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sea-buns · 4 months

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Forgive me if I'm a bit nervous about Gorgug this season. It's just that the last Zac Oyama pc was Colin Provolone, who was arguably one of his greatest D20 performances, if not the greatest.

Zac always does great with every pc he plays, but Colin was something else. He came out swinging with actions and words that were teeming with unspoken emotional baggage. The way Colin's presence affected the other pcs; there was this level of depth that I don't think I've seen in any of his other characters. It was understated and quiet in that signature "just a guy" way that he tends to be, while still captivating everyone instantly with just how raw it was.

Not to say we haven't seen emotional depth in Gorgug. It's just that, compared to the other Bad Kids, Gorgug's journey and progression as a character has been very... impersonal? Like, yes, he found his birth parents, and he found friends who appreciate him, and he faced his insecurities about his intelligence, and he navigated relationship troubles, and his trial through the claustrophobic bug-tunnels was a horrifically-uncanny parallel to how he's spent his entire life trying to make himself as small as possible.

But how much of that has actually changed him from the Gorgug we started with? I would agree that he's definitely happier with his life, given all the loving and supportive people that have been added to it when it used to be just him and his parents. And he's certainly grown into himself and become more self-assured in his abilities, even if he's still, and always will be, our anxious little guy. And there's nothing wrong with that. I've always liked how Gorgug was a representation of all the little things. The subtle acts and kindnesses that don't seem like much to most, but to some are everything.

We don't need another Bad Kid living in fear that their mouth could be shit-in at any moment. We've already got one-too-many.

All that being said, I just feel like Gorgug's personal story beats are much easier to sweep under the rug than everyone else's. He has the same soft and understated quality that Colin held, but they lack that extra oomph that pushed Colin over the edge from being just another guy in a series of dudes, to a character that the vast majority of us could not get out of our heads. He took someone who was anxious and softspoken, who ultimately never wanted to be violent— someone who is remarkably similar to Gorgug in many ways— and maintained that demeanor and core in Colin's character while still hitting us in the feels with character development at max velocity at every turn.

I think Zac gets better and better at this with every season that goes by. With each new character, there is always something that leaves me stunned in awe. And it's been, what, three? Four years since we last saw Gorgug?

I'm just,,, I'm cautiously optimistic but also going into a bit of a worry about what violence this man may inflict upon us

#i got SO carried away LMAO #i dont think ive ever written any posts about gorgug specifically #i made a lot about colin. and some about pib. and some more about zacs performances in general.#but never anything gorgug-focused. i just wasnt on tumblr at those other times that hed been on my mind like this #you can tell i still couldnt resist talking about colin lol #he was just so fucking good. a fantastic character all around. i cant imagine a better example to get my point across than him #when i do posts like this its all very much just me taking a vague idea and working with whatever comes out in the moment #so when i tell you i very much did not plan to get lost in the counterargument and had to stop for a second to remember what my point was #my point still stands but so does everything else #you dont realize it. how similar gorgug and colin really are. or how metaphorical the bug tunnel was.#or how gorgug IS the epitome of little details. small acts. quiet rights and wrongs. the faint causes and the even subtler effects.#u dont truly realize it until youre writing it yourself in a free flow fugue state and it all comes to a halt cuz youve blown your own mind #anyway i love gorgug and i love zac pcs and i hope this post makes sense cuz finding the right words was fucking hard hah #dimension 20 #d20 #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #fhjy #fantasy high sophomore year #fhsy #gorgug thistlespring #the ravening war #trw #colin provolone #zac oyama

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suffarustuffaru · 6 months

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Not to be negative or a hater, but I personally don't find some of emilia's seemingly "adorkble idiotic airhead" moments and related speeches "cute" or "funny" rather...cringe and baffling. it seems like tappei simply doesn't understand the difference between a naive person and someone with an extremely low IQ, maybe tappei tried to create some comedy with that way to show emilia's dorky charm but honestly it's SUCKS unfortunately that big troll seems to be very stubborn to portray emilia that way over and over and over again without finding it kinda problematic at all, and honestly it's starting to piss me off about him. I know that emilia actually has a lot of smart moments in the story, but for some reason I just can't get into characters like her despite her kindness and thoughtfulness as well as other wonderful qualities,sorry.

hi anon!! thanks for the ask, this is something that i think a lot, actually. the thing with rezero is that it has a few glaring major flaws and then all the smaller flaws stem from those things. and by major, it is major. its genuinely problematic. i dont use that word lightly. and emilia is one of those characters that suffers from it the most, especially when shes rezeros deuteragonist. but you wouldnt know that from the way tappei treats her sometimes.

also uh quick disclaimer i hope no one kills me for my opinions in this ask haah i promise ill explain.

i will preface this off by saying - yeah, emilias one of my favorite characters in all of rezero actually. shes one of my favorite characters of all time in general too.

tappei does do some things right with her - her base character is lovely, her backstory is complex and explains so much of the foundation of her character, her role in the story is fascinating, her arc 4 development is amazingly written imo, her kindness despite all the pain shes been through due to factors out of her control is very admirable... to me personally, shes someone i can relate to and a character that i love a lot. i see her and i understand why subaru wants to help and protect her so bad because she truly is a sweet person trying her best but she is continually fucked over. i want her to succeed!! i want her to struggle but eventually prove everyone whos ever been against her wrong!! i want her to find true happiness and grow and change as a person!!

but at the same time shes not just fucked over in universe. shes fucked over by the way tappei writes her, because he keeps dropping the ball when it comes to these things. so i really understand anon a lot for not being able to get into emilia, and i also really understand anon because i too am getting a little pissed off at tappeis writing sometimes hah. so in regards to not being able to get into emilia for some reason—yeah, i think theres a lot of reasons for this due to how tappei writes rezero.

for example. emilias “dorkiness” is sometimes good. and then sometimes its bad because tappei wants to keep making her “stupid” and “childish” in very insulting ways. having a low iq and being childish isnt bad. the way tappei treats it in his story is.

rezero in general is kind of weird in its treatment of women in that it has all these varied female characters with unique backstories, personalities, motivations, etc etc. there will almost always be a great foundation for all these characters, but tappei will continually do things to ruin it a bit down the line and waste potential. or there will be flaws from conception that get worse over time. its a huge mixed bag.

and its also really obvious again in media like this because if youre paying attention, its very easy to notice that male characters will always get more attention and more consistently higher quality writing compared to the female characters.

(warning ahead for more discussion of rezero's misogyny and tendency to sexualize children, by the way)

tappei's poor writing with women also kind of applies to children. because treatment of children and women in rezero are very intricately linked. im gonna explain this in a hopefully handy and useful and understandable list that goes through a lot of tappeis usual tropes regarding children and women in rezero:

tappei continually writing excerpts that go way too in depth about womens and young girls breasts and bodies in general in very objectifying ways. im gonna be entirely honest a good number of sentences in rezero belong on r/menwritingwomen. why do we need to keep hearing about their body parts like this? ESPECIALLY when it comes to the children. its frankly disgusting.

women/girls who are in love / involved with an older man in some capacity, likely highly dependent on him in some way, sometimes this will become their main motivation (examples of this include emilia (YEAH. EMILIA.), rem, petra, ram, frederica, liliana, yorna.............). like yeah i know guys in rezero arent exempt from (co)dependency or some form of obsession, but kind of telling that theyre still extremely fleshed out characters outside of it, right? (key examples include subaru, otto, and roswaal.)

^^ adding onto this. age gap romances. tappei did that thing where he shoehorned emilia being "mentally 14" or whatever, and also even if roswaal wasnt centuries old he still practically raised ram since she was a child (she literally helps dress him in the anime?? like shes seen taking his underwear to him???). clind also is an adult who knew frederica as a child and clind is. something else. also in a recent arc 8 madeline moment where she and balleroy have a romance-coded scene together and its like? even if shes not a child, SHE LOOKS LIKE ONE. BALLEROY IS A GROWN ASS MAN.

creepy men who are into kids but tappei justifies it in universe because theyre not actually into kids, but everything about their behavior would be creepy and wrong either way (clind and kiritaka come to mind)

female characters who are more submissive and soft hearted so clearly this means they need to be protected all the time and they cant make decisions on their own. lets talk over them a whole bunch and control them. and yeah this is a purposeful writing choice that leads to character development and narratively calling out this behavior (we see this with arc 3 emisuba conflict) but then tappei keeps doing it after the fact anyway without batting an eye. this is so so painfully clear with emilia especially. her whole character is about trying to break out of that mold but then tappei (and subaru, due to the nature of rbd + his own goals, and also puck, who hasnt been completely called out for being a shit dad yet) keeps shoving her back into it

^^ infantilizing female characters in general........ like realistically speaking emilias lack of sex education is extremely dangerous. its not funny. lack of sex ed in real life often leads to serious consequences. she nearly gets sold into slavery in frozen bonds, and iirc there are implications of what kind of slavery it is. and also her being mentally 14 makes no sense, is highly insulting, and its completely unnecessary. if tappei wants to hold off on emisuba romantic development, he already has the explanation of theyre too busy for that right now and also not mentally ready for it yet, but theyre still extremely close with each other.

^^ adding onto this there are several female characters in rezero that are airheaded. subarus mom, naoko. emilia. medium. shaula is another big example of this also. shes sexually harassed (at. at best iirc.) Multiple Times and it feels a little too brushed aside. on top of her repeatedly being sexualized with her design and her behavior, apparently, on top of being airheaded. there is a consistent pattern of infantilizing and sexualizing some of these characters and its Frustrating. having multiple characters with similar personalities isnt bad at all of course, but im putting this on the list because as anon said, tappei is problematic with this when it comes to female characters. yeah, subarus mom is well written. but emilia? shaula? its so painfully clear to see. he cant write a naive character without being a little gross about it.

sexualizing children in general. schult apparently helps priscilla get dressed iirc and also is. iirc. into priscilla's feet????? ....... and then you have typhon, whos skirt is so disturbingly see through that the anime fixed her design, and louis, who makes a few sexual comments in arc 6. also excerpts talking about petras chest. excerpts talking about anastasias body in a manner that feels both infantilizing and sexualized once again... weird comments in arc 8 regarding child subaru iirc, etc...

female characters who get overshadowed by others even when theyre supposed to be the focus. anastasia gets replaced by echidna for almost if not all of the entirety of arc 6. vollachia saga has been so hectic that priscilla hasnt really gotten much if at all major development. emilia for the entirety of rezero. crusch for the entirety of rezero AND her own centric ex novel. crusch will be in pain and severely injured and the narrative will focus more on how this affects anyone but her. and again, i know its a possibility that these characters may develop in the future. but stuff like ana getting replaced by her scarf for all of arc 6 + emilias entire existence as a character is sad imo T^T let them shine!! please!! i also know these characters also have side stories, especially anastasia and priscilla have great ones, and a lot of ss are required reading now but there needs to be more of them in main story content. im very glad that anastasias appeared again for arc 8.

rem and louis/spica getting "reset" in their development while other female characters are stagnant. they didnt actually grow and change, tappei just cheated by gluttonying rem and resetting louis's mind to a toddler. they went from Point A to Point B in an instant, there wasnt any actual development there. this might change in the future, but imo reading about rem and louis in arc 7-8 can genuinely be a bit of a slog because they didnt actual develop. we were cheated out of that. and of course tappei has to juggle multiple characters and characters will take turns having development, naturally, which such a big cast, but characters like emilia fall by a wayside far too often. she hasnt had major development since arc 4 even though she is. again. the deuteragonist. that was four arcs ago. certain female characters, i feel, have to deal with the cons of this character arc system more often.

male characters whos behavior isnt called out enough sometimes. roswaal’s relationship with ram. kiritaka. clind. puck still needs to be called out more in canon i think wjdnd. also al making comments about priscillas breasts or iirc creepy comments about schult being a shota and other things of that vein. honestly priscilla doesnt behead that guy Enough.

male counterparts with the same exact themes as their female characters will always have higher quality writing.

(of course theres exceptions to all of these—female characters like echidna are fascinating and well-written, theres several other female characters that are great too, etc, but theyre exceptions. theyre not the norm.)

ill also elaborate on that last point more here regarding male counterparts.

emilia and rem are big examples of this. we have very handy male counterparts for certain important aspects of emilia and rem's characters that are far better written because theyre guys and tappei cant write women at a consistent quality. of course emilia and rem both parallel subaru, but im gonna get more into what i think is their stronger Foils in certain aspects—

reinhard and otto.

im a fan of reinhard, otto, emilia, and rem. but the thing is, reinhard and otto have some very similar traits to emilia and rem respectively.

reinhard is guilt ridden, blamed for things out of his control, has some learned helplessness, deals with being controlled by others and trying not to crumble under the weight of the world’s expectations, has Intense Family Trauma also triggered by pandora (remember what happens to petelgeuse? remember the fortuna=sirius theory? remember elior forest?), and a deep seated trauma regarding Hurting Others. and also a generally soft demeanor and deep seated loneliness. its no coincidence that reinhard and emilia in pride if also parallel each other—emilia the half devil turned “hero”, and reinhard, the hero who falls from grace.

otto has less similarities with rem than reinhard does with emilia but to keep this short. otto and rems major motivations are being devoted to subaru. but the thing with reinhard and otto is that they dont have the pitfalls that emilia and rems characters do—the infantilizing and other problematic details, poorly written/choppy development, etc. with reinhard and otto it feels more consistent, like their time on screen is well-used and respectful to who they are as characters and it satisfies us enough to take a break from them until tappei brings them back into the spotlight again.

i cant say the same for emilia and rem.

tappei cant even write emilias naivete and stunted emotional growth (which is due to trauma and pucks poor parenting) without infantilizing her, while tappei effortlessly writes reinhard being emotionally stunted due to trauma, poor parenting, and his DPs. you dont see reinhard with cringeworthy dialogue T^T

its just kind of insulting how there is so much you could explore with characters like emilia lacking agency because others keep taking it away. her airheadedness, her naivete—shes been shaped by her environment and trauma too, those character traits stem from these things as well. how do you lead a camp and become king and grow as a person when youre in the shadow of a witch who nearly destroyed the world? when thats what people often see you as? how do you move forward when your family and people have been ruined by things you couldnt control? when your father figure has failed you in all sorts of ways? when even your closest friends talk over you and try to dictate you? when you and your loved ones keep getting in danger because of all these horrible people that keep pinning the blame on you? thats awful. i cant even blame emilia for being a little empty in the head after all that. i cant even blame her in general.

and then theres the horror of subarus rbd because emilia is his main motivation. like thatd be a nightmare come true for anyone—while subaru is good intentioned, he is yet another person stealing emilias agency. yeah, most of it in his case is understandable because emilia keeps being targeted from factors outside of her control, but its still awful. emilia quite literally has had very little will of her own for all of rezero but i have my doubts on whether tappei will actually explore it or not because he cant even write emilia dialogue right sometimes!!

its baffling to me. arc 3-4 were all about how emilia is her own person and she needs to leave the nest and grow but then tappei backpedals on it by the time we get to arc 8. again, it feels a bit insulting T^T which is why all the “dorky” emilia dialogue stings even more. its salt in the wound. i am getting a little annoyed after four arcs of seeing that pop up time and time again in between all the other well-written stuff, yeah. including other emilia moments because i did enjoy her more active moments in arcs 5+!!

tappei just needs to stop treating emilia like she cant do anything by herself T^T the core problem with his treatment of her is that he usually goes shes naive so basically shes a kind of useless child and so she cant understand anything or have any choices of her own without being scrutinized, peer reviewed, and micromanaged by all the men around her 👍

theres also this excerpt that i think a lot thats from the tsuchigumo side story (aka the three idiots set out!: earth spider episode side story) where one of rezero's female characters, a girl named marone lisbon, says -

marone also appears for like two seconds in side stories that not everyones gonna read, so she didnt have enough time to get "ruined". so to speak.

but yeah. this dialogue reminds me of what couldve been. it has all these themes and all these feelings that apply to SO MANY female characters in rezero, especially emilia. it proves even further that tappei is more than capable of writing good female characters. and we already know that tappei is more than capable of writing well-written characters.

but ultimately i just dont trust his writing sometimes because he can never consistently keep the quality up with writing characters because either theres too much going on so things fall by the wayside sometimes, or theres sexism, or tappeis inability to be normal about kids sneaks in again!!!

however i love rezero a lot. its an important piece of media to me, and i dont intend to leave this fandom for a While atm. but i think its important to recognize when media gets things Wrong, and rezero has a good chunk of flaws. and rezeros english fandom being the way it is does make me hesitate to bring up rezeros flaws in the sense of. yeah its rooted in sexism. and weirdness about kids.

but ultimately im very very cautiously hopeful to see what happens to emilia from here. hopefully she does have more development soon? but all in all—yeah anon on this one is speaking facts and i agree a lot.

also sorry if i got a bit intense with this response akdndnd i just feel very passionately about this. tappei stop being weird about women and kids challenge please T^T anyway im gonna finish off this ask with a meme i made.

yeah so thats why emilias writing is very iffy and also why a bunch of other female character writing in rezero is a bit iffy also 👍

#rezero #emilia #ask #this isnt even getting into how tappeis treatment of these characters + english anime fandoms = the worst mix youve ever seen in your life #a fandom usually reflects its media and the ideas its media has often. is the thing.#or at least thats my running theory on the state of things wkdndn bc rezero will have such thought provoking themes but then the sexualized #anime merch kind of spits on it. and also tappei too spits on it.#but yeah sorry this response is so long anon wkfnd but i hope this makes sense!!#you brought up such good points akdnd and i really have been thinking of it for a while now. im tired of tappei doing this stuff 😔#arc 5+ spoilers

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