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hxhhasmysoul · 1 month

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the blatant didactic nature of the gojou's racist comment scene

the way people talk about the racist comment gojou made is baffling to me. completely baffling.

gege seems to have lefty leanings and jjk is pretty lefty too. it's not super lefty, it's not fully enlightened on all possible fronts, not even close to as left as most tumblr fandom would want to be or imagine themselves to be. most of you fail miserably because you are averse to self-awareness and interrogating your own internalised bigotry and it plays a huge part in the outrage about chapter 255.

jjk can be easily criticised from the left. very fucking easily, but most of the fandom just doesn't know how and any criticisms they make on how jjk handles lefty issues usually fall so fucking flat and honestly often veer into into criticising jjk from a right wing and fundie religious pov. that's just the truth, i've personally dissected some of such takes, mostly about the performative feminism in the fandom that is aggressively terf flavoured.

so i will do some more mild lefty critique in the context of the recent gojou flashback. by explaining to the loud functionally illiterate part of the fandom what gege likes to do in the story. like what very basic, unsubtle things gege does in the story to push their lefty leanings. so this is as much a critique of the text of jjk as it is of the fandom.

______

jjk's target audience are japanese teenagers. idk if gege thinks they are writing mostly for boys but i wouldn't be surprised by that, that is the stereotype, even though i think a lot of teens who aren't boys passionately read shounen titles too. especially something like jjk that aggressively panders to the not straight male gaze.

what gege did with gojou making the racist comment, they'd done before with toudou and megumi. and with yuuji and ozawa. i mean the very unsubtle rhetorical didactic technique they used. gege took their presumed teenage male reader by the hand and led him through a basic lefty concept.

(they also tried to do it with momo and nobara and mai but that one is such a mess and honestly a failure because gege mushes in too many topics and really doesn't stick the landing on some, that it fails to be a simplistic didactic moment like the other ones. it'd be too much of a tangent to go into it)

megs & toudou aka gege explaining to teen boys how not to end up someone akin to an incel

when toudou asked megumi his type, as readers are very clearly led to understand that megumi's point of view is the correct one.

megumi's answer about character being what matters gets clear approval from the two girls present. gege points to the teenage boy reader, look, if you want girls to think you’re okay, think like megumi.

and toudou is very clearly written as cringe, as a guy who tries to be edgy but simps for an idol. there is a stigma in japan against men who obsess about idols because they are considered immature, unable to handle having interactions with other humans and forming parasocial relationships instead. so toudou's rejection of megumi's thinking is put into context. his behaviour puts women off, and shouldn't be taken seriously because he's likely a virgin, too afraid to talk to a real woman.

the attempt is good, but not perfect. because the social ridicule men like toudou get is really annoying, because it's just trying to shame them into being "normal", and it doesn't address the underlying societal and cultural issues that lead to men turning to parasocial relationships for emotional fulfilment. so i'd say 8/10. pretty high because toudou at least was like: don't be homophobic.

ozawa & yuuji aka gege explaining to teen boys how to be a borderline decent human being, and to people with low self esteem due to cultural shunning that they deserve more than basic human decency

gege does the same thing with yuuji and ozawa. ozawa has deeply internalised her fatfobia and turned it into self hatred. she develops a crush on yuuji because he considered her attractive. yes, i think yuuji is generally great and would make a partner happy, but ozawa's primary motivation is that he's normal about her. this teaches the reader: yuuji is the best one among the boys because he's not shallow and fatphobic. but also with ozawa not pursuing yuuji when she got slim, it shows people like her not to settle for the bare minimum of being treated with basic decency. it would've been better if ozawa didn't turn slim because i've seen cis male fans really gloss over everything else, but it's not a completely meaningless attempt. it's just like 5/10.

gojou & miguel aka gege explaining to teen boys how certain widespread stereotypes are actually bigoted

gege has gojou say an openly bigoted thing, get instant push back for it from the affected party and apologise to the person he hurt. it literally teaches the reader, we all have biases, we all are ignorant about things, even the people who the society elevates and puts on a pedestal. and when that happens, when our ignorance is pointed out to us, when it hurts someone, we should not argue, we shouldn’t treat their push back as a personal attack, we should just simply apologise. there's no attempt at gojou apologetics in the text. 10/10, the best of gege's attempts.

racism and colourism and cultural chauvinism are prominent cultural and societal issues in japan. japan also has huge issues with abelism, misogyny, queerphobia, fatphobia to name the biggest ones i can think of. but also these issues are pervasive in all other countries around the world, just to varying degrees. there's no country that is perfect on any of these, some are objectively better on some, but never all, than others and some market themselves as better but are actually fucking awful.

one of the most globalised things is bigotry, it spreads like wildfire. but it also spreads in ways that most people don't understand. you need to be taught critical thinking and reading comprehension and actually taught that they can exist in the first place to pick up on these things, no one is born with these skills and knowledge. if people never encounter stereotypes like "black people are naturally stronger" challenged or discussed, they will not know that 1. they are not true, 2. that they are actually harmful. because on the surface it kinda looks like praise, and people will propagate it thinking that it's praise. gojou isn't trying to insult miguel, his apology makes it clear. he lived in a culture where this opinion was widespread and never thought about it, it vaguely sounded like praise to his ignorance. it doesn't mean that what he said wasn't racist because his intentions were good. i've written before what i think about using intentions to excuse shitty behaviour, i've actually written about it specifically in the context of how the fandom treats gojou's shitty behaviour.

we all have these internalised bigoted opinions in ourselves, not because we're all bad people but because we're surrounded by them. as children we initially trust adults until we learn better that not everyone should be trusted. or that some people can be trusted about some stuff but not everything. so we take what we hear from them at face value. same with the media that we’re all bombarded with. someone has to teach us to notice these things. (if you think you're morally pure and only have good opinions it means that you've not worked through much. there are so many complex issues in our cultures and societies that it's impossible not to have blind spots. but also it means that you're closed to evolving your opinions. many views that used to be progressive 20, 10 years ago are not seen as such anymore. certain interpretations are proposed, seem good but get challenged, and usually turn out to be reductive. believing that there’s some finite and established set of morally good opinions means that you just want a cheat sheet to perform moral purity to get societal brownie points, you’re not really interested in reality)

we need to first learn that we have the biases we do and then also be open to interrogating our preconceived notions, to be actually capable of shedding them. we need to not take personally being called out on it.

but that's hard. the morality policing that is so pervasive online leads many people to never wanting to be wrong. because others will be horrid about it and will never forget. there's no incentive to get better on issues, or grapple with one's own biases when many people online will never accept the idea that someone can make a mistake, be corrected and take that correction to heart and do better from there on. you have one chance to get it right and then well, morally impure brand forever.

and this is one crux of the issue with fandom's reaction to the scene in 255. gojou is shown to have a racist blind spot and happily regurgitates a racist comment. and what happens next doesn't matter. the fandom has decided that gojou is forever tainted because he wasn't fully enlightened to begin with.

what gege did is one of the best ways a story can be aggressively didactic about something like this. show a person doing a bad thing and then show how to sincerely apologise. no apologetics, no relativism, very short, to the point.

but in this day and age, with how people perform leftism through media consumption and fandom, this is met with vitriol. and that's fucking scary because it will make it toxic for others to attempt stuff like this. all of you misinterpreting this so aggressively is actually harmful. idk how much of this will get to gege and other mangaka but it might make some of them believe that it's better to never touch any societal issues because it's not worth the backlash, most of which stems out of either actual lack of reading comprehension or malicious misinterpretation. because gege did it correctly and the fandom just will not accept that.

to the rabid and loud parts of the fandom, gojou having this flaw is either:

the author is just being a dick to their character, therefore the true gojou that lives in his fans' heads is not racist.

or what gojou did actually wasn't racist uwu, or his intentions were pure uwu, it's not that important and you're overreacting.

or gege is racist for even mentioning racism... some of you really think you are leftists and then parrot this tired far right tactic: i'm not bigoted, you're bigoted for mentioning bigotry...

and all of these, all of these completely miss the point of that scene.

this is one of the 3 recent gojou scenes that i think are meant to be redeeming for his major flaws selfishness and insensitivity, and the only one that in my opinion actually works.

the one that is completely garbage and confusing is the one with gakuganji, gojou seemingly is trying to appoint someone to provide structure to the rebuilding after the whole sukuna debacle. like i think it's meant to show gojou actually taking responsibility for his failures (the whole mention of yaga) and show practical concern over futures of the people in his care. previously he kinda showed responsibility over what happened to riko and getou but it was all kinda mired with him getting a power up, and him really still being an irresponsible and selfish guy later on. and all he had to offer the teens he recruited as child soldiers was some "better jujutsu society" that very pointedly lacked on any fucking details as to what it could've been. and him ceding responsibility onto gakuganji, one of the pillars of the previous system really kinda shows hoe vacuous gojou's ideals were. -10/10 on the redemption attempt.

the one that feels very tone deaf is gojou telling ijichi that he trusts him the most. ijichi literally thought that gojou could hit him a few months before that. ijichi a lower ranking person in a hierarchy, believed that a higher ranking person could hit him. the kind of bullying and disrespect that leads someone to believe that is serious, honestly gojou and ijichi kinda remind me of an abusive family dynamic, where the abuser sporadically and irregularly drops some kindness to confuse the victim and make them not leave. and the last act of kindness just doesn't feel that meaningful. 0/10 on the redemption scale.

but this with miguel? a 10/10 redemption moment. gojou isn't prideful when his racism is called out, isn't trying to diminish what he did, isn't avoidant. he apologises. that's it. this is why it actually is a very simple argument against the "gege hates gojou" bs.

that "gege hates gojou" is stupid in general, because it's basically based on the belief that giving a character flaws means the author hates them. and this stems from far right moral purity ideologies that a lot of people have never challenged in themselves. that's why there's so much harassment and vitriol over finding out people put on a pedestal have flaws.

gojou is flawed. each and every one of us is flawed. we all have biases and blind spots and internalised bigoted views, many of which we don't realise we have because we usually don't think about those topics. that point is what we do with that, how we react to realising that a thing we had as some background belief is actually a harmful stereotype. if it's just in our heads then interrogate it, where did it come from, maybe there's more shit like that in our minds that we need to tackle. if we say it, then acting like gojou is actually the way to go. apologise, if necessary do more remediation, and then interrogate where it came from.

having bad opinions doesn't make anyone an intrinsically immoral and impure person. what they do when those opinions are challenged and how they act / what they say next time is the mark of their character.

so many of you moral purity fuckers, who deem themselves leftists, want media to be morality plays. want media to take you by the hand and show you right from wrong. and when an author actually does that, the exact thing you claim you want them to, it literally flies over your fucking heads.

#jjk spoilers #jjk leaks #jjk 255 #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #gojou satoru #jjk miguel #racism #bigotry #this fandom makes me lose brain cells #why do you people even interact with stories if you have no fucking reading comprehension #find a different fucking hobby #or learn to read

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piosplayhouse · 2 years

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I'm sorry but i was just scrolling along your page bc i love Scum Villain, but there was a post where i legit did not understand a single word 😅 what is st/ff and what happened?

Hi! First of all I hope you enjoyed my sv brainrot LOL

So basically, this is what I understand of it in as neutral a context as possible (corrections are welcome as always):

1. Some of the Tumblr staff makes a post on their "humans" blog meant to humanize some of the staff members and connect with the userbase

2. A user (partyjockers) went through this list and discovered one of the staff members listed is a Harry Potter and Attack on Titan fan, they then make a post with screenshots of the humans post proving that the artist is a staff member and a picture of their blog. They say something like "maybe the reason Tumblr doesn't do anything about terfs and fascists is because their staff is one"

3. Partyjockers is banned within 30 minutes of making the post. All reblogs of the original post are terminated. The original screenshots of the blogs they posted are taken down, and all further attempts to reupload them are copyright claimed.

4. Tumblr userbase is angered as this shows that Tumblr administration have the power to moderate quickly and definitely, but fail to do so in cases of user harassment and other harmful activities.

5. News spreads rapidly, prompting both genuine discussion about the failures of Tumblr moderation and criticism of the original staff member who likes Harry Potter and AOT.

———

And some personal misc. research to explain my view of the situation:

- some people are accusing the original staff member personally of "going rogue" and "acting out like a baby" for banning partyjockers. I don't agree with this accusation given that the staff member is only an associate graphic designer. I'm not saying that her connections within the company didn't spark the response, but I'd also like to make it clear that Tumblr has 2000 employees, and the chances that a graphic designer with purely art position experience was directly responsible for the scorched earth moderation behavior is low.

- there is a lot of very strongly worded accusations going around about the staff artist. As far as I can tell, from the most widely circulated callout doc, these accusations are mostly unfounded and based purely off perceptions of fanbases.

1. Accusations that staff is a terf stem purely from the fact that she draws/reblogs Harry Potter fanart. I've seen no direct evidence of her supporting JK Rowling or saying anything negative about trans people.

** edit from the tags:

3. Accusations that staff is a pedophile stem purely from the fact that she drew a single piece of fanart for Spy x Family wherein the two child characters who canonically have crushes on each other are aged up and resting their heads on each other's shoulders blushing. There is no suggestive material or other PDA in the art, nor the caption regarding it.

Again, I will say if this is true (and I wouldn't be surprised if it is) then I have personally seen no direct evidence or screenshots of it, and as of now her Twitter account is locked so there's no way to directly check.

2. Accusations that staff is a nazi stem purely from the fact that she draws/reblogs Attack on Titan fanart. I've seen no direct evidence of her supporting the mangaka, posts about morality in aot, etc.

- in my personal opinion, the main issue with the entire thing is staff's quick and retributive response to tame criticism of itself, and associated failure to do anything regarding common site-wide harassment and discriminatory rhetoric. This is inexcusable. However, I disagree with the portion of the userbase who have focused their energy on calling out the original staff member given that I find the loudest criticisms of the artist unfounded, and find it baseless to accuse a graphic designer and market researcher of a failure of the moderation team, an entirely separate position with multiple dedicated and paid employees.

I hope this covers most of it, again I can't vouch for complete accuracy in this report, but I hope it gives at least a little clarification!

#tumblr incompetence moments #discourse #disk horse #long post #jezzuminah #terfs dont interact by the way i hope i made it clear i dont like you regardless of how i feel on this scenario

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renbenreybey · 2 years

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Love the rants about eddissy, I just wanted to add that in Indiana age of consent is 16 even back in the 80s so... perfectly fine for those two to have dated.

Of course! I just hate bullying, harassment, and a lack of critical thinking, so that's where my rants spark from.

The antis create the most ridiculous arguments as to why Eddissy is a bad ship and how I am a bad person for shipping it, but they just look ridiculous (this is mostly on twitter).

They lack logic and reason, and pull so many fallacies (the amount of name calling and death threats have been crazy!). I can lay out my point, provide all my evidence as to why I am correct, and they will blatantly ignore it.

Their goal is to harass, and it's sad, because it's probably some 13 year old who hasn't been taught any better. The funniest moment for me was when someone kept calling me a "freak" and "freakazoid" for shipping Eddissy, when they were an Eddie stan. Did they forget that "freak" was the exact term the entire town of Hawkins used to bully him and hate him? That was very interesting to see.

The real world wouldn't even bat an eyelash at Eddie and Chrissy dating because there is nothing wrong with it. If we ignore the props that put both canon Eddie and Chrissy at 17 years old, and say Eddie is on his third senior year and Chrissy is a senior (based off context clues in the show), then they would be 17/18 and 19/20. Now, imagine if it was Eddie was in his first senior year, then Chrissy would be a sophomore.

Two seniors dating is not a crime. A senior and sophomore dating is not a crime. A 2 year age difference is not a crime.

(Funnily enough, a 2 year difference is a very popular age difference for YA books. Examples: Divergent, The Hunger Games, The Red Queen, The 100, The Cruel Prince, etc. The most common age difference of these examples is 17 and 19. Where's the hate for those, hmm antis? Oh wait, there is none because there is nothing wrong with them.)

In the end, the antis can scream all they want, but it's useless because Eddissy is a perfectly normal and legal ship (honestly, it's exhausting how many times I have said this, because it just seems like common sense.).

People need to understand that it's fiction, and if something makes you uncomfortable, or you simply don't like it, does not mean everyone has to feel the same way. And it most definitely does not give you the right to harass people who have different feelings and opinions than you. I wish more people understood that. Everyone has to curate their online experience. Ship and let ship.

Sorry for that long rant. Thank you for sending anon!

#eddissy #eddie x chrissy #eddie munson #chrissy cunningham #hellcheer

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kazarinn · 3 months

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By previous translations of the Kaitou Saint Tail anime being bad, do you mean both the Tokyopop and the Discotek versions?

They're mostly the same translation, and (correct me if I'm wrong) my understanding is that any full English translation of the series released up to last month had been based on the original Tokyopop translation from 2001. If the translation you know of uses the phrasing "...for I use no gimmick or trick" for the transformation phrase, it's probably based on that one. It does seem like there's been modifications by different people here and there, and I mainly made reference to the Discotek release because it's the most recent official release, so I wanted to make it clear that the problem was still persisting up to even as recently as last year. But fundamentally speaking, they're all working off that one specific translation.

Unfortunately, that translation seems to be in that exact dangerous territory where it's just good enough for anyone looking at it at a glance to think it's mostly usable -- it's a seemingly simple series, the English grammar looks okay, and the story mostly seems to make sense, so there isn't too much problem, right? -- when in fact it's got problems all the way down to the core. These kinds of translations are bad in a very deceptive way, so I can hardly blame anyone who figured that they might as well work off an existing translation since it was technically done already, but I wouldn't have retranslated the entire series from scratch if I hadn't felt it was so much of a disaster that it was easier to just retranslate it than try and salvage it.

When I was going over the Discotek release line-by-line, I did a tally and found around 200 technical errors (as in, context and logic errors or semantic misinterpretation of the original Japanese line), around 30 of which were ones that I felt had a major impact on the plot or story themes, especially the final arc, ending, and epilogue. These are just the technical errors, so that's not even getting into the inconsistently sloppy terminology/naming that seemed to flip back and forth between episodes, the way it often mishandled nuance in characterization (poor Asuka Jr. really got the short end of the stick here), or the gripes I had with the phrasing in general (the fact it had so many choices like rendering a word meaning "inelegant" as "unfeminine" or "no sex appeal", for instance). And unfortunately, the manga, which normally should be a good reference to work from, had an even worse translation (also by Tokyopop) that threw any concept of nuance out the window and had lines that were genuinely incomprehensible.

It pains me to think about the fact that this was all people had to work with for more than 20 years, so that's why I hope even people who have seen the series already can give it a chance with the new translation, because I really do think it's possible it'll come off as a completely different series to them.

#Anonymous #Saint Tail #Kaitou Saint Tail #Magical Girl #Phantom Thief #Shoujo #ask box

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tetrakys · 2 years

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did you see what serena and MJ said about you from dulcet games?

Yes, I saw. I didn't want to get into it, but the person who made that post censored everyone's names but mine (?), so I've been receiving several messages, and now I feel compelled to reply at least once. I'm putting this under spoiler so people who don't want to read drama can easily skip.

(For context, since I'm sure more people are going to ask me what this is about, you can see it for yourself here.)

I'm not going to address all the accusations Serena and MJ received because frankly it's their business. Everything looks pretty bad, but it's also true that screenshots taken out of context can be manipulated to fit some narrative. Granted, there are A LOT, so it's not very likely (the part about deporting and killing immigrants while at the same time thanking countries for the cheap labour they provide for their business particularly upset me, being an immigrant myself), but one never knows and everyone has the right to defend themselves.

The things that are indeed my business, are the comments on me, my friends and our discord server.

In the part about our discord, they are saying that we are "toxic, make shit up and create rumours" which leaves me very perplexed. People who have spent 5 minutes in there or here on my blog know how much I hate fake news, so I would absolutely never condone something like that in my own server. Also, MJ was in there for quite some time and never intervened to say anything about it, so I really don't know why they would think this of us. Moreover, the Dulcet Games channel is quite dead, it's mostly the place where my friends gush about Kortia, they are big fan of the game (which MJ also admits and Serena goes "cool let's just take their money" lol.)

Serena has never been in my server (at least not that I know of), so how can she call it toxic I have no idea. But she has the tendency of commenting on things without having any clue about them, and this brings me to the second point: the comment MJ made about me entering a channel just to reply to some old stuff.

First of all "old" in this case means 3 days old, lol. Discord usually shows slightly older conversations when you access a channel you hadn't accessed in a while, so I ended up seeing a convo where Serena said something along the lines of "MCL LL is just p0rn, Candy has sex every other chapter." (not exact quote)

Anyone who has played the game knows that it's not true, so I pointed it out, along with the fact that it's not very professional for the coo of a company to spread false information about a concurrent company (see my hate for fake news) . Yes I did it 3 days later, not 3 months nor 3 years, but days. I was accused of fishing old conversations just for drama, but Serena seemed to understand my point, although she commented saying that she never played that season of the game and that people don't go on DG server looking for correct info on MCL... which still doesn't justify the spread of fake info? But I let it drop and no drama came out of it. And in the end I wasn't active in their server anyway because of how offensive they'd always been towards Beemoov's games and players, which is primarily my fandom, so I often felt quite uncomfortable.

This is pretty much it. I'm also tagging @dulcetgames not because I'm asking for a reply, but because I never say anything I wouldn't have the guts to say to people directly, and I don't know Serena and MJ's current personal accounts.

#dulcet games #sweet elite

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smolstarthief · 3 years

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Persona 5/Persona 5 Strikers: Pro-Police or Anti-Police?

Hoo boy... So this honestly has been a LONG time coming on my end because I have seen so much of that debate on social media (Twitter namely) and I can see the points of BOTH sides but there have been moments where it just got out of hand... Especially whenever people tried to put in a more grey/nuanced take only to be slammed and taken out of context. Even repeatedly mentioning the interrogation at the beginning of P5 which, I will admit has gotten tiresome. At least for me, I do still feel for Joker and I wished the game acknowledged his trauma more but there's a thing called, "beating a dead horse" and this is one along with "Haru says ACAB" in Strikers (which was done THREE TIMES in the same arc and it got annoying fast, like shut up already! We get it!). So, let's dive in a little bit:

MAJOR SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!!!

Persona 5/Persona 5 Royal

Now let me just say I know! Police in Japan are just as bad if not worse than the West and I STILL hate the idea of Makoto wanting to become a cop for such naive reasons (especially with what happened to Sae, her own sister!)... But there are at least some of form of nuances sometimes and by that I mean, I can see what they were trying to do? I do agree that P5/P5S backpedaled SEVERELY by deciding to sweep issues under the rug after addressing them and not continuing from such. In fact I feel like it could have been a hell of a lot better. But P5 did something different compared to previous games and addresses the issues DIRECTLY right at the beginning of said game! It was tense and horrifying, but needed. Of course... They then sweep it under the rug and act like nothing traumatic happened to our protag which is NOT a good look at all and I'm still pissed off about it. In the main game's case, it's portrayed as more black and white with only a SMALL amount of nuance like that cop that was trying to help Futaba when she went out by herself and got lost (which people ignore entirely by the way). So I CAN see where people got the "anti-police" message from... But that's only the tip of the iceberg as it's ACTUALLY more about Systematic Corruption, not exactly or JUST police corruption. Namely in politics with Shido and the Conspiracy (which is apparently still somewhat around in Strikers until Owada's downfall) controlling everything all the way to law enforcement. The force had been basically under his payroll (including the corrupt SIU Director before his death) whether by force or not (mostly not in this case though). Now honestly, the police depicted there are undoubtedly rotten to the core save for a VERY SMALL handful (the cop that was trying to help Futaba which, again, gets ignored by several). Look at the interrogators who ruthlessly beat and drug a minor without any second thought or remorse for example. But again, the black and white narrative the game kept unwittingly doing ended up being to its detriment in a way. I'm not defending those assholes AT ALL! They deserved every punishment given to them! But for a game that goes on about grey morality... It doesn't quite deliver on that. Still though, it does emphasize that it's more of the fault of the whole corrupt system, not just one part of it. There needs to be change and reform which is what our MCs were trying to do in a way (more like inspiring change but still). In the end, it's all about the following:

Corruption and abuse of power.

Again the police depicted in this game were incompetent at best, corrupt at worse with very few silver linings. But it's not just them but rather the one person responsible for the whole mess. Who had them under his payroll? Who controlled them and by extension all of Tokyo? Who was willing to dispose of anyone who "outlives their usefulness" or is perceived as a threat to what he wants (including his own family)?

SHIDO AND BY EXTENSION THE CONSPIRACY

Bottom line: They are definitely a problem but it's not just them.

"But, Joker and his trauma?"

I definitely understand that and still do. I fully believe he has and still has trauma with the police. Easy! But... I do feel like people go too far with it sometimes. It's hard to explain but there have been moments where people either use it as a justification/argument against someone trying to provide a more nuanced view of things or... Dare I say, depict him like a "uwu soft traumatized boi." Like I said, it's hard to explain on my end so feel free to ignore it. Everyone deals with trauma differently so there is STRONG chance that I'm overanalyzing it. I just remember moments where I just feel a little, I guess annoyed? I'm not sure exactly but final thing: I understand what he went through and I can't imagine how long it would take to recover but I hope he DOES overcome it.

"Sae? Akechi?"

Yep, even though their jobs are different, they are by and large members of law enforcement no matter how you spin it. Both were broken in a way. Akechi is pretty easy to explain with how Shido negatively impacted his life but not much about Sae, who dealt with sexism/misogyny at her workplace along with the trauma of her father's (also a cop) death. She no doubt had some idealism only to be hit with the fact that she's gonna have to use underhanded/downright illegal tactics to get by and even rise up the ranks. She, therefore ended up (well, nearly) corrupted herself before coming to her senses. That's honestly one of the BIGGEST REASONS why I felt like Makoto joining the force to become a police commissioner isn't a good, even a downright naïve, idea. I honestly would have been somewhat fine with it if it weren't for that fact among other things. Regardless of her willpower, it will go south fast.

Now... Onto Strikers!

Persona 5 Strikers

Since the game came out and I started playing it, I still feel like the system is still beyond saving, especially when attempting to do it from the inside. But I don't mind the added nuances that P5 didn't do much of. It's still continuing the critiques, just shows more of what does happen within said system and even has an ACTUAL officer (Zenkichi) say, "Yeah, my job sucks, everyone's corrupt, there are much better ways to do things and make a change but not this. I'm only staying because I have a daughter to take care of and it's all I know. I'm no different from them." Was it all handled well? I wouldn't say "yes" (Joker's trauma is BARELY addressed at all of course) but a little better than what P5's narrative did which only addressed the issues but not exactly follow up on them. Now to be fair... In the system, regardless of where you live, any one within it who remotely tries to do something or speak against it either lose their jobs or even go "missing" irl. Those have happened and it's more proof that yeah, it's rotten to the core. There's no denying it but regardless, that's NOT what the game is about at all. At least that's what I feel about it as it's only PART of the narrative. I think Zenkichi puts it best here:

Speaking of Zenkichi... Oh boy... Now I definitely understand some of the criticisms with him but honestly, he was the best written (PT) character I've ever encountered! He was honestly the perfect representation of those that genuinely want to help and do good, only to be held back by an extremely harsh reality. It was already hinted at with Sae but here? It 100 percent confirms just how harsh and even cutthroat it can be if it could break someone's idealism so badly. Even Kaburagi of all people thinks the same thing Zenkichi said:

Then there's his past and it's a tragic one! But let's look more at the decisions he ended up making:

While it was no doubt done to protect his daughter, he ended making a selfish decision along with a selfless one (which was brilliant!) with not only allowing the cover up of his wife's death and denying justice for her, but also ruining an innocent person and their family's lives.

It's horrible, but also... There's a grey area/nuance as with the rest of his character. It was both understandable, but also wrong as he, as Akane's Shadow puts it:

He sacrificed his values, his morals, all for the sake of having a peace of mind. Speaking of Akane, she's also an interesting case in a way that she more or less perfectly represents the more "black and white" views on justice in general. Namely the more toxic/biased kind. Her reasons are also understandable but she was also acting selfishly by only focusing on how SHE was effected by Aoi's death and not even considering those that were also grieving her death and/or that people grieve/handle grief differently than her. But back on topic.

Her own views and beliefs that law enforcement basically SHOULD be dismantled (mostly out of said childish bias and black & white views) and it's framed as WRONG and it's very much correct on that. Chaos and order are two sides of the same coin, one can't exist without the other. When I say ACAB, I'm calling for reform, defund, have the corrupt held accountable for EVERYTHING and even face jail time for their crimes! Defund the police, have the ones that arrest, harm, and even murder out of bias (race, gender, etc.), lose their badges/jobs and locked up, make improvements! It's saying that there IS still corruption out there and there's no denying it. But fully eliminating the law in general will just lead to more problems. Now granted, she's young and clearly doesn't fully understand why those views are ultimately wrong but still... It was a very interesting subject to tackle and I feel like they handled it well.

Now back to Zenkichi, he was at first in denial about his decisions ultimately being the wrong ones too and even tries to justify it. Of course, his Shadow said otherwise and that was when he finally admitted that he really did act no different from the criminals he despised. But it also doesn't mean he can't redeem himself and that's what ultimately leads to his new resolve:

That right there along with everything else! There's the nuance! And ultimately despite some hiccups, Strikers handled the grey morality and nuance beautifully! Especially regarding law enforcement! Dare I say, even better than the base game! It continues the critiques with no problem but also showing different sides and areas of it! There is good and evil, but what about in-between? What about the more greyer area? It still says that there IS corruption, sometimes even beyond saving but... Sometimes a small silver lining is hidden somewhere.

Now, the ultimate question:

Is P5 & P5S (namely the latter) Pro-Police or Anti-Police?

Personally, my answer is this: Neither.

Why? What theme do they both have in common?

JUSTICE

Someone puts it best on Twitter that the games are more pro-justice and I fully agree!

P5/P5S gives the idea about following your OWN justice, your OWN moral code and rules, paving your OWN path and not let others dictate it! That's what the MCs ultimately start to learn in both games. Therefore it's pro-justice. Again, do I agree that the system is beyond saving? Yeah. Do I at least acknowledge and understand what the narratives are trying to say and nuances regardless even if I don't agree with some writing decisions (ex: Makoto wanting to become a commissioner despite everything)? Also yes. But at the same time, don't judge a book by its cover for other people (not just law enforcement and politics mind you). Especially some that genuinely DO want to help at best. That there is nuance and greyness, just have to look closely. Some of the MCs are still TERRIBLY written and executed (even annoying) but the message was still somewhat there.

Final Thoughts

Now I fully understand how you all feel of course! I still believe in ACAB and even I agree that maybe I'm one to talk and have a lot more to learn about the world... This is just my own attempt at putting my own two cents in. If you disagree, that's fine! This is just what I've felt should be at least talked about more often. And I tried to phrase it as best as I can without coming off as insensitive or ignorant and if I did, I sincerely apologize for that! I'm not trying to say, come off as a "bootlicker" or any of the sort. I'm just trying show discuss more of the grey areas and nuances that are, more often than not, constantly overlooked. How one interprets both games is ultimately up to them. You, the player. And this is my own interpretation. Simple as that. I hope you all have a good day/afternoon/evening!

#starchild rambles #analysis #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #persona 5 strikers #p5 #p5r #p5s #p5s spoilers #p5r spoilers #p5 spoilers #long post

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bookwyrminspiration · 3 years

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Ahhhhhh you look so pretty!! Especially with the matching eyeshadow!!

I'm gonna call her Ink, to go with your Quil.

But yes that is beautiful orange!!! I might try it out after my hair dye comes out. But I do not have flaming hair!! Simply very, very bloody!!! Its violently red and I love it

Hello to you too Ink!!

May you continue having a good day <3

-Heathen

Also the name thing is fair enough, mines pretty common. I don't think I'd be able to find you though, even if I was close to your continent. The closest country is 2000 km away, but yes! I understand privacy very much

heathen! hello!

thank you!! I love being pretty!! And the eyeshadow thing is one of the fun little details I get to do with my appearance, so I'm excited someone pointed it out! If I use color that day, I either match it to my hair (now orange) or something on my clothes--that second one is usually a red to match the design on my corpse hoodie.

I pick at my skin pretty badly (its not visible in those pictures except for a few spots like my lip) so I try to leave my skin alone for the most part. But! I can go all out with my eyeliner and the colors I use!! I actually did this thing the other week where I outlined white eyeliner in black and oh boy was that stressful but also a lot of fun. and then it's also easier to wash off when it's just eyeliner!!

but moving on! Quick correction: my partner uses they/them pronouns, but as you didn't know no one is holding that against you. But they seemed to like the Ink idea--I think I was actually saved as Ink and Quil in their phone for a while but I don't know if I still am. They have a habit of collecting names (currently at 50-ish that they rotate through), and Ink is a really cute way to refer to them! They've mentioned before that they like how they're like mysterious figure on my blog. Like they exist here and I've interacted with them but mostly vaguely and none of you really know who they are.

also red hair? that's awesome! I've considered dyeing my hair red before but haven't done it yet! Definitely want to do it at some point in the future though. The really bright/neon colors bring me such joy that it would be a shame not to do red. Though i am enjoying the current orange. "Violently red" is such an excellent phrase; I love it so much. Your bloody red hair sounds incredible. Combined we make the first section of the rainbow! Red and orange! Now we just need...all the other colors

and my partner, Ink in this context, says hi in response! Or rather, "Hi >:)" They specified an evil smiling face next to the hi. I suppose they must maintain that air of superiority and mystery...(I'm making fun of them but lovingly, don't worry).

and we did have a good day!! They came over to carve pumpkins with my family (they had come with us to the green chili farm where we get pumpkins and picked one out with me) and we watched a movie all together. I don't have any pictures on my phone but my parents do and I could get them! I carved a skull (have to stay on brand), my dad carved Totoro, my sister carved the outline of a cat, my mom carved a crescent moon shape, and Ink carved two faces into theirs--one on their side 'cause their pumpkin was deformed and split into two a little (that's why we picked it out!! because it was funky!!)

and for the name thing. I'm a very open person a lot of the time (mostly because I won't shut up /pos) but last name is a little more information than is good to have out there, and I'm not the only one who lives in this house so I'd rather not put the rest of my family at risk on the internet! And of my two last names (i'm hispanic) the one woven on the rug is the one we actually use so even easier to find me. Quil is already an uncommon name, but combined with a hispanic last name in the US? It stands out! Wouldn't in some other countries but alas, I'm also American. also damn. that's pretty far away. i think. I don't think in kilometers hang on. Okay not as bad as I thought but still far. When my family goes to visit my extended family on the other side of the country we'll drive about that far in 24 hours to get there.

#nothing like spending 24 hours straight in a car with three other people #we've haven't done that since before the pandemic though #and back then we still had our minivan and a lot more space #I would get the entire backseat and could lay down if I wanted #and we also had a dvd player in there #and individual air vents #new car does not have those things #so a road trip would be a lot worse #I'd have to actually sit next to my sister....#that's a joke she's fine we just don't spend time with each toehr #*other #how did I get this distracted??#we're talking about hair #my hair es anaranjado ahora #and i'm excited about it!!#i love colorful hair #fun fact: I also cut my hair myself #because I don't like talking to hair dressers #so I went no and did it myself #though I don't recommend doing that if you actually care how it looks in the end #because especially the first time it's gonna be a weird experience!!#my hair is also curly enough that uniformity and details aren't as important #the unevenness and mishaps get hidden in floof #random #quil's queries #heather #new hair #long post

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bronyinabottle · 3 years

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In a recent post on I Dream of Twilight Sparkle I said that I noticed asks that were not in my inbox the last time I decided to read through my entire ask box. So I did the same for my mod blog. And while there were some also that I didn't see before. Most are questions I feel either I feel like I may have already sufficiently answered enough with my thoughts on an episode and/or it'd be weird at this point to answer something that's obviously years after the fact.

But there is two I found that I feel like I may want to respond to. The person who sent it was someone who used to discuss the show with me almost all the time, though obviously they must no longer be on Tumblr as all their blogs are deactivated. But I still want to answer since it is sort of relevant to recent stuff. Particularly in their 2nd ask.

By the way, I'm always open to questions on the show or even non-pony topics here on my modblog. I still do love talking about G4 ponies and I wouldn't mind some questions if any of you would like to know my opinion on anything. Now that the show has been over for nearly 2 years , I can have a perspective on many topics about Friendship is Magic that I wouldn't mind sharing. Maybe some things have changed here and there, though I think I still generally have a positive attitude towards most things for certain. I stuck with the show until the very end, and was satisfied with how it ended. And I still have interest in doing more in G4's world even as G5 approaches. (Though I'm sure perhaps once that movie has aired that may be the focus of any questions sent here)

((My answer and more after the break))

For the most part, I think I still generally agree with what I said in my initial thoughts about the Season 6 finale. It's a solid episode with some great interactions between Starlight, Trixie, Discord, and Thorax. Though the way the ending is executed is a bit of a headscratcher. Maybe somewhat less so since thinking about it now, like even if Chrysalis did keep some things loyal. What would stop them from eventually seeing what Thorax's changelings did shortly after.

But I suppose I wanted to answer this mostly about Starlight. Since while the Season 6 finale made HomerJ get over some remaining feelings about Starlight. I'll admit it took literally until writing Secrets of the Dragon's Tear (A year after the show was over) to realize the sort of potential that Starlight had. The baggage from the Season 5 finale always felt like a cloud above her for the entire rest of the show's run. And I consider Season 6's largest mistake is not trying harder to endear us to Starlight. That's what that season's entire job was, to try to make us feel a little better of how rather rushed Starlight's redemption was by giving us a more expanded look into Starlight's character. And unfortunately, I feel like it failed at that in my opinion. Thus I basically disagree (Though respect the opinion of) with those who would say the Season 6 finale was when Starlight finally won them over.

Don't get me wrong, I like how Starlight is portrayed in the episode. But it would of been stronger if say the season had explained more about Starlight's past. How did Starlight get her cutie mark, and given her opinion on Cutie Marks how did she feel at the time?

Instead, we mostly just got Starlight reuniting with Sunburst that didn't exactly give any more details to her rather vague reasons for turning to darkness from him moving away other then finding out Sunburst's personality and how his side of the story went. And from there we had Starlight befriend Trixie... in an episode I still don't really like to this day.

Ironically, the character in the Hearth's Warming episode that casts Starlight as the story's version of Scrooge (Snowfall Frost) is given more reason to sympathize with then Starlight herself.

Starlight then just about disappears up until the episode that introduces Thorax. Where she doesn't do much other then be among the crowd that Spike has to convince that Thorax is not evil.

The next time we see her is Every Little Thing She Does. Which is something of a controversial ep from what I hear, though ironically despite my skepticism of Starlight at the time. I actually sort of liked that episode since it was basically Starlight's own Lesson Zero. Though I get why Starlight deciding to hypnotize all the Mane 6 besides Twilight against their will would not be approved of. Though it does feel like at the very least Twilight and the rest give her enough of a piece of their mind at the end.

And that's how things stood before the Season 6 finale happened. Even though I do think Starlight has good moments in said finale, nothing earlier in the season really dispelled many of my feelings about the Season 5 finale's ending. So despite a good showing, I could hardly care for it. I wasn't convinced yet we were given a satisfactory answer about the many questions that Starlight's sudden redemption prompted.

Another part of my thoughts I feel still applies is when I mentioned that Starlight's a "Diet Sunset Shimmer" (Which considering what I did to link the two for SOTDT, is a bit funny in hindsight). It took just one movie (Rainbow Rocks) for the fanbase to turn a 180 on Sunset. While an entire season with Starlight as one of the good guys goes by and she remained just as divisive as before if not more so by the end of Season 6.

Come Season 7, and Starlight appears quite a bit more often though under the assumption that the Season 6 finale was enough to warm you up to her. There were many complaints during the first half of Season 7 that she was appearing more then she should (Even in an Equestria Girls special where she got to meet the character she was so often compared to). Though another thing about Starlight in Season 7 in hindsight is besides from her meeting a few more friends like Maud. Starlight isn't actually given much to actually work towards. They dropped the whole student aspect so it's not like she was doing friendship lessons under Twilight anymore (Though I suppose on the bright side for the detractors, it lessened worries about her becoming an Alicorn). Season 8 and 9 does somewhat fix that by having Starlight employed at the school, first as a counselor and ultimately ending with her as the school's Principal as Twilight herself got promoted to sole ruler. Which I'm still unsure about if fans of her character feel that was a proper ending for her. Though probably the best that could of been done in context of not much having been done with her over time.

Still, at least for me personally it felt there was alot missing about Starlight and as time went on it became obvious I wasn't going to get the satisfactory answers about her that I wanted. So as a result, I only had lukewarm reactions when a new Starlight episode was coming up. It also didn't help that there were two episodes that raised my hopes of at least one interesting aspect that would of been cool to see. The first being the episode "All Bottled Up" which I had hoped would mean it would be an episode that's somewhat genie related. And then there was Road to Friendship where Starlight and Trixie try to travel to Saddle Arabia (which is an important location in I Dream of Twilight Sparkle)... and yet never actually get there. So even on the few times that I was hoping to be excited about a Starlight episode, it dropped the ball. Partly my fault for getting so hyped about something that wasn't promised, but I would of loved to at least SEEN canon Saddle Arabia.

I'd never say that I hated Starlight back during the show's run. But she was a frustrating character for certain back then. I couldn't hate Starlight as much as some others did, but at the same time I couldn't like her as much as others. She was in likability limbo. For every fun and or good moment that included her, it's brought right back by either lingering problems that arised from the Season 5 finale or otherwise dropping the ball in some way.

In some ways, she's still a frustrating character. Though that's just how it'll always be with the canon Starlight. It's up entirely now to fanon to give their approach on Starlight that was never done in Canon. With SOTDT, I obviously did a bit of a "Fine, I'll do it myself" when it comes to making Starlight a more satisfactory character for me. Though I'm sure there are many interpretations that are vastly different from how I approached it that can satisfy others and probably be more popular and better written then mine. (My interpretation might be understandably controversial just for Starlight being put back on a path where she'll likely become an Alicorn eventually. Something Starlight detractors feared the most. Though I think I at least try to explain as best I could that makes sense with the story, her cutie mark moment being similar to Twilight's, and the identity of her mother. And I myself sort of feared Starlight becoming an Alicorn might happen, so for me to actually write it so that it might be inevitable. That's just how much of a 180 I've taken on Starlight because of writing SOTDT)

I think I mentioned this before, but I can pretty much say that in a way that I can actually say I like Starlight now. But sort of in a "FiM's biggest missed opportunity" sort of way that it becomes sort of sad to look at how canon Starlight was done. Rather then me simply shrugging her off back when I didn't care so much about her. I also understand it's a bit cheating to say I like Starlight now after doing my own sort of fanfic that had her in a major role since that might be me tooting my own horn a bit.

Though I will say as much as necessary that I am very aware alot of what happens in SOTDT would have been impossible to do in canon and I don't plan on pushing what I did to expand on Starlight's backstory as gospel. It only applies to what I'm doing on the blog, I will not be making a case that my interpretation is the only correct one. I'd actually welcome seeing some different interpretations on things such as who Starlight's mother is, what they feel her past was like outside of the Sunburst leaving incident, and/or especially how Starlight originally got her cutie mark. (I've even said my personal guess is different then how I did it in SOTDT, as my guess is she got it the first time she discovered the cutie mark removal spell). Cause if nothing else, I've realized Starlight is a very interesting character that I think would be fun to explore all the possibilities with. It certainly could be something for those still on the G4 train to talk with one another about.

#my little pony #my little pony friendship is magic #starlight glimmer #to where and back again #season 6 #g4 #mlp g4

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