just spent a solid 30 seconds staring at that recent sleepy wx art...it just brought me so much peace

new xxxHOLiC movie thoughts

So I recently watched the live action xxxHOLiC movie that came out (which I almost missed hearing about and then happened to learn existed because it came out around the same time as the last Free! movie), and decided it'd be fun to share my thoughts, bc why not.

First of all, maybe folks know this already, but the movie does not seem to be linked to the live action TV series that came out a few years ago. I went into it unsure, but it seems like no, they're different. Overall I would say I liked them both about a similar amount for different reasons. Both had things I actually preferred over the original manga/anime, as well as a bunch of things that were left out or changed for the worse. One great big YMMV, essentially.

Overall rating: 3.5/5, maybe worth it depending on what you liked about the series. Not sure how it stands up without knowing the original, but it could be interesting to watch anyways.

(Spoilers under the cut; CW for discussions ableism, suicidality)

Things I liked

The casting was, overall, very good. I kinda wish Maru and Momo had not looked so much like adults, but I can imagine that some thought went into that (especially given a couple of moments in the movie + overall themes) and the actresses pulled them off well. (And it was nice to see them around at all, as the TV show didn't have them.) Watanuki worked really well (very good Woobie vibes, or whatever the new thing is they're calling it these days). Doumeki started a tiny bit rocky but grew on me quick. Yuuko had the full range, which impressed me quite a bit. And Himawari gave off perhaps the most personality I've seen from her yet.

The chemistry between characters was also excellent. Look, one of the things I really enjoyed about the live-action drama was that they didn't try to keep the more over-the-top comic relief beats, especially Watanuki blowing up at everyone every 30 seconds. It would probably be possible to translate that more directly into live-action, but I personally think it'd be really, really hard to make it enjoyable, given the different genre conventions between anime and drama. Yuuko and Watanuki were great; Watanuki and Himawari read to me as even less overtly romantic than it was in the live-action drama, which was already toned down from the manga/anime; and (after the first scene anyway) the DouWata dynamic was exquisite. Seriously. I would seriously consider re-watching the movie for this alone. They toned down a lot of the antagonism while keeping the uncertainty and tension that, to me, are the most characteristic aspects of their dynamic. Doumeki comes off as the right combination of stoic, awkward, observant (but out of the loop), and genuinely concerned/protective. Watanuki's unawareness of Doumeki's care for him feels a lot less cruel in this iteration, which I appreciated. We get to see them smile and laugh together, ffs! My heart!!! (Also, side note, we got to see more genuine fluff between Watanuki and Maru & Moro than I remember seeing in the entire manga. That was extremely cute as well.)

Some of the special effects and soundtrack were really cool. Some of it they leaned on a little too hard, or drew out a little too long, but overall I think it supported the movie pretty well.

Partially because of the way it happened, and the fact that there was less material building up to it, the ending went down more smoothly than it did in the manga, even though it echoed it significantly. It actually felt like a nice mix of open-ended and bittersweet, rather than purely tragic. It kind of left me wishing that the original had managed to strike a similar balance instead of what we got.

Things I didn't

Biggest complaint overall: the plot conceit they used to stitch together the middle of the movie. Boring, clichéd, took too long, and didn't meaningfully raise the stakes—just kept them more or less where they'd been. I kind of get why they chose it, given the conflict they were trying to build for Watanuki, but it really made the middle of the movie drag for me.

The villains. Spider lady and her motivations didn't make sense—which was mostly okay in the original, because she wasn't carrying a major part of the story, but weakened the film over here. Also the new lackey character they added only sort of made sense, and wasn't really solid enough to justify the amount of time and emotion the movie spent on him.

[CW Suicidality] I feel like they could've chosen not to make Watanuki explicitly suicidal at the start of the movie, and I wish they hadn't. Maybe it was part of the message they wanted to send about his internal conflict, as a lot of his themes revolve around choosing to embrace hope, pain, and change, but there could've been parallels without being quite so ham-fisted about it.

[CW Ableism] Similarly, there was a pretty neurotypical-bullshit-flavored conclusion to the end of the arc they used to introduce how the shop worked. Watanuki saves the ring-wearing liar girl (from the early canon arc) from the truck, only for her to have what appears to be a psychotic break in public, during which she receives no help and after which comes no hint whatsoever of resolution. I don't know, I kind of think I'd have preferred the truck.

If they had the budget for very pretty black sand (and other things) everywhere, and all the special effects the villain got, I kinda wish we'd gotten to see a few more interstitial points between "shapeless billowing sand-shadows" and "hot villains."

Some of the decisions on scene cuts and simply failing to explain how certain scenes resolved. Yes, Holic's always been a bit fuzzy around the edges, but parts of it stayed confusing in a way that pulled me out of immersion in the story. (Then again, I say the same about cartoons, so I might just be particularly sensitive to this.)

It's not like CLAMP's explanation of Watanuki's backstory was good to begin with, but this one was also poorly thought through. I wish they'd felt like they could just skip it (like they did with any mention of Watanuki's father whatsoever. Because sure).

They kept in a hint of Zashiki-warashi that was extremely cute and then dropped it for their bad tying-things-together plotline instead. I would have wholeheartedly recced the movie if they'd decided to do the Amewarashi/Watanuki's-soul-gets-stolen arc, because especially with this Watanuki and Doumeki it could've been so good.

Similarly: don't put my boy on a lonely bench and then not bring in the lonely lady. Dammit, I had a brief hope that they'd try to condense that down into, like. A vignette. I would've taken it and been grateful.

The way they arrived at the ending was...annoying. But that kinda ties into my complaints about the villains, etc. above.

Ichijouji Ken, his future, and Kizuna

Having talked about Kizuna’s extremely deep relationship to 02 as a series, it’s only natural that I should probably spend some extra focus on its main central character, Ichijouji Ken. It’s no secret that, although Daisuke was the protagonist of 02, Ken was the central figure to the series itself (after all, the series was founded on the concept of deconstructing the supposed “genius kid”), and so Kizuna having such a deep relationship with 02 means that it does, inevitably, have a deep relationship with Ken in particular.

The last twenty years have been full of a plethora of meta analysis on Ichijouji Ken as a character within 02 to the point I feel anything I could possibly come up with would probably be redundant, so today I’d like to place extra focus on his development after 02 (in terms of both canonical materials and general analysis), and how it leads up to his portrayal in the recently released Kizuna. (Naturally, spoilers for the movie will be below.)

We’ll start this analysis by looking at where Ken left off during the final episode of 02.

Thanks to his interactions with the rest of the 02 crew (especially Daisuke), Ken was slowly putting his life back together, but he still had a long way to go. As late as episode 49, we learned he still had suicidal ideation tendencies in regards to his deeds as the Kaiser, and although the rest of the team did get through to him in the end, it was clear that there was still a huge path ahead of him as far as coming to terms with himself and bonding with the rest of the team went. This was especially because he ended the series with the Dark Seed still in the back of his neck -- supernatural forces may have assisted his initial downfall, but it was going to be entirely on him to make sure that he never went back there again for the rest of his life.

One thing that’s really important to put in perspective is the actual chronology this ordeal took place in. Although the Kaiser saga spanned a little under half of the yearlong series that 02 was, Christmas skewed the schedule a little bit, so a good chunk of the second half of the series actually took place in much more condensed time than the first. Taking into account the official statement that everything before Christmas roughly aligns with the time of the year the relevant episode aired, and given the exact dates in December that we know episodes 38-50 take place in, within the course of 02, Ken’s reformation from being the Kaiser and bonding with the group spanned around only four months. That is not a lot of time, especially compared to the roughly two-year period Ken went through the trauma of his brother’s loss and his transformation into the Kaiser, so in actuality, Ken made a huge amount of progress considering how little time he had to do so.

Before we continue, I should make clear that I generally count pretty much everything in the Toei-esque fashion of “everything is canon, don’t think about contradictions too hard” (which is generally their modus operandi with pretty much any franchise), so pretty much everything here is fair game. That said, obviously, contradictions and other outliers do exist, so occasionally I am going to have to omit stuff that really, really doesn’t track...so for the sake of this analysis, I’m skipping Armor Evolution to the Unknown for two reasons: one, because it takes massive liberties with characterization for the sake of crack (it’s pretty hard to believe Ken would be this degree of flippant about the Kaiser persona in a more serious situation), and two, because it was written before 02 finished airing (it was released between episodes 43 and 44) and doesn’t reflect a lot of series and characterization development that happened later in the series. (Armor Evolution to the Unknown was released during a time period when the drama CDs were really, really big on the crack -- the three Adventure mini dramas are the same -- and it wasn’t until later that actual “serious” ones would start coming out.)

Given that, our next canonical point we can work with is Diablomon Strikes Back, which takes place in March 2003.

At this point Ken’s recovery is at a little around six months, and he’s making massive progress -- even if you’re not sure about counting the actual events of this movie as canon, it’s an excellent character study in terms of watching Ken’s emotional recovery at this point in time and his relationship with Daisuke, now that he’s not directly dealing with issues pertaining to his own past trauma.

It’s already a very different Ken from the one we’ve seen in the original series, where in episode 38 the idea of him laughing was such a huge shock, but here we already see a much wider emotional range from Ken -- light cheerfulness, playfulness, and at times even a bit of petulance. His actions and dialogue still have Ken’s trademark “softness” -- being kind and gentle has always been said to be his core inner trait, after all -- but, nevertheless, he’s a lot more willing to show “superficial” emotions, especially compared to how closed up, shy, and sometimes standoffish he would be within 02 proper.

Even Ken’s own body language indicates a lot -- he’s much more relaxed and  natural. Observe how he slouches here.

In fact, if you listen to Park Romi’s delivery of his lines throughout this movie, she voices him with a significantly higher-pitched and “lighter”, soft tone through all of it, which really gives off the impression that he’s much less emotionally uptight.

We get a glimpse of Daisuke and Ken’s future dynamic and how they’ll continue to be such tight friends in the future -- Ken is someone who can keep the infamously chaotic Daisuke in check (especially since prior to Ken coming into his life, Daisuke’s closest friend was probably Miyako, and while the two certainly got along very well with each other, they had a tendency to enable each other’s chaos a bit too much at times).

But despite Ken obviously trying to be more sensible than Daisuke here, it still manifests as a much greater show of emotion than the kind you’d be used to within 02 proper. He’s much more assertive with putting his foot down in keeping Daisuke under control, which indicates not only a more comfortable relationship with Daisuke in particular, but also a general increase in his ability to be assertive.

In one of his most famous scenes in this movie, he actually outright taunts Daisuke in order to spur him on. He’s doing it totally affectionately (it’s specifically to give Daisuke more motivation to keep running), but nevertheless, he’s taunting Daisuke -- not really something you'd expect from Ken in 02 proper. The original line in Japanese even has him use the very super-casual and aggressive end particle ~ze.

He even snarks about Daisuke’s convenient bouts of luck in ways that aren’t exactly complimentary (the literal phrasing of this line has “baka mitai ni” in it, in this context "some kind of ridiculous incredible power”).

And, near the end of the movie, when he starts to lose hope, it only takes a single line from Daisuke to get himself back together -- this kind of thing would have probably taken a whole speech in 02, even from Daisuke himself, but by this point Ken’s got a much better emotional grasp on himself.

And in the end, the movie ends on both Daisuke and Ken laughing together -- very lightly.

It’s easy to pass off Ken’s characterization in DSB as an incidental thing simply because this is a “side story” movie from 02 -- especially since it was technically produced during 02′s airing -- but in fact, this portrayal is consistent with what Ken has to say about himself during his next known point in canon, Spring 2003.

Given that Takeru’s track is apparently set “three months” after Christmas, and Miyako’s track talks about having just entered middle school, I assume that this means Ken’s takes place in around late March or early April 2003 (almost exactly a year since 02′s start), but in actuality nothing really “happens” during Ken’s track. Nevertheless, it provides a lot of information on Ken’s state of mind during this time and his own self-reflection on his past...and defines in very clear words what it is that Ken needs to move away from.

You were always in a bad mood and you were cold to me, but now that I think about it, maybe you really wanted to be nicer to other people. I don’t know what happened to you that made you act like you did, but now, I finally feel like I understand a bit. You were demanded to grow up fast, weren’t you, Brother? Because we were always being evaluated and compared by someone, we didn’t get a chance to have more freedom. We didn’t have any chances to run down an alley because we felt like it, or pull up weeds, or tumble around… meaningless things, things that didn’t bring any value to us at all. Just like the cat napping on the roof… we weren’t able to fully enjoy any everlasting freedom.

02 -- especially its latter half -- dealt largely with the concept of parents imposing too many expectations on their children, acting “proud” of them but actually using them to inflate their own self-worth, and in the end effectively robbing their own children of their right to “be children”. While we don’t know a lot about Osamu based on limited information about him, Ken’s parents also lament that they might have robbed Osamu of the opportunity to be a “normal boy” in 02 episode 23.

Once Ken took the role of the “family genius” after Osamu’s death, Ken was thus likewise robbed of that “normal childhood” due to all of the expectations put on him -- and Ken’s words in his track imply that it extended to before Osamu’s death, because just because Osamu was the favored one at the time didn’t mean that Ken wasn’t subject to the same kind of expectations to at least some degree, even if not as much. (Note how he really didn’t seem to have any kind of friends at all prior to Daisuke and the others.)

Thus, Ken’s ideal trajectory is to become “a normal child” -- one not subject to expectations as a “well-behaved genius child”. That applies not only to things like his academic or sports performance, but also even his core manners -- being a “normal person” in this context meaning being allowed to show emotions, be petty, have emotional range that extends beyond just being deferential and polite, and generally do things because he enjoys them and not because others expect him to. This is consistent with his portrayal in DSB, as in said movie he really does come off as a “normal boy” -- a young child who, while certainly less chaotic than Daisuke, is still enjoying himself and interacting with the world in “his own” natural, relaxed way rather than holding himself to obligations.

Another interesting thing about DSB is that it has Ken refer to Daisuke by given name. This is particularly intriguing because up until the end of 02, Ken consistently referred to Daisuke as “Motomiya” (he did use given name in episode 39, but it wasn’t something he really followed up on). This despite the fact he went with given names (plus honorifics) for everyone else in the 02 team, but it seems like Ken was still trying to figure out his very complicated feelings about Daisuke as someone who was his Most Hated Person™ during his Kaiser days and yet is now trying to aggressively reach through his barriers that he’s constructed out of self-defense.

And yet, extremely notably, almost every single post-02 material is consistent about the idea that Ken switches to given name basis with Daisuke after 02. (The only exception is Armor Evolution to the Unknown, which, as stated before, was written and recorded during 02′s airing and not after; notably, Daisuke is also on surname basis with Ken during that drama CD, even though he permanently switches to given name basis after episode 39.) That includes “out-of-hard-canon” things like Xros Wars episode 78.

Yet they still couldn’t remember to put the highlight back in Ken’s eyes, among other things.

Honorific and surname-given name basis fluctuated quite a bit in both Adventure and 02 (especially whenever canon material changed hands between writers), but for all intents and purposes, there is no reason Daisuke and Ken should not be on mutual given name basis after 02. This is especially when you take into account the more naturalistic relationship they have as of DSB -- there’s no standoffishness at all between them anymore.

This ties very deeply into how 02 portrayed its characters. One thing I’ve very, very often pointed out was that it was always an explicit point of contrast between themselves and the original Adventure team was that the 02 kids were not only “friends” in terms of fighting together on Digimon cases, but “friends” in the sense of actual social-life friends who clicked well in personality and adored each other’s company. (Part of this was because of the core theme of the series; Jogress being such a huge motif, “understanding your friends” took precedence over Adventure’s “understanding yourself”.) These are the kids who hung out together in the totally-not-related-to-any-Digimon-incident (at least, not at first) picnic in episode 6 and Christmas party in episode 38, a stark comparison to the Adventure kids who infamously started drifting as early as Our War Game!.

(Note that this isn’t meant to diminish or drop shade on the Adventure kids’ bonds in any way -- I feel like their bond is more of one that’s a “transcendent” one that crosses space and links them through their shared experience, but, nevertheless, is simply not the same in nature as the “social life” bonds the 02 kids had where they were very casual and yet intimate with each other in almost all daily life respects.)

As a result, Daisuke and Ken’s relationship ended up very different from that of their predecessors Taichi and Yamato -- it’s actually hard to imagine them getting in all that many highly heated fights in the same way their seniors would be prone to, and they’d generally be on “mild banter” terms for most of it. In fact, they come off as pretty casual and in-sync with each other, and it’s to the point where it really does feel like -- especially by the point of DSB -- staying on “standoffish” surname basis really is unwarranted.

And while it’s tempting to limit Ken’s relationship to only Daisuke, this did involve the rest of the 02 group, after all -- we got significant episodes defining his relationship to the others (Miyako got a whole episode in 25, and 30′s entire events kicked off because of an attempt to get him to better socialize with Iori!), and the 02 kids as a cohesive “overall group” were integral in getting Ken to open up and show different sides of himself. Although his relationship to certain team members ended up closer than others (Daisuke and Miyako, the ones who tried most aggressively to reach out to him, ended up getting the most out of him), nevertheless, it was important that Ken ultimately cultivated a relationship with a group of friends, and not just one.

This, of course, brings us to Kizuna, which takes place in the summer of 2010. This is a massive leap of time we don’t know a lot about, and for all it’s worth, this means we have, compared to the approximately two years Ken spent suffering under the influence of the Dark Seed, a whole eight years dedicated to potential recovery. There’s a lot that could have happened during that time, and what happened in between, we can only really guess.

Well, for one, he cut his hair.

The reveal of Ken’s design for Kizuna was a huge shock for those watching, because, among all of the twelve main human characters in Kizuna, he probably has the biggest and most drastic design change -- especially because his long hair was so iconic that even the epilogue depicted him with it (and even longer, at that). Were it not for other important identifiers like Wormmon’s presence and the fact said hair is at least still indigo blue, you’d almost wonder if it’s the same character.

(I do have to at least give props to this Animedia poster, though -- that soft and concerned expression is textbook Ken-chan, so it absolutely nails the vibe that it’s the same character despite the massive design change, and it even has a small cute detail that, despite clearly trying to calm Yamato down in haste, he’s still tidy enough to lay his chopsticks neatly on the bowl. That Ken has a habit of doing this while eating hot ramen is a very specific minor blink-and-you’ll-miss-it detail in 02 episode 36, and while I’d normally pass this off as coincidence, Kizuna and its PR has had such ridiculous attention to detail that I’m not entirely willing to.)

Not only that, his actual outfit in the movie is rather unassuming -- it’s just a black shirt, pants, and a belt, compared to the more distinctive/fashionable or setting-immersive outfits everyone else has. I mean, it sure beats that godawful grey gakuran he was constantly wearing during 02, but there were certainly a lot of complaints about how...well, unassuming and plain he looks.

The thing is, though, this is very much in line with how Ken would most likely want to present himself. When you think about it, Ken himself would probably not really appreciate his fanbase status as the “sad pretty boy”; having been scrutinized, evaluated, and put on uncomfortable pedestals through all of his early life, “blending in” and coming off as an average, unassuming person would be right up his alley.

Anyway, before we get into Kizuna itself, we have the drama CD that came with its BD, Where Should We Go? While it was released after the movie, in chronological timeline, it serves as a slight prequel, and what we learn about Ken in it is certainly...interesting. Namely, that he’s apparently a hardcore fan of Japanese hot springs. And not just a hardcore fan of them, but also a complete nerd.

The hot springs *obviously* must have free-flowing water. If possible, I think I’d prefer a quiet, rural flowing hot spring that’s surrounded by a moss-covered garden. Then I want to stay the night at a historical inn that focuses more on tranquility and wabi-sabi rather than wildness or beauty. I’m not looking for a lot on the food options, but the portions should ideally be neither too large nor too small. If we’re just going to relax our bodies, then I’d like it if there was a variety of hot springs to choose from. The water quality that I recommend for the ladies would be the hydrogen carbonate spring or the alkaline simple hot spring (these are otherwise known as simple hot springs with a basic pH of 8.5 or above), but my personal favorite is the hot sulphur spring! Incidentally, the hot sulphur spring is said to treat arteriosclerosis and high blood pressure. If it were possible, I’d like to take my time there… At least stay for two nights! Ahh… Hot springs… Hehehe…

I cannot stress enough how much the audio delivery for this depicts him as being terrifyingly into it. It’s also...not exactly the most fashionable thing for a nineteen-year-old to be into (actually, it’s more of a stereotype old man thing, what with the fixation on traditional Japanese aesthetics and health nut aspects), but we have Ken being very shameless and assertive about his personal interests, even if they’re a bit unusual.

Funnily enough, this isn’t actually the first time he was demonstrated to be a huge infodumping nerd -- it’s just that the last instance was questionably canonical, but tracks extremely heavily with what was just demonstrated here. Namely, Daisuke and Ken’s Shopping Carol:

Listen, the thing about Christmas is that it's one of the most important days in the world... It was the day the Savior was born... So, you go to church and pray... Of course, you knew all of that right?

Or in other words, he interrupts Daisuke’s wistful thoughts with The Actual Nerd Facts, because he’s a nerd. He even has a bit of a smart-aleck atmosphere...and then he cheerfully and sassily dumps all of the work on Daisuke thereafter. While the canonicity for this song is hard to place since it was released during 02′s airing (and 02 itself depicted a very different Christmas), plus the ambiguity of character song canon in general, it’s interesting how Ken’s portrayal here is pretty surprisingly in line with what we’re learning about his future personality.

The rest of what we see of Ken in the drama CD is what we generally knew about him already -- he’s kind, he dotes on Wormmon (he even indulges Wormmon’s request to take him skiing!), and he still keeps up with being into intellectual studies, and even soccer (he’s described as actually keeping up with soccer to the extent he does training camp), because he was always interested in those kinds of things -- it’s just that now he can indulge in them in ways he personally likes instead of being held to other people’s standards.

But he’s also very emotional, passionate, and openly assertive -- something he could be in 02, but only when it was something he really, really cared about, because most of the time he was a little more on the shy side with others. Not anymore. And he’s happy to indulge in the chaotic trip planning and enable the others, and, at the end, gives some sentimental words to Daisuke, his best friend.

Anyway, onto the movie itself!

Notably, they do not mention Ken’s past trauma nor his deeds as the Kaiser throughout the entire movie.

That might surprise people, given that this was...well, central to the entire plot of 02, so it’s arguably a glaring omission that despite having the 02 cast here, it’s not even brought up once. The only real “reference” to it is this scene, where Ken happens to be the one who knows about Menoa’s background as a child prodigy -- and even then it’s uncertain whether this had anything to do with said traumatic events (Menoa was admitted to Liberica in 2002 itself) as much as it’s a meta nod to Ken having a suspiciously similar background and the fact he and Menoa were based on the same real-life story (the nine-year-old boy who skipped grades into Columbia University).

But, again, recall that Ken has had eight years to move on from the events of 02, more time than said events had actually spanned over. That doesn’t mean he’s easily going to forget that trauma, nor that said events don’t still have an impact on him, but rather that a true positive development for him should have him not having to consciously dwell on it if it’s not necessary, and that his friends of now eight years should probably not be still holding it over him at a time like this.

After all, 02 itself was dedicated to scolding this kind of behavior -- not being “stuck in the past” (which, well, also happens to be a very pertinent theme when it comes to Kizuna...) was basically the entire point of the latter half, and so it stands to reason that Ken, and by extension the rest of the 02 cast, would be more focused on what they’re doing now instead of what happened back then.

In the absence of any references to said past, Ken in the actual movie ends up coming off as a bit unremarkable and plain compared to the three friends who end up surrounding him, all of whom have much more extreme personalities (the chaotic and exuberant Daisuke and Miyako, and the comically poker-faced Iori). But you get the feeling that he’s perfectly fine being that way -- rather, he’s enjoying getting all of his fun from his exciting friends, without feeling a need to spice things up himself.

So when we finally do meet Ken for the first time in Kizuna, he’s cheerfully eating ramen with Daisuke and Iori in New York (which, for all it’s worth, is probably really questionably legal, considering that Adventure’s world of 2010 likely still hasn’t figured out how to deal with that whole thing with “immigration and customs” as it pertains to Digital Gates.) Emphasis on cheerfully. He’s as tidy as ever (note how he still properly keeps his chopsticks between his fingers and cleans up after himself, albeit not as well as Iori), and he’s obviously more straight-laced than Daisuke or Miyako, but he isn’t really hiding the fact he’s also totally enjoying this. He didn’t even know why they were there for ramen in New York in the first place, but he just rolled with wherever Daisuke took him.

Recall that, according to their official profiles, these three go to completely different schools now -- Iori’s in high school, Daisuke’s at vocational school getting a chef’s license, and Ken’s in university studying psychology. (Which, by the way, is not brought up at all throughout the movie nor the drama CD! It’s easy to glean how his past experiences might give him an interest in the topic, and it’ll certainly be a valuable background to have for his future known career in criminal investigation, but despite Ken previously having had a reputation for being studious, it’s not brought up at all -- almost as if hanging out with his friends and having fun with them is more important and pertinent.) The drama CD even points out that Ken would normally be busy with soccer training camp. Yet they’re hanging out. In New York. Eating ramen. So, Yamato, what were you saying about how “choosing your own path can sometimes mean being alienated from friends”? If anything, these friends seem to be going out of their way to make sure they’re staying tight.

And, as you’d expect, Ken refers to Daisuke by given name, following DSB’s precedent. Again, given the nature of their relationship right now, this should be expected. There’s other evidence that Kizuna does use DSB as reference in certain other respects as well (Takeru calls Yamato “niisan”, which had previously been exclusive to that movie), and it’s very possible that Ken as portrayed in that movie was used as reference for his potential trajectory here.

Note that he seems to be even more outwardly affectionate with Wormmon than before (which is, shockingly, apparently possible) -- he still feeds his partner before feeding himself (similar to what he did in 02 episode 37), but now he also shamelessly carries Wormmon on his head, which he never did in 02. Perhaps it’s because he’s tall enough to carry the weight, but unlike with Takeru and Patamon, Wormmon is big enough that the sight is honestly comical -- yet Ken couldn’t care less, and while we don’t see him in his own school, it’s a sharp contrast to how Taichi and Yamato scoffed at the idea of bringing their partners to school because they “have their own lives to live”.

(A nice touch is Ken carrying Minomon from his arm, which actually comes from a very obscure piece of 02 concept art -- you can find it in the Character Complete File or the Animation Chronicle -- but was never depicted in the series proper. The Kizuna design works in the April 2020 edition of Animedia actually recreated that piece of art with Ken in the exact same position, only as a nineteen-year-old this time, which was an incredibly welcome thing to see.)

He greets Miyako upfront when she arrives, which doesn’t look like much on its face, but recall that this probably wouldn’t have happened during 02 proper -- not even with Daisuke! -- and, at the very least, not with this very casual “hey!” tone. It means a lot in terms of how much more casual of a person he’s been able to become in the last eight years, and how much more casual he is with this group (well, at least with Miyako). Takeru also greets Wormmon in the drama CD, and Wormmon seems pretty unusually happy to see Hawkmon when they meet each other there, certainly implying a lot of interpersonal interaction since.

Miyako meets up with them (and, going back to how tight these kids are, Miyako would come in all the way from Spain to meet her friends even for the exact same job that she dumped on her seniors), and they end up infiltrating Menoa’s office. He gets in a line of snark, especially because the Shueisha Mirai novel indicates he’s deliberately “looking the other way” in regards to worrying about security -- looks like he’s developing some Lawful tendencies, but in the end, his friends and getting to the bottom of the real truth take priority.

And, also, it’s still pretty clear he’s totally taking the opportunity to enjoy this.

So what does this all mean, really? He’s taking a fairly passive attitude with his abundantly more chaotic friends, but he’s also not protesting, and he’s enjoying everything he can out of it. He’s a bit quieter than he was in DSB, but that could easily just be from being older and a bit more mature, and he hardly comes off as reserved, either (it helps that Daisuke doesn’t quite resort to any antics nearly as ridiculous as he did in DSB, so there’s no need to keep him in check -- yep, even Daisuke got a bit more mature himself). And he’s joining these kids in being possibly some of the most chaotic disaster adults (near-adults?) on this planet, in a sharp contrast to their seniors.

I mentioned earlier in my analysis of Kizuna’s relationship to 02 that Ken is actually a “hidden” foil to Kizuna’s main antagonist, Menoa -- they were both conceived from the same idea Producer Seki had regarding the real-life “genius boy” who ended up going to Columbia University at a young age and, in her opinion, was going to be robbed of a proper childhood experience. 02′s Dark Seed children arc was a major indictment against parents forcing this kind of pressure on children, not only in the sense of pushing them academically but also quashing out their more “childish” dreams for the sake of a more “dignified” outlook and future. Through the events of 02, Ken learned a very personal lesson on not losing his “true self” to the pressure of those expectations, and the meaning of valuing his family and friends instead.

Ken and Menoa, effectively, were originally on the same path, but thanks to the circumstances of 02, Ken managed to avert Menoa’s fate and ended up following his own way. Nevertheless, Ken was largely robbed of a normal kid’s childhood up until the age of eleven, and it stands to reason that, even at the age of nineteen, he might still be trying to make up for all of those fun experiences he never was able to have.

Funny thing about his haircut, too -- this isn’t the first time Ken’s had this haircut, actually. You know when was the last known time he did?

Hm. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

But unlike Menoa, who decided that it would be better to trap herself in her own distorted view of what “childhood” is, or Oikawa, who ended up clinging dearly to the last reminder he had of what he’d lost from his childhood, Ken ends up dealing with it in a very forward-facing manner. In fact, he’d elucidated his feelings on the issue back in Spring 2003:

There are still a lot of times when I think about how I should have “done this back then.” But I discovered that there are many things I can do over afterwards. I’ll stop counting the things that I can’t do. Because I’m sure there are many things that I can do.

Instead of living in regrets about the past, Ken simply chooses to move forward by making new fun experiences and memories with his friends, befitting those he couldn’t have when he was a kid, and perhaps even enhanced by his newfound freedom as a nineteen-year-old.

During the final battle, we get a few more emotional and assertive shows from Ken -- his concern about Miyako is pretty frantic-sounding, and the fact he steps in so quickly and frantically to help her out by his own will is pretty impressive. And then he definitively declares that they can’t afford to give up -- which is certainly in line with the nobility he had even during 02, but remember when, even in DSB, Daisuke had to be the one to remind him of this? Now he’s the one reassuring his teammates about this, all on his own. When it all comes down to it, his sense of awareness of what he wants and what he wants to do is stronger than ever.

I mentioned in my analysis of Kizuna in relation to 02 that the 02 kids are in a fairly unique position in the movie, thanks to having already practically gone through a lot of the lessons in both 02 and Kizuna, thus leading them to become very lacking in susceptibility to potentially losing their partners anytime soon (and in fact are deliberately portrayed as such). I would say of all of them, Ken is the most representative of this -- being such a direct foil to the movie’s main antagonist, one who actually came dangerously close to making some of the exact same mistakes she did and emerged with his own trauma as a result, the lessons and warnings imparted by the movie are already deeply embedded in his being.

He’s one of the most openly affectionate and intimate with his partner, having already learned the very, very hard way of what happens when you don’t treasure your partner properly. (He’s taking Wormmon jogging with him, which has got to be an awfully uncomfortable setup, but, goddammit, he’s gonna make it work. And if ~With~ is to be believed, he’s been doing this for years now.) He’s still got a Dark Seed in the back of his neck as an eternal reminder to remember who he is, and to acknowledge the love from his family and friends around him instead of succumbing to arbitrary societal expectations. Remember what I said in my earlier analysis about the true reason for partnerships dissolving, and how deeply it was tied to throwing yourself away for the sake of arbitrary standards of adulthood? Ken’s experiences and extremely painful trauma are like a giant do not do this stamp on his face, and although everyone in this cast is naturally human and may have ups and downs or relapses, Ken is possibly one of the last characters one could imagine succumbing to that kind of mistake again.

So we make it to the epilogue, and although Ken’s technical job title as given in the epilogue is literally “police officer” (keisatsukan), his form of dress (plainclothes, not uniform) and his the Character Complete File indicate he’s from the Digimon Special Investigations Unit (tokusoubu), or, in other words, he’s actually a public-servant detective. (So no, the various dubs also going with “detective” are thus not “changes” in this respect.) In short, he investigates scenes of crimes after they happen, and the Character Complete File provides an example in the form of him investigating a dead body found at the river.

This is probably why Kizuna has him major in psychology, because forensic psychology would be a pretty useful skillset for this kind of job, and a university education in general would most certainly be helpful. (The job requirements as per the Japanese system also require a very high level of athleticism and aptitude.) On the other hand, considering what we know about Ken up to Kizuna, there aren’t any indications that he treated this like any kind of major aspiration, and the psychology major makes you think he might have just fallen into this career by a series of accidents -- he took an interest in psychology (and mental health) due to his own experiences, and then decided that “discovering the truth behind things” was up his alley (much like Iori). Even more notably, his position isn’t really described in any history-making terms, not even ones like being “the first” of anything (like Jou), and it feels like he’s doing this to contribute to society in a way he prefers more than he’s trying to accomplish anything world-shattering.

But on the flip side, it’s probably no coincidence that the 02 epilogue portrays him with such a big family. Of course, it also fits with his and Miyako’s family backgrounds (they’d probably want their kids to have siblings, given their own experiences), but since the Dark Seed was described as having its effects countered by acknowledging how much you’re loved, Ken is clearly surrounded by love -- his wife is one of the most openly affectionate people out there, and his kids (or at least his middle child) use the same “Mama” kind of affectionate language Ken shared with his own parents. Once the events of 02 came to a close at the end of 2002, Ken went on a journey of discovering his own self-assertion, personal desires, and fun -- shedding the expectations and societal standards others had of him, and learning to enjoy life in ways he personally enjoys, for his own sake.

My Engineer Episode 13: Tent Scene Analysis (and why this conflict is probably for the best)

Okay. So let me start out by saying I loved Ram/King in episode 13. I loved that we FINALLY got to see some conflict and I was glad it had nothing to do with petty drama or jealously: instead the conflict stemmed from King. More specifically his feelings/lack of ability to express them. I think it’s safe to say that King has no problem taking care of Ram. He doesn’t even second guess bringing him home and giving him a place to stay. He pushes away his fear of dogs just because he knew how much they meant to Ram.

No, the conflict that King is struggling with is not related to HIS feelings. It’s related to Ram’s. Throughout episode 13 we saw how Ram seemed to always stick around King. Not only did he stick around but he kept a close eye on him. Every time King nearly tripped or actually did Ram was right there taking care of him. Each time King truly looked guilty and even a bit confused over it. However, it was the scene in the tent that really made whatever annoyance I had for this episode float away (I had some thoughts about Bohn/Duen but that’s for another time) because...damn. They really are subtly trying to show his insecurities. It’s starting to make sense why he never acted on his feelings either and why he honestly...probably won’t? Not in this season at least. It makes sense why he’s pretending to be in denial—I don’t think it’s related to the fact that Ram is a guy but more so because it IS Ram if that makes sense? What started off as a fascination quickly turned into something so much more. Like I said before I think eventually King would let Ram see his vulnerable side but the head injury quickened the pace significantly.

We also have to remember that Ram is not in the best place emotionally right now. This was evident in the few scenes where King accidentally upsets Ram by bringing his father up. Obviously he didn’t mean to do it on purpose but I kind of feel like it was King’s way of unconsciously pushing Ram away. Trying to remind his current state and that HE needs. That while they do have something going on it might not be the best time for either of them.

I ended up rewatching the tent scene multiple times and I noticed a few things.

1) King is always quick to apologize for these little things (like Ram handing him his medicine) because he probably believes that he’s a burden. Actually he states that when Ram asks why he didn’t tell him that the wound got infected. “I don’t want to be a burden to you.” The tone of voice Ram used during this scene was less demanding than the one he used in the waterfall scene. In that scene he was absolutely not taking no for an answer (not when there was a risk King would get hurt again) yet he also sound kind of exhausted. He’s noticing that King is starting to push him away but regardless of that fact he doesn’t understand why he tried to hide this. Still without being prompted he automatically helps King up to take medicine no questions asked. That is something I really liked about this pairing is because they seem to understand each other without words but...

2) It’s clear that King and Ram were not on the same page. Usually they excel at reading each other but King is especially good at it. Right from the start he was able to identify what all these little facial expressions meant. Yet the whole scene where Ram slowly starts to scoot over (very hesitantly and cautiously might I add) really hurts to watch.

What gets me even more is when Ram asks if he was cold and obviously he was yet he still lies. It’s clear as day that he’s in pain in this scene. He actually makes this same exact expression after he pushes Ram away which again, there they go breaking my heart. I don’t even want to talk about the tender way Ram touched his forehead. It reminded me of the bus scene where King kind of moved away in panic except this time he didn’t. That’s most likely why Ram misread the signals imo. He assumed that if King was allowing him to do that than he would be fine with laying next to each other too. They must of slept in the bed (pretty close from the last episode) a few times and even took a shower together so that intimacy was not unusual between them (at least that’s what I assume because it’s kind of implied off screen).

When he opened his eyes he looked so confused and kind of hurt over it. Especially when they stared at each other for a few moments before speaking. He was staring at Ram’s arms for awhile trying to process what was happening. I know the look on his face could be interpreted in many different ways but despite the confusion all I saw was just regret. Regret for this whole entire situation. That’s most likely why he ended up pushing away. He was starting to understand that he was giving Ram this false hope of them being together.

He pushes him away only for Ram to grab his wrist. Everything we saw this season proved that Ram is kind of stubborn (the whole not backing down from a boxing match with Bohn because of Duen) so the only way to get him to listen is to once again remind him of his current state and well to pretend like he was fine.

3) King is way too selfless. He is always putting others in front of him. Ram is no exception. More specifically he realizes that the only way to maintain distance is to bring up their friends. Once again we know how protective he is of his friends and I personally think he’s trying to get Ram to let them in to his personal troubles. Again I don’t think this has to do with the fact that King doesn’t want Ram to lean on him...he’s unsure if he can lean on Ram. So it’s better for both to create some distance with each other and hang out with their respective friends even if (the very next day) we can see just how much they both are watching each other.

4) Micro!! Expressions! Baby!! Micro expressions is a term in psychology that are basically involuntary and voluntary emotional responses that are happening at the same time yet conflict with another. Basically: you are not showing your genuine emotion but sometimes it slips through creating conflict. It usually happens for a split second and while this isn’t the perfect way to describe King during this scene it comes close. For example, the look in his eyes before he closes them is not the face of someone who doesn’t care or who even wants distance. No, he looks sad and before saying they should hang out separately he visibly gulps almost as if it was hard to get out (or that he was nervous). The scene was way too dark so it’s hard to tell if his eyes are glassy but they definitely hold emotion that even I can’t understand. Honestly he just looks sad. Throughout this episode he says one thing but his face tells a completely different story.

Another thing he does that if you don’t look close you’ll miss it: his eyes dart to the other side of the tent. He doesn’t roll over or completely face him but when he’s preparing himself to say that they discreet flicker to Ram to see if he was paying attention (except King never really gets a full look at him which leads me to believe it was more of a unconscious movement). I think it’s also important to mention the fact that he said those things with his eyes closed. Look at the look of pain on his face in that pictures too. It’s not quite as intense as it was earlier but we can see his discomfort. Yeah that could be because he was in legit pain from the head wound but it’s obvious that he doesn’t...want to say this? Or push him away? But he’s unsure how to process or communicate these feelings in a healthy way so he pushes him away.

But what’s even more heartbreaking is that AFTER he did that he opened his eyes. Just look at that face real quick. Does that look like someone who doesn’t care? Ram is not the only one suffering from this temporary break between them. He looks like he regrets what he did but again: the boy does not have the proper emotional intelligence to vocalize this so he tries to let Ram down easy.

4) I didn’t talk that much about Ram but I could honestly do another post just dedicated to him. He isn’t at fault for this situation but King isn’t either. I think if the audience compares them to MekBoss and BohnDuen you will see that while King SHOULD communicate what he did was less harmful in a way? Because it was based somewhat on honesty (both should hang out with their friends because that’s what they came on the trip to do) but that’s not to say he was better than the other characters or that it’s okay to lie. It’s just fascinating to examine all of these pairings because each are at a different level emotionally/physically. The dynamics are way different too. Still this whole episode was structured on lying or withholding the truth and King was definitely pushing Ram away because it’s easier than sitting down and talking it out. I do have to say I’m so happy that while Ram obviously didn’t understand this sudden shift he respected King’s decision. He might of looked at him most of the day but he didn’t approach. Ram might be stubborn and protective but he knows when to step back.

5) We as an audience ended up kind of holding RamKing to this higher standard than the others. For the whole season they were the couple that was off to the side never having drama with each other. We got to see them slowly get to know each other and develop feelings. I know people were upset about this conflict because random drama in the last 2 episodes of shows always equal no good. Especially because there’s a chance Ram and King will not end on a good note in the finale. I hope this isn’t the case though because it would just feel very cheap. That’s to say I’m opposed to them ending up as just friends because honestly? I don’t want them to get together now if we get a s2 because I like that they are slowburn. I just have a problem with them throwing in stuff that was never talked about until episode 14. Having the conflict surrounding King’s insecurities was just *chefs kiss* because it adds to the depth of his character. RamKing has always been the realistic pairing on the show (even if one never speaks and the other has an obsession with plants) so it makes sense for their “drama” to be about that rather than jealously. Miscommunication is no doubt happening here but I hope they address this in the finale. That’s all I’m asking for. Not for Ram and King to make declarations of love but to sit down and be like “hey, here’s how I’m feeling. let’s just stay friends for the time being okay?”

Anyways, I love this show but I’m already preparing myself for the inevitable fact that there is chance the writers might just add in random drama and have yet another pairing NOT COMMUNICATE

VLD2x07 – “Space Mall”

2x07 – “Space Mall”

Team Voltron currently has two issues: One, the struggle between Shiro and Zarkon in bonding with the Black Lion, and two, needing new lenses for the teludav. Coran has an idea about the latter. I love the goofy look on Coran’s face in the photograph of him shopping, and I love Alfor smiling at Coran in the background of that image.

Lance continues his overbearing flirting with Allura. She might not be into Lance, but she is into the idea of buying something sparkly. Coran’s inner patriarchy shows itself in his trying to override Allura’s agency and say she can’t go shopping. While Shiro goes to bond with Black, Coran and the other Paladins leave for shopping, and Allura is left alone with the mice. Sigh.

Shiro gets in Black and tries to meditate “bond,” and Black responds by blasting off into space.

The Space Mall is very much a mall environment. I really like the atmospherics of the location. It makes me feel like the time I spent in malls as a kid/teen. Coran has costumes/disguises for them to wear, and Keith’s is particularly funny to me. Coran leaves the Paladins, who immediately trash their disguises. The Galra mallcop’s thinking the Paladin’s normal look is indicative of pirates disguising themselves as normal shoppers, his monolog in general, and his locker poster of Zarkon are all funny.

The Black Lion has brought Shiro to a destroyed planet. Daibazaal, homeworld of the Galra. The planet being oddly shaped in its destruction is fine, but then we get the planet as it was 10,000 years ago through Black’s eyes. The way Daibazaal looked in the past is yet another instance of this show presenting as planets things that are not shaped like planets.

Hunk finds the food court and samples food. While this is another instance of Hunk = food, this isn’t bothersome because he’s clearly sampling food, he’s not just eating. This is about cultural exploration. He ends up sampling the wrong food and, having no money to pay for what wasn’t actually a sample, is chained into dishwashing by the restaurant proprietor Sal of Vrepit Sal’s.

Both the mallcop Varkon and Sal, though comical characters, are great in diversifying the Galra as a species.

The knife demonstration is absurd, but still kind of funny. “How many times do you have to fight off a charging rock monster and then go immediately to a picnic?” The droning, wrote recitation sound of the voice acting is what sells this absurdity to me, I think. Keith asks the salesman about the knife/sword that his thoughts have been on lately. The salesman accuses Keith of having stolen it, but Keith refuses to tell him where he got it.

Black shows Shiro the “comet” that crashed on Daibazaal and that the Lions were built out of it. Okay, bad science once again. The thing that hit Daibazaal, that the Lions were made from, that we see other chunks of metal like it in future episodes: That is not a comet. A comet is not made of metal or rock, they’re made mostly of ice. They have some particulate dust and organic compounds mixed in, but they’re mostly ice. They’re even jokingly referred to as dirty snowballs. Some comets have a lower density than that of water, suggesting some have interiors that aren’t solid. Calling this chunk of magic space metal a “comet” is scientifically illiterate. They could have called this chunk of metal an asteroid, and that would have worked. But a comet? No.

Zarkon has essentially abused the Black Lion. Shiro, in trying to bond more with Black, is essentially asking Black to tell him its story. That’s part of processing past trauma: talking about it. Talking about trauma promotes bonding. I really like that this is an element to how the show depicts Shiro and Black growing closer together.

The mice try to entertain Allura, and I love the look of joy on her face as they do so.

Pidge needing to use the toilet, but not being able to interpret the signs on the wall is relatable to me. There is something about public restrooms that unnerves me. It would have been nice if the show hadn’t defaulted to a gender binary in presenting these two toilet signs though. Aside from the fact that humans have more than a simple binary for gender, there is literally nothing that would necessitate that life evolved on other planets would have a binary for gender or sex.

Of course, Lance wants to flirt with girls, but at least it makes sense in a way here in a mall. The alien selling Earth stuff is fantastically odd. Pidge freaks over seeing a video game she’s into. And the game system that it plays on has a game glove. I’m old enough to remember the old NES and its power glove, so this hits me in a personal spot. I never had the power glove though; my experiences with anything other than the standard NES controller never seemed to go well.

“Sustenance unit: complete. Ingest,” says Sal. Again, the voice is what sells it for me. Unfortunate for Sal, his chef-bot breaks, and Hunk volunteers to take charge. He cooks great food, and Sal likes what’s happening. Hunk uses a word here – “provide” – that I think also gets to some of what he likes about cooking. Through food, he can feel like he is providing something to others. He can find a sense of purpose in it. This is how to display the food side of Hunk in a way that actually functions as characterization.

Black shows Shiro that it has the ability to generate wings. Zarkon psychically interferes, knocking Shiro into some kind of astral/psychic space with Zarkon. They fight in a beautiful, visually dynamic way. It’s kind of dissonant to have this big dramatic story going on with Shiro and the comic mall story. That’s probably my biggest complaint about the episode. Issues with tone like this is not limited to this episode, as the previous episodes have shown more than once.

Hunk has totally changed things at Vrepit Sal’s. Hunk is aggressive, and Sal is responding as if he’s a military subordinate to Hunk. I find the bit of development between their two characters to be endearing. I don’t know, I just kind of really like Sal. The mallcop has to go and interrupt things, threaten Hunk, who then flees.

Zarkon and Shiro trade comments as well as blows. Zarkon taunts Shiro, saying, “You could never take my place as the head of Voltron.” Shiro’s fight is literally to be the head of Voltron as proclaimed here by the main antagonist. Shiro counters that Zarkon is “no Paladin,” and Zarkon even briefly has a look of concern, almost disbelief on his face. He knows there is a risk Shiro can break Black free from Zarkon’s control. “You have no idea how to command a weapon like this,” Zarkon says. Shiro retorts, “No one commands the Black Lion!” Go Shiro, go!! These two lines demonstrate the significant difference in their respective relationships with Black. Zarkon’s, like general Galra philosophy, is about domination. Shiro’s is about mutual respect and cooperation, about teamwork. Shiro continues, “It’s not about power, it’s about earning each other’s trust.” Black’s eyes glow, showing it concurs with Shiro. It enters the psychic space and blasts Zarkon. Black clearly prefers Shiro!

And then there’s the twist: Black, and thus Shiro sitting inside it, never left the Castle Ship. They’re still in the docking bay. I actually like this fake-out, though I don’t know how to articulate why. I think maybe it emphasizes again that this was significantly about Black telling its story to Shiro.

Pidge and Lance have been taking money from the fountain. Coins in the fountain is so iconic from my time at the mall as a kid and teen. I can’t say I know of any malls currently that still have fountains though. Keith and Hunk run into each other. Pidge and Lance buy their game stuff, receiving a free Kaltenecker, aka a cow. They all end up being chased by the mallcop.

Coran’s whole shopping at the Unilu shop is hilarious. I love the bartering. A handful of pocket lint. First-born child. A used handkerchief. Left foot. Sing a song. Being a butler for a year. The back and forth is wild. I love it.

The crew gets back to the Castle and whoa: Allura’s hair!

Shiro: “Is that a cow?” Lance: “Mmhmm. His name is Kaltenecker.” This cow has an utter, so is he transgender?

With Shiro bonded more with Black, he’s ready to head to the headquarters of the Blade of Marmora.

A lot of when this show does odd, humor-specific episodes, I don’t like them. This one is different though. I actually find a lot of this one funny. I still contend that pairing the comedy of the mall with the drama of Shiro’s struggle does create some tonal whiplash though. While I might enjoy the humor of the episode, the Shiro/Black Lion/Zarkon part of this episode is still the best part. It’s so clear what the contention is between Shiro and Zarkon that their conflict becomes elegant in a way. It’s some of the best storytelling this show ever did.

GARBAGE DAY!

a bunch of scrappy shorter pieces to clean out my drafts folder for the new year!

***

A videogame will tend towards exhausting every possible variation of a design space whether anyone wants it to or not.

Videogames and duration - if something is good it should continue being good however long you extend it. You don't really encounter the idea that something can be good for a little while and then be evil.

***

Works of art are "in conversation" with their audience, with materials, with history, with each other. The aim of an artwork is to start, or add to, "the conversation". "Conversation" sort of edges out the older tic whereby art "examines" or "explores" something, which always made me think of a big magnifying glass being propped up for the benefit of some eerily calm 1950s scientist. But now that sounds too chilly, and perhaps sort of sketchy in the power dynamics it implies. "Conversation" is much warmer, informal and more fluid - "conversation" is the assurance that any given power dynamic can be dissolved away in the warm glow of basic, mutual humanity. Let's talk it through! My door is always open! Whenever there's a complaint over labour conditions or harassment it's nearly de rigueur to also quote the wounded-sounding HR lackey, upset that people didn't talk to them about it before going public. Why would anybody deny the friendly, outstretched hand of the respected opponent and their entirely in-good-faith quibbling about word meanings, personality and tone? Why don't we have an honest conversation about the "honest conversation", that numbing discourse cloud sprayed out like formic acid to neutralize a threat, to melt any unsettling edges or contraries back into the familiar gloop of the private and the personal.

***

One of the pleasures of videogames is that of an infinitely repeatable, always identical procedure. Pressing the button makes something happen, and by pressing it again it will happen again in the same way. So there's a kind of abundance or excess built into the system - like partaking of a fruit which will never be depleted, and in the process taking on in your own actions something of that same infinity. You can temporarily identify with the self-identical, eternally reproducing action that you are performing. I think one of the difficulties of videogames is that as you get (slightly!) older, that immortal quality becomes more visibly alien, harder to align to your sense of self. That these mechanics act like black holes, able to absorb any amount of your life without ever being satiated, becomes a terrible curse rather than an unexpected gift. That endlessness now seems eerie and artificial, a horrible parody of life rather than the highest version of it. 

The dadification of vgames has gone much remarked. But as well as a demographic shift I think this reflects a certain anxiety about the centrality of these immortal entities, these endless loops, within the culture. As reward for your fealty to the Mario brand you get even more Mario games, which by now you may not have time or energy to actually play. The VG dad (or even the buff, single pseudo-dads of the superhero movies) is eternally exhausted with the genre that he’s trapped in. We hear him groan and complain as he painfully slogs through the motions. The gratuitous loop is redeemed by the finite human suffering of the dad, as he manfully does what it takes to keep these things going forwards to the next generation, so that the next set of children may be able to actually take pleasure in them again. But the attempt to symbolically re-integrate these things into human life by casting them as a family drama never quite works: their ultimate indifference to that life shines through. A blind, eerie deathlessness is both their charm and their authority.

***

That saying that when all you have is a hammer everything else looks like a nail - similarly, when all you have is willpower, everything looks like an obstacle to be pounded into submission by that same willpower. 

Laziness is a good thing in that it means stepping back from this idiot insatiability of the will. If you're lazy you have to pay more attention, because you're more aware of both your own limits and the limits of your material. 

I think there can be value in suspending a formal problem rather than building an exhaustive system to solve it forever. That way it's still something you have to think about, something that still throws off and reroutes the normal workings of your awful private fantasy machine. Dropping text strings into the game as elements to spatially encounter is not ideal technically but does force you to be more responsive and exploratory with how you use that text. Robust systems can be cool, but can also really homogenize everything - now "text" is just the miscellaneous stuff within the all-purpose "textbox" at the bottom of the screen, cementing its role as filler content.

The funny thing about really systemic, open-world type games is that their very robustness tends to suffocate exprience before it happens. We know nothing will happen which will significantly impact this camera POV, this dialogue system.. anything can happen except for anything which would require a fundamental change to the underlying inventory system. But maybe the whole pleasure of the open world game is just being able to hold those experiences in suspense.

***

Mostly the characters voicing my own opinions in my videogames are explicitly malign and sinister - which is a corny device for me to vent without worrying as much about browbeating people with my opinions. But it's also a way of having those opinions without allowing them to overdetermine the rest of the game, or be fully in control over the more ambivalent and drifting work of "putting together different pieces on a screen to make interesting spaces". So in that sense my own ideas really are the enemies, and any plot role they serve in the game is a dramatisation of the effort to create a space where they lack controlling power.

***

RPG Maker is a collage machine, you get a set of pictures and start placing them around until they start to form some kind of charged and interesting space.

I think the collage aspect is a lot of what I enjoy about making these things, which is why games with more polished or consistent art styles frequently leave me cold. For me the greater the discrepancy between different objects on screen means a greater effect when they're combined. 

How does gameplay etc tie in? For me gameplay can divert the interest but never truly capture it. For decades games have had the problem of effectively being able to train you to do something, but having no idea what that thing should be or why it would matter. They effectively move your attention around without being able to settle it because their inner logic is basically always the same ahistorical, mechanistic void. But this can be a good thing - the permanently restless and unsettled nature of videogame attention can't illuminate itself, but can do so to other things in passing. 

Distraction becomes a way to examine surfaces, rather than being sucked into depths or settled to one fixed meaning. And the drift of unsettled consciousness is ultimately what animates game collages, the spaces that shift and react as attention plays across them, revealing or withholding. And so from this perspective, the answer to why I make videogames is: because I don't trust myself to look after an aquarium.

***

Design is managerial aesthetics - a mode of expertise framed as meta-expertise specifically because it scales up so well to systems of mass organisation and production. It's a universal discipline insofar as the task of removing any obstacles to the frictionless flow of attention and of capital is now also a universal chore. In this context a designer is like the MBA who can be dropped into any business to improve it, without ever having to know just what product they make – because the ultimate goal is always the same, the same tools can always be used. 

The cutesy books about the design of everyday life and so forth exist in the same vein as the ones that tell us there's nothing wrong with marketing because ultimately isn't all human discourse and activity some form of marketing? Isn't everything "design"? The strange top-heaviness with which these things outgrow their host categories parallels the unstoppable expansion of executive salaries within the businesses themselves. The task of managing other people's labour becomes ever more grandoise, ineffable, cosmic and well-paid as that labour in turn is framed as a kind of undifferentiated slop which exists for the sake of being shaped by creatives.

***

tragedy / comedy:

Generalizing hugely I feel like tragedy is about an event or experience so powerful it changes everything - for the characters involved, for the people in that world, for the audience watching - while conversely comedy is the idea that no event or experience can change anything. Oedipus dies and there's a big announcement and everyone has to sit through the awkward two-minute silence before getting back to work, while trying not to fart or itch too noticeably, and the next day somebody's selling Oedipus commemorative pens which run out of ink five minutes after opening, and the pen cap gets lost and the cat starts playing with it. 

In comedy the tragic can still happen, it’s just never strong enough to escape the constraints of the inert material universe which we find ourselves in – all that which remains so stubbornly intractable towards the higher instincts. I can talk about the dignity of man but there's still a risk that my pants will fall down or that someone will hit me with a ladder, causing my head to get stuck inside a bucket of paint, etc. Or my voice might be ridiculous or I might have a stutter (old comedy standbys!), or someone might hear part of my words out of context and assign them a different and unintended meaning. Comedy is consciousness imprisoned within a cumbersome matter which it can't completely do anything with, but also can't exist without. 

Taken as a worldview, this sort of risks congealing into the kneejerk reactionary things-can-never-change, whatever-moment-of-human-history-i-was-reared-in-is-eternal-and-inviolate radio DJ / South Park mindset. And of course somebody's view of what constitutes a tragic, life-changing event depends greatly on whether it's happening to them or someone else. But as exaggeration, in its neurotic overemphasis of the inescapable material, i think this approach still has interest and use. Many of my favourite writers have a kind of comic understanding of consciousness: consciousness becomes a churning material process with its own independent momentum which has to be examined and accounted for as part of any real reckoning with the world. In this light comedy becomes a way to think about opacity and limitation, both in physical matter and in our own selves.

I think many people have made the point that vgames are generally comic, intentionally or unintentionally. The rhetoric around them still tends towards the tragic: make the choice which changes everything! Deal with the consequences, accept your fate! But in practice those moments feel less visible than the clumsy material layer of GUIs, inputs, mechanics and representations that contain and constrain them. The opacity of the black box is one inhibition: was that meant to happen? Was it scripted or a glitch? Maybe I should reload my save and try again. Another is the inertia of the various game systems and loops themselves - [x] character may have died but you still need to collect those chocobo racing feathers if you want the Gold Sword. The numbers in a videogame "want" to keep going up, whatever happens: there's an affordance there which exists independently to any merely human wants and needs, and so tends to act as a gravity well for distracted consciousness as it wanders around. When people talk about tragedy in videogames it's usually with the implicit rider that it's within a game, or set of game conventions, which have become naturalised enough to become invisible. Which also tends to mean the naturalisation of a form, of inputs, of technology, of distribution mechanisms and assumptions, which however arty we can get are still inherently tied to the tech industry. Every art game is to some extent an invitation to spend more time internalising the vocab of your windows computer.

I've mentioned that the materialism of comedy can tend towards unthinking reaction. But the insistence on certain limits inherent to the human body – requirements like clean water and clean air, food and shelter, actual bathroom breaks and not piss jugs and also not having to live six feet beneath a rising sea level - can be helpful at a point when all these things are regarded as negotiable impediments to the pursuit of future profit. Maybe it’s a good thing that some materials can still be so insistent about refusing to be absorbed into the will.

***

I think what I most enjoy about art is the sense of a game with moveable stakes: where you never quite know the value of what you're playing for, which now appears absolutely trivial, and now appears to stand in judgement of the whole world, etc. I think this is also the Adorno idea of the aesthetic as really the extra-aesthetic, that which can step outside or threaten to step outside the limits of the merely aesthetic. It's why "just make a good game / pop song / comic / etc" never quite works, in rhetoric or in practice: the really good pop song is never that which just gives the enjoyable three minutes of listening we might consciously assign to be its remit, it's what overflows or undercuts that category, that which however briefly seems at risk of stepping outside it and into the realm of everyday life.

I grew up on pop culture so I don't have to feel positively towards it. Who am I meant to be defending it from? The handful of surviving WASPs reared on Brahms who get the ostentatiously-fussy-culture-review posts at print newspapers looking to pick up a slightly higher quality of margarine advertisement? The best thing pop culture ever gave me was its own critique: that of containing artists and moments which couldn't be squared with what the rest of it was saying, which seemed  to call the whole enterprise into question and in doing so broadened the sense of what was possible. Pop culture was never quite identified with itself, the value it has is in containing elements which make that self-identification impossible. So it always throws me off to see people celebrating "pop culture", like it's a self-produced totality, when that totality was only ever good for kicking.

Pop culture survives through a negativity it can never properly acknowledge.

[images: Tower of Druaga, Detana!! TwinBee, True Golf Classics: Wicked 18, Microsurgeon, Dark Edge]

Machines Can Create Artwork, however Can They Jam

Because the CTO of an utilized pc imaginative and prescient firm, I spend the majority of my time overseeing and honing full-stack AI setups that make use of neural networks and pc imaginative and prescient algorithms to establish and analyze the content material of photos and footage. In my spare hours, I play the sax with my jazz quintet, buying and selling off solos, jams and improvisations with the opposite musicians. It is a course of filled with emotion, surprises and communication. I've at all times seen it as a distinctly human enterprise--one impervious to expertise's usurping ambition. Certainly, for a very long time I noticed AI's viability solely via the lens of its utilitarian benefits. The latest deluge of experiments involving neural networks and creativity--everything from writing poetry and designing mid-century furnishings to producing intentionally non-derivative work and creating runway fashions--has began to vary my view. It has made me wonder if the identical method might be utilized to jazz--and to what finish? Was there any profit to creating an AI robotic, program or agent that's able to passing a jazz Turing take a look at, and is that even conceivable with at present's AI cutting-edge? I researched the subject and spoke with specialists on the nexus of AI and music from academia and enterprise, in addition to with a few of my fellow musicians. Here is what I discovered. Some Music Genres Lend Themselves Higher to AI than Do Others A lot has already been accomplished on the intersection of AI and music technology. Tech giants corresponding to Microsoft, Google, IBM Watson and Sony, together with startups corresponding to Aiva and Amper, have commercially obtainable expertise and companies round AI-generated music. Final summer season, YouTube star Taryn Southern launched I'm AI, an album that was created with the assistance of instruments and expertise from Aiva, Amper, Microsoft and IBM. Likelihood is that a few of the soundtracks you hear in shops, elevators, infomercials and video video games is AI-composed. Some is carried out dwell by orchestras from AI-created scores and preparations. Some is in-studio manufacturing fashion of pop music spewed in ultrapolished type immediately from a pc itself. Regardless of a number of human-intervened exceptions, what you in all probability will not hear in these venues and platforms is AI-generated jazz. That is considerably stunning for the reason that typically sudden end result of algorithms would appear to lend itself to the style's improvisatory nature. Then once more, as any skilled jazz musician or membership proprietor can attest, jazz tends to be a labor of affection for performers. It serves an fanatic area of interest viewers. And it could hardly be anticipated to draw the form of enterprise urgency that auto-soundtracking YouTube content material and video video games does. However there are different challenges as effectively. How Deep Is Your Studying? DeepJazz is a 2016 mission by Princeton pc science scholar Ji-Sung Kim that spews out piano solo variations on Pat Metheny's "And Then I Knew." The mannequin was created utilizing the unique Pat Metheny monitor MIDI file as the info supply, the Keras and Theano machine studying APIs, and a long-term brief reminiscence (LTSM) recurrent neural community. Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are well-liked in at present's AI composition as a result of they study from earlier enter by looping and thus backpropagate on the fly. That stated, conventional RNNs are likely to solely work with brief musical phrases. If you happen to're composing something longer than a ringtone, LTSMs come into play as a result of they're capable of have interaction extra reminiscence and work over the course of a whole track, tackling the general construction, verses, bridges, refrains and so forth. With slightly extra finessing of tempo and dynamics, the expansive melodies and hopping chord progressions that DeepJazz produces might actually go for the actual factor should you heard them on the radio, within the grocery store, or on maintain with customer support. But when offered as a pc or human Turing take a look at question--i.e. was this track created by a human or a machine?--maybe not a lot. Because it was solely skilled on a single track, DeepJazz's output can solely ever produce outcomes that sound just like that one track. What's extra, the output reduces the unique guitar, bass, drums and keyboard instrumentation to only piano. Producing improvs from the unique track, with its authentic instrumentation, can be a way more complicated enterprise. In any case, there is a large distinction between the mounted notes of a piano and the extra malleable prolonged tones of the opposite devices usually related to jazz, corresponding to trumpet, trombone and saxophone. "The thing that makes wind instruments so hard for computers is that you're pumping energy into them all the time, so you have continuous control and jazz players are free to use that control very expressively," says Carnegie Mellon pc science professor Roger Dannenberg, who additionally performs jazz trumpet. "It's not just figuring out what notes to play, but how to play them. You have almost infinite flexibility over vibrato, bending the pitch, and even producing sounds that instruments such as piano simply aren't capable of." Stay Aids Past timbre, dwell efficiency with AI "musicians" brings different challenges. No matter musical style, the advert hoc, real-time communication that takes place between musicians through the collective improvisation of dwell jams merely is not there but between machines and people. The acoustics of a room or efficiency venue that have an effect on sound, the vitality of the viewers and, after all, the visible cues shared between musicians can't be accounted for by any present expertise. It could require refined audio recognition that permits machines to listen to and interpret the opposite devices, superior pc imaginative and prescient to choose up on assorted and refined visible cues, and a few option to sign and talk with the human musicians--all synced up with a real-time improvisatory algorithm. The computing energy alone required to assist these operations can be staggering. A lot research--from a robotic marimba to a Nintendo Wii-activated bebop improvisation generator to present music software program mash-ups able to robotic call-and-response solos with human musicians--has been accomplished on this space, however nothing but pulls collectively the common or common AI equal of a worthwhile human jazz musician. It Do not Imply a Factor if it Ain't Bought That Swing Given a few of the analysis and experiments round artwork created with neural networks skilled on present masterpieces, I usually surprise if the identical could be completed with the music of legendary jazz musicians. Is it potential to recreate the superfast virtuosic bebop jazz solos of Charlie Parker or the minimalist precision of Rely Basie's piano and band? Charlie Parker did play notes, so a few of his tunes have been transcribed into sheet music and MIDI already, and a few even fed to deep studying algorithms. However that is nonetheless not sufficient coaching knowledge to output new Charlie Parker solos carried out by machines in ways in which can be compelling and Turing test-proof. Although instruments exist to parse out particular person instrument tracks from songs, they aren't but adequate to untangle recordings of dwell exhibits, which represent a big portion of a jazz nice's oeuvre. "That's another big signal processing and machine learning problem that's a very active area of research, but it's not a solved problem," says Dannenberg. And that is not even taking into consideration subtleties of tempo, timbre, dynamics, stress, launch, drama and storytelling which might be distinctive to every dwell efficiency and recording. You'd in all probability have to create your individual knowledge set from scratch: Get new jazz musicians to play every instrument in each potential Charlie Parker- or Rely Basie-like approach after which prepare algorithms on these recordings. That method is just like what Amper Music has accomplished for different musical genres. It is too late to get customized samples from Parker or Basie themselves, however not so for Joshua Redman or Kamasi Washington. Consider it as movement seize for audio. Do We Want AI Jazz? For now, a few of the most promising analysis utilizing AI and jazz is that underway on the Protection Superior Analysis Tasks Company (DARPA), which is growing jazz-playing robots to review and advance communication between people and machines, one thing that might be as helpful on stage or at a freeway exit clogged with merging autonomous vehicles as it's on the battlefield. When it comes to AI-generated music, that also appears higher suited to extra musical-score-based genres corresponding to film and classical music, or extremely produced and sometimes synthesized and sample-heavy pop music. I am additionally interested in AI and jazz just because it will be helpful to sometime have an on-demand musical accomplice to jam with in a seamlessly lifelike approach any time of the day or night time, not only for pure enjoyment, but additionally for studying. In any case, how significantly better might music college students hone their abilities if they'd AI-based lecturers that might present instruction and suggestions on their enjoying anytime? It could be a boon to music training and make follow much more sensible. We're nonetheless a approach off from both providing. We nonetheless do not have the slightest concept how you can get these jazz AI musicians to have the ability to both play with or detect the presence of "swing," "emotion" and "soul." Extra importantly, can they improvise--zigging when conventional coaching and music idea would have them zag? As my band's drummer places it: "If you're talking about live improvisation, that gets to the ultimate core of what AI is. That's like having a relationship. It has to be 100 percent real." Ken Weiner on sax with a small jazz ensemble. Credit score: Cambron Carter. Regardless of the world's present love affair with machine studying, it might not be the ultimate method for AI-generated music. "Deep learning in jazz has similarly downplayed the crucial rhythmic, timbral, and textural aspects of music," says College of California, San Diego, music professor and saxophonist David Borgo who, moreover being my pal, additionally wrote an interesting chapter in The Routledge Companion to Jazz Research on improvisation and computer systems. "Research in this area has tended to focus on getting computers to play the 'right notes,' but we are still a long way from designing systems capable of the micro and macro temporal, timbral and textural adjustments necessary to groove together and to develop high-level collective improvisation in an unscripted fashion with human musicians (rather than insisting that human musicians improvise with, or groove to, the computer)." In different phrases, even when I'm fortunate to someday get a robo-Charlie Parker on-demand bandmate, it is nonetheless prone to be a one-sided expertise till we get to the holy grail of human-level common AI. Read the full article

A disordered venting about RP problems:

My experience RPing with Tumblr RPing is not very extensive - goes back about five years, I think. Before that, I RPd a bit, much earlier, but for the most part the only RPing I've done is on Tumblr (and Skype, but as an extension of Tumblr RPing).

I don't like bouncing around. I tend to stick with a place that looks legit, get attached to the characters (mine and others') and stick it out, even sometimes unreasonably so. I've been in... basically three group RPs. Two of them were larger (let's say, defined as "more than around ten active players at any given time", and the third was smaller and purely reactionary, a-la "we don't like the way things are here so we'll make our own". Though not without problems (and I can't say I didn't have my part in them), it was the most drama-free as a whole. It also looks like the fourth, soon to come, might follow along the same pattern.

Despite my sample size of one, I'm confident in saying small groups have a different dynamic. Especially if they're founded by people who already know each other. Bigger groups are trickier, in many ways, and I was struck by the realisation that the different problems I encountered in both my bigger groups were representative of two ends of a spectrum.  Similar things going wrong in opposite ways, so to speak.

One of them was defined by lack of forethought and planning. Indeed the whole RP just kind of happened organically, something more serious growing out of something very silly and casual. While it had its fun sides - and it was wildly fun, at times, for as long as the fun lasted - it's also obvious in retrospect how that could be a huge problem. Different players. No standardised rules or guidelines until way, waaay later in the game (after much drama had already happened). Lots of different people with different RPing backgrounds and personalities and playstyles, none of them fully on the same page. While many of the problems had to do with one or two difficult personalities in the group, that's not really the isuse. There is always a risk of... unpleasant people, no RP group is safe from them and no RP guidelines will truly protect you from someone who WANTS to start shit or manipulate things to their benefit and is cunning enough to do that. But even aside from that... the lack of regulation about who could grab what characters and how many (some players ending up with 20+ blogs), or any kind of spoken agreement about activity guidelines and replying etiquette. Lack of agreement about how "canon" certain plots were, in the RPing continuity. Lack of agreement about the continuity, period. A clash between people who wanted to develop a certain pre-planned (and rather exclusive) storyline and those who were more in it for spontaneity. It was a recipe for disaster. It didn't need to get as bad as it did, but starting off like that, it was bound to get unpleasant eventually anyway.

Now, the other group... oh, the other group. After the colourful experience of the first group, the things it offered seemed like a reassuring breath of fresh air. Planning! An almost DnD-esque level of detail to the established universe, rulebook, bestiary and lore! Basically an entire little sandbox lovingly crafted for you to play in. Transparent activity guidelines and rules! An actual mod team working to be approachable while still holding authority! New plots for everyone to participate in to be released basically by the clock, so nobody would feel left out! So lovely! Unfortunately, things are rarely as sunny as they appear. A certain type of literate, application RPs is infamous for their snobbishness and elitism, and despite the initially welcoming tone, that was exactly what this unravelled to be. On the flip side, many of the appeals of the group amounted to little more than elaborate publicity acts. Always, always must the group remain attractive and desirable to newcomers (perhaps unsurprisingly given the apparently abysmal player retention rates, both short and long-term). The tone turned out very different from what was advertised, the sandbox-like universe revealing itself to be more of a literal sandbox, with complex topics turned into gimmicks, and supernatural characters (prosecuted and feared for their in-humanity) easily and casually sharing information about their powers with near-strangers like kids on a playground comparing their toys. The "plots" thrown one's way are not only usually poorly (if at all) developed but intrusive, so that they are impossible to avoid completely even if one is not interested in them. Worse yet, the RP insists on doling out serious consequences and high-stakes crises like death, destruction, invasions of murderous monsters or malignant town-wide spells, but is curiously reluctant to allow any room for serious RPing or sense of consequences.

In fact, it's impossible to talk about consequences when even a sense of any basic continuity is thrown out the window, precluded by the occasional hiatus and re-launch and the various measures taken to make sure that new players enter onto a relatively blank slate. Yes, even if long-time residents of the area and the populace in general SHOULD remember and be affected by that politically motivated massacre half a year back, or that time monstrous vegetables SLAUGHTERED half a school of elementary schoolchildren. Thus, even though the RP is long-running (turning two years old soon), it is impossible for the setting to develop any sense of history, and instead it seems to turn more and more comically nonsensical the more tragedies befall the town and are promptly forgotten a few weeks later. Rather than a serious and in-depth setting, one begins to feel instead as if all the characters are living in a Lotus Eater-like state of vague oblivion, briefly reacting to various events but never quite letting them reach collective memory.

Now, all this might be bearable (and even fun! There's an appeal in a certain kind of wacky no-strings-attached horror-comedy-gore, no denying that), IF a couple things weren't true. a) If the RP (and specifically the mod team) didn't make such a huge deal about what a serious and respectable and serious RP it is. No OCs allowed. "We allow shipping but we don't put an emphasis on it! Please don't think this is one of those silly ship-obsessed RPs". No more than two characters allowed. Replies MUST happen every x days, and even though replies of various kinds are accepted (all prose, just different formats and individual reply lengths), only CERTAIN kinds count towards the activity requirement (???!), and a long-term failure to keep it up will end up in you getting the boot. Even if you ARE active and involved with other people and interact a lot. (Don't even get me started on that. I and about three or four other people, most of whom LEFT shortly after, ended up having our plots disrupted SIGNIFICANTLY because the mods booted - or in this case harangued into throwing in the towel and leaving in a huff - a player who was active with all of us, but wasn't active enough in "the RIGHT way" i.e. the right format. This was part of a bigger package of them caring more about keeping up certain pretenses and ticking off certain boxes to be more outwardly desirable to new applicants than the fun of the users who were already there.) b) The nit-picking. Oh god the nitpicking and micromanagement. Some of the shit I've personally seen, some of it I've heard about. It's one thing to crit a player for not being IC with a mod pre-made character. It's another thing to do that after they've been in play for A YEAR, and if you do that then, you're being blatantly disrespectful of all the development the player's put into them. And it's yet another thing to do that to someone's OC (before the 'no OCs' rule was instated). I've had mods dictate to me that my character shouldn't be reacting to x event like this or that, by listing a bunch of factors that, while possibly convincing, were only ONE possible way to interpret the big picture. For real. Psychology is complicated but for some reason all that goes out the window the moment the mod team decides they know how your character should be played (and I'm not talking about blatant realism or accuracy issues like "that's not how PTSD works" but actual decisions/ways of thinking, things that there should, in theory, be no "wrong" option with because once again, people are complicated).

Which brings me to: C) The omnipresent feeling of entitlement by the mod team aka the Powers That Be, as if they believe that theirs is such a supremely privileged, special and elite group, that they merely DEIGN to let you be a part of it. All of it manifesting in a complete lack of basic courtesy when approaching players. Or rather, any player who's been there longer than a month and who they're not actively trying to be Welcoming(TM) to. I should have seen it pretty early when I had a beef with another player who, to wit, disliked that an RP scene we had depicted her character as a "bad guy" (who was previously ESTABLISHED in canon as a psychopathic murderer!!! and the RP scene basically showed him doing more of the same!!!). She ended up badmouthing me to other players she was interacting with closely, and then they as a group complained about me to the mods, in which she twisted a certain conversation we'd had over Skype into something that reflected very badly on me, along the lines of me forcing her to RP a scene she would be triggered by. Now. This was resolved when I provided the mods with copied Skype messages (direct Skype quotes, a format that, in theory, can't be doctored) that showed she was fabricating that conversation - that she had outright told me she WOULD be okay with doing that scene. She eventually got booted for that (and other stuff). And all would have been well if it weren't for the way I had been initially addressed by the mods, and the condescending, denigrating, making you feel like shit TONE of it. Going from zero, utter peace, to "you have an attitude problem and you need to stop now or we'll kick you out". They also tacked on about half a dozen minor "offenses" I had done, like rambling too much about how the reasons I liked a school subject someone else disliked in the ooc chat, or trying TOO hard to get involved in plots, or other bullshit things that the people involved hadn't even complained to them about. I later realised that this, too, was a Pattern. Whenever they went to you with any sort of grievance, whether from their own side or from another player, they would tack on about half a dozen other "transgressions" you had made, sometimes making them up entirely out of thin air. (Other examples include: Me trying to "enforce a headcanon" by having my character react x way. I then pointed out that the "headcanon" I was allegedly """"enforcing"""" was the information stated on THEIR blog about how characters are large are reacting to a previous major town-wide event. (To wit: the information stated that the Event, a violent and deadly clash between two groups of people, exacerbated tensions between them and led to more mistrust between them. My character, who belongs to ONE group, was being mistrustful of the OTHER group. And somehow, this was not okay. Yes. That's it. That is literally how asinine it got. But then again, it's not surprising - as I explain later, it wasn't baout the offenses making sense. It was about getting to make me feel shitty for something) Or: I was being "inconsiderate" by having my character "out" the supernatural status of another character whose player was no longer in the group, and who they were not in contact with. Said player and I HAD in fact discussed this at the time, and they'd WANTED to have it happen, but the mods didn't know one way OR the other. They simply ASSUMED so they could try to pin it on me!) A long line of instances of them taking "offenses" that they didn't know for sure were offenses, that the player DIRECTLY affected HAD NOT come to them about, to paint a bigger picture of you being some kind of Problem Child who was daring to be naughty in THEIR classroom.

Now, I don't know if this was deliberate, but I can see why they did it. It makes you, as the player, feel like crap, puts you on the defensive, makes you question yourself. "Holy crap, were people really bothered by that time I went on a jokingly-serious rant about how awesome botany is when someone said they hated that topic in biology class?" (Hint: No they weren't. They thought NOTHING of it. But the mods saw it and filed it away for when they needed to make you feel like crap.) It puts the mods in a position of power and strengthened their authority. It forces you into a no-win scenario where you either deny the nonsensical accusations, and thus weaken your position and look less credible because it looks like you can't accept responsibility when you're wrong, OR accept the accusations and thereby agree with them that you're the naughty child and bad at following the rules. So it's a shitty, shitty manipulation technique. All of it coming from a place of entitlement and elitism.

I wish I could say I come from all this wiser, but it does feel like entitlement and elitism are the common denominator here. Part of the problem of the first RP was certain people needing to feel like they were superior and hating it when other people got in the way of that. Part of the problem of the second was stuck-up, self-important mods. Ultimately, it comes down to people who enjoy, just a little too much, to feel power and authority over people. To say that "it's THIS way, because I say it is" and have that listened to without question. Who enforce the rules not because it benefits the community, but because it makes them look good. Who view discussion, in and of itself, as disobedience, as an attack on their authority, an attack on them. I can't say I know for sure how to recognise the warning signs of a group like that BEFORE applying. But maybe big RP groups just aren't worth it, period.

THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH Goes Hunting in Episodes 134-140

  Hello, everyone! Noelle here, and I'm your host for this week's batch of episodes as we all tackle the original run of Naruto! During last week's harrowing stretch, we got started on the fateful match of Naruto vs Sasuke, and the wild moments that came with that. It's the showdown we've all been waiting for, and the general consensus seems to be that it didn't disappoint.

  While this time we finish up this great battle, we also transition into the first of the massive stretch of filler, this time in the mysterious Land of Rice Paddies with the all-new Fuuma clan. Sasuke may have left, but Naruto and Sakura are determined to seek him out once again.

  Let's get started!

  Naruto’s been able to convince a lot of people to see his side of things, but in the end, he can’t persuade Sasuke to return. How does it feel to see Naruto fail at what he set out for, especially for something so important?

Kevin: For me, the more important point is actually the aftermath. Yes Naruto failed, and it was even at something extremely important to the main cast, but no one just moved past the mission. Shikamaru legitimately considered retiring from being a ninja, Sakura is realizing just how weak she is compared to everyone else. Even in Shippuden, several years and at least dozens of episodes later, Naruto keeping his promise to Sakura is one of the driving plot points for at least an arc.

Kara: I kind of suspected it. From a writing standpoint I like it: seeing Naruto’s friendship and determination fall flat sets some new stakes (and fortunately, it just makes him more determined). If he wants to be Hokage someday, he’s going to have to deal with all sorts of people and situations, and a lot of them are going to test his devotion to his own “Way of the Ninja.” From a fan standpoint, it’s sad; from a writer standpoint, it was a very good choice and is going to end up being very rewarding.

David: It would be unconvincing for him to eventually achieve his goal and not fail at points along the way; in that sense, this is one of the best ways to get that across. I think it’s also worth noting how Sasuke also “failed” by not killing Naruto like he believes Itachi would want him to do, though that situation is even more complicated so it’s arguable how similar those situations are.

Paul: I expected Naruto to fail to convince Sasuke, since his failure is necessary to the drama, but even so some part of me wanted to see him succeed. It feels tragic, in the classical Greek sense of the word.

  Joseph: It was a really tragic ending to an awesome arc, but I love the way it paves the road for the future of the story. Like Kevin said, the aftermath and the bounceback make it all the more effective.

Jared: Sometimes you have to fail in order to succeed later on. If this was just Naruto being able to achieve whatever he wanted, that wouldn’t make for a good story. It makes me excited to see how he bounces back overall and how he learns from this.

Carolyn: Overall, I appreciate that Sasuke didn’t go back with him. I feel like him going back would be the obvious, expected route to take.

Danni: I don’t know. I kind of feel like he did win, in a sense. While he didn’t manage to bring him back, his fight with Sasuke affected Sasuke’s heart enough to have him reject Itachi’s way of finding power. Sasuke didn’t fall completely into the darkness, and that’s why Naruto will be able to win him back later, I imagine.

We go into the start of a massive stretch of filler after a truly dynamic fight. After such a high-stakes clash, is the tone of the filler too different? Or did you need a break after all the seriousness?

Kevin: Honestly, the break is pretty welcome. Sure, it gets significantly lighter a bit too quickly, but some levity is nice after “I intend to kill you to unlock greater power so that I can kill my brother, the person who murdered my entire family.” Sasuke versus Naruto was the emotional climax of Naruto, and keeping up the more serious atmosphere might’ve been possible, but the longer it went on the more exhausted the audience would get.

Kara: I’m so scared to say anything because I just looked at our viewing schedule and this filler goes on for approximately 87 years. I’ll say that at the time of this writing and speaking for right now, I’m okay with the filler. I reserve the right to become increasingly less okay with it as it goes on.

David: For now they’ve kept it close enough to the tone of the main story while also keeping things light, so I’m still enjoying myself. Ask me again in a few weeks.

Paul: Since I haven't read the original manga and I haven't seen the Naruto TV anime before, I didn't know we were entering a filler arc. In terms of pacing and content, the Land of Rice Paddies seems far superior to the Land of Tea. It may not be canonical, but there's lots of Ninjutsu weirdness and betrayal going on, and that feels like a natural extension of the main story-line rather than a digression.

Joseph: So far I am actually loving this first filler story. Land of Tea was rough, but I dig the character designs here and it’s just enough of a continuation of the story to matter to me, even if a lot of it is illusory.

Jared: I think you need to essentially have this kind of tonal change after an emotionally exhausting encounter like Naruto vs. Sasuke is. It helps too that the transition into this new arc wasn’t as rough as the Land of Tea one was.

Carolyn: I don’t mind the shift from serious to silly, but I can’t really get into the new people. I think after such a big arc featuring the main characters, we need some time with Naruto and Sakura just kinda chilling.

Danni: I like that Jiraiya seems poised to take Sakura under her wing as well now, but it doesn’t seem like she’s getting much actual development in spite of it. I’d really like to see that change.

Before this, Orochimaru’s schemes were more subtle, tending to be a mastermind behind large happenings. Here, we see that his manipulations also heavily affect the villages and land surrounding him. Is this a welcome change?

Kevin: I’d say it manages to be welcome and unwelcome at the same time. It’s welcome because it shows just how much influence Orochimaru really has. If he wants to, he can bend entire countries to his will. It’s unwelcome because by showing that he actually is causing that much change opens up plot holes like how the Leaf can’t find him, when entire clans work for him.

Kara: That’s actually a good point about plot holes. I hadn’t considered that at first. At the same time, I’m always interested to see more outside of our one or two standard settings, because this alternate ninja universe is so wild to me. Anything that lets us see a bit more of what’s going on, how these different situations affect people who aren’t directly involved, is pretty neat. It does give a feeling that All Roads Lead to Orochimaru, though.

David: “Countries” in this context seem extremely small, to the point Konoha is basically just one big city, so I don’t see it as too big an issue that Orochimaru could spread his influence and still be on the loose. He probably has a whole chain of underground tiled showers for every occasion.

Paul: Orochimaru feels more like the genuine article when his machinations warp the entire social and political structure of a small country. To me, Orochimaru will always be the “Dirtbag Jeff” of the Naruto universe, but seeing entire populations made miserable on his behalf at least makes him seem like a more capable villain.

Joseph: If only this land had some kind of police force! The fact that Orochimaru can run so rampant with so many powerful ninja around seems ridiculous when you think too hard about it, so it’s much more fun to just think of him as a standard big ol’ baddie and sit back and observe how sick his actions are in the way they affect others.

Jared: I don’t know if it’s necessarily a change or just more to the fact that villains who have a network like Orochimaru has, tend to be manipulative jerks who push people into awkward situations in order to appease them. Plus it’s a way to show off what he’s been doing outside of just sitting in his chair chatting with Kabuto.

Carolyn: Orochimaru has been shown to be incredibly manipulative. It doesn’t surprise me at all that he could operate on a large scale in plain sight. I actually like that narrative.

Danni: Yeah, like others said before, you’d think if he’s this well known for destabilizing ninja clans and starting new villages, no one would have been surprised when he showed up out of the blue.

  The fillers this time focuses on the Fuuma clan, and their desire to restore their clan to glory. Do you sympathize with their plight? Why or why not?

Kevin: Maybe if we had a little more backstory about the clan showing them when they were prosperous and then their descent into criminal activity and then being tricked by Orochimaru, I would sympathize with them more, but they honestly just seem like pawns in a larger game and as a result are more of an afterthought as Naruto and Sakura try to find Sasuke.

Kara: New villages always take a little time for me to adjust to. We kind of throw all our chips in with Leaf, so when we come to new places, we get a sort of surface-level idea of what’s going on in the first few episodes elsewhere. Also I’m so hesitant to trust anyone or anything in this setting because you never know who’s wearing a mask, who’s a double/triple agent, who’s a resurrected corpse, who’s using substitution/disguise jutsu, etc. Having Sasame as our link to the greater story is a help, though. I like her, and (even counting her attempted double-cross) she seems very straightforward in what she wants to accomplish.

David: I totally agree with the sentiment that it would be easier to get into these kinds of stories if we knew more about the “before” of these families and lands. Hard to care too much about fighting for the status quo when we don’t really know what the status quo was.

Paul: I get where the Fuuma Clan are coming from, but I don't exactly sympathize. As Jiraiya of all people points out, in this world a ninja is “one who endures”, so even though the Fuuma Clan's power and influence may have dwindled, that's no reason for them to work for Orochimaru, who will indubitably only manipulate them, experiment on them, and then cast them aside when they are no longer useful.

Joseph: I didn’t really sympathize with their plight, but I did enjoy their character designs. They were much more interesting than any characters in the Land of Tea, especially Kagero, who I absolutely loved.

Jared: There’s probably a slight bit of sympathy towards them given that we know how Orochimaru can just be and put people into bad situations, although given how their plight is just kind of dumped on you, it doesn’t make you feel entirely sympathetic. Still, this is more of an investment than the Land of Tea arc gives.

Carolyn: As noted, I didn’t really get into their story, I think just the timing of it is off for me. But I do appreciate that Orochimaru has a lot of negative influence that could impact just about anyone who comes in contact with him. I understand where they’re coming from.

Danni: Not really? We know next to nothing about them or the land they served in. Literally all we know about them is Orochimaru messed with them a bit.

Sakura has been in the background for quite some time, and this arc is trying to push her into the forefront. How do you think this is being handled?

Kevin: So far, not very well. Yes, she understands better that she is weak compared to her teammates and that she may be bringing them down. Okay… GO DO SOMETHING. Instead of just sitting around thinking about how useless you are, actually go and learn new jutsu or train or just generally do something to be less useless!

Kara: Okay, just an aside, did Sakura’s face and tone when she said she was going to heal Sasame’s shoulder seem kinda creepy to anyone else? I don’t think it was deliberate, but I swear she looked more like she was going to take a bite out of Sasame’s neck for a second there. That aside, I appreciate what this arc is trying to do, but it’s taking its sweet time to do it. Sakura is smart. We were reminded of this over and over in the early episodes. She is extremely capable and has a good heart and all the other stuff she needs to now start doing things. I feel like right now her role is Person Who Told Naruto To Look After Sasuke and like. I wanna see a bit more than that.

David: What I mainly enjoy is that they are seeding her interest in medicine here. I hope they continue setting up future developments in small ways like that.

Paul: From what little I've seen of this arc, Sakura hasn't been treated very well. After she was left behind in the mission to retrieve Sasuke, I want to see Sakura take the same sort of bold, decisive, heroic actions that her male peers are allowed to pursue. That hasn't happened yet.

Joseph: I think it’s great that she’s being forced into more situations here, but the hilarious side effect is them illustrating just how disconnected she’s been. She’s all THIS IS JIRAIYA? And FROGS TALK? GROSS! Like, alright, hi, welcome back to class, Sakura.

Jared: It’s strange because it feels like the show just doesn’t know what to do with her as I thought we’d already been through Sakura having a moral dilemma of whether she thinks she’s capable or not. Granted, it’s not like she’s gotten to do much of anything in the last, what forty or so episodes? It’s like the show wants you to think she’s just been sitting at home dreaming about Sasuke since the end of the Chunin Exams and that’s it.

Carolyn: Honestly, I still feel like she is being given the short end of the stick. She’s saying she needs to be better like Naruto. To pull her own weight as if she is a failure. I feel like it’s more bad female character writing than Sakura’s established personality being at fault. She’s been proven to be one of the hardest workers in the series.

Danni: Quite poorly. Even when she saves Naruto it’s not really of her own doing. Someone else had to come in and say “Hey use this” for her to be able to do anything. It’s a real letdown, honestly.

Lastly, what are your highs and lows of this week’s batch of episodes?

Kevin: High - The end of Naruto versus Sasuke, specifically the look on Sasuke’s face. There are so many conflicting emotions with his character in that scene that I’m honestly amazed anything was able to capture how much he was going through. Low - The majority of Orochimaru’s hideout. Orochimaru himself was actually a pretty good scene, but the traps, psychological manipulation (did Naruto really never tell anyone that Sasuke used his Curse Mark, which would’ve informed Sakura that Kabuto really was lying?) and even some character actions (like Jiraiya sitting down and having a drink while on a mission) didn’t really seem to add up.

Kara: High point was predictably the end of Naruto vs. Sasuke, even with Sasuke’s weird glow-up and back-hands. I also love that this whole thing is a lot more intricate than just “Sasuke kill Naruto” — it doesn’t work without an acknowledgment of their friendship and that’s just so cool. Low point is Jiraiya back at it again takin’ money from kids and sleepin’ around. Although I will give a hand-wave/secondary high point to that scene in the alley where everyone literally drops because they realized they’re messing with the wrong dude.

David: My high is the entirety of episode 139, which had some of the tightest directing and animation I’ve seen from this show so far period. Really wasn’t expecting that out of some random set of filler episodes. My low point is all the weird ways the show kind of infantilizes Sasame when we first see her, but that luckily gets resolved relatively quickly.

Paul: My high point was the conclusion of the fight between Naruto and Sasuke, where after their ultimate techniques have collided and the resulting Chakra storm has dissipated, they exchange a sorrowful look, as if silently questioning how their lives have come to this point. My low point was when Kagero (disguised as Kabuto) re-enacts Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on herself in an effort to stop Naruto's heart. That was super gross, and I'm still recovering mentally from all the bone stuff with Kimimaro.

Joseph: I actually have to also say that, beyond the obvious choice of the end of the real story (for now), episode 139 was a highlight. It had some of the best animation of this batch and some really good comedic smears, and I love trap-loaded hideout hijinks. The low point, I guess, would be the very start of the filler. I couldn’t tell what Jiraiya’s motivation was, and at first I thought he was just tricking Naruto and Sakura to distract them and take them somewhere away from the action. Which maybe he did? But Orochimaru is there? But it’s probably an illusion after all? I dunno, it seemed kind of awkwardly conveyed in general.

Jared: High point would definitely be the end of Naruto vs. Sasuke. Although I wouldn’t consider it a high point, the idea that Orochimaru’s hideout is this strange labyrinth of traps is probably funnier than it should be. Low point would be Jiraiya continuing to be a skeeving creep at times and also the general idea that I’m curious how this show is really going to handle having very dramatic moments moving forward. With us going into filler, all the main players kind of go into a holding pattern since we know nothing is going to happen to them. You certainly can’t tease that Naruto is going to die when it’s obvious he won’t. Maybe the rest of these episodes will surprise me, but I’m very curious about how they’ll handle this with all the filler.

Carolyn: My high and low point would be Shikamaru crying after being told his mission was a failure. Poor guy.

Danni: High point is easily the entire episode concluding the fight between Naruto and Sasuke. I got pretty emotional because of how well-executed it was. My low point would be the continuing casual misogyny of Shikamaru! Stop it, dude!!!

    COUNTERS:

Ramen: 1 bowl Hokage: 0 Clones: 90 + 1 variable scene

  Total so far: Bowls of Ramen: 45 bowls, 3 cups “I'm Gonna be Hokage!”: 52 Shadow Clones Created: 457

  That's all for this week! Everyone's welcome to join us for this rewatch, doubly so if you haven't yet watched the original Naruto! Watch Naruto today!

  CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH!

Episodes 127-133: Naruto vs Sasuke

Episodes 120-126: The Sand Siblings Return

Episodes 113-119: Operation Rescue Sasuke

Episodes 106-112: Sasuke Goes Rogue

Episodes 99-105: Trouble in the Land of Tea

Episodes 92-98: Clash of the Sannin

Episodes 85-91: A Life-Changing Decision

Episodes 78-84: The Fall of a Legend

Episodes 71-77: Sands of Sorrow

Episodes 64-70: Crashing the Chunin Exam

Episodes 57-63: Family Feud

Episodes 50-56: Rock Lee Rally

Episodes 43-49: The Gate

Episodes 36-42: Through the Woods

Episodes 29-35: Sakura Unleashed

Episodes 22-28: Chunin Exams Kickoff

Episodes 15-21: Leaving the Land of Waves

Episodes 8-14: Beginners' Battle

Episodes 1-7: I'm Gonna Be the Hokage!

  Here's our upcoming schedule:

- On June 7th, DAVID LYNN will keep foraging into the land of fillers.

- On June 14th, PAUL CHAPMAN will continue on with our filler journey.

- On June 21st, KEVIN MATYI will push onward into what the fillers have to offer.

  Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! See you next time! 

  Have any inquiries or thoughts on Episodes 134-140? Let us know in the comments! 

  ----

Noelle Ogawa is a contributor to Bubbleblabber and Cup of Moe. She can be found on Twitter @noelleogawa.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

Dear Dudence for 1 December 2017

And we are now in December!  Christmas time!  Trees, lights, inflatable penguins!  And drama!  Soooooooooooo much drama.  It is the season for sharing mulled wine with people you like, and who like you back.  So grab a mug of warmed wine, cider, or chocolate and let’s see what sort of problems I can make worse for people I don’t know!

I live in a close-knit neighborhood. In October, my neighbor’s 16-year-old daughter ran over my family’s beloved cat. She was driving irresponsibly and texting, and she was horrified by what she’d done. I have tried not hating her, and I’ve tried telling myself that there’s always a risk that a cat allowed outdoors will be hit by a car. But I’m angry, and the best thing for me now is to keep my distance from the girl and her family. The parents won’t back off, though. Their daughter is traumatized, and they want me to comfort her.

Dear Cat Killer, unexpectedly losing a beloved pet sucks.  And to have it happen because of the negligent actions of a person you need to continue interacting with is doubly sucky.  I’m going to disagree with Newdie though about it not being awful for you to continue to want to emotionally punish your neighbor’s daughter.  You don’t have to forgive her for her actions; she killed a member of your family afterall.  But is “making a child feel terrible and refusing any kindness towards her,” really the hill you wish to die on?  You say you live in a closely-knit neighborhood, so here’s how it’s going to play out.  You’re going to continue to hold this over your neighbor and their daughter.  They’re going to talk with your other neighbors and, eventually, it will come around to the point where you’re being petty, vindictive, and emotionally cruel to not move on.  It was “just a cat” and you did “know what could happen” if you let it roam outside in an area where cars traveled.  In the not-too-distant future you’re going to lose the very loose and sandy moral high ground on which you’re standing, and it’s not going to be fun for you.  I recommend you think long and hard about what sort of acts of contrition you want to see from your neighbor’s kid as a way to earn your forgiveness, and when she achieves that provide it.  At the end of the day the girl is going to eventually forgive herself and move on.  Whether you do or you allow this anger and resentment to eat away at you and your relations with your neighbors is up to you.

I’m a single woman with a large extended family. I cope with the enormous project of buying Christmas presents by getting them very early. Everyone in my family knows this; it’s the family joke that I have all my presents purchased by Halloween. My brother’s wife “Jean” sent out a group text last week saying they have decided not to exchange gifts with the extended family and would only be getting gifts for each other and their own kids. They have five kids, both together and via previous marriages, so I understand, but would have appreciated more notice. My mom asked what I was going to do, and I said I’d keep the gifts for the kids but return the ones I got for my brother and Jean. Unfortunately, my dad, the family big mouth, overheard us and told my brother.

Dear Christmas Gift Drama, Jean is not right.  Christmas is not about gift-giving.  It’s about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.  That we have turned it into a celebration of eating, basketball, giving and exchanging gifts is ancillary to whatever the “meaning” of the holiday is.  Grown-ass people getting their panties in a wad because their grown-ass sibling didn’t get them something after they said they’re not getting the sibling something are pathetic.  You are morally and ethically in the right to return their gifts.  Send them a nice card with a friendly and caring message of love for the holidays.  Although do send the kids their gifts; it’s not their fault their mother acted rudely.

How do I cut off my seemingly well-intentioned family? My whole life, my little sister was the favorite. Growing up, other adults even commented on it to me, which actually helped because it showed me it wasn’t all in my head. On the outside they are a well-meaning Southern family, but to me they are suffocating.

Dear Just Want Out, you’re not going to be able to ghost your own family.  You’re, eventually, going to need to tell them why you’re ignoring them.  Or, you’re going to tell someone why and they’re going to tell them.  So, sack-up and tell them you’re not going to be joining them because it’s not in the budget, whether due to money or time.  Send a polite card wishing them well for the holiday and move on with your life.  Hit “ignore” on the Family Gift Wish List text as well.

I have been struggling with my son for a long time and just don’t know how to get through to him. He started out being very impulsive as a young child, not thinking things through, getting aggressive with other children, and not listening. Once he entered grade school the aggressive behavior toned down significantly, thank goodness, and he appeared to be listening to his teachers. At home is a different story. I’ve been divorced from my son’s father since he was 2-1/2 years old but up until recently he still maintained contact with him. I attributed many of his behaviors to his father’s leniency and lack of discipline. However, my son is nine now and no longer has contact with his father, who is a deadbeat.

Dear At Wits’ End, oof.  This is a heart-breaking letter on several levels.  There’s a whole lot of hurt, pain, and problems in not a lot of space, and much of them are far beyond the capabilities of NuPru or me to address.  As much as I’d like to join in NuPru’s condemnation of your actions and the consequence it has had on your son I’m not going to.  Parenting is hard, single-parenting harder still, and even the best, most wonderful, and well-intentioned people can fail when pushed hard enough.  Hitting your kid in anger is a terrible thing to do, your 9 year old cannot have done anything to justify such violence, it’s not going to result in the behavior you want, and will likely get you seriously hemmed up by the law.  Maybe she’s right that your actions have left your son unable to form friendships or fail to hit developmental milestones, but it’s also possible there are some underlying medical issues which could be at play, and the healing power of “and” is always at work.  Certainly your actions and attitude towards him aren’t helping, but without identifying that possibility you’re going to be swimming against the stream even more than you are now.  You need to get yourself some help to deal with your anger and stress.  You need to get your son some help as well; his school district almost certainly has some resources to identify if he has a developmental issue.  And it’s not likely his teachers haven’t noticed his behavior, so it’s probably something someone there is considering.  After you get yourself some help for the anger and control issues it might be worth trying to reestablish a relationship with the boy’s father.  That he became a “deadbeat” while you were belittling his parental choices and escalating the emotional and physical abuse of your shared child might be connected.

I’m a trans woman who’s been in a relationship with a queer cis girl for a couple years. It has slowly come out that my partner wants to “date people who have vaginas.” She’s told me before that she sees herself as having been historically deprived of the ability to date people with vaginas because society has primed her relationship life to involve “people who have penises.” I feel hurt by this analysis, because I honestly have never seen any societal
forces compelling anyone to date trans people like me. This line of logic also seems disingenuous given that she was raised in a cis lesbian household. I feel hurt and inadequate. When we have conversations about this, the conversation always unfolds with her in the role of the victim. This is a difficult dynamic to escape, because she is better than me at using sound social justice rhetoric.

Dear Just Want to Feel Normal, you’re not taking this too personally.  Once we strip away all the gender identifying text this is about your significant other no longer being attracted (as attracted?) to you, wanting to date other people, but wanting to keep you around for their own satisfaction.  Oh, and there’s also a bit of mind-fuckery going on where she’s trying to blame you for not wanting to be her doormat.  Your girlfriend can deploy all the social justice rhetoric she wishes, but it doesn’t change that she’s behaving like an asshole.  It sucks when someone you love reveals they no longer feel the same, and it’s a suck-multiplier when they exploit your own feelings of inadequacy and emotional vulnerabilities at the same time.  Just because you’re trans doesn’t mean you deserve to be treated like your hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend is treating you.  You deserve to have a supporting, caring partner who is totally into you, and I hope you find them.

I recently became good friends with “Absalom” and “Richard.” Richard is queer and non-binary but very masculine-presenting, while Absalom is a straight cis man (I myself am a gay cis man). When we first became friends, Richard and I both developed small crushes on Absalom before we knew his sexuality. We both subtly and innocently flirted with him a couple times. After Absalom offhandedly mentioned he was straight, I backed off, no big deal.

Dear Looking for Straight Talk, much like Wanting to Feel Normal, let’s go ahead and strip out the genders, orientation, etc.  Bottom line is one of your friends is romantically pressuring one of your other friends in a way which the object of the affections doesn’t seem to appreciate, is noticed and negatively remarked upon by another group of friends, and which is making you uncomfortable.  You passed the point where Richard’s behavior was “not OK” a while ago.  Actually, you know what, let’s call him Dick.  Absalom is not enthusiastically consenting to Dick’s come-ons and Dick is either not picking up on this, thinks he just needs to apply the right amount of pressure to make Absalom come around, is getting his jollies out of making Absalom have to take his unreciprocated advances, or the healing power of “and”.  Let’s put the genders, orientation, etc back into the question.  Despite what Kevin Spacey says, being non-heteronormative isn’t carte-blanche to behave boorishly.  Honestly, had this situation involved a man making unwelcome advances towards a woman Bad Pru would have been much more straight-forward in her advice and the condemnation of Dick’s behavior.  So I will.  What you’re describing is the sort of sexual impropriety we really shouldn’t tolerate.  Let Dick know it’s “Not Okay”, or, preferably, let Dick know that he’s being a fucking creep.

'Suits' Boss Breaks Down Season 7 Premiere

http://styleveryday.com/2017/07/13/suits-boss-breaks-down-season-7-premiere/

'Suits' Boss Breaks Down Season 7 Premiere

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from the seventh-season premiere of USA’s Suits, “Skin in the Game.”]

Compared to the sixth-season start of USA’s Suits, Wednesday night’s season seven premiere marked a return to some of the lighter moments and banter-filled scenes formerly featured on the show.

With Mike (Patrick J. Adams) an official and legally recognized lawyer, Rachel (Meghan Markle) done with law school, Donna (Sarah Rafferty) looking for a seat at the table as partner and Louis (Rick Hoffman) back on his old warpaths following his break-up with Tara (Carly Pope), it was up to Harvey (Gabriel Macht) to step up as managing partner and put everyone back on track.

But first Harvey and Mike needed to reunite for one more corporate case involving a shady vodka dealer and some eager buyers, giving viewers one last nostalgic glimpse at the dynamic duo before their relationship changed again with Harvey’s new role at the firm.

Meanwhile, the episode also marked the return of Harvey’s former shrink Dr. Paula Agard (Christina Cole), as Harvey pursued her romantically and disappointed Harvey-Donna fans everywhere who were hoping that this season might mark a turn in the couple’s relationship.

To break down the premiere and look ahead at the rest of the seventh season, The Hollywood Reporter caught up with showrunner Aaron Korsh. Here, he discusses the show’s developing tone, where Harvey goes from here and whether Harvey is in the market for a new secretary.

Does Harvey officially have his groove back?

To some degree you could make the case that Harvey never lost his groove. He probably did there for a little bit in one way or another, but he never completely lost it. So sure, he has his groove back, but this is Suits, so there’s always something lurking. He’s not going to be conflict-free for the rest of the season. He’s made some bold decisions, and when you make bold decisions, they often have consequences.

Can you expand on that? He got the girl, Donna is beside him, Louis is in agreement — how do you inject conflict at this point?

If you look to the relationships of the show, Donna is by his side, but given their history and the fact that he’s with a new woman, she doesn’t know if there’s potential there. Louis has agreed, but in the history of the show, has Louis stood by anything permanently? What we set up at the end of season six and in the beginning of this season is that Harvey has made some decisions that are bold and possibly good, but that could also have consequences. He made a one-for-one deal with Mike to come back to the firm; we do a pro-bono, we do a corporate case. That wasn’t the most prudent thing to do — it’s like if you were the head coach of a football team and promised a player they could play both football and baseball. It’s possible your player could get injured doing that other thing and it could ruin your whole season. You never know what the deal you make is going to do. There is an inherent conflict between representing the interests of the downtrodden and the powerless and corporate law, which represents the interests of the powerful and exploitative. That decision will probably come back to bite them both in the ass.

How will Donna’s promotion affect things?

He took someone that was his secretary and didn’t give her a promotion to, like, office manager or head of marketing or whatever, he made her a senior partner and jumped her, like, 15 levels up the rung. That can have consequences, too, because people work at the firm and they might not love that someone leapfrogged them. That could have consequences for Donna and Harvey.

Donna gave a quote in the episode about how many non-lawyers are actually partners at firms. Did you guys do research into that to back up the legitimacy of someone like her making partner?

Nope. I am not a big fan of research; I like making stuff up. I worked in the corporate world and I do know that it seemed legit to me that there are COOs that are not lawyers at law firms. We may have actually looked it up, but that stat is not true. Later, she refers to certain law firms in particular that have non-lawyer COOs and those firms are fictional. That’s easy to make up. But it’s something that is certainly legit because it could be true. There’s no law against it. We prefer to make it feel real rather than be real.

Does this open up the door for Harvey to get a new secretary?

We’re almost through the first 10 [episodes] and we don’t deal with it. You never saw Jessica’s secretary. It has more to do with taking up screen time than anything else. Had we hired a new secretary and devoted time to that, we’d have to give a story to that purpose. I don’t really care about watching somebody make appointments; it would have to be a story about what’s going on with the two of them. And we had so much else going on, we decided not to focus on that. Harvey is still able to go about his day as Jessica did. Donna’s role in the firm was much larger than secretary anyway; a large part of her role was keeping the peace between Harvey and Louis. Even though she’s not Harvey’s secretary anymore, if we gave him a new secretary that might steal Donna’s role functionally from a story point of view. We didn’t want anyone to steal her role away from the firm.

It seems like Rachel being put in charge of the associates is leapfrogging, too — will there be repercussions for that?

Louis felt like it was leapfrogging him, but he ends up realizing she’s better at it than he is right now because he’s not in the right headspace. But is it going to be tough for someone of Rachel’s status and stature in the firm to oversee the associates? Probably. She’s probably going to have some conflict coming her way.

Is it safe to assume she’s also a full-fledged lawyer now, too?

Yes, we are positing that she is now officially a lawyer and done law school. The thing is, she’s probably older than most first- and second-year associates would be because she was a paralegal for so long. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to feel good about being overseen by somebody who just became a lawyer.

Will she perform in any court cases this season?

We will see her performing as a lawyer, but I don’t think as of yet she’s in court. But we don’t spend that much time in court with any of our people.

Mike and Rachel are still planning this wedding. How does that factor into this season?

Part of the issue for them is they have to get back to planning this wedding. We tackle that early on. Planning a wedding takes a lot of time and energy. At the same time, she’s just starting out her career as a lawyer and Mike is starting his career as a legitimate lawyer and that takes a lot of time and energy. The sort of pull of those two different things, they’re going to talk about that and deal with that in the course of the first half of the season.

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Tonally, what was your goal for the season?

I always say I’m looking to tone it down, but when we get there I don’t want to be bored. We always try to put comedy in, but it’s more difficult to go back and change the tone of something and make it significantly lighter than it was or how light it was in the beginning. It feels like the natural progression is to get a tad heavier over time. This season isn’t as heavy as Mike being in prison with his life in jeopardy. We absolutely have some fun, lighter moments. The first episode has a lot of fun and lightness and banter in it. The rest of the season has comedy, too, but it’s not without its drama.

Is that drama internal drama or are there external factors weighing in?

A little bit of both. Our characters are in different places in their lives and there have been some change-ups with the dynamic of the firm. But we’re also bringing in some new characters and cases, and there’s drama with that.

Are there any returning characters this season you can highlight?

We’re incredibly excited to welcome Dule Hill to the cast, he’s a great addition. We are absolutely going to see more of Christina Cole. Her addition shakes things up and will affect fans who are hoping for another relationship to come to fruition. Obviously Robert Zane (Wendell Pierce) is going to come back over the course of the season. We are going to meet a brand-new character that we heard about in the past but have never met. I’m not going to say who or who the actor is, but I love him. We have another recurring, old nemesis that the writers came up with bringing back based on a storyline that was already embedded in the season, and when they pitched him to me, both the way he comes back and what ultimately happens to him, I loved it. It’s such a great idea. Other than that, we’ve got some new, young associates. Katrina (Amanda Schull) will be around from time to time. Gretchen (Aloma Wright) is back. And aside from all these people, there is always room for old characters to pop up unexpectedly.

Suits airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on USA.

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Twitter: @amber_dowling

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INTERVIEW: Jessi Zabarsky Conjures Magic with Adventure-Fantasy Witchlight

“Witchlight” is Jessi Zabarsky’s debut graphic novel, though she first serialized the story in multiple chapters. She describes the book as a “shojo-adventure” comic — referencing the manga genre that focuses on personal relationships — because it’s a variation on high fantasy, with, as she puts it, “a lot of tender feelings and soft moments.”

There’s a witch and a fighter, there’s a quest, but the ultimate object of the quest is not exactly what is presented at the outset. What makes “Witchlight” not only work but shine is how Zabarsky manages to use those elements and craft a very personal story of two characters, whose lives and experiences and reactions are ultimately more important than the quest.

The collected “Witchlight” is out now from Czap Books, and Zabarsky was kind enough to talk with CBR about the book, its character-driven fight scenes and the book’s place in the small-but-mighty witch comics sub-community.

CBR: Jessi, for the uninitiated, what is “Witchlight?”

Jessi Zabarsky: “Witchlight” is what I’ve been calling a “shojo-adventure” comic, by which I mean it’s a fantasy story with magic and swords, but also a lot of tender feelings and soft moments. It follows Lelek, a witch, and Sanja, as they travel, learn to take care of themselves and each other, and figure out what they want, what they’re missing, and what kind of life they want to build.

Where did the idea for this story begin?

Lelek started as a character design I used for an art test for a job, and I liked her so much I wanted to get to know her better. The story was originally supposed to be an 18 page mini for TCAF [Toronto Comic Arts Festival] a few years ago, but it kept growing and I love slow pacing too much to have condensed it.

At that time, I was also becoming familiar with the work of people like Victoria Elliott and Britt Sabo, and was discovering this tiny sub-community of witch comics, which felt very singular and special to me.

The story is also very much about being in your early 20s and not knowing what the heck you’re doing, but also feeling very sure of what you’re doing (but you’re probably wrong). I had just experienced that phase of my life, and that crept in whether I realized it at the time or not.

Wait, there’s a sub-community of witch comics? Tell me more about this!

I might be the only one who thinks of it as a community, but there are several comic creators I’m aware of making various kinds of witch comics. Some (like mine) are mainly print, some are webcomics, some go both routes! To me, though they often differ greatly in tone and setting, they all give me a feeling of support, inclusion, and taking familiar tropes and freshening them up a bit. Some examples are “Balderdash!” by Victoria Elliott, “All Night” by Britt Sabo, “Witch Trade” by Isaac Robin, some of Carey Pietsch’s short comics — and probably a lot of others which I’m forgetting!

I think witches and worlds that include witches are attractive to a lot of people because they allow investigation into some darker ideas with an equal balance of very comforting themes. It’s a place where you can acknowledge and embrace messiness without being overwhelmed.

You were serializing chapters of the story. Did that serialization and the feedback you got affect the shape of the book or the choices you made as you worked?

Honestly, not much. I don’t think I got a lot of specific feedback, but also I tend to be very inwardly focused when I make things. I heard somewhere that if you want to make something good, make it for one person only, don’t try to please a bunch of people — so I made “Witchlight” pretty much for myself. I’ve never felt guilty about that approach, because the things that tend to resonate with me most are ones that are very self-indulgent, where you can feel how important it is to the creator or how much fun they had making it.

The story did get longer as I serialized it, though! The longer I worked with the characters, the more I wanted them to meander instead of going straight for the goals of the plot. The initial version of the story was much more plot and action driven, but Lelek and Sanja didn’t get to really be seen as people.

You mentioned that the story was initially going to be an 18-page comic. Has the plot changed much since that initial idea? Or is the difference between 18 pages and the book you discovering how the story needed to be told?

Both! Like I mentioned, it was initially much more action driven, it was basically just a string of important events with nothing much holding them together. The plot stayed essentially the same, I just fleshed it out a lot more and made the people/situations/world more specific and interesting. Before “Witchlight,” the longest comic I’d done was maybe 40 pages, so it made sense that I was trying to write something short, since it was what I was accustomed to. Luckily, I realized that the story I had in mind would just be bad if I tried to make it that brief.

I kept gradually increasing how many chapters I thought it would end up being as I went (one, three, five, then finally the correct number, six). At the beginning of “Witchlight,” I was very intimidated by any project that would take me longer than a month, so I think this was the only way I could get myself to actually do it. The change was probably equally me learning to be a better writer and also just getting too excited about new bits I wanted to include.

You have a line in your bio that your comics “are generally about very small spaces and moments in very big worlds,” and I’m curious whether you think that applies to “Witchlight” and how.

“Witchlight” is actually what made me realize this about my comics! I grew up reading a lot of fantasy and adventure stories, watching a lot of shonen anime. I still love those genres, but they do have a disconnect between the “one person saving the world” vibe and the average person’s life. These days, I tend to love stories about everyday life and the details of specific relationships, but those stories have limitations too, they don’t usually tend to acknowledge a larger world. With “Witchlight,” I wanted to make a story where there’s tension and drama and high stakes, but only for a very few people. Not to minimize those struggles, but to show how important and precious they are instead. Also, I tried to include hints of the world that these people inhabit, that there are social issues and prejudices going on, that there’s an economy and history, and changing ideas, and that the main characters might not confront those things directly, but they’re still affected by them.

Can you talk a little about the fight scenes? Especially the magic battles, because there are some beautiful designs and layouts in those scenes, and each fight is depicted differently.

I’m glad the fight scenes came out well! Honestly, I realized around issue 2 that I didn’t really know how to plot fights at all. [Laughs] Luckily, the way Lelek’s magic works and the kind of person she is put an automatic framework in place for me. She’s extremely limited in what she can do, so she has to be very creative in her ideas. She can’t just throw force or power at someone, she has to shape it very deliberately and respond to her opponent and surroundings. Basically, what I mean is, I figured out I was better at character writing than action, so I wrote all the action as character choices. So, for example, instead of asking myself, “What would look cool here?” I’d ask, “What would Lelek think would look cool here?” All the fights look different because Lelek doesn’t like to repeat herself, she doesn’t want to be boring. She’s a person who very much could have been the “one person saving the world” type from above, but she’s heavily restricted and frustrated, so she expresses that side of herself however she can.

Having said all that about the fight scenes, the story really is about the dynamic between Lelek and Sanja. Was their characters and their relationship something you knew from the beginning?

I knew the basic arc from the very beginning, but the specifics of the entire middle were basically a mush. When it was supposed to be much shorter, all their travels and bonding were going to be a couple pages of montage, but I realized it had zero emotional punch that way. All those quiet moments came out of me thinking of little vignettes that I loved but didn’t know quite where they fit, and then kind of jigsawing them together as I went. The bulk of their lives is made up of walking, sleeping, eating, and talking, so it felt dishonest to ignore those parts in favor of the “interesting” bits. In my own life, I find a lot of meaning and value in simple restful times, and I think those are the kind of experiences that have built the best relationships for me. Plus, I just wanted to draw a lot of plants.

Did you make any changes for the collection? Will your devoted readers see anything new or different?

Yes! Most significantly, the final chapter is not being released outside of the collection. I also redrew some of the art in the first couple issues, and standardized how the grey tones were used. There are a few instances where pacing was changed, I think universally to make it slower and gentler. There are also a few places where my publisher, Kevin Czapiewski, helped me to make the panel flow read a bit clearer.

I do not want to spoil anything — I loathe spoilers — but you leave the penultimate chapter on something of a nail-biting cliffhanger. I’m curious if that was always the plan?

Pretty much, yes! When it was supposed to be much shorter I didn’t know it’d be a cliffhanger, but I did always want it to be as much of a gut-punch as I could manage, and having it be the end to a chapter was, I felt, the most effective way to do that. I think it also gives the reader time and space for whatever emotions they have about what happened, instead of immediately giving them more to process.

Was this the ending you had in mind from the beginning?

For the most part. I was a little iffy on the details, and originally it was written much cheesier, but I was always generally sure that it had to end that way. There are, however, a couple panels on the third-to-last page which I’m incredibly proud of and I didn’t figure them out until nearly the last second. [Laughs] I had to erase some work I’d already done, but I was just too pleased with myself not to.

Jessi Zabarsky’s collected “Witchlight” is on sale now from Czap Books.

The post INTERVIEW: Jessi Zabarsky Conjures Magic with Adventure-Fantasy Witchlight appeared first on CBR.

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