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theveryworstthing · 3 years

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So over on patreon Trevor asked for my take on the Addams Family and I grew up LOVING the Addams family movies so here we are. Instead of doing a straight up style interpretation, I decided to do a full on design challenge, using the characters as bases to make a black southern gothic Addams au. I actually drew the kids first, using the character bases of Wednesday and Pugsley to create some delightful kiddos I'm calling Sunday and Blanche. I of course then redesigned Gomez and Morticia into Carlisle and Mortesha.

The Addams have a very specific high aristocratic goth aesthetic (they've got a butler and nobody really works among other things) so in this re-imagining I wanted to go with vibes that run a little more middle class/upper middle class. I thought it would be interesting to think about what would be considered weird and off-putting in an entirely different culture, and how being a big ol' goth is way less controversial than it used to be.

I tried to keep this short (HAHAHAHAHAHA) so I didn't spin off into an essay about villain coded families, black people in the horror genre, and normalcy as it pertains to social survival, but just...bits of that are in these designs and lore. Keep that in mind.

Also I made the kids twins because they've flip flopped in age so much in different media and also twins run in my family (i'm the daughter of one). And let's face it, I'm pulling a lot of their southern gothic traits from living as a southern goth so *shrug*.

10 thousand pounds of lore incoming loooooooooool.

The Parents

From the moment he saw her he knew that there was a 50/50 chance of him either never making it out of that swamp alive or marrying the figure that was creeping out from under the distant willow tree in a black cocktail dress. The third time she found him trussed up in one of her traps, he complimented her rope work and asked if she'd like to go out sometime after his head wound stopped bleeding.

Or while it was still bleeding.

If she was into that.

Some kids and a mysteriously burnt down Piggly Wiggly later, their love is still as strong and inescapable as a bear trap in a sink hole.

Carlisle Guillermo (now Addams through marriage but I wanted to give him two first names for a name since Gomez has two last names) makes a vaguely described living practicing ‘law’ around town. A loophole king, people come to him from miles around with contracts signed in blood, fights over chunks of hair buried in their rivals’ yard, dehydrated primate hands, memories that seemed like dreams until the evidence of their happenings became too real, and other regular Legal Items asking for counsel which he is all too happy to give. For a price. Sometimes that price is a homemade pie and sometimes it’s a million dollars, depends on who you are. Whatever you’re asked to pay it’s worth that price, and if you try to scam him out of work or he just plain doesn’t like you? Well. He knows how to twist a contract better than anything at the crossroads.

And he always gets his due.

He doesn’t just serve the local (living)humans though, there are many things that need proper legal representation in this day and age. You wouldn’t believe how many city councils try to build on sacred burial grounds even after he lets them know that his ghostly clients are totally gonna haunt the FUCK out of the ensuing shitty condos and curse their families for all eternity. At least 50% of his energy goes towards dealing with real estate bullshit.

Carl is an excitable and good natured(?) man who loves his family, cigars, dancing, and his many knife-based hobbies. People find him very charming once they get past the feeling that they’re talking to a sultry gator badly disguising itself as a human. I didn’t put a ton of deep thought into designing him, mostly I wanted to make a middle aged dude who looked like he would have been voted ‘most likely to smooch the literal devil’ in high school. Tbh he probably has, but no demonic ex’s can compare to his lovely wife~

Mortesha Addams(her name was already perfect so I just tweaked it)is a woman of many talents. A self proclaimed homemaker, she prides herself on a greenhouse full of Concerning Foliage, a beautiful wasp apiary, and a coop full of what are probably chickens that she keeps for what are probably eggs. She’s also an avid creator of the outsider art that can be seen around the estate. She has taken on the family business of selling her homemade goods in a little stall by the road just outside the swamp with her mom, and makes pretty good money doing so. A surprising amount of poison gets bought in quaint southern towns.

Speaking of poison, people who come out to the edge of the swamp to buy it are usually carrying a lot of secrets around, and Mortesha knows most of them. It’s not like she pries the truth out of people, it just so happens that many nervous hellos eventually turn into the tragic backstory power hour if she’s alone with a client for long enough. She supposes that’s just how people are. Despite the fact that the Addams are very active in the community (whether the community likes it or not) she especially, as a direct descendant of the first Addams matriarch, is seen as…Well not an outsider because the community feels A Certain Way about outsiders and despite it all the Addams are their people, but maybe something like an exception. They feel like whatever weirdness they’re hiding can’t be weirder than any given Addams, so they get a little loose with their words.

This is amusing to her, since Addams’ don’t naturally keep the kind dramatic secrets that their surface level prim and proper neighbors do. It’s much more fun to openly talk about those things.

Do they have a sadly decrepit yet terrifying grandma up in the attic? Yeah, like three. They got a tv, all the creepy porcelain dolls they could want, and they’re close to family. Where do you keep your gram-grams?

Any bodies buried on the property? Yeah some, but most are thrown to the gators.

Any creeping through the balmy summer night with ill intentions? Yeah dude, everyone loves a nice family stroll.

What about dangerous forbidden love? If an adult Addams isn’t incorporeal then they’re either queer or in a torrid romance with some person/thing mysteriously drawn to that awful swamp. Sometimes both at the same time. Most times actually.

Mortesha would know.

The current head of the Addams family is just as outgoing as her husband but a lot quieter and harder to read. She never really seems to get mad about much and always has a genteel smile for everyone whether they deserve it or not. A seven foot tall human shaped “Oh, bless your heart”. A perfectly composed Lady even when she’s, oh I dunno, burning down a Piggly Wiggly. You know. A regular southern mom. Chat her up at the hair salon for 50% off a jar of wasp honey with your next purchase of a mysterious but foreboding packet of herbs.

Designing her was pretty easy because I just drew a lankier Grace Jones and called it a day. I had some problems with her outfit simply because if we were going HARD southern gothic then she’d probably be wearing a white/cream dress with a fuller skirt but I thought keeping the silhouette and the black was more important. She’s supposed to be an anti southern gothic southern gothic character anyway. A woman who looks like she has a million secrets who is actually the most open person you could meet. For better or worse. The red hair came from a coloring error that I really ended up liking (my mom had red hair her whole childhood that only darkened up in high school so I can buy that an Addams can be naturally fire engine red) and the veil was to get more of that classic Morticia silhouette in there.

The Children

Sunday and Blanche are the twin children of Carlisle and Mortesha Addams. Some say the Addams clan got their cursed homestead when a wealthy local businessman made a deal with the devil and lost, leaving his grand mansion to his least favorite maid and cutting his losses once he realized that the swamp would do everything it could to drag the house into the water and take what was owed with its horrible curse. Others say that the family has just always squatted there and no one really cares because man, fuck that particular swamp. Have you been in there? Absolute horror show.

Anyway.

Blanche is the more outgoing sibling and quite the engineer/mad scientist in the making. He started going grey at 2 weeks old but considering he was also rocking some extra fingers, toes, and a tiny tail (he takes after his dad), his parents just put it on the 'not life threatening' pile and decided not to worry about it. He's the kind of smart that teachers find utterly infuriating, less a dog eagerly learning and obeying commands and more a hyena who keeps teaching itself how to pick locks. He has a few friends in his school's robotics club (which they honestly allowed him to make so the school could contain his... creations) but mostly hangs out with his sister exploring the swamp. They find all sorts of neat things in there! wedding rings, suspiciously lumpy garbage bags, cloaked cultists who can't read private property signs, it's an adventure every day!

Blanche is all about experimentation with his creations, his look, and his tether to this mortal coil. Is lipstick a cool thing to try? Let's find out. Can he get out of a strait jacket fast enough after being pushed into the depths of the swamp by his sister? let's find out. He's not dead yet and confused local doctors can attest to the fact that he's rarely attained more than a bad bruise so he's pretty set on continuing to kiss rattlesnakes on their cute little heads and have his sister practice her knife throwing at him until that fact changes.

Blanche is very much a country goth. Cowboy boots (customized by his mom), knife, and lighter are daily accessories. He likes to wear the crusty swamp jewelry they find (the rust adds a splash of color!) and despite appearances he does try to keep himself neat. He's just got natural Grunge Colors and a tendency to wear clothes he likes until they fall apart. Pugsley always seemed the most modernly styled to me (which might just be because little boys clothes have been the same for a long time) so I wanted Blanche to be the most purposely fashionable Addams. Everyone else is goth by nature, but he's the only one truly familiar with goth as an alternative fashion.

I got really into designing Blanche because honestly, I find Pugsley to be the most boring member of the family. And he was hard to design! I had to mess with his vibe a lot to get him looking how I wanted. I know he's supposed to evoke an " 'evil' little boy next door who's parents never reign him in", but that's just goth Dennis The Menace. I's 2020. We can at least go queer goth Calvin.

Sunday was much easier to design. Wednesday was my favorite as a child (of course) and I really wanted to keep the spirit of her look while adding things like billowy sleeves (it gets HOT down here), big poofy twists instead of braids, and a nice tie. She's a professional after all, been running the local pet cemetery since she was 6 and the previous groundskeeper met with an unfortunate accident after telling her that tarantulas don't have souls. Her specialty is creating beautiful naturalistic animal funerals similar to those that Maquenda (https://linktr.ee/artofmaquenda) makes, and she takes pride in creating miniature dioramas of her subjects after each burial which she uses as a kind of 3D catalog for future clients.

She really wants to try out her skills on humans one day. Well. Publicly try out her skills. Lotta random bodies float into the swamp. None of them have turned down her requests for diorama models so far. Most seem downright flattered. Plus, she usually figures out which graveyard/crime scene they floated over from and gets her parents to give them a lift back. She'll even help enact terrifying revenge from beyond the grave on whoever put them there if she's not, y'know, busy.

Besides arts, crafts, and pet based funerary arrangements, Sunday is an avid lover of archery (any ranged weapon really), books where little fantasy adventure animals die dramatic deaths, and history. She is That Kid who eagerly raises her hand when asked who Christopher Columbus was and ends up being sent out of class after 15 minutes for making 'a scene'. Her favorite party trick is just picking an item in the room and talking about how it relates to either some obscure historical figure with a buck wild life or a horrible disaster. At least one charity pancake breakfast ended with children in tears after her vivid description of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

Social-wise, while Wednesday is the girl that people ask to smile because they think she'd, "look so pretty", Sunday is rarely asked anything at all. People just kind of assume from her quiet nature (in between horrible history facts) that she's angry all the time and that she hates everyone. This is untrue. She hates some people but she's ambivalent to most everyone else and even downright friendly if you bother to talk to her like a person instead of a terrifying cryptid. Like, she IS a terrifying cryptid but she's also a little girl.

That’s about it for now. One day I might do the other family members but for now I’m happy with the four I’ve redesigned. Making an au! Lurch in a family that doesn’t do butlers could be interesting. Over on patreon I put forth that he could just be Motesha’s mute little brother (similar bone structure) but Amy Crook had the nice idea of quote: “ a mysterious "cousin" that "helps around the house" whose origins are both long in the past and faintly unsettling. He's good for lifting heavy things, like that tank of propane you're about to throw into the burning Piggly Wiggly... “ which i now consider canon. Who's kid is he? How old is he? Not important. Anyone willing to commit arson with you is family.

Annnnyway. This challenge was a lot of fun! I love indulging in AU’s.

#long post #the addams family #Character Design #au #design challenge #i am incapable of doing a design challenge like a normal person #oh god i forgot the cut lol

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alirhi · 3 years

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Loki ranting

Okay. I had this thought in my head of like just compiling links of all the Loki shit I've posted/reblogged so far so that when I get into a conversation about the show and how it fucking disgusted me, I can just be like "here. here's this masterlist post, go read all this shit. This is my entire argument, and not only mine, but a lot of stuff posted by people far more intelligent and level-headed and eloquent than I am, whom I happen to agree with." Because the alternative is constantly getting fired up all over again, and that is exhausting.

BUT! I'm stupid and don't know how tumblr works. Apparently I can't just be like "give me all the Loki-tagged shit I've got" I can only search all the Loki-tagged shit on all of tumblr. And I'm not scrolling back through all of my posts. I talk too fucking much for that shit 😂

So, I'll try to remember all of my grievances with how the MCU has treated Loki, and all of the excellent posts made by other, equally upset fans, and put it all together here under this nice, neat little cut for everyone else's sanity and scrolling convenience...

For people who actually read my shit fairly regularly - bless you, you crazy, patient people. I love you! - this is going to be a lot of repetition of shit you've already read. Probably at least twice. I'm passionate and I have a terrible memory lol. Sorry.

Anyway, first, for those who don't know me and haven't been following my explosions of rage for the past couple of months, some quick background: I do not read comic books, so Loki's Marvel comic canon means nothing to me. I know almost nothing about it. The reason I'm so in love with the character in the MCU is because I am an eclectic witch and the deity I've actively loved and worshiped the longest in my life (literally for as long as I can remember) is Loki. So when he was mentioned in The Mask, I squeed. When they named Matt Damon's character after him in Dogma, I cheered.

When Thor came out in 2011, I just about died from happiness. I was hungry for any representation of this underappreciated god, no matter what it was. I didn't even bitch about how underpowered he was, because at least he was there. But I'm getting slightly ahead of myself.

I can hear anyone reading this going "Why Loki? Isn't he, like, evil? Like basically the Norse version of The Devil?" Because I heard all this shit irl all the fucking time. And no. So let me give you a quick rundown of who Loki actually is.

Loki is a Trickster God. He's often referred to as the God of Mischief. He is not and never was evil, simply chaotic and hedonistic. Loki Laufeyjarson was the son of Laufey (that's mama; they changed her to a man for some reason in the movie) and Fárbauti. Right from the start, from his name, we get a sign of how Loki goes against traditional norms of the time, because in Norse culture, families were patrilineal, and surnames were "son/daughter of father" (which would have made him Loki Fárbautitason), not the mother. But Loki's surname is matrilineal. Feminist icon woo! lol

Though he's a Jotunn, Loki is counted among the Gods (Aesir) in Norse tradition. Depending on his mood, he is alternately helpful or disruptive to the other Gods. I'm not gonna sit and teach a whole text class on him lol but I'll use my favorite example of Misunderstood Loki - the conception of Sleipnir!

So, get this shit. This is also part of why I DO NOT follow Odin and never fucking will (a very small part, but still part of the reason). So, the other Norse Gods are petty motherfuckers, and they wanted some shit built but didn't want to pay the dude doing the building. So they were like "okay, if you can get it done in X amount of time, we'll pay you, but if you can't manage it NO MATTER WHAT, this whole thing is free." And they made sure he had NO help, nothing but him, his materials, and his Very Good Horsey. And this guy and his horse were fucking BAMFs. So it was looking like he was definitely gonna get it done in time, and Odin was like "nah, fuck that shit. I'm cheap." and so he sent Loki to distract the work horse. Loki transformed into a mare and lured the horse away, got fucked, got pregnant, gave birth to the 8-legged (for some reason) horse Sleipnir. Odin rides Loki's son into battle. Um. Kay.

So Loki helped Odin be a petty mf, and Odin got himself a new pet out of the deal.

Oh, also, because he's smart af and a shapeshifter and a master magician and genderfluid, Loki "fails" to fit the super fucking toxic and narrow Norse/Aesir view of "a real man". He prefers intelligence and manipulation to solve problems rather than violence, he's not afraid to behave like a clown if it gets shit done, and that grosses the Aesir out, so they constantly ridicule him for being "less than a man".

Loki is the God of the outcast and the misunderstood. The marginalized people from all walks of life. He is the God of the LGBT community. In modern terms, he's pansexual, polyamorous (married to Sigyn and they are deeply in love, but boy gets around and I've never seen any indication that Sigyn gives a shit) and genderfluid.

Okay. Focus, Ali. This is part of why I usually post multiple rants instead of one big long one XD The longer I ramble, the more I get sidetracked and forget the original point.

So. Loki's awesome, and being a Trickster, is powerful as all fucking hell. There's not much he can't do.

And now we come to Thor (the movie, not the deity). Loki's there! 24-year-old Ali is spazzing! All is right with the world!

Oh lord, they've actually done him justice?! Amazing! He's complex and nuanced and emotional, just like the real Loki! I loved this movie. Loved. It. The climactic thing with trying to blow up Jotunheim never really made much sense to me until someone made an excellent point the other day about Loki being raised in a racist society that was racist against his own race, he just didn't know it yet, poor child. Baby Thor was never corrected when he pledged to commit mass genocide, so Baby Loki probably absorbed the lesson then that Jotunns=evil and killing them all will win his father's love. Anyway, 2011 Loki was a beautiful, heartbreaking portrayal of the God I've loved all my life and spent 24 years longing to see depicted on the big screen.

Then The Avengers happened. And I saw another Loki very close to Norse mythology - mainly, how he's treated. In the beginning of the movie, he's sick, exhausted, and in pain. He can hardly stand, he stumbles and needs help when he walks. He was very obviously tortured, and the sickly blue light of the scepter's control is in his eyes. That gets less and less pronounced as the movie goes on, showing Loki working his way free of it, but in the beginning, he's a mess. Because he was tortured and used by Thanos. Marvel directly confirmed this, and that he was under the scepter's/Mind Stone's control. Loki's actions are not his own in The Avengers. He's under both threat and Thanos' direct control. The movie actually shows The Other directly threatening him to keep him on task, because this is not Loki's plan. It is not what he wants. He's being used and villainized... Just like in real life. It hurt to see this done to him, but the accuracy was too beautiful to ignore.

Thor: The Dark World comes out. I've heard people complain that this movie is the weak link in the Thor trilogy. I disagree. I think that's Ragnarok, for a bunch of reasons, but we'll get there. (And for the record, I loved Ragnarok, too. It was a funny movie. Infinity War and the Disney+ series are the only portrayals of Loki in the MCU that I truly fucking hated.) Anyway, good, fun movie. Had its faults, as all movies do, but it still followed Loki's real-life arc in a way. How? By having Loki dragged back to Asgard in chains and imprisoned underground. Again, not super happy that this happened to my love, and having to see it on screen was painful, but at least in the MCU he's not chained to a rock with venom dripping on his face for eternity, so there's that. (poor Sigyn. how tired do her arms get, holding up that bowl? best wife ever, amirite?)

In TDW, we're shown Loki's love for Frigga, who favored him and taught him magic as a child. We see his bravado; his attempts to mask his true feelings, especially grief. We see him slowly coming back to himself after the events of The Avengers, and slowly mending his relationship with his brother. He accepts that Odin will likely never love him, but Thor just might, because they were close when they were young. "I didn't do it for him." No, no my sweet, you did it for your brother, and a little out of guilt for what happened to your mother.

At the end, Loki fakes his death and escapes, taking the throne, and I have mixed feelings about this. Not the writer's choices here; I love that completely! A natural progression in Loki's story. But my joy is tainted by how closely they're following the Eddas now. Because Loki's escape from his prison heralds the beginning of Ragnarok. And Loki will die in Ragnarok. I don't want to see that play out in front of my face. I won't be able to handle the grief (spoiler alert! IW broke me. I almost walked out of the theater. Loki's death was legitimately fucking traumatic for me. I don't even care how pathetic that is. That grief was real, it was intense, and I still shake and cry when I think about it.)

Marvel announces that Thor 3 will be called Ragnarok. The internet treats this as a shocking revelation. I roll my eyes and mumble "duh" to myself and move on XD

Then they say Ragnarok will be a buddy comedy. I throw up a little in my mouth and no longer want to live on this planet. If they're going to make something called Ragnarok, could they at least treat it with even a fraction of the respect they've shown these characters thusfar? Jfc. I mean, I'll see it anyway, because I'm a whore for Tom Hiddleston lol. But come on, people!

I hated that they made Hel the long-lost older sister and Fenrir her fucking pet/attack dog. Those are my favorites of Loki's children! Hel is such an incredible badass that the early Christians named their dimension of eternal torture after her! They were terrified of her, to the point of naming the place that terrified them most after her. That's awesome! And Fenrir's just the best. I love wolves. Those two details, and Odin's retcon of "we're not Gods! ...lol, except your sister. she's totally a Goddess. and def gonna kill literally everything, so... good luck! byyyeeeee" pissed me off royally.

The rest was great. I genuinely liked this movie. Still do. And they finally used The Immigrant Song! That was pretty cool. If they'd thrown in Bring the Hammer Down and Thunderstruck, I might've called this movie perfect. XD

I wasn't totally in love with their portrayal of Loki in Ragnarok. Yes, the falling for 30 minutes line was funny, as was "I have to get off this planet" and "YES! That's how it feels!" And "Get Help" was funny as hell. But also, like... There is no way Loki would have been the dumb one in that first encounter with Hela. Also, he can teleport and project copies of himself and shit, so... He would not have been that desperate to go straight back to Asgard and bring her right along with them. Loki's not stupid. But whatever. Movie's gotta movie.

What I did love was seeing the slow mending of his relationship with Thor continuing, and the badass fighting on the bridge. I also loved that, like Real Loki, Movie Loki helped when help was needed, was quick and clever, and while he was carrying out the main plan, he was also planning ahead and grabbing the Tesseract. Yes, that drew Thanos right to them, but that's a whole other thing. Loki never would have left that thing on Asgard to be destroyed or lost.

And now Infinity War. Hooooly fucking shit. You know what? No. I'm not going into this. He was killed, years of character growth were erased forever, my heart fucking shattered. The end.

Endgame. IW hurt me so bad I didn't see Endgame until this year. I actually watched Civil War first (for context: I had actively avoided all Cap movies until this year because I fucking hate Steve Rogers. I find him insufferable. Did not realize what I was denying myself until I watched CW and finally saw the charms of Bucky. When he appeared in IW, I was so lost. XD I was like "...who dis? Murder Jesus?" also I just... didn't care. I was numb by then from crying through most of the movie over Loki)

So, anyway. Endgame. Loki picks up the Tesseract in alternate 2012, escapes, fans go "yay! he didn't actually die!" I go "yes he fucking did. Five years of his life, gone. Five years of growth and change, erased. Loki is dead. This will not be the same."

I was more right than I could have predicted. Now we come to the point of this rant. Sorry it took so long, but you were warned lol.

The Loki series makes me so angry I actually get sick to my stomach. It was fucking TRASH. When I praised Marvel for following Norse mythology so faithfully earlier? Yeah. I DID NOT MEAN TREAT HIM THE WAY THE OTHER GODS DID. I did not mean paint him as a pitiful clown, a joke, a caricature of who he truly was, with his pain and suffering played for LAUGHS.

This is supposed to be 2012 Loki, newly freed from Thanos' control. The Loki we saw in the beginning of TDW - snarky, exhausted, nihilistic. The Loki who rolled his eyes and said "get on with it" expecting to be killed.

The bumbling clown flipping on a dime from posturing to calling himself weak is not 2012 Loki. That is not ANY Loki. That is Tom Hiddleston in a black wig doing what he's told by a shitty writer who had no fucking idea what he was doing and was salty about his (bad) original script (for something totally fucking unrelated) getting killed.

In Episode 1, Loki is mocked, imprisoned, stripped against his will, tormented, belittled, and given a flippant summary of all the trauma Actual MCU Loki suffered that this one skipped out on, with no context, no acknowledgement of the trauma he's already lived quite fucking recently, and with the narrative twisted to not only erase all the abuse he's suffered, but to make it all his fault. And this is supposed to make him want to help these people?

And worse, IT FUCKING WORKS. WHAT?! I CAN'T- FUCKING WHAT?! Remember when I said LOKI IS NOT FUCKING STUPID?! So why is he STUPID?

Episode 2, he's a child. Mentally, this Loki is a fucking child. Now we've erased all the growth and development of his entire adult life. He's dopey, impatient, impulsive, desperate for a pat on the back and actually shows it. Yes, abused and neglected children crave the positive attention we never received, and we often grow up to be a bit emotionally stunted. But not all of us, and not Loki. Not as we've seen him EVER in the rest of the MCU. Playful and a bit callous at times? Absolutely! But not a big dumb fucking puppy.

Episode 3, a ray of hope, despite Sylvie! (I hate Sylvie) Loki casually admits he's pan/bi; labels never come up, but he admits to being with both men and women! He sings! Not really relevant to whether I approve of his portrayal or not lol but Tom has a beautiful voice, Norwegian ("Asgardian" lol) is a gorgeous, entrancing language, and I could watch that one bit on loop for eternity and never get bored. And then, finally, we see a glimpse - a glimpse - of Loki's power! He stops a falling building and pushes it right back up! Are we finally getting to see what he can really do? Will the next episode bring us Loki in all his glory?

Nope. 4 and 5 we see him mocked and pushed around and utterly irrelevant. Again. We see tiny reflections of what he could maybe theoretically do in other random Loki variants, but the "main" (lawl. main. it was the Sylvie and Mobius show. Loki was never the main anything.) Loki? Nothing. He wears his heart on his sleeve for no reason, bonds with the man who imprisoned, taunted, and gaslit him, is killed, and continues to be a moron and a joke. Always the clown. Always the dumb one. The one with the bad ideas. The inferior Loki.

Don't even get me started on that finale. I can't. This already took so much out of me. Fuck Marvel. Fuck this fucking show. I just... I'm done.

#loki #loki spoilers #loki series #loki negativity #loki hate #thor 2011 #the dark world #ragnarok #the avengers #infinity war #endgame #fuck sylvie #fuck marvel #fuck disney #this show sucked #ragepost #rant #long post #ali is angry

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asagimeta · 3 years

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The time has come again to remind everyone that good queer representation does not necessarily equal morally good queer characters

I’ve heard that apparently there’s a renaissance of anti-Hannibal going on lately? And that + the rise in popularity of media like Helluva Boss and Killing Eve, and the addition of more openly queer charectors in existing media- from comic book based media to long-running shows like American Horror Story- I feel like this needs to be said again- not necessarily by me but I posted about it way back when Hannibal originally aired it’s finale so I figure, what the hell

Good representation =/= morally good characters

You can have both, absolutely, but you can also have them separate, and you can have all combinations of the reverse too

Ofcourse, to be clear right in the beginning, what counts as “good” representation vs “bad” reputation is going to vary from person to person, everything from life experiences to media exposure to personal opinions will dictate where you land on the sliding scale of “good” or “bad”, someone who’s consumed quite alot of queer-focused media, for example, is going to have a very different opinion than someone who’s only seen one background gay in a TV show that one time, and someone who’s a really huge fan of horror is going to have a much different opinion than someone who’s only a fan of lighter-hearted fair

With that said, in my personal opinion, the measure of good vs bad representation relies less on the character and more on the presentation of said character- less, not entirely

To get what I mean, here’s the best example I can think of:

Castiel from Supernatural is, objectively, a good charactor- if nothing else he’s morally good by most standards, certainly by the time season 15 rolls around, but his canonically queer presentation is just.... horrible, horrible representation and I’ve only met literally one person myself who disagreed with that

Cas is presented as being a really tragic figure right from the start of his coming out- the one thing in the world that would make him truly happy for even a single moment is confessing that he’s in love with Dean, even if Dean rejects him, just saying it is enough, that is..... sad

If it had been framed differently, it actually could have been very good representation, in a “I don’t need you to validate me, I’m being honest about who I am for the first time in my life and that’s enough, I’m enough” way, but it wasn’t, it was framed as pining, as “Even if you don’t love me, my acknowledging openly that I love you is enough to make me happy”, and again that could have worked if framed differently but.... it’s followed up by the infamous “Gay angels go to Super Mega Turbo Hell” thing and like.... no....

Cas is a good character who is queer, he is not a good queer character, because his existence as a queer character lasted less than five minutes and was immediately followed by literally going to what’s worse than hell for expressing his queerness

There is no way I can express the amount of levels of Bad that is, to say nothing of how Dean treats the entire experience for like.... ever... from there on out

But now let’s look at Hannibal, who is objectively a pretty bad character morally- he’s stupendously written but yeah I mean look the dude eats people there’s just no getting around that

But I would argue that he’s excellent queer representation because of how he was presented

Hannibal’s sexuality is never defined, for starters, there’s never a “very special episode” moment where he has some long-winded coming out speech, in fact we don’t quite know how he identifies but because he’s written so artfully we don’t really need to, his exact sexuality doesn’t feel like it needs to be known because, frankly, not much personal information is known about Hannibal anyway, and sexuality feels like one of those arbitrary things that he wouldn’t really care about defining

And that’s the other thing- he’s far from sexless and yet he places no emphasis on sex, he isn’t hypersexualized but he also isn’t being kept as a Ken doll to preserve the message of gay purity (because I don’t know apparently there’s a Thing some people have about how gay people aren’t allowed to be sexual???) he’s just... a person

And that’s really what it comes down to that makes him great, he’s a person first and queer second... or third.... or fourth or fifth.... it never defines who he is, it’s just part of who he is, and regardless of your opinion on Hannibal specifically, I think that is something most queer people strive for in representation

It’s great to have stories that are focused on queerness but it’s equally exhausting to only be able to have characters who’s lives revolve around their sexualities, it’s nice to go into media and go “Oh that character that I already like for these reasons is also queer, that’s so cool!”

Hannibal also skillfully side-steps stereotypes, despite falling into the category of being “polite, thin, and neat”, despite loving fine wine and fine art and fine culture, he never feels like a flamboyant theater kid with a decoration-diploma, wich is how alot of queer characters in this category can feel

His story is about alot of things and his relationship with Will is at the center of much of it, but that relationship didn’t become explicitly queer until the show was almost over- not because it was sudden or poorly written but because it was a slow build up, wich is also refreshing, as alot of times it feels like queer characters are made as explicitly queer as they’re allowed to be as quickly as they’re able to be on screen so that the show can grab those important Representation Brownie Points from episode one and either introduce a Manwhore or a Uhaul Lesbian right away and just kind of leave them in that trope until “someone comes along and changes that” or whatever, I don’t even know what straight writers do half the time, but Hannibal- as a show and a charactor- doesn’t do that, he’s just allowed to exist and tell his story, and THAT is good representation

With the heavy-handed example over with though, I want to tackle the biggest part of this entire “debate” that makes me interested in it:

Queer people are allowed to be bad people

Queer people are allowed to be lazy and unattractive and non-political and angry and jealous and yes, “bad” and evil too

Wile I DEFINITELY prefer to have morally good characters- especially after literally a century of rarely getting more than The Evil Homosexual stereotype and all it’s kin- I also don’t like the direction some people are taking this where queer people are only “allowed” to be 100% morally flawless and good and righteous at all times because it’s just so unrealistic, and because it does the exact same thing that the opposite stereotype does: Puts queer people in a box, makes us a decoration for the straight cast so that the creators get Representation Brownie Points and can’t get yelled at on Twitter, and treats us like we’re some other species (and not in the cool way like werewolves but more like... well, decorations, as I’ve said before)

And if you’re worried about the way straight-cis people perceive us due to seeing evil queer characters, you should be equally worried about how they perceive us seeing nothing but morally flawless ones

I could get into An Entire Thing about the history of Straights trying to turn queer people into what they want us to be and present an inaccurate depiction of us to their brethren for their own benefit but I’ll make it relatively simple

The old way of keeping The Queers away from their Innocent Straight Children was to turn us into villains so that we would be ashamed of who we really are and hide ourselves and pretend to be The Good Christian Folk nextdoor and not get overly political or loud or different

The new way of keeping The Queers away from their Innocent Straight Children is to turn us into sexless Ken & Barbie stereotypes so we can be ashamed of who we really are and pretend to be The Good Christian Folk nextdoor and not get overly political or loud or different

By sterilizing queerness into something they find more “acceptable”, they’re doing the same thing they used to, but now through a lens of “Aren’t you happy you get what you want? You can get married now! You can hold hands in public! Just make sure not to do any of that other crazy stuff you people get up to and you can stay at the Civil Rights Table :)”, we’re still not “allowed” to be sexual human beings, it’s just framed in a way that makes us feel like the people shunning us are on our side wile those same people are still in the corner going “Just don’t kiss in public ok?”

And I could go On about this for some time but let’s get back to the point-

Queer people are three-dimensional people and we should be allowed to be so, we should be allowed to have characterization outside of The Gay Love Interest and The Gay BFF and The Gay Butler and so on, outside of the stereotypes being imposed on us

That’s one of the main reasons I love Yuri On Ice so much, and love Batwoman so much.... and one of the main reasons I love Hannibal and Harley Quinn and Helluva Boss and Killing Eve so much, all of these things star queer characters and queer relationships to different degrees (Batwoman, for example, makes a MUCH larger point and political stance about queerness than, say, Hannibal) and they’re all about something other than queerness too, the charecters are three-dimensional and they’re not built around their sexualities or side peices for straight people

And none of them are PUNISHED for their sexualities either

Going back to Castiel earlier, stereotypes are hardly the worst of our worries when Burry Your Gays, Gayngst Induced Suicide, and Gay Guy Dies First are still alive and well- among others

From Frank N’ Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show to Tara in Buffy The Vampire Slayer to, oh look, it’s Supernatural again with not just Cas, but also Charlie, and even arguably Dean (but that’s a much longer story for a much different time) and many many more... sometimes just having any gay charecter live through a franchise is enough on it’s own- setting the bar awfully low there but it’s still hard for a shamefully large amount of franchises to step over

In some cases like Tara, it can be pretty decently argued that the death has little- if anything- to do with queerness, but in examples like Cas and Frank, it’s pretty blatantly obvious, especially when the other queer characters in their respective franchises didn’t exactly fair well either....

Matt Baume put it best when he said that until recently, you had to choose if you wanted your only source of representation to be dead or evil, and most people chose evil

Now-a-days that’s clearly not the case as much but there’s still a heavy enough flavor of it there- and villains are just part of gay culture, dating all the way back to prohibition, queer people identified as outlaws because we literally were, so pirates and cowboys and other anti-heros and villains became a staple of the culture that’s still very much alive to this day, thus leading to another point: Identification

Straight people can identify with pretty much whoever they want- from superheros to princesses to any and every kind of villain

Tony Soprano is a horrible, horrible person but is notorious for being beloved among straight white males because he’s a projection of who they want to be- powerfull (and wealthy)

Stolas from Helluva Boss actually presents a pretty similar power fantasy, he’s part of a family who lives outside the larger part of the law, he can kill (nearly) anyone he pleases, he’s physically and socially powerfull, he’s wealthy, he has a nuclear family, he gets to screw around with whoever he wants with the only one taking issue being his wife, the only real difference is that Stolas is queer (and much more fashionable... and pleasant)

Queer people should be allowed to have those power fantasies as much as straight people are

Speaking as a bisexual female myself, I absolutely ADORE Villanelle from Killing Eve, I really don’t care that she’s a bitch or has killed an uncountable amount of people, it’s fun to project on her, and seeing a very flawed woman fall in love and be vulnerable and open herself up to a relationship and get that relationship with another woman is AMAZING to me, that doesn’t make the relationship it’s self healthy or good, but it’s still fun to watch and plays further into that identification

I love Korra and Asami from Legend Of Korra, they’re a sweet, wholesome relationship between two sweet, wholesome characters and I adore them... but I’m allowed to adore Eve and Villanelle too, even if the relationship is toxic and the characters have baggage and Villanelle is literally a serial killer

Ofcourse enjoying something doesn’t make it “good”, I enjoy alot of trash B rated (and C rated) horror movies too, it doesn’t mean I think they deserve Oscars (if that’s really the measuring stick we’re going to use), but I think when it comes to representation, it’s important to distinguish the difference between good queer character and a moral queer character, they just... aren’t the same

Light Yagami from Death Note, Bill from Kill Bill, and Joker from Batman are all just... horrible, horrible people, there’s no doubting that, they are morally terrible... but my god are they fantastic charecters- they’re interesting, they’re three dimensional (even if only occasionally in the Joker’s case), they’re well written and complex, there’s a reason why they’re iconic and why they’re still talked about decades after their introduction into the world, they are GREAT characters who are morally bad, and characters like Hannibal and Villlanelle are in that boat too, they just so happen to be queer- and there’s what it all boils down to

People being queer, not queer people

Some of the most beloved examples above like Yuri On Ice and Legend Of Korra are praised for being about people who are queer, people who have stories focused on other things and are just allowed to exist without their sexualities defining them, and the same should be said and appreciated for villains who are queer too

In an age where so much queer-focused media is about tragedy (the period lesbian dramas and Gayngst teen media for example), and so much of it is focused on the same exact aspects of queer life (coming out, dating around, getting or being married, but mostly coming out), it’s great to have characters who just so happen to be queer without those things being the center of their storylines- and without them being canon fodder or the Gay BFF, or being a terrible stereotype from the 90s that just won’t die...

And that by no means is to say you have to like these characters- not at all, there are PLENTY of objectively good/well-written queer characters who I don’t like for whatever reason- but to call them bad representation just because they’re bad people is sweeping ALOT under the rug

And I know I’ve harped alot on avoiding queer-centered storylines like coming out stories and relationship dramas, but those are fine, they have their place just like everything else, really, they just don’t need to have the only place- that does a disservice to so many other types of queer stories- for the heroes and the villains, because morality and goodness have nothing to do with one’s sexuality, just like one’s sexuality has nothing to do with morality and goodness

#other #lgbtq

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stranger-who-writes-fiction · 3 years

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Back at it again with my self-indulgent comic posts. This time! It’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #3, perhaps the most tonally-distinct entry yet, with shades of The Twilight Zone.

Spoilers!

So, as mentioned, this issue is the most deliberate in terms of both its pacing and its tone, IMO.

What is that tone, you ask?

To quote Alex Danvers, from “Midvale”: Hello, darkness.

THE STORY:

Kara and Ruthye are still looking for Krem Clues in the alien town of Maypole.

(Which is actually just Small Town, USA, complete with vintage 50s aesthetics.)

But the locals are clearly hiding something! So Kara and Ruthye continue to investigate, and they eventually discover what it was that the residents of Maypole were so keen to keep hidden.

Genocide, basically.

As I said, this issue struck me as very Twilight Zone; a genre story involving the build-up to a dark twist, all set against the backdrop of an idyllic small town. (Think, like, “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” but instead of focusing on the Red Scare, it’s classism and racism.)

The wealthier blue aliens kicked all of the purple aliens out of town, and when space pirates showed up to pillage and plunder, the blue aliens made a deal with them: the lives of the purple aliens in exchange for their safety.

Which is where the episodic story connects to the larger mission; it was Krem who suggested the trade, and then joined up with the Brigands (space pirates) when he was freed by the blue aliens.

The issue ends with no tidy resolution to the terrible things Kara and Ruthye discovered, but they do have a lead on where to find Krem, now, as well as Barbond’s Brigands.

KARA-CTERIZATION:

Ironically, it’s here, in the darkest chapter yet, that we get the closest to what might be considered ‘classic’ Kara.

Which I think comes down to that aforementioned deliberate pace--this issue is a little slower, a little quieter. It gives the characters some room to breathe.

That’s not to say Crusty Kara is gone. Oh no. She is still very much Crusty. XD

But anyways. A list! Of Kara moments I loved!

I mentioned a few of these in a prior post when the preview pages came out: I like the moment where Kara blows down the guy’s house of cards, and I like that the action is echoed later in the issue when she grabs the mayor’s desk and tosses it aside. A nice visual representation of the escalation of Kara being, like. Done with these creeps. (Creeps is an understatement but you get the idea.)

Another one from the preview pages: Kara explains to Ruthye that her super hearing won’t necessarily help her detect a lie, especially if she’s dealing with an alien species she’s not familiar with.

It not only reveals her level of competence and understanding of her super powers, it also shows that, you know. She’s a thinker. She’s smart.

Amazing! Showing, rather than telling us, that Kara is smart! Without mentioning the science guild at all wow hey wow.

(Sorry, pointed criticism of the SG show fandom.)

Anyways.

I dig the PJs!

And Kara catching the bullet! Not only are the poses and character acting great, it’s also a neat bit of panel composition:

We start with Ruthye’s POV, and then move to the wide shot of the room. The panel where Kara actually catches the bullet is down and to the side of the wide shot panel--we move our eyes the way her body/arm would have to move to intercept the bullet. Physicality in static, 2D images!

Also, like. It’s a very tense moment, life-or-death, but. Ruthye’s wide-eyed surprise at the bullet in Kara’s hand? Kind of adorable.

I was pretty much prepared for the page of Kara shielding Ruthye from the gunfire to be the highlight--it was one of the first pages King shared and I was like, ‘yeah, YEAH.’ But, shockingly? The TRUE highlight of the issue?

Where do I BEGIN?!?!

EVERYTHING. About this moment. Is lovely.

From Kara holding Ruthye above the bench to explaining the concept of a piggyback ride, to telling her:

“I’m going to hold my hands here, and these hands can turn coal into diamonds, so they’re not going to let go. I’m going to keep you safe.”

HNNNNNNNNNNNG.

Ruthye’s narration--about how Kara had avoided flying as she was concerned it would freak Ruthye out--just adds a whole additional layer of YES, GOOD, YES, and her line on that splash page is great: “You see, all that time, she was worried about me.”

HNNNNNNNNNNNG. AGAIN.

To say nothing of the STELLAR ARTWORK.

And SPEAKING of that stellar artwork, Evely and Lopes continue to knock it out of the park. Each issue is distinct and beautifully crafted, a true joy to look at.

Before I jump into more of the art, a few final notes of character stuff in general.

Ruthye is the one most affected by the experience in Maypole, as she can’t comprehend how a society of people that look so nice and gentle and peaceful could have been party to such a horrible act.

One of the big criticisms of the book thus far is that Supergirl is not the main character, and I guess I can agree with that observation. Typically, in Western media, the main character is the one who goes through the most change in the story.

And, yeah. That’s Ruthye.

As I was reading the end, where Ruthye sits on the curb and Kara hugs her, I was imagining how the scene would’ve played, had King stuck with the original idea for the series: Kara as the one learning to be tough/experiencing all of this for the first time, and while I think that could certainly work...

I continue to appreciate that King literally flipped the script; that Kara, especially in this issue, is like, ‘I’ve seen this, I know this,’ as opposed to being the one going through a loss of innocence.

*Marge Simpson voice* I just think it’s neat!

Because Kara’s been a teen in DC comics for so long--ever since she was reintroduced to the main DCU continuity, actually--so this is all brand new territory, here. Having an older Kara who’s SEEN SOME STUFF.

(Alsoooooo, since Bendis made the destruction of Krypton not just inaction and climate disaster, but rather, genocide, and the subtext of a Kryptonian diaspora text, the waitress’ derogatory comment regarding the the destruction of Kryton, as well as Kara picking up the bad vibes the entire time, suggests not just a broad commentary on discrimination in all its forms, but specifically allegorical anti-Semitism. The purple aliens being forced out of their homes and into substandard living conditions, then the blue aliens--their neighbors and once-fellow residents--essentially allowing the space pirates to kill them, making them literal scapegoats, Kara discovering the remains of the purple aliens, and Ruthye’s horror at the ‘banality of evil’...yes. A case could be made, I think.)

(Which would probably require a post unto itself and a lot more in-depth discussion, nuance, and cited sources.)

(Should mention that King has brought up that both he and Orlando--the other Supergirl writer he talked to--are Jewish, and for him personally, that shaped his views on Kara’s origin story.)

I guess my point is that this issue is perhaps not as out-of-left-field as some might think, and just because there isn’t as obvious an arc for Kara, doesn’t mean there isn’t some sharp character work at play.

(I could be WAY OFF, of course, and I’m not suggesting it’s a clear 1:1 comparison. I’d actually really love to hear King talk about this issue in particular.)

Anyways.

Here’s the final page, which I think works, because as I mentioned before, there is no easy answer/quick wrap-up to the story of Maypole:

THE ART:

I mean. How many times can I just shout ‘ART! AAAARRRRRRRRRRRTTTT!’ before it gets old?

I dunno, but I guess we’re gonna FIND OUT.

There are some panels in this issue that I just. Like ‘em! From a purely artistic standpoint! Because they’re so good!

Like, I just really love the way Kara is drawn in that top panel. Her troubled, confused expression, the colors of the fading light, the HAIR.

Evely draws the best hair. I know I’ve said this before. I don’t care. I will continue to say it, because it continues to be true.

The issue I find myself running up against when I make these posts is that I really don’t want to post whole pages, as that’s generally frowned upon (re: pirating etc.) but with something like this, you just can’t appreciate it in panel-by-panel snippets.

(Guided View on digital reading platforms is a BANE and a POX I say!)

Anyways.

LOVE the implied movement of the cape settling as Kara speeds in and stops.

And, obviously, Kara flicking the bullet away is just. A+.

And the EYES, man. LOPES’ COLORS ON THE EYES???!?! BEAUTIFUL.

Also, should note the lettering! The more rounded letters for the ‘WOOSH’ of Kara’s speed (and, earlier, the super breath) work nicely, and contrast with the angular, violent BLAMS of the gunshots.

And, I gotta say, the editor is doing a really great job of not cluttering up the artwork with all the caption boxes. Which is no small task.

(I assume the editor is placing them, as editors usually handle word balloon/caption box placement, but I suppose it could be Evely? Sometimes the artist handles it. Either way, whoever’s taking care of all the text, EXCELLENT WORK! BRAVO!)

Okay I think that’s everything.

Ah, nope, wait.

MISC.

Just a funny observation, more than anything else: Superman: Red and Blue dropped this week, and King had a story in there, “The Special” (which was very good, btw.) Both Lois and the waitress swear a lot so I’m beginning to think that this is just how King writes dialogue for any adult character who isn’t Clark. XD

This is absolutely a personal preference but when Kara was like, “And my name IS Supergirl,” I was like nooooo. I know King is trying to simplify all of the conflicting origin stories and lore but I LIKE KARA DANVERS, SIR. XD

It’s almost assuredly a cash-grab/an attempt for DC to get all the money it can out of a book they don’t have much confidence in, but I like the cardstock covers! Very classy, much Strange Adventures.

(OH my gosh, can you imagine that issue 1 cover with spot gloss???? Basically the only way you could possibly improve on it.)

Okay NOW I’m done. For real. XD NEXT TIME: Kara and Ruthye go after Krem and the Brigands!

#supergirl: woman of tomorrow #long post #dc comics #supergirl: woman of tomorrow spoilers #kara zor el #comic thoughts #comic opinions #just occurred to me I should be crediting the creative team in these things #I think thus far I've included every title page?#still #will try to be better about that going forward

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yukichouji · 3 years

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OK, so. I just finished the quest “In Your Heart Shall Burn” and I have so many thoughts I just really need to put them somewhere alkfjaskd

Expect this post to be very unorganized and emotional xD

Alright. So, from a purely technical standpoint, this is not the best game I have ever played. There are many glitches here and there, both in the game mechanic and in the visual (though one could argue that they aren’t too annoying and kind of add to the game’s charme in their own way). But damn if this isn’t literaly the best game I have ever played alkdjfasl

I’ve put in nearly 40 hours of gameplay by now and it still feels very much like things are just getting started. There is so fucking much to see, do explore, experience. Even the smallest maps feel huge. There is so much dialog and cutscenes with your companions and advisors. Every single character feels so lovingly designed and thought through and fleshed out. Even those you only talk to once and then move on have beautiful designes, unique voices and characters that shine through.

The one trillion tiny side quests can seem a bit annyoing or overwhelming at times xD But they are still a nice way to be incentivised to explore the maps and a neat way to kill time as you wait for war table operations to finish (though, bless whoever decided to make them run in real time and not in game time aldfjkasld). And damn if the scenery isn’t fucking worth every second of exploring you get to do. I have said this before, but this has got to be one of the most beautiful games I’ve had the pleasure of laying eyes on so far. Granted I am not exactly a hardcore gamer but I’ve played my bit and to me, this is just mind-boggling.

And, oh gods, the main quests. Holy sh*t, really. I am completely blown away. The beauty. The story. The length of the cutscenes. It’s like watching an actual move. But it never gets annoying or seems like it is swallowing the game up, because there still is so much actual game around them. They are so emotional and beautifully done. I am like 20% through the main story arch rn (so I’ve been told) and damn if this story isn’t f*cking amazing.

And there are a lot of other things aside from the story itself, that make this game so amazing. Usually, a lot of games in their design, their characters and their stories are very much aimed at straight men. Which is not to say that they cannot be enjoyable also, but. This game is very much different and I can’t even begin to say how emotional this has me. The entire series so far has been so lovely about representation and everything, adding so many canonically bi characters already. But not only does DAI have two canonically gay characters (one gay, one lesbian, as you do :D), it also offers: Two bi characters, one of them a BDSM tinted romance experience, a possibly autistic or otherwise neurodivergent character, a canonically trans character (let that sink in for a second please. In a fantasy setting. In a huge game of this margin). The latter is not one of the companions, but he plays a decent role and I absolutely love him. All of these characters are created with so much depth and care and respect (as I have already mentioned) and each romance option comes with its own, unique flavor.

Not to mention how much love and detail the game mechanics themselves have to offer. Like, for example, someone had to come up with those quadrillion little side quests xD Those mind-boggling maps had to be designed. But you can also, craft your own weapons, your own armor, chose armor and weapons for all of your companions. There are so many different designs for armor and weapons. Each companion has their own stile you can chose to further cultivate or stray from. Armour can be modified and upgraded in a way that visually changes it. It can be tintet! In five different ways (metal parts, leather parts, cloth parths, some of those devided into two supparts). There are so many ways you can create unique looks. Your Inquisitor has an entire wardrobe of different formal and casual wears just for when you are strolling around the whole as keep you will eventually acquire. (which I just did and my mind is blown. I have been running around in it for like half an hour and I still haven’t seen all of it. bloody hell). There are like five (or more) categories of mounds you can get and all of them are so cool. You can customize your fucking castle. I repeat YOU CAN CUSTOMIZE YOUR F*CKING CASTLE. You can choose the windows, the courtains, the beds, the tapestries and so on. Like, never have I played an RPG that offers this level of an experience. And you know what the best part of all of this is? The thing that in this day and age feels almost mind-blowing? None of those features cost you any extra money. They are all just included in the game. (I mean they do cost you gold xD But you cannot buy gold, you need to collect it in the game, that’s it).

It’s just, the amount of love that was so clearly put into this game, a game made for a community of people that is clearly not the usual sell... man. I don’t know. I’m just feeling a lot of things right now xD I needed to digest that a bit and now it is everyone’s problem haha. Anyway. Back to fun little reaction posts now xD

Also, I took a handful of screenshots earlier and I will make another post with them the next time I start up my PC (am on Laptop right now, easier to think). If you actually stuck around to read all of this, I apologize for my ramblings and thank you. Please know that I love and appreciate you xD

#me things #yukichouji plays video games #or more like #yukichouji has an emotional meltdown over one specific video game

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dukeofonions · 3 years

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Season Two Episode Ranking

Warning: I get very, very, very, critical in this ranking. Like, angry ranting that’s almost laughable. Should I be getting this worked up over an online series? Eh, probably not. But this is my life and I’ll get outrageously angry over whatever media I want.

Seriously though, this is all just my personal opinion. I’m not saying you have to agree with me and if you like the episodes that I don’t then that’s perfectly fine.

I tend to overthink things a lot and I spend most of my time analyzing every little details of this series because what else am I supposed to do at work?

So yeah, this ranking is definitely less positive than the one I did for the first season. But I hope y’all can still have some fun going over it! And if anyone does their own rankings be sure to tag me because I’d love to see them and see how mine compare!

Anyways, enough of me acting like this is more important than it is, on with the ranking!

I can’t believe season two only has 12 episodes. Now I went ahead and counted Moving On as one episode in this ranking since my opinions on both parts are pretty similar, but sweet cheese and fish this season started on September 1st, 2017 with Fitting in and right now is left on Putting Others First which came out on May 1st, 2020. And as of me writing this it is now May 2nd, 2021. It’s been a whole year since the last episode and we still have no idea when the finale is coming.

Like, bruh.

Also remember how the longest episode in season one was only about 15 minutes long and the shortest one was barely four minutes?

Well the shortest episode in season two is Crofters- The Musical which is 8:42 seconds. The longest episode is Putting Others First which is a whopping 51:09.

And I wish I could say that the writing was on the same level it was in the first season, but there’s a reason I put that warning up there.

Well, enough stalling, let’s get this ball rolling.

#11 Embarrassing Phases

There are no words in the English language that can describe the sheer amount of hatred I have for this episode. If I could rank this any lower, I would, which will happen once we finally get the season finale. I don't know how that episode will go but it'll definitely be better than whatever dumpster fire this was.

Like, okay. I have some positives. Roman, Patton, and Virgil's costumes were cool. I won't lie I live for vampire Virgil. And the message about embracing your past "phases" and exploring how they helped made you who you are. That's neat. I like that.

And that's it.

My biggest gripe with this episode is Virgil. He just acts like a complete bitch in this! And I don't mean that in an endearing way he's literally so mean for no reason!

He's all "You guys are trivializing my past!"

In response to them going "Hey Virgil, we're glad you're part of our group now and are proud of how far you've come!"

Like okay, even if it was insensitive to call it a "phase" literally there was no reason for him to get as angry as he did.

Just a simple; "Hey, I don't like it when you refer to what I went through as a phase because it feels like you're not talking it seriously."

Isnt that what this whole show is about? Communication???

It wasn't fun watching him just insulting the others, it was annoying!

Like poor Patton, just trying to help and be encouraging, only for Virgil to keep treating him like dirt.

What did I miss here? Virgil was fine in the last few episodes, so what the heck happened?

Oh and let's not forget the great advice Thomas offers Patton at the end of the episode in regards to handling Virgil: "Don't do anything to get on his bad side or else he'll do bad things to you!"

Okay I'm paraphrasing here but that's basically what he says! And since Virgil is supposed to be a representation of anxiety, this is a horrible message!!!

What happened to finding healthy ways to cope with your anxiety? What happened to keeping it in check so it didn't take over your life?

Yeah I'm definitely gonna make a full post about this one episode later because there's a whole lot more to unpack here. But yeah -10/10

#10 Putting Others First

There is just way too much going on with this episode. They try cramming so much in here that I don't even remember more than half of it.

I remember the opening song, then the Lilypadton fight and everything that happens from there. That's it.

And those are the best parts of this episode, but even that has problems because everything with Janus feels like a completely different episode.

Also the whole way they try to teach about morality is all over the place. How did we go from choosing a wedding over a callback to deciding whether or not you would die for your friends to self care is important?

And while the video game sequences, while utilized well in some places, were way too distracting and it felt like they were just trying to shove as many video game references in as they could.

You could take out just about all of them and the episode wouldn't change. Everything they were used for could have been done just through having the characters talk to each other, and knowing this makes the fact that this video was delayed for so long because of it just makes the whole thing worse.

Like the animations were well done, and I don't want to downplay the hard work the animator did. They were just doing their job after all.

But the trolley scenes (especially the second one) hurt my eyes with all the flashing (would have been nice to have some kind of warning for that) and some of the voice effects (especially on Logan's) were grating and distracting.

I want to rank this episode higher, but it has almost zero rewatch ability and honestly besides the ending, when I first watched this episode I was just kinda let down.

#9 Crofters- The Musical

Okay look, the song is a bop and I adore the fact that Logan and Roman got two episodes in the spotlight, but it's just kinda "meh" to me. Plus I get just a tinge of second hand embarrassment but that's just me.

And I know this is kinda unfair but another reason why this one isn't higher is because of a couple of things. One is that they set up some angst for Roman, he's clearly not doing well and Thomas thinks the best thing to do is tell him that he might get his own jam flavor.

Then he does, and instead of following up on that little plot point from this video, they just rushed out a commercial and completely ignored and potential story telling or character development for Roman.

So yeah "Return of the Jam" is the main reason why I don't like this one as much as I used to. And I actually just got an idea for a new post comparing these two so add that to my to-do list.

#8 Fitting In

I actually skipped this one during my first official watch through for one reason and one reason alone: I wasn't allowed to watch Harry Potter.

But I realized that my parents wouldn't approve of me of watching a gay man's content either so I just said screw it.

And luckily I understood enough Harry Potter references to get what they were talking about and honestly, this episode is a lot of fun.

It's a good follow up to Accepting Anxiety, and a nice way to kick off season two. Virgil is finding his place among the group and everyone is trying their best to make him feel welcome, it's really sweet.

And of course we get the new costumes (which i hadn't even noticed that they were wearing their old costumes at first) and I dunno it just gives off season one vibes and it makes me happy.

#7 Moving On Part One/Moving On Part Two

Yeah honestly my thoughts on both parts of this episode are the same. What can I say? It's really good.

This definitely one of the more emotionally heavy episodes in the series, and we see the characters at their lowest for really, the first time in this series.

I adore Patton's room and how each side gets their own corners. All the little details they add in, including the changing picture in the background, it really gives off that nostalgia feel they were going for.

What I love most about this episode is how (unlike some other episodes) they actually let the emotional moments sink in and don't throw in a joke immediately after. Like the ending is bittersweet, sad almost, and I love that they stuck with the mood up until the episode ended.

Not to say there weren't some jokes here and there (mostly in the first part) but once the mood shifts and things become more serious they let that mood stay. And when there are jokes they all work really well.

This is one episode I've actually watched the least out of season two, so it'll be interesting when I go watch it again to see if any of this holds up.

#6 Why Do We Get Out of Bed in the Morning?

Honestly I only put this one above Moving On because Logan and Roman are my favorites.

This episode is actually one of the weaker ones, which hurts to say because again, favorite characters, but goodness it's all over the place. It feels like a precursor to POF and not in a good way.

Logan and Roman just basically argue back and forth throughout the whole episode, never seeing eye to eye with each other, to the point where I think think the writers realized they couldn't find a way to get these two to agree so they just had Thomas step in and be like, "You guys make a really good team!"

Dude, were you even paying attention? They never even reached a conclusion on their own. And even though they have their little moment at the end, it's all kinda ruined when nothing in their relationship changes.

Yes, in Learning New Things About Ourselves, they acknowledge that there's more work to be done in regards to them, which makes sense. People aren't going to suddenly change overnight.

Yet despite having come to some kind of understanding with each other twice now (both here and LNTAO) in the following episodes they still act like they hate each other! Heck Roman is downright nasty to him for seemingly no reason and I don't really blame him for it.

More like I think the writers just don't know how to develop their relationship and just aren't as interested in them as the others. Logan's been reduced to being Mr. Exposition and apparently Roman's personal issues aren't enough for him to carry a room episode on his own because they felt the need to introduce two new characters before he finally gets it.

Sorry, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, the episode.

There's some funny bits here and there and the little animations are cute (even if unnecessary) but really it's only saving grace is being Roman and Logan centered.

Even though they felt the need to include a cameo from literally every other character because apparently no one has any faith that Logan and Roman can carry an episode on their own.

#5 The Sanders Sides 12 Days of Christmas

This episode is just pure fun. Look, I'm not a big fan of Christmas, even less of a fan of Christmas songs, but my gosh this episode almost makes me appreciate the season.

The way they're all just bickering the whole time, being very confused, and how there's just so much personality from each character even when they're not talking/singing and just being in the background is *chef's kiss* perfect.

There's so many fun little details to pick out during the song and it's fun to go back and watch how each side reacts to different things.

#4 Selfishness vs Selflessness

Gonna be real, this used to be my favorite episode. Until my overly critical brain started finding all kinds of problems in the writing department but I think I’ve been negative enough on this post so I’ll save it for another time.

Janus steals the show in this one, it’s his first official appearance since his debut and he just soaks up the spotlight. It’s refreshing to have an antagonist in the show again, and he’s the perfect foil for each of the original Sides.

He knows how to play into Roman’s insecurities, know how to feed into his ego and get him on his side. He’s in direct opposition to Patton, who believes that everything Janus represents is wrong. He’s able to silence Logan and take him out of the conversation, speaking over him most of the time.

And I guess he and Virgil have some beef I dunno.

The courtroom scenario is fun, and I love how Janus is the only one who sees how ridiculous it is (even though it was your idea in the first place, Jan) and everyone else seeing it as perfectly normal is hilarious.

I do like some of the more dramatic moments in this episode, especially that final bit with Janus questioning Thomas until he finally gets him to admit the truth. It was intense and reminded me of the scene where Janus confronts Roman in a similar manner.

While far from perfect this is still a good episode and I can find a lot to love about it, like Janus in a suit.

#3 Dealing With Intrusive Thoughts

This episode scared the shit out of me and I loved it.

Okay it didn’t actually scare me. But I stayed up to wait for it to be posted, which wasn’t until 2 or 3 in the morning. So by the time I finally watched it I was half awake and not expecting anything that I witnessed.

The result was me being terrified of Thomas with a mustache and it prevented me from sleeping. I was over it the next day though and had Forbidden Fruit stuck in my head all day. Which isn’t good when you’re running the register at work and you can’t stop singing it.

There’s a lot of reason why I love this episode, Remus being the primary thing. His entrance is iconic, the first few notes from his theme play as he creeps up behind the TV, him smiling at Roman all creepily until he whacks him over the head and knocks him out for most of the episode.

Then we get the song, Forbidden Fruit, which is just great. Slight secondhand embarrassment but seeing the finished product and all they put into it, I can’t help but love it.

Still miffed that Janus hasn’t gotten a song... specifically a villain song... I won’t ever let that go...

Logan is another highlight in this episode (no surprise) and seeing him go head-to-head against his polar opposite without batting an eye was interesting since I was kinda expecting them to show Logan having trouble dealing with Remus but nope. He handled it like a champ and I love them both.

Now I am kinda wary as to how they’re going to handle Remus in the future, especially with the intrusive thoughts aspect. It’s a sensitive topic and they’re already screwing up anxiety. But Remus has only been in one episode so far which means I can’t make any solid judgments until he’s appeared in more episodes, so I’ll have to wait and see.

All in all, great episode! Definitely deserves to be in my top three.

#2 Learning New Things About Ourselves

This episode made me feel so nostalgic. I freaking love puppets and grew up with Sesame Street and the Muppets, so I’m probably biased towards this episode but to me this is really one of the better written episodes.

Perfect? Heck no. But really, really good.

I love that we get to explore a bit more with Logan and Roman’s characters, in a lot of ways this is kind of a Logan episode which has him standing against the other Sides, and it’s really interesting to see just how different he is compared to the three of them and it could just be me but it seemed like he’s becoming more of an outsider and isn’t as close with the original four as he used to be, and this episode is what really kicks that idea off.

I can also relate to the “Well that’s nice but what do you do for a living?” message, except in my case it’s more like I want to quit my “real job” to pursue what I’m passionate about while people tell me it’ll probably never happen or “Yeah that’s a nice hobby!” So this episode really struck close to home and I just have a lot of sentimental feelings towards this one.

I love all of the designs for the puppets, they all just fit perfectly and I wouldn’t mind seeing them make a comeback one day. I know that’d be difficult since they’d need a professional to puppet them but hey, one can dream right?

And oh my gosh the song, it just gives off the same feel from Sesame Street and Muppet songs with it’s jazzy feel. And I won’t lie I flipped my lid when Logan and Thomas were in the same shot together. We hadn’t seen any of the Sides share the screen with Thomas yet and the fact that it was Logan, and he was arguing with Thomas and they were singing over each other? Ah I love it!

Also don’t get me started on how Logan’s bit in the song sounds more villainous than the others. I’m not saying anything just a neat little observation.

I have a lot of happy feelings attached to this episode, so despite the few problems I have with it I could never bring myself to hate it. The only one that tops it is...

#1 Can Lying Be Good?

The episode that started it all. The one that caught my attention and sparked my new fixation on this little series that I had just glossed over before.

I really don’t know what prompted me to watch this episode, other than I wasn’t in the best place and it just happened to pop into my recommendations one day and I figured, “Huh, haven’t watched this guy for awhile. Let’s see what he’s been up to.”

Once the episode was finished my first thought was “Holy shit when did this series start having lore?!”

This episode is probably the closest thing to perfect out of all the season two episodes so far. The writing is clever, pretty much all of the jokes land, and oh my gosh the editing in this one is phenomenal.

The way they show Roman shifting between himself and Joan throughout the episode is what sticks out the most. Having Roman’s voice coming from Joan, or having them briefly change back to Roman, I love it so much.

Not to mention Thomas’s ever changing shirt that reflects what he’s thinking/feeling is a neat little detail.

Did I mention this episode is hilarious? The ridiculousness of each scenario that they act out, with all the little inputs from Logan and Virgil who are both trying their best to do their jobs besides not even wanting to be part of it in the first place is adorable.

And of course, the man of the hour, Deceit. Or Janus as we now know him as.

Is it weird that I like Deceit more as a name? Probably, but that’s just because I don’t like how early his name was revealed.

Okay that was my last negative comment. Promise.

Now since I hadn’t watched Sanders Sides in a while I didn’t notice anything off about “Patton” during my first watch. But going back after seeing the rest of the series helped me catch all the little hints they added to clue in the audience that something wasn’t right.

A lot of it is really subtle, mostly in the acting department, but once you’ve caught on to everything it makes you wonder how you didn’t notice the first time. You can even see Logan and Virgil throughout the episode, knowing that something is off with “Patton” but holding back their concerns until Virgil finally calls Deceit out.

I’ve rewatched Deceit’s reveal so many times. When he finally drops the act after Thomas makes up his mind not to lie, you can just tell he no longer cares whether Thomas knows or not. Then things get even more tense when Logan is silenced, and everyone knows what’s going on except Thomas.

The music starts to build up, Thomas is flipping out, then after Deceit taunts him again he finally demands to know what’s going on and BAM there he is!

I love everything about this.

Like, what else can I say? This episode is brilliant. It really shows exactly what this team is capable of when they’re at their best. The pacing, the build up, the writing, all of it combined together to make the perfect episode.

Season Two has been, interesting. The long waits have caused some problems with the pacing and characters, not to mention the departure of Joan from the writing team with new writers entering the room, not to mention the first welcome now unwelcome arrival of Asides, and with only the season finale left before season three, it makes me wonder just where this series is headed.

I know this series is capable of doing incredible things, season one is still solid and it really holds up even after all this time. But season two just feels like a jumbled mess. Sure, it’s easy to enjoy the episodes individually, but once you try to fit them all together it’s like trying to jam a puzzle piece into a place where it doesn’t fit.

The best way to describe this season is as an experimental season. Each episode has the team trying something new, sometimes it seems these gimmicks take precedence over the story itself. Of course, some of these can work to the episode’s advantage, while others are just distracting and you’d know you wouldn’t miss them if they were gone.

It’s a mixed bag that’s for sure. One that has me watching in morbid curiosity as I wait to see whether it’ll crash in the end or blow my expectations out of the water. It really is fun to analyze these episodes, and yes I know I can be very harsh but believe it or not this is how I engage with media that I love.

My hope is that team will learn from season two and try to take a more simple approach with their production once season three roles around. Because if they continue at the same pace they are now I doubt there will be many people around to see this series through.

And on that note, that was my ranking of season two! I’m actually kinda excited now to go back and rewatch everything, I hope I don’t have to wait much longer to do so but that all depends on when the season two finale comes. Whether it ends up exceeding my expectations or just being “meh” I know it’ll be interesting regardless and I can’t wait to see just how they plan on wrapping this all up before the final season arrives.

#dukeofrankings #dukeofcritical #this one post spawned so many future posts #i'm gonna be a busy onion

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worldoshaking · 3 years

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I’ve been thinking about why watching shows that queerbait can sometimes be genuinely enjoyable, even when I know that what they’re doing is queerbait. (Sometimes even when it’s evident that they know it’s queerbait.) It isn’t that I approve of what they’re doing in principle, I don’t. But while I cherish genuine representation and support it in every way I can, I don’t only consume content with queer representation I consider good. Sometimes the shows that make me feel seen are not the ones that, objectively speaking, represent me best.

Obviously, part of this is simply the creator’s drive to fix things. It’s why I spend so much more time thinking about media that frustrate me than media that are genuinely unproblematic, even though I prefer the latter - I engage with the former out of frustration and spite. (I wonder how much fanfiction is written out of spite. In my case, at least, a lot.)

But it’s also a fact that at some level, queerbait can mirror a different part of the queer experience that a lot of mainstream queer narratives simply don’t capture. A part of being queer is testing the waters, trying our queerness on ostensibly as a joke to see if it fits, slipping gay subtext into apparently innocuous statements and waiting to see if someone else notices. Wondering if someone is flirting with you or just being friendly. Wondering if you’re flirting with them or just being friendly. Reading between the lines in classical literature and searching for hints of our history, because at many points in history, we were only allowed to show ourselves in subtext. We all start somewhere, and for many of us, this is a part of our experience that never entirely goes away.

I do think that this is a part of the queer experience that isn’t entirely captured by the mainstream narrative, that so often revolves around falling deeply in love, taking the plunge and coming out all at once. (I remember that as a baby gay, I found those disheartening rather than inspiring, because they didn’t represent me as I was and didn’t show me a way to get to where they said I ‘should’ be. Now I understand that those narratives are basically depicting queerness from a very cishet point of view, and that isn’t the only, or even the correct, way to do things.)

Talking in code, wording things ambiguously, referring subtextually to things that only other queer people will recognise. These are a part of the queer experience, and don’t always have to lead up to a triumphal coming out or falling deeply in love. (They can also happen after both of those things; it’s not even necessarily about trying to hide, it’s just that we have some experiences that cishets simply don’t get.) Seeing that experience replicated in media is both validating and, well, fun.

Speaking of talking in code, there is something strangely enjoyable about having characters be queer in ways that are not immediately obvious to cishet viewers, because their queerness isn’t commodified for cishet viewers’ consumption. Because sometimes queerness is about blurring the lines and not fitting into neat little boxes. This doesn’t change the fact that we urgently need genuine, unambiguous and positive representation. It’s just a little shared joke between us on the side.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that intentional queerbaiting by creators is justified. It isn’t, it never is. It has in roots in a deeply problematic wish to profit off our desire for representation without actually committing to giving us genuine representation, and at worst it can fetishise or ridicule our existence. But I do think that queer representation can, and should, take different forms. This is another instance of something not all bad growing from problematic roots.

Also, not all queerbait is intentional; sometimes a writer creates a character who’s unintentionally queer, and if that makes a queer person feel seen, well, that’s a good thing! (Especially if the writer is a sport and embraces that interpretation.)

Of course, I can think of canonically queer books, manga and shows that also embraced subtextual queerness, for example, with side characters. Or even embraced the evolution of canonical queerness from subtext into the open. (Needless to say, these are usually by queer creators.) Obviously, there is no substitute for genuine and sincere portrayals of queer characters, by queer creators, intended for the consumption of queer readers and viewers. But I will still enjoy the likes of Fruits Basket and Horimiya as well, because honestly, we get so little that I think we're allowed to enjoy what we get without guilt, even while we hold the creators accountable for their intentions and for what is problematic.

Queer people are allowed to find joy even in bad portrayals of themselves, even while we hold creators accountable and ask for something better.

#mine #this is a ramble idk how to tag it #queerbaiting #fruits basket #horimiya #sorry about the italics i write like a victorian when i'm tired #also not saying there aren't other reasons to watch furuba and horimiya - there absolutely are

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razorblade180 · 3 years

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If you had the power to pick 5 ships that became canon, what would they be?

Do you mean RWBY, or in general?

If it’s RWBY, then my list is pretty easy to think of.

Mercury and Emerald- I really like the idea of them becoming the only peace of mind and happiness they’ve found in their lives. To quote Rihanna, “We found love in a hopeless place.” Also I’ve said this before, but the FNDM is always set on crwby adding representation in terms of identity, sexuality, orientation, etc. But I’d like the other forms too. It’s nice seeing a black person date and love a white person, or have a the guy be the shorter on in the relationship. I don’t think we get enough of that kind of representation either.

Tai and Raven -I want them to find their way back to each other and mend their love. Why? Simple, I’m a sap. It would be touching and real, Raven redemption arc, all that jazz. That household deserves love ten times over.

War of the Roses-LISTEN, narratively, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing. Weiss and Jaune by far are the two characters that care about Ruby and get inspired by her. They also generally have the best moments together with her. Not to mention I can totally see Ruby being flustered and acting like her usual childish self, refusing to pick only one. She’d totally blurt out the suggestion to be with both out of panic. It would be cute and I think it would fit. Honestly, you could apply this to Sunny Bees as well.

Penny and Oscar-Imagine a new spin on the love that lasts lifetimes? Together they both feel a little more normal and Penny, being her pure self, makes an emotional promise to always find the reincarnation and calls out to the piece of Oscar that lingers; and it always finds it way back to to her.

Any of my crack ships- I will have the same level of joy from seeing Winter and Marrow together as CRWBY being crazy enough for Ilia doing self exploration and being Demi, connecting on an extremely intimate and personal level with Sun. I’d live forever. You would never hear me shut up. Dragonslayer would have me throw a party and watch tumblr go insane.

Non-RWBY ships

I just want to say thank you to dreamworks animations and The Dragon Prince really quick for actually giving me the ships I want. It’s nice being fed. Moving on...

Sokai-Nomura, just let them kiss. You have them go through so much to find each other and keep having a character say “Kairi is is someone really dear to Sora’s heart-” Just have them kiss!!! Disney and Square Enix have characters kiss all the time! If you’re gonna wrip them apart then at least give us flustered couple stuff beforehand.

Mirror Tulip and Jessie- I don’t need much. If One-One for some reason was watching people around the world to see who to puck up next and we see those two briefly on a date, I’d be set for life. That would be cute.

Dipper and Pacifica- It is the one thing Gravity Falls didn’t do, surprisingly. That would be cute.

Spider-Man and White Tiger- Anyone remember the Ultimate Spider-Man, the third best animated Spider-Man show? There’s an episode where those two get really close and they’re always bouncing off each other in interesting ways throughout the show. It would’ve been real neat if they actually had them date. It’s the classic case of creating chemistry and then not doing it.

Finn and Flame Princess- Much like Gravity Falls, a character went through countless romantic flops that made develop and grow. That’s good stuff, but I’m greedy; give them what they learned and what they were looking for lol😅. Finn and FP were adorable and I wanted it to work out.

Bonus!

NaruSaku- I don’t even have to say anything. Y’all know what I’m about. Wrote a freaking rewrite and everything. 💀😂

#rwby #jaune arc #weiss schnee #taiyang xiao long #raven branwen #ruby rose #oscar pine #penny polendina #adventure time #ultimate spider man #gravity falls #infinity train #kingdom hearts #sokai #ask me stuff #narusaku #rwby ships

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bronanlynch · 3 years

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bi-ish weekly update

time sure passes huh. meant to do one last week but I wrote like 5000 words on Wednesday instead, and I’m not really sure what happened yesterday but maybe Thursday is my new day for these

listening: two for the price of one this week since I’m excited about both of them. first of all, obviously, is the Sangfielle theme by Jack de Quidt because it’s time for a new season of Friends at the Table. I love their description of this season’s music

the other thing I’ve been listening to is the new album from one of my fave bands, You’re Welcome from A Day to Remember. this is by far not the most musically interesting or complex song on the album but it is about, as far as I can tell, a bad breakup with a vampire and I love it for that just on principle, but also it’s fun! a fun pop punk-esque bop about breaking up with a vampire!

youtube

reading: since last time when I talked about many romance novels I was reading, I mostly just read more romance novels because sometimes that is all the brain can handle. shout out to KJ Charles for writing a historical romance with a nonbinary main characters, you really do love to see it. I appreciate that she puts trans characters in her books, and I hope that someday she writes one with a trans man as a main character, because that truly would be a book targeted directly at me.

I’ve also been reading the Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator series by Alexis Hall (author of Affair of the Mysterious Letter, a weird fantasy queer Sherlock Holmes retelling that absolutely fucking slaps, highly recommend).

this is his author bio from the Kate Kane books, which really just sets the tone and also. what a fucking life goal

anyway. series starts with Iron & Velvet which is currently on sale, which is why I bought it, and it also fucking slaps. I’m like halfway through the last book right now but they have all been good and fun. Kate is like. archetypal disaster p.i. but done in an interesting way (i.e. the narrative actually addresses the depression and the alcoholism in a way that I personally really appreciated), and also pretty much every woman in the ~supernatural community she encounters is an ex or someone she will flirt/hook up with at some point, which is an accurate representation of every irl queer space I’ve ever been part of. she dates a vampire for a while. hot morally questionable vampire lady. the vampire power structure names positions after tarot cards it’s very fun and sexy and tailored specifically toward my interests. also she lives in the same part of London as my ex-girlfriend so it’s. fun to recognize place names and be like. oh I went there on a date once huh

watching: started watching Turn A Gundam because a twitter friend recommended it as being fun and also very different then any other Gundam series and they were right on both counts. the premise of it is ‘what if a bunch of people went to live on the moon and some people stayed on earth, the moon people got real into super advanced technology and the earth people are larping the 19th century, and now the moon people want to come back’ so there’s a fun mix of visual styles. would love to see serious analytical writing on this show by someone more versed in discussing indigeneity/colonialism than me though because there are things that I’m a little bit hmmm at but I don’t know enough to be able to explain why or know if that’s the right response to have

don’t know what’s up with the dude on the left’s sunglasses but my friend has promised me the fashion choices only get weirder

I know about the ‘wow cool robots’ meme but some of the mech designs are very cool and visually distinct both from each other and from the standard blocky humanoid shape that lots of mechs are, so that’s fun to see. and they’re all different sizes too, which for me at least makes it easier to get a sense of the scale of the conflict/threat. when they’re all the same size it’s easy for me to forget they’re like 40 feet tall but when some of them are 40 feet and some of them are like 10 feet it’s a lot easier to be like. oh. oh shit. these are big and destructive and scary as hell

there are mini versions of this big mech that are like. the size of one of its feet

also there’s some fun stuff about how the way society relates to a mech and what a mech is used for can change over time, which is part of what is maybe inspiring me to get back into trying to write games, because between Turn A and the fic I was writing about Integrity Friendsatthetable I was like. hey what if a hack of The Ground Itself by Everest Pipkin, a game about a place changing over time, except instead of a place it’s a mech

playing: finished Knife of Dunwall finally! please clap! I was kinda half-expecting not to keep to low chaos in the last mission because there are so many overseers but I did it! I did do a bunch of accidentally getting into fights, killing a bunch of people, and then reloading an earlier save so I could go back and not kill those people but it’s fine. anyway. fun game, fun level once I got the hang of it, and I do feel like I accomplished something a lil bit difficult so that’s a nice feeling. definitely harder than the main game. also, very sad about Billie and gay for Delilah. she shows up just to threaten you and then disappears again, and I think that’s pretty hot of her. also love the narrative parallels of having the choice to spare Billie and then the game ending with Corvo about to decide whether to spare Daud or not. I just think that’s neat

making: made some Thai green curry last week from this recipe, which was tasty and not too hard to make, but has just enough specialty ingredients to make it a lil bit too expensive to make too often. our grocery store only ever has lemongrass when we’re looking for things that look kinda like lemongrass but aren’t, and didn’t have any when we need it so we just used extra lemongrass paste and lime juice for the lemongrass, and for the kaffir lime leaves, which we were also supposed to substitute with lemongrass but. it’s fine it was still tasty

writing: a lot somehow, although it’s been over two weeks since last time I did one of these so I guess that makes sense. I wrote a couple of things for 15 Days of Friends at the Table, including Broun, Milli, and Thisbe cottagecore roommates, Clem and Gucci bickering/flirting, and an extended dream sequence that makes me very sad about Integrity (I’m very proud of the last one, I know it has a very small target audience because Sokrates/Integrity is very much a rarepair in an already small fandom, there are 6 works in the tag, 4 of them are by me, 2 of them are by the same other person, and one of those is a gift for me so. it’s mostly just me, but I think I wrote something pretty good)

also meant to write more for Persona 5 Girls Week, although so far I’ve only written one thing, a quick fluff fic which for once requires very little knowledge of the source material. meant to write something for today’s prompt but instead I had two job interviews and then cooked dinner for my household so that probably will not happen and I will probably watch more Gundam instead

#dreaming.txt #tuesday no problem extended universe #contains pictures of food below the readmore

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soyouareandrewdobson · 4 years

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100 followers special post: KorraSami Book 1

Today’s entry (sort of a little extra for 100 followers) is rather short and admittedly just the tip of an iceberg I want to tackle later on, as it relates to a certain issue with Dobson in general when it comes to his “support” of the LGBT community. In addition it is not a comic I want to talk about, but rather a picture. To be more precise this one:

Titled “Out of our way” and released around summer of 2015, this picture is obviously fanart in relation to KorraSami, the ship of Avatar Korra and Asami Sato, which unlike other ships in certain fandoms became even canon according to “Word of God” and some post tv series material. Now personally my opinion on KorraSami is a bit “complicated”. I do not hate it nor do I really think it is as “groundbreaking” as many, including Dobson, make it out to be. Reasons for that I am willing one day to discuss in detail, but not now.

And like with KorraSami, my opinion on the picture is also a bit complicated. To paraphrase John Cleese from a famous sketch: I may not know much about art, but I know what I like. So when it comes to things such as posture and linework I can not give too many critical details.

However, even I see from a technical point a few irksome details. Like how Asami’s hips move a bit too much perspective wise to the left, making it look like she would soon slip off the wheelchair, the sparks on the ground looking more like someone inserted shitty fries via MS Paint in the picture and Korra’s face looking like it was hit with a frying pan at least once. But honestly, I think it does not look that terrible and it is at least colorful.

That said, I think it highlights a certain issue with how Dobson perceives the ship.

Independent of my thoughts on the ship, I think Korra and Asami are pretty neat characters personality wise. They are both not flawless (in fact, Korra at the start of season 2 felt like any character development from last season was missing and don’t get me even started on how she would have almost started a world war because she was a whinny ass) but they are pretty strong and independent characters who went through a lot both as friends and as individuals over the course of the show. Well, that and they boned the same guy.

The thing with Dobson is, any time I see him do something with those two, that sort of badassery is not really on display. Instead his KorraSami fanart tends to be just whimsical fluff as seen e.g. here

And don’t get me wrong, I do not think fluff is bad. I like cute pics too and hey, the following two pics in regard of KorraSami by Dobson count for me as decent fluff, even if from a technical drawing point there are likely still flaws in the pic. Mostly because they are also related as pics to the world of the show they are part of, with the first one even showing interaction with someone other than the ship.

But I also think that just because you ship two or multiple characters, doesn’t mean you can’t also draw something of such characters as a power couple so to speak. In case of those two, perhaps something like fighting a group of Equalists, showing Asami building and working on something with Korra at her side metal binding something according to Asami’s instructions etc. You know, something that is both “cute” because in a way they do stuff as a couple, but also badass because it is about two characters doing something they were born for. Or not even necessarily badass. Just something that shows them in a situation that isn’t just mindless fluff or feels like you just randomly insert the characters into whatever you can think of, thinking that in itself makes it already shipping art.

Bottomline, Dobson when tackling KorraSami only focuses mostly on the mindless fluff of the ship. Which in my opinion is in so far an issue, as that it reduces this so called “groundbreaking LGBT representation in animation” just further down into something cute and rather shallow Dobson can adore. The characters are not appreciated for their personality, but fo their looks and how cute they look together. And frankly, can something be considered “good representation” when it is just pretty shallow on closer look?

This at least is one of multiple issues I have with KorraSami in general, but also in relation with Dobson. Others I can address later on someday. I also bring it up here mostly, because this “shallowness” is indirectly on display in “Out of our way” once you know a bit about why Dobson drew this and how it may even be a bit insensitive. Not for any living creature, but the character of Korra actually.

See, here is the thing: The inspiration for the pic was two things: A clip from an anime called Gekijouban To Aru Majutsu no Railgun (which I admittedly never saw in my life and do not necessarily intend to) as seen here

And the fact that Korra spends some time in a wheelchair over the course of the show. And considering that the scene from the anime is actually meant to be funny (as it actually ends with both characters crashing in the gras in a hilarious position), what sort of cartoonish antics resulted in Korra temporarily being in a wheelchair? Did she slip on water during waterbending? Break her leg in some heroic fight but took it in strife and even made fun of her situation? You want to know?

Korra was kidnapped, tortured, poisoned with mercury and almost killed by a group of four terrorists, resulting in her being physically crippled for a long time and suffering from mental trauma, depression and PTSD.

……..ehhhhhhhh….. Funny?

Yeah, on a technical level I do not think the picture is the worst, but as “fanart” when you consider any canon context involving wheelchairs and Korra… yaiks. I mean, tone deaf is a bit of an understatement.

And I am not making this up. The plot of season 3 of Legend of Korra involved a group of four elemental benders trying to kill Korra, because their leader thinks that if he kills her he can break the Avatar cycle and that in turn will bring in a new era where people take their lives as a whole in their own hands, instead of the fate of the world depending on a few chosen ones like the Avatar. To do so they kidnap Korra and poison her with mercury, which they forcefully bend into her body. This results in her going full avatar mode and fighting the main villain Zaheer, only to get her ass handed by him thanks to the poison and him almost suffocating her by bending the air out of her lungs. Korra was in fact closer to death than any other character I have seen in the show, including Aang. And the aftermath of Zaheer’s actions were horrible. Season 3 ended with Korra still recovering from the poison (which had been bended out of her body again), by being stuck in a wheelchair and it being obvious she needs to get through rehabilitation. And while she did put on a brave face in front of everyone, the final shot of the episode is her at a ceremony celebrating the air nations rebirth, a single tear going down her cheek, indicating that in a way she is broken. The hotheaded and overall determined Korra at her lowest point.

I will openly admit, when I first saw that scene, I was taken aback a bit how bittersweet if not outright depressing the ending was. Begging the question, how by the time season 4 would roll in, Korra would have recovered. Turned out, not well. Not only was season 4 set three years after the events of the last one, but the first two episodes showed among other things how Korra went through rehabilitation in those years, how she was on more than one occasion on the brink of giving up and how she essentially went into hiding, not wanting to meet her friends again, abandoning her duties as the Avatar. She was not a sobbing mess, but she was broken. Not considering herself worthy of the title of avatar for the longest time and still suffering from physical and mental trauma because of what had happened to her. In fact, one of the better aspects of season 4 is how Korra tries to overcome her own trauma, in order to be strong enough to take on the fight against Kuvira before she can turn the Earth Kingdom completely into the Third Reich and take Republic City over.

In short, the picture of Korra in a wheelchair has a pretty significant and dramatic meaning for the character and the show as a whole. It is an important aspect of te shows storytelling and Korra’s final part of her character arc. Something with gravitas a lot of fans acknowledge. But Dobson sees it supposedly as something that gives way for a “badass and fun” pic with his favorite ship. And again, in my opinion, that is just tone deaf.I am not saying you can’t make a KorraSami pic with the wheelchair, but I think something with that motive should out of respect for the actual canon and its characters also be more somber than what we got here.

Which brings me back to how Dobson handles the couple in a shallower manner than it needs to be. Cause if he wasn’t just out for whimsical fun and fluff with his two favorite lesbians from Nickelodeon and would Korra and Asami consider more than just something to fawn upon based on looks, he could have drawn something more meaningful that genuinely showed how both are a decent representation of an LGBT-couple and interesting individuals. Cause being a couple when everything is fun and sunshine is one thing. Being there for each other when things are hard? THAT is the challenge and shows how much you really love someone.

#korrasami #andrew dobson #lgbt representation #lgbt #legend of korra #adobsonartwork #adobsonart #shipping #korra #korra comics #asami sato

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chibivesicle · 4 years

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Golden Kamuy chapters 251 and 252 - rumble in the brewhouse - continued

Chapter 252 starts off with Sugimoto in an even worse position as Nikaido screams and Koito attacks from the side with his saber. And Nikaido certainly has murder eyes.

The look of surprise by Sugimoto is one where he needs to stop thinking that all fights are one and one. He’s lucky that he ducks low enough that instead of Koito cutting him down with the saber, he cuts into a beer storage barrel and the beer squirts out hitting Koito square in the face. Nikaido fires and Asirpa jumps in front of him to be a shield from Nikaido. Oh Asirpa, you can’t use your status as the key to the gold forever. Plus, Nikaido’s not the type of character to care that she’s an ‘innocent’. I think Asirpa may have gotten ahead of herself thinking that she alone can use her status to be untouchable.

Of course Sugimoto has done a 180 from a few chapters ago. He was ordering Asirpa to stand in the shadows so that Ogata couldn’t target and kill her, but if she’ll take a bullet for him, it is okay. Yeeeeeaaaaaahhhh. Granted, Asirpa has the level of screentones that Hijikata can produce, but her innocence will fail at some point.

Poor Tsukishima has to stop Nikaido. Really, did anyone not realize that Kikuta, Tsukishima and Koito really are an ineffective small group with Nikaido being unstable and Usami being unpredictable. Koito takes this chance to attack Sugimoto again and even prevents him from aiming as Sugimoto fires his gun off to the side. Unfortunately, Koito isn’t great at hand to hand combat nor does he have the full amount of anger/tenacity that Sugimoto has so he’s able to tackle him and headbutt Koito.

Meanwhile, poor Tsukishima is babysitting Nikaido while Asirpa just watches using her presence as leverage on Tsukishima. All of this action though is perfect as Kikuta hasn’t made his presence known. I’m a huge fan of Kikuta (or Roger as a few of us call him due to his resemblance to Roger Moore) and he’s put himself in the perfect position for his specialty, close range rapid fire attacks. Revolvers aimed and at ready we even get the view from the barrel of his gun, a clean shot at Sugimoto.

Ushiyama then looks towards something, perhaps Kikuta and we see movement lines indicating he’s doing something quickly. We get our answer as the next page shows him pushing the stacked beer barrels and he’s able to knock Kikuta over as his footing is lost with the shifting barrels.

This then leads to a small beer tsunami that catches most of our characters in the wave. Koito has recovered quickly hand has a hand on Sugimoto with his saber while Sugimoto’s bayonet is up as they both stare at the breaking barrels and the beer that is about to cover them. Asirpa is able to escape by climbing on the barrels but Nikaido and Tsukishima also get drenched.

Noda makes a full page dedicated to Koito and Sugimoto almost swimming in beer. Clearly, this is for comic relief in the middle of a tense situation, and I meanwhile can’t help but think about how sticky everyone is and having to wash out their uniforms is going to suck. Laundry needs to happen.

The beer tsunami wave carries the guys along and Shiraishi has to escape it as Tsukishima, Sugimoto and Nikaido all end up in a more mechanical looking room. Koito appears to be still in the storage room with the barrels.

Nikaido tries to fight Sugimoto but falls over and it appears that Tsukishima might be the least drunk as he manages to at least hit Sugimoto, and takes down his comment that he can take them because he’s ‘imm-’. Good job Tsukishima, show Sugimoto that he’s not the boss and they both get swept further away.

Meanwhile, Koito, the bon-bon that he is, is plastered as he makes one of his high pitched screams on the floor. I’d say despite being the largest, he’s the lightweight of the group. And we never have seen him drink in the manga so far. I wonder if Koito isn’t much of a drinker as we’ve only see him drink tea as far as I can recall off the top of my head. I think Koito is a dainty drinker.

While drunken chaos unfolds, Kikuta grabs Asirpa and verbally says he’s secured her. Is this to Tsukishima and Koito? Ariko? Himself because he’s that damn good?

Asirpa won’t go down with out a fight and she manages to get one of her poison tip arrows in his nose to bring him to a rapid halt. Of course this entire exchange does not happen alone as Ogata is looking at them with the binoculars from the fire watchtower. He seems quite interested and he even pulls the binoculars away as if he’s thinking about something. The panel then shows Asirpa pointing her bow and arrow at Kikuta in a very non-threatening pose, his hands down and empty.

This makes the fifth time that Asirpa has drawn her bow at a human, as the fourth time was when she shot Ogata in the eye. I wonder if Ogata is having some sort of out of body experience watching Kikuta try to reason with Asirpa. If only he had the public speaking skills of someone like Kikuta - since he was clearly upset when he couldn’t lie to Asirpa like the rest of the adults can. And it goes back to the fact that he lacks something and stuff doesn’t go well for him etc. etc.

This shows in Kikuta’s confident and relaxed body language. He tries to get her on his side by asking about what happened with the Ainu who were killed.

He knows that her father is linked to it, first being mistaken as a victim of the attack, but in reality hiding behind the Japanese labeled personality of Noppera-bou, not Wilk, the partisan from Karafuto/Sakahlin. It really makes me wonder who originally told Asirpa that her father was killed in the incident. We were never given the information that Wilk died in the attack. Her uncle Makanakkuru, may have been the adult to tell her this, but was he lying because she was a child? Or others knew he was alive like Kiro and they felt it was better for her to not know about this until she was old enough to become involved?

Honestly, I’ve wondered why Asirpa hasn’t been more assertive in the quest for the truth. Yes, she confirmed that Wilk was Noppera-bou at Abashiri and she believed her father didn’t kill them and Sugimoto did eventually tell her that he said he didn’t kill the other Ainu as well. And she then kinda let go of questioning the entire situation.

Which really, with her newfound need to champion the cause of the Ainu, it makes me wonder why she isn’t being more forward with this. She kinda seemed interested when she met Ariko, but hasn’t done as much as I’d expect her to.

Pondering interlude over, Kikuta is trying to negotiate with something that he thinks Asirpa wants, which was not what Ogata tried to do. She seems nervous as she asks him why he’d know this in the first place, so I’d say it implies that she is interested. Kikuta then reveals what we already knew from Ogata back when he was first speaking with Hijikata about the information that Tsurumi learned about the victims. I always read this to imply that Ogata was there as well, but he never says it and instead the Tsurumi examined the stuff. When we learned that Kikuta, Tsukishima and Ogata were a part of Tsurumi’s inner circle of intelligence operatives, it was pretty easy to make the connection that Ogata was indirectly telling Hijikata part of what he saw with Tsukishima and Kikuta there as well.

The action then shows Usami noticing Asirpa and Ogata sees him with a look of disdain. Now that we know that Ogata smacked Usami with a bedpan, we know that Ogata has no love of Usami. Well and that both men have completely opposite personalities.

But of course we see that Usami has made the cardinal sin of most soldiers according to Ogata; he’s abandoned his rifle and is running around with a bayonet. We know by now that bad things happen to those who don’t keep an eye on their rifles!

Kikuta is clearly a very persuasive man and he hits all of the points to convince Asirpa that she should talk to Tsurumi. Since he thinks that knowing what happened to her father would be more important than the gold. This may also be read to mean that upon finding the victims and Wilk, Tsurumi may have talked to him or something critical may have happened.

Could Wilk have requested to Tsurumi to report that he was dead? To create his identity. Both men could have spoken Russian, but Tsukishima and Ogata would have understood things then as well. . . It is clear that Ogata knows more about this along with Kikuta and Tsukishima.

Her nervous face is more than enough to see that Kikuta is making her think about this. Ogata has shifted to aim at her under this observation that she’ll work with Tsurumi.

This means he’s trying to rationalize why shooting Asirpa would strategically be a good idea. She’s the key, she hasn’t told anyone the code and if she died everything was all for naught. But he hesitates. He hesitates because, he knows that Asirpa is innocent and his brain has linked her with Yuusaku. Which leads to the dramatic page of the ‘reappearance’ of Yuusaku. I personally think that Yuusaku is not a ghost, he is the representation of Ogata’s guilt an PTSD in a neat and tidy annoying younger brother package. It is as though whenever he becomes emotionally connected to Asirpa, he begins to pause as he realizes he can’t actually shoot her.

For plot excitement and storytelling purposes, Yuusaku’s ‘ghost’ is linked to Vasily. The first time he appeared was after Ogata defeated Vasily in their insane sniper battle. As he began to fall ill, Asirpa became Yuusaku speaking to him and we get the flashback as to why Yuusaku would ‘haunt’ him and how he has much in common with Asirpa.

This continues as Ogata’s mind keeps connecting the two of them together, especially on the ice floe when it is clear he’s talking to Yuusaku via Asirpa as she’s just confused about his weird monologue. I’m beginning to wonder if the fact that Ogata didn’t kill Vasily also lead to the activation of Yuusaku since it is a time where Ogata didn’t kill his opponent, only injuring him enough to escape to safety.

Whatever mechanism you may think, the point is that concept of Yuusaku standing next to Ogata, sending him some sort of message about why shooting Asirpa would be a bad thing, causes him to jump back in surprise.

This then dramatically saves his life as he’s no longer in a position to aim and instead a single shot hits the chamber that rotates to release the empty shell. At this point in the chapter it is unclear if the damage has prevented Ogata from sniping or if he’ll be able to make do.

He turns in one of his most cat-like fashions as a stray hair hangs and he’s got that ‘huh’ look any cat has when you poked them and they were not impressed.

Vasily looks focused but sweats a little as he likely knows his shot was unsuccessful. Ogata then remarks again, that it was the work of an experienced sniper, the same phrase he used when they encountered Vasily at the Russian border.

I have to admit I was so disappointed that Vasily has gone for the straight up try to shoot Ogata game. Really dude? You just quested from Russia, to Japan, to Hokkaido to then kill Ogata without him realizing they were playing lynx versus snow leopard games? Or is Vasily not quite as skilled as Ogata at hitting a man accurately from a distance? But we know he is.

This leads me to ask, “What is the purpose of Vasily?” is he a pretty Slavic boy who has an unhealthy obsession with Ogata to keep him moving and prevent him from shooting Asirpa? I don’t think Vasily gives a damn about Asirpa, it was clear in Karafuto he just wanted Ogata to come out and play, nya! Or maybe come out and play, мяу! would be more accurate.

Sugimoto thinks Vasily is an Ogata repellent, but he’s never communicated effectively with Vasily and it is clear Vasily has his own goal. I really hope Ogata at least questioned Vasily in Russian after he injured him so that it could reveal something more helpful. Recall, here in chapter 161 is off to get the answers from them, e.g. the Russian border guards.

It would be too simple if Vasily is just a vehicle for Ogata’s Yuusaku/Asirpa guilt to manifest itself and move his character progression along.

Anyhoo, the chapter ends with the tagline “From Russia with Death” a pun on the Bond movie “From Russia with Love”.

If Vasily did damage Ogata’s current type 38, he’s in a reply of what happened the last time he went up against Vasily. Mosin-nagant and a nice warm ushanka versus Ogata, in his wool uniform and the old Berndan Model 1881, with a single shot, as when he used it, he had the extra ammunition held between his fingers here:

A detail that still makes me tingle with excitement that Noda discussed this with Tanigaki and Nihei and Ogata’s the one who does it like a good rifle expert that he is. I look forward to Ogata out sniping Vasily. Or at least outsmarting him.

Really, chapters 251 and 252 show how various characters act in stressful situations. Sugimoto, Tsukishima, Koito and Nikaido are a mess, Shiraishi is trying to avoid shit if possible, Asirpa seems to be trying to leverage her savior complex a bit too much for my liking and Ogata is being haunted by his previous coping mechanisms to ignore that he might actually be human. Though some evidence indicates he may be a cat.

All of this has me excited for 253 and more Ogata action, because I’m biased.

#golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #ogata hyakunosuke #vasily #asirpa #sugimoto saichi #Shiraishi Yoshitake #tsukishima hajime #koito otonoshin #warrant officer kikuta #nikaido #ushiyama tatsuma #Usami Tokishige #Hanazawa Yuusaku

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ghostxraven · 3 years

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you really are about to unlock smth bc a) i have SO many thoughts on the sequel trilogy and b) im DESPERATE for a distraction so um. i think about the prequel trilogy and i really truly start to lose it. bc force awakens was SO GOOD. like remember the first time you watched it and you (me, but maybe you as well) were like? HOLY SHIT. it was obviously a new hope v2 but it was FRESH and NEW and there were cool characters that i CARED about. (1/3)

HELL YEAH let’s get into it ok ok ok OPINIONS INCOMING.

TOTALLY with u on this. like the prequels make me mad about the wasted potential but tbh the sequel trilogy is just like. draining emotionally because they LOOK so fucking good. the force awakens WAS so so good, like very very star wars even if it was following the plot beats of anh. and then it just. tanked itself holy shit. like at least the prequels look bad, sound bad, it’s like a comical level of tragic. the sequel trilogy feels like having chalk dust spread all over my skin and then being put in an echo chamber of nails on a chalkboard 😔 at this point even tfa comes with a TINY lil bit of like 😞 just because i know what comes after but YES tfa is one of those star wars movies that just FEELS so fucking star wars it makes me unhinged. “THATS ONE HELL OF A PILOT” YEAH BITCH!!! IT IS!!!!! GAY PEOPLE!!!

the last jedi. a mess. i like certain rian johnson films but he should not be allowed to be anywhere near Star Wars. my main problem? (beyond the racism and romanticizing stalking and emotional and physical abuse?) it doesn’t FEEL like star wars. like. ok even in the darkest moments in mainstream star wars films they are SUPPOSED to feel hopeful. tlj feels like watching a train wreck in slow motion it’s just like shitty thing after shitty thing after shitty thing happening to the main cast. i think the casino planet’s design was a little lazy and WAY too underlit and rose’s character was pointless in the way she was shown in the movie. exhausting. the jokes were all on the wrong edge of disrespectful to the characters and the original star wars like luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder? appalling. not funny just there for shock value. everyone is out of character. everyone is stressed and miserable all the time. aside from things i didn’t really want to see but wouldn’t have argued with in a better movie (ie luke dying) it really was just a racist misogynistic mess. oh yeah did i mention how they did rey’s character dirty because she went from being a scrappy desert mechanic who’s a little dorky and just trying to find a family and a place in the galaxy to Bland White Girl Servicing a Man’s Character. that pales in comparison to how finn poe and rose’s characters were treated but HOLY shit. i walked out of the theater crying. tfa raised my expectations only to have tlj smash them down to the floor it was. hhhhh ok ok ok im trying to think if i liked anything from the movie. um. you were right it looked good! sound and score were great as usual. i did think poe’s conversation with hux at the beginning was funny. i really liked when leia used the force to come back to the ship (ik that was a controversial scene for some people but i did really like that scene. she deserves it). laura dern is cool i hated her character but in theory laura dern being leia’s lesbian boarding school friend is neat. but yeah im sorry i really REALLY didn’t like that movie we only saw it in theaters once it was so bad. :( i do agree with u abt the force mysticism being cool tho!

rise of skywalker. now maybe it’s because the bar was on the floor after tlj. but i actually liked it quite a bit. still kind of a mess. jj trying to retcon all of the stuff from the last movie because for some reason he wasn’t just allowed to do the whole trilogy. the pacing being a nightmare for the first half. the atrocious abuser-validating kiss at the end. but im gonna be real after having to sit through tlj i was happy enough just to see the main trio back together and finn and poe being treated with more respect to care much about that stuff. disney queerbaits me once again but that’s on me for clowning. i really genuinely liked the scene where rey passes the lightsaber to kylo i thought that was cool but it was overshadowed by the knowledge that the Kiss 🤮 was coming so i didn’t get to enjoy it like i wanted. ALSO hayden christiansen and all the other actors doing the voices in the scene where rey is fighting the emperor (who im pretty sure was only in there because RIAN put the trilogy’s intended big bad into a sparkly gold bathrobe and killed him off in the second movie but im not complaining about seeing ian mcdiarmid) were apparently on set in costume and force ghosts were supposed to protect her in like a big circle and what im saying is i feel robbed and cheated and feral

the only movie of the three i REALLY liked was tfa. now we’re back to How Would I Fix It. step one fire rian johnson. step two put JJ on the whole trilogy and HOLD HIM ACCOUNTABLE for having a plot planned out, or else get a different director TO DO ALL THREE MOVIES. none of this middle of the road “trying to appease both sides of the fandom” bullshit. kylo dies at the end and they DO NOT kiss and that is all the redemption he gets. if disney is claiming gay rep then they SHOW us ACTUAL gay representation. poe and finn kiss on screen and we don’t get a two second blurry background kiss between random characters. completely toss out whatever the fuck that plot was supposed to be in tlj and separate ros into two movies so JJ could actually DO the entire plot he had planned (instead of disney execs chopping down what was p much a four hour movie into two hours twenty two minutes which was SHORTER than the two hour forty minute cut jj reluctantly okayed but i DIGRESS).

god. what the fuck. anyways sorry for completely going off the rails but ty for sharing ur sequel trilogy opinions and ty for letting me rant sorry this got so long but ily!!! ❣️💕💝

#pi's personal #star wars #treasured mutuals #query on top #this sounds really angry. holy fuck #sorry!!! im not yelling at u. just pissed off in general #anyways finnpoe cannon king. homosexual legends i LOVE rewatching tfa and getting FLOORED by the gay tension #thank u Oscar Isaac and John Boyega for your heroic sacrifices gone but not forgotten 😔✊ /j #jordan tag ⚠️

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jadelotusflower · 4 years

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September Roundup

So it wasn’t a very productive month, writing wise. I think I wrote less than 1000 words due to various RL issues (a shoulder impingement giving me grief among other things). I can’t entirely blame that, but nor am I going to dwell. It’s my birthday tomorrow, and while I’m having the usual existential crisis about another year slipping by almost unnoticed and without significant accomplishment, I am resolved to return to my novel and get at least the first draft finished by the end of the year. We’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I’ve at least been reading more. I’ve also consumed too much film/tv instead of writing, but hey.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood - the long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, this was an engrossing read, if perhaps not what people were expecting. While I agree with some of the criticism, I really enjoyed this book.

Like the original novel, it takes the form of primary sources from the rule of Gilead, in Aunt Lydia’s secret chronicle, and “witness testimony” from two young women - one who grew up within Gilead, and the other outside. It’s fairly obvious from the beginning who they are, but I’ll avoid spoilers. Events become a little convenient towards the end, but it’s a great improvement on the tv show’s third season where things just became ludicrously easy and consequence free. I don’t think Atwood will ever write again in this world, but there is still so much to explore and I hope she does.

Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him by Tracy Borman - As far as Tudor biographies go, there’s nothing much new here, but it is an interesting character study of Henry VIII through the men who had the greatest influence on him, especially as a young despot in the making. Through this lens it really does become just so shockingly clear that with a few exceptions, almost everyone of importance in Henry’s life goes through the same cycle of being built up, brought close, and rewarded, but then cast aside or crushed by his unchallenged power and narcissism - and often on very flimsy pretext.

Top End Wedding - I love a romcom, and this was really charming - it’s now on Netflix so I highly recommend. Starring and co-written by Miranda Tapsell, and directed by Wayne Blair (who also directed The Sapphires - a must see if you haven’t), it’s a film that shows great love to classic American and British romcoms (and the tropes are all there), but also uniquely Australian (Tapsell and Blair are both Indigenous, and care was taken to liaise with the Aboriginal communities where filming took place to ensure that proper approvals were given and and respect paid to the traditional owners). The backdrop of the Northern Territory is just beyond gorgeous, and this just the kind of heartwarming fare needed in these Trying Times (TM).

Bill and Ted Face the Music - As is this! I’ve loved the first two Bill and Ted movies since I was a kid, and was so happy that they’ve finally completed the trilogy. Look, it’s not high art, and you’d be forgiven for thinking this is just another cash grab off the sequel-reboot merry go round, but this was made with such clear love and affection for the originals that I just don’t care.

Here’s the thing: I hate an unnecessarily reboot as much as the next person - I don’t think there’s any point remaking something unless you have something new to say about the material. I also hate the “bleakquel” - where the only idea to follow up the original material is to tear it down just to rebuild it the same but without the heart (looking at you Star Wars). However, I am a sucker for the follow up/sequel just to catch up with those characters you love and see how they’re doing 10, 20, 30 years later. It’s familiar, it’s comforting, and sometimes that’s all it needs to be. Really, that’s all B&T FTM is, but I was perfectly satisfied by it.

Maybe there’s nothing more this film has to say than Be Excellent to Each Other (again), but honestly that’s a message I think we all need right now. There’s of course more to it than that - for the first time, we see a Bill and Ted who have become disillusioned that despite mastering so many different forms of music, they haven’t found The Song that will align the planets and bring out world peace etc, despite their most valiant attempts (That Which Binds Us Through Time: The Chemical, Physical and Biological Nature of Love: An Exploration of the Meaning of Meaning, Part 1 is a neat joke but also a legitimate banger complete with throat singing, a theremin, and bagpipes). And SPOILERS: In the end they discover honestly the only possible answer: that The Song itself doesn’t matter, it’s the world united through music, playing together, that brings everything into balance.

Does all the time travel work within the established rules of the universe? Not really - we see alternate Bill and Teds of the future without any explanation of alternate timelines. Are Samara Weaving (as Thea Preston) and Brigette Lundy-Paine (as Billie Logan) essentially doing impression of Winters and Reeves? Sure, but they are so charming that I don’t care.

Now, there are some obvious holes - covid made reshoots/pickups impossible so the opening “where are they now” montage got nixed, there was clearly more story for Elizabeth and Joanna (”the Princesses”) that is sadly missing, and the ending is very abrupt, but circumstances being what they are I can see why they decided to work with what they had and release the film, which is an antidote to the current, depressing state of the world, and at least in my view, a worthy third and final part of the Bill and Ted trilogy. (But I wouldn’t say no to a time-travel through music history show with Billie and Thea).

Disclosure (dir. Sam Feder) - a fantastic documentary exploring the representation of trans people in film and television, which sadly has often vacillated between lack of representation to misrepresentation, but with hope that things are slowly improving. A really worthwhile watch.

Enola Holmes (dir. Harry Bradbeer) - Twas charming! I hadn’t read (or even heard of) the YA books this is based on, and am uninterested in Stranger Things, but found this very entertaining and Millie Bobby Brown delightful in the title role. There was also a nice balance in the supporting cast, in that they resisted the urge to stack the decks too high in Enola’s favour, or make all the characters around her completely incompetent so she’s only heroic by default. She is clever and accomplished, but also finds that practicing jiu-jitsu is very different to an actual fight against someone trying to kill her.

Fleabag (seasons 1-2) - I never want to be too harsh on movies or tv that have been hyped to the heavens, because expectations are always too high and are rarely met. I liked this show, but did find all the smug asides and looks to camera a little grating in the first season. I enjoyed the second season a lot more, because while Fleabag was still a screw up, she wasn’t stealing money from her date’s wallet level terrible, so there was more of an emotionally satisfying arc (+ Andrew Scott who is always great), and I felt the humour was pitched a bit better. Olivia Coleman was the standout for me (isn’t she always?) as the Godmother, whose smiling, passive-aggressive villainy was masterful and worth watching for that alone.

Lucifer (seasons 1-2) - This show has crossed my tumblr dash for years, but I’m not really fond of crime procedurals. I am fond of mythology so seeing as the whole thing’s now on Netflix I decided to give it a go, and I have to say I am intrigued by the concept of the devil as a wayward son whose punishment for rebelling against God was to spend eternity punishing others, rather than straight-up evil incarnate. So far the procedural side of things is ho hum, but I am enjoying the mythology side, and Tom Ellis is very very handsome. I’m also pleasantly surprised at the number of female characters in the main and supporting cast and their treatment - they are actually allowed to talk and be friends with one another. Can you believe?!?

#roundup #personal #reading watching writing #september roundup

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disasterhumans · 5 years

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I love Nott differentiating between how it feels for other people to accept you, how it feels not to like your own body, and how it feels to feel wrong in your own body. Because those are, each of them, three different things, which I think is at the crux of everyone’s interpretation of Nott/Veth’s situation. The Mighty Nein, and Yeza, see a person—a loved one—full of self-loathing that often locates itself onto her physical form. Understandably, their response is always to comfort and refute her own negative self-talk: you’re not ugly, you’re very pretty, not all goblins are evil, i accept you no matter what, etc. And that’s all very well and good! It’s important! But it doesn’t in and of itself solve either problem two or three. Other people can find her goblin form attractive—or at least non-repulsive—but because a lot of Nott’s self-loathing actually has very little to do with her appearance (her appearance is more a reflection of her internal self-loathing, in her eyes), it doesn’t get too far past the surface.

But she’s been traveling with the group for a long time, and one of the two people she was most scared of rejecting her did not. She’s also met a few more goblins, and as such has received a wider perspective of who and what they can be. She’s met goblins who are nice, goblins who are just doing their jobs, and, goblins who are a little bit strange—but hey, so is she. For so much of her life, goblins were associated with fear. Either fear of them, or fear of others’ reactions to her. Being in Xhorhas has not only expanded her idea of goblinhood, but also provided her first opportunity since being turned into a goblin to live and exist in the world without (as much) fear. She doesn’t have to hide her face just to leave the house. She doesn’t have to worry about being killed on sight for the body she was forced into.

And I think it’s sometimes under-appreciated (in the world at large), how much being forced to hide some part of who you are can itself turn into hating and fearing who or what you are. Nott already hated herself, and hated being a goblin, but even with the Mighty Nein’s support, the culture of the Dwendalian Empire as a whole taught her, and continued to reinforce, the idea that goblins were nothing but monsters to be feared. Being in the Dynasty has helped Nott accept her goblin form, not just because her understanding of “goblin” is wider now, but because she was able to live as one without shame there.

But as much as Nott might accept or at the very least not loathe her appearance as a goblin any longer, that doesn’t been that her current body feels hospitable or right to her. Her issue with being a goblin isn’t just one of self-hatred or insecurity, it is a more fundamental matter of who she is. She is not a goblin. She was born a halfling, in a halfling community, in halfling culture, with a halfling husband and son. Maybe she was born and grew up in a town of people who didn’t accept her, but it’s still a community she feels an affinity toward. And just on a pragmatic level: halflings and goblins have very differerent lifespans. She’s effectively had three quarters of her potential life stolen away from her. Nott’s desire to return to Veth’s body isn’t about being pretty or acceptable or attractive again (she never thought she was any of those things to begin with). Nott’s desire isn’t even fully to become something more “palatable” to her family (though that’s certainly part of it for her). Nott wants to become a halfling again because anything else does not feel like herself.

Nott giving her mask to Yeza was a big thing. It was a promise of her (intent to) return. It was a declaration of her moving toward a specific goal that she felt she needed to accomplish. It was a reflection of her making steps toward accepting the parts of herself that aren’t “easy” or “palatable”—the parts of her that are weird, that are Nott. But I love that her giving up the mask—and her giving it to Yeza—is not about her suddenly being okay with being a goblin. It marks an important step in Nott claiming who she is, without shame, but it is also her proclaiming that she is not fully her true self yet. And it is okay for Nott to be locating a sense of self-hood and personhood in her body, and her body’s appearance. Our corporeal forms inform a lot of how we move through the world, and understand the world, and interact with the world. It may not be all of who Veth is, but it is an important part of who Veth is, and if she has the opportunity to get it back, than of course she should be able to pursue that.

There are important stories to tell about monstrosity in stories, and what it means, and how it is attached (through metaphor, allegory, or otherwise) to various other identities. There are important messages to be conveyed about monstrous characters, and how they choose to exist in defiance of conforming to a non-monstrous norm. Those stories are important—and we actually are seeing it played out with Fjord. But It’s not—and never really has been—Nott’s story. And I love that too. I love that here we have a story of dysphoria, and self-loathing, that is dislocated from any one neat analogy for our world. None of this is possible in our world—race, and species, and death don’t operate in the same ways, so when all three of them get mucked around with at once, all of our metaphors and allegories become confused. It makes perfect sense that both trans fans and fans of color connect with Nott so much. So many of her experiences map onto our own experiences of dysphoria or internalized racism. But it’s also impossible for her narrative to fall neatly, and completely, into either paradigm, because the story she’s living just can’t happen in our world. Instead we get something in the messy middle—we get someone who is (slowly) unlearning their own racism and oppression (which has suddenly become something akin to “internalized” racism); who is also working through issues of self-loathing, and self-image; who is also still seeking to be changed into a form that feels more like them. And in all of that I think there have been a couple of narrative/representational missteps. But on the whole, Nott’s story has continued to provide a kaleidoscopic view of the complexities of identity and selfhood. And within it, I continue to find my own messy middles.

#critical role #nott the brave #cr meta #and i continue to have a lot of feelings tonight lads #c2e71

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aotopmha · 5 years

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Attack on Titan Chapter 122 Thoughts

This chapter is pretty straight-forward in comparison to the previous ones, but in a deceptive way, where a lot of moments have a bunch of nuance, when they at first glance don't seem to.

Most of the chapter is very thoroughly "show, don't tell", which I can see getting people confused and leave them asking questions, but the key to this is context.

When taking this chapter as more stand-alonish, I feel like it would 100% feel much more obtuse and confusing, but almost every panel calls back to something and the story simply asks you to put the story together based on this. I feel it still definitely leaves some stuff up for potentially varying interpretation, but much less so.

Here's my take on it.

Firstly, the only voice in the whole Ymir flashback is that of King Fritz. Everyone else is silent.

There is much talk about how AoT is this morally gray series and there are certainly many morally gray elements here, but in truth, I'd phrase this idea more in the sense of the story having really well fleshed out antagonists.

It emphasizes humanizing every character, including all those that are presented as shitty people, in a specific way of giving them at least one quality that's if not sympathetic, then at least understandable from the characters' perspectives (this is something Isayama has actually straight-up mentioned to aim to do in interview material).

Karina is a horrible mother to Reiner, but she is a product of her environment and has never gotten to see outside of the world she lives in.

Alma treats Historia horribly, but her life is in danger because of a powerful man and the society she lives in.

Floch started out as a tactless asshole and has only grown worse, but there are understandable points in what he is saying during various moments in the story.

Gross is straight-up a candidate for the most hateable character in the series, but there is a spelled out, concrete perspective to his evil you kind of understand in a twisted way that also stems from the system he's living under, which often makes for my favorite type of antagonist.

I point this out because I think the first King Fritz is the most straight-forwardly villainous character in the series so far and I think that's fine.

The truth is, sometimes there isn't a "both sides". Sometimes there is a good and evil and in this case, Isayama opted for a powerful man that exploits the weak to further gain power for the evil, which is still a very real evil, but, as said, also pretty straight-forward.

He doesn't develop in any way - he's an abuser to begin with and in a position of power to begin with.

The only sliver of nuance to him is that he's a smart opportunist: he's a powerful man who knows to take advantage of the position he's in to gain even more power.

You could argue this also comments on power abuse and how a priviledged position and availability of the means to take advantage of others encourages to do so and gain even more power. People are more likely to use a gun when they are given access to it than when not.

But even then, as he says to keep passing down the spines of the Titans, due it being at the cost of the daughters he had with Ymir, whom he already saw as a tool to be used, he most likely doesn't even do it for the good of his people, but his own self-serving desire to preserve his position of power and influence and that way remain important and influental even after his death.

He's more interesting as a vehicle for exploring the social situation he creates than as a individual character.

Him being the only one to talk is thus another neat example of the story making a narrative point through meta elements. Abusers silence and take away people's voices through fear and conditioning and this is exactly what he does and therefore is the only one talking.

In this case, it's even literal, as we see a slave having their tongue cut out. We don't ever see this happen to Ymir, but it's an easy assumption to make that she might've had her tongue cut out, as well, based on what we see done with the other slave.

Regardless of any physical element, though, Ymir simply doesn't go against King Fritz because she doesn't understand she can do so. Her chains are entirely emotional. She seems to have been a slave for most of her life, never getting to see any other perspective regarding herself, so because of the conditioning and indoctrination stemmed from her position as a slave, she believes serving him is her purpose in life:

It's how she is lead to percieve herself that keeps her a slave.

This is interesting to me because this seems to reflect Armin's initial character resolve. The only reason he didn't believe in himself was because of his own, negative, perception of himself. It's through an alternative perspective given through Eren and Mikasa he grew to see himself in a different light. His arc is one of the first arcs in the story that involves a character gaining nuance in their perspective (technically Mikasa has a moment like this before him, but I think Armin's arc fits the comparison better because it very specifically relates to his self-image):

(Chapter 11)

This later also evolves into the Marleyan Eldians' single-mindedness and unawareness of playing into a corrupt system. Neither Ymir nor them simply never get an opportunity to see the world differently/in a more complex light.

In the case of a more typical damsel, the rescue would have had a much more straight-forward and simplistic explanation and through that in my eyes would have been much less interesting and I really appreciate whenever a story understands abuse like this.

Related to this, Eren's speech in this chapter probably makes it one of my favorites.

There are some uncertain connotations to it, as Ymir truly probably is in no good emotional position to make her own decision and Eren ultimately gives her two very specific options to choose from, but I think his words are genuine and the point of the speech still stands.

It's a powerful speech that says everyone is an autonomous person and is not obligated to be bound to anyone:

As said, the elements of a typical damsel in distress story are here, but I think it's more human than just a standard crying girl asking for help situation and on a meta level, the story says that whoever is in a similar situation also has a choice.

As also said, you could tear this into pieces when you focus on a bunch of the technicalities surrounding it, but I think as a general sentiment I really do think it’s incredibly powerful.

I mentioned how this chapter commented on how powerful men exploit women, but I think it's more gender neutral than it might initially seem. I think the general feelings here would work just as well if were Ymir a boy, with the only difference probably being another woman being involved to force him to have children. The story has gendered aspects, but it handles them with not only taste, but also in a way where the general point isn’t gendered, similarly to Mikasa's backstory.

Related to this, I think the final element to look at in relation to Ymir's story specifically is Historia’s pregnancy. I think it made it directly much more harder to make natural.

It felt artificial to begin with, but before this, I was much more open-minded about it.

Okay, since Historia genuinely seems to care for everyone, maybe this could've been somehow spun around her sacrifice being genuine and of her own choosing, but now it's as literal of a representation of history repeating itself as it possiblt could get and whether Historia chose the pregnancy or not, subtextually it will always represent history repeating itself.

The pregnancy has a bunch of potential problems: erasing the gay part of a character (since Historia is the most overtly gay character in the series and this happens after her love interest is killed, it will come across this way even if it's not the intention), contradicting a character's arc, but more than that, at this point, I just don't see anything interesting and unique said through it specifically. All other options where the pregnancy is fake sound much more interesting to me.

If the story finds a way to somehow make the pregnancy work in a interesting way, I'll applaud it, but right now I don't see all that many possibilities in terms of how it could.

This chapter literally calls back to the image of the kind girl Historia saw in the book Frieda showed her that she went against and while this contradiction in her arc already existed just with the reveal of the apparent pregnancy, this now puts a big red exclamation mark on it:

It's so obvious that the story missing this contradiction and not even addressing it would be extremely puzzling (which I do think it will).

More than anything, as if it hadn’t done this as strongly as possible already, this also even further (as it possibly could at this point), fortified the idea that something definitely, most certainly, without a doubt, is up.

Moving on, though, in the same vein as I said there are points in the real world where good and evil exists, there is actually a truth in history. History is a series of facts interpreted by people and with showing the "real truth" here I think the story dodged a dangerous potential implication about history not being factual.

I think it also fixed some of the potential implications with the historical imagery the story has been using.

Firstly, the Eldian empire was born through the exploitation of the weak. We don't even know if Ymir and all the other slaves were all actually Eldians, so depending how you interpret this, it takes away the potentially historically revisionist perspective of the Jewish analogue race ever being the oppressor. There is no place for "both sides" when it comes to the Jewish parallels because it's one of the most black and white situations in all of history. If nothing else, this element at least makes it clear that the story simply wishes to explore the thematic element of the dynamics between the oppressor and the oppressed the idea of power abuse.

Then, through making the encounter with the parasite creature happenstance and the Titan power not biologically inherent to Eldians, it removes the potential implication of the Jewish analogue being biologically different, therefore being "special" compared to other races, which is not the case with any race.

The element that has been there for the longest in my eyes and I think didn’t even need to be elaborated on because it’s been there and explored so much already and that always removed the possibility of the story (at the very least intentionally) being racist to me, though, is that the story treats all characters from all races the same without ever resorting to using caricatures or excessive stereotyping. The Eldians specifically are the main characters of the story, with there being equally good and evil characters among them.

The key element to racism has always been othering and dehumanization and the story for the most part makes sure that even the characters that are awful people have fleshed out perspectives.

I think what also helps in this chapter specifically is having more of a history-inspired than strictly historical situation, showing it all through a fantasy veil compared to the more direct usage of imagery with Marley and the Marleyan Eldians.

Finally, I really liked the potential Titan lore this chapter presented us.

I think it's really neat how it might potentially connect mythology and biology with the possible inspiration being, both, the prehistoric creature Hallucigenia and the mythological dragon under the roots of the world tree Ygdrassil, Nidhoggr, more than that, though, I really like the potential "nature you scary" element of the Titan origins.

The creature driving a horror story usually either isn't explained or is explained through something like aliens, lovecraftian horror, a human-made catastrophe or an experminent.

In this case there are elements of all of these in here and I think any of these could still be revealed to be the direct origin of the Titan parasite, but I really like the potential "nature you scary" element here because we usually always look outside of our world to find horror because we fear what we don't know, but Earth's own nature has plenty of that, too.

Nature can be really unsettling and horrifying at points and I’d like to see that being taken advantage of more.

Overall, though, I really liked this chapter. I think it might be one of my favorites because of Eren's speech, but I also really enjoyed it for it's "show, don't tell" aspect. Sometimes one image can say much more than a thousand words and I think this chapter did a really solid job with that.

#Attack On Titan #Shingeki No Kyojin #AoT 122 #SnK 122 #Chapter 122 #AoT #SnK

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