#why dont they want them to do important stuff

[alternating-b-w]

a lot of people nowadays, when consuming media, do not have the ability to adjust their mindset and expectations on what should happen to the actual events of the story. people expect found family partially because they lack emotional immaturity or life experience.

i don't want to sound like a snob, but the popular fiction landscape is dominated nowadays by fanfiction or wannabe fanfiction- genre fiction that labels itself with ao3 tropes. you know the sort: cozy fiction, brandon sanderson type stuff, or honestly? if i see an anime genre in a native english language novel, like magical girls or mecha, i run. they are best suited to visual media for a reason. this is my personal opinion, so don't jump me for this, but these works don't tend to deal with emotional matters in a complex, subtle matter. when there is a romance story, you get a character who says "i hate this guy, he's kind of cute- i mean a BITCH." when someone suffers, their response is measured or defined in what angst trope do they respond with. they are cut and paste characters designed for emotional gratification, behaving relatively similar across the board regardless of how someone about the same age, gender and in the circumstances as those characters would behave. i could further go on about how how this in part stems from not really examining the culture and mannerisms of the opposite sex (and yes, i used the word sex, because it's important to analyse gendered socialisation when understanding how someone relates to their gender in present, cis or trans) to oneself when writing, but i digress. my main point is that the anime community tends to be bedfellows with those sorts of literature fans.

meanwhile, golden kamuy doesn't really have stock characters, aside from maybe shiraishi.

for example, sugimoto's a wanderer with ptsd, but there's no mystique or affected melancholy to his trauma, i.e. no real whump-bait. a less thoughtful writer would stop the brakes on the story midway to kick in the ye olde 1900s japanese therapy-speak and have him solve his issues that way, or have him cry and open up about his trauma regardless of him not being the sort of person to do that.

likewise, tsurumi's a manipulator, but he isn't a mustache twirler or a ragyo kiryuin clone- he's eccentric, charming and makes his men feel they owe him without him ever holding it over them. the actions he takes in the story create a logical conclusion of his men being loyal to him. a lesser author would have created a character who is a manipulator because they said so, even if in real life the character's men would all actually scared of him or would probably be offput by him trying to overstep their boundaries.

then, there are the characters who are 'useless', but are still present such as kadokura, kirawus, or vasily. we understand their emotional states, but equally that the main cast dont want or need to be their best friends; this making everyone feel real because it shows where the main casts priorities lie! kado and kira were certainly aware theyre werent pulling their weight compared to anji or ushiyama, but they didnt really give a fuck because kadokura had already did hijikata a massive solid with the prison break-in. meanwhile, vasily can't even speak japanese and followed sugimoto's group for the sole purpose of jumping ogata. he wasn't there to make friends and the story's not, at its core, about making friends, so why on earth would vasily end up being friends with sugimoto? gk respects every single character's agency and motivations more than making the reader feel warm and fuzzy.

however, when one doesnt think critically about characters and how their circumstances should impact them, it's easy for one to default to the mental comfort zone: tropes. likewise, when one doesn't spend much time in a highly competitive environment like the events of gk, they cant quite comprehend the fragile nature of the relationships made in those circumstances. so, to maximize emotional gratification, a somewhat friendly group now becomes a found family.

now the ogata issue starts when when the reality peeks through- ie, that every character bar asirpa has tried to kill each other at some point, the classic fanon 'fuck canon i do what i want' mindset kicks in. here's the thing- ogata is one of the only characters to which you really can't 'fuck canon' your way out of. even usami's quirky enough that you can easily box him in as the yandere sort, but ogata killed his mom, dad and brother over deep-seated daddy issues. it is very hard to defang the character into making him have the found-family appeal, especially as the story progressed and he went from weird quiet guy with sad backstory (which is still workable) to telling asirpa "do it pussy you won't." there is no way to turn ogata as we know him into an archetype fit for emotional gratification without removing a lot of what makes ogata ogata, as he would rather kill himself than show emotional vulnerability or change his mindset, so he becomes the odd one out when talking about the different groups in gk. thats what i think.

I mean... I am a person without a lot of attachments. I don't have a lot of trust in people, and I generally view people as simply everybody on their own path.

So then when I read other people's interpretations of gk, I'm often confused because I don't really understand where they're coming from.

For example, the idea of loyalty seem to be really important to a lot of other fans. Ogata is interpreted by almost everyone as a untrustworthy, with no loyalties.

But I don't understand why anyone in this story needs to have loyalties or why loyalty is even a good thing.

Everybody has completely different motivations and wants.

Tsurumi wants to split off a piece of the military, and use it to regain territory in Russia Where his wife and child are buried.

Hijikata says that he is looking to revive the Republic of Ezo, but actually he doesn't have the resources, or the time to do that so really he's looking for one last great battle and to die under that banner rather than to set up and new independent political entity.

Shiraishi has no real goals and just likes his friends and would love to get some money out of it. He later takes on Boutarou's goal.

Ogata has no real concrete achievable goal and is looking for an abstract sense of worth.

Sugimoto also has no real concrete goal and is using the gold hunt to avoid confronting the fact that he really has no place to return to. He says he has to get the money before he returns to ume, but this is just a prerequisite he set for himself, to delay returning. Ume isn't waiting for him, has no idea that he's out trying to get the money for her, and doesn't even know if he's alive. Despite all of the importance that he places on returning to her, he is a non-entity in her life, in the same way that Ogata is a non-entity in his father's life. The similarities and differences between Ogata and sugimoto is best left for another post.

Asirpa...... is a 12-year-old girl and is still trying to make sense of the world.

Many of the soldiers don't have any goals of their their own other than following orders or impressing their commander. People like Inenaga, ushiyama don't really have any aspirations for the gold. They just seem to be along for the ride since they have map tattoos.

My point is....

These are all clearly people with individual and completely different goals, to which the gold is just a means to an end. So I don't understand why loyalty is considered important, in fact I don't understand why it's a thing at all.

So given that ..... I don't understand why Ogata is considered a disloyal betrayer....

When I read comments by other readers, it really feels like there's an expectation that these groups be a found family of sorts. A place of trust and loyalty where people support and mentor each other and it makes no sense to me.

Like that's something you expect from the military. Members of the military are supposed to be brothers in against a common enemy led by a father figure and it is explicitly pointed out that this is not the case.

People bully each other, sometimes severely. The father figure is self-interested and the only sees his men as pawns. There are shifting loyalties and factions with their own goals in the same unit. The military is not a family substitute. Gold hunt groups are not a family substitute. Even family do not present the kind of loyal loving support that people seem to expect.

So I just..... I straight up have no understanding of why Ogata is considered to be a betrayer, because I don't understand how loyalty is a thing here. I mean to me, the very concept of loyalty in this story seems to be a lie used to manipulate people seeking identity and belonging, and have them be willing to die for the group.

When I look around on forums and discussions it seems like most people do not share this interpretation. People interpret media and events is through the lens of their own experiences. And I actually keep wondering if I'm missing something huge. Like if other people interpret loyalty in a totally different more meaningful way, what are their experiences that support this belief?

Just Curious

TLDR: this is not a story about found family as much as you want it to be. Instead it's about each person finding a place for themselves....not everyone is looking for a family.

Edit: I guess this is sort of meta. The reason I have this interpretation because I have a long history of working for corporations, and despite the found family culture that they try to create and all the team building exercises, people are constantly gunning for each other, trying to get people fired, taking credit for other people's work, making people look bad in front of management to elevate their own status, trying to jump ship and go to other companies in the same industry with proprietary knowledge... so my take on this whole story is that..."this is simply how people operate."

Like I've been on team building exercises with the company where everybody an outdooring trip and bonds over canoeing, and then immediately the next day people get back to trying to get each other fired.

That's just how people are. People form connections over all sorts of things, but that doesn't mean that they aren't out for themselves or that the connection will always exist, or that the connection is deep or that the person is loyal to you.

[chaifootsteps]

i think the dragon fucking thing is the dumbest shit people have gotten on you for because there really truly is no real world equivalent to it. like yeah lizards exist but the biggest ones are about the size of a small or medium sized dog, and all without what likely makes a dragon sexy to you! which is the huge size and sentience and the sharp teeth and all that good stuff! it's just monster fucking to me. because what else is it comparable to?

also i honestly just feel like people want to have their morally right opinions in a community built upon critical analysis that talks about how problematic certain things are in these shows to a sometimes excessive degree for cartoons about demons in hell, while ignoring all the genuine good you've done for helping vivs actual victims speak out and have a voice/platform, to make them feel better about their critical voices, because you dont just. complain that viv is a bad writer who botches adult topics in her adult shows like a femcel 14 year old on wattpad. (although you still do that and it's absolutely warranted because she does, i just feel like part of the reason people feel comfortable coming to you is because you're honest about who you are and what you enjoy in fiction, you're mature enough to understand morality in fiction vs morality irl and the difference between it, and obviously the fact that you're an anonymous voice who can easily archive this info for years to come compared to other websites. and to me there's a major difference between the stuff youre writing and the stuff vivs writing based on scale and audience. you aren't going to make anyone want to fuck their pet lizards, but vivs certainly given lots of people a warped idea of consent and why someone should be harassed if you look at her likes.)

anyway, this ask was kinda long and i dunno what else you could contribute besides a thank you, so if you feel like it, could you give a list of the top 5 fictional (i can't believe im saying fictional because DRAGONS ARENT REAL,) dragons you'd bone in a heartbeat?

Thanks, Anon, I appreciate it! <3

I think it's one of the more unsettling things they come at me for, because let me tell you, the idea that dragons = bestiality came up out of nowhere. A couple of years ago, the big trend in art/writing online was sexy dragons as the preferred love interest for princesses, and it was everywhere. And then, suddenly, they were problematic and I was getting 19 year olds arguing with me that it was "against federal law."

That weird thing you like, even if it's considered utterly vanilla today? I promise you, it'll be next. It's already starting to happen with anthros.

I think liking weird fictional things openly and unabashedly, and being able to argue in favor of why you do, is important. I think it's normal, human, and makes it makes everything safer on the whole, and makes it easier to root out the actual creeps.

But yes! Dragons!

Draco, my second major fictional crush. The first was The Beast.

2. Smaug.

3. Paarthurnax

4.Ventuswill

5. Literally every dragon daddy in the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. That game had me sweating.

[puhpandas]

just watched all the way through john fuhnaffs recent theory and like godd he really is cooking he truly is onto something but like. the idea that Cassies dad did all of thos important stuff and is connected to the mimic and built mxes and did all this shit is like. what do Gregory and vanessa even have to do with anything anymore at this point

[neonhellscape]

okay its no secret i dont buy into marazhai being the persona he puts on. so as i've officially met him in game now, im making a list of all the in-game reasons i think he's a bit of an idiot [which i love btw. i find him far more compelling if he's a bit stupid/weird and he's trying so hard not to be but you just know nobody in commorragh is inviting him to parties]

the very first time you get a glance of him on a rooftop and. 'deal with this' "of course" proceeds to just walk off like 3 seconds after the other two

ambushes you. has you cornered. is in optimal position to kick your ass frankly, high ground and better weapons and utilising shock against you. ...he bitches at you for a while, gets insulted, then runs off into the forest with a maniacal cackle

heinrix fired a mild insult [considering what he's like to everyone else its barely an insult] and he took big enough issue with it to start saying how he'll break him and turn him into a pet. oh sure dude you're responding super well to this mild comment from the guy who accidentally insults everyone and their entire ancestral line at some point

i think it says something that he's learned to speak your language fluently too. that Has to be some kind of Yikes moment to admit publicly in drukhari culture. buried family secret great great grandfather drukhari-georg learned to speak mon keigh and now we claim he just spoke oddly because was shot in the head as a child to prevent the shame

he also knows the mon keigh lore that says youre a super special little guy as rogue trader and actually LISTENS to the fact you're the special little guy as rogue trader. and he does treat you as more equal/with more respect than the other characters. thats not just a drukhari culture yikes thats what gets you checked for a concussion or brain damage

literally socially atrocious enough its believed he's working with you [read: with you. not using you, not manipulating, cooperating. this is a big difference i feel] and only he himself doesnt believe it

ignore the fact he eventually DOES work with you which. is its own follow up statement

challenges you to fight him, to give chase then and there. i made him wait while i went through english government simulator where i queued for multiple days, did multiple day/week voidship trips back and forth, got distracted by accidentally starting jae's romance, pasqal telling me to servitorise her, getting blackout drunk with her, shipwide broadcast tm, giving her a voidship, her getting me a space cat, attacked by pirates, dealt with a plague, explored a few extra systems.......................

he destroys your palace. ...its rebuilt effectively within a week. most of the damage is in bodies which are just sent to the poor district to rot [almost feels worse than the damage done good job imperium]

the throne has claw marks. he could've blown it up or shot it or piled corpses on it but no he wanted to sit on the fancy chair and so turned into a common housecat mauling the sofa arm

how long was he just sitting there lounging on that chair? again see how long i kept him waiting. he was just sitting there trying to find a comfy position on this [for him] kinda small chair JUST so he could briefly taunt, break your window with his space motorbike, jump off the chair in a dramatic [but not gunna lie not that impressive] feat of gymnastics, then fly out. he doesnt even shoot at you as he leaves

i will continue my list as i see more that entertain me

[reel-fear]

Genuinely so curious who Mike thinks is gonna be buying The Cage or the new DCTL GN bc with the way he tweets as far as he's concerned, it's not gonna be:

The queer people he has actively admitted he will never show any representation of in the games.

2. The POC he has actively fought against representing in his franchise. [Who he also mocked for thinking they would be represented in his franchise]

3. The Bendy fandom which has always been concerned with topics of diversity esp in the sense of queer people since its creation. Who he has responded to really poorly esp in regards to the GN.

4. The fans who critique him. [He blocked me for doing so lol]

5. His fans in general who he tweets about like this currently. [He's being vague about why people were mad at him or sent him 'nasty messages' because if you actually looked into why you'd see he was in the wrong. Either way, a very hateful way to speak abt ur own fanbase.]

Reminder while Mike is trash talking his fans he has always treated them rather poorly. The fans who won the fanart contest for Chapter 5 never got their posters actually in game due to it being rushed. Not only was chapter 5 a big slap to the face story wise, but it was literally so rushed he couldn't be bothered to add in the art his fans gave him for his game FOR FREE. [Meatly blames this on a crazy timeline, reminder him and Mike are the literal ceos of this company. The proposal of future updates here is also pretty cruel considering Mike nowadays happily admits he corrupted Chapter 5's source code and therefore literally can't update it At All currently. Because he is a moron]

At least they got to be in Boris and the dark survival, and by that I mean that was the Only game they got to be in so far, isn't that just treating your fans like you love them? Shoving their hard work into a spin off game almost nobody has played or addresses much. [Hell, who knows if with the Lone Wolf rebrand they'll even stay there. In which case they'll be in None of the games, only in the credits of BATIM]

6. The Bendy fans who just generally disagree with him on stuff. Like the new ink demon design where there is literally a public poll showing people generally prefer the old one.

7. The Bendy fans who can see he is actively lying to them. To their fucking faces.

He says this has always been the case, but screenshots and links to tweets regarding the books being canon prove it was not. Does he really think bendy fans are stupid or something? [Unless he's admitting here he lied to Kress when he told her the books were canon which sounds worse!]

8. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of giving money to a guy who laid off tons of employees then afterwards thought it was a great idea to express his anti-union views! Also brag about how good of an employer he was, according to his employees, he was not!

So in summary; Mike is an awful person who has not learned anything from the awful things he did. I will not be purchasing The Cage because, combined with this and his absolute refusal to take any kind of critique or see any differing interpretation of his franchise, I have no reason to think my problems with the franchise will ever be addressed or fixed. I probably will pirate The Cage along with any future Bendy Products [Including the movie] and will do my best to avoid giving it any kind of monetary support. Unless this changes any time soon, I can't see myself making anymore positive Bendy posts soon.

Mike has just managed to make it so hard to speak positively or optimistically of this franchise when he's so willing to broadcast how little he cares about it or its fans. I'm at the point where I refuse to pull any of my punches with my problems with it. What's the point of trying to play nice with my critique when either way the people creating it don't care?

So with this post, I want to invite anyone who feels similarly about the franchise to tell me, make a post or send an ask talking about how all of this makes you feel. It may not change how things are, but genuinely seeing other people share my feelings of anger makes me feel better. It feels nice to see when other people share our same concerns and worries. I'd also love to know if anyone else thinks they'll be avoiding purchasing Bendy products over this.

I'm not forcing anyone to participate in it nor trying to say anyone who doesn't supports mike but genuinely maybe if we can collectively decide to boycott things like the movie, graphic novel and The Cage... It might at least make the bendy devs acknowledge how much they have destroyed their own fandom's faith and trust in them.

The way Mike tweets about his actions like he had no control over why people were mad at him at least proves to me he takes NONE of it back nor regrets it. If you didn't know about his actions and only went off his tweets, you would be led to believe Mike has been needlessly picked apart by fans over things he couldn't control [or in his own words, had his words twisted and taken out of context]. That is not how you speak about your actions if you have actually learned better from them.

anyway, that has been my bendy dev callout post. This is an open invitation to anyone feeling similarly upset about the way the franchise is going to talk about it. It's genuinely nice to see how people feel about this and the more we talk about the more it's likely the bendy devs are forced to address our concerns. I don't think they will but hey, that's why I'm not gonna support them with my money anymore nor am I gonna be nice to them in any content I make critiquing Bendy. I mean I'm also basically making this post just in case anyone asks me Why I feel this way towards to bendy devs/as a way to respond to anyone who thinks I am too harsh in my critique in the future.

As always, it seems the best part of Bendy isn't actually anything about canon but about what the fan's are creating with the ideas Bendy failed to do anything interesting with.

Also the books, the books slap.

[dawntheduckrb]

I love how you can purposely cater you internet experience to block most politics so you can mentally detox since your media consumption was becoming unhealthy, and still have a whole week of attempting to regain your hope in humanity become completely undone by wanting to eat lunch with your mom (ramble in tags, feel free to ignore; take care of yourselves first <3)

[bluupity]

Currently reading Ao Ashi for the first time. 100+ chapters in with no hint of stopping the binge and I can officially say that this is in my personal top 3 favorites in sports manga, alongside Eyeshield 21 and Baby Steps. It's got great art, thorough character development + interesting characters, and engaging matches that really gets you pumped!!!

[b4kuch1n]

dip pen ink comm batch 4 complete! for Ezechiel, @ohwwhuv, and Leo :]

[angy-grrr]

There is gonna be more than that coming from the poll, but whatever it is vote Kacchan/Deku for best hero. Idc who wins i just need them to be together again

if they just announced it today without saying anything before, I would probably immediately do it.

Right now im just bitter because of the hype -I thought it would at least slightly relate to the actual story (adaptations of other stories, extra content for the volume which once again may I remind everyone is extremely short, almost half what a manga volume usually looks which is a huge problem).

This disappointed me extremely, as its not even related to any content from the manga beyond the characters it uses. I get that many ppl will work on this, and that artist will get excited over being able to get the spotlight, some will be able to ask specific questions, and a character will get a statue and a movie.

Still extremely disappointed because of the "special project will be announced on the 5th *wink wink*".

I can't feel excitement over it as, in my mind, I lost something that felt better -more content related to the story. So at best this would be "oh cool I can try it", a feeling pretty similar to the other announcements -not my favorite thing in the world, but I wont reject it and try to see what comes out of it.

This isnt at best to me right now

[linabirb]

my pc has not been able to work properly yesterday and i think it's not gonna do anything today either. i can't even turn it off. help

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

rewatching 13s era for me is not so much diminishing returns as it is something opposite and eviler...............increasing losses? increasing losses

[hiveswap]

Im going to fucking throw up

[orcelito]

So I've had no time to write today bc work etc etc but I've been thinking about it like All day and

I have chapter 17 all plotted out, and tbh could potentially write it in a matter of days, brain willing. It's finally back to Not action, which as fun as action is to write its also fucking Hard. So it'll be nice not having to agonize over the sound of a fucking chain (Twice) etc etc. Add in the fact that it's gonna be angsty as hell (angst is always the Easiest for me to write) & I rly think I could knock this one out quickly.

And the Great news is that. Examining the timeline and what I have planned...

Wolfwood is definitely arriving in chapter 18. And not at the end like I'd suspected. No, he's probably gonna be there towards the Start.

I've gotten through the two most difficult arcs to write for early ITNL, so the ball is really rolling now. We are Finally getting places...

[arolesbianism]

Man oni can't do this to me I'm supposed to be preparing for artfight but all I can think abt is Them™ from the second I wake up to the moment I go to bed how am I supposed to prepare in these circumstances 😔

[moss-flesh]

my coworker asked me about baldurs gate and its like a dam broke

[cottageivy]

trying to decide if i should go ahead and read the sun and the star now despite not having read the last two trials of apollo books or to just go ahead