-all, be-all to all marginalized people worldwide who can substitute his perspective for any nonwhite straight male voice. And I don’t think that has ever been more apparent than the continued spiral down the drain that has been every issue of The Other History of the DC Universe since the first. 

DC’s “new” approach to everything being canon and everything mattering is dumb and filled to the brim with ways it’s going to backfire and reveal itself to be the eye sore of publications that it’s aiming for, but I was curious to see how they would try to incorporate these characters’ long and contentious histories in the comics with the real world issues they often were billed to tackle, and try to fit it into the current pop culture landscape. That was the whole reason I had my eye on this comic to begin with.

By the second issue we were getting some stark warning signs because as much as I appreciated hearing an authentic perspective on how the Teen Titans brand carried on while neglecting its landmark Black teen heroes (Mal Duncan and Karen Beecher), there was a note of cruelty added to the issue that felt otherwise misplaced and uncharacteristic of the tone being set. 

There was no reason to have a significant portion of that issue dedicated to Mal and Karen’s monologues taking some aggressive words out on Roy Harper specifically for being an addict. 

Perhaps it was a quirk of writing from a flawed perspective or a show of how righteous upset and anger could be turned outward to other people suffering in a vy for your own empowerment. 

I’m now pretty sure that wasn’t it at all. I’m pretty sure because it kept getting worse every issue and it’s culminated in today’s issue where the retelling of Renee Montoya’s story managed to be petty, cruel, shockingly pro-police brutality int its adulation of Jim Gordon and especially Harvey Bullock, and managed to make a well-rounded and very beloved Latina lesbian and just retrofit every stereotype she never had before to her without regard for what it did to her story or to the stories of people around her. 

Honestly, lapsed faith and a poke at the damage that Catholic guilt can have on especially queer believers is kind of my jam, so it’s not that I wouldn’t be down for a story with that perspective. I could even understand exploring that with Renee. But not at the expense of her established history.

Which is a question all of its own. Here we have the skeletal structure of Renee’s life events that we have read before (in much better stories), but they are surprisingly out of order and also shockingly twisted in a way to make EVERYONE as unpleasant as possible. 

And in a way that has convinced me that either John Ridley has never read comics featuring Renee, or that he was mandated to change things that had no business being changed.

According to this issue Renee hated Batman and other superheroes? Which, ah, I don’t even know where that could come from. Ever since the animated series where she got started, Renee’s whole bag has been “the acolyte of Jim Gordon, only other cop who supports Batman”. Like I don’t even know how you get around that.

But according to Ridley she’s hated them all along as an extension of her internalized homophobia and self-loathing. Great.

What follows out of that is that apparently? Renee and Batman specifically butted heads over wanting to rehabilitate Harvey Dent? As in Renee wanted to help him and BATMAN was the one flipping out and saying Harvey was a sociopath and couldn’t be helped.

Like. I’m starting to question if Ridley has read Batman comics before. I don’t know where that interpretation could possibly come from? Bruce and Harvey were friends? Bruce has always held out hope for saving Harvey from his psychosis? It’s like. THE storyline for Two-Face.

The cop stuff... I don’t really know how to talk about the cop stuff to be completely honest. If you mention the LA Riots on one page and a few pages later try to frame it so that over policing and methods of brutality weren’t a thing until 9/11... I don’t know what to say to you. 

I’d say maybe I was being ungenerous here except there were two characters who got entire full page spreads about what good cops they were. And one of them was goddamn Harvey Bullock with the explicit commentary that Renee USED to be uncomfortable with his torture methods and general brutality but figured it was “okay” because he knew how “innocent people screamed different” and that he “never collared someone and it didn’t stick” because. Y’know. Police violence and falsifying evidence never go hand in hand. what the actual fuck ever right?

The timeline for Renee and Kate’s relationship is also completely changed which means that we get to add a trope I just LOVE as a lesbian personally, which is that lesbians can’t keep relationships and can’t keep from cheating on their loving partners. Especially when they are butch. 

And I’m not talking about Renee cheating on Kate. Oh, no. Ridley decided Kate was the Other Woman during Renee’s relationship with Daria. 

And just.. the cruel commentary that Renee had about both Kate and Daria throughout. It made my skin crawl. The way she talked about other women in general made my skin crawl. “Uncomplicated women” “Broken souls” “Can’t be with someone better than yourself”

So I actually planned to go into a full rage post about just the queer content because 1. my lane and 2. it honestly affected me so bad I was shaking and tearing up in anger a bit. Every single friend I know who loves Kate and Renee, see themselves in Kate and Renee, have been the same kind of mess I am after this.

The NASTINESS of the internal monologue. I don’t know how to explain it more than this is how poorly men think of flf and to have one use a character so meaningful to the community to spout this hatefulness has revolted me in a way I... haven’t had happen to me for a while.

I was going to talk about the weirdness of just... randomly deciding to retcon Renee’s parents into being undocumented when that’s never been a thing before and just doing NOTHING with it the whole while after. Or how it’s pretty questionable how Renee suddenly became so adherently Catholic when it’s never been portrayed like that before (that’s Hel B’s bag, JPV if you squint) but it’s entwined with any of her commentary on her ethnicity p sus too but I don’t have the nuance for that discussion right now.

Rena Rants are back and what a fucking JOKE this comic was. 

I didn’t pay for it and neither should you.

P.S. bringing back Tim Fox and calling him “Jace” is dumb as fuck too

[shihalyfie]

Kizuna drama CD: Detail spotting and nuance analysis

02 involved displaying its group dynamic through mundane interactions and wacky hijinks, and the circumstances of an eight-year block of time between Kizuna and 02, plus the fact that Hikari and Takeru operate separately from the others due to the movie’s circumstances, mean that the drama CD centering around the group is actually our most reliable source of info regarding how they’re doing at this time and how their group dynamic is going. Much like 02 itself, getting a lot of this nuance requires reading between the lines, so let’s take a closer look!

Since this is a drama CD and not animated material, I’ll be going through this in bullet points instead of screenshots.

The fact that the drama CD itself deliberately uses the same format as a 02 episode carries a very strong implication that, unlike their seniors who are going through an existential crisis about how much of their childhood experiences they can bring with them into adulthood, the 02 group is still roughly able to recreate the same atmosphere they had eight years ago. Noticeably, the ending song chosen for this is the first ED (Tomorrow My Wind Will Blow), the more lighthearted one used for the first half, before a lot of really emotionally vicious things started happening to them.

The phrase “it’s been a while” and variants thereof come up between this group a lot within this drama CD (and once in the movie itself, from Hawkmon to the others). Look closely at the circumstances of this drama CD and how everyone seems to be very intimately aware of each other’s situations, and the fact that this story obviously takes place only a short time before the movie itself -- so it really hasn’t been a very long time at all, but apparently even that much is considered a “long time” for them. (It also seems like they’re going out of their way to make sure they’re still keeping in regular contact even when they can’t actually meet up.)

Daisuke says, very clearly, that Iori was the one he intended to approach “first” because he was so busy -- but he’s shown walking in with Takeru, meaning that the two of them are on very good terms now and seem to have been hanging out independently.

Daisuke wanted his plan to be a “surprise” reveal to the others, and the actual practical purpose of his plan (it being a career study trip for him) seems to have been very low on the priority list to the point it takes the CD’s entire half-hour runtime for him to finally bring it up. Before then, he’d been cheerfully fantasizing about all the fun things he’d get to do with them, and it even says a lot that he’d also wanted to discuss this at a karaoke bar of all things, so, really, in his head, “hanging out with friends and having fun with them” is the actual priority (especially since there’s basically no reason he needs to have the others on his ramen research trip, he just wants them there because he does).

The fact that the boys have to sneak in the Digimon to avoid getting extra charges means that society will now recognize them as patrons to be regularly charged.

Daisuke is asked by Iori which people he intends to bring to his trip, which implies that the 02 group isn’t technically an exclusive club or anything...but then Daisuke proceeds to list off the 02 group by name, implying that this group does indeed have a particularly elevated level of importance to him.

Look carefully at the nuances surrounding whom Daisuke wants to invite to his trip: he wanted to invite the seniors as well, but resigned himself to the fact it’d probably be impossible because they were too busy...only for the others to point out that the rest of the 02 group is also busy, but everyone is confident that they’ll make it work, and Daisuke wants them there to the point of listing them by name. So in other words, Daisuke likes everyone and would like everyone around in the ideal situation, but when push comes to shove, the rest of the 02 group is whom he really wants to have around, and said group can be reliably counted on to do whatever it takes to make it work.

The way everyone casually describes each other's circumstances (and in specific detail, not just generally describing what they're up to) says a lot; Armadimon's still talking with Hawkmon about Miyako (meaning Miyako and Iori are still regularly in contact), Takeru's up-to-date with Ken's life to the point of knowing his upcoming schedule, Daisuke's fully aware of how busy Iori is, and, later, the one to affectionately greet Hawkmon is none other than Wormmon, who, back in 02, used to only really be close with Ken himself and V-mon. You can see that everyone’s still constantly involved in each other’s lives, including their own partners being up-to-date on each other (compare the more distant relationship their seniors are portrayed with in the movie itself, both with each other and with their partners), and you can also see that Ken and Wormmon have fully integrated themselves into the group to the point it’s a completely casual affair (Iori, the one who infamously had the longest and most drawn-out process in accepting Ken, is the one to personally ask him about his preferences).

That said, note that Takeru and Iori still seem to be on surname basis with Ken, even despite obviously being much closer with him than they were before; unfortunately, it seems that having been on surname basis with him so long in 02 became a habit, leaving Daisuke and Miyako as the only ones currently known to have switched to given name basis with him.

It’s interesting that Ken, not Daisuke, is the one explicitly stated to be keeping up with soccer to the point of having schedule commitments, whereas no mention of this whatsoever is made with Daisuke, and it’s entirely possible that Daisuke actually quit playing it in an organized fashion. This is, however, consistent with their personalities, in that Ken would likely want to keep up with organized extracurricular hobbies, whereas Daisuke may enjoy soccer as a hobby, but not enough to continue committing to a high-level team. (Remember that Daisuke took a while to get a regular position even back in elementary school; as much as he liked the sport, he also wasn’t particularly outstanding at it, and especially not in comparison to Taichi, Sora, or Ken.)

Miyako leaving for Spain seems to have been a recent thing, since it has to actively be brought up in conversation as a reminder (and Daisuke seemed to initially have not taken into account that she wouldn’t be easily able to join the trip in that case, since the issue of the D-3 hadn’t come up yet). When she shows up later in person, everyone’s shocked, as if it’s unnerving for her to be back in Japan already.

Daisuke still seems to have a thing for Hikari, but note that this doesn’t really go beyond “wanting to hang out with Hikari a lot”. Also, he says this in plain view of Takeru without bringing him up at all, and Takeru himself has nothing to say about it (not even awkward laughter), meaning that he really has no object in this whatsoever.

It’s interesting to see that Armadimon, who used to have to ask about how human society works quite often in 02, is now well-versed enough in Japanese culture to be really passionate about it.

As usual, Iori does not mince words (when it's about Nagoya specialty food, at least).

Also as usual, Ken is surprisingly academic about his interests and a huge nerd.

Note Takeru's awkward "I don't really want to insult you, but also, that's weird" reaction to Ken’s speech about the hot springs -- very classic Takeru, not quite being honest for the sake of keeping the peace and awkwardly trying to be nice about it -- in contrast to Daisuke, who just honestly goes straight for the commentary. That said, regardless of how unusual of a hobby everyone around him clearly finds it, note how they all still decide to accommodate it anyway and support his interest in it.

Hypocritically, V-mon calls Daisuke out for being “embarrassing” regarding his fixation on Hikari, only to suddenly get caught off-guard by Tailmon shortly after...

Hikari's behavior has the most clear-cut contrast from herself in 02, consisting of her very assertively stating what she wants, for herself -- very important because her problems in 02 revolved around her compulsively being unable to voice her own thoughts if it meant putting a burden on others. Here, Hikari gets argumentative about what she, personally, wants to do. Given that she doesn’t quite act like this in front of her seniors in the course of the movie, and is depicted as being particularly in-sync with Miyako here -- and given how Miyako was instrumental in reaching out to her during the events of 02 -- it’s pretty easy to see how Hikari became able to assert herself like this.

Similarly, much like how Tailmon was portrayed as lightening up a bit between Adventure and 02 thanks to her new, happier life, here, she seems to be exactly on the same page as Hikari in terms of wanting to fight people for something materialistic.

Hawkmon says that it's "only natural" for them to show up whenever this group is getting together, and, indeed, Miyako was technically uninvited because everyone thought she was busy in Spain -- but was clearly in contact with them (or at least Hikari) to know that this meeting was happening. (There’s probably a group chat.)

This is implied to be the first time the 02 group has seriously considered using D-3 gate exploitation to visit each other and to travel. The group had already made use of this exploitation during 02 itself (to have Palmon delivered to New York back in 02 episode 38 and to meet up in the Digital World), but it is true that they hadn’t been necessarily using it even when it arguably would be more convenient than Tokyo transportation and Imperialdramon. So in other words, for the last eight years, through all the meetups they seem to have been having with each other (and remember, Ken lived in Tamachi, not Odaiba, at the time of 02, and there’s no guarantee that nobody in the Odaiba neighborhood didn’t move at some point), they were perfectly fine with using the inconvenience of Tokyo transportation to meet each other, or to meet up in the Digital World instead -- but then Miyako found herself in another country, and decided that she wasn't going to stand for being separated from the others for too long.

As usual, Hawkmon still has to be Miyako’s concerned minder when she’s on the verge of going out of control.

Miyako had already been implied to be in Barcelona thanks to the scenery outside her window and the movie end credits, but her speech about Spain drives it in even further with the Gaudí references.

Despite Spain being possibly the one of the worst possible options for what's later revealed to be Daisuke's motive for this trip (ramen research), it seems that Miyako baiting him with mention of the soccer league was enough to get him momentarily distracted (and also indicates that Daisuke still clearly has an active interest in soccer even if he may not be regularly playing anymore).

Speaking of which, it’s pretty obvious that Miyako knew exactly what to bait Daisuke with in order to do this.

Takeru, the group's resident moderator, is of course the one to step in and prevent Tailmon and Armadimon from wreaking too much havoc (Daisuke is mostly just slightly intimidated) -- but you might also notice that he's otherwise not saying anything about the group's chaotic antics, and in fact is guilty of enabling them even further...

Daisuke continues to have his penchant for pointing out the elephant in the room -- he's exactly right, how is Wormmon supposed to put on skis?

It is, of course, only natural that Miyako would be sensitive to knowing about currency exchange and the use of American dollars in the Digital World, given that she presumably hasn't forgotten the Digitamamon incident from 02 episode 14.

For the first time in 19 real-life years, we finally learn what Daisuke’s original motive for wanting to get into ramen making was: in true Daisuke fashion, he himself has no idea (but he just really likes ramen).

Daisuke "credits" his friends for giving him insightful advice and helpful resources in thinking about his career and future plans, but, as it turns out, everyone else wasn't thinking nearly as much of it -- either they hardly remember it, or it wasn't actually supposed to mean anything insightful. It's obviously not to say that they're not fully supportive of him (the events of this drama CD blatantly indicate otherwise), but rather that Daisuke attributes everything important and helpful in his life to his friends to ridiculous degrees, even when it's something completely ordinary like a train ticket that anyone should know about.

As always, Daisuke is very realistically aware of his own limitations, admitting freely that he was actually lacking in experience and insight to follow his dream (especially since he took the "advice" from his friends very, very seriously).

Note how quickly everyone changes their tune and immediately decides to unequivocally support Daisuke the moment they realize there's actually a very important reason to him that he wants to go on this trip.

Also note that when Hikari compliments Daisuke, Daisuke is completely at a loss -- yet again, Daisuke's been so busy rolling around for Hikari's approval that he hasn't accounted for what to do when he actually gets it.

Daisuke picking New York, of all locations, as his stop to research ramen certainly explains why Ken has to ask "why ramen?" during the movie itself -- as this drama CD indicates, and as per the events of 02 episode 50, he absolutely knows why Daisuke would want to get ramen, but ramen in New York, which isn't exactly the cultural center of ramen making, is a different story.

The fact that this was a planned multi-day trip also explains why the group changes clothes and is in New York for multiple days over the course of the movie (because they probably had a hotel, too). It also further contextualizes the likely reason Miyako felt like dealing with Menoa’s request was too much work -- she wanted to be on this trip instead -- and says a lot about how she’ll dump a request on her seniors when it’s too much hassle for her, but accept that same request back if it’s something she gets to do with her friends.

Takeru and Hikari are explicitly stated to be scheduled to join the trip on the second day, meaning that them operating separately from the quartet during the events of the movie was sheer scheduling circumstance -- and since we find out in the movie that Takeru was the one to inform Yamato about Daisuke's whereabouts, this CD here clarifies that Takeru has this knowledge because he himself was set to be on this trip (and would have been, if the events of the movie hadn't gotten in the way).

Probably the most interesting take-home from this narrative is how absurdly close the 02 group is portrayed as, and in very, very stark contrast to their seniors in the movie itself -- who are said to be drifting apart as they all find their individual paths. Here, the 02 group is the opposite; while they do seem to have their own goals (Hikari and Daisuke are outright identified as having some of the clearest ones), it’s obvious that those goals are secondary to being able to hang out with and support each other (in other words, they still have those goals, but they’re much lower priorities for them). This is consistent with how these dynamics were portrayed back in 02, since the Adventure group had been portrayed as being prone to drifting apart as early as Our War Game!, whereas the 02 group was built from the ground up as needing each other’s mutual support much more deeply -- it’s just that, now that they’re all much older, this distinction in group dynamic is much more prominent.

[zalrb]

What do you think about Jennifer Lawrence as an actress? I think I’ve read some of your posts before about the hunger games love triangle at least, but I can’t remember anything specific you said about her acting - if you did or if it’s something you’d even care to discuss! Lol I’m just wondering because she used to be so huge and celebrated but I feel like ever since she’s been on a break people have been coming out to say she was overhyped previously, shouldn’t have won the Oscar for SLP, etc. & I just wondered your thoughts? You break down the nuances of how people act so well - and I used to love J. Law when I was a pre-teen / teenager but now I’m not sure if that’s just because she was in almost every cool movie during that time or if it’s because I genuinely thought she was super talented ? For what it’s worth I did tend to think she did breakdown/crying scenes pretty well

To be quite honest with you, I don't think it was her acting that people were caught up with when she was popular, I think it was her persona as the clumsy-but-cool-chick-you-wanna-hang-out-or-party-with who falls down stairs on the way to get major awards

and talks openly about taking shots at events and needing to get her life together and seeming very approachable while also being charismatic

and then she happened to be an above mediocre actress, not a great one, not even a particularly good one, but one who was slightly above average

and being  slightly above average got folded into that persona so it was just JLAW EVERYTHING and then she went on Graham Norton and joked about disrespecting sacred ancestral rocks in Hawaii  and people were like, what in the entire fuck?

and then her persona started waning because she was doing the same things and instead of appearing organic, it looked calculated and became tiresome, and then people looked at her more critically and realized she was pretty overhyped.

So as an actress, I thought she did her job. Like, with THG I didn't think her performance was particularly nuanced especially after reading the books  but for a kind of action-y teen franchise, not having a nuanced performance isn't the end of the world, it’s treated more like well, it would be appreciated but it’s not necessary and frankly, she wasn’t Kristen Stewart in Twilight so I think people were just like SHE’S AMAZING even though she’s actually so wooden in the movies

unless she’s weepy.

There’s playing guarded and playing repressing emotion and  playing being hardened -- and I haven’t seen The Wilds in its entirety and it’s not like the acting I’ve seen in it is great either but that’s Rachel who does it muche better

and then there’s just being wooden

like the praise she got made it seem like this 

was something like this

and it absolutely wasn’t.

And then with Silver Linings, like, people were saying she was going toe to toe with Robert DeNiro and I was like RELAX, she just wasn't embarrassing next to Robert DeNiro  but, like, OK,  obviously I don't KNOW Jennifer Lawrence, but  it didn't seem like playing Tiffany would be that much of a stretch of imagination for her

and then I saw American Hustle where it felt like this is a role she would need to disappear into to make me not go oh yeah you're just being Jennifer Lawrence, and she didn't do that for me,

in fact I found her very awkward in the role, like she was playing dress up

which is why when she won the Oscar I was like ... really? For this?

So, basically, I just think she’s fine.

[maxwell-grant]

Charlie Chan. Who is fascinating, because he was created explictly to be an anti-Yellow Peril character. Unlike most Chinese characters of the time, he's both intelligent, physically capable, and unambiguously heroic. In the novels, he's simultaneously proud of being Chinese AND proud of being an American citizen. He gives orders and instructions to white people, and the narrative treats this as perfectly normal and acceptable. There's a bit in the first book, when an attempt to trap the..(1/2)

(cont'd)There's a bit in the first book where an attempt to trap the protagonist fails, because a message supposedly from Charlie clearly isn't because Charlie's English isn't broken, it's like poetry. Etc. The movies made him more stereotypical, & played by white actors in yellowface, but still, he's a heroic Chinese man, who is as capable and patriotic as any white man. Nowadays, he's thought of as racist caricature. Which he is, but still, it makes one think.

I'm not nearly as acquainted with Charlie Chan as you are (and I definitely suspected he was less racist in the original books because that's nearly always the norm when it comes to pulp characters) but yeah, that "Which he is" is forever going to be the most unfortunate and saddest part of it all when it comes to Charlie Chan. For all the virtues that can be bestowed on Charlie Chan, for everything great that the character had going for him and inspired, the fact that the least offensive image of the character I could find to put here for illustration's sake is from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon kinda exemplifies the big elephant in the room when it comes to Charlie.

Charlie Chan is a great example of two things: One is the way progress is never a fixed quantity and often what was progressive and forward-thinking in it's time can become something outdated and backwards and downright offensive given enough time, and the 2nd is my constant stressing that this is all the more incentive to reclaim the pulps and either highlight or fix aspects of them, instead of dismissing every aspect of them based on the preconception that everything about it's history is unforgivably bigoted and must be handled with the nuance of a sledgehammer.

I stress time and time again the need to highlight and understand the prejudices that went into pulps, because either ignoring them or wielding them as a weapon to attack them does no favors to anyone. The pulps weren't exceptionally bigoted - look at literally any medium in it's time period and you'll find bigotry and prejudice and hatred - and they were exceptional in the number of POC heroes and heroines. Pulps were a medium of experimentation and cheap entertainment that gave way to much, much more varied kinds of protagonists than were permitted in films, serials, novels, comics and radio serials of the day. Imagine if no one was allowed to bring up and discuss superheroes without mentioning the Superman Slap-a-Jap posters or the Captain Marvel story so horrifingly racist it was recounted by an American ambassador after it deeply offended a friend's son and a major influence on the 1950s anti-comic trials. "Pulp fiction had deeply, unforgivingly racist depictions that deserve intense scrutiny and cannot be ignored" and "Pulp fiction was significantly ahead of every other medium at the time in regards to authors and editors striving to publish stories about heroic POCs, this cannot be dismissed and is something that needs to be perpetuated" are not exclusive facts. "A product of it's time" is not an excuse and never was, but it's a fact nevertheless.

Every time someone speaks favorably of Charlie Chan in any capacity, they have to start with a long preface of everything positive that the character had going for him. Yes, he's a deliberate subversion of the Yellow Peril, he's a heroic protagonist, he's plump and good-natured and humorous but far from a joke, he's friendly and pleasant and well-educated and wise, he's a good dad and family man and a terrifically sharp detective who's so good at his job he gets called to solve crimes all over the world, and none of these traits are apparent to people who have to google the character and repeteadly see a white man in awful make-up into every single image of the character, who watch the movies and cringe at the broken English. It's hardly relevant in the face of all the Asian-American critics who acknowledge the character's virtues but rightfully point out that this fortune-cookie spouting caricature, acting subservient to whites and whose virtues are based around his proximity to a white American ideal, doesn't represent them and they shouldn't pretend it does.

Which isn't to say that to like Charlie Chan is "wrong", a lot of East Asians love Charlie and the character's obviously got fans in Asian Americans. It's a complicated subject and I obviously cannot begin to vouch in a subject so heavily based around perceptions I cannot experience. And I deeply detest the idea of speaking for others on their particular experiences on this kind of matter, which is something Americans do a lot everytime they talk about representation in media.

So instead, I'm going to tackle this on a roundabout manner by going on an unrelated tangent to bring up an example of representation that isn't quite representative of what it's supposed to be, has a lot of issues that have been dissected by critics among the people it was supposed to represent, and none of that stopped the character from being popular and beloved and from being claimed anyway. And it's a Brazilian fighting game character, which means it's completely within my ballpark.

Yeah, obviously Blanka doesn't look like anyone who lives in Brazil (whatever resemblance he bears to redheaded jungle protectors of Brazilian folklore is purely accidental). Obviously neither Jimmy nor Blanka are Brazilian names or even exist in the Portuguese lexicon. Obviously there are issues in Street Fighter's approach to representation across the board, sure, and I'd actually say Laura is much worse than Blanka in that regard (again, my opinion, obviously not universal), but the fact remains that Blanka is and has always been pretty controversial. Obviously there's Brazilians who took offense to Blanka and they weren't wrong to do so, and I obviously do not speak for everyone here, that goes without saying.

Obviously the idea that Brazil's major representative in a global cast of characters, the first big name Brazilian character in videogames, is going to be a freakish jungle monster who roars and bites faces has problems, as is the fact that all the others get to be regular people representing fighting styles from their countries while Blanka doesn't. None of the Brazilian SF characters represent Capoeira, which is kinda shitty to be honest. And there's a whole stereotype of Brazil as a backwards land of beasts and savages that Blanka's creation played into. There's no shortage of ground to criticize Blanka's representation and Ono actually apologized in an interview once, but then he learned one teensy little thing:

Street Fighter is very popular on Brazil. Would you like to leave a message to the fans from there?

"Ono: Yes, I'm aware. At the time of Street Fighter II a lot of the arcade machines produced went there, so I knew we had lots of fans there. A message to Brazilians, well, I'd like to apologize. I know Blanka's a weird character and I don't want any Brazilian to feel uncomfortable with that.

When Blanka was conceived, we knew there were forests in Brazil, and so we thought he could look like that. I was actually kinda nervous knowing I'd meet Brazilian journalists. Still, this is the first Street Fighter in ten years, so we'd like all fans to play, including Brazilians, which are many.

Thanks. Well, but you should know that Brazilians love Blanka

"Ono: Ah, good! I was scared of getting beat up if I ever went to São Paulo! (laughs)"

(That's from a 2012 tv special called The Greatest Brazilian of All Time where over a million viewers voted to elect whoever they wanted, and Blanka was going to win. He was polling ahead of Aryton Senna and PELÉ, fucking Pelé, yes this happened. He wasn't even disqualified for being a cartoon character, it was an open poll, he was disqualified due to canon stating he had been born in Thailand, which I think may have been retconned since then. Again, A MILLION BRAZILLIANS voted for this contest, and Blanka was going to win.)

Blanka is great and sweet and lovable, he made the best out of the incredible shitty hands fate dealt him and became a cool and strong green man who shoots lightning and flies, a self-taught warrior who rides whales and planes to fighting tournaments, and he loves his mom and friends and kicks ass and after he's done he dances in joy and gives the kids of his village piggyback rides, and Brazil loves him. He doesn't represent any existing person or fighting style, he's rooted in a negative stereotype and incorrect assumptions, he's not even really Brazilian, and he's our boy and nobody can take him away from us.

No criticism of Blanka, no matter how in-depth or even right it is, is ever going to affect that, because regardless of what was wrong or misguided and offensive about him, we claimed him and loved him so throughly that Capcom kept playing up Brazilian representation in every subsequent game post Alpha, and because of Blanka's impact and reception in such a big game, Brazilian characters have become a staple of fighting games, and that's how we got much more diverse representatives in those games. Fighting games have more Brazilian representation than LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE on media not produced here. It started as BAD representation, with way less thought put into it than Charlie Chan, and it still mattered to a lot of Brazilians who reclaimed it and made it better than it was ever intended to be, and as a response to it, it gradually became better. 

Progress is not a fixed quantity, it's an uphill battle, and it's not unwinnable. Everything's gotta start somewhere.

The Good Asian is a ongoing comic that I think does the best job I've seen yet of handling an Asian American detective protagonist, which is not really a high bar in the first place, and more to the point, The Good Asian illustrates the 2nd part: the reclaiming. The Good Asian deals a lot with the realities that a 1930s Asian-American detective would run into, the strained circumstances and relationships between said character and the world around him, because it's born from an author who took a look at Charlie Chan and Mr Moto and the like and recognized the potential in those stories that could not be fulfilled in it's time period by the people writing said stories. 

The Good Asian pays little reverence to Charlie Chan, but it acknowledges that it cannot exist without Charlie Chan, and it reclaims the Charlie Chan premise at the hands of someone more adequately equipped to tell a gripping story that goes places none of Charlie's contemporaries would ever go. Regardless of how good or bad of representation Charlie Chan was, Charlie Chan mattered and was beloved and inspired a better example for others to improve on or rebel against.

I desperately wish that I could google Charlie Chan without having to look at a guy in yellowface, and the ONLY way that's going to happen is if the character ever gets meaningfully brought back and reclaimed for good by people who can meaningfully tackle the character and present him as he should have always been presented.

And then, I imagine it would be a lot easier to show people on how swell Charlie really is. A true, positive role model and hero, who no longer has to look like a gross cartoon to be able to exist at all. Who can finally be what he was always meant to be, and always was deep down.

[theangryjikooker]

I just wanted to say that I appreciate your approach to everything. I've been reluctant to follow you, as I generally steer clear of discussion blogs (ironic, since I inadvertently do it myself - tumblr is supposed to be my pretty picture place, lol), but after continuously reading your posts in the "jikook" tag and agreeing, I have finally succumbed. I really wish people would understand the nuances you're bringing to the discussion.

(2/4) While I'm not as convinced they're NOT a couple, I'm also not convinced they are. They're... unique. And in the face of what little evidence we have from official content, I cannot draw a solid conclusion either way. If they ever were to be revealed as such, I would not be surprised. If they get married to women, that honestly wouldn't surprise me either. I'm staunchly agnostic. I simply don't know, but I shall embrace and rejoice in the beauty of their relationship, whatever it may be.

(3/4) So, thank you for being rational, for providing a voice for the middle man. It's a refreshing change from the zealots on both sides. (I should probably write a long ask in one document instead of winging it through three, as I'm not sure they flow well between each other... ehh, it is what is is, sorry if it's a mess).

(4/4) PS. OMG. Sorry if that sounded like I was really up my own butt ("I follow you now, feel special") That was NOT my intention. -_- I was mostly just trying to say THANK YOU, lol. Like, you are a good person, keep going!

Oh my god, you are so cute. 😭 Don't worry, I didn't take it that way, although I'm always thankful that people continue to follow me because I can be kind of a mess. Also, thank you so much! I actually recognize your username, but I can't remember if it was a post you liked or maybe I just saw you on the tags in passing..? I only remember because of your username, and I thought it was a HP reference. Even if it isn't, I like it anyway!

Anyway, yeah, I get people who are hesitant to follow me. No big deal either way, but unless people take the time to read and understand the things I've been saying so far, they're likely to be rubbed the wrong way (which I have no plans on fixing either soooo).

In regards to your second ask and how you felt--I 100% absolutely agree with you in how you see them because it's the same with me. Unique is definitely a word I'd use to describe their dynamic. While they don't strike me as romantic (or platonic, they're very vague), they're very... sparkling... and I want whatever it is they have going on. 😞

Again, thank you, thank you! 💜 Please feel free to chime in any time with your thoughts if you feel like it!

[shiramoonshadow]

This is the second part of the last post.  

What is your favorite moment in the show? Rhona, and then Omari, and then Paula and then Jack.

Omari: I don’t have a moment but I think like whenever I see and hear Harrow speak I get emotional because I think of myself as a kid and seeing this like honorable, powerful king who happens to look kind of like me, I just think I didn’t really have that often on animated shows so I get...I get emotional. Again, you’re talking to a guy who every time I watch Spider-man into the Spider-Verse I cry while they’re talking like I...It just affects me on a deep level.

Paula: For me it’s an episode and it’s 2x05, when Viren is trying to convince the council to go to war and Queen Aanya is not having it, that whole episode I just love it and Jason was just talking forever and it was great, even being in the room for that episode was amazing. Just love it.

Jack: Ezran ascending to the throne. I just think like a shot of him entering the throne room and taking that on, I think it’s just one of the more well-earned and beautiful, like whoa, him leaving the journey to go back take on that responsibility, I think is just incredible.

Rhona: I think another special moment was just the first time seeing Amaya sign. That was really a special moment, you know, it felt like having black royal family, groundbreaking, and having a character sign, groundbreaking.

Mental illness representation, Callum’s anxiety...oh, okay. What do you guys think of the kind of ever present discussion of people dealing with “are they capable?” Because both Rayla and Callum are very much open and honest with like “am i a failure?” (This was mine!)

Omari: Oh, it's great to see characters that are, you know, lack confidence and struggle with these real things that I'm sure a lot of viewers do as well."

Jack: I'm a person with generalized anxiety disorder, it's what it’s been called to me, and I struggle with anxiety a lot and it's a big thing that I connected to with this character and it does feel like the show explores it in a way that isn't like…. Sometimes it’s in like, sometimes it’s in a character description as just like “anxious” just like “Oh, that’s just like a trait” as opposed to a like... a part of this person and a struggle that they're facing and I think Callum really does read to me as a person with an anxiety disorder and they really like, you know, he is really grappling with it and working through it and the dark magic coma scene that I’ve talked about a bunch because I just love it. I love that, you know, to unlock the person that he needs to be, it's stuff that I do to work on anxiety where it’s like “oh he's gotta calm down and channel his breath and think and focus on just the thing in front of him”, like those things, I think that's beautiful and I love it. Love it.

Was there a point in the story that really surprised you? Like, I did not see that. (I already wrote Paula's answer and Jack's reply, twice because I'm stupid and tumblr hates me)

Jack: I just said it, but truly, Ezran leaving. I think was a real like...It’s just so not in the outline you think of this journey when you look at the beginning of the series. You go like, oh these three kids who are like going off to meet the dragon queen and this is the one who can, this kid can like talk to animals, so he’s going to be there to talk to the dragon queen, and the fact that “no, it makes more sense that he has to go back and do the adult thing" even though he’s an 11 year old. I think that’s a really logical plot decision that is, I think, completely shocking from just a genre perspective of like, you know, this is the show where it’s about kids on an epic quest, the main kid doesn’t leave in the middle of the epic quest to go home and do a job. That’s weird, but I think it just really makes sense and it’s really cool.

Paula: What you said (about Rayllum) it’s kind of funny because I think her..for me, in terms of the relationship with Callum, for Rayla it was like “oh, this annoying guy that I have to take care of and I’ve got to explain everything to him”. Well, that does sound like the start of all my relationships so...I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming.

Omari: For a selfish pov just, you know, Corvus going from tracker to a protector, an ally. It was a great story and we talked about it on the previous one, just spoke of the brilliance of the... just the nuance of the storytelling, constant twists that are really surprising and fun.

Rhona: I feel like I want to use the same moment, just the first time I saw Amaya sign and I think the show approaches so many issues with such respect and it’s not made this big deal of... and I loved also that there wasn’t a translation. I think that it really blew me away to see that and, you know, we mentioned in our panel last night how there are fun little signing easter eggs left in there. I don’t know, I just loved that moment.

Who’s the most likely to break character and laugh during the session?

Paula: Jesse.

Rhona: Oh, he’s not here to defend himself.

Paula: Jesse and Racquel together.

Jack: Yeah, the combo.

Last question, what movie or show would your characters be a fan of? (This was mine too)

Rhona: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Like getting in there, stealing precious artifacts, going on adventures....

Omari: Terminator 2.

Paula: I think Rayla's pretty into sports, if she’s gonna watch a movie might be something like Tomb Raider, something with a girl.

Is there a sports woman movie?

Jack: Hold on, what’s like a hard-edged female sports movie…

Rhona: I, Tonya?

Jack: There’s a Drew Barrymore...roller derby movie? (Whip It) (About Callum) I was trying to think if there’s like an animated thing because he’s so into drawing, so I was trying to think if there was like an animated...Um…

Rhona: The Last Airbender.

Jack: The Last Airbender, yeah. He’s really into The Last Airbender. He has a big connection with boomerangs and he doesn’t understand, I think that’s perfect.

Edit: sorry I forgot to say that I didn't write any questions about through the moon since none of them have read it yet, but Rhona has started a free webinar series called Mistressclass and Omari's been one of the few men that they had on their platform. It's to learn about the industry from mostly women to voice over, to on camera, to commercials, to head shots to agents. They are going to have one about audition nerves and anxiety if you're interested!

[physicistdyke]

Transed his own Gender

Dr. Harold P. Coomer is trans, he's worked his whole academic career to make his body just how he wanted it. Now, at age 46, he finally has an opportunity with his work at Black Mesa to get bottom surgery. But his colleague and friend Dr Bubby, who doesn’t know anything about gender besides the strict hetero-normative and patriarchal culture of STEM, objects to the new and risky procedure while questioning Coomers desires to put his own safety at risk all for a silly gen-dar.

rb >> likes!

Link to ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25611880

or read under cut 

It was both viciously empowering and crumbled him to the core. He had a power over his own body, rare for the here and now in this space and time. Harold had felt this way many times before, an advantage that should be a right. He could relieve his own suffering, but at what cost? The lingering thoughts would stick with him, latching on like a parasite, a cancer. A hand on his shoulder brought him back into his body, a body he’s worked so hard for. He turned back to see his colleague, stoic in expression. Dr Bubby was not good at expressing emotions in a conventional manner, but other characteristics helped to convey what his face could not. Right now the pressure he was applying with his hand on Coomer’s shoulder mixed with how he avoided eye contact told Coomer that Bubby was afraid. Bubby was afraid for Coomer. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Bubby started. Coomer was about to reply, but Bubby’s own racing mind cut him off. “It’s a very experimental procedure you know, I was reading over the cybernetics reports-“ “Please Bubby,” Coomer turned and looked up at him straight on, he saw worry in his friend’s eyes, “I am fully aware of what I’m doing, I have done just as much research as you.” He said these words with confidence. He didn’t want to hurt his friends feelings more, but sometimes Bubby’s ego got the best of him. Bubby took a step back from the other man, as if the eye contact burned him. Harold was one of the few people Bubby could look in the eyes without that feeling, but now it felt like the island of experience between them was distant. He averted his gaze back to a corner of the room, reconsidering his own words and constructing a sentence most logical for the situation. “I just don’t understand your desire to keep going forward with this, you’re already well respected enough.” *** ____________________________________

This would be Coomer’s first procedure since he had met Bubby. The most recent before that was the operation on his chest, he had snagged that opportunity while working on his post doctorate. That was an experimental procedure at the time too, but Coomer’s endless tap of kindness and intelligence had been able to convince his friends in the medical department and their higher ups that this was an ethically sound decision. Even though Coomer himself never wished to study human anatomy, much preferring engineering and physics to biology, the circumstances of his life pushed him to learn more then he wanted to know. This study began the second he got to college, an unaware and afraid young man, he used his own body as test subject. Mixing concoctions that transformed his body and mind. By the time he was applying for his masters, he was a new man. All the insecurity and anxiousness of his younger years behind him, he now shone like the star he was. From there he made incremental and bolder steps in the process of his transition; first with the top surgery as mentioned before, and now, at the age of 46, he was arranging what would hopefully be his final procedure. Black Mesa did a lot of things, and apparently mechanical prosthetics was now one of them. The new cybernetics department had already made wondrous strides in terms of arms and legs, restoring ability to those in their ranks that needed it. These semi-mechanical, semi-flesh prosthetics fascinated Dr. Coomer to no end. About 8 months ago he had started wandering into the department more often. Finding himself asking passing questions to colleagues, asking questions from a genuine place in the heart. Dr. Coomer was open to talk about his experiences as a trans man, but a majority of his peers were always too uncomfortable to ask. They saw it as an oddity within a good man, he saw it as something that helped make him the good man he was today. The gap in that understanding stung Coomer sometimes, and the feeling of isolation sometimes crept up on him. But his smile and the passion for his studies often helped to bring him away from that space. It was about 2 months ago when he picked out a particular team within the cybernetics department, and started to have more serious conversations with them. From a scientific perspective, everyone involved was enthralled by the prospect. Combine that with Coomer's consistent fascination, confidence, and consent, they were fast approaching a place where action could be taken. _____________________________________

Bubby had noticed his friend's increased absence from their own department. Missing from collaboration meetings, not in his office or nearest break room for their usual chit chat. Coomer was an unlikely but much appreciated friend to Bubby. They had met about 10 years prior, when Bubby was nearly done the process of being titled 'a successful prototype'. Coomer was an unexpected ray of sunshine in Bubby's life. Showing him a kindness and understanding Bubby never had the luxury to live with. Being regarded as a test subject and experiment your whole life does that to you. ____________________________________

Bubby didn't know what being trans meant when Coomer first brought it up with him. Bubby, in reality, didn't even know what gender meant. He had a vague grasp on the fact that gender existed. The knowledge tubes his creators attached to him all those years ago mostly skipped out on all topics of liberal arts, humanity, sociology, etc, except for the most minimum required for him to be a somewhat functioning social life form. But what Dr Bubby lacked in those nuanced interactions and social rules, he well made up for in his ability to observe and form logical conclusions (according to his own account). He was aware of the fact that some people were referred to differently. Out of Black Mesas staff, a small minority were referred to as ‘she’. This group had a tendency to dress different from the rest of the staff, occasionally donning skirts and dresses, and varying from person to person on pigment applied to the face. Bubby viewed these people as his equal (or more so equally below him as the rest of his male co-workers, as he was still an egotistical jerk), but he couldn’t help but notice the trends surrounding this group. Bubby heard the back handed remarks, the passing jokes, the tone of superiority made by some of his male colleagues about the fairer sex. He saw the anxiety in his female colleagues when this attitude approached them. He noted the equal distribution of men to women in the ranks of visiting grad students and post docs, yet the stark lack of women in actual professional roles at Black Mesa. He saw the complacency in nearly all of his male colleagues regarding the generally accepted treatment words the ‘fairer sex’. Nearly all his male colleagues. Coomer and Bubby had been working together for a few years, and a friendship (or the closest thing to that someone could get to with Bubby) had started to really solidify. They were on lunch together, discussing the published panels from a recent convention on nuclear physics. Bubby was particularly fascinated in some newly publish findings on strange Beta decay experiments. He excitedly postulated the possibilities the results could mean for the future of the strong nuclear force. Dr Coomer was as supportive and thoughtful towards his friend as ever, but something else seemed to be occupying his thoughts. “Did you read over the notes from the panel on gender issues in STEM?” Dr. Coomer eventually interrupted when his lingering thoughts became too present. This caught Bubby off guard, but he quickly caught up with his colleagues present state of mind, “I didn’t because I saw it as trivial. I mean, it was a convention on nuclear physics, why waste time with trivial matters of progressing social etiquette?” Coomer furrowed his brow and Bubby realized he had perhaps chosen the wrong words, “Well Professor, if you had spent the time to read, you’d realize it was barely focusing on Progressing social etiquette at all. The man they chose to lead the panel was as backwards thinking about women’s role in science as the Pythagoreans were about irrational numbers.” Bubby shuffled in his chair with slight discomfort, he was never put up to the task of discussing matters like this, “Ah, yes. Well that is a shame. Pretty fucked up too… But I’m sure women will find a way to still contribute valuable findings.” “It’s difficult enough already, I’m sick of this two steps forwards one step back mentality.” Coomer was submerged in his own thoughts, barely acknowledging Bubby’s weak response. “Things have barely changed since my undergrad days. I’m lucky I managed to survive the few years I did in academia being perceived as a woman.” Bubby processed this as neatly and quickly as he could. Gender could be changed. ____________________________________

***“What do you mean by respect, Professor?” Dr. Coomer asked, cooling his own emotions. “You know what I mean, you’re already perceived as a man! You’re no longer are seen as a woman and you’re no longer discriminated against. I admire that you’ve figured out a way to jump the backwards system but-“ he was cut off by Coomer. “Bubby,” Coomer looked at his friend, trying to fathom what the hell had gone wrong in that ‘perfect’ brain of his. He finally gathered his thoughts, “I’m not, trans- because I wanted to be respected. I’m trans because I just am.” Bubby ruminated on his colleagues response, “Well fine, if not for the respect then it’s simply conformity! It makes complete sense Harold, science can be a real dog eat dog world. Anything that makes you separate from the norm is just a weight to be lifted.” “What the actual hell are you talking about professor” a tone of anger and disappointment filled Coomer’s voice, “This is some really problematic thinking you know.” Bubby gave a huff and deepened his gaze to the corner of the room, he mulled over his thoughts and tried to choose his words carefully. As much as he hated to admit it, he really knew very little about gender, but his drive to maintain the upper hand kept him from admitting that. He decided drawing from personal experience was the most logical argument to make, “I mean, that’s why I’m a man. I guess I just always assumed it was the same for you.” Coomer’s look of annoyance turned to one of intrigue, it was rare for Bubby to share his more personal thoughts and feelings. Coomer took this opportunity to prod his colleague, “Is that so Dr Bubby?”, he knew how to get Bubby in a more comfortable mindset, “Then tell me, do you feel like a man?”. “What the fuck is that suppose to mean?” Bubby sneered, “I don’t feel like a man, I just present like one. What the hell does feeling have to do with gender?” Coomer chuckled a little, realizing his friend wasn’t a complete bigot, just an idiot. “I say Dr. Bubby, it looks like your creators really didn’t connect any gender tubes to that brain of yours. Did they tell you the you were a man?” Bubby was feeling increasingly exposed and embarrassed but kept his composure. “Those bastards didn’t tell me anything! At least not directly. I popped out of the tube and they just started calling me ‘he’ and I just rolled with it. I thought that happened to everyone! Until I met you,” Bubby finally returned his gaze to Coomer. Slight tones of confusion, fear, and anger made up his expression, “I could tell that it sucked to be a woman, regardless of their extra freedom of expression with clothes and things like that. So it made sense to me that you changed your presentation to avoid the ridicule.” Coomer enjoyed pressing Bubby’s ‘think deeply about something other than science’ button, but refrained and decided to give some explanation. “Bubby, that really isn’t how gender works in the slightest! I mean for some people they’re content with what ever gender they were assigned at birth, but even then they have some sort of emotional attachment or sense of that gender. And for others, like me, they feel a stronger connection to some other gender and they make what ever adjustments feels right for them. With everyone it can be pretty fluid throughout their lifetimes, but it’s all very personal. What gender do you feel Bubby?” “I don’t feel like any fucking gender! I feel like a scientist, can’t I just be that?” Bubby tapped his foot and rolled the hem of his lab coat between his fingers. He was glad he was talking about this with Harold, but it still felt awkward as hell. “Of course you can Dr. Bubby!” Coomer beamed at his colleagues honesty, “Though I don’t think you could be considered trans though, you were assigned Scientist at Birth™.” Cooper laughed at his own joke, which in turn made Bubby relax and smile a bit himself. Coomer placed a hand on Bubby’s sholder, “Ah, but in all seriousness. It’s completely valid to not be a man or a woman. There are plenty of people like that! And it’s also ok to not have any gender at all! You can feel and express yourself however you want to Bubby, and at least I’ll be here to fully support you. I hope you’re willing to do the same for me.” Bubby looked to the side in a sheepish but calmer way, “Well, of course Harold. I guess I didn’t fully understand how much this meant to you. I’m, um, sorry for speaking over you about this.” A sorry from Bubby was a rare commodity. “It’s alright. You were worried about my well being and I’m grateful for that! You were miss informed and kind of stupid, but I’m glad you were willing to open up and have an honest conversation with me.” Bubby smiled and his gaze was finally able to align with Coomer’s again, the feeling of safety retuned and his anxieties took a back seat. “Well, if it’s alright with you, I’d love to help you and the cybernetics department in your research and development. Learn more about the cutting edge of gender confirming surgery and whatnot.” Coomer beamed at the support, “Ah! I’d be happy to include you in Project Black Mesa Super Shlong 3000! I can grab some of the blueprints we’ve been working on right now!” Coomer left Bubby’s office in an excited hurry and would return shortly. In that time Bubby reflected on the conversation. Not needing to be a man or a woman? Not needing any gender at all? That sounded really nice to Bubby. He still had a lot to learn about life outside of Black Mesa and the apparently fluid rules of gender, but he was glad he Coomer there to fill in the gaps.

[mopeytropey]

a beer buds series: chapter 6

Timeline: takes place during chapter 5 of ‘apu’ just before Lexa and Clarke get a little too drunk while watching movies (oops!) in which they fall asleep on Clarke's couch together (oops again!), subsequently commencing what I like to call The Separation

Beer: Free Rise (MOSAIC) DRY-HOPPED SAISON

This edition of Free Rise highlights locally sourced Danko Rye from Valley Malt and Mosaic in the dry hop. A nuanced fruity hop profile is balanced with subtle, crisp malt character and expressive notes of pepper and clove. Light in body, with a clean, bone-dry finish.

ABV 7.3%

Posted on AO3 here or below the cut :)

Free Rise: Trillium Brewing Co (Fenway/Boston, MA) :::

“This newer location is great, but you really need to experience their beer garden next summer on the green. Clarke is obsessed with it—chances are she’ll probably drag you there at some point.”

Lincoln says it so casually, and the image that Lexa begins to paint comes effortlessly.

She and Clarke on a day trip to Boston in mid June, sharing sips of beer and sampling local food trucks in the afternoon sun. Clarke’s rasping laughter drifting through the park as Lexa is further charmed, relaxing in the warm sun and nearby ocean breezes.

She would allow Clarke to drag her any number of places, Lexa thinks. Given the opportunity.

“I’m excited to see both locations,” she says to Lincoln, as if her mind hadn’t drifted into an idyllic landscape of some potential future.

It’s what she’s begun to sense as of late: possibility.

A recent glimmer of hope has been sparking at the periphery of Lexa’s consciousness. There’s the exhilaration of what might be possible for her and Clarke, even in its uncertainty. Even if she doesn’t have any control over it. She can feel the potential of things to come buzzing through her even now, as she and Lincoln walk under the looming, green shadows of Fenway Park.

“Have you been?” Lincoln asks, nodding towards the infamous baseball park that sits in the heart of the city, surrounded by bars and businesses and gawking tourists.

“Not yet.”

“We should go—I haven’t had anyone to hate watch the Red Sox with in years.”

Lexa smiles up at him. “A cherished pastime.”

They swap baseball stats and playoff predictions while walking down the stretch of Brookline Ave between historic Fenway and Trillium. The city air is crisp and cool, and Lexa almost wishes for a jacket, but the chill invigorates her already vibrant mood. Upcoming plans with Clarke have filled her with an unchecked buoyancy.  

Costia had left that morning for her weekend away with a parting kiss to Lexa’s temple, a warm hand cupped around the back of her neck.

Safe, perfunctory. Everything that Lexa has begun to associate with Costia.

“Can we try to talk about this again when I get back?”

For once, Lexa hadn’t flinched at the mention of Costia’s research grant and its implications for their relationship. “Sure.”

The extent of their goodbye at the door of their apartment had been Costia’s soft look and Lexa’s small smile as she briefly squeezed Costia’s fingers.

There had been a time when impending distance felt torturous—longing would spring up after only hours apart, and Lexa would ache to see her again.

Those moments for them, like so many others, are gone now.

And, if they have lost their weight, if they are no more than performative interactions between them, Lexa has begun to wonder: what’s left?

What is it that has kept her clinging to Costia so willfully?

Lexa has always excelled at making sense of her life and maintaining control, even amidst the chaos and unpredictability that has so often plagued her. She considers herself a rational person with a reasonable sense of the world, particularly the mechanics of her interpersonal relationships.

Being with Costia had been no different. From the very start, they just made sense. Lexa has always found comfort in the expected, seeking logic and practicality in her daily life.

At least, historically.

Ever since Clarke (clumsily) breezed into her life, Lexa hasn’t felt entirely reasonable about much of anything. Clarke is still unfamiliar in many ways. Her entire friendship has been fortuitous, unprecedented. It’s the first time in Lexa’s entire life that she has been irrevocably drawn towards such palpable uncertainty.

“This weather is perfect—I love it up here at this time of year,” Lincoln says.

Lexa breathes in deeply, anchoring herself to this moment and quieting the thoughts of her indeterminate future. “It’s great,” she smiles and continues in stride with Lincoln’s comforting shadow cast over her.

:::

The taproom is stunning: polished wood in every direction, exposed light bulbs hanging from an open ceiling, and thirty-foot glass doors stretching along an entire wall. In the warmer months, Lexa imagines the doors opening to a cluttered patio. In the early autumn temperatures, the patio is empty and half of the room inside is bathed in natural light while the other remains dim and cozy.

Lincoln heads straight for the bar counter. While a handful of other patrons have favored the couches near the windows, the bar sits empty.

“Hey guys.” A woman around their age approaches from behind the bar. She slides two menus in front of them as Lexa takes her seat beside Lincoln. “Here’s what we’re currently pouring on tap. Cans are listed at the bottom. You need a minute?”

“That’d be great. Thanks,” Lincoln answers.

The woman walks away with a smile that Lexa catches only as she looks up from her menu.

Lincoln drums his hands against the counter top. “Oh shit, I know what I’m getting.”

“That was quick,” Lexa says, returning her attention to the draft pours.

“Their gose is ridiculously good.”

“I think I’m going to do the farmhouse.”

“Did you two decide?” The bartender is already approaching as Lexa glances up from her menu. “Sorry—I wasn’t trying to hover, but it’s pretty dead in here today.”

“No worries.” Lexa offers a brief smile and watches the woman’s face transform, brightening as she stops directly in front of her and braces her arms against the edge of the counter.

“I’m gonna do the gose,” Lincoln says.

“And, I’ll do the Free Rise,” Lexa adds.

“That one is my favorite,” the bartender responds, grinning at Lexa as she retrieves their menus. “Be right back with those for you.”

“Thank you,” Lexa says while reaching for her phone that has buzzed twice from the front pocket of her jeans.

She’s fighting a grin at the messages she finds, simultaneously typing her response as Clarke continues her barrage of nonsense, and doesn’t catch the odd look Lincoln is giving her until she slides her phone onto the bar top.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he shrugs, still looking too pleased for Lexa’s comfort. “So, what else are you up to this weekend? You wanna come check out the new poke bowl spot with me and O tomorrow?”

“I’m supposed to watch movies with Clarke tomorrow night—what time were you thinking of going?”

“No idea. I’ll let you know though. Or, you know, bring her with you. We can make it a foursome.”

His suggestion has her ridiculously flustered for what could be no more than an invitation to hang out with three of her friends. But, it’s Lincoln, and Lexa knows better than to underestimate his scheming.

“Yeah, I mean, I’ll, um, I’ll ask her,” Lexa answers, almost immediately distracted again by the vibration of her phone.

She’s still rolling her eyes at Clarke’s entirely ridiculous diatribe about the validity of poorly written screenplays of the early 90s when the woman behind the bar returns with their drinks.

“Here we go. Should I start a tab for you?”

“Um, sure,” Lincoln responds. He fishes out his debit card from his wallet and slides it across the bar counter.

“I really love your sweater, by the way.”

There’s a brief, weighted pause following the sound of the woman’s voice, and Lexa looks up from her phone when she realizes the compliment was meant for her.

“Oh. Thanks.” She flashes another momentary smile before reaching for her beer and sending off her scathing rebuke for Clarke’s lack of cinematic prowess.

The absolute ire that it will produce and the irritated messages that will follow almost make Lexa giggle in public. Pushing Clarke’s buttons has become an accidentally honed skill.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you not the same person who told me—not two weeks ago—that having beautiful women flirting with you typically grabs your attention?”

Lexa closes her phone instantly, replacing it to her jeans pocket where she hopes it will be safe from Lincoln’s insightful observations. Like getting caught with her hand in the cookie jar, she attempts to clear her face of any guilt as she looks over at Lincoln because Clarke had not been flirting with her in the first place. They have merely been discussing preferences in film through a medium of quick wit and lightly antagonistic banter.

“What are you talking about?”

Lincoln’s voice drops to an even lower volume as he leans towards her. “That bartender has been chatting you up since we walked in, and you seem to be on another planet right now.”

“She was not—”

“Oh-ho-ho,” Lincoln laughs. “Believe me. She definitely was.”

Lexa chances a quick glance down the length of the bar towards the woman polishing glassware. She looks up before Lexa can avert her gaze, and that same smile is back. Lexa’s stomach drops regretfully.

She hadn’t registered the blatant interest from their bartender nor her physical features, which are, objectionably, quite attractive.

Damn it, Lincoln.

“How is it?” the woman calls out, and Lexa raises her glass with a forced smile.

She takes a sip, pretending it isn’t her first, and can actually feel Lincoln fighting a smile to her left. “It’s great. Thanks.”

“Maybe having multiple beautiful woman flirting with you simultaneously is throwing you off,” Lincoln stage whispers, gleefully watching Lexa’s discomfort until she kicks his leg with the toe of her sneaker.

“I’m ignoring you now.”

“Oh good,” Lincoln laughs, “this should be a fun hang then.”

Lexa’s phone continues to alert her of Clarke’s persistence, or so she assumes by the rapidity at which it vibrates. Clarke never sends one, moderate length text when she could send 12 fragmented messages in quick succession. She reaches into her pocket to silence her notifications when Lincoln gently pokes a finger into her tricep.

“I’m just giving you a hard time. You know I don’t give a shit if you text Clarke while we hang out. She’s my buddy.”

“Why are you assuming I was texting with Clarke?” Lexa can hear the edge to her voice and reaches for a drink of her saison to lessen her defenses.

“Wild guess.”

Even Lexa is relatively powerless to Lincoln’s smirking charm and fights a smile of her own when their eyes meet.

“We’re debating movie selections for tomorrow,” she shares. “Her taste in film is generally abhorrent.”

“You two are always fighting about something.”

“Not intentionally. But, Clarke can be very … frustrating,” Lexa admits with a soft scowl into her beer. Lincoln laughs in response and she exhales. “We’re extremely different people.”

“Yeah, but differences are good. At least she keeps things interesting.”

Lexa barely manages not to choke on her beer, swallowing inelegantly. “That is one way to put it.”

“So, Costia is gone until Monday?”

Lexa tries not to let the abrupt change in conversation jar her. “Yeah.”

“Where’s the conference again?”

“D.C.” Lexa clears her throat, tracing a ring of condensation with her index finger against the bar. “Johns Hopkins.”

“How have things been? Any better?”

“Define better.”

Lincoln grimaces sympathetically at Lexa’s unmasked cynicism, and she exhales a cleansing breath. She’s determined not to make this yet another installment of airing her grievances of a stalled relationship, like so many times before. Lincoln is too kind and too selfless—she doesn’t want to take advantage of his friendship by making everything about herself all the time.

“Sorry,” she says softly. “I guess I don’t know how to determine if things are improving or not. But, we’re trying to be more realistic about our relationship at the very least. Talking a bit more. She’s been pursuing this research grant, which would mean almost a full year apart as she works abroad.”

“Damn.”

“I know. I took the news spectacularly well, as you might imagine.”

“Lost your shit a little bit?”

Lexa huffs a laugh and pulls on the sleeve of her sweater. “I think you accused me of being particularly homicidal that morning?”

Lincoln tips back in his stool with a laugh. “Ah, yes—I knew it.”

“Thank you for gloating at my expense,” Lexa responds drolly.

“Sorry.” Lincoln clears the laughter from his voice and attempts composure. “So, what’s the plan? Wait and see if her proposal is accepted?”

Lexa swallows down a mouthful of beer and runs a hand through her hair. “I think we have plenty to talk about even if she doesn’t get the grant, but yeah. We’re supposed to talk when she gets back.”

“That’s really good, Lex.” Lincoln’s gentle timbre is warm and reassuring, all prodding humor gone from his tone. “I mean, it’s tough, but avoidance is also generally unhelpful.”

“Yes, I’ve realized.” Lexa smiles over at him, feeling better already.

Lincoln then asks, “What about Clarke?” and her momentary sense of relief vanishes.  

She’s either gone extremely pale or is blushing fiercely because she feels both an icy chill and too hot all at once. She barely manages to respond without her voice shaking awkwardly. “What about Clarke?”

Lincoln is unfazed, lightly flicking his finger against her forehead as if they’re still thirteen and riding a noisy subway car. “She’s supposed to be your best friend, dummy. You should talk to her about this stuff.”

She’s never considered mentioning anything of significance about Costia to Clarke. It’s always seemed to Lexa, unsurprisingly, like a conflict of interest. Clarke will often inquire about Costia’s schooling, graciously concerned for her well-being within a demanding graduate program. In turn, Lexa offers her standard replies, never wanting to delve too far into their dynamic for fear it would reveal too much and ruin everything. Her life for the past several months has relied entirely on a delicate balance. Saying too much too soon could be perilous.    

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Hey guys, are we ready for another round?”

The unexpected sound of the bartender’s voice startles Lexa out of her thoughts, and she looks up to see that her beer is, in fact, empty.

“I’d like to try what he was drinking, actually,” Lexa tells her.

“You know what? I’m going to do the farmhouse,” Lincoln announces and slides their glasses closer to the woman standing in front of them.

She laughs easily while reaching for their empty glassware. It’s a nice laugh, ringing pleasantly in the quiet taproom. Even still, Lexa can’t help but register how much it pales in comparison to the addicting notes of Clarke’s distinctive laughter.

“Okay so two more of the same but in reverse,” the woman confirms. “Got it.”

As she leaves them, Lexa spins in her stool, determined to shift gears away from her indecisiveness. “Things with you and Octavia are going well?”

“Yeah,” Lincoln smiles. “Really great. She’s probably way too good for me, but I’m going to keep my mouth shut and hope she never figures it out.”

Lexa arches an eyebrow. “Do we need to sort through your abandonment trauma now? Because I thought we promised each other years ago that we would stop belittling our own self-worth.”

“No, no,” Lincoln laughs. “I’m good, I swear.” He shrugs a moment later and scratches his head. “Old habits.”

“There is no one too good for you, but if there were ever a perfect match out there, it’s Octavia.”  

The bartender returns with their drinks before Lincoln can respond, but he looks at her as if Lexa has just gifted him the cosmos and reaches out to squeeze her shoulder. Their next beer turns to idle chatter, old memories, sports, and shop talk. Lexa checks her messages while Lincoln is in the bathroom and finds that Clarke has not conceded any of her poorly formed arguments by even a fraction. The fiery retorts on her screen breed a smile so wide that she doesn’t manage to temper it by the time Lincoln returns.

If she were at liberty to be more honest, she would tell Clarke that it doesn’t matter what movies they watch. She’s just happy to be spending more time together. Instead, she slides her phone back into her pocket and stands beside her stool, stretching the stiff muscles of her back.

“You ready to go?”

Lexa smiles in response and nods.

They thank their bartender and exit the taproom into a setting sun. The foot traffic down Brookline Avenue is busier at the 5:00 hour as city workers rush towards their staggering commutes home. Lexa is lost in thought, still pondering her evening with Clarke the following day, when Lincoln abruptly pulls her down a side street with his hand wrapped around her elbow.

“Oh wait—this way.”

“Um, where the hell are we going?” Lexa asks when their course has been rerouted away from Lincoln’s car.

“I just decided I’m gonna take you for the best burger of your life. Storrow Drive is a parking lot right now anyway—it could take us hours to get home if we leave now. Let’s eat first and then drive back.”

In no rush to return to her empty apartment, Lexa shrugs easily. “Yeah, sure.” Being in Lincoln’s company is almost always preferable to anything else anyway.

After a moment’s pause, he nudges her with his elbow as they walk and is grinning stupidly when Lexa looks up at him. “If you really want to make Clarke mad, tell her we’re about to walk into Tasty Burger.”

Lexa has spent the better part of the year feeling unmoored by a lack of purpose. She has been draped in uncertainty and self-doubt after abandoning her life in New York. And while she still feels plagued by indecision, she’s also grateful for the choices she’s made that have brought her here, walking in stride with an old friend.  

She returns Lincoln’s smile and reaches for her phone.  

:::

[crusherthedoctor]

Crusher Elaborations #1: Thoughts on the Aesthetic of Sonic’s World

If someone came up to me and asked “Which do you prefer, Classic Sonic or Modern Sonic?”, my answer would start off with “Well, technically Classic Sonic because...”, and then I'd get cut off by the other person immediately lecturing me on why I'm wrong and why I'm the worst kind of fan imaginable. Should they finish their rant, I would then explain to them in the midst of them basking in their flock of easy Twitter likes that I didn't necessarily mean it in the way they predicted.

If we were talking about the games, the characters, or the character design, I'd be fairly neutral, since I like both halves equally for the most part. In fact, when it comes to characters, Modern might actually have the edge believe it or not, since the sheer number of characters introduced from SA1 onwards naturally means a lot of my favourites were introduced from that point on, such as Tikal, Rouge, Gamma, Omega, Blaze... But then again, Classic introduced Eggman and Tails, and the Hard-Boiled Heavies are technically Classic as well despite being relatively new...

Anyway, the point is, I'm not talking about any of that today. I'm talking about the world that Sonic and his multicolored chums live in. Or rather, the aesthetic of it.

NOTE: This is purely about the game universe. While I do have my thoughts on Sonic’s world as presented in other continuities, that won’t be the focus here.

If you're familiar with my blog, you'll know that as a general rule of thumb, I much prefer colorful and creative worlds in my Sonic universe, and that rings true for my reasoning here. And I know what you're gonna say: “But Crusher, isn't there plenty of that in the Modern games as well?” Yes, there is, and I appreciate them very much. But this is why I feel the need to make a post of this sort to begin with, because I'm NOT saying “Classic cool, Modern boring” and calling it a day. There's a little more nuance to my tastes here.

When I say I prefer the Classic aesthetic for Sonic's world, I don't mean it in the literal sense of disregarding everything about the Modern aesthetic. Let's put it like this: when you're asked to paint a picture of these two sides of Sonic's universe in your head, a specific image will likely come to mind. When you think of Classic, you'll probably think of Green Hill first and foremost, whereas with Modern, you'll probably think of something like City Escape or Rooftop Run before anything else. In other words, when you think Modern Sonic, you're probably imagining the more realistic kind of locations first. And between the two mental images that come to mind, I personally prefer the Classic image. Shock, horror.

I wish I could swim in a sea that’s probably radioactive.

Now keep in mind, I'm not saying that City Escape, Rooftop Run, and all similar environments in the series look bad, because they don't. Unless they're painted with the '06 brush, they generally look fine, and the locations in Unleashed in particular are undeniably beautiful from an graphical standpoint. The problem is that although I can picture this as a world that Sonic could be in, I can't necessarily picture it as Sonic's world specifically. Because when it comes to the more realistic environments, I feel there's not much of an attempt to let it branch out as its own thing.

I know that might seem harsh, especially for Unleashed, since the real world angle was the deliberate theme of that game. And Sonic taking cues from real places is a fine concept, there's no issue there. I'm not gonna complain if there's a France Zone with an Eiffel Tower in the background. In fact, Sandopolis Act 1 has one of my favourite aesthetics in a Classic zone (mainly because the background is really pleasant to look at), and that zone is essentially Egypt Zone. But if you're making a Real World Zone, there needs to be more to it than that, otherwise you don't truly get a Sonic interpretation of our world... you instead have our world as it is with Sonic characters awkwardly stapled on.

When I look at City Escape, it may not be completely unfitting for Sonic (the posters and billboards in particular are actually a really nice touch), but when I look at it, I don't see Sonic's interpretation of San Francisco. I see San Francisco with Sonic shoved in. When they morph these places to Sonic's liking, they'll add rings, loops... and that's it. They rarely take the concept any further, which is a huge shame, particularly in the case of Rooftop Run, where I otherwise do like its visuals a lot, but it just doesn't go far enough with the concept for my liking.

At least you get to murder car owners, and give G.U.N. a legitimate reason to arrest you.

So which Modern games do I feel did the best job at making Sonic's world... er, Sonic's world? Well the truth is, most of them actually do a decent job in this area, regardless of the level design quality or the game’s quality period. SA2 has Pumpkin Hill, Eggman's Pyramid Base, and... SOME levels aboard the A.R.K (mainly the “outside” ones, like Final Rush). Shadow the Hedgehog, a game that reveled in how brown and gritty it was, still had highlights like Circus Park and Digital Circuit. Even '06 of all games had Aquatic Base, which was pretty cool from a conceptual standpoint. And although Unleashed as a whole might be a touch too vanilla in the creativity scale, it still had the glorious Eggmanland at the very end. But if I had to say which of the Modern installments did the best job overall...

- For starters, I'm gonna give a shoutout to SA1, because even though it was the first Modern game, and thus it was technically responsible for the more focused angle of realism in Sonic's world in the first place, it didn't take it quite as far as later games would, and although it may not be a perfect 1-to-1 representation of the world we saw in the Classic games, it does well enough with what it brings to the table that I can still accept it without any issue at all. Some of that has to do with the fact that you still have wilder areas like Windy Valley and Red Mountain to balance things out, but even with the other half, the game's use of colour is enough for it to go a long way, oddly enough. Take the At Dawn section of Speed Highway for instance:

From innocent times, when the radar wasn’t a piece of shit.

Technically, it's really not that different to the urban environments you see in SA2 or Unleashed. But something about the sleepy morning approach gives it a subtle, almost dream-like edge to it that I really dig, and despite it being pretty similar to the likes of City Escape, somehow I have an easier time buying into the idea of this place being part of the same world as zones like Sky Sanctuary.

And seeing how I already mentioned Red Mountain, let me compare it to Flame Core:

Yes, I know bringing '06 into this discussion at all is inherently and hilariously unfair, but let's put aside the game that Flame Core comes from for a moment. Aside from maybe the purple crystal caves indoors (and that's assuming you can even see where the fuck you're going in there), Flame Core is pretty boring to look at as far as Sonic levels go. Red Mountain is vastly more interesting, even though it's basically the exact same concept, and a lot of that has to do with - you guessed it - colour. Sure, it's day time, that's one thing, but you'll also notice that for a lava/mountain stage, it surprisingly has a few grassier sections, sort of like Hill Top in that regard. A little bit of green among the brown and red, and a great contrast to the volcanic nightmare you'll experience when you head inside.

Now this might seem like a fairly minor detail... and yeah, it is, but the thing that SA1 does so well is that it combines so many of those small details to make a complete, well-rounded package. This is why SA1 meshes well with the Classic style despite not being an exact replica, because just as the Classics excelled at, it wasn't afraid to use colour in interesting ways. It understood that a fire level could have more than just red and orange, in the same way that a grassy level could have more than just green and blue.

But of course, as I mentioned, SA1 is not an exception. There are other Modern games that did a great job on the whole...

- Heroes is an obvious answer, since it's translation of Genesis-style environments to 3D is probably one of the most recurring praises the game receives, and rightly so. Not much to say here, except that Hang Castle is still cool as hell.

And plenty of opportunity to admire the not-broken-in-half moon.

- Colours is another obvious one, though something of an ironic one given that the premise of the game involved going to other worlds, and those worlds were all converted against their will by Eggman. Yet, they did an equally superb job at creating fun, unique locales, and Aquarium Park in particular remains a favourite of mine.

Gotta love that red/blue contrast.

- The Riders series has a more futuristic bend compared to the rest of the series, but even when it's not all high-tech, it's got some pretty cool environments of its own, and I feel they even do well at mixing the real world side of things on top of that. Gigan Rocks comes to mind, as does Aquatic Capital.

Reminds me of when Perfect Chaos peacefully protested against Station Square.

- Regardless of my thoughts on the game itself, Secret Rings had some undeniable winners in this depertment. You tell me with a straight face that Night Palace doesn't look amazing.

A wonderful palace for a domestic abuser.

- And lastly, they might have had an early advantage since they're already 2D, but the Advance trilogy and Rush duology deserve a mention. They had some fantastic ideas for zones, like Planet Sonata Music Plant, and they did great with the colours as well. Hell, throughout these five games, the sky was practically every shade of the rainbow at one point or another.

Oh look, another completely whole moon.

Also, quick shoutout to another minor detail akin to the grassy sections of Red Mountain: these pink tunnel sections in Ice Mountain. No elaborate point to make here, just another perfect example of how much I adore these games' use of colour and contrast.

Seriously, I could go on for hours about good contrast.

Although I do bring up these small details for another reason, and in turn, another layer to my more nuanced take on Sonic aesthetics. By this point, we get the basic jist: Crusher likey when Sonic levels unique and pretty. But this can - and has - lead to a couple of misconceptions, so I'd like to address those and then laugh at them.

“So you want Sonic's world to be exactly like Mario?”

A common complaint that Lost World received was that it was too much like Mario, in more ways than one, and part of this was to do with the game's visual style. The zones may have been upbeat, but they often consisted of a bunch of things floating in the air and not much else, ala 2D Mario. While I didn't outright hate it, it’s definitely not what I have in mind for Sonic.

Of course, all complaints about being too much like Mario suddenly turn into praise when Eggette gets brought up...

And why is that? Because yes, I like my Sonic locations to be fun and lively... but I also want them to be firmly established within the context of this universe. The Lost World approach is fine with Special Stages and the sort, but outside of that... well, Studiopolis is a perfect example of what I'm talking about:

On one hand, it's very unique when compared to other cities in this franchise, and it's full of quirkiness, great use of colour, and all that good stuff I've went on about. But at the same time, it's grounded just enough so that it still feels like an actual city that the people of Sonic's world could feasibly live in, rather than a basic and empty video game level with a tacked on city background. Studiopolis may be a level from a video game, but you can totally believe it's a fully fleshed out place from its own perspective.

Naturally, this praise also rings true with the Modern games I listed earlier, and is yet another reason for why I approve of their settings.

“So you think Sonic can't have darker locations?”

It might be easy to take my compliments at face value, and assume that I'm immediately opposed to a zone that's not brightly colored. This is... very obviously false, as even the Classic games have their share of less-than-cheery areas, such as Scrap Brain and the Bad Futures in Sonic CD.

However, when you're making a grittier location in Sonic's world, regardless of the context, it still needs to be interesting. The problem with a lot of them in Modern installments is that they're boring. Crisis City is a generic city on fire. Westopolis is a generic city with aliens firing lasers from above. The prison levels in SA2 - and the indoor ARK levels not named Cannon's Core - are just grey hallways for the most part. That shit isn't exciting, and it doesn't get my mind speculating. It just makes me want to move on.

Let the eggsperts take care of this.

By contrast, Eggmanland is a prime example of how to do it right. Eggmanland is a magnificent theme park as envisioned by the good doctor, but it's also, at its core, a giant metal hellscape fueled by the energy of a dark entity, and it only gets more ominous the further you go through it or try to before you give up because it’s too fucking long and you died at the end. So it sets the mood to be sure, but it's still visually compelling to look at, and interesting to think about.

And since Eggman is apparently the only one who can show us how it's done, here's a shoutout to Titanic Monarch as well:

Like Heavy King, but Heavier and Kingier.

When comparing the final zones in Sonic games, I especially love this zone's visual approach, because it manages to be dark and colorful at the same time, and in a strangly organic way. It's got a spooky atmosphere, with a moody moonlight backdrop to match, and the titular robot is foreboding as hell as you climb up it and traverse through it... all the while having red floors, green and yellow wires, blue and pink buildings, and stained glass windows of Eggman and the Heavies for you to marvel at. So even putting aside the unique scenario of climbing up and then through a Kaiju-sized mech, the mood of the zone alone manages to be extremely memorable.

So what have we learned from all this? Aside from the fact that I’m way too interested in this subject? We now know that when I say I prefer the Classic “style” over Modern when it comes to the way that Sonic's world is presented:

- I don't mean that literally.

- There are certain qualities that although both of them possess, they tend to be more immediately associated with Classic in the collective consciousness, even within the fandom.

- The environments that I love the most in Modern games are often the ones that would also fit perfectly in the Classic style.

So whenever I express the basic nature of this opinion in the future... just imagine a small asterisk at the end of my sentence.

[chibivesicle]

Golden Kamuy chapters 249 and 250 - Abashiri 2.0

After several weeks of waiting we finally have chapter 250 which really continues the build up from 249.

249 starts out with another Shiraishi parody cover where he looks like a lovely lady posing with Sapporo beer.  It does make me laugh since a very good friend of mine decorated her bathroom in a Showa era theme with sexy ladies posing with various brands of alcohol.

The longer I read GK, the more I can’t help but wonder if Shiraishi has a more nuanced background and may not be straight.  And I don’t mean looking at Shiraishi through ‘shipping goggles’ but looking at him in general.

However, I digress. Let’s get back to the chapter.

The events in Sapporo are bringing all the parties back together.  The first team we see is that of Koito and Tsukishima with Nikaido in tow.  Koito mentions that Usami and Kikuta should already be there, and he interestingly phrases it as a question which Tsukishima confirms as correct and that they are to meet at the clock tower.  What I like is how Tsukishima than airs his concerns with Tsurumi arriving the next day.

Tsukishima hesitates before asking Koito if he can interact with Tsurumi as he has previously with what they have done and what they now know.  Tsukishima looks stressed out and Koito is at first surprised before he turns the question to Tsukishima with stress lines under his eyes as well.  This seems to indicate that after Karafuto, Ogata’s information to Koito, the link to the Manchurian Railway, Hanazawa’s death and the conversations between both men, that they will be facing Tsurumi with a different attitude, which could be interpreted as no longer working towards Tsurumi’s end goals.

The tension breaks when Koito offers to trade his menko with Tsukishima who of course wouldn’t have made one.  Even though this is a silly gesture I think it speaks to Koito’s relationship with Tsukishima.

That even if they are separated they can hold onto the other persons.  This implies that they know things are going to get dangerous and it is a gesture that implies the faith and trust that they have in each other.  Both men are now tied together as members of the 27th who ‘know too much’ which makes them now a liability.

The action returns to our large group of convenience with a complicated plan to launch in the dead of night.  A few of the cast have changed; Kirawus, Boutarou and Ariko are new taking the places of Ogata, Kiroranke, Inkarmat, Tanigaki and Ienaga from Abashiri.

Honestly, it is pretty obvious this is going to be just as large of a disaster as what happened with Abashiri.  What is slightly different is that Hijikata is completely in charge of the plan as opposed to the more democratic method at Abashiri.  Kiro figured out how to tunnel, Shiraishi found the weak point.  And just like what went wrong at Abashiri, Hijikata has them breaking up into smaller groups, though this time he at least keeps partnerships that are more trusted together.

The division of labor is interesting since all the signalers are good offensive fighters; Asirpa, Kirawus and Ariko are skilled with longer range weapons and Nagakura is not one to be trifled with. 

There is then a rather intense discussion between Boutarou and Asirpa about her role in things.  He is smart to do this as the groups disperse where it is only the Toni & Sugimoto groups.  Boutarou asks Sugimoto directly if they should have Asirpa hang back as the key to the gold.

Sugimoto answers first, that they are going to stay together since Hijikata already double crossed them (at Abashiri) and Asirpa tells Boutarou that they are partners.  She uses the excuse that if she hides she is not working for the sake of the Ainu and their future.  Sugimoto looks upset at her statement and Boutarou continues to ask if this is her dream.

She very boldly states that someone has to fight for the future of the Ainu and she is going to do it.  Ariko listens with great interest while Sugimoto passively hangs back.  Boutarou wants to know if that will make her happy as well. . . . it is clear he has hit a nerve as she tells him he’s too chatty and she doesn’t like how he asks about people’s dreams. 

Boutarou is no dumb guy as has been previously established, he wants to know if anyone has a dream better than his.  This implies that he is flexible and will change his goals if he truly can find a more fitting goal.

As the only person from his family still alive, he finds it important to pass the knowledge of his own family down to his children so that they are not forgotten.  I think that Boutarou telling Asirpa this is deliberate, a Japanese guy is calling out that Asirpa and by extension the Ainu are in danger of fading out of existence something that Kiro died to prevent.  Boutarou is much more straightforward about his desires and they make him very relatable as he doesn’t want to be lonely nor forgotten.

It is clear by the final panel that Boutarou struck a nerve in Sugimoto as he frowns while his eyes look contemplative and serious.  I’m certain that Sugimoto is feeling things that he’s been running away from while Boutarou is in his own way trying to move towards.  Sugimoto’s own discomfort with Boutarou’s words is obvious as he literally uses the excuse to tell a woman to head home for the evening as a way to run away from Boutarou and Asirpa’s conversation.

Boutarou notices things clearly as he watches Sugimoto and he asks the question if Sugimoto will be in Asirpa’s future as well.  She looks a little surprised at his question and unfortunately, Noda leaves us with an unanswered question and the action goes to the set up to catch Jack.

Shiraishi is the first ‘lady’ who is approached and of course he has a nice bum.

Sugimoto using his rifle the way that he prefers, whacks the man and they confirm that he’s just some regular old guy looking to pick up a prostitute.  Kantarou first appears to be the one approached by Jack which leads to our awaited Kadokura flashback about the convict.

The man is Michael Ostrog and he’s a generic European guy who murdered a prostitute and was arrested and sent to Abashiri.  With the help of our spineless reporter, they realize that this man is likely Jack the Ripper, repeating his crimes from London and he is the right age to fit the profile.  With a map of London as a reference they are able to determine where he will be in the future.

The chapter ends with Usami approaching Kadokura after killing a horse to warm up for the evening as Jack meanders to his final location.

Let’s move onto chapter 250 where our cast begins to converge on chaos.  Koito and Tsukishima have met up with Kikuta sans Usami who is off on his own.  Kikuta takes charge telling the rest that since Jack is out to kill tonight, they can’t wait for Tsurumi to arrive and it is there task to find him.

Of course as an actual spy from central, Kikuta is going to push for as much leverage as he can get against Tsurumi and this makes me curious if this group will become turned against Tsurumi either by their own actions or as a result of Tsurumi not trusting any of them.

Usami approaches Kadokura for assistance about his current location which is clearly going to lead to a terrible reunion between the two men.  Kirawus looks much more nervous as he holds the firework watching and Kadokura attempts to run away.  Thinking he’s a prostitute Usami is almost polite as he goes to help him up after he trips with the ladies shoes on.

With tension increasing quickly, instead of getting Usami’s reaction to Kadokura, we switch to Sugimoto and Asirpa.

Sugimoto, well ‘Sugi-splains’ to Asirpa that she is to stay in the shadows in case Ogata targets her with his rifle.  Since now Sugimoto is 200% sure that Ogata just wants to kill her because she knows the code.

The conversation doesn’t go the way that Sugimoto would like it to as Asirpa doesn’t look at him as she doubts Sugimoto’s logic.  Since Asirpa had time to talk to Hijikata alone, it is clear they discussed more than the skins and Hijikata is under the indication that Ogata is still interested in the gold.  Therefore, Asirpa reasons that Ogata can’t kill her, which makes a lot of sense.

Sugimoto turns away from her as he states that he doesn’t know that Ogata wouldn’t try to kill her.  Sugimoto changes his tune slightly saying now that he thinks that Ogata teamed up with Kiro for a part of the gold and he was patiently waiting for Asirpa to learn the code.  Of course, Sugimoto doesn’t understand Ogata’s meltdown on ice and it is clear that Asirpa hasn’t told him what Ogata said to her so Sugimoto thinks Ogata aiming his rifle at her was an intent to kill her when Ogata wanted her to shoot at him.

With great weight, Sugimoto makes it clear that because they are working with Hijikata again, Ogata had no choice but to flee from them [him] and Ogata wouldn’t work for Tsurumi.  Sugimoto has to highlight that Ogata is alone and his only course of action is to prevent anyone from getting the gold. 

Asirpa than states that to do that he’d kill her and thus ruin everything.  She looks very reflective as though she thinks she has a better insight into Ogata’s behavior.  The next page reveals that Ogata is in a building watching the action unfold with his binoculars as Asirpa summarizes Sugimoto’s idea that Ogata’s gold is to ‘disappoint everyone’

And that reflective facial expression on Asirpa is spot on as she tells Sugimoto that she wonders if things are really that simple and she recalls that when Ogata raised his rifle at her, it was with respect to his statement that ‘it is simply not right that people like you [Asirpa and Yuusaku] exist.’

She’s spent enough time with Ogata to at least learn he is not just a lone wildcat making a mess of things and something else is driving him.

Things finally get back to our Kadokura-Usami reunion.  Usami is blushing as he finds Kadokura and he thinks that he is actually working as a prostitute in Sapporo.  Sometimes the obvious really escapes Usami . .. or he’s blinded by his strange love for Kadokura.

Kadokura loses it screaming which that gets Usami thinking that Hijikata might be around.  Ushiyama charges Usami, who also uses the butt of his rifle to hit Ushiyama in the face.  It is clear that he thinks that was sufficient and we only see Ushiyama’s hand grab Usami’s uniform.  I suspect that Usami might be in trouble.

Kirawus then lights their firework since Ushiyama is tangling with the 27th.  However, the action returns to Jack approaching the wee babe Kantarou, with one of his knives out.  Hijikata runs into attack but notices another firework going off.  This distracts Jack but Hijikata is clearly going full force and Nagakura about to light theirs as his cranky old man self wonders who messed up.

This catches everyone’s attention; Shiraishi, Sugimoto and Asirpa; Kikuta, Koito, Tsukishima (and Nikaido); Boutarou; Ariko and Toni; Vasily alone and likely outside since the background is grey and Ogata inside pulls his rifle up, ready and waiting.

This leaves us unclear of where both Vasily and Ogata are located and if Vasily is actually just watching things wanting to find Ogata or if he is interested on what is going on below.

This time, now that we know that Ogata is high up in a building, it gives even more vibes of Abashiri 2.0, he’s waiting for his opportunity to make his move.

The firework catches the attention of another horrible convict Ueji which begins a flashback of a young boy with his dog (just like the dog he killed and put its head in the box).  He is a child who is disappointing his father who was on the winning side for the Meiji government.  Sei Kobiyama has a helpful tweet for those of us unable to read it in the original Japanese.

Ueji is also likely from a family like Koito and Hanazawa where they gained from the establishment of the Meiji government and the defeat of the shogunate.  Yet unlike Koito or even really Ogata, Ueji did not live up to the expectations of his family and something lead him to becoming the child serial killer that he is.

Ueji goes from having black eyes as a child (never a good sign) here where his father scolds him.

And he cries in disappointment to him still crying as an adult.  Now he has his very unusual eyes where there is a white line down the middle.

I honestly have no idea what this means other than it makes him look creepier. He laughs at the firework.  I honestly hope he wanders out and gets sniped by either Vasily or Ogata.

The chapter wraps up with Tsurumi spotting the single firework and that he’s here a day early.  This is never a good thing for most of the cast.  I am assuming he will spring into action to see what is going down near the brewery.

And with that, Sugimoto the non-thinker that he is, rushes into action, Asirpa fast on his heels with her bow out.

So after his long ‘Sugi-splaining’ to Asirpa about staying hidden and not making herself a target for Ogata, he dashes off saying that Ogata be dammed he’s unstoppable and he’s going to skin Jack. 

Wow, the irony as the chapter ends and now all the factions are going to converge on Usami, Ushiyama, Kadokura and Kirawus.  And as the chapter ends, I feel like it is any major sporting event from the 90s “Are you ready to ruuummmbbbllleeeee?” as of course we are going to get some intense action scenes.

What do I think of chapters 249 and 250?  A few things really stand out for me.

This truly is Abashiri 2.0.  All of the factions have broken up into smaller groups and they are going to beat the shit out of each other.  There are so many conflicts that will become worse.  Nikaido will likely see Sugimoto and I have no idea how that will go down.  Ariko and Kikuta may be working together and we don’t know what will happen with that.  Koito and Tsukishima both know that they might no longer be loyal enough to Tsurumi and they know too much and let Tanigaki and Inkarmat escape.  Boutarou is making Sugimoto nervous and think about the things he’s been running away from. Asirpa has caught Ariko’s attention.  She also questions Sugimoto’s opinion of Ogata.  Vasily and Ogata are now both in position and Vasily is back for Ogata.

I mean this is going to get insane with all the groups converging into chaos.

1.) Koito and Tsukishima know they are in trouble.  It is unclear how much they know about their situation, but both men realize that they aren’t in as good of a position in regard to Tsurumi.  Koito wanting to trade menko with Tsukishima is Koito’s way of saying that he cares about him and that they could do this to support each other if shit really does hit the fan.  Which it is totally going to do.

2.) Two convicts are likely not going to live much longer.  Ueji and Jack are pretty much screwed as all of the factions close in around them.  If Ueji is truly a moth drawn to a flame he’s toast.  Jack is being attacked by Hijikata.  With Nagakura as back up.  The real question will become, who gets the skins?  And do either of them have a key kanji?

3.) Boutarou is the substitute for Ogata and is making the Sugimoto-Asirpa partnership tense.  I have really been enjoying what Boutarou brings to the dynamics of Sugimoto and Asirpa.  He sees what Sugimoto is oblivious to and what Asirpa is embarassed by and the second character to see what her crush on Sugimoto is, a crush.  He throws Sugimoto off because the have the same background.  Yet, Sugimoto will label him a criminal who can be skinned because he ended up in Abashiri.  Sugimoto is okay since he’s only killed people as a solider and people who could have harmed him or Asirpa so it makes him better than Boutarou.  The whole thing that Boutarou does is that he strips Sugimoto of his pretense that he’s one of the good guys.  Furthermore, Boutarou is better about facing his own fears and feelings and is doing something to directly sort them out.

Just like Ogata saw Asirpa’s crush in the swamps hear Kushiro, Boutarou is flat out asking her what her purpose it in the quest as a young girl, why she partnered up with Sugimoto and what she wants out of her life.  Even more, he wants to know if she wants to include Sugimoto in her Ainu future even though they are pretty much opposed as Sugimoto has no issue with supporting the Japanese government’s policies towards the Ainu.  Sugimoto doesn’t really want Asirpa to fight for the Ainu, that’s what Wilk set her up to do.  Which, by the way, Sugimoto still has never referred to Wilk as Wilk while Ogata has . . .

Anyways, I really like Boutarou and I like how he’s acting as an independent voice towards Sugimoto, Asirpa and Shiraishi. 

4.) Ogata is clearly not just messing around with others in the hunt for the gold.  Sure, Sugimoto wants Ogata to be an element of chaos, but really Sugimoto is much of an element of chaos as Ogata could be.  Sugimoto has swapped sides, lied, and many other characters have wanted him dead because is such an issue.  We also get what is ‘standard’ by now.  We see Ogata, but he is being described by other characters not himself.

What really caught my attention in chapter 250 was the flashback where Sugimoto is guessing at Ogata’s original motive with Kiro.  Which was lifted from chapter 148, when they were at the Karafuto fox farm.  Ogata is confirming what he understands from Kiro of the current facts, while Asirpa looks at the foxes in the background.  Out of all of the possible Ogata-Kiro flashbacks, Noda picks this one.

This completely gets me all riled up since if you have been reading my posts long enough, you’d know that I am obsessed with chapter 148, specifically this panel.  I am absolutely obsessed with this page where Kiro tells Asirpa about the history of the Ainu on Karafuto and what happened to Wilk’s parents and his village.

Noda is very deliberate in his arrangement of his panels and placement of characters.  To have Ogata in the background looking at the foxes while Kiro tells Asirpa about the colonial contest between Russian and Japan and how it broke up families and communities means something.

Both @goldenkamuyhunting​ and I have hypothesized that Ogata’s background may be mixed race, with a relative at one point in time living in Karafuto and then returning to the main island of Honshu.  Wilk, Kiro, Asirpa are all characters who are mixed race in background and Ogata clearly had more trust with Kiro than any of our other male characters.  I’m still waiting for the flashback where it shows Kiro pull Ogata out of the river and deposit him on the riverbank for the 27th to find him.  Kiro and Ogata both speak Russian which made their alliance even more useful.  And anyone who enters an alliance with a partisan willingly likely sympathsizes with the cause for a reason.

Tsukishima speaks Russian and we learn that Ogata does as well (which was pretty much assumed since he teamed up with Kiro).  Yet as far as I can tell, Sugimoto doesn’t know about Ogata’s Russian speaking ability or anyone on team Hijikata as well.  And Koito isn’t in a situation to tell Tsurumi that he knows that Ogata speaks Russian.

But what I’m really stuck on is the fact that this page implies that Ogata is a victim/result/realted to the of Treaty of St. Petersburg, just like Wilk.  And now with chapter 250 dropping a bit of chapter 148.  You bet I’m intrigued Noda!

Well that is enough for now.  What we can all predict is that the ensuing chaos will result in the realignment of the varous groups, again.