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astralartefact · 11 days ago

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Extra Entry 00b - KamiErabi S1&2 <<content warning: pet death, child murder, abortion>>

Synopsis

Will the blandest anime main character you'll ever meet prove to you that what the world really needs right now is a white boy? also apparently this is a death game (allegedly)

(this post is really stupid, yes, even more so than usual. read it for a long time, not a fun time)

How much did I know before watching?

Let's be real I only watched this because of Yoko Taro.

Okay, I only watched S1 because of Yoko Taro. I watched S2 because I needed to know what they where thinking

Did I like it more than I expected?

At this point I don't even know what I expected going into it, but what I didn't expect was that they bring abortion into this for absolutely no good reason while the story is about how children's entire lives are at the whim of their parents and how children can't do anything against that.

Because I know, you're already thinking: "But isn't the reason kind of right there, isn't that kind of the ultimate 'whim' though, the biggest decision a parent can have on the life of a child and there is literally nothing a child can do about it because it doesn't even exist yet?" - and to that I say: That's exactly the problem, because now you've already thought more about abortion than KamiErabi ever has.

In short: This shit sucked ass.

Since I hated it, here's what I liked about it nah this time i'm just ranting about this

Let's be clear, you can tell Yoko Taro worked on this. There are pieces in here that are clear parallels to stuff he already talked about at length - which weirdly enough means despite it being kind of dog shit it still pairs really well with his other contemporary work because he's clearly been thinking a lot about this topic (the agency of children in the face of their parents) and those thoughts have clearly influenced KamiErabi.

The problem is that KamiErabi posits a lot of those intelligent thoughts about the place of children in a society that mainly sees them as property both in its characters and the story setup - but not only does it not follow up on any of that, it either forgets or actively ignores it as if that stuff never happened to instead tell us a story about how Ono Goro, the whitest boy a Japanese child can possibly be - aside from the fact his single mom hates him, something we're by the way never really given a reason for aside from "mom kinda evil" - is in fact causality's greatest gift to humanity. The thing KamiErabi is most about is that out of our entire cast this one guy is special - he's the only one that deserves to become god. Why is he so special? Well, according to the text he is the only one who "listens to other people's wishes", that's the phrasing Lall uses at the end of S1.

The problem is that whoever is to blame for this certainly intended for that phrase to be understood very literally because if we were to only take it as "they didn't just wish something for themselves" then we quickly find that actually literally everyone else is also doing that. Almost none of these characters are straightforwardly wishing for themselves; most of them do it for reasons that mainly involve others and specifically not themselves.

Sawa wants to resurrect her brother and kill her parents for starving him to death

Akitsu wants to know the future to protect his friends

Tetsuya/the Little Angel wants to end bullying even though he isn't really all that bullied anymore

Koki wants true equality even though he's one of the few people on earth that wouldn't directly benefit from that (because he's rich)

Iyo's fan exchanges his life to keep Iyo's dream alive when she's murdered for idol culture reasons

They forgot to tell us Chika's wish but what we do know is that she wished something for Ryo

Ryo wants to resurrect her brother who died because of her

Every single child that wished for something wished something for somebody else. Even the one guy that brainwashed his whole school wished that to get rid of all bullying - but I guess the text is trying to tell us that we can confidently ignore that guy's reasons for doing so because the way he did it was kind of fucked up.

No, Ono Goro is different from all of them. We're told Ono Goro is "truly selfless".

That particular difference is actually most notable through Sawa: Her only functional difference to Goro - and there's really only one, a fact someone behind the scenes clearly hasn't noticed - is that Sawa is a determined girl instead of being a complacent boy. They both wished to give life to their "not alive" sibling, they both have parents they hold responsible for said sibling being "not alive" - the only real difference is that Sawa actually grasps the opportunity she's given acts "selfish" to achieve that wish and since that's the only thing that's really different about the two of them it highlights that this specific thing is what makes her worse than our main character. Her own selfish actions are why she doesn't deserve to become god.

And I will point out that holding her accountable for that character trait kind of defeats the point when half of the story is trying to be about how children don't have agency about what their parents teach them and how that is a problem that causes parents to ruin their children's life. I guess we're having Lall berate her and everyone else at the end of S1 to make a very necessary distinction about that when it comes to whatever the "aptitude to become god" is supposed to stand for, because it's really necessary to point out that the "sanctity of Sawa's soul" or whatever is fucked and it's her fault.

No, if Sawa really wanted to matter to this world in a karmic way she should have just decided to be born to parents that, if they already had to neglect her, at least didn't also instill her with an "If I want something I have to do it myself"-attitude all while neglecting their other child to death - really, she should have seen that one coming, she should have done whatever Ono Goro did.

Thankfully whoever is responsible for it might have noticed that what they presented to us might have been a little bit under baked, so in S2 they felt the need to expand on Sawa's selfishness - and hey maybe that will help us understand why all of this is actually her fault after all! (it will not)

You see, not only is the selfishness that may or may not have been born of her parent's neglect already weighing enough as it is - even if she decided to try not to be this selfish, to actually grasp agency and do something about her situation that isn't just taking from others, to accept her brother's death the best she can and help others out of situations that she wasn't helped out of - Well, actually, that would be even worse, because that means now she isn't just selfish, now she's lying to herself about it.

Actually, Honoka Sawa, you're just lying to yourself trying to help others, you only do that to feel better about yourself. You will never not be selfish and any attempt to outrun your true nature is not only futile, it is also dishonest and disrespectful to everyone you ever shown your true colors to and I truly hope you'll be able to live with how unworthy you are behaving in the light of your dead brother. Your brother isn't helped by making the world a better place for others like him, your brother would have been helped if you had managed to resurrect him. But you gave up, you were fine with whatever you think you're achieving now instead of chasing a far-off dream that would actually help your brother and only your brother. Who cares about these other kids, from our one single interaction we've had during a particularly stressful time in your life I know perfectly well that you don't care about them, you selfish prick! Shame on you for giving up on such an achievable goal as Resurrection - but good luck with your non-profit! Hope it feels nice, but remember! Giving up like you did was a privilege your brother couldn't afford :)))

Keep in mind that she's lectured about her poor life decisions by S2's mouthpiece Lall, a child that wasn't even born (ever) and therefore has not lived to make a single life decision (ever).

(btw sry my conscience tells me to do this but there is actually some core "sure i guess" in this episode. sometimes these sorts of charity causes are just a way for people to run away from facing what has happened and/or even actively harmful to the cause because now particularly fervent people are working for a change for hell or high water bc they think it will help their own emotional well-being while ultimately not actually understanding what's the core issue, obstructing real progress in the process - but this is clearly not one of those situations. in-universe sawa is doing the best she can to create a semi-comfortable place for children like her brother in a society that at this point actively hates her. she has no family left, she has no real support network because nobody cares about her, she is hated by everyone for something she had no hand in and not even her government protects her from it because her particular kind of discrimination is legal - and even still her activism isn't about her or about getting revenge; it's trying to fix the problems that killed her brother even just a little bit bc that's what she considers worthwhile to do.

but your problem isn't even really that she isn't focusing on her own well-being, even if you maybe try to pretend that, it's that she isn't doing enough. the problem is that she should have still tried to win the god app game to save him and didn't. her not going after something that asinine, something that she already failed and had no reason to believe that she would suddenly win this time is criticized as a moral failing on her part because she didn't even try.

i'm sorry but what the fuck are you talking about. what else do you want someone like sawa to do about her brother having died. she is already doing more than anyone should ever expect her to and if she's not 'doing it wrong' - after all the problem in the episode seems to be that she's protesting at all - it's probably one of the healthiest things she could possibly do about her problems if it's already a fact that she's not looking after herself. even if she realizes months or years later that none of what she did 'fixes her' and that she lost touch with herself a little bit - i would assume she wouldn't regret spending a couple months petitioning for the better protection of children from abusive parents. and i really beg you to reconsider that her only way of overcoming this issue is to resurrect her brother bc if you haven't noticed, resurrection isn't real but situations like sawa's certainly are. please, tell me what you think people in real life that lost their entire family to abuse should do about it.

how dare you tell this girl that she should have tried harder about something that should have, at no point, ever been her responsibility. her parents killed her brother and there's absolutely nothing she could have done about that and you're here telling her that she mourns the wrong way, that she copes the wrong way, that she doesn't do enough, that she suddenly should be selfish because "that's who she is" even if that's literally the only thing that you ever show us to make her an 'unworthy' person unlike goro, and that she's pathetic and stupid for not figuring all of that out by herself. her "giving up" on something so far out of reach at that point - even if it was rationally achievable - is a perfectly understandable compromise for someone in her position, she's not settling for less while stepping on her brother's grave, she's trying to survive a world that actively took everything from her. HER PARENTS FUCKING KILLED HER BROTHER. there is nothing left for her to care for and yet she still tried.

whoever is to blame for this episode, go fuck yourself. whatever moral judgment you believe will take place at the end of your life - it will not show kindness for this.)

Really, she did it all wrong - and it's so easy, too! She should have just been born selfless like Ono Goro who, gifted in his wimpyness, waits for his wish to come be granted on its own - something he mainly just does because he needs several episodes to realize that his shrugging agreement to take part in a death game for his wish to come true might actually have had resulted in him taking part in a death game for his wish to come true. He's probably really glad that his parents' neglect hasn't made him selfish - Instead this guy's most pronounced character trait is the presence of mind of someone that mindlessly clicks on every single blinking pop-up he sees on a tabloid news website, especially if it offers him something that sounds 100% too good to be true. Not that he expects it to be real - he's smart enough to know it probably isn't - but he does click on every single one regardless because hey, it might be!

Outside of that all that's left that makes him remarkably special is his outstandingly unique performance in selfless empathy (i would argue that thanks to his mom's treatment he really only cares so little about himself that he doesn't value his own happiness and therefore can sell it off with his powers to help others without hesitation - but that's certainly not how the show sees it. what he's doing is good! the best even!) - the pinnacle of which is symbolically represented by him being the only one to care, to "look up from his phone" so to speak, when a cat is hit by a truck right on the crosswalk in front of him - something that's later implied(?) to be a weird dream metaphor for his mom having had an abortion (of the child that would have turned out to be Lall).

And I'll say, in a certain way that metaphor does actually track, I guess, because it might feel like a car crash to him, you know, when something unpredictably impactful happens in your private life that you cannot ignore, something that shakes you to your core and yet nobody else's life budges the tiniest bit, they don't even know what fucked up thing just happened right in front of you. I guess I can see that feeling being put like this.

But that isn't really what they did with it. As I said, this metaphor is also presented as the pinnacle of his outstandingly unique performance in selfless empathy. Lall says out loud that him "listening to her wish" is why he's better than everyone else and why he deserves to become god and this was the main on-screen symbolism that he's special and not like others - and since the show never proves Lall wrong in any way, even subtextually, we kind of have to assume her argument is true. (granted, it never talks about any of this ever again)

Might I add, it's a phrase directly commending Goro's empathy for Lall - but because it isn't elaborated on, it also implies that Honoka Sawa's fundamental problem was that when she wished for her sibling to be resurrected, she didn't ask him if he wanted to be resurrected and therefore she didn't actually care about his wishes at all - or at least not as much as Ono Goro, the consent-considerate winner of this semantic argument.

But for whatever reason the show takes this cat metaphor weirdly non-literally (which isn't bad, it's just really confusing if you do it wrong, especially when it kinda makes sense literally). In-universe, he wasn't the only one to see the car crash that symbolized the abortion because he was the only one who knew about it (and then, independently, he also cared about it when he saw it) - He saw the car crash symbolizing the abortion because he is the only one who would care about it. Like, that should be two different things, right, there should be people who could see the truck/the abortion but still don't care and people that would care about the abortion but didn't see the truck - but here it isn't.

Instead this implies that regardless of if he was the only one to see this imaginary car crash - everyone else wouldn't have cared about it either way, because if they did, they would have seen it and if they would have seen it, they would have been as special as Ono Goro and therefore would have deserved to become god. And that might seem like a leap in logic, but we know he is in fact the only person who could care about it if he saw it, because that's why he's special. Him considering the wants of who he wishes for is stated to be supremely selfless - and it's only supremely selfless and/or special if he considers the wishes of others unlike everyone else. And not just "unlike everyone else in this group" - the end of S2 makes very sure to tell us that in this case it's "unlike every single other human being."

So with all of these semantic logistics out of the way: Even in the best interpretation I can come up with, using abortion as the plot thematic for why Ono Goro is so much more special than everyone else feels exasperatingly tone-deaf especially in the climax of S1's finale in what amounts to a gotcha reveal for Ono Goro's wish and for who Lall is.

As I've already mentioned, KamiErabi is - like all of Yoko Taro's other recent works - talking a lot about how the actions and decisions and even just arbitrary inheritances of adults have deep-seated, inevitable and yet semi-foreseeable consequences on their children/the next generation and that, clearly, adults as a whole do not think enough about that. That is a thought I agree with.

But according to this truck metaphor Ono Goro is the singular person on earth to care about this unborn fetus and what that possible child might would have wanted... and not to be (not) christian about it, but isn't there someone you forgot to ask about this? Does the Mom aborting her child not count when that's literally an instance of her thinking about what that child might want, because even if she does it for completely selfish reasons she still saves that child from a future where she's completely hated by her mother? You know, the mother that already outwardly hates her other child.

Like, even if she literally thought "Goddamn it, I really don't want another child only for the singular reason that then I don't have enough time for tax evasion, which we all agree is really evil for the purpose of this argument, but as a one-dimensional character I just love doing it" - I have a hard time believing that even to her there isn't also some fragment of the foundational implication that "A mother who would rather do tax evasion right now is a bad mother for this child", however small that fragment might be in the mother's mind. To me that is an instance of an adult considering the future of a child, who then decides she shouldn't have that child (at least while she would rather do tax evasion). She does the thing that from her estimation causes that child less harm even if that decision comes from a completely selfish place - a selfishness that, pointing at my girl Sawa here, you later say you can't run from anyways.

So what was she supposed to do? She can't change who she is and yet there's a ready option available for child harm-reduction purposes.

But this is the point where I'm sad to inform you that someone in this writing team likely considers Abortion mostly to completely unethical, because otherwise the logistics don't really make sense. The fundamental implication here is that if the mother can do it, Birth is always better than no Birth at all - which isn't necessarily "Abortion is murder" but it is "You shouldn't do an abortion if you can help it" ...which often enough stems from "because Abortion is murder."

The possibility that a woman has an abortion "for" the child doesn't really exist here as long as she could "comfortably" have it, does it. Any consideration that she might have though of that child in her decision is null and void because it's "selfish" behavior. If that mom doesn't want a child solely for the purposes of scheduling her tax evasion, "maybe it's better for the child not to live with a parent like that" is just simply not an option, that's just an excuse. The conclusion is already "Too bad, you're pregnant, be a loving mom to the child you will get soon or else you might as well rot in hell you [insert your favorite gendered insult here]."

And again, this is about another hypothetical mom I made up. All of this isn't taking into account that this child/Lall would be born as the result of an affair into a negligent family with a dad that barely shows up and that already mistreats the one child they have. Ono Mom has a very good reason to go "I shouldn't have another child for the child's sake." The text is just pretending that "she wouldn't think that" because she's evil, I guess. Don't you see? The decision to not have a child clearly serves her, that means she's selfish!

Abortion is just simply beyond the line where we have any empathy for Ono Goro's mom. Her doing that is textually considered as not considering the unborn child - or else Ono Goro wouldn't have been the only one "listening to Lall's wish". If she cared about the child at all she would have had it. Her own needs and wants are worthless the second she has unprotected sex with a man. (actually i think she says her getting pregnant was an "accident" so assuming she knows how contraception works this. is. getting... worse) She just shouldn't have had sex with a man to begin with if she didn't want to live with the consequences - and I guess living with an abortion is not enough of a consequence. A man has never once cared about an abortion after all, so how could that impact a woman?? "Women that sleep around" just simply don't care about something like that so that's not a consequence - and we can't have them go around having Abortions all day! Somebody please think of the children that might have wanted to be born, we'll ask them before we ask the mother what to do with her own body.

there was supposed to be a quick aside here about abortions being legal in japan until 22 weeks under "certain circumstances" but looking that up ono mom's specific circumstances actually seem to open a whole new avenue of "why did you bring any of this up" since i guess the abortion must have also been illegal on the mom's part bc the pregnancy came from an affair(!) and in japan she needs the consent of her husband(!) to have a legal abortion - which of course means that even without an affair in the picture he can just say no (!!!) --- but yeah, the issue they bring all of this up for is that women shouldn't have abortions for moral reasons towards the unborn child, not that men can just legally(!) tell their wives they can't get an abortion, even if they otherwise could get one legally

I'm not trying to defend Goro's Mom from being a bad mom - well, I will defend her for it because she's clearly written exemplary one-sided for a reason (yes, it's the legendary straw (wo)man in person) - but her getting an abortion is also treated very differently than Sawa's parents literally killing a non-hypothetical child by neglect - and debatably worse because one of the two is the S1 climax "fucked up back-story" reveal after all. Like, there is a noticable difference between "What Ono's Mom did was so evil and uncompassionate, look how good he is for caring!" and it's an abortion, meanwhile it's "Sure, What Sawa's parents did was bad, but... idk, if she was a better person she could have handled it better" and her parents literally locked her brother into the room next to hers until he starved to death.

No, Sawa is a selfish normie for using the wrong words to wish for her brother to live again (despite her factoring in that now she could support him without her parents unlike back in the day; she had planned this wish through before making it) and later when all hope is lost for her to win that wish she's even worse for reasonably "giving up hope" and trying to move past his death when she instead tries doing something about a society that lets stuff like this happen. Meanwhile Ono Goro is a saint uniquely worthy of becoming god for his singular deed of asking if his unborn sibling might have wanted to be born into his shitty family situation where his cheating mother already despises him just for existing - and then he does nothing to achieve that aside from gradually making his life worse and worse for arbitrary reasons while waiting for his wish to happen to fall into his lap on its own. Which it does. Good for him.

But no. In S2 we even learn he's "a being god couldn't create" - an unthinking, minorly empathetic child that assumes his experience is the experience of everyone else around him. He is fine with this shit life, why wouldn't anyone else be, if he wants to live clearly that child also would have wanted to live. And he didn't just assume like everyone else, he asked questions everyone else but him already had reasonable answers to - and look! This one child wanted to live so clearly that means all children would have wanted to live. All those people must feel really foolish for just assuming what that child would have wanted! That doesn't count as listening. Really, Ono Mom, why didn't you listen to your unborn child's wishes?

Essentially it seems to me like someone in the writing team thinks God couldn't create a white boy who just found out about racism.

And he doesn't even do anything. Everything in this show just happens at him. Even his karmic sacrifices feel passive. Even his wish didn't do anything by his decree, it was to "hear (and grant?) the unborn child's wish." Even with the one thing he did, the one thing they tell us he was so special for, he still was passive, he still let someone else do something (maybe). All he's doing is considering and "considering" is specifically not doing something (yet) - and yet he's still constantly praised for everything he "does."

I knew since the only S1 episode he wasn't in how much of a problem he is, but writing about it now it's once again hitting me just how much of a problem Ono Goro and Ono Goro alone is to KamiErabi. The show's unbridled faith in their white guy protagonist despite him doing nothing to inspire it is the fundamental problem of KamiErabi - and honestly it would be game changing if the show even just noticed that.

Like, this story is about a guy's self-sacrifical nature inspiring empathy in others, but the guy they do it with, the guy they say is so self-sacrificial, is somehow the only character in the entire main cast (!!!) with which it doesn't work in the slightest. It's crazy how you could make "Isn't it kind of sad all of these children don't wish for themselves" work with literally any other character but not him. None of them, not a single one, has a "fun" wish. They all sacrificed their one and only chance to wish for literally anything at all to change something society - and therefore the previous generations - fucked for somebody they loved. yes even iyo's body double, idol culture is still a culture created by a society.

Ono Goro does wish to "rectify a wrong" for somebody else - but certainly not in the same way Sawa wants to save her brother to make up for what her parents did to him or that the Little Angel was bullied before, knows what it's like and therefore wants to end bullying for everyone else or that Iyo's fan wants to keep Iyo's dream alive after another fan forced her to stop what she wants to do. Those are all people that watched someone succumb to the way their society and their culture works and now they grasp at straws to do something about it. All these people have a very good, non-selfish reason to make their wish for somebody else.

Meanwhile Ono Goro just doesn't want to feel bad about his unborn sibling. He wants to hear what she would have thought about it to soothe something inside of him that thinks this abortion was wrong - even if it's just a curiosity about whether she thinks the same. That is a selfish wish if I've ever heard one. That's the logic of someone who needs to apologize to someone they harmed - not to "make things right", but so the other person can finally forgive them so they don't have to feel bad about it anymore.

And at the beginning of S2 Lall even points out that her mom suddenly treating her nice isn't how that would have happened, that Ono Goro's wish fulfillment idea is some degree of out of line and "selfish" by forcing his mom to act against her character. It highlights to me even more that S1 ended on the perfect note to tell him "Hey, Ono Goro, actually..." about all of this. That he doesn't know anything better, that he isn't special at all just because the one person who had the most to gain from his wish praised him for his selflessness over it. It's also the main reason I didn't fully give up on this stupid series after S1 - because hey, maybe they're doing the thing where they turn around and let Lall learn that she was wrong by explaining in overwhelming detail just how much Ono Goro is actually not all that great of a guy.

Because Ryo literally tells him that her wish isn't his to grant at the end of S1 as if to tell us that he isn't a good person just for using his position to grant other people's wishes. That this is about more, that maybe fulfilling these wishes is at the very least also a way for him to feel better about his shit place in society in the way that they critizied the Little Angel for granting wishes earlier on. But him granting this wish means nothing to Ryo - he doesn't even know her. Him granting her wish cannot possibly be about her aside from some form of generalized pity.

Maybe all of this could work if S2 was about how Ono Goro is actually not just a white boy but a white savior whose dispassion for himself and his place in the world actually makes him a bad person to be the one granting wishes - because clearly he has his own idea of what granting a wish looks like since he rewrites his and Lall's mom to be nice. Honestly, even just the implication that his wish was really just to hear the unborn child's wish and Lall was just a manifestation of what he thinks that child would tell him and wasn't actually that child would turn this anime 180 degree into high art.

But instead S2 was just outright boring. Not only

is its narrative barely based on what was established in S1 (at least not context-wise and i sincerely don't care enough anymore to examine if this author shit lines up subtextually)

is everyone's character premise suddenly fully inconsequential to anything at all

the time skip fully wasted aside from some subtext points that aren't even used (like, "they can't grow up after their wish was granted" was clearly supposed to go somewhere in reference to the whole adults vs. children thing but they barely used it for anything at all except sudden societal xenophobia and not having to do new 3d models)

is Lall an absolutely insufferable protagonist

it also had the Sawa episode I already talked about (this was legitimately the most appalling episode of television i have seen in a while. if you ever do watch this show out of morbid curiosity stop with s1. i beg you with my life to not watch s2. like, it's not even the fun kind of bad, in the few minutes it's not really boring it's "only" wildly out of line trying to lecture you about something that i trust you to 100% know better than them)

the fact that every single character, even the weird evil guy from s1, ends up totally nice doesn't help any case they're making. you can't really have a "chosen one" narrative that's also "everyone has the power to be the chosen one"

well actually this show kind of has the blueprint of something that could make that work - they just certainly didn't do it

something about phone's bad - but also not? they can't make up their minds about whether they are bad or not and never make any conclusive statement about anything

i really don't care enough to think about what the god.app death game and its back story is supposed to be about (it's part of the phone good question mark thing; phone bad bc we don't think about whats inside this thing we take everywhere - but also we as humans have the power to make a thing that made god mad so actually it's good in a "isn't humanity cool" sort of way)

also why was this a death game at all you're years late to the trend and squid game was already years late to the trend but they at least do it for anti-capitalist reasons; here you're not even really doing anything with it

like both of the mainly credited writers were old enough to see all those death game animes 10 years ago, i know bc i remember them

also also why does the politician guy look like grown up Goro?? Are you trying to tell me Atsushi Ohkubo of all people could not come up with another hair- & image color combination??? was he supposed to be goro's absent dad?

but it also, somehow, ends on the lamest pseudo-wholesome ending ever, it made me feel so little I somehow lost the need to complain about the entire show. That need eventually came back but only because I forced myself to chronicle its atrocities even just a little bit.

Like, this could have turned out fine. Make the politician guy from S2 Ono Goro who "grew up" from granting these wishes only to not have understood anything from his experience at all, place him in the literal shoes of one of the grown adults who doesn't consider the future of the generations after him and now all the people that were once, somehow, inspired by him (even though none of them actually were, they say they were but all of them already fought for and sacrificed things for what they believed in before they ever met ono goro) have to fight against him to enact what they learned from him. (you know, like i will have to do if yoko taro somehow ended up an anti-abortionist)

But it wasn't. It was not fine. I'm defending the one dimensional evil mom character for being allowed to have an abortion and how that doesn't make her son all that special for caring. and you know that's a bad thing, because the one dimensional evil mom is one of the 3 main reasons for why I hate ff16's writing with a passion.

But hey, at least they evoked thought, I guess.

Also I will be the one person to defend Atsushi Ohkubo's character designs - not the ones we got in 3D but the somewhat techwear-y ones in the concept art. Sadly the dots and lines necessary for it to look good got lost because the animators couldn't be asked to create even one singular texture for their animation budget of 5 [shrugs in currency].

Specific Impressions that will stick with me

The episode in S1 in which Ono Goro is comatose, easily the best one of the whole series simply because Ono Goro's devoid of content mouth words aren't wasting screen time. Like. I can't stress how much screen time S1 wastes on him saying things, but nothing of value. The Iyo Episode wastes so much time that could be spent on good Idol Bullshit on him saying nothing. He truly is the most bland protagonist of all time.

Ryo Sematei stopping Ono Goro from granting her wish.

I like the idea of Eko/the Author in theory, but very much not in execution. Like, Eko showing up and talking to them as the author/god made me feel something for a second for some reason. Just for a second though, it quickly became really lame.

Outstanding Audio

I mean, it's Monaca on the budget of a favor. They didn't make a lot of songs for the BGM but the ones they made are good enough - by which I mean that I remember the magic scene music.

Favorite Character

I could easily make the case for most of the S1 main cast except for Ono Goro and Lall (and I even kind of liked her until the last S1 episodes). Sadly this story is about them.

Also, special mention for Futana Iyo's/Futana Iyo's body double's character premise. I am beyond mad that that never got investigated in any singular way, that's such a fire premise for an idol character with regards to parasocial relationships - and it was immediately dropped during the episode it was established in. also i still feel really smart for having known what her name references without looking it up

Favorite Arc/Story Line

The thing about KamiErabi is that if you read the setup of it all and imagine what might happen you would probably think of a better story, so I guess the introduction of each character and nothing more than that.

That being said, S1 is much better than S2, mainly for the fact that aside from the characters - well, honestly even with them - S2 feels fully unrelated to S1 and S1 at least felt like someone had a concept of where this is going. S2 didn't even feel internally consistent on its own, even the Eko/Author reveal felt unearned. (for at least a third of S2 i thought Eko was Sawa's brother and the god was just Ono Goro who Eko met when he granted Sawa's wish, I was so confused bc that would have made so much more sense than what they went for and they didn't really directly reference Eko's gender until later)

Favorite Set Piece

The final episodes of S1, I guess? The Drakengardian Blob that made blood rain at least made me feel something, even if Yoko Taro should probably work on making his unrelated works a little more visually distinct why does this always happen

Favorite Scene

Once again Ryo Sematei stopping Ono Goro from granting her wish. I had so high hopes for S2 off of this single scene alone.

--- ENTERING THE PRETENTIOUS SECTION OF THIS ENTRY ---

What about this series gives me Hope for the future?

I guess even if Yoko Taro writes bad stuff, at least it's interesting. Like, this guy just gets into my brain in a very specific way and he didn't even write half of this. Even if he somehow gets himself cancelled (honestly, i'm sure it will happen one of these days) I will be the one to take the aesthetic hit and still play his work. (well unless he does something really fucked up but i cant really imagine that; he's the kind of guy that stays at 'says something really weird that could be a misunderstanding and never elaborates' territory. we will never know if he's actually being evil under that mask...)

I think the only way he could make me not check out his stuff is to do a literal NieR Automata 2 with 9S and even then I would check it out because clearly he won't "just" do a NieR Automata 2, especially if it's called that or like a visual novel with only Natsuki Hanae's voice. I just don't like him. It's just... something about him.

also can I complain about the Automata Anime Ending down here, I still hate they had to show them being put together at the end, god forbid we even have the tiniest bit of implication. I guess we needed to spell it out because see the Anime is distinct!!! A-1 cares about the source material so much they wanted to see their happy ending play out uwu! Isn't that wholesome fun??? All to make 2B's last scene her acting 9S's pure and demure waifu blergh urgh ew ew ew

also i love her, she's beautiful, but the anime doesn't deserve accord, she should have been in reinkane q_q

What about this series makes me scared for the future?

See guys?? I'm not a safe space bubble blowing snowflake mindlessly consuming slop, I'm clearly a stable aesthete of distinguished taste with a box-cutter to match and I can change my mind on someone as quickly as a weather vane - and you're on thin ice, silly little mask man!!! this is how we want our media criticism, right???

btw please don't associate these posts with the word "criticism". these are, at best, me putting my personal aesthetic judgments to paper. if you read all this i tricked you, this is supposed to be worthless for anyone but me.

People are always so weird about "criticisms of their faves." I'm sure I complained about it before, but every time a fandom discovers their favorite series did something verifiably "wrong", everyone suddenly talks as if they're at a wine-tasting because clearly they know what they're talking about, they enjoyed the particular particularities of this narrative at some point, but now they were disappointed with the incomprehensible and frankly unacceptable development decisions that were made! - It's so weird, but it really happens every time.

This is not that though, at least I hope so. I think I always talk like this. I'm just german and school managed to teach me to overwork my sentences.

No, but as a "Yoko Taro guy" I just really wanted to write this so at least someone didn't let this thing slip by just because it's kind of ugly, even if I'm still kind of glad nobody watched KamiErabi. Really, it being ugly is probably a blessing in disguise for everyone involved because could you imagine the discourse? If I've learned anything the past years it's that a righteous shit storm always grows the most unbearable. More storm always means more shit and if you're reading this you are in range.

But I mean, the options we have here are a) one or more of the writers doesn't consider abortion in any way ethical (at least if it isn't an emergency) or b) someone really did not think about abortion while invoking it for a gotcha reveal - and i'll say even if it is a)? If this is their manifesto, it's a really bad manifesto. Like, who are they going to convince that maybe we should slut-shame women "that deserve it" more with this. The people that already kind of want to do that aren't watching this - too few waifus, too little tits and it's also really ugly - and anyone that thinks about it even a little bit more holistically will probably run into the fact that the rest of your story kind of argues against doing that.

And as bad as that Sawa episode is in the moment, what is that whole thing even supposed to tell us. "If you have bad parents you just already lost and you have to accept that, but as long as you try you can still achieve everything you want to achieve." Great, I guess. Like. Okay? Huh? World's weirdest spiritually loaded pep talk telling you if you're born evil, that just means now you might as well just be evil.

As it is I just think it's a badly written show that - for reasons deliberate or not - happens to really slut-shame a woman out of her agency in the name of children, even though I personally think that women shouldn't need the consent of their partner for an abortion, even if they had an affair.

Like yeah, someone should say something about this work for accountability's sake - and I did, am I not proud of doing my part - but... if nobody ever talks about KamiErabi ever again that's probably for the best. Let's just keep this one in our journal and then we'll bring it up when it's worth bringing up, how about that! Let's just hope, we'll never need it again... not just because hopefully these people aren't evil but also... (mostly) because I really don't want to think about KamiErabi ever again.

Also, there's no way around it, the school uniforms we got just do look exactly as cursed as everyone says they do. I legitimately don't get why nobody involved got the animators to do even just one single texture for the school uniform dots even if it means everyone shares the same ones. I can't see that taking more than 5 [shrugs in currency] amounts of effort and it probably would have helped at least a little bit.

#atarasemediadiary #kamierabi #yoko taro

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doshmanziari · 9 months ago

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youtube

While returning to a piece I've been working on since last year on the question of what constitutes a reasonable challenge in game design, I've been thinking about the “perennial” discourse on difficulty FromSoftware's relatively recent titles resurrect each time a new one comes out — in particular, this idea that the difficulty should always be “intuitive." The idea seems to be a way of applying a sort of hindsight bias, casting every prior game as both The Hardest Game Ever and yet eminently predictable (with Dark Souls 2 as perhaps occasionally situated as an outlier in this regard). I was reminded of this contradictory sentiment while viewing the video above — which, just so you know, is not a 2.5-hours monologue, but a condensed, boss-centric playthrough of Dark Souls 3, done with the purpose of answering the question posed by the video's title.

Said differently, the contradiction we find is that people want these titles to be able to evolve in the challenges they present, but they also don't want them to be "unrealistically" hard. There is this notion that there is a kind of pure way to play, which stems from a purity of design, and that playing this way should come easily, intuitively, upon each new challenge. But! — you actually can't have all of those things. And with each new FromSoftware release, so many people seem to forget how the prior release, once lambasted for having finally crossed the threshold of absurd difficulty, has since been resituated as more or less reasonable, with the newer release now being so unfair that baby must cry, and may cry forever.

Is it not strange to go onto the Fextralife wiki and see comments about how Elden Ring's larger opponents are "unrealistically" fast? or to hear, in a video about Malenia, anger over bosses not conforming to imaginary symmetries of allowances? — as if it's just way too mean when a boss introduces an asymmetrical mechanic (despite the player being able to introduce their own asymmetries which far exceed any one boss')? And this persistent belief that the game is full of "unavoidable" attacks — obviously, this would forbid the possibility of perfect all-boss playthroughs; yet, even if there were some unavoidable attacks, why would that be unforgivable? A lifebar exists to make room for error, or the unexpected. Hypothetically, it also makes room for more malicious and surprising sorts of design. I think that the inability to enjoy cruder and nastier situations — such as those in Dark Souls 2 (especially Scholar of the First Sin) — implies a humorless prudishness rooted in prescriptive expectations. In fact, I think that Dark Souls 3 suffers from a lack crudities and inconveniences. Immaculateness is spread over the game like a waxy sheen, and one senses a loss of struggle and texture.

We have to be careful when we say that this or that thing is a "betrayal" of core design principles, because a closer examination may show that either those design principles never really existed, or that, if they did (to certain extents), a strict maintenance of them would only lead to a stagnation of design. In some cases, we may find that what is taken to be an aspect of one of these games is in fact an effect of the surrounding culture, which reinforces a kind of perception of the relevant media. Certainly, this remains powerfully at play for the first Dark Souls, such that, for instance, Demon's Souls tends to be excluded from the picture. Elden Ring came out when I was no longer compelled to spend much time learning its bosses' particularities for very long; but I suspect that the loudest whining about Elden Ring being the coffin of FromSoftware's Core Design Principles has mostly come from people who were soundly put in their place after thinking that the ability to own Dark Souls 3's (mostly brain-dead) bosses would automatically transfer over to a new game of similar build. Maybe we'll have to wait for this Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for FromSoftware to "finally" transgress (again), and for Elden Ring to, like all the ones before it, be seen as just fine.

#dark souls 3 #dark souls #dark souls 2 #elden ring #fromsoftware #demon's souls #Youtube

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quietwingsinthesky · 1 year ago

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I know you reblogged the post about people being like "fictional cannibalism is deep and intellectual and fictional incest is disgusting and morally wrong" some time ago, but I just wanted to add that it’s absolutely insane how people are calling every piece of media that isn’t wholesome and unproblematic nowadays a direct reflection of the creator’s secret deviant fantasies à la "check their hard drive". Like where does the line between getting called a genius and a master satirist and being labeled a disgusting pervert lie? Whenever I see someone make absolutely nonsensical comments like those all I can think of is Vladimir Nabokov getting canceled and chased off the internet in 2023 after writing Lolita lmao. Seriously tho. Especially in the spn fandom, how can people make posts about loving the fucked up family dynamics and the body horror and the psychological terror and the abuse parallels etc and then fall over themselves to put wincesties DNI DNI DNIII all over their entire blogs lol

My take on it is basically that the line people draw between what’s “morally” acceptable to write about or not is really just what they enjoy. That’s why this stuff usually comes down to shipping nonsense, it’s just fandom flame wars in a different trenchcoat. It’s also why you’ll get dissonant opinions like ‘incest is bad and we can’t write about it’ and ‘gore and murder is just fine to write about.’ If someone enjoys writing about their thing, however dark, and can understand why they enjoy writing about it, of course they’ll give it a pass, but other people’s dark things? that they don’t like, don’t understand? Must be evil. Must be disgusting.

(Plus, obviously, there’s probably something to be said about how in ‘incest vs cannibalism’, one of these is going to be assumed to only be about Sex and Perversion, while the other is obfuscated around sex, sometimes a display of desire but easy to deny that at the same time. Which is not to say that writing about incest is even always about sex, only that it will be perceived as such, no matter what you’re actually trying to discuss in your work.)

All that to say that of course it’s ridiculous to assume that someone’s writing or hell, even their internet persona, is reflective of their desires. I’m ace as fuck and get nervous if I don’t have explicit permission to hug someone, and I also have and will write noncon fic. There’s no secret there, nothing hidden that’s gonna lead to me hurting someone. I just enjoy writing impossibly huge power imbalances. I like squeezing characters like stress balls.

The “Wincesties DNI” thing still bothers me to this day. Maybe because I’m not sure where I even fall on that line. I follow wincest blogs, like their posts, I’ve written I think 2 or 3 wincest fics? But I rarely participate in it or reblog stuff here. Am I a wincestie? Am I tainted by association in such a way that I might as well be? Does “Wincesties DNI” mean actually all incest shippers dni, or are you secretly telling me you’re cool with Jo/Ellen, or did you just forget in the midst of your ship war that other interests exist. I don’t usually follow blogs that announce that, but that’s more because putting that label there just tells me even if I passed the test on that specific thing for you, you’re not gonna be cool about all the other weird shit I post lmao.

(I want to stress, I think there’s a difference between “Wincesties dni” and “wincest dni”. I think that asking people to not leave tags on your posts or comments on your work referencing an incest ship is a valid boundary to have. If that content is triggering to you or just not your vibe, I think you should be able to say, ‘hey, not here.’ That is very different than going ‘if you are a part of this group or ever interacted with this group, get away from me.’ Especially in a fandom where. I mean. Sam & Dean being weird is in the text. It’s a huge part of the show to the point of being referenced repeatedly in-universe, it’s a famously huge part of the fandom to where wincest built the very ground (AO3) we all walk on, and I just think that if you walk into a gay bar, you really shouldn’t complain so loudly about all the bears you see.)

#so there’s my thoughts on this. probably said something like it before but to reiterate.#also if you’re wondering why I picked Jo/Ellen as the example incest ship that Wincesties dni banners don’t account for uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh #(alsjfjlfjskfj actually you know what. this is my stance now. Wincesties dni banners are oppressive because they ignore #all us other perfectly problematic incest shippers. make a callout post for us too cowards!!!!!)#spn #ask #tw incest #tw cannibalism #<- also this I think it’s v reasonable to ask for tw so that you may block stuff you don’t wanna see #you may not get that but I think asking should always be an acceptable thing.#tagging for it is polite but not a requirement. especially if you’re like. NecrophiliacSamDeanFucker69 or something as ur url.#I feel like at that point the warnings maybe go out the window #but asking is good. if asked I will make an effort to tag my own posts at least with warnings.#what I reblog? probably not because I rarely tag that stuff. uh. oops.#anyway this has been fandom PSAs with will.#I’ve been doing this too long. im too tired to give a shit about ship wars.#look away dev

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notanotherlovepage · 20 days ago

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i keep thinking and thinking about why? why don’t i i write about you? why do i make paragraphs and testaments about him but not about you? what is it about writing about a friend that makes me delete the thought inmediately? i used to write giant texts about that friend 5 years ago, right? then why? why can’t i write about you?

i try to start, to even think about what i would write and this giant wall grows in my brain screaming NO, DO NOT GO THERE and so i just forget about it and think about you in other ways; what are you doing? are you happy? are you better now that im gone? are you relieved im no longer part of your life? did you maybe realise i was everything that was wrong all along? everytime i check my phone y hope your name will show up but then again i’m scared i will throw up if it does, it eats me alive, thinking about you laughing and crying and enjoying with those i used to call my friends too, so i just delete you from every single social media i can muster because i have to believe you don’t exist because it hurts and this was never supposed to happen. i dream about you every single night and sometimes you punch me and sometimes we hug and sometimes we laugh but you’re always there and my chest starts to get heavy when i think that you will probably forget me in… what? one? two years? but i will never forget you. ever. just as i haven’t forgotten about those friends from ten years ago, five years ago, just as they show up in my dreams you will show up too, like ghosts of people i murdered and are trying to take revenge by driving me insane.

you are always there, every day, every hour. at some points i can forget about you when i’m watching a movie or chatting with new people im desperately trying to use as a replacement but then its quiet again and you are always there.

so why cant i write about you? i obviously care, right? you are there to think about, aren’t u? so what is it about writing “i miss you”, “i dont wanna lose you”, “my life will not be the same without you” that i cant express? i was never one to have any problem with expressing myself, was i? what does this say about me?

but when a single thought, a single phrase starts to form in the back of my mind and this rawness cuts me out like a knife, almost like an instinct, making me stop and i have no choice but to agree.

how could i ever write about you? about my best friend? i try to continue this line of thought and i swear with every fiber of my being that i have to stop and it starts to get foggy, suddenly i don’t know english or any language anymore and words are just random shapes in tiny arrangements. dissociation takes over and i’m not writing anymore, i’m watching my hands write instead, and i cant cry or write or hate or love because i love youa nd its sjust so fucking dumb this is dumb i feel like a wet fucking dog begging on my knees and im so tired of begging for the love of god so i will not cry for you to not leave me like everyone else does, i will not whimper i will not cut myself i will not cry because i cant , i just cant even think we wont be friends again its even funny to think that cause what the actual FUCK and im not even making ense anymore.

you are not those friends 10 years ago, you are not that friend 5 years ago, you are another piece of my puzzle and if you leave the puzzle will always be incomplete, and it may be an ugly ass fucking puzzle with cuts and bruises and just ready to be thrown in the trash but you made it slightly better and maybe ur gone now like so many pieces were and maybe life will go on and it will still have beautiful moments but fuck that this doesnt make sense, not being friends does not make sense it just doesnt fit anywhere in my stupid brain ive known you since we were twelve and the way we are friends is so easy and its always there and its not like an arm or a leg being ripped off cause you can eventually live without those, its suddenly being paralyzed or soemthing it fucking sucks and who would want to ever live like that? and i hope you have completely forgotten about rhis blog cause why is this dense bitch writting so much about me, right?

so i will not write about you. cause its too much. cause its like trying to read smells or hear colors. it doesnt make sense, it never will. i will never write about you because i didnt lose you because i never will. and maybe you’re gone and maybe we will never be friends again but thats for another me to deal because i did not lose my best friend and this is so fucking cringe i didnt fucking lose you but my mind says i do and im not making sense and it doesnt make sense and its all chaos and i will not write about you. i will not write about you.

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cate-eblanchett · 1 year ago

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𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏-𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚊||𝐼𝓈 𝒾𝓉 𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝓃𝑜𝓌?

What is it supposed to do when waking up in the morning becomes one of the toughest tasks, and it is only the beginning of eighteen hours of a dull routine that you follow because you have to until it’s time to sleep again, but you can’t, you roll onto your bed over and over again, the thoughts haunt you, the memories rip your heart off and the loneliness of your bed screams at your face “it’s over” one sleeping pill helps and for six hours you are supposedly to be disconnected from your reality, but it’s not like that, the dreams are even crueler, they take you into a non-existent reality where she's with you again and suddenly that is taken away from you in the cruelest way, waking up again, alone again.

The bright world she lived in, now it has turned into different shades of grey and black, but she’ll never admit it out loud, she is suffering in silence and doesn’t really know when she will be really over the idea she constructed about a different world, a different life next to who used to be her best friend. The fantasy where she lived in didn't last too long and she knew it, but why it has to end that soon? Why did she have to come and one day take everything away just like that? it was not only her fault, it has been both, the indecision, the distance, the fears suddenly started growing for both women until it become an indestructible monster that ended with everything at its pace, now everything was in ruins and cate was trying to put her pieces back together but it seemed so hard and slow. She had to admit she missed her every day; she missed the idea of a family with her and she kept wondering how was she? Was she okay? Was she sad and angry too? did she need any help? cate was convinced that she would never know or heard directly from who was the other half of her heart, maybe that was her mistake, considering she was her other half, cause now that she was gone, cate was literally broken in two. the last thing she wanted was any contact with her but somehow the destiny kept doing her dirty and time to time some news or recent pictures popped from nowhere no matter how much she fought to keep herself away from the media, how hard it was swallow the knot in her throat and fight back the tears but an actor as cate was could make it seem easy, even when Edith asked about her, she wondered when she would see her again, when she would talk to her and cate doing her best explained “mommy and Jules are not together anymore, she loves you so much still but you can’t see her as often as you used to, you know she loves you, don’t you? And you know I love you even more, don’t you?” a warm hug and thousands of ways to keep Edith busy and distracted helped cate to battle the child’s curiosity and sadness, the older boys were different, they knew what was going on, they seemed to treat cate carefully and never bring her ex-fiancée into the conversation afraid to see their mom’s face transform and how her smile vanished and her face lost color. They keep bringing up activities to do together, attending to concerts, long walks by the city, shopping, lunch and dinners outside, movie and theatre nights and cate was thankful for that. she had found a refugee into them, she did not want to break that bubble, everything outside it hurt her, burn her, kill her slowly. It was as if she was raw and everything could unleash a dramatic episode of anger, sadness and frustration and that was the last thing she wanted. She was strong, she could deal with it, she did it once when she lost her once, she could do it again, this time she had four children, a solid career and she could escape from her personal hell and drama thanks to them but the question that actually haunted her was “will I ever be over her? Will I ever stop loving her and forget that we almost had everything and we lose it? —Yes, yes I will” her inner voice said with conviction meanwhile "let them loving you. you will heal, forget and please, never feel or let anyone feel pity for you. Just wake up and leave that bed, it’s another day, you can do this"

...“good morning mama!!”

#tw: long post

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shiranai-san · 2 years ago

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So I have begun reading the infamous 2010s webcomic Homestuck.

A memo (ugh, word ruined) of me, and vocalizing my thoughts, at what, around page 2680 or something currently 4122. Published for venting my own insanity for the greater un-good.

KEY NOTES

PSS: Past Shiranai San

CSS: Current Shiranai San

___

CSS: And this isn't even ironic, I just lost my mind one night and wrote half this draft and then proceeded to read 2000 more pages like 2 weeks later and I cannot let PSS's thoughts die for the sake of making a cohesive post. If you don't want to read, TLDR; Shit is WACK. I'm loving it, all is well. If you do, take a gander at the read more section. Also, obviously, spoilers.

PSS: I sit here on the edge of finishing the second act of the fifth act of Homestuck.

Approximately a fourth of the way done and questioning myself what madness I have found myself swept away in.

Floating at the top of a mammoth-ian wave. Not my first, when reading. As I have been washed onto many waves. Floating in a vast sea, as one act brings me down one wave and onto another. Like I'm riding an aquatic rollercoaster.

As quoted from Kanye West's song Dark Fantasy, can we get much higher?

PSS: In every piece of media, there is a suspension of disbelief that comes when partaking in media. For the past month I have hung my disbelief on my wall next to my 2016 Artistic Cat Calendar.

How higher can we go though? I mean truly? Perhaps it is my own hubris that I cannot visualize the true complexities that come from Green Sun-Paradox Clone-Troll Romance-Multiple Timeline deli levels of baloney.

And I can't even be mad as I slip into this whirlpool of time paradoxes and too much Charles Dutton.

Because I love it!

PSS: I'm enthralled in the ever looping structure of the story. Where, every moment in every character's life exists to perpetuate SBURB/SGRUB. Including their own existence-

CSS: Current Shiranai here, taking over the post. While my past self has made a compelling argument. She did however forget the ever important fact that the most extreme macaroni will happen in any Alpha timeline. Rookie mistake, but it's not something I'd expect from someone with only ~2000 pages under their belt. Her trespasses will be ignored.

In any case, yes, it has been a long ride, similarly to Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea. With this post being the marlin I have strung to my boat.

My belief as to why I have been so captivated to Homestuck so far is because it truly is a coming of age story which deals with themes (so far, because I haven't finished it yet) of loss, crossing cultural boundaries, friendship, love, hatred, and questioning the aspect of your self will vs what was always fated to happen. Also a lot of war and genocide.

...A lot.

CSS: But instead of taking in these classical themes as the usual audience, a bunch of plucky tweens and teenagers from the 2010s, I get to experience it in the foresight of a young adult with the consistency of leftover Papier-mâché.

CSS: If I had to generalize my experience so far. Reading Homestuck has been a lot like watching a group of middle-schoolers take place in the world's worst emotional hacky-sack game. Where every kick, one middle schooler flies a felt ball into emotional heights. Only for it to face plant into the ground of heartbreak. As half break down into tears and the other half memes about 90s sitcoms. Until one of them gets so fed up with the game that he saws the floor and 2/3s of the game's population in two with a chainsaw.

Which then accelerates to dealing with matters-beyond-human-comprehension, as well as ascension to god-hood as a way of fighting off an omnipresent being. Until the fourth wall literally supernovas into the main plot through banner art as I sit in History 101 with Professor Scratch.

CSS: It's just a lot and I've been having a lot of fun with it.

#homestuck #rants n rambles #this is insanity #shira-isms #talking to myself #tumblr is just the medium I'm documenting my slide into insanity #you might not under any of this #and thats okay!#post for me #but you can read it too

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timur-pannonicus · 3 years ago

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News from my mind, episode 1

So, since it's the name of my blog anyway I've decided to try to clump my most recent random musings together and just list them in somewhat random, somewhat planned order. I'll quote a statement and comment about it. Here it goes:

"Why are Azula fans so closed off from the greater fandom?"

Dunno, it could possibly, maybe have something to do with the inexplicable phenomenon that if people are treated like outcasts they will gravitate towards other outcasts and view the people hurling insults at them with wariness, perhaps even resentment. Question for the sociologists.

"Why do you hate Zuko and Iroh!?"

I personally don't hate them, I actually LIKE Zuko and nothing will ever change my enjoyment of reading reconciliation fics between him and his sister. I'm not too fond of Iroh since compared to actual Eastern wisdom his words feel like fortune cookies. Still, this isn't my main point. I know fellow fans who really do hate them but... if you feel ok with hating Azula for hurting and mistreating your favorites I don't see why it's such a mystery to you that someone who has her as their favorite could feel the same towards the people who treated her harshly, whether it was fair or not.

"Why are you so obsessed with the mirror scene and the beach?"

Because antis pretend these moments don't exist, are ooc, should be ignored or somehow confirm how purely evil she is even more.

"You are forgetting she did X and Y and also Z?"

Yet when it's an attack on her her good or human moments can be completely ignored and not acknowledged at all. As another favorite character of mine once said: The good doesn't wash out the bad, nor the bad the good. I'd be really happy if more people adopted this view since apparently in our modern age you can only be either a saint or a monster, ignoring human nature altogether.

"The comics prove that she's irredeemable!"

The comics DO prove something in abundance and it's that her biggest obstacle towards redemption is that SHE doesn't believe she's capable or deserving of it. She views herself as monster but has no idea how to be anything else. Yet even after everything Zuko's and "Ursa's" words of love in The Search were enough to deter her from attacking and she even dropped the letter that could discredit Zuko.

"Azula fans are Nazi apologists!"

I may need to make a poll but every other fan I ever talked to is either left leaning or a full on leftist. But since offense is better than defense I will say that advocating for someone to be put to death or imprisoned and tortured for life because their mental illness makes them too dangerous, now THAT'S a Nazi talking point.

"Redeeming her would be consistent with the themes and messages of the show and make most sense narratively."

True. But I give the antis this, it's perfectly possible to enjoy a piece of media while also disagreeing with its message. I love House M.D. and the message of the show is that people cannot change, ever, no matter how hard they try or how much they want it, something I obviously disagree with. Saying a show would be better if it contradicted the very theme it tries to promote is another thing though. Perhaps it's just my preference for consistency though.

"You cannot woobiefy Azula because she's such a jerk!"

Good thing that tv tropes has an entry called Jerkass Woobie and the description fits her to a T. Look, at least I personally have no problem whatsoever with people gushing over turtle duck Zuko. It's a perfectly normal reaction for someone you both feel for and think is hot. I just happen to have this feeling for his sister and I refuse to feel guilty about it.

"Azula fans are such hypocrites!"

Everyone is blind to their own faults to a degree or doesn't bring their train of thought to it's logical conclusion. Everyone should try to be better though. But you know what, no group is perfect, you just have to admit to yourself that you feel more comfortable with one over the other.

"Azula fans don't love the real her, only the image they have of her in their head."

This is true to some extent but it's also a loaded question which clearly implies that the real Azula is only a crazed monster and nothing else. We love her in large part because we see the POTENTIAL in her but we try to base our speculations and headcanons on what can be seen or deducted from the show itself. If you can't follow the logic or disagree with the conclusions or just refuse to give the benefit of the doubt, that's your right. Also I'm fully aware and ok with admitting to myself that I sometimes believe things because I WANT to, like that Zuko does care about her at least deep down and that she's capable of being happy in a heterosexual relationship. This brings me to my last Azula related entry:

I like shipping her with Zirin from the comics due to mathematical reasons.

It's a known thing that adding minus and minus together results in plus. They are both mentally disturbed and immoral young women so adding them together can only result in positive things.

Also one plus one equals two. They are both hot and cute on their own so together is even better.

Anyway, thank you so much for getting to this point. I hope it was a ride. I will however NOT comment if this post turns into a heated discussion.

Also for all those concerned about my mental health, I DO think about things other than Azula but since most people are interested primarily in my comments about her I've decided to list my other brain spills in a separate post.

#azula #avatar the last airbender #philosophy #atla humor #fanfiction #cartoon #fandom #fandom critical #anti anti #fandom discourse

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thessalian · 2 years ago

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Thess vs JK Rowling

So let’s talk about JK Rowling for a minute. Yes, I know that you’re probably sick of hearing about it for one reason or another. I get it. I just ... have a distinct need to vent here. So I’m sorry for bringing it up again, whatever side of this argument you’re on. Just ... come on. Hogwarts Legacy comes out on my fucking birthday. The only thing that’s saving my birthday at this point, given the mess the internet’s going to be Friday over this, is sushi dinner and a little Legend of Vox Machina watch party.

The summary basically goes as follows: JK Rowling is a TERF and a horrible human being, and she underlines that fact every time she opens her virtual mouth, and now Hogwarts Legacy is coming out and it’s been an internet slap-fight ever since. The reactions I’ve seen so far have been as follows:

“I’m buying multiple copies to own the libs!”

“I’m buying a copy but I’m donating twice as much to trans organisations so it’s fine, right?”

“SUPPORT THE DEVELOPERS OMG!”

“It doesn’t really deprive her of that much money anyway given how rich she is, so a boycott is pointless.”

“I’ll just pirate it and you should too!” (bonus points for talking about the cracker who’s making it a point to crack Denuvo over this, and that’s about the one good thing coming out of it because Denuvo is bullshit)

And then there’s me. I’m trying not to ascribe hateful intent to anyone who wants to buy Hogwarts Legacy. I really am. The only reason I can manage it is - and I’m sorry to put it this way but there’s literally no other way I can phrase it - US news is basically the centre of the media universe and a lot of people only hear the very basics about how JK Rowling is a TERF and a horrible human being. You combine that with nostalgia goggles and it’s a recipe for what I can only really call quasi-deliberate cognitive dissonance in people with the best of intentions. Sorry for doing this; I just need to pull this apart.

We’ll start with the nostalgia goggles. I mean, I was a ... sort of a fan when I was younger. Looking back on it, I can see why “more or less average kid from a household that treats them unfairly is suddenly elevated to popularity, wealth, a stable emotional support network and ADVENTURE!” had appeal. Thing is, looking at it with a more critical eye? It was racist as fuck. Not that much better on the sexism. Not any better on the antisemitism either. Apologetic of slavery (”No it’s okay because they like being slaves!” my entire oversized ass). Don’t even get me started about the “lycanthropy as AIDS” thing that she actually admitted to, and literally highlighting how she killed her gays when she stated that Dumbledore was gay after the last books were already out instead of actually showing any of that in the text. On top of all that, I can’t say with any honesty that it was even that well-written. While I don’t think a lot of people are forgetting that book 7 epilogue any time soon, the rest of it ... just ... doesn’t hold up to me. The wizarding houses that sold a few billion pieces of merchandise were just an excuse to legitimise bullying within the text. Her portrayal of Snape had her confusing “doomed love” with “incel”. Dumbledore was sold as a benevolent sage but came across to me as a fucking maniac and a horrible educator. Most of all, half of this series was held together with plot glue, communication fail, and having a non-omniscient, highly distractable POV character throughout. I have things to say about the pacing, particularly as regards the introduction of the Horcruxes and the Remus / Tonks relationship (which, given the “bad man spreading this AIDS-analog to people deliberately” the still somehow existing view of AIDS as “a bad gay’s disease”, and Remus’ bond with Sirius, feels like an attempt to “de-gay” Remus somehow, but all that did was code him bi and she killed him anyway, apparently to tug on heartstrings in a really clumsy-ass way, so eh). But we’ve got colourful houses coded by desirable personality traits (EXCEPT SLYTHERIN, like cunning and ambition are somehow inherently evil) and Quidditch and Every-Flavour Beans, so that’s fine, right? Egh. Sorry; I was never one to hang onto the nostalgia goggles for very long. I love poking the Jenga Tower of Logic too much.

(Also, frankly, if she’d taken Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them and turned them into a Steve Irwin-type nature series instead of the racist imperialist pile of garbage that series turned into, she’d have been a lot better off. Though I’m not sure I like her rooting around in the cultural heritages of others because she handles this shit like a moose handles a Ming vase.)

Of course, Hogwarts Legacy is a different kettle of fish. It’s not in the modern era or anything so it can’t be that problematic, right? It’s set in ... *checks* 1890. So the height of British imperialism. Oooooooh yeah that’s going to be a Thing, isn’t it. Let’s see ... Super Special Student thrown into Hogwarts in their fifth year, Possessed of Ancient Secret Magic ... Chosen One. Got it. Wikipedia won’t even go into the full plot but what I seem to recall is “Evil (and Jewish-coded) Goblins Attempt Wizard Genocide”. So that’s nice. And its lead designer is ... Troy Leavitt, Gamergate supporter and creation of such videos as “In Defense of Cultural Appropriation”. Which, given Rowling’s history with same, is on brand. So how about we not go too far into the “But SUPPORTING THE DEVELOPERS!” argument? This man does not need support; he needs a good swift kick in the balls.

So, back onto Rowling, because I really can’t talk about the game much as it’s not technically out yet. Yes, TERF and horrible human being, but there are examples of this that go beyond the shit she spouts on Twitter. As far as the TERF shit goes, here’s an example: a little while ago, the devolved Scottish Parliament wrote a law - only applicable to the Scots, incidentally - that said that people age 16 and up should be able to decide what gender to put on their identity documents. It’s called the Gender Recognition Act. Now, the UK government at Westminster didn’t like this at all, and - in a move they’re not actually supposed to make - blocked Scottish Parliament from being able to enact that law within its own borders. This kicked the Scottish devolution movement (already pretty heavy because of the end results of Brexit) into even higher gear, because fuck the English government wanting to uphold their terfitude so much that they’d dictate what Scotland can do in its own borders. Rowling is on the English government’s side here, and is very against Scottish devolution. The money she has doesn’t only go to that LGB Alliance that leaves out the T so very deliberately; it also goes to blocking Scotland’s attempt to unstaple itself from this hellscape, just because she agrees with blocking the rights of people to choose whether an M or F goes on their official documentation instead of basing it on their assigned gender at birth.

And then there’s her most recent book, written under her (ironically male) pseudonym. Yes, it’s a TERF manifesto with chapters, but it’s more than just “Evil Mass Murderer Hides Behind Woke Transgender Propaganda To Gain Access To Women’s Bathrooms And Murder Them”. That book also includes a “poor influencer accused of being ableist being murdered by disabled people because they consider said influencer too ableist to be condoned” plot. Fibromyalgia is mentioned (dude, I have fibro and even if I wasn’t a decent human being, I hurt too much to be able to actively murder someone). Also autism, which is pretty telling when you consider that she also says that “poor confused autistic girls are being forced into gender conversion because they’re too autistic to understand what they’re doing”.

If you honestly want to own anything with this woman’s name attached, that’s fine. That’s your prerogative. I am probably going to judge you, though. It’s not the money, or at least not just the money - it’s the platform this is giving her, and the validation. Even piracy says “I don’t care about your behaviour because you’re giving me what I want”. Not even need; want. I don’t get why anyone wants it, but people are allowed to have different tastes, so that’s a whatever-thing. But I live in the country where her voice has the most influence on things that aren’t entertainment. She is defended by so many of the wealthy and powerful because she thinks the same way they do. And the more she’s lauded for anything she does, the more they’ll point to her as something good about this country. She is not a good thing about this country, and no amount of flying broomsticks and jelly beans that taste like earwax can change that, in my mind.

(Also, I’ve seen some of the preview pictures - the game looks like hot garbage anyway.)

#Thess has opinions #Thess plays video games #But not that one #Not ever

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a-lil-perspective · 4 years ago

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70 Encouragements/Tips For The Writer:

A/N: Rules don’t exist. These are real and personal and stem from a deteriorating, exhausted Writer who is here to tell you (and herself) that you are amazing and keep going. I hope you find some encouragement within.

Your mental health comes first and foremost.

Indulge and embrace your creative writing pieces when they come (and when they don’t). Especially when they don’t.

Suffering from Writer’s Block or fluctuating hyperfixation? Me too. So is your favorite author. Welcome to the Writer’s Block Party (all my uwus if you see the pun).

Did you spend five hours on this one segment, forget the last time you ate, develop chapped lips, dry eyes, and a stiff back (time to get up and move), bang your head on the wall, laugh, cry, fidget, take your ADHD meds, deviate to watch YouTube, have an epiphany, curse in frustration and wonder why the hell you do this to yourself? Congratulations, you’re a Writer.

Embrace all the not-so-glamorous sides of writing, and accept the fact they’re going to happen time over again.

When you say “just one more line” and it’s 2:00 AM, I’ll be here to remind you to “go to sleep” (because I’m also depriving myself lol).

Actually, sleeping helps your mind feel refreshed, and it’s good for your health. If you’re struggling with a particular segment, one of the best things you can do is just put a cap on it for the time being, put in a placeholder, and get some shut eye. I know you don’t want to. But you will feel so much better and have more clarity and energy to continue when you wake. Trust me.

More often than not, those words you “just didn’t write down fast enough and now forgot” end up revealing themselves to you later in a much more profound way. Give the words time to get ready. They’re just spiffing up before coming to visit. :)

Be proud of yourself and your prose. Writing is an amazing part of who you are.

That trope has been written 1000 times before? Make it 1001.

You’ve already written this scenario? Write it again.

You’ve just written a single sentence. Now sit back for moment and think: you just wrote something brand new, never before seen. Nobody out there will ever write that sentence or formulate those thoughts the exact same way. You are a unique, mind-blowing, awe-inspiring human being.

Bask in the excitement that comes with a completed piece. Reflect on what you learned throughout and celebrate the little victories.

Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback, but also understand that you might not always get it, and that is OK.

Please re-read your work. Be gentle with yourself. You had to write that very first piece to get to where you are now. Love the process.

Your personal writing success is not based off of kudos or likes or reblogs.

There is no right or wrong way to write.

There is no such thing as “good” writing.

Improvement is becoming of everyone so get comfy, strap in. The journey of a Writer is a lifelong one. Here’s to many more works ahead.

Don’t mourn the words you did or didn’t write. Celebrate the ones you will.

One day, you’ll read a piece that will blow you away—and it will be yours.

There is nothing “shameful” about reblogging your own writing works.

I promise you’ll find your “wow” piece—either in something you’ve already written, or something yet to come.

Baby. Please don’t write out of spite. You’re better than that.

You are just as valid/deserving as the next Writer. And you do belong.

If you feel sad/unworthy when sharing your works or interacting with others’, get to the root of why. Writing should be fun, rewarding, and relaxing. Not shameful, embarrassing, or a chore.

Writing (fanfiction, specifically) is labeled as “transformative works”. Self-explanatory, right? However, if you notice the transformative part begin to have a personal effect on you—a negative one—it’s time to take a step back.

Right now, I can name a single quality you possess: diligence. How do I know? Because you’re a Writer, and the two go hand-in-hand.

Got that single scene in your head but you haven’t completed or even began all the chapters preceding? Bruh. Jot that down right now. You don’t need 20k words beforehand.

Embrace your writing mood swings. The stray, sweet and condensed blurbie. The ideal, bridging drabble. The solid, substantial oneshot. The hefty, elaborate 10k word chapter. Appreciate everything in-between, and that you are capable of all of it.

Nobody remembers that extra word or typo or stray speech mark back all the way back in chapter 3. Tell the little monster in your head to go to hell.

You’re not a weirdo for making facial expressions and mulling through your dialogue aloud. You. Are. A. Writer.

It’s OK if the Readers can’t always see exactly what you envisioned in your head, or the full extent of the picture you painted. We all see colors differently.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with your writing.

In fact, challenge yourself to dabble into a new plot/trope/concept every day, even if only for a few minutes. You may discover you love writing it.

There’s no rush to finish/begin any written work. If you take your time, you will make your mark. You’re not falling behind or running late. Slow down and wait for it. :)

Three cheers for hiatus.

Listen to your body and mind, know your limits and when it’s time to take a break.

Actually take a break. :)

If you feel like you’re falling stagnant in creativity, looking to/revisiting other forms of creative media can help encourage the flow.

Ask for encouragement, and be at peace with asking.

Take shelter in fellow writers. Uplift each other always.

You are/will be someone’s favorite author. :)

You don’t have anything to prove. You have something to share.

Someone is thinking about your work right now.

Someone started a series because they drew inspiration from you.

Personal writing style can reflect a lot on the state of one’s mental health. Try to always be attentive to that of your own.

Self-validation must be cultivated early on or nothing will ever work.

Freestyle every once in a while. Write a snippet, timed, and go—without editing. Write the first thing that comes to mind and go from there. Do it all the way through the set time. When it stops, you’ll find yourself unable to. 3,800 words here we come. :)

Not everything needs an outline. :)

It is completely normal to write your story out of order.

Create guidelines for yourself. If they aren’t working, toss ‘em.

Word vomiting can help you feel better (it’s just how it sounds). By clearing all those jumbled thoughts and scattered concepts, you achieve a clearer objective. Try it sometime.

A rough draft is supposed to be rough.

Sometimes the words come to you quicker than others. Be patient. That is merely the construct of a Writer’s mind. You’re a beautiful enigma.

A sentence written is a story progressing.

Writing is an endurance sport. You must pace yourself and exercise it daily.

You are still a Writer even when the words aren’t on the actual page.

You’re not obligated to a writing/posting schedule.

As you progress in your journey and gain more awareness, don’t sacrifice your style. Those beginning works are what define you. Hold onto them and don’t ever let them go.

You’re the only one cringing—

Remember that sometimes words are elusive and you don’t always have control over them, and that is OK. Sometimes they write themselves. Sometimes your characters come to life and break out into dance across your page. Dance with them. You can wrangle them back when the music stops. :)

There is nothing condemning or embarrassing about asking for a beta. Allow someone to help carry the load.

Allow people to cheer you on—even if they don’t read your work.

It’s OK if your writing style isn’t someone else’s preference.

Be your biggest cheerleader. Sometimes you are all you have.

You don’t need anyone’s approval except your own.

You love that trope/concept/story you just wrote? That’s all that matters. The end.

You will never write good. You will write you. And that is good.

Above all else: remember to write for you.🤍

#writers #fanfiction writers #writing encouragement #writer appreciation #writer support #writer struggles #writing motivation #writers tips #for writers #omg am I struggling.#hope these help you beautiful people #my writing #it’s a lil thing

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douxie-casperan · 4 years ago

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Rise of the Titans and the assassination Hisirdoux Casperan’s character development

I’ve been ranting so much since Wednesday morning that I finally condensed by thoughts of WHY this one subject keeps setting me off namely the utterly diabolical way they handled Douxie and Archie’s relationship in Rise of the Titans and how it wasn’t just enough to hit him with the nerf bat.

Please note I’m at the point where I literally cannot tell the difference between Aaron headcanons, Teny headcanons and my own they are all mixed together in the blender that does funky things. I also apologise for typo/weird wording it’s half 1 in the morning and I’d rather sleep than edit.

If asked to sum up Hisirdoux Casperan there are certainly several things that come to mind:

Sees the value in people as a whole and will find do anything if there is a chance of help someone out

Prefers tactics that disable/banish rather than kill an enemy yet willing and able to pull the trigger if circumstances become forced

While not academically inclined he is very capable of thinking on his feet and outside the box calling back to his time on the streets where a split-second decision making is the difference between being caught and not

Terrible at planning he’ll be in there figuring it out as he goes along which is what makes the previous point so vital to literally how he goes through life

A natural charmer that would let him talk his way out of trouble 9/10 providing a perfect cover for his distrustful nature and reluctance to be touched by random people

Very down to earth, humble and never one to brag unless outright sassing someone

Will bang out some hot tunes at the drop of a hat, his love of music has never wavered once since he caught the bug despite instrument hopping ironically becoming a jack of all trades much like his magic style

The earliest memories he can recall are him as a young boy lost in the woods where he was for an unknown amount of time before his soon to be familiar finds him amongst the roots covered in dirt and drying tears, there is nothing before that. Unbeknownst to him is the colour of his magic matches the blue of a lost mother’s eyes and the song that haunts his nightmares as much as fire could well be hers though there is no way to be sure. From that moment on Archibald, shortened to Archie, would become his entire world and their friendship only becoming closer during the years they prowled Camelot together trying to keep themselves in one piece until the fateful day Douxie tricks the wrong person leading him straight into the path of the famous wizard Merlin Ambrosius.

It's no real secret that Merlin is a very closed off person who keeps his emotions as well guarded as his secrets, prefers the style of negative reinforcement over positive encouragement and is a very strict perfectionist in his. At this point in his life he can be very easily described as a disaster that is genuinely doing his best with every little mistake held of his head and his future self when brought back to that time period is belittled by Lancelot (Errand boy) and Arthur (Boy) too meaning it’s hardly a wonder his confidence was very fragile revelling in the times where he could do things without being told off for it. With Morgana largely ignoring him too (Though personally I like to think as he got older she’d occasionally take an interest until the blistering arguments with their master started to talk over daily life) a certain disguised dragon would have remained a lifeline and give that physical affection he craved much like being told he’d done well never seemed able to earn.

With Killahead he’d lose that home and family he made leaving just the two of them behind struggling to figure out their place in the world that had abandoned them.

There wouldn’t have been the words for it back then but the way he had been treated prior was outright abusive instilling very bad habits into Douxie yet by irony he was always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt and help those in trouble without thinking earning a reputation as the Shepard of Fire. He refused to become like him seeking to be better, perhaps not as a wizard (Even though he was learning new charms and spells along the way) but certainly as a person. Despite everything he suffers through or witnesses in the intervening years, the loss of friends and kindling of far newer ones he never loses his good heart

That said is it any wonder that after rightfully sassing Merlin for resurfacing, ignoring his existence despite being in the same town and only visiting him to run a finding errand that all the confidence he’d managed to build completely from scratch after Camelot wavered causing him to fall back solely into trying impressing his old Master who was acting like his humble apprentice must have coasted the past few centuries who himself fell back into old habits of belittling? It’s only when Merlin started to truly listen and acknowledge that this was not the same Moppet he once knew after Excalibur was fixed that their relationship finally started to become more like equals. After the defeat of Janus the changeling that broke into the castle he touched Douxie’s shoulder with a genuine smile and for a second he simply didn’t know what to do because the old man never did this before his brain kicked into gear and realised he’d finally earned that one thing he’d been so desperate for his entire life: That in Merlin’s eyes he could be more than a failure who only caused problems for the closest thing to a father figure he’d ever had, never solved them.

A staff will be earned, history would be set back on trap by banishing Morgana tag teaming with Archie because they know one another inside and out, as promised he’d get the kids back to the present but soon after things would go badly wrong. They’d lose Jim and because of his very nature he’d make a gamble to try and get him back because that life is worth trying for just for in a moment of surprising selflessness Merlin would be sacrificed to save him. The only constant in his life apart from Archie would apologise, openly express pride and how the greatest thing he’d ever done was saving this orphan, call him son for the first and final time before turning into ash in his arms. There would be no time to grieve for things will barrel into the crescendo of Douxie sacrificing his own life to buy everyone time to escape because if they did that everything he’d ever done would be worth it with one last whispered goodbye.

(Zoe sees him fall, so does Archie – His heart would break if he was conscious just like theirs does when his body crumples into the ground)

On the very fringes of the Light Realm he is gifted one more conversation with Merlin in a truly heart-breaking sequence (THANKS TENY) where they can just talk without any fear of consequence or politics and just be completely honest. Douxie is allowed to stand equal to Merlin, to have the hug he’d needed since he was a child and be allowed to simply let go of every pretense and cry his heart out because this can never happen again. He’s allowed to say goodbye to both his master and Morgana who had both shaped so very much of his life but like the painting he’d always remained firmly in the long shadows of until that moment.

When Hisirdoux Casperan finally leaves Wizards if we just accidently deliberately put the shawarma back in along with checking in with Zoe before departure, it is with having learned to live during his wandering years but this is the point of true freedom because he can finally escape into his own light with Archie by his side to keep Nari out of the hands of those that would see the world harmed. It won’t be easy but it feels possible somehow even with the knowledge everything is simply running on borrowed time.

Then Rise of the Titans happens.

At first everything is genuinely fine! No more running, they engineer a solution shut the Order’s magic down to make them a lot less dangerous and potentially at least incapacitate them until they can come up with a longer-term solution but all the best laid plans and all that. Douxie’s quick thinking stops the train from crushing any of the people below and it’s a very him style move to switch places with Nari to stall for time because for some reason the plot disabled Claire from portaling her or any of the threatened people/heroes to safety. He openly sasses the Order despite knowing the consequences will be bad for him because once again he’s managed to trick them, buy time that at the other end isn’t even slightly utilised until he’s forced back into his own body in excruciating pain. Archie immediately mobs him with comfort just as he has done every single time the wizard is distressed or collapsed with exhaustion without thinking because that is what their bond is like, incredibly close and far more than the Soul Bond mark that connects them together. They’re very alike in that regard, you have to earn the right to touch while equally knowing exactly what form the other needs the most in that precise moment in a way very few others could.

Bar the moment of figuring out that an illusion is in place to hide where the Order is opening the Genesis Seals and the brief insistence on reconnecting with Nari somehow Douxie manages to forget everything that makes him who he is after this point choosing to stand in the background being very no thoughts head empty or can only use the most basic spells of his youthful days not the seasoned master wizard he should be. Nomura is treated like an innocent slip rather than an outright death he did absolutely nothing to prevent (Not to mention the stupid daytime thing) nor seems to care particularly about afterwards yet with Nari’s he’s allowed to openly grieve in a gorgeously animated visual showing how he’d failed to keep her safe despite everything. He did nothing to help here either mind despite allowing himself to be tortured in the same piece of media to keep her safe, just watched another loss happen right in front of his eyes in his conga long line of them.

Then there’s Archie, oh god then there was Archie.

The dragon who even here he’d been shown to have an incredibly close bond with him decides you know what sod that tell him goodbye I’m going to make a joke about having a kingdom now dad and me are trapped in here forever. Douxie on his part looked sad for all of three seconds saying that he hoped he’s happy like it's a pet that wandered out into the world one day and never came back instead of a lifelong companion that has been there for as long as he can remember. He was now completely alone in the world since Zoe was also written out entirely and because every bit of his background had been forgotten about it somehow meant nothing. This wasn’t “I know you miss him, I know you need to grieve but you are running out of time” moment like things had been with Charlie, this was “cool shapeshifting dragon cat is now stuck in a plot hole that’s a shame” with zero pay off or any of the genuine reaction that should have been there or hell even trying to Ohana him back that very second because it never should have happened in the first place. Then even this wasn’t enough somehow, they managed to de-power Douxie even further into uselessness bar the (Admittedly nifty!) sticky feet stunt, the one who fought Skrael and Bellroc to a stalemate was shunted aside with barely a thought and his head would somehow get even emptier.

The one person who knew the danger of time magic the most stood by and said nothing.

The one person who would suffer the most by a reset because the lynchpin to his issues would be asleep if you got it wrong and should have drilled it into Jim’s head the best time to aim for stood by and said nothing.

The one person who had just suffered the loss of his familiar, best friend and only family along with the almost sister like Nari stood by and said nothing.

Then to add further insult to injury the caption when Douxie and Archie is shown says Some go their entire lives living an existence of quiet desperation because every drop of his character growth, his ability to finally start addressing his trauma instilled back in the 12th century, the staff he longed for was instead openly mocked by going “Aww he got his cat friend back how nice!” Everything he’d rightfully earned and had now would be unable to progress until certain criteria are met because it hinges entirely on the Trollhunter going to Merlin’s tomb and there’s only so much your support network of two (One if she’s written out) can do, the root of the majority of his issues all stem from one man.

And this folks is why I’ve been going on multiple rants about Douxie in particular, everyone was hit with the out of character bat to some degree in this film but when they came for him they didn’t just stop after they took his legs out because they wanted him to suffer from something he’s never had any control over to begin with all over again. Abuse survivors deserve better, these characters deserve better and we as viewers deserve far far better writing than we were forced to endure.

#Ooc - Behind the curtains #Rise of the Titans #Rise of the Titans spoilers #RotT Spoilers #RoT spoilers #Wizards #Tales of Arcadia #ToAWizards #Hisirdoux Casperan #Douxie Casperan

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inkskinned · 5 years ago

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When the honey showed up, we all just took it inside. That was one of the things about it - it was always a little warm, always in the same simple jar and the nice plaid bow. Handmade-like. Most of us put it in our pantries or in the back of our cabinets, some put it in the fridge. we just thought to ourselves: gee, what a wonderful present.

I don’t know how long it took before we all had one. For a while, the most that would happen was two-minute feel-good op ed pieces in local newspapers. People would run little letters to the editor to find out the “culprit”. Sometimes there were faux-serious “investigations” when that parent freaked out about the possibility of drugs in honey. Most of the time, it ended quickly. After all, it was a nice gift from a neighbor, and it was yours. that was another thing. A house could be 122 people, and we’d all find our own jar on the doorstep, one at a time. we would know when it was ours and when it wasn’t, no matter how alike they looked. nobody ate it, at first. It was yours, and you wouldn’t eat it, and you couldn’t eat another person’s. it just wasn’t done. and the thing is - in that imaginary house, of 122 people? we’d all buy other honey. it was both there and took up space - but none of us thought of it as actually existing. we’d put down our storebought honey right next to it and think - why did i buy another? i’ve wanted to try this one for a while. and then the thought would simply be out of our head, because this is our third bag of baby carrots we have bought to let spoil again.

it was that one person who mentioned it on youtube. actually i think it was a vimeo “urban legends” series. some person with 6 followers who deleted like instantly. but then 6 people said something similar: everyone they knew had this one specific honey story. and then 12. and then all of a sudden we all woke up to “#honeyonthedoorstep” globally trending. we all posted our pictures of our honey and called each other liars and got into discourse fights with vegans and people without a sweet tooth. In 24 hours, it was running the media. 9-at-night serious news anchors leaned over to each other and said “now john, did you hear about this?” and despite their disbelief, they’d admit: i got the honey too. I think somewhere in march. maybe around the 5th. but i never ate it or thought anything of it. i just thought - what a nice gift.

By the end of the week, there were YouTube challenges and instagram memes and a netflix miniseries in the works. Lots of people tried to eat their honey, and most who “succeeded” were deemed a hoax - but truth be told? it’s not good tv to watch someone pick up honey and say “actually it’s not ready” or something similar and just decide to go do something else. i tried once, winedrunk and thinking i could be famous because it’s just honey. and i remember thinking that exact thing - it’s not ready. i realized i needed to go do dishes, this was stupid and kind of cringey.

and people freaked out, of course. outside of the jokes were parents who were asking if their children would get a jar one day, if this was a one-time thing. there were so many conspiracy theories the government finally had to say something (not that any of us were actually listening), there were massive hunts to find “the team of honey dispatchers”, there were plenty of false confessions, there were rallies to destroy the things. i don’t know if anyone actually did, because in the end? it was just a jar of honey, and it was yours, and it would be a shame to throw it at the floor just because the internet told you so. I moved three times that year - grad school, job, other better job. i always took mine with me. it wasn’t a real choice, it was just... like taking a plate that belonged to your grandmother, or carrying a song stuck in your head. it was just something that was going to come with, but it bore no special attention. and then back into the pantry it went.

two weeks later? we all just... moved on from talking about honey. it was in some memes, it was in BuzzFeed’s “top 5 weirdest stories (that are actually true)”, it was going to be the central plot of books and horror movies. but it wasn’t interesting, not really, anymore. it was like saying “all people need food”. it was just true, and not really changing. every consecutive conspiracy video got less likes, and by the end of the year, it was old enough to be a staple in bad stand-up comedy and in coming-of-age children’s shows.

nobody believed the first ones who ate it. the most traction that those posts got were from friends and family who barely remembered the whole fad. we all just figured it was a weird annual resurgence kind of thing.

but then people were definitely, absolutely, 100% eating their honey. i think i heard about one of my coworkers first. i didn’t know her; she was in another department. she told everyone it was very similar to “normal” honey. just a little tarter than she’d expected.

twitter was in an uproar. the honey was sweet to some. spicy to others. horrible, bitter, like a thousand stingers. it was perfect, it tasted like summer. most people said: it’s just honey, and absolutely regular.

those of us who weren’t ready were biting our fingernails for a while, going to our pantries, wondering - what the fuck do i mean it’s not ready? but it wasn’t ready.

like i said, it’s warm, always. But you just... know. one day you realize you really want honey on toast. or honey on tea, honey on a banana, just... honey. i remember opening it, but it didn’t feel like any more interesting than going to the cabinet for honey ever feels. i pour mine, usually, skipping a spoon because i’m usually too lazy. i was already in the middle of my meal before i realized - this is the honey. it’s not just a normal breakfast, it’s the breakfast, holy shit.

mine is just, you know. honey. it has a little hint of spice and sweet to it, which i actually quite like. it reminds me of this red pepper jelly my family used to get, and it makes me happy. but in the end? it’s honey. i don’t feel like i’m connected to a seventh realm. it’s good on oatmeal and bad in coffee no matter what some of you will tell me.

it’s just, you know. once you get your jar, and it’s ready, you have a little honey roughly every 24ish hours. it’s nothing absurd. it’s just honey, i mean - it’s like saying “you’re alive, so at some point, you should probably eat.” Most of us, it hasn’t really changed our schedules. it doesn’t seem to ever run out, which is good, because we’re always forgetting to check to see if we need more before we go shopping. for most of us? you don’t die if you miss a few days, even a few weeks, you don’t go crazy trying to get it back. sure, there’s weirdass cultists who worship it, but most of us just seem to think - it’s nice to have, and it’s okay to want this thing.

now, there’s some stuff out there, you know, about what it all “means”. and honestly, we all notice things. i’m not the only one who has seen that good people tend to think their honey tastes good and eat it normally. bad people tend to eat their honey frequently but hate every second of the eating. there are plenty who will snort and say “i’m a good person and i think it tastes like dirt” and plenty who will say “i’m a shit person and i think it tastes like the summer i finally kissed her”. and i don’t know, not the way i knew if it was ready, but it feels like a simple thing amidst all the messy. and it’s probably helpful that i think mine is, like most people’s, just a nice in-the-middle. i mean, the other day i heard it asked like a star sign - what’s your honey like?

there’s this one thing, though, you know. i choose to believe, because it might make me secretly happy. it’s like believing in nessie. i know realistically it’s probably just hearsay. but there’s this underground rumbling that, over time, the honey changes. just a little, every day, unnoticeable to most of us who go to work and do our best by others but still sometimes steal toilet paper. there’s these stories of people who made it rich by selling out their friends, who stole patents, who argue that others should charge for insulin - that they liked the honey, at first, but over time, it’s gone rotten. and similarly, every so often, there’s these stories of people who were normal “regular” honey people, who helped someone out of the bottom. who chose to be just a little bit better than they were the day before. who had moments of decisive kindness that changed them. they all say the same thing: since then, the honey has been amazing, and they work to keep it that way.

my grandmother and my mother were never surprised. they have this saying about bees and their secrets. my mother said to me: we have always had these tiny angels. they’re just giving us each a taste of the world we are making.

my grandmother later tells me, while watering the flowers, almost the exact same thing: they will haunt us when they go, because they keep books in their combs. and they see us giants, and no matter who we lie to? the world of bees will know.

#spilled ink #prose #short story #honey #i originally wrote this in my car while binge eating doritos happy mardi gras style #but then tumblr deleted it lmao bc i walked between 2 wifi connections #so if it sucks its bc i had to half-remember a good version

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