#there is so much going on with her and the way the narrative treats her

[jesteriajunovix]

(Spoilers) Just a Reminder to Curly Sympathizers

Jimmy and Curly are not "Problematic Favs". They're literally thematic vessels for THE problem.

CW: Mentions of SA, and Abuse

Curly (And Pony Express as a Company) Never Cared to give Anya Pysche Evals. Curly only started to care for that when it doubled as an occupational hazard to him and his image.

Curly actively vouches for Jimmy as a crew member despite his "struggle" on earth. I don't see how it'd be far-fetched to assume that involves some form of Misconduct with the fact Curly literally says

"You've gotten through difficult situations before" RIGHT AFTER talking to Anya the actual Victim.

Curly doesn't understand why Anya was talking about the locks on the sleeping quarters and moves past it to reinforce the company's logic. [The Company and Curly can not be bothered to consider or provide actual safety for women. It is an afterthought that resembles a cruel apathy towards women's perspectives in a corporate work environment.]

Would Curly have given the gun to Anya if she asked? Probably not. While that is somewhat debatable It rings to the shitty isolated environment where Anya would have to take up such a mindset. Not to mention Curly is clearly super pals with Jimmy, so if that was a concern he'd probably take Jimmy's (and the rest of the guys) side considering he later took jimmy's side under the fact he sexually assaulted a woman.

The first thing Curly says to Jimmy after trying to consolidate Anya is "I Can Fix This". Curly enables Jimmy to find ways to get out of taking responsibility for the harm he did to Anya.

Curly buckles to the fact his mind is more focused on his position and reputation as a Captain rather than the personal impact Jimmy's harm has caused Anya. This issue is an occupational obstacle to him first and foremost.

Jimmy: "This can be remembered as a tragedy".

Jimmy: "The Tuplar crew was never found."

Jimmy: "You're standing at the top. Feet in cement. Right?"

Curly: "...Right."

And his complacency and dissonance of that truth leads him to do absolutely nothing.

I have seen so much art, and discourse treating him like he wasn't an active enabler. You know what. Fuck it. Half of this is going to double as an Anya Post. thinking about how people disgustingly twist her character to redeem two shitty men who are completely at fault irks me so much.

Anya

The fact that Anya doesn't really get to build herself as a character outside of the scenes that reinforce her tragedy, and antagonist environment feels super sucky.

The purpose of such a narrative direction is of course meant to feed into Jimmy's resentful apathetic attitude towards her, and emphasize the cold unfeeling corporate entity that hired her to be on the tulpar, but as a narrative choice, it still feels rather cruel to take in. Jimmy literally erases her personhood from his mind and only internalizes her presence as a threatening womb while taking the rest of the games runtime to focus on himself and the other men on board.

I see many renditions of Anya in fanart. Adding to her character in ways people weren't really given the time to appreciate or take in during the actual game due to how little she's left with.

I find her canon resolution both annoying and interesting due to this type of interaction where the fans are being pushed towards an interpretive play pen where they are motivated to give Anya more characteristics, quirks, and perspectives than she was allowed to have or emphasize within the game.

Using such field of creative deliberation to redeem the men that actively harmed her is such a gross way to use that play pen.

To get into some interpretations

A pretty important moment occurs after Anya runs out of the medical room during the painkiller scene with the thought:

"I have to believe that our worst moments don't make us monsters"

I think there are quite a few different ways to take this line in this moment, but to share my own perspective I believe it most likely stems from these potential factors:

Anya is trying to maintain a metric of empathy and trust to continue to control herself in the current conditions and stresses she's under at this moment. The needs of the crew can not be upheld without this kind of thinking while under the orders of her abuser.

Anya still cares for Curly and is disconnecting the harm he caused from the rest of his humanity as a person who is also suffering.

Anya is reflecting on her own legitimacy while the internalized trauma she went through makes her feel alienated from herself. Accepting the actual piece of shit that is Curly allows her to hold faith in herself as a person through the shared correlation of pain and "mistakes" as she percieves it bonding her with Curly.

While somewhat ambigous I think its important to generally understand these types of potential layers when interacting with the themes and subjects presented by Anya as a character. Ideas which are critical and dissective of Anya as an actual Subject above a simple generalized understanding of her peripherally as a victim.

also Idea 2 doesn't make Curly vindicated. Curly was the only member that Gave Anya some sense of care (As ingenuine as that care was). That dependency is toxic and was unfortuately potentially of mental necessity to Her. To reframe it as a point for Curly to show he was better than what he presented himself to be so deeply annoys me with how uncritical that reframing is when addressing the actual faults and mentality that led him to his bedridden state. With how little Anya is already focused on, it feels like that interpretation and dynamic hands Curly the position of "Subject" while Anya still remains an "Event" to some people.

That kind of thinking not only significantly reeks of a lack of indulgence in actually trying to further interpret the facets presented in Anya's character, position, and mental state, but also dilutes the meaning to be had in analyzing Curly as an enabler. The framing of Curly as an "Enabler in Rehab" or "Tragic Casualty" feels so utterly ignorant, redundant, and enigmatic to my senses when he is so utterly undeserving compared to Anya who barely gets any other elaboration or analysis from the community outside of "awww wasn't that sad" or sensationalization around "The Event".

I WOULD go into Anya's logic leading up to her death, but thats a post and analysis for a different tumblr user to take care of. I honestly just gradually have developed new ways to hate the Mouthwashing fandom, so I really needed this to make mental space for the next few horrible bizarre takes i'll inevitably see about this game.

[irohsteaa]

is it me or I think there is some misogyny within the monster fandom..i mean people treat Eva and Vera as the worst people in the wolrd when I can think of much worser characters,and they boil down Nina to "a nice girl" and ignore all her complexities,symbolism and narrative importance and say "she isnt that well developed and not important to plot"

Misogyny certainly plays a role here, it's esp. evident with how the fandom treats Eva (esp. before she grew as a character; and even after she grows, it's mostly about "she stopped harassing Tenma" and her relationship with Martin, while the more important thing here (imo)—how she started to take care of herself and stopped defining herself through the men in her life—is underdiscussed).

But I think it'd be reductive to say that the way the audience sees the women in Monster is only a result of misogyny; I think a crucial aspect here is the way the female characters are written and how they're treated by the male cast.

I think it's one of the many traps laid by Urasawa, traps that are very easy to fall into (which is perfectly understandable with a complex work filled with so many characters). I also fell into them: my first reaction to Eva was "oh, here we go again, female characters written by dudes" (yeah, Monster taught me to stop yapping about shit without 1) finishing it 2) looking at it carefully, because the devil is the details).

So what exactly are the traps built of?

Cliches

Subtle characterization and/or an apparent lack of information that shows in, for example, the namelessness or very little time on screen.

The fact that a large part of the story is the lack of a story.

Ad 1. I think a big part of Monster is the way it plays with cliches (and it does so boldly; it isn't afraid to introduce us to the most overused cliches and turn them into little storytelling gems), so of course there're also many female character cliches: the love interests, the damsels in distress, the naive & clueless woman, etc.

And when you don't pay attention, it's easy to think that these cliches are everything that can be told about these characters. When we stop here, we miss so many details that reveal the more complex character behind these cliches.

Ad 2. I think Nina is a perfect example of how the subtle characterization can leave many people thinking that she's underdeveloped, irrelevant to the plot, and just an addition to Tenma and Johan.

We also don't have access to her direct point of view, but I don't think it's necessary here and I think we don't have access to it for a very good reason; women are still seen mainly as caregivers, as people who serve others, and are socialized to be nice from a very young age. This can lead to ignoring one's own needs and, in consequence, losing yourself.

And Nina is a character who fits into this role perfectly; she's often shown serving others, bringing kindness where it's needed, being a beam of hope, etc. She's also very often overshadowed by her brother; she's referred to by other characters as "Johan's sister", as if this was the most important information about her.

Heck, Johan even takes away from her the monster title; the reasons behind it are, of course, ambiguous, but it doesn't change the fact that it was her who was kidnapped to the Red Rose Mansion and it was her whose memories were taken away.

And she's clearly upset when Johan tells her that it is his story to tell.

One of my favorite examples of her subtle characterization is the fact that in the beginning of the story, she wants to be a public prosecutor, and by the end, she wants to be a lawyer. It seems like a small change, but it tells a lot about how much her worldview changed.

When it comes to the namelessness and the little time on screen, a good example of it would be Věra. Please keep in mind that we only learn about her possible name in Another Monster; why do I say it's only possible? Because the only source of this name is one person interviewed by Weber, and the person identified Věra via a sketch. I wouldn't call this the most reliable source.

But let's get back to the main topic; what's the reason behind both the lack of a name and the little time on screen? It's Bonaparta.

Bonaparta doesn't let us see much of her, he doesn't let us learn her real name. But even when we see so little of her, we can still see someone compelling and complex, we see a wide range of emotions, we see her determination, we see who she could be if it wasn't for her circumstances, we see her deep guilt and fragility by the end of the story, we see someone who Bonaparta initially dismissed ("you are a funny woman" etc.) only to end up obsessed with her.

But since it's only a matter of a few panels and she's mainly discussed by other characters as the mother of the twins, it's easy for the audience to a) see her as a bad mother, b) think she's unfairly treated by the manga.

I don't think she's treated unfairly by the manga, I think she's one of the most important characters in Monster and it isn't merely because she's the mother of the twins, it's because we can see so much of her in other Monster characters: in the nameless, the dismissed, the robbed of a better future, the reduced to a certain role, all the characters we simply do not know a thing about their minds and that quite possibly, behind the awful clichés, there were in them gardens and twilights, and palace gates.

(I tried to stop myself from babbling about Lolita, but it's not my fault the quote fits so well here.)

Ad 3. I mentioned the lack of the story partially in Ad 2., but there are so many other examples: the little girl who lives with Hugo Bernhardt, Richard Braun's daughter and wife, Lunge's daughter and wife (the difference between how Richard sees his family vs. how Lunge sees his family is shown in the narration as well), Martin's mother and girlfriend etc.

Thanks for the ask! ‎(^人^)

[rey-jake-therapist]

I didnt realize Payne clarified that Sauron wanted Galadriel to be *his* queen. I've seen some antis insist that he wasn't attracted to her in the least so he meant to say 'I can make you A queen, but not MY queen'.

And they were also going on how there's a hierarchy in the film industry, in which certain positions hold more narrative and directional authority despite what actors and lower level exec's say. That's why they kept using this hierarchy that Payne and McKay override Charlotte's words about haladriel. But if we go by the Anti's information, then that confirms that Sauron did want Galadriel as HIS QUEEN (love or not), since its stated exactly that way by Payne himself. If not, then why didn't he say 'A queen with me', or 'A queen by my side', instead? There are other ways he could've phrased. Even if you say that he used 'basically', that still doesn't change the fact that Payne made it clear that Sauron wanted Galadriel to rule WITH him, not by some corner of ME (I know we're kind of ignoring Gal atm to dissect the wording but I see them as fictional characters not real people lol). It also kind of overrides some of Charlie's earlier remarks where he denies or subverts Sauron's intention regarding making her queen. But it echoes back to what you said though, that things change over time.

And just to make it clear, we don't need to necessarily obey what showrunners/actors have said and treat it like it's a hard rule for how we interpret these characters. This is just an interesting piece of info I think should be pointed out. Especially since haters will find anything to try to minimize and invalidate haladriel. I feel very sad (for them lol).

Well, I'll answer that by saying that first, I don't think that I can do that ignoring Gal's response, simply because what she answered is important to understand why Sauron didn't say "my" queen, imho.

I think we can't leave Galadriel outside of the loop here, because the phrasing used by Sauron is directly connected to the way she herself used. She said, "you would make me A tyrant", to which he naturally answers, "I would make you A queen". Then she's the one using the "MY" : "And you. MY king".

What I think, it's that the writers wanted to highlight the fact that them being together as king and queen/husband and wife was her idea as much as his. I think it's important for the interpretation of that scene, for the audience to realize that Galadriel wanted this.

Let's say Sauron had said, "I would make you MY queen", and she had answered, "And you would be the king" : it would have sounded like something that was forced on her : she would have been his wife in this scenario, wether she wanted it or not. It would have given "forced marriage" vibes, and would have deprived Galadriel of her agency. And believe me : if the antis are now using this scene against shippers because Sauron didn't say "my queen", you can be sure that they would have weaponized this scene even more if they could have interpreted it that way.

With Galadriel being the one who says, "And you. My king", it says that she was seeing herself ruling with him, as queen and king and as husband and wife. Notice that he didn't correct her, as it was probably what he wanted to hear.

It also kind of overrides some of Charlie's earlier remarks where he denies or subverts Sauron's intention regarding making her queen.

I mean, I don't know if it overrides it. Charlie first denied that it was a marriage proposal, but later admitted that this was "de facto" exactly that.

"Sauron, meanwhile, won’t make the mistake of connecting with someone ever again, not after Galadriel’s rejection of his de facto “marriage proposal,” as Vickers describes it, at the end of Season 1. “He’s moved on to bigger and better things” since, Vickers argues, but try as they might, there’s no denying their entwined fates.  "Galadriel and Sauron share the deepest connection to another being either of them has ever experienced, a fact that haunts them both in the new episodes. What they share “is greater than romance,” Vickers explains. “Their connection runs far deeper than anything surface level.”

Source

Now if you refer to the fact that Charlie claimed several times that if Galadriel had accepted his offer, she would have been nothing more than his secretary, another shiny ring at his hand, I also don't think that it contradicts the idea that he wanted her to be at his side as a queen. I often read that Charlie's wrong, because Sauron is a Maiar who was created to follow and serve. So by this logic, he wanted to worship Galadriel like he worshipped Morgoth.

I think it's true, for most of it, and we saw it during all season 1 : who called all the shots ? Galadriel did. Who followed her despite his initial refusal ? Sauron. She wanted him to be a king ? He made himself a king. She wanted him to go rescue the Southlands with her ? He went with her, even if first, he didn't want to ! The fact that it was in his personal interest to do that is besides the point : at no moment did he try to force her into doing anything. It's not in his nature, and being in his repetant era then, Sauron was more inclined to listen to his nature than we saw him be in season 2. In season 1, Sauron was the happiest we saw of him so far, especially when he was at the forge, doing what he was created for, but also when he followed Galadriel on the battlefield :

I mean, words have their importance especially when it comes to Sauron, who never chooses his words randomly :

She "pushed" him. He described here exactly what a leader does. After Morgoth's defeat, he found himself leaderless, and he was lost because due to his nature, what he really wants/needs is someone who takes the lead. In Galadriel, he recognized someone who had the potential to do just that. In season 2, we saw him in a position of leadership, manipulating everybody like a puppet to make them do everything he wanted, yada yada. And yet, that was his face for 99% of the season :

He seemed as alive as a dead fish.

Now, where my opinion often diverges from what seems to be this most popular opinion, is that I believe Charlie's nevertheless right regarding the turn their partnership as king and queen would have taken, had Galadriel accepted. Thousands of years ago, Mairon was corrupted by Morgoth, and as time passed, I think he developed a desire to overrule Morgoth, because that's what this kind of corruption does : it gives an hunger for power, even to beings who are not originally meant to want it. As Sauron, he was given an incommensurable power over others, and he enjoyed it. He always followed Morgoth and never betrayed him (probably because he had sworn a blood oath to him, preventing him to take any action against him), but he grew extremely frustrated of his methods, as he had a different vision.

And of course he did, because destroying was, again, not what he was created for. What Morgoth did, and asked him to do, went against his nature. As apprentice of Aulë, he became skilled at crafting and making things. When Celebrimbor told him his only craft was treachery, it must have hit HARD, because it wasn't always the case.

(Aside note : I was a bit annoyed that Celebrimbor was the one who got to hit Sauron where it hurt the most, while Galadriel only got a pathetic "heal yourself" that couldn't mean anything to him because they never had any conversation about his corruption by Melkor).

He started dreaming of the idea that if Morgoth was ever to disappear, he would take his place and rule in his stead, and that's exactly what he tried to do once Morgoth was defeated :

As we saw, it didn't turn out very well. Why ? I think, because Sauron wasn't Morgoth, he wasn't a born dictator, and he didn't manage to inspire enough fear of him to Adar and the Orcs, only resentment, so when he tried to put Morgoth's crown on his head, they betrayed him.

(idk but maybe looking like a twink didn't help. Just sayin')

But it doesn't mean that Sauron gave up on his dream of ruling, though. So I think that when he decided that he wanted Galadriel to be his queen, he was probably torn between what his nature dictated him to do (giving her all the power she needed to have to be THE queen of Middle-Earth, while he would get the follower's role he had beside Morgoth back), and the ambitions he nourished of ruling Middle-Earth himself, leaving only crumbs to Galadriel like Morgoth did to him. Even in this scenario, he would have shared his power with her, but not enough to take the reigns of the kingdom.

We can't know what would have happened, we can only speculate, but I tend to side with Charlie on this one because at the beginning, there's a clear power imbalance between them : Sauron is a powerful Maiar, a demigod, and Galadriel is just an Elf. For her to become as powerful as him and be his equal, would have required him to willingly share the entirety of his power with her. Would have he done that, while he had all these ideas about healing Middle-Earth and believed he and only he knew exactly how to do it... ?

I mean, the only thing we can be sure of, it is that it was his intention to give her plenty of power. He wanted everybody not to just respect her, but to worship her like a goddess. It's the extent of this power that we don't know about. And did he want to be worshipped too ? I'd say, probably yes, personally.

Sorry anon, I didn't start answering this ask planning to write a dissertation... I guess I can't help myself, when it comes to Sauron. He's just that interesting !

[sapphiresaphics]

———

^^^ So, stupid takes like this piss me off so much.

Jinx has those flashes and hallucinations because she was in conflict with who she was. She was both Powder and Jinx.

Whenever she’d have those hallucinations or flashes it was ALWAYS when she was in conflict about her past.

When she is reintroduced and fights off Ekko in episode 4, she has no problems until she sees the kid with the pink hair and is reminded of Vi.

When she’s freaking out about being “useless” it’s because Silco unintentionally reminded her of the way Vi treated her.

When she’s experiencing with the hex tech gem ball and it goes off, she’s reminded of what happened when she was a kid.

When she’s confronting Sevika it’s not until she mentions Vi does Jinx begin to have flashes.

When Vi finally shows back up, for a brief moment Powder returns to the surface and everything seems fine. But then Caitlyn (an enforcer) shows up and Jinx rears her head.

It’s always when there’s conflict about her past. Every. Single. Time.

Which brings us to the dinner scene. In that scene Jinx was trying to resolve this schism in her psyche. And unfortunately at the end of the day, Jinx won out. Her conflict got resolved. Her darkest fears about herself solidified.

That’s why she sits in the Jinx chair. She’s finally resolved the conflict in her mind.

And that’s why she’s not as “crazy” in season 2. That part of her storyline is resolved (for now). She is Jinx. Powder is gone. And Jinx doesn’t want anything to do with her old life. Silco is gone. Vander is gone. Vi is gone. She’s just Jinx now. She has no one and no reason to care about any of the stuff going on.

Which, incidentally, you’ll notice that her arc actually heads in the same direction as Vander’s does. Just like Vander, she now has a kid she needs to protect and wants nothing to do with the revolution. Just like Vander she had a fight with her sibling that resulted in them being estranged. Just like Vander she can still be violent and deadly when she needs to, but she keeps that inside and doesn’t let it out. Just like Vander she is seen as a symbol of the undercity even if she didn’t want anything to do with it.

That’s why she’s less crazy. That’s why she’s not hallucinating anymore. She doesn’t have need to. Her past is resolved. And the ONLY times there are hints of it coming back up are when Vi or Sevika remind her of it.

“Why is it gone? That doesn’t make sense to me!” Yeah of course it doesn’t make sense to you, because you never understood WHY she was having those issues to begin with or how the story uses them to show her conflicted nature in the first season. Of course you don’t understand why they’re gone, because you don’t understand narrative storytelling or what themes are.

Also, can i just say… it’s REALLY WEIRD how you only want the crazy version of Jinx. That somehow THAT is her true self to you and that you prefer it when she’s psychotic. Heaven forbid a show have GROWTH for a character or that a character doesn’t WANT to be crazy, eh? It’s really weird that you prefer her being crazy than healthy.

[nenilein]

Okay, lemme start to deconstruct this because MAN does this entire thread make me Angry

Yoggus, Fudoushi and Runelord

Yog, Yoggus and Yog-Sothos aren't characters, Yog, Yoggus and Yog-Sothos are forces of nature, and fighting them is portrayed as akin to fighting a natural disaster. They are not interesting in the slightest, and their mindless, animalistic nature more often than not leads to jokes about them, and the game making fun of how silly the stupid floating eyeballs making everyone go cuckoo are. In other words: They're EXACTLY the same as the corruptive forces in Puyo Puyo Tetris 1 and 2. The ONLY difference is that those two games had an actual human mind at the source of that corruption, while in Madou Saturn, there's only a big monster, followed by an even bigger monster, that can be defeated simply by beating down on it and that isn't treated as anything other than an excuse for the characters to prove how much they love being alive in this world, not an actual character. Yog-Sothos being insanely underutilized is actually a big reason Madou Saturn is so difficult to recommend to me personally. The actual overarching plot of Madou Saturn is aimless and boring AF as a result of Yog-Sothos just being an animalistic creature of chaos and destruction, rather than a character, what makes Madou Saturn good is all the small stuff that happens on the way to it! Incidentally, "Arle's Adventure" is a similar case to that, because due to the plot being cut down to size for unknown reasons, Diés is ALSO just an animalistic force of chaos with no actual motivation, except Arle's Adventure's narrative has almost NOTHING else in there that could make it interesting, so Diés irredeemable nature as a pure ball of bad makes the game even less noteworthy than it already is.

"Fudoushi", or, as he SHOULD be translated "Rot Mage" is just a glorified midboss. No character, no lore, no anything. It's just a creepy visual that's there to scare Arle in some ports of Madou 1. That's it. There's absolutely zero to it, hence why some ports (such as the SNES remake) actually TRY to make Rot Mage funny/redeemable to make him more interesting, which barely works. He's not even really a villain. He's an obstacle that was placed in the tower to make Arle's exam harder by her teacher. If you count this as a "final villain", then the friggin' Medal in Puyo 15th is an irredeemable villain too, for all the nonsense it pulls on the characters.

Runelord may be irredeemable. He's also very dead and has been so before the games ever started. He exists solely to add depth to Schezo's character and make the fact that Schezo is NOT irredeemable far more interesting, something the new games, ESPECIALLY Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop, play into hard. Runelord would be INSANELY less interesting/utilized by the fanbase if not for all the depth Schezo has.

But now every villain MUST be redeemed. Squares? Redeemed. Rafisol? Redeemed. Ecolo? Well more tamed but still!

Because these characters are actual characters and the writers are writing actual stories with them. If you want a character to be an actual character, giving them zero motivation simply is NOT an option, and when a character has a motivation, making them "irredeemable" is very, very difficult, because human beings do not work like that. Unless they're in very unhealthy IRL positions of power, which, in a setting like Puyo Puyo/Madou Monogatari… I wrote an entire MASTER'S THESIS about that exact theme, but that doesn't work there, because a major theme of this franchise overall is that it makes sure that unhealthy, unearned authority can ALWAYS be destroyed quickly by the effort of the people. A "villain" like that would not be around for long, because the cast would eliminate them or drive them into hiding ASAP. Why do I know this? Because we HAVE a villain like that! Thousand/Issen from Puyo Puyo Quest is EXACTLY that, an irredeemable, rich asshole in an insanely abusive position of power, who was quickly driven into hiding by the cast upon being found out. I hate it when people act like Sega is "Lazy" and "Can't write" that stuff. They can and they do, it just doesn't get attention because these characters are INHERENTLY less interesting, because their intruige lies in how they affect the rest of the world, not in themselves.

Then there is The Crimson Spirit. A sealed away spirit that possesses a child against his will, so he can kill another child. Afterwards, the formally possessed child still keeps the book, and while he's not stupid, he is riddled with insecurities, and given the book is compared to a security blanket in the next game, one can imagine he's being manipulated. In the japanese version of Tetris the spirit even insults him. This…finally, a pure evil villain again!

NO. IT NEVER WAS.

The crimson spirit was EXPLICITELY redeemable from the very start! Guys. You DID NOT "play" Fever 2. You played an incomplete patch of the Manzai Demos only, which are only a MINISCULE part of the game, that only holds, like, 5% of the game text, and is NOT why anyone in the Japanese fandom is interested in these characters.

Do I need to quote the entirety of the actual text of the Tome of Sealing, which the player immediately gets after beating Possessed Klug for the first time again? No? TOO BAD I'M DOING IT ANYWAY.

Do you see this? The Crimson Spirit was ALWAYS portrayed as a victim of racism. Not a "pure evil villain". In fact, reading them as this is such an INSANE misreading of the character, it can downright be said to actively destroy the entire narrative and mean you are siding with fictional racists! Please, cease!

But the writer of Quest and the Audio Dramas are doing their best to RUIN THIS! Turning the spirit from a mysterious threat to a forgettable pathetic loser! There's a reason I am so cherry picky with the Audio dramas, because they even try to tame Doppelganger Arle! And they just make everyone softer, there are very few I like.

WHAT??? HUUUUH?

You are displaying that you haven't actually listened to/read any of quest at all right now! The audio dramas constantly portray the crimson spirit as genuinely threatening and better at everything than the main characters! In the Super Sentai Parody, they outright smash Amitie, Raffina and Lidelle due to their own hubris of all wanting to be Red Rangers and are the unambigious victor of the battle, no questions asked! In the Tour Guide Drama Track, they chase Amitie and Lidelle's tour group away from the Arka ruins solely with their intimidating presence alone! In Quest Main story, they outright threaten to scatter the children across the dimensions (possibly getting them killed) and blow themself up WITH Klug when people get in their way, both times causing Rokia to remark how ruthless/threatening a character they are! The second time, Ms. Accord has to personally step in and help take them out, something she almost NEVER does! You simply do not know the content of what you are complaining about here, plain off! You are complaining about a fictional version of this stuff that DOESN'T exist anywhere but the depths of your brain!

And what in the HEL do you mean Doppelganger Arle is being "tamed" in the drama CDs?? She has 2 lines and they don't indicate ANY change in her personality! We don't see that she is still alive and has a HOME. This is the opposite of what you are complaining about! It means Sega is keeping an irredeemed antagonist around, NOT that she's been "tamed". In fact, in Quest, she is one of the few characters who hasn't had a SINGLE comedic storyline connected to her, unless you count the training manzai, which nobody counts. She is purely a force of intimidation (which is part of why she isn't really interesting and never has been, but I DIGRESS)

And Quest is a Gatcha Game. I will never count Gatcha games as canon to anything.

Then you are simply WRONG. Period. More people play Quest than ever listened to the audio dramas. More people play Quest then play the story modes in the mainline games! To ignore it is to SIMPLY IGNORE THE TEXT OF THE FRANCHISE. This is pure media illiteracy, and means that what you are complaining about is a version of the franchise that is purely made up of headcanons of yours, not the actual thing, which is actively poisonous to fandom dialogue and I SO wish you would stop. If you are not interested in the actual text of the franchise, then do not discuss it. Write fanfic instead. Nobody would take that away from you. Do not lie about what other writers did or did not write just because you maneuevered yourself into believing you read something that you didn't read. This sort of stuff pisses me as a writer off immensely, because it makes fandom discussion so much less vibrant and interesting and has no place in it.

Basically, instead of "What kind of threat is this? How will we beat it?" it becomes "Whats this guy's tragic backstory and how will they be redeemed?"

Oh, you mean like in 7, where defeating Ecolo required Amitie to find an escape route from the margin dimension to help Ringo, because otherwise she would have been killed in Ecolo's dimensional breakdown? Or in Tet2, where the characters actively have to play "hot potato" with Marle to wear her down before they can get through to her?

You act like it's "one or the other", which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how writing works! Kindly at least watch some goddamn Anime and actually analyze what is happening in it before you talk about this shit! Oh and Yog-Sothos, Rot Mage and Runelord all weren't defeated by going "What kind of threat is this? How will we beat it?" They were defeated by hitting them with bigger numbers. Which took less effort than ANY of the villains you complain about.

I want a new writer.

I want you to shut your mouth and respect people who actually write for a living. I was kind to you the last time we talked, but you just proved you have zero goodwill for other writers, only for yourself and your own fanfic, and it shows you are immature and not ready to be a writer yourself yet. You will never be ready until you can look at a text for what it is, not what your gut feelings are telling you it is based on vague second hand experiences you have with it.

It's still perfectly canon for me to see Strange Klug as pure evil due to the ambiguous cannonicity of the drama.

So, are you ignoring 95% of the text of Fever 2 as well then? Okay, cool, you are just wrong. Thank you for being so bad at media literacy and poisoning the fandom with that lack of insight. Thank you for making this fandom a worse place to discuss characters in. I am so fucking pissed.

I hate the idea of being the guy who makes someone say "he would not fucking say that" and I had a breakdown about that because of how I write The Crimson Spirit and how it contradicts the dramas and Quest!

So it's just you wanting your fanfic to be canon. I am so disappointed in you, you learned NOTHING from our talk back then. So close to blocking you on all my social media platforms too. This just makes me shake with anger. This is not how you treat a writer just because you want your goddamn fanfic to be canon.

In fact, I am shaking so hard right now that I am only responding to this initial post for the time being, rather than the rest of the asinine thread this created. I just can't. Why did you feel the need to backslide so hard into your stubbornness after the good talk we had?

I thought you had gotten better about this. The fact that you haven't makes me so damn sad.

By the way, the writer you are slandering here is Utako Yoshino. She has a name. And she is not subtle about the fact that she is scared of people like you, because they can ruin her entire livelihood with poorly thought-out flaming like this in an instance. She's posted about it. You are contributing to that very real anxiety.

Do better.

Be better.

I am getting sick of the redeemable/not really evil villains. Yes I do like them but there's just so many now! It was far more varied in Compile!

[Post this and I will reblog with my rant about this subject]

shit, sorry I didn't post earlier. Yap away. Or... yap eway...?

[transmasc-rose]

I wrote 2000 words about Amy Pond again instead of sleeping which is probably a sign that 1. I should be asleep So Badly and 2. I really need to just write that Amy Pond essay I have been meaning to do since s5.

[ef-1]

If I think about the double standard and the disparity with which the media handled Daniel in comparison to everyone else I may lose my mind.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Sword of Kaigen

standalone fantasy set in a rural mountain village at the edge of an empire that still holds traditional values, with families of powerful water/ice magic warriors

follows a powerful young heir who begins to question his beliefs about the empire when a new boy comes to his village from the city

and his mother, a housewife who has tried to forget her youth as a warrior and vigilante in the city since she moved back home to a loveless marriage

when there’s a violent attack on their village that they’re unprepared for, everything changes, and she has to embrace her old skills to protect her family and people

[tetraandtheapples]

Thisss omfg. I actually love to think about how characters were coded, esp universes.....

I really love to think of Dream and Nightmare coding wise being almost completely the same. In fact, to such an extent that Nightmare's code is literally copy/pasted from Dream's with only a few variables changed here and there. If you were to have a look, you'd find multiple large chunks of code with comments like "// Dream's torso" or "// Dream's left leg" etc etc etc. The only parts that would be corrected to actually say Nightmare would be things that actually differ, like personality or his eyes being purple.

With their orb forms specifically (seen below LOL) I like to think between the two of them, the only difference in their code would be a single boolean (TRUE or FALSE value) deciding whether they are made of positive or negative energy... because then it sorta has this narrative add-on where legit they could've been very very similar if it weren't for how they were treated as children by the villagers. Whole nature vs nurture thing ykyk lmao

As for universes, I think it should be stated that Undertale's code is. Not the best! Fun fact, did you know all of Undertale's dialogue is one giant switch statement? For those without any programming knowledge, there are better ways to do this LOL.

But that aside, when coding an AU, I definitely think there are multiple ways to do so. I love to think the way Error actually destroys universes is that he actually is able to corrupt data... based on this bit of dialogue.

When Error goes to destroy an AU, he does state that he has to inspect it a bit, before nabbing the human to prevent any resets and such... undoing his work. When he does inspect though he's subjected to however a creator has made their own world. I really love to think certain worlds are harder to destroy for him just because the code is unreadable EHAHAHA.

For example, take these two simple programs I made in about 5 minutes:

Functionally, they do the same thing - take in a whole bunch of numbers given by the user and then spit out an average of all those numbers. However, where these two differ is that the first one is fucked to read - shitty variable names (pissShit, shitpiss, i hardly know her!), no spacing, no comments. Versus the much more readable second version where you can actually get an idea of what's going on. (I know the example is probably unneeded LOL but I like rambling and yapping. Sue me :P)

So there's Error, and sometimes he'll get very neat and tidy universes that are easy to read, understand, comprehend, etc etc. Hooray!! And from there he can be real slick with his destruction - maybe change a few important variables here and there and then immediately watch a world crumble into nothingness. Easy in and out job. Flawless. Sleek!

But then sometimes he'll come across this hellish AU - code completely incomprehensible. The creator decided it would be a good idea to use both the variable names "Fucked" and "fucked" and he didn't notice the capitalisation for an embarrassingly long time. Or they decided for whatever reason to write their AU in the joke programming languages Brainfuck or LOLCODE. And he'll go around crushing random bytes in a temper tantrum out of frustration only to see a single tree being deleted from existence, and then Ink decides to show up and it's all horrible and nothing goes his way ever. >:[

I also like to think he has to deal with these sorts of comments in his code... HEHAAHA (These are all from Simpsons: Hit and Run).

But yes..... ramble over.......... wah

Do u think that the way a character is coded affects how others perceive things once they're around them?

LOLE, HEAR ME OUT

what if the way u can know that Nightmare is nearby isn't even his aura, but the sheer LAG that happens? What if part of the misery comes from the fact that some people can identify these things w/ game behaviour, and they realize what is happening. Like, there are people noclipping through the walls, teleporting, and you speak something at the same time somebody answers something u said 2 minutes ago because Nightmare's code is held together by glue and prayers, and checks if there is negativity in an *immense* radius every second, yandere dev style?

I mean, how would it affect other characters? How would it affect battles? Nightmare is stated to know that there is something else outside of the multiverse, so I don't think it'd be mind boggling for him to know it's a game.

But a bunch of the other major characters have experienced realizing that things aren't real at least once. They would realize quickly. How would each of them individually react? Hell, what about the likes of Dream, which never had experience with anything like that?

AND ERROR.

OH lord, things must get impossible when Error's close to Nightmare. You try to move and you don't, and it's as if you're in a dream, and the hallways go on forever. What if AUs literally crash and restart in situations like this? I bet it'd annoy Error to no end, tbh. Man just wants to destroy an AU, but it keeps rebooting. :(

I also think Dream makes things laggy af. His radius is probably smaller, tho, so maybe it's less? I think that'd be part of why he's kinda warm.

Maybe Nightmare is not as warm because his body works like a cooler, but it could get really hot depending on situations.

Maybe he can get a hell of a lot cold if parts of his code get "innative"?

[lostandbackagain]

.

[mekatrio]

oh maya fey...

[variousqueerthings]

i will simply by virtue of who i am read aromanticism into things, but mash really does make it astonishingly easy for me

[raspberryjellybrains]

I've been thinking a lot lately about Delirium and the way she speaks. She talks around a concept, never hitting it head on but glancing off through a series of metaphors and related concepts that explain things far better than wording them straight might. It's very relatable, and I think that's why I like her; that's how I think.

To me, the world isn't composed of precisely defined concepts but a series of interconnected existences which can all, ultimately, be related to each other. I also experience things in the incredibly specific manner Delirium seems to. I have sensitivities largely untethered from aversions, meaning that while I don't often find things deeply unpleasant or intolerable, I still experience them with an unusual specificity which often defies concise explanation. The best way I can convey certain feelings or experiences is through other feelings, experiences, and concepts to weave together a series of approximations that through their similar and dissimilar traits narrow down to what I'm trying to describe. Delirium does this too, and it's treated as a part of her that's no better or worse than any other. There are those that don't understand and those that do, and those that at least try to are awarded for their efforts because finally and most importantly, she genuinely has something to say. Her speech patterns are deceptively rambling because she takes a long time to say what she means to say, while simultaneously saying exactly it.

Delirium is neurodivergent coded in such a cathartic way because of this. I feel her frustration and joy because I know what it's like to be the person trying to explain something that has no words to assign, asking all of the time if there's a word for what she's feeling as a rhetorical and genuine question so that she can explain something without explaining it and call into question why we feel everything must be precisely laid in the place of as few words as possible. She is incredibly intelligent, but loses track of all of what's happening in a far more obvious way than most because there's just so much to keep track of, which is also very relatable as a neurodivergent person. Without putting labels on the experience, she perfectly captures it. I just... I like Delirium quite a lot, and think she'd be very good at post-modern literature.

[valeriehalla]

I am so utterly fascinated by “Saki”, the 18-year-running mahjong manga in which you, the reader, become gradually, frog-boilingly aware (over the course of nearly two decades’ worth of mahjong tournaments) that none of these girls are wearing underwear and most of their boobs are slowly expanding.

I need you to understand that I have, like, an anthropological level fascination with this comic. From the perspective of someone who is also a comic artist and writer, two things delight me about it:

the fact that I understand completely how an artist gets from “the fans can have a little hint of skirted asscheek” to “the pussy is completely out on center page” over the course of 18 years; and

the way in which the pussy being out is treated by the characters and diegesis as being utterly unremarkable.

Okay. Point 1. The frog-boiling.

Let me put this in perspective for you. There was already a meme about how the characters in “Saki” don’t wear underwear when I was in middle school. I am thirty now. Okay? And it’s still going.

In the time since, this has stopped being a joke. It is now indisputable canon. This is not because anyone outright says it at any point. It’s because the underwear ran out of places to hide. I’m obsessed with this thought: somewhere in the over 20 volumes of “Saki”, there is a panel in which underwear was objectively deconfirmed. And it would be so hard to figure out where that panel actually is. Maybe the artist didn’t even realize it when she drew it! The frog? Boiling!!

And of course there is also the breast expansion. I don’t know how to put a spin on this. They are just expanding. Like, this happens a lot with artists: you define a character as being, in your mind, “the one with the big boobs”, and over the years you emphasize that trait further and further so that the signal doesn’t get lost in the noise. It’s just that normally—in like a wildly popular manga series about mahjong published by literally Square Enix, for example—normally there would be a point at which the boobs stopped getting bigger. Like, an editor would step in or something. Or you would get to the point where you cannot draw the character in the same panel as her mahjong tiles without her breasts spilling over the tiles, and you’d go, “Well, this is now untenable.”

That did not happen. There is no ceiling. The frog is soup.

Point 2. The complete and utter mundanity of all of this.

It’s like this, okay: there’s no shortage of trashy ecchi manga out there. There’s a million other comics doing wildly bawdier things with wildly more improbable bishoujos.

The vibe with “Saki” is different.

It’s hard to explain this, but it feels like the world of the comic is fundamentally uninterested in the fanservice happening on the page. I cannot describe it as “leering”, because I cannot conceive of a person in the story from whose point of view one would leer. I think the artist is probably into it—I can’t imagine anyone is making her do this—but “Saki” the comic has no opinion on the matter.

There are essentially no male characters in “Saki”. Like, there was one guy? Kind of? At the very beginning? But he is gone now. They put him back in the toybox. He does not exist. It appears to be some level of canonical that in the world of “Saki”, almost all humans are women. Those women are sometimes romantically into each other. According to comments the artist has made on Twitter (which I cannot source), they have lesbian baby technology, so it’s no problem. It’s so much not a problem that the story is about mahjong, instead of any of that.

So, like, the fiction here appears to be this: this is the, like, meta-narrative of the fanservice of “Saki”, right: it’s just normal that they don’t wear underwear and their boobs are arbitrarily big. It’s been normal. It was normal before the story of the manga began. It’s just how things are. Nobody bats an eye about it, and if they do, it’s in sort of a lesbian kind of way so like what’s the problem, we love lesbians here. This is literally normal for girls.

The fanservice simply diffuses into this all-encompassing aura of disembodied, ambient sluttiness. The framing of the panels demands you acknowledge it, and the story demands you already be over it, because it’s mahjong time now, and we’re playing mahjong.

Do you get??? why I’m so fascinated??? Are you not a little enraptured???

Anyway, I have no idea how to end this weird post. I guess the conclusion is that women stay winning????

[shidoukanae]

Chapter 75 and 76 have been so funny for male lead characters suddenly spouting red flag lines.

Paris's is expected because the narrative has always been honest about how he's got a screw loose but seeing the 2nd lead syndrome guy pining hopelessly after Lyla seemingly imply he was trying to make her unhappy with his presence is ???? huh????

like im aware my very loose translations are probably scuffed as fuck and there's room for further interpretation but man is this manga a ride lmao. It never feels like a chapter is wasted and that there's always something more to be learned about this world, its story, and its characters. And it means every chapter is never a letdown because there's always SOMETHING happening and it makes me !!! to see

[supercool-here]

Ok my sins are keeping me up late at night so of course I'm going to post about ysblf. I am not a fic writer, actually I'm not a writer of any kind other than bad, but I really wish I could come up with a storyline in which Armando and Betty develop a somewhat healthy relationship, or at least one in which they get together without having gone through the ordeal of seducing/getting used. I will love reading your ideas, even fanfic recs if you know any. My own theory will be in the tags