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mogsk · 3 years

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So I watched an anime called “Violet Evergarden” recently, the elevator pitch of which is basically “feral girl is taken in by military man, turned into a child soldier, military man dies, but not before telling her ‘I love you’, but she doesn’t know what that means, so after the war she becomes a ghostwriter with the ostensible aim of figuring out what ‘I love you’ means through other people’s expressions of love via letter-writing.

It’s a good little concept, and while I enjoyed it, it’s also stuck in my brain as being profoundly odd from a storytelling perspective.

Like, the initial premise is v strong, Violet’s driving objective is to understand the last thing she heard her father figure, “The Major”, say to her before she blacked out and woke up with no arms. She was a feral orphan child with little grasp of language or expression, and so she is burdened with not understanding what this very important person to her was trying to convey before they parted ways. Good shit.

And it seems to carry this fairly well at first. Each episode varies in how much it advances the central plot, but each boils down to Violet having to learn a lesson about how people express their feelings for each other, how they express love through words, or how they fail to do so, and so slowly she goes from only being able to produce very precise and terse letters which read more like military reports, to being able to swoop in and fix people’s interpersonal problems with the power of a well-dictated love note.

Where it kinda falls apart for me is about halfway through the series, where we see that Violet has more or less grown into her role as protagonist in an anime about the power of letter writing and the meaning of love (-ish). She’s gotten so good she’s tasked with facilitating one half of a romantic correspondence between the nobles of two nations whose relations are still tense after The War (which Violet fought in), and so have decided to arrange a marriage between their noble children -- a 14-year old girl and a 24-year old man.

Now up to that point, the messaging around the central theme felt odd, but it made sense, like, Violet is growing to understand love, and so how the show does this is by giving her a lot of weird and fraught situations around that theme: we have a woman who is in love with a man, but she wants to play hard to get which Violet ruins by writing a letter that just directly states ‘I have no feelings for you, please stop calling on me’. So then she goes to letter-writing school where one of her classmates has an alcoholic brother who she wants to express her love and thanks towards, but doesn’t know how to pierce the barrier of grief surrounding him due to the death of their parents in The War.

It keeps on like this p consistently, the central question “What is love? What does someone mean when they say ‘I love you’?” is addressed fairly cleanly, but then, once the issue of Violet’s struggle with being able to convey people’s emotions becomes effectively resolved, we kinda start to leave the rails!

Back to the mid-point episode, so, through trying to properly convey this 14yo princess’ feelings, Violet learns what her true feelings are. No, it’s not that she is discontent with being forced to marry a man ten years older than her because, you see, they already secretly met at a royal party when she was, like...10?? And he found her crying and was, like, “Hey kid, you okay?” and that was the first genuine expression of human emotion outside of her dutiful maid she’d ever gotten. You see, what her discontent is is that she knows the man she met, with a heart so simple and pure he feels compelled to comfort a crying child, would never write these letters, and so Violet conspires with the prince’s ghostwriter to allow them to have a more honest correspondence (which is then reprinted in all the newspapers around both countries.)

What got me about this episode is how it, like, throws all these different narrative threads in the air around this central theme of “What is love?” -- the concept of arranged marriage, the idea of confusing appreciating someone’s kindness for having other feelings for them, the MAID who is, like, the princess’ closest friend and confidant, but who has to explain that, once she’s married off, they will have to part ways because she doesn’t serve the princess, she serves the royal family and there’s this great scene where the princess is weeping after she says that and the maid is like “I cannot accept that command, I will continue standing here right by your side” and it’s really intense!

But then...it all gets dropped in the interest of the final note being...yeah sometimes you have to marry a guy in his twenties when you’re just a teenager, but love’s just funny like that ig!

Which sounds ungenerous, and like, I wanted that to be the case, I wanted it to be setting up something, like, “Despite Violet gaining proficiency in letter writing, she still is struggling to understand the more nuanced dimensions of love and so her shortsightedness will come back round to bite her in the ass” (it does not, we even get a montage of all the people she’s helped including the newly married royal couple smiling happily at the camera.)

We then get more episodes like this, where Violet’s done learning about Love and is now in effect teaching it to others. She does this by...sitting and looking pretty with a guy while they wait for a comet to go by, imitating a playwright’s dead daughter so he can be inspired to finish his play, and...writing a bunch of letters on behalf of a mother dying from anime mom disease, but who wants to be able to speak to her daughter as she grows up through a series of pre-written birthday letters.

And, like, in isolation, it’s all very moving! Each story has a very touching emotional drive to it, but it seems like the question of “What does ‘I love you’ mean?” p much falls to the wayside, even after we get the big 3/4s of the way through reveal that the Major is dead and Violet didn’t know! So we’re treated to flashbacks of their relationship, including the moment where he repeats that damning phrase!

But then we really don’t pick it back up again? It kinda superficially grows in relevance as we approach the conclusion, but it’s never again properly addressed until after a sudden spat of military drama breaks out with people trying to reignite The War and Violet suddenly having to put down her typewriter and pick up her combat knife, but now, for some reason, she refuses to kill people because...she isn’t just a tool?

And I think this is what ultimately frustrated me, is that those are two great themes “Discovering what it means to love” and “Can a person conditioned to fulfill a specific purpose ever be free to choose their own path?” but the problem is, the series really has centered itself on the former while kinda sorta implying the latter, but in the final scenes, we are suddenly given a resolution to the latter (which is basically Metal Gear Solid, “You are not your DNA”, “Just live Snake” that’s been done beautifully and with more thought already by, well, Metal Gear Solid) whereas the former, what was the entire driving force behind Violet’s character development is kinda sorta hand-waved off as “What is love? I still don’t think I know, but maybe that’s just how it is!” which is fucked up coming from someone who by the midway point is basically counselling or facilitating love between people!

So, like, I enjoyed it a lot, there were some great moments and the supporting cast, while mostly one-dimensional save for Violet herself, made for at least nice scenery, but I’m just so blown away by how they seemed to manage to forget (or ceased wanting) to tell the story they laid out in the beginning in favor of some p uniform military drama that suffered precisely because most of the series was dedicated to developing the central theme that it ultimately seemed to abandon, or perhaps came across as being burdened with having to carry into the conclusion.

Also it was super fixated on dads, like, The Major is basically Violet’s dad, his best buddy who goes on to hire Violet as a ghostwriter has a big reveal in the end that he’s been writing letters to his hypothetical future child, the sad dad playwright with the dead daughter -- I dunno what to do with all this besides the usual base level of suspicion I have for all dead-heavy content, but yeah!

There’s two movies, a side story from mid-way through the series and a sequel, and I feel like I almost have to watch them at some point, just so I can tie a neater bow on how I experienced this whole story, but yeah, Violet Evergarden, come for the cool metal typing hands, stay for the heartfelt explorations of what it means to love people, shift nervously in your seat when dads suddenly become involved!

#spoilers

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violexides · 3 years

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The DreamSMP Explained (By Someone Who Has Never Watched Any DreamSMP Stream)

cracks knuckles. okay, fucking FINALLY doing this. ahem.

Couple things to preface with, will keep this brief.

This isn’t entirely blind. One of my best friends has helped out in places, just because I wanted to hit on everything (accurate or not), and I know mutuals/friends who post and write about DreamSMP (though how much of that is AU or canon-typical, I can’t say. I can’t tell). I’ve never seen a single stream, but I’ve seen a few clips. So, my understanding is a bit more than the title may imply, but still not a lot. Sorry.

Also, this will be very, very long (near 2k words). All under the cut, will TW this with themes of abuse, death, manipulation, unreality, hallucinations, and me having an abrasive sense of humor where I revel in the glee of calling these guys European twinks. Though, speaking of. This is ALL about the actual characters, not the people. I don’t know anything about most of these actual streamers, so, no hate to them. In fact, I think they’re pretty cool for having come up with a… somewhat coherent… narrative, all through using Minecraft as a medium. Anyway.

Sigh. Without further ado,

So. There’s this place. Made by Philza, AKA God, AKA one of like six different gods. Philza, born from the womb acting like someone’s 43 year old uncle, has three kids. Wilbur, Tommy, and Tubbo. There are other people here, with some scattered ancestry that raises some questions, but I don’t really care who fucked an Enderman and had an 8’0 tall kid (Ranboo DNI).

There are also places! Sometimes! On a good day, there are actual, intact locations. We’ve got hits like “The Badlands”, which I think was taken from about three different dystopian novels I read in third grade, “El Rapids” (Quackity, Subpoena (autocorrect wins this round), and Karl made this one), “Pogtopia”, no comment on this one, and “L’Manberg”, which Wilbur made.

Only one of these is going to be important.

So, might be a good time to say this: I don’t know what the inciting incident of DreamSMP is? I don’t know what was the catalyst for all this shit, but I’m going to take a guess and say Wilbur blowing up L’Manberg had something to do with it.

… That’s going to be a pattern, by the way. Just. Stick with me here.

So, Wilbur is an older child who read the Hamlet parts in literature class and can only cope by ripping down the very creations he has and taking the entire world down with him to hell. Which is to say, he throws a pity party after Jschlatt (some bitch who abused Quackity, that’s another trend, yippee) wins an election and decides to blow up the fucking kingdom and kill Jschlatt.

Little does Wilbur know, the devil may work fast, but Jschlatt getting a fucking stroke and dying out of nowhere works faster.

I’m not kidding. He gets a stroke, he dies, and Tubbo takes over. I’ve tried to puzzle out the government structure of DreamSMP for a while and have drawn zero conclusions. In any case, Wilbur also tells Philza, his… father…, to kill him. And Philza fucking does? For some reason, like, holy shit.

Anyway. Wilbur is now a ghost. So is Jschlatt. The… life system, on this server, is really strange and I don’t know how to fully explain it. Just know that nothing has permanence here.

I’m going to throw this out here because I don’t know when it’s relevant, but I wrote down something about Karl being in a place called the In Between. I don’t know how the hell he got there or what the hell he’s doing. This might be where the discs are? I can’t explain the discs. I… think they are fighting over the discs? Don’t know why, Wilbur makes music himself, I feel like you have enough to go around.

(Stream Saline Solution it reminds me of my best friend only if you want okay thx)

L’Manberg gets blown up again. This time, Techno did it. He did it just after giving this speech about Theseus, which, jokes aside-- the writing of DreamSMP is actually really good. That was all done on improv, and I did watch an animatic with some of the audio from it, and damn. I’m a whore for metaphor and I love this for him.

This happens, and Ranboo and Tommy decide to do a little hehe and burn down George’s house. Who is George? Good question: a king. Of what? Good question: call me the antithesis of a Ranboo kinnie and get me some discs because I hear no answers.

Dream gets pissed off by this (who gave him authority, I don’t know) and builds a wall. He for some reason decides that if Tommy, and only Tommy, breaks some rules, the wall will stay up forever. So, naturally, Tommy immediately yells at him, and Tubbo gets pissed (what happened to the whole, who are you without me, yourself, thing?). Dream exiles him, which is bad enough, but then Dream burns down his house, so now he’s double exiled.

Dream kins Julius Caesar but Julius Caesar does not kin Dream and I think that’s important.

(It had to be important enough for me to literally go back and edit this in, for no reason, because I think I’m really fucking hilarious.)

Techno takes in Tommy and shows him his super secret cave of evil, which Tommy promptly screams at. Philza and Ranboo visit sometimes, but mostly Tommy just sits there. Dream says “fuck you” to Techno, but Techno decides to wage war on L’Manberg, so Quackity and co. come over to try and kill Techno, but Techno kills Quackity with a pickaxe, but Quackity has three lives for some reason, and then Dream blames Ranboo for blowing something up for literally zero reason, and can you tell how tired I am.

Ranboo sees a smiley face in his notebook and zones the fuck out while Dream tries to kill… Tommy? No, Tubbo. No, fuck, no it was Tommy. I don’t know why people suddenly care about it n- NO, NO IT WAS TUBBO, he is TRYING to kill TUBBO.

I hate Europeans.

Ahem. Dream goes to jail, but he has books in jail, which is a horrible idea. Everyone knows that if you give a war criminal some novels he’ll accidentally haunt someone else’s dreams and launch psychological warfare with the prison guard, Sam, who has zero idea what he’s doing because he probably didn’t sign up for this.

Also, I’m gonna say this here because I don’t know when it will fit in. There’s this place. Called… the Egg. Now, I don’t know what goes on in the Egg. I don’t know what the Egg is. I don’t know who decided to name all these fucking things, because I think the Egg is just a box made of bedrock. I think Ranboo hallucinates about it, but Ranboo hallucinates about everything so I’m not really sure. I’m going to call it here and say that this is probably a bad sign.

People are trying to talk to Dream. First BadBoyHalo, who gives Ranboo this little note from Dream with a smiley face. Or maybe that was SapNap. Either way, Ranboo hallucinates seeing Dream, and then actually sees Dream but he thinks he’s hallucinating? I don’t know.

Then we get Tommy. Basically he kind of comes in here and Sam, being a good prison guard, allows Dream to beat Tommy to death and then revive him (don’t ask about the revivals just pretend it makes sense please). He tells Tommy he’s also going to revive Wilbur which Tommy isn’t a big fan of, considering that Wilbur, uh. Vague hand gestures. You get the schtick. Hopefully. I don’t know.

Anyway. Uh. Quackity loses his shit, also.

As in he talks to Jschlatt, the ghost of his abusive husband. Makes a deal-- if Quackity here loses, he revives Jschlatt. I don’t know what the winning conditions are, but, thankfully, they don’t matter because Quackity loses damn near instantly.

So he goes to Dream and Sam gives him really powerful gear for no reason. Dream is a bit terrified by this situation, and Quackity is like “give me the fucking book”, and then we never find out what happens because Quackity ends up covered in blood about to blow up El Rapids. I hadn’t expected to mark Quackity off on the demolitionist bingo, but hey, all’s fair I guess. My next bets are on Tubbo or whichever bitch became god of the sea.

(I also made a joke to my friend about me kinning Quackity (the character not the streamer could you fucking imagine), to which they said “you’d torture someone for information”? So. I guess Dream, uh. Hm. That explains why Quackity was bloodied. Uh. Oops. Don’t know why he’s playing Poker, though.)

So, for my sanity, as we come to a close, I’m going to start listing lore details that I don’t know nearly enough about but are probably important. Just… bullet point them. Might be a bit tacky of me but I have shit to do, dammit. By that I mean, I don’t have shit to do, but I’ve had this doc open for literally 1-2 weeks and I just want to be freed.

List Of Other Shit That Happened:

Ranboo started an arg, so there’s a character named Z now. Can’t believe the kid I knew in middle school who didn’t know where the Middle East was made it into the dreamSMP omg!

Tubbo did something immoral, and we still don’t know who his dad is. By we, I mean me.

Eret exists. That’s all I’ve got for this one. They’re important. Probably.

Karl hallucinated six versions of himself and left the In Between to go to hell. (Lil Nas X girlboss gaslight gatekeep in this motherfucker!!!)

Ranboo and Tubbo got married because taxes exist </3

More on this last point: they opened a hotel, despite Tubbo being a king, and Tommy got mad at them for getting engaged without his permission. But Tommy was literally dead when they had the wedding so I’m not exactly sure what he was expecting. Either way, he’s fine with it now.

Kids getting adopted oh shit oh fuck. Also, mpreg is canotical. Make this what you will.

DreamXD is a god now. I don’t know who DreamXD is. I don’t think anybody else does either.

I’m like 60% sure George is dead.

I’m like 60% sure Philza is immortal.

Going through my ‘notes’ to make sure I didn’t miss anything and I’m just getting more confused, so I think I’m going to call it here. Props to everyone in the dreamSMP for creating kickass lore, I would not summarize any of it ever again if you held me at fucking gunpoint, and thanks to my mutuals/friends for letting me ask a lot of really stupid questions as I try to puzzle this out. And also, another thanks to you all for reading this. I hope to God this was funny.

I really, really, really fucking hope that Tumblr doesn’t cut this off for a long character count. This is longer than some of my fucking oneshots. My God. This was so fun, don’t get me wrong, but I also want a hit of a candy cigarette. Make it two, actually. Or three. All at once.

Anyway. Drink some water, stay safe, and remember that statistically speaking, 100% of people with a name starting with “T” need to put down the Greek mythology books and learn about the ethics behind pyromania. Goodbye, Theseus.

#dreamsmp #mcyt #FINALLY. FINALLY. FINALLY.#i have been sitting on this for literally two weeks i hope to god it's funny #phea (friend) said that they chortled at some parts so i guess that's good #sorry to my mutuals who do not care about this #dreamsmp is actually really neat though ngl i'm invested from a distance #also if this is funny i might start making more posts like #[] summarized without knowing about it #because my number one hobby is getting invested into things i know nothing about and continue to know nothing about #i feel like this is overwhelming hhh f/ck #anyway. this is all i think #god help you if you decide to read this

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siliquasquama · 4 years

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Step back from the beach a moment

I don't celebrate on Memorial Day.

Remember, yes -- that is the point.

Commemorate, if you prefer, though that implies some manner of ritual, or some form of public ceremony, held at a slight remove from emotion, as the crowd along a parade route is both at a remove from the parade and part of it.

But to celebrate, to call it a day of relaxation or take it as a day of revelry --

I stopped doing that after I heard a particular song, in a particular movie. The movie itself is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Wherein the effort to find a Union soldier's grave, supposedly full of gold, is shown to be rather petty in comparison to the war itself -- which is presented primarily as a tragedy. A useless battle over a little bridge in a bleak corner of the West; a field of shallow graves marked by crude crosses; a stockade for prisoners of war, where weeping men are made to kneel in the dirt and sing a pretty song to drown out the cries from men being tortured --

You would think that the officer who chose the song would pick something less critical of the war, but who knows what he was thinking? As for the director, one might say he chose the song to distill the movie's message. As the final verse goes:

Count all the crosses, and count all the tears -- These are the losses, and sad souvenirs. This devestation once was a nation -- So fall the dice. How high is the price we pay?

After I heard that song my Memorial Days became rather grim.

I am always a little conflicted about the song. I know the political tendency of Americans -- especially white Americans -- is to elide the cause of our civil war, and elude the full implications. The decades after the war would not be the last time that reconciling white Americans meant leaving black Americans out in the cold, open and vulnerable to the people who would never stop trying to subjugate them.

Tempting to say both sides were right, and both sides were wrong, so as to bury the hatchet --

And yet: those who would subjugate black Americans dig the hatchet up whenever they think any government is trying to stop them. Be it in the decades after our civil war, or the decades after the second World War, or the decades after the country chose a black man to lead us towards a gentler peace and greater justice -- they do not forgive any movement towards the true power and freedom of black Americans, except by the acquiscence of the country to their predation, for any move towards freedom is a move away from what they have built, and threatens their coffers. As their coffers were filled by slavery, so they seek to maintain it, in one form or another.

Thus the old song from slaves long ago remains relevant, and its hope is ever present:

Oh Mary, don't you weep, don't you mourn, Oh Mary, don't you weep, don't you mourn. Pharaoh's army got drownded. Oh, Mary, don't you weep.

Did they? 

I do not know.

So, when I hear the soldier's lament, I wonder if it was made to elude that question. Perhaps it is that the director, being Italian, at a far remove from this continent and its ways, only saw the war as it was described to him, and thus saw it as the hatchet-burying narrative would have it, and so in his movie made no judgment nor mention of why the war began, nor what cause stood at its center by the end.

Or it could be that the lyricist, being not Ennio Morricone but a white American man, may have written the lyrics to paper over that question, and the compoaser and director alike looked at it without considering it too thoroughly.

Which would assume signores Leone and Morricone would ever dare do sloppy work.

Most likely it is that, if the movie is presented as tragedy, Leone couldn't introduce any of the concepts that have led Americans to call the American Civil War a glorious struggle of freedom. No John Brown's Body nor grapes of wrath for him. In the battle for the bridge, Captain Clinton sees his job as pointless, and that's the story the movie tells. No sense muddling the message by talking about glory. Even if the southwest did have its own battles for freedom, separate from the question of slavery, which could have been shown in the background.

For, if I speak of freedom only in terms of black Americans, I forget the peoples who were also targeted for predation by white Americans, whose resistance to them began long before slavery was planted here, whose story always complicates the simple narrative of White versus Black --

And as I speak of many peoples to think of them as a whole is complicated, if not impossible, for one tribe does not speak for another nor decide the same as the other. Over the centuries of struggle each tribe had interests separate from and sometimes against their neighbors, such as the people of pale faces could exploit to divide and conquer them.

In the case of the Civil War there were more such tribes who allied with the Confederate forces than with the Union. As it was in the rebellion that established the United States, as it was in the War of 1812, which was, in North America, sought by paleface warhawks as a battle against Indians -- in each such war that threatens the existence of the Federal Government of the United States, the victory and continued survival of that government has been the loss of many tribes and the deaths of their people.

I wish they had not sided with the British Empire, nor with the Confederate slave-holders, yet I understand why they did, for so many of the people we call American heroes were also villainous towards native tribes -- George Washington and Abraham Lincoln alike. The hope of those tribes was the scattering of the forces set against them and in the Revolutionary War, at least, it was not a hopeless effort, nor would it have looked hopeless to them in 1812 nor 1860. For the sake of those people I will not sing patriotic songs, nor wave the flag, nor call the American Revolution nor the American Civil War an untarnished good.

Nor any war. Hard to see blood spilled out on the ground, be it for the best of causes. Blood spilled and bone scattered. Young rascals and old coots alike left as shells, empty as the casings spilled about them, and these days we send mostly the bright young ones to that end. Lao Tzu said a general must mourn their victories.

And there are many of us come from overseas who have seen their loved ones die before them, seen bodies scattered amid the rubble of what they thought would stand, as so many wars these days are civil wars fought in and over civil settings, thereby to flatten those settings -- how could I celebrate any war, in the face of such people? How could I say any war was for a good cause?

And yet -- Pharaoh's army got drownded. Hard to ignore that point.

And for the folks who fought for the life of their people against the federal government, and lost, I wonder if I would dare tell them that war could have no noble cause.

So if I consider Memorial Day as anything, it is a day to mourn victory. Never to forget its price nor what it purchased. Never to speak of that purchase as if it were for the petty game of nations. It is not for for them. It is for the living and the dead. One life given for another, or for many. Perhaps given freely. Perhaps a trade made by someone else far away. Therein lies the tragedy.

For his part, Sergio Leone did not let his movie side with the Union's political cause. If he sided with anyone, it was with the soldiers. The song is called "Story of a Soldier" and it shows the battles through a soldier's eyes. Smoke, cannons, flags in the distance too ruined to read, crosses and tears counted one by one.

The movie's main battle is, as I said, useless. Not from the perspective of whoever gave the orders, but certainly from the perspective of Captain Clinton. His men have to take the Branstone Bridge. If the Confederate forces also want it, then might as well blow the damn thing and leave, and he's desperate to try. But orders are to take the bridge. Maybe as a political favor, maybe to achieve a larger strategic goal. Either way thousands of people will die. That's why Captain Clinton reeks of alcohol. He couldn't handle the job any other way. So when two scruffy and disobedient recruits go and destroy the bridge after all, though it be for a selfish and petty goal, Captain Clinton's dying words are in gratitude. Thousands of people will live. That's what he cares about.

You would think the larger scale of taking that bridge would be more important! Politically, strategically, maybe. But for the life of each man involved -- not so much. They can't see that far. To them the small scale is what they know. And maybe it's more important anyway. The song is called "The Story of a Soldier." Maybe that's what the movie is actually about. And the two bandits are just a way of bringing us to the place where we see what became of him. Which one he is among thousands, that's harder to say. There's an Arch Stanton on one grave marker and 'unknown' on the other. We don't know anything about either man. The lives of both men were on the small scale, not big enough for anyone outside their little worlds to care.

But someone living on the big scale got a lot of people into a big mess, and war means spending a lot of the small scale for the sake of the big scale. Basically shovelling your world into the furnace bit by bit to keep the engine running. Sometimes it means you lose your peach orchard; sometimes it means the army needs your 500-year-old church bell for scrap metal. Hard to tell if it's worth it at the time. Or when you're laying flowers on a grave later.

But when you lay flowers on a grave, are you saying the war was worth it? Or is it an apology for letting a bad situation get out of hand? If you're going to lay your flower on the grave and say the war was worth it you had better include an apology because that's a hell of a lot smaller price to pay than what you're looking at.

Now as for why I post this today and not the 25th -- as I said, I don't celebrate on Memorial Day, and I don't much like the fact that it was moved from the 30th of May to the last monday in May to give people a 3-day weekend. That all feels a bit crass. Seems like it made it easy to forget why this holiday exists. Everyone takes a trip to funtown for the day.

Well, fine. I can't blame people for doing that if they don't remember why the holiday exists. We don't much emphasize the Civil War part of it anyway. Easy enough to forget when you turn a day of memory into a day for parades.

I'm not trying to spoil the day for you when you were looking for a rare chance to relax. Go and have fun.

Just let me stay here with the graves.

#memorial day #civil war #indian wars #sergio leone #the good the bad and the ugly #text

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janiedean · 5 years

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Now I want to hear the Stannis rant (when you have time)!!

hahahah have fun XD okay so for context, the tags I mentioned the aforementioned rant in:

#one day i’ll rant at lenght about how dnd never got stannis#bc they cannot conceive that a dude with THAT kinda moral compass is a complete disaster when it comes to interpersonal relationships#nor that half of the issues stannis has are bc he’s literally starving for people to see he has worth#while slaving for them anyway and being more competent than anyone else that passes before him#but this is not the day i guess

now: this is... a thing that I honestly struggle with when it comes to this fandom because the side that hates stannis thinks he’s a selfish arrogant asshole without feelings and the side that loves him is like ‘omg such a great battle commander GO RIGHTFUL KING HE’S SO BADASS’ and I feel like neither is an accurate reading because the first sees the character at mere face value (and most likely skipped the davos chapters) and the second only cares about his so-called badassness, but... thing is: stannis is an extremely competent person who’s also a disaster at relationships because he feels like no one cares for him (which isn’t exactly untrue as I’ll rant about later) who in turn everyone judges as uncaring and unfeeling when he actually isn’t and who in turn compulsively pursues what he can pursue because he has to compensate and who on the other side is absolutely starved for recognition except that he doesn’t get it.

and like... at this point I have to lay down the premises in the sense that while I really wish I didn’t, I... kind of really do relate a lot to that aspect - people assuming you’re cold/aloof because you aren’t immediately excited about things or don’t wear feelings on your sleeve - and tbh I really really love that grrm made a character who has the Good At Battles And So On reputation... a complete interpersonal rships disaster, because it actually gives him a whole new layer that I don’t see really discussed often and since that’s what I relate to... it’s sad. for me personally at least.

anyway, thing is:

the fact that stannis was the unloved baratheon brother is the exact first thing you learn from the acok prologue - I mean, ‘Stannis, my lord, my sad sullen boy, son I never had, you must not do this, don't you know how I have cared for you, lived for you, loved you despite all? Yes, loved you, better than Robert even, or Renly, for you were the one unloved, the one who needed me most.’ like, it’s the first thing the narrative throws at you in the face the moment that he does something that already puts him on the reader’s bad side ie dismissing poor cressen, but it’s basically the key to the entire damned point;

because first of all it implies stannis (who’s the middle child out of those three) felt like both his brothers didn’t love him and with their parents dying the way they did that goes too, and if we take into account the proudwing episode - he saves the damned hawk, he’s all happy he got it back to fly, robert mocks him for it and his uncle convinces him to let it die - it’s basically the metaphor for his life because whatever he does, the people who should notice don’t care;

this actually should be discussed along with the whole siege of storm’s end because like... stannis held out by almost starving himself and his men (but renly never mentions it whenever he speaks so I should suppose he doesn’t remember it as an extremely traumatic event when he was in the castle, so stannis made sure he actually had enough food to not starve most likely when no one else did) for robert and if he hadn’t done that when he was barely twenty if not nineteen they’d have lost the rebellion, which you’d think would give him nice things, right? no, because robert gives him dragonstone which stannis sees as a slight, he feels like robert loves ned more than him and he’s p. resentful about it, renly basically bypasses him when it’s time to claim the throne with the amazing explanation that ‘he’s not amusing and people wouldn’t like him’ when that’s not how succession works and he doesn’t seem to get one inch of appreciation by his relatives that he almost died for;

now he has that compulsive thing when it comes to laws and sticking to justice.... considering that he feels like all of his entire family wronged him since he was a teenager (and like, i’m obv. not blaming robert for not having been the best bc he also had trauma bc their parents died I mean we have issues but I get it) and like both his brothers feel like others (ned, loras/the tyrells) are more their family than him and/or that they don’t care for him because he’s sour/not immediately expansive/etc... are we surprised that he has that much of a problem with the concept of compulsively following justice/the rules? considering that when it comes to that it’s written black on white and fairness is objective, obviously he’s a sucker for the rules and he feels that strongly about his birthright - that’s because he feels like he can only trust in objective ruling that everyone should follow rather than people;

this is where I go personal, but... a thing that’s extremely common if you tend to be shy/not immediately an extrovert/if it takes you time to get to know people/if you aren’t a funny person automatically is that people start to assume you don’t have feelings or you don’t care about others, which in turn means that you tend to become even worse because the moment you open up you’re terrified that the other person will hate you, and that’s... peak stannis because the way he’s when the books start is out of all of that plus having married someone out of obligation for robert and getting humiliated on the same wedding night plus having just one daughter everyone sees as defective and that renly openly mocked at some point too but never mind that, and like... another thing with stannis that people don’t really notice is that while he’s crap at expressing his love for his daughter because he’s shit at feelings and relationships, he also loves her really fucking much and as someone else pointed out he didn’t educate her to marry into some other family, he educated her to be his heir and with davos’s male sons and so on, like he didn’t give her just a lady’s education, he gave her a full-on heir education, which outside dorne is unheard of, and in his last adwd chapter as much as dnd didn’t read it... he told people to put her on the throne if he died and to fight for her same as they would have for him. like, it’s obvious that he does love her, he’s just complete crap at showing it... same as he is in general because he doesn’t feel like he can be open about his feelings with people and because he pretty much has no fucking clue of how it works, which is... well... what happens when you grow up with that kind of emotional stuntedness;

that is, unless he’s talking to davos, which is what I’d really fucking like for people to realize. like, never mind the show, but when book!stannis talks to davos he immediately goes from 100% completely closed off to being all soft and as affectionate as it goes and I mean guys... just a couple quotes but:“He seemed ten years older than the man that Davos had left at Storm's End when he set sail for the Blackwater and the battle that would be their undoing. The king's close-cropped beard was spiderwebbed with grey hairs, and he had dropped two stone or more of weight. He had never been a fleshy man, but now the bones moved beneath his skin like spears, fighting to cut free. Even his crown seemed too large for his head. His eyes were blue pits lost in deep hollows, and the shape of a skull could be seen beneath his face. Yet when he saw Davos, a faint smile brushed his lips. "So the sea has returned me my knight of the fish and onions.""It did, Your Grace." Does he know that he had me in his dungeon? Davos went to one knee.”-"I am lowborn," Davos reminded him. "An upjumped smuggler. Your lords will never obey me.""Then we will make new lords.""But . . . I cannot read . . . nor write . . .""Maester Pylos can read for you. As to writing, my last Hand wrote the head off his shoulders. All I ask of you are the things you've always given me. Honesty. Loyalty. Service.""Surely there is someone better . . . some great lord . . ."Stannis snorted. [...] but I trust none of them as I trust you, my lord of Rainwood. You will be my Hand. It is you I want beside me for the battle."that’s TWO, and when davos says that his lords wouldn’t want him for a hand stannis goes like you’re more important than them to me pretty much, and in general the moment they’re alone together he’s way more open and vulnerable and sincere than he is when literally anyone else... that is because davos is the literal one person that not only is his actual friend (bc he doesn’t really have any other friends not even between his relatives), but also someone who:a) actually thinks the world of him;b) hasn’t batted an eyelid at his sense of justice I mean guys let’s be real he cut off davos’s fingertips bc he was a criminal at the same time as giving him a lordship after davos saved his life and everyone else’s and davos has the bones with him always because he thinks they’re his luck I mean k that’s extra but he actually does see stannis’s point when it comes to fairness;c) hasn’t disappointed him once;d) has only ever acted in his best interest;e) is the kind of person who’ll call him out on his bs rather than kiss his ass for honors and to someone who has stannis’s issues knowing that that kinda person exists means a whole damned lot;f) doesn’t think he’s there just to run the show without getting thankfed for it nor takes him for granted nor doesn’t recognize his efforts, which is 99,9% of his remaining issues with everyone else - ie that he does his job and does it well but no one recognizes it and everyone else passes in front of himg) sees his worth, which is a thing stannis is literally starved for but doesn’t get from many others period;which means he has one healthy relationship with someone bar maybe his daughter. one. that’s... not really that great or good whatsoever;

I mean there’s a reason why stannis wants that throne so bad. not that he cares about it, but that’s his right, so anyone else getting it would be the umpteenth time in his eyes that someone cheats him off something that’s rightfully is (storm’s end, his brothers’s love/affection/support etc);

like, it’s not about how stannis is such a great badass fighter strategist, it’s that he wants the throne that badly because not getting it would be just the last straw in the list of slights he feels that he’s been at the end of for his entire life and one more humiliating than any of those others, because otherwise he wouldn’t give a damn;

and like... what I think dnd missed and a lot of people also do is that the ‘great commander who wins fights’ doesn’t mean he also can’t be a guy with extremely bad issues when it comes to interpersonal rships thanks to trauma and to the almost entirety of people around him writing him off as the not fun boring guy who only cares about laws when the only reason stannis cares that much about what’s fair and what’s not is that he feels like everyone else has been unfair to him.

and like....... recognizing that would require admitting that stannis is the farthest thing in these books from a badass conqueror guy who wins battles and wants to be king and will be an equally badass king - he’s an extremely competent guy who became competent at his job out of sheer stubborness and perfection complex who is everything but an emotionless machine (regardless of what people who should know better ie his brothers might think) and who has been disappointed so much in this sense that he can only have a healthy relationship with one single person who is not so coincidentally someone who saved his life, didn’t see anything wrong in his strike for justice, recognizes his worth and would die for him, which... is really not anyone else’s case in his immediate vicinities (not counting his soldiers and so on but that’s another problem entirely). that requires admitting that westeros crap toxic societal standards have hurt him too and that he has a second side that’s not really so cool (guys being emotionally stunted is not fun, I’ll 100% guarantee it to you, and people assuming you’re cold or emotionless because you can’t immediately open up to them is even worse) and that if you want to project greatness on him you should also embrace the fact that he’s a complete human disaster who is as starved for recognition/appreciation as jon is and there’s probably a reason why they were getting along so well in adwd.

and like, I think the fanbase who hails him as the new coming of jesus doesn’t recognize that because it interferes with the fearless conqueror dude fantasy - which is his superficial reading, not his actual reading, same as people deciding he’s emotionless just out of superficial reading, while dnd obviously didn’t know how to write him since S3 because they couldn’t decide what to do with him... but obviously, because dnd have no idea of how to write a male character who is both a strong military commander and an emotional disaster who wants recognition for his own worth and isn’t a power hungry asshole. nvm that dnd have no idea of how to write emotionally vulnerable male characters (see what they did with jaime tyrion theon and sandor and that’s not even counting jon or robb) but stannis was obv. too complicated for them to even consider actually trying for real.

/two cents

#stannis baratheon #janie writes meta #i guess #ch: stannis baratheon #hey do I have salt about stannis? A WHOLE DAMNED LOT #also: I know he's done a lot of horrid shit #AND NO ONE SAYS LISTENING TO MEL IS A GOOD THING #nor we think his acok choices were good choices #this is about WHY he is the way he is #and the side where he's a 100% human disaster is only ever touched #by some ppl in fandom once in a while #and most of them left with S5 #understandably #because I refuse to recognize the S5 finale #long post for ts #janie rants #dragonsthough101 #ask post

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roxannepolice · 5 years

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But yah rey as a character is just so frustrating you know? Cause like, yeah sure she could be complex with a powerful arc where shes forced to come to terms with the fact she wasted years of her life on self-imposed delusions in a cathartic way, or she could be a flat piece of marketing cardboard which Disney is banking on vagina+superpowers=profit without having to go through that persnicty character flaw overcoming or the like. Because like you said, hearing shes a nobody (which ngl, her assuming she was a somebody wasn’t really ever supported in tfa, just that her family was coming back and she desperately wanted them to) is apparently the worst thing but it changes absolutely nothing, not her approach, not her demeanor , if vaguely sad is the absolute worse a character is gonna experience in a goddamn space opera then yeah, full offense ill take the l on Mary sue discourse but her character will definitely be a boring ass wash. We all make fun of whiny new hope Luke but him being a kinda nuisance to both the audience and those around him is what made is transformation into full blown Jedi knight so powerful. With Rey so far what weve got is badass perfect cinnamon roll finally get her due as such, which is clearly working for some people, but I fail to see how that isn’t spectacularly tone deaf to make a protag in this genre such. Operas about drama, not patting you on the back. Rey (assuming she remains as is) would’ve been fine as a protag s the only piece of Star Wars media we ever got was a new hope. But rn she a chosen one architype (and I know that bunch of ppl are gonna go but the series ‘but shes not the chosen one, Anakin still is, the new series isn’t trying to make her one!’ but lets not beat around the burning bush, if u got a character that walks on water and the reason why is because god said so, ur dealing with a chosen one trope and if a character is star wars is made ultrapowerful in lore breaking ways because force said so? Yeah were dealing with a chosen one.) when we had both the deconstruction and the reconstruction done. Shes a straight hero when the success of the ot rest on hitting the formula near perfect the first time. What exactly is Rey, the individual character, bringing to the table? What makes her story supposedly so important the a perfectly good ending had to be made invalid to tell it? A bunch of ppl will say heroines’ journey! But if that’s the case I gotta say, wheres all the feminine shit? Im serious, if the heroines journey is reintegrating the feminine and realizing ‘oh shit mom had a point’ there where is both the feminine skills/coping mechanism and the mom? I mean I saw some ppl arguing for leia in a ‘reys Persephone!’ meta (she isn’t, you can make a much better case for ben himself as Persephone to be quite frank, yall are focusing so much on the trees ((girl gets abducted by guy)) that u forgot the forest existed, the actually story ((girl winds up queen on the underworld, well gee whiz which character just took control of that after leaving the world of living and a grieving divine mother behind, it’s a mystery apparently) behind, it’s a mystery apparently) ((but seriously though even if we hope for dark rey does anyone assume its gonna be taking control of a dark/dead coded org at least partially at this point, do you, do you really??). but given the fact she had what, one line of screen dialogue that’s breaking ur arm with that stretch. As far as skills go I guess you could make an argument for scavenging, but if that’s the case dlf did a shit job of conveying that as female-coded. Everything about rey in tfa seems deliberately androgynous, and yeah, she had her hair let down/mascara moment, but that’s tied to her ‘failure’ on the supremacy thus something nw.SPEAKIGN OF FAILURES ON THE SUPERAMCY AND LACK THERE OF. I find it kind funny that bunch of reylo bnfs (you know who they are) are all ‘hur dur fanboys/antis are dumb and don’t get story structure.’ And then going, ‘why are yall asking how/assuming rey fucked up in throne room/climax of her story in the second portion/darkest point of her character arc? Why do you hate women/ur own ovaries so much?’ because it like walking into a prefurnished house and being told by the relator ‘HERES THE LIVING ROOM’ and having no damn couch. It’s a living room, I expect a couch here. And in a movie where it’s the low point of a character arc and they drag puppet yoda out to tell me the movie is about failure, I expect a damn failure in whats clearly the climax of the characters arc for this movie. As it stands now there are three possibilities imo. 1st, rey had no failure, she is the pure badass maid o light ppl want and every inch the boring cardboard she is accused of by fanbros, remains static, and is relegated to an also ran to benlo taking the most compelling character trophy this trilogy in 10 yrs2nd possibility and the one im hoping for, failure speech wasn’t just thematic explanation but also foreshadowing, rey fucks up big and dramatic in a way that makes her manage to stand out as unique with both her contemporaries and her predecessors(last part, if its ever to much lemme know pls im sorry i just gotta get it out) 3rd and most likely possibility, rey isn’t the main character, benlo is and that’s why his failure both moral in the throne room and logistic on criat take center stage for the last third or so of the movie. Rey is merely a pov character to tell the dramatic villain protag story they wanted and have their very marketable unproblematic Disney heroine cake too.

Ok, so this discourse kinda died down by now, but thanks to that it’s possible to maybe have a calmer look at it I’m totally not trying to justify my late response.

Anyway, the good result is that quite recently my brother, who’s not overly taken with Rey - or the sequels in general, for that matter - said something which really stuck with me as a possible crux of the problem:

She’s neither comical nor tragical. Just bland.

This neither comical nor tragical really struck me. And the more I though about it, the more it was appearing to me that this qualm really applies to the sequels as a whole. The thing is that DLF are essentially telling a straightforward story that they’re trying to make captivatingly convoluted. And not just make, but keep this appearance over four years. And this is... a narrative teeth crasher. Like, when you’re honest about the endgame (in the context of the most structural meanings of comedy and tragedy), you can maintain a decorum, though you can also play with it, of course, whereas when you don’t want to be honest about the endgame, you end up mixing the styles somewhat messily. You can’t break or discuss with the rules without acknowledging them, so to speak. Because the originals were honest about the happy/hopeful endgame (the first episode is title A New Hope ffs), they could allow themselves deeply tragic moments like Larses’ deaths, Han getting frozen, destruction of Alderaan, etc. Because the prequels were open about being a tragedy, they could allow themselves lighthearted comic relief for the sake of lighthearted comic relief.

The sequels... badly want us to consider the possibility of FO winning and Ben dying unredeemed while simultaneously insisting we root for those things not happening, while appearing conscious we’re definitely not buying the former and the latter only somewhat. And it’s tiresome. Dishonest. And indeed, bland. If the story is a tragedy it will be a bloodcurdlingly real one, if it’s a comedy it will be a borderline grotesque one.

But yeah, returning to Rey, I guess as the main character she’s a lens which focuses the above problems. A very bitter tragedy of what her parents did t her prevents her from being comfortably comical whereas whoohooos I like thats and prancing like a husky on red bull over idols and visions because it’s for children so it must be hopeful prevents her from being intriguingly tragical. So I guess the intentioned effect was tragicomism but, from pov of an engaged casual fan that is my bro, it’s neither.

As far as Rey’s heroine’s journey lacking some of the usual elements, I blame it on Disney being... a bit too ambitious, maybe. I think they tried to make a heroine’s journey that isn’t ostentaciously seeped in traditional feminine/masculine traits, maintains the structure without what could be called accidentals. On the one hand, I would point out that hero’s journey has pretty much desexualised itself over time, we are rather accustomed to “shero’s” journeys, but on the other... maybe Disney set out on a too novel a territory and may crack their teeth on it, alongside trying to out-Vader Vader at redemption. To elucidate, “toxic femininity” in which a heroine is supposed to find herself in the beginning of her journey, in Rey’s case is uprooted from any of our usual concepts of feminine-masculine social roles (it’s space, duh). My interpretation is that Rey’s version of toxic femininity kind of exists in contrast with Kylo Ben’s version of toxic masculinity - and since the apparent focus of the story is the attitude towards the past/parent figures, toxic femininity would mean her clutching onto the past. Which is why I predict that some act of IX will find Rey inebriated with apparent success in masculine world, meaning she’ll be the one rejecting the old gods this time - and I would point out that panel in Poe comic where she shows herself more sceptical towards idolisation of past don’t mind me, I’m just expressingmy trash dreams for a proper sith lady Rey.

Then again, Rian Johnson said she already found perfect balance between Luke’s clinginess and Kylo’s rejection of the past, so... idk, maybe I’m giving DLF too much credit again.

As for the Persephone thing, I guess the rub is that this reylo reading focuses less on the traditional reading of the myth (where Demeter is the actual main character and Kore is a Princess Peach MacGuffin) and more of an interpretation of it as one of the eldest (at least in Europe) versions of story depicting a transition of a girl into a woman, making Persephone more of a protagonist.

Like, y’know, this Persephone (D. G. Rosetti, source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proserpine_(Rossetti_painting))

I’m no expert, but myths can lose their original meanings because of power relations (anyone still remember about Dionysus, the god associated with excessive drinking, going through a very Christ-like death and resurrection?) and I think it’s possible that this is the case with the story of Persephone becoming a pre-scientific explanation of seasons changing over the year. So teah, that’s how I always understood the Persephone theme regarding Rey.

But yes, I must agree that I’m confused about Disney’s handling of the mother figure, which... Look, SW became a legend of a modern myth because of how epically Lucas handled the hero dealing with his very explicit father. So yes, I don’t understand what exactly is their game with Rey Nobody from Nowhere in this regard. It’s one thing that they had a cool idea with giving her no lineage, another that parent figures are an essential element of archetypal journeys and from symbolic viewpoint the case of a female character the biological relationship is even more crucial than in male’s. And I swear to all the ewoks and porgs in the galaxy, I do hope Disney’s idea of Rey healing the mother/daughter divide isn’t through her healing the divide between Leia and Ben. Again, this isn’t the idealistic sphere. Just... no.

Anyway, I still maintain hope (this whole meta blog is built on hope) that Rey will indeed turn out to have a proper personal mistake which will make her stand out in the saga. I do have to admit, though, that I find your last theory very likely. I mean, even when I read all the reylo metas going oh, Rey is going to have such an exciting arc in IX, she has so much to deal with though of course it’s not going to compromise her morally, it will be sooo exciting, I just... f*ck’s sake, what you’re describing isn’t a dramatic character only a dramatised role model. It’s great if that’s your thing, but don’t claim it is space opera-worthy, in operas people drown themselves because of cursed sailors, kill over a break up, decapitate over a bad dream and get dragged to hell over a dinner, not persuade their fallen lovers to change their ways, let alone patienly wait for them the understand the error of their ways (and if they do it’s doomed to end in someone dying).

#asks #sw negativity #just because i love doesn't mean i can't be critical #heroine's journey #long asks anon

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commentaryvorg · 5 years

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 2.2

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, as chapter 2 began, Kaito took Kaede’s wish to heart and started constantly looking out for Shuichi, Maki found her lab and became consumed by the fear of people learning her secret, Shuichi tempted fate by noticing way too many details about the pool, the casino’s slot machines joined in with the narrative’s attempt to imply Kaito is expendable, and Kaito encouraged everyone to keep being brave and proactive, except for Kokichi who is still being a coward.

And now, time for more Kaito. I mean free time.

Shuichi: “There’s still some time left today… I need to think of a plan!”

It’s a little odd how Shuichi often thinks something along these lines before starting a free time segment, and then just goes on to hang out with someone and talk about nothing that has anything to do with plans or escaping.

And by “someone”, I mean Kaito, of course! They’re not officially friends quite yet, but Kaito’s still been good enough to Shuichi at the end of last chapter and the beginning of this one that it seems reasonable that Shuichi would feel most inclined to hang out with him already.

But first, a little bit of asking around the others. Most people’s minds are on the Ultimate Hunt, trying in vain to figure out what the hell it is.

At some point in between when he left the dorms in the morning and now, someone changed the icon over Shuichi’s door to one of him without his hat on. Monokuma did, I guess?

You can also go around and examine things that have to do with the previous case for some bonus inner monologue, by which I mean you can take Shuichi on a huge guilt trip about not having noticed and stopped Kaede.

Examining the moving bookcase in the library…

Shuichi: (Rantaro noticed the trick to this bookcase. Just like me… The only difference between me and him… is that I had someone I could trust. I wonder what I would’ve done… if Kaede hadn’t been there…)

This is a nice little observation that’s also brought up during chapter 6’s trial! I imagine that if he hadn’t had Kaede, Shuichi would have just done nothing, not having the confidence to follow his deductions through.

Miu: “What the fuck is up with that Flashback Light? You can’t just mess with someone’s memory using light…”

Except apparently, in this universe, you totally can. Clearly they didn’t give the Ultimate Inventor memories of that particular technology in case she figured out what was really up with the Flashback Lights.

Gonta: “Not even trying to survive… That even possible? Cuz everybody got someone who would feel sad to lose you…”

Gonta is one of the handful of people who are thinking about what Ryoma said instead. He’s so pure, not even being able to consider the idea of not having anyone who cares about you. Also it’s very him to be thinking of the idea of a reason to live not as having someone who makes you happy, but as the fact that your existence makes someone else happy and so you don’t want to make them sad by dying on them.

Kaito: “You seen Kokichi anywhere? I saw him a while ago and tried to tell him something, but he got away again.”

Meanwhile, Kaito is still focused on Kokichi’s words about not co-operating and trying to make an attempt to get through to him.

(Doesn’t your Monopad’s map magically tell you where everyone is at any given moment, Kaito? No? Does Shuichi just have a special Protagonist Perk Monopad?)

Shuichi: (Kaito and I spent some time looking for Kokichi.)

…and apparently totally failed at finding him. But that’s par for the course with Kokichi’s hide-and-seek skills.

I gave him the Hand Grips, which improve strength for punching.

Kaito: “Are you giving this to me? Haha, you know me so well!”

…I mean, you did punch Shuichi last night and threaten to punch Kokichi this morning, so. Not that hard to figure out.

Kaito: “You got something to tell me? Don’t hold back! I’ll listen!”

It is so very Kaito to assume that Shuichi would come to him for the purpose of unloading his problems onto him and immediately try and make the conversation about that. It’s a little bit forward of him to think Shuichi would be ready to do that already. All Shuichi actually wants to talk about for now is what it’s like to be an astronaut trainee.

Kaito: “No problem! My training’s a piece of cake!”

Shuichi: (Kaito was grinning at me, but then his expression turned serious.)

Kaito: “Well, to be honest, it’s about as intense as intense can get.”

I like how Kaito starts out pretending that his training’s no big deal before admitting the truth. He knows and is willing to admit that it’s really very challenging, but that’s not the first impression he wants to put in people’s heads. It seems he’d rather people have this image of him as the heroic Luminary of the Stars who can do everything effortlessly.

Kaito: “Alright! Pop quiz! What’s the most important thing an astronaut needs?”

I am very amused by the fact that one of the possible answers to this question is “a healthy body”. Yeah, to be an astronaut, you need to, I don’t know… not be dying from a mysterious illness? That sounds like a good start.

Kaito: “And that thing is… Communication! The most important thing for an astronaut is teamwork. The universe is a frontier that the people of the world challenge together. And since we need to work together, communication is vital!”

This explains so much about Kaito’s character. He was written to be someone who is such a perfect candidate to become an astronaut that the space program accepted him even though he’s too young and cheated his way into the exam. So he needed to be given the exact qualities that an astronaut needs – not necessarily in terms of specific skills, which he can learn during his training, but in terms of the kind of person he is and the potential he has even before being accepted. Of course he would have to be someone who is really good at communication and co-operating with others and values those things so much!

Kaito: “They check that in the recruitment exam.”

Exactly – all the other more specific skills you need, they can teach you during training. But communication is so important that you have to be talented at it already to even get in at all.

Kaito: “Of course, I can speak Japanese, English and Russian all fluently!”

The localisation worded this line in such a way to not have him mention which of those three languages he’s speaking right now, because it would sound awkward for him to mention that he’s speaking Japanese… in English.

Shuichi: (He can speak multiple languages, is well-learned, and has what it takes to be an astronaut. …I’ve been underestimating him. Kaito is incredible!)

Damn right he is! And it’s interesting that, despite there being a number of actual concrete reasons why Kaito is a pretty awesome person that he’s just been chatting to Shuichi about, Kaito never mentions those things when he’s talking himself up as the Luminary of the Stars and trying to get people to be inspired by him. There’s no sense during this conversation that Kaito is actively trying to get Shuichi to look up to him by telling him about all the skills he’s learning in his training; he’s just stating the facts like it’s no big deal.

Kaito: “I wanna get back to training! The universe is getting away from me! The world needs this Luminary of the Stars to shine even brighter!”

…Well, until this line, at least. Even so, this seems separate – he’s not saying that he’s the Luminary of the Stars because of all of those things. This is something he wants people to think that he just is.

This is probably because Kaito believes he’s more inspirational to others this way than if he frequently talked about all the proper reasons why he’s talented. If he talked about those all the time, then other people might get discouraged, thinking they’ll never be able to do all the things Kaito can do and so they’ll never be able to be as talented as him. But if Kaito just presents himself as this general idealised hero who is The Coolest Ever for no specifically-defined reason, then that’s a much easier thing for any given person to want to aspire to be a little bit more like in a way that suits them. Most people aren’t going to be able to become an astronaut like Kaito is, but everyone can become a bit more of a hero in their own way.

(Kaito is so good.)

Shuichi: (…I don’t have the heart to tell him I’m not so sure about that.)

Really, Shuichi? Because I think that Kaito still needs to be a bit more luminary in order to fully inspire you and give you the strength to carry on Kaede’s wish and end the killing game. He’s made a start, but he hasn’t done enough yet.

(Did you know? The word “luminary” means “someone who inspires or influences others”, but also “an object that emits light, especially the sun or moon”. Kaito’s self-proclaimed title is perfect for him.)

Kokichi: “Everyone’s got it all wrong! I only act like a bad guy so you guys don’t get too soft, y’know?”

See, this is at least what Kokichi likes to think he’s doing – deliberately playing devil’s advocate to foster more open suspicion because he’s convinced that’s better than people pretending to trust each other. In reality, all he’s doing is decreasing the chances of everyone working together and managing to escape and survive and not have more killings happen – in other words, what he’s really doing is actually being a bad guy, if still less of one than Monokuma.

Tsumugi: “I just remembered… The phone game I was playing is having a collab with an anime I like… and I’m missing it…”

Well I guess those are just the kinds of sacrifices you make when you decide to take a few weeks out to force a bunch of people to kill each other, aren’t they.

Meanwhile, Kaito is now hanging out just outside the door to Ryoma’s lab.

Kaito: “Damn it, Ryoma… The famous Ultimate Tennis Pro…”

Seems like he’s still hung up on Ryoma’s behaviour, too.

Kaito: “O-Oh, it’s nothing… Instead of talking about that, it’s a better use of our time to think of ways to escape.”

But he doesn’t like being hung up on it, and he certainly doesn’t want to show it in front of Shuichi. There’s no point in moping around when you could be doing something to make a difference!

Kaito: “Alright! Today I’m gonna tell you about me!”

That’s what you ended up doing last time too, Kaito, but sure. At least this time he seems to have realised that Shuichi came to hang out for the sake of learning more about Kaito and not for the sake of talking about his own issues.

Kaito: “You wanna know, right? Why I feel so strongly about the universe!?”

Shuichi: “Ah…”

Kaito: “Good! I thought so!”

Shuichi: (I haven’t even answered yet!)

This might not have been quite what Shuichi wanted to hear about, though. I love how Shuichi’s so awkward and passive that he just ends up getting utterly swept along by Kaito’s ridiculousness.

It’s also interesting to note that when it’s Kaito making the choice of what things about himself he wants to tell Shuichi about, and not Shuichi asking to hear about a certain thing, Kaito doesn’t choose to talk more about his astronaut training and actual genuine talents. Instead we get… this ridiculousness that’s about to happen here.

Shuichi: (So not only are you going to force me to listen, it’s a long story…)

I also think this is a pretty good indication that this event should be happening this early in the story. Shuichi seems mildly annoyed here, whereas I feel like if this happened after the training session in which they properly become friends, Shuichi wouldn’t mind so much at being subjected to this.

Kaito: “When I was a kid, I’d go to my gramps’ place to play sometimes…”

Keep this in mind for a bit later when I’ll talk about Kaito’s grandparents. The fact that he calls it his “gramps’ place” and says he’d only go there “sometimes” implies that when he was younger (I’m picturing him as being about six or seven in this story), he wasn’t permanently living with them.

Kaito: “After I found that map, I made a decision and set out… I went to the nearest pawn shop and sold the map for some cash!”

Shuichi: “You sold it!?”

Kaito: “There’s no way I, Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars, would ever follow a map to adventure! A life free from maps, finding my own adventures… that’s the life for me!”

Even though this is all just a silly game he played when he was a kid, that’s still such a Kaito thing to do. Of course he’d want to carve his own path and be unique, rather than do the same things everyone else would do!

Kaito: “But the sea still called me, so I bought a boat and went on a voyage.”

Can we talk about tiny Kaito pretending to be a pirate and how adorable that must have been. (Apart from the fact that it never actually happened, shush.)

Kaito: “Soon after becoming a captain, I met my destined rival!”

Shuichi: “Your rival?”

Kaito: “Yeah! The boss of the Great Pirates!”

I wonder if this “rival” he talks about was an actual friend of his who joined in his games or if he was also imaginary.

Shuichi: (…So what happened to outer space!?)

Shuichi is so bewildered I love it.

Kaito: “We clashed on the field of battle many times, to the point we became friends…”

I also like that Kaito clearly adheres to the idea that competition fosters friendship, whether this rival was real or not.

Kaito: “But during our final battle to see who would conquer the seas… I could’ve won, but I’m not the kind of guy to be satisfied with just the sea. No! I’m not the kind of guy to be satisfied with just the world!”

Of course you’re not, Kaito. That’s why space.

Kaito: “That’s why I couldn’t finish him off with a final punch… He got mad at me for holding back. We haven’t met since that day…”

…If this rival was a real person and not just someone he made up, this is apparently Kaito talking about the time he fell out with his at-the-time best friend. Which means it probably happened absolutely nothing like how he describes it here and he doesn’t like to think about how it really went. Getting mad at your friend for holding back sounds like the kind of thing Kaito would do – holding back your full strength isn’t being true to yourself! – but not something many other people would, especially not when they’re like six years old or so. So that part’s definitely something Kaito made up just because it made sense to him.

Shuichi: (I’ll just keep listening…)

Kaito: “Hey… it’s written all over your face…”

Shuichi: “Huh? What is?”

Kaito: “You’re not taking this seriously, are you!? If it’s boring, just say so! Pretending to listen is super unmanly!”

As much as I feel a little bad choosing the option that makes Shuichi show obvious disinterest, I had to, because here’s another example of Kaito talking about manliness. And again, it’s about being true to yourself – be open and honest about how you really feel about things, rather than trying to pretend you feel differently!

Shuichi: “Ah, no! I’m not bored or anything! It’s really interesting, Kaito!”

…To be fair, I don’t think Shuichi actually is bored, precisely – just exasperated at how obviously made up it is. At the very least, Kaito’s story isn’t boring to listen to.

Regardless, Kaito decides to leave it there for now and continue the story next time.

Also, can we take a moment to appreciate part of the summary of this event on the report card, which was apparently written by Shuichi based on the use of first person:

“It went on and on. I have no idea where he is going with this.”

I’m not sure he does either, Shuichi. Kaito is such a ridiculous dork and I love him.

Shuichi: “I wonder… how it was for Kaede…” (I’m sure she had plenty of reasons to live… That’s the kind of girl she was. But I—)

Shuichi is still being plagued by awful intrusive thoughts about Kaede’s death. To be fair, Kaede’s main reason to live seemed to be to make other people smile, which also ended up being the reason she died.

Monokuma: “Oh, but Spike Chunsoft games are fine. They’re specially made to improve your focus.”

Do Spike Chunsoft even make games any more, Monokuma? I thought Danganronpa had been a live-action “real fiction” thing for a while now. Then again, there was that Ultra Despair Girls 2 poster, so maybe the games they still make now are just spinoffs.

Monokuma: “Back by popular demand, it’s time for the motive video!”

Hah, popular demand indeed. They probably did an audience vote on which of the classic motives they wanted to see again.

This photo of Kaito with his grandparents is cute. They’re so proud of their grandson! …It’s a shame it’s completely faked and the “grandparents” are presumably just actors who don’t actually give a damn about him.

But from Kaito’s point of view, they’re real, so let’s talk about the fact that his grandparents are the most important people in his life. That one line I brought up from his most recent FTE implied that at least when he was a kid, he didn’t live with his grandparents. So it’s not just a case of his parents having died when he was too young to remember and he was always raised by his grandparents. Something happened with his parents at some point while he was growing up.

There seem to be two trains of thought among the people who like Kaito enough to have thought about this: that Kaito’s parents died, or that Kaito’s parents are assholes. I’m personally on the “Kaito’s parents died” train. That part back at the end of trial 1 where he gives advice to Shuichi on how to deal with Kaede’s death, where I mentioned that it sounded kind of like he was speaking from personal experience? Yeah, this would be that experience. It ties these two dangling unexplained subtleties together nicely. Kaito probably lost his parents while he was growing up – not while he was so young that it would have left a permanent, noticeable scar on his psyche, and also not so recently that the wound is still raw, but long enough ago for him to have developed a healthy, positive way of dealing with grief that he’s then able to try to pass on to Shuichi after that trial. It might even have influenced his more general optimism and go-getter attitude, since he’d know first-hand that life is short and so you should live it to the fullest and not waste a second of it.

I’ve seen quite a few people on the “Kaito’s parents are assholes” train instead, and their reason for it is usually something to do with the idea that all of Kaito talking himself up to be such an awesome person is actually because he’s desperate for the validation that he never got from his own parents. But that just doesn’t quite fit for me. Don’t get me wrong; I love characters like that whose outward confidence is just a façade born of a desperate need for acknowledgement. But that’s the thing: there are so many characters like that from other works of fiction that I like and enjoy and have spent a lot of time thinking about that I feel I’m pretty good at spotting that nuance, that subtle need for validation beneath the surface – and I don’t get that sense from Kaito right now at all. Perhaps part of the reason I feel this way is because of what I mentioned earlier in his first FTE, about how he never brings up any of the concrete reasons why he’s talented, which would be the first thing you’d think he’d do if he was secretly desperate for everyone’s validation. It really feels to me like Kaito’s confidence is completely genuine.

Not that I don’t also enjoy reading people’s headcanons about how Kaito’s parents being assholes would affect him, mind you, but I just don’t personally think it quite matches up with canon.

I also really like how, even though the deal with his parents is never explicitly revealed because of course Kaito wouldn’t want to talk about it regardless of which version is true, this is still a thing anyway. It wouldn’t be hard to remove it entirely – the writers could easily have gone with the most obvious option of having Kaito’s most important people be his parents instead, meaning nothing bad happened with them. But they did it this way, even though we never learn for sure what’s up with his parents – because the out-universe writers had an idea in their heads for what the deal was, and they didn’t need to explicitly explain it for it to still be a thing that’s true about Kaito that would have subtly influenced the way he acts, even if it’s only a little. Subtle character writing is great. Writers knowing more about their characters than they ever outwardly mention in the story is great. Kaito is such a great character.

Monokuma: “Thanks to his exceptional talent, this young man is already an astronaut trainee! Wow!”

I love the audible air quotes as Monokuma says “exceptional talent”. (Screw you, Monokuma, we just established how genuinely talented Kaito is in one of his FTEs yesterday.)

Kaito’s Grandfather: “No matter what happens, you must live. You must *never* give up.”

Kaito’s Grandmother: “Please… live on. For our sakes, too.”

Monokuma: “Their only wish… is for Kaito to live.”

This particular wish is very interesting. Consider the fact that Kaito’s grandparents aren’t real and don’t have any actual feelings about him and are just saying whatever the in-universe writers think would be most likely to make Kaito murder someone to escape. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a very good motive for that! If they wished for him to fulfil his dream of going to space, or even just to see them again, that’d be something that would actually require him to escape in order to do. But just living? The safest way to guarantee that in this killing game is to keep your head down and not murder anyone, while trying to avoid becoming a victim too. Sure, you’d be stuck inside this academy for the foreseeable future, but at least you’d be alive. Murdering someone to escape is significantly less likely to achieve your survival because of the incredibly high chance you’ll be found out and executed.

Except for the fact that Kaito is the one person among these students who has a deadly virus. If he just keeps his head down and stays here and doesn’t try to escape, he will not live. The only way for Kaito to live is if he can get medical treatment before his illness kills him, and to do that, he needs to escape and get to a hospital, in theory sacrificing everyone else here for the sake of his own survival. This message from his grandparents is trying to make Kaito feel more inclined to do that, once he realises what’s wrong with him. (Not that it’d ever work. Kaito selfishly putting his own survival before everyone else’s, even if it’s the only way to fulfil his grandparents’ wish? Ha ha, nope, not ever.)

…On the other hand, this could instead be a reference to the backstory with the Gofer Project and how Kaito’s grandparents would presumably know that everyone left on Earth is super doomed but at least Kaito will get to live. Apparently they were unaware that their grandson also has the virus and is equally doomed. That said, if this were the case, then you’d think everyone else’s motive video would also have the subject’s loved ones saying something similar, wishing for them to live on since they’re the only ones who can. The only other motive video we see that is an actual motive (aka not Ryoma’s) and isn’t explicitly connected to the end-of-the-world plot (aka not Kirumi’s) is Kokichi’s, and there’s nothing in there about his goons wishing for him to live on and spread mischief across the new world or anything like that. So it still seems more likely to me that the motive videos’ creators were thinking primarily about whatever would make someone most likely to commit murder, and only tying it into the overarching backstory if it happened to fit.

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journeysintowebcomics · 5 years

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Homestuck Liveblog #184

UPDATE 184: Individuality According to Dirk Strider

Last time Dirk took over not only Rose, but also the entire narrative of this epilogue. What will be the consequences of such a thing? Well, he can control the story to some extent, for one. One of his actions was to make Jade fall unconscious, from what I understood, so let’s now continue.

The next page has Jade, but it’s a different one. It’s the Jade that was in the fight with Lord English, the one who is now drifting in the middle of nowhere, near the black hole. I suppose she survived the shard of reality impaling her on the back. Either that or she’s on the verge of death, like John is. I’ll take solace on that the odds the reality shard is poisoned are pretty low.

For a moment, she has the feeling that she’s recalling something. Images and sounds in her head that resemble memories. But the memories aren’t hers, exactly. They seem to be someone else’s. There’s an older version of Roxy... someone with a cheerful green skull for a head, who was... Roxy’s girlfriend? Something about an election. No, this doesn’t make any sense at all. The memories are slipping away, anyway. Quickly, they dissolve, and soon they’re completely out of her mind’s reach, like she’s waking from a dream. Just like that, they’re gone.

That sounds like it could be what Dirk and Rose were experiencing, visions of alternate selves. I wonder, though, perhaps Dirk’s the one sending said vision onto Jade? Heck, maybe he’s been doing this for much longer than I thought, and he’s the one who has been tormenting Rose, all so she would go talk to him and he’d have the chance to take over her. It’s plausible, I’d say.

Since she’s floating around half-dead, she has some time to think, and among the thoughts that may or may not be all hers, there’s something that gets my attention.

And she just fought Lord English after being plucked out of a doomed timeline.

For a while I had forgotten that those from doomed timelines are, well, doomed. John took with him a bunch of doomed people to fight Lord English. No wonder they died, really. Not that recruiting everyone from Earth C would have been more palatable, because he’d be placing at risk the versions of his friends who live in a peaceful Earth. There just wasn’t a perfect choice here.

For a moment I thought maybe Dirk had manipulated Rose and gave John instructions to make things go the way he wanted – including John most likely dying, given how Dirk thinks of him as useless and unremarkable – but then I remembered it was stated Dirk took over Rose during their conversation.

Something’s calling for Jade, right from the center of the black hole. It’s beckoning her, so she gets flying towards the black hole. Is that a good thing?

Oh! A red word in middle of everything! Dave red. I’m surprised! I didn’t think Dave would have the ability to mess with the narration too, but it makes sense. Striders, go!

She considers asking who is speaking, but her mouth stays shut, powerless against the forces transfixing her. Jade has no way of knowing who this voice belongs to. She has no context for understanding the true nature of this being, what role she has played in bringing about the end, and how long she has been waiting for this. She has no idea. But I do.

The dead cherub is making her move.

Hm. I’m a liiiittle bit concerned. The text is red, indicating it’s Caliborn. However, it’s not on ALL CAPS, like I remember Caliborn writes. Calliope is the only other option, and she’d write with green if she used color. Odd, hm...I guess I’ll know for sure which cherub this is when a word with U is shown.

You know a page’s not going to be fun when the very first lines are about someone being xenophobic – supposedly. It’s not like it was shown what it was. Sigh.

Apparently what caused potentially xenophobic comments was the mother grub being generally unpleasant to see. Cultural shock, I’ll say, it really was insensitive. I sure wouldn’t think a mother grub doing her thing is a nice sight, but you just don’t say that kind of thing aloud! Inner monologues are such a blessing. But hey, it’s the rebirth of trolls, this pretty much marks the success of everything Karkaroni and the rest of the trolls worked for. Only three of the original twelve are seeing the final result, but it’s worth it anyway.

So, why the description of the mother grub laying slurry from its ovipositional sphincter stuff is somehow less disgusting than the description of John eating meat? It’s kind of incongruent.

Ah, right, Kanaya is here, watching over the mother grub, and questions why they’re here, if it wasn’t to make quips about the mother grub’s performance. They’re here to convince Kanaya to join them into their political adventure, I figure. I’m not sure how Kanaya will react to that, but I don’t think she’ll eagerly support it. If she does it’ll be because of Karkaroni, though.

DAVE: im dropping a beat

DAVE: like im using a turntable and scratching one song into another

DAVE: all smooth and shit

KARKAT: IT LOOKS LIKE YOU’RE TRYING TO FOLD LAUNDRY YOU FORGOT TO IRON.

This amused me so much because that’s such a fun description of Dave’s gesture. It all reminds me I like Karkaroni a lot, what a colorful character he is.

Of course Kanaya was already aware of the election, and is impressed Karkaroni didn’t burst into flames with everyone watching him. Hah! Karkaroni replies to this gentle jab with a harsher remark about Kanaya’s like-blooded ancestors. Kind of a low blow, but nothing Kanaya can’t deal with what after so many years of being friends with Karkaroni.

She says Karkaroni has her utmost faith but that’s not the same as wanting to endorse him. I think if necessary she would, but it definitely isn’t a promise. She admits everything Karkaroni said concerns her, and Dirk takes the time to give a compliment about how Potential President Karkat can’t take compliments directly. The warm feelings cease when Kanaya mentions Jane already passed by to talk, though.

KANAYA: You Know I Do Like Jane

KANAYA: In Some Regards She Reminds Me Of A Friend We Had Who Sadly Did Not Survive Our Time On The Meteor

KANAYA: She Was Unfailingly Kind To Everyone She Met But She Also Happened To Be The Heiress To The Throne Of A Vast And Bloody Empire

KANAYA: And While She Had A Lot Of Opinions On Reform She Had Already Wrenched Some Of Her Power From Our Last Empress In The Traditional Manner

Feferi? Yeah, she was rather sweet, for troll standards. That said, I don’t think she was ‘unfailingly kind’. I mean, one of the few memories I have of her is she calling Jade stupid in a dream because she didn’t realize Feferi was dead. Hard to say someone’s unfailingly kind when the one interaction with somebody who wasn’t a troll was that, from what I remember. To her credit, she did show concern and care towards most of the trolls, so there’s that, at least.

KANAYA: By Which I Mean That Jane Is Perfectly Pleasant And I Believe That She Has Only The Best Of Intentions

KANAYA: But I Cant Shake The Feeling That Deep Inside Her Lurks The Potential For Despotism

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, they say. The saying in its usual meaning doesn’t apply to this, buuuut even though Jane has bad intentions, the result of said good intentions may not be the best for everyone. It’s a shame that so far it’s increasingly clear Jane’s supposed to be treated like she’s 100% in the wrong and should be shunned. My opinion is that maybe it’d be more interesting if it wasn’t so...black and white. That’s how things seem to me from what I have read so far, at least.

KARKAT: BUT FUCKING FEFERI? SHE WAS HARMLESS.

KANAYA: These Things Take Time To Gestate Karkat

DAVE: damn

KANAYA: Power Corrupts In Small Steps

KANAYA: Compromises

KANAYA: Concessions

KANAYA: Appeasements

KANAYA: And Leaders Follow The Example Set For Them

KANAYA: Look At What Jane Has Modeled Herself After Already

KANAYA: I Do Believe Its Important To Consider Precedent

I guess Kanaya would know better than me when it’s about troll culture, buuuut if I had to guess, Feferi would be a bit of an unpopular empress at first, given how different her policies of ‘don’t cull everyone’, but it’d be matter of time before trolls more amenable to her policies and ideas would exist, so I suppose at least for the first century or two she’d have to have a tough hand and maybe even use force to make things change. It’d be pretty close to fascism, admittedly.

Ooooh boy, Kanaya laughed, not kindly. That’s a no to the endorsement. Is she on Jane’s train, then?

KANAYA: Jane Offered Me “A Seat” On The “Board Of Responsible Troll Reproduction”

KARKAT: WHAT THE FUCK. HOW DARE SHE!

KANAYA: That Is Exactly What I Said

KANAYA: With More Tact Of Course

Board of responsible troll reproduction? That’s rather controlling. Jane, stop following the Condesce’s style, goodness.

The trolls are rather indignant at Jane’s tactless ideas, best intentions be damned, so it’s likely once anyone who isn’t human hears about it they’ll vote for Karkat. So from what I’m reading, this is starting to shape up into humans vs non-humans in general. That’s a rather delicate situation, no wonder it was said the peace in Earth C was so fragile.

I keep noticing Kanaya is dodging the topic of giving or not giving endorsement, even though that topic is touched she always has a way to go in a tangent. Look at her and learn a thing about smoothly changing topics, Dave, she’s good at this.

Apparently Rose has been distant with Dave, and he thinks she either is sick or she’s pregnant. Ah. Well that’s a thought I’d rather not to delve into, thanks for the weird thoughts, Dave. Take a hint from the trolls staring at you. Kanaya seems to feel guilty about something, and I’m not sure if Rose would have told her or not about the headaches and the unraveling of her powers and stuff. She even decides to call Rose right now.

Dirk answers, alarming Kanaya, who stays calm for diplomatic purposes. No answers come because John is doing something vaguely important to the plot again. Hah! Part of me is just imagining Dirk saw Kanaya was calling and because it’d be so awkward and bothersome to have to explain or make excuses, he made John do something just so he could get out of the conversation. But hey, no complaints from me! Moving the plot forward is good.

John’s vaguely important plot actions involve thinking about how everyone should become one powerful person, apparently. Is that your final objective, Dirk? Do you want everyone to become one person?

...

That kind of makes Jane’s presidential ambitions be a lot more sinister, since Dirk is so into them. I can’t rule out the possibility Jane winning the election would be an important step towards that goal, supposing he really intends to do such a thing.

Enough shoving strange thoughts into John’s head because he needs to focus on Meenah talking to him. She’s alive and not inside a black hole! Neato. What’s up, Lord English is dead. Rejoice!

There’s more silence than conversation here because they don’t know each other at all, unless you count John getting stabbed with a trident once or twice. Since this is a veeeery awkward conversation, he instead asks if she knows where Jade is, and Meenah doesn’t even know who Jade is. This conversation is just going nowhere.

This is without a doubt one of the worst conversations you’ve had in many, many years. And you aren’t just thinking that because I’m telling you you are.

When he’s right he’s right! More awkwardness ensues. They’re two strangers talking, pretty much.

JOHN: so what’s your plan now?

MEENAH: plan

JOHN: yeah.

JOHN: you just gonna hang around here, in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing forever?

MEENAH: thats what ghosts is most good at aint they

JOHN: you don’t have to stay here.

JOHN: i can take you back with me, to my planet.

JOHN: i mean, after we’re done looking for more survivors.

Is that possible? Can a ghost be among the living, just like that? Oh, right, John has the ring of life he took from Aranea. He could give it to Meenah and she’d be alive again. Is it a good idea, though? Do they want Meenah around? That’s what I’m not very sure about, because Meenah really doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d enjoy a peaceful existence with everyone else, or...as peaceful as it’ll get with everything that’s going on in Earth C.

Meenah points out correctly she’s a ghost and can’t exist over there in that planet, and she thought of her own plan, anyway. John gets close enough for her to whisper and then she leaves. John then thinks of checking his pockets and realizes the ring has been stolen. Pretty surprising it didn’t fall out of John’s pocket at some point given how much he was moving and getting bitten around. This is why you should captchalogue things instead of storing things in your pocket like some plebian, John!

Now that I think about it, captchaloguing simply stopped being a thing like in the middle of Act 6. Not that I’m complaining, really.

So, it turned out John’s vaguely important plot stuff was he getting the ring stolen by Meenah, so now that it’s done, Dirk can return to the conversation with Kanaya. How do you explain to someone her bride is unconscious after you pretty much started mind-controlling her? I suppose you don’t?

He totally isn’t explaining a thing. For someone who considers himself so clever and forward-planning what with the assimilation plan, he’s pretty awful at not keeping things going smoothly. Pretty bad traits for someone planning to possibly assimilate someone into one being.

DIRK: Sorry, Rose can’t come to the phone right now.

DIRK: She is otherwise... occupied.

KANAYA: Where Is She

DIRK: She’s at my place.

KANAYA: Im Sorry What

KANAYA: Rose Is Extremely Ill And Should Not Be Leaving The House Alone

KANAYA: What Is She Doing At Your Place

DIRK: Chillaxing, whilst we discuss the inevitable heat death of the universe and the unknowable, solitary nature of human consciousness.

KANAYA: I See

KANAYA: If She Is Capable Of Such Abstract Polemics Why Is It That She Cannot Speak With Me

DIRK: That’s a damned good question.

DIRK: One that will undoubtedly benefit from further exploration over the course of the next abstract polemic I have with her.

Goddamnit, Dirk. You could have just said she’s in the bathroom and that’d have worked slightly better than this!

Dirk’s taunting and messing around makes Kanaya decide she’ll get Rose, and once the call is over, Rose starts waking up. She doesn’t seem very under-Dirk’s-control right now, but she’s not okay. Maybe it’s a slow process or something.

John currently is wandering around, pondering if he should do surgery on the golden tooth stuck on his chest with a straight razor, and finding Jade’s shoes. He also finds Terezi. There she is! Wandering aaaaall the way out of the peaceful world, apparently. Either way, in this one paragraph I have compressed one entire page.

Apparently while they want for Kanaya Dirk’s making Rose discuss abstract polemics. I’m pretty sure that’s Dirk talking through her, because although Rose’s plenty verbose, I don’t think discussing philosophy while being sick is something she’d be eager to do. Also, she’s touching the topics of individuality, which is pretty relevant to Dirk right now. May as well listen, so I can understand a little better why Dirk’s doing all this.

Who the heck is Kierkegaard.

I’m going to be honest: reading philosophy being spouted with a straight face isn’t really what I was looking for in a liveblog. I feel a bit bad for scrolling through while all these orange and purple words fly over my head, buuuuut I don’t think liveblogging the intricacies of philosophical concepts is going to be interesting or fun, so I’m sparing everyone – and myself.

Oh, something I can bite into.

ROSE: I think free will is a thing, sure.

DIRK: Are you sure about that?

ROSE: ...

DIRK: Haven’t we spent the entire day having a feelings jam on how none of us got here by accident?

DIRK: Our lives were meticulously planned from clone-ception up through this very post-canon moment we find ourselves riffing in about the very free will we probably don’t even have.

DIRK: Don’t you think it’s all a little too convenient?

I mean, it’s a bit difficult to say there’s not a predetermined plan for these characters. If you don’t go through a series of actions, you’re in a doomed timeline and therefore you die. It’s hard not to go along the predetermined path when it’s either that or death. The only exception is John, who got powers of retcon and was able to jump around changing things to create the new predetermined path, but even then it’s possible the universe at a whole had determined that would happen and just nudged things in that direction.

Then again, when it’s about fiction there’s no free will. The author’s words and thoughts are the predetermined path. Authors are little gods creating their universe, so yeah, characters have no free will. Oh, look what you have done, Dirk, now I’m spouting philosophical nonsense, you sly fox. Won’t lie, typing all that just from a stream of thought was kind of fun. So that’s why the Striders enjoy being verbose.

Dirk keeps Rose lying down on the couch, proving he has full control of the narrative and therefore decides what happens and what doesn’t. He’s the author now and therefore the predetermined path is the one he creates. Oh there I go again, stop baiting me into philosophical hackneyed nonsense, Dirk.

The words ‘Ultimate Self’ and Dirk’s plan to possibly assimilate everyone into one god seem like they’re related, no? Maybe Dirk considers his Ultimate Self to be his goal, and it involves total assimilation. Pretty grim scenario, really.

Dirk makes Rose expand her mind, and she can see what John is doing right now.

ROSE: He could have made another choice.

DIRK: Then where would we be?

ROSE: Who knows.

The Candy epilogue, perhaps? I’m not sure how things would have changed based on that decision, but hey, butterfly effect stories are fun.

I’m not going to describe what she sees. First of all, that would be spoiling it. Unless you already know, in which case, I guess what’s taking place here qualifies as something closer to dramatic irony. But if you really want to see it for yourself, stop what you’re doing, flip the whole thing over, and begin again. I’ll be right here when you get back, waiting. Trust me, no one’s going anywhere.

Is this an indication I should go take a look at the candy epilogue now? It sounds like it is. I wonder if I should...but no, I have decided to see this through to the end. I’m already halfway done, may as well finish it.

If what Rose is saying is a reference to the events of the Candy epilogue, it doesn’t sound like they’re faring much better than the Meat epilogue. Sooooo the characters are generally screwed and are going to suffer either way. For people who spent three years in a game to create a new universe and get their happy lives that sure sucks.

Ah, here he is, I can see this is the moment where Dirk has finally assimilated Rose. It’s over for her. All that’s left is a condescending guy funneling pretentious thoughts into her. I liked Rose’s pretentious thoughts better. Next page!

Dirk’s narration when he’s talking about someone else’s supposed thoughts and actions is pretty exhausting. I find myself going faster and faster, and not because I’m invested in what he’s saying. Having Dirk as a narrator was a bad decision, he’s just on the same level than Doc Scratch was. Still not really enjoying the epilogue much.

He’s trying to stop her from going deeper into the black hole, and he’s failing. Not even the narrative is powerful enough to stop that, because there’s a stronger being trying to control parts of the narrative, the dead cherub trying to do this with red words. There was a U but it’s not any different from the rest of the text. The red text sounds courteous enough instead of Caliborn’s IRREVERENT SHOUTING so I suppose it’s Calliope, or at least a version of her. She beckons Jade deeper and deeper, until she’s irreversibly caught by the black hole and dragged in, much to Dirk’s frustration. There she goes! I’m curious what’ll happen with Jade, I admit!

Oho, the dead cherub is not only taking over the narration related to Jade in the black hole, they also are trying to take over the narration for the Jade in Earth C, the one who passed out in front of Roxy and Calliope.

ROXY: omg!

ROXY: jade

ROXY: jade u ok?

ROXY: callie hurry shes wakin up

JADE: j... john? rose??

JADE: is dave...?

JADE: wh...

JADE: what happened to.....

ROXY: yo its ok

ROXY: daves cool

ROXY: rose is cool

ROXY: everyones just straight chillin like usual

Huh! This feels kinda like the Jade in the black hole is being funneled into the Jade in Earth C. Are they fusing together, perhaps?

Dirk really doesn’t like that he can’t figure out what the dead cherub’s goal with the narrative is, and wastes his narrative grip by fuming about it while the dead cherub actually moves things along. It seems the Jade in Earth C is receiving the memories of her doomed black hole self. Maaaaaybe the doomed ghost versions of people getting caught in the black hole is that causes the headaches and visions. On the other hand, that’d require a lot of Roses and Dirks and Jades to be sucked into the black hole, and last I checked the ghost army was exclusively made of trolls. True, the black hole isn’t tied to the normal flow of time, so maybe it has expanded enough it has sucked a lot of doomed versions of the humans already.

Jade’s eyes are completely black. Alright, that wasn’t expected.

jade does not answer. the dead cherub scans her surroundings, expression neutral.

for the sake of clarity, the dead cherub is a phrase i am using in reference to myself. presently, i inhabit jade’s body, and through her i may influence this world.

Ah, nevermind, the dead cherub’s hijacking people around now. At least I can take solace on that it’s unlikely they have the same goal than Dirk. They even call him megalomaniac, which isn’t really wrong. They also call him a threat to the continued existence of the world and corporeal life, which is a tad worse than I thought it’d be. Was he planning to make everyone eliminate themselves once he got the complete takeover? Dirk’s goal is worse and worse with every page, seriously.

It doesn’t seem like Jade’s able to do anything, not even think. This is just as bad for them than what Dirk did to Rose, but it’s possible Jade’s current state is reversible once the dead cherub doesn’t need her anymore. On the other hand, what Dirk did seems permanent.

Aha, it definitely is Calliope doing things here in the narrative. Neat!

Dirk sounds so salty he’s losing the battle for the narrative, Dead Calliope even uses metaphors that are familiar to him to drive home the point: he’s outclassed. Thank goodness, I was getting tired of Dirk’s narrative.

in his haste to manipulate the events surrounding doomed jade’s ascent toward an outcome favorable to himself, the prince has unwittingly revealed several glaring weaknesses. by dictating the reality of others through expressions which he and he alone can relate to, he resorts to comparing all experience to his own. presuming his status on this side of my horizon would forever go unchallenged, his hubris went unchecked. he exposed too much of himself to all who could observe his wanton display of self-gratification. many of his personal biases and experiences have leaked through the seams of textual causality, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation by an adversary.

I’m not very sure what she means, but what’s clear is that Dirk brought this to himself, he’s the one who left the opening and enabled Dead Calliope to strike. He has nobody to blame but himself. A+ work, Dirk, try again. It also helps that Dead Calliope has more experiences with the vastness of metaphysical and narrative stuff than Dirk does, and isn’t as scared of it all as he is. If she’ll spend quite some time dunking on Dirk’s efforts I’m all for it. He deserves all the dunking he can get. Look at his tiny font, getting saltier and saltier. I’m enjoying this more, I have to say!

This seems like a good point to stop, now that we have a new narrator. Alright, until next time!

Next update: next time

#homestuck #homestuck liveblog #webcomics #liveblog #webcomic liveblog

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yawmanzo · 6 years

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Yaws Personal Reflection on Touken

When I first watched/really read Tokyo ghoul, although I shipped Touken to get together eventually by some point; I didn't really understand why they fall so hard for each other at first. Upon looking back however, a lot of that could be attributed to the very nature of both characters. Touka (read here for my reflection on her) with a harsh/lashing out and violent exterior due to the violent past in which she grew up in as a ghoul, whilst still having a gentle interior and being selfless in most cases wanting to help others even whilst getting herself hurt.

Kaneki with a gentle exterior, yet a violent interior due to his own past and misgivings that we all know of as a human and being selfish in wanting to be needed by others and unconsciously hurting others by trying to burden everything upon himself and not fully rely on others.

I've noticed how Ishida likes portraying the values of Yin and Yang between the two (depicting them as polar opposites attracting and being complementary/interconnected/interdependent with some similarities as well, he did explicitly say they are characters of a set after all when he came up with them). Passive/ Active. Strong/Weak. Black/White. Direct/Indirect. Selfish/Selfless. Human/Ghoul. Harsh/Kind.

These terms aren't purely static stances but rather semblances of self that each saw/admired/invoked in the other, both positive and negative.

Kaneki said human relationships are like chemical reactions, if you have a reaction, you can't return back to your previous state of being.

Touka was there and saved Kaneki numerous times in Part 1 when he desperately needed someone the most aside from Hide and the others, while Kaneki also saved her several times.

What I love is the evolution of their feelings and relationship that started out pretty horribly with both seeing each other in a negative light as human (living a good peaceful life) and ghoul (being an evil killing monster).

The fact that a human becoming a half ghoul developed to be able to care and fall in love with a full ghoul that hated herself, the world, struggled working and living life as a human and ghoul is really phenomenal narratively speaking. Kaneki saw past all of Touka's violent exterior anger issues and looked at the gentle interior she possessed when it comes to how much she cares about people other than herself, even as a murderer. “If you died Touka-chan, I'd probably be sad”.

That line is so simple, yet for Touka it created a lasting impression since no one in her life really in viewed that kind value upon her, also count in her abandonment issues in always being left alone (Hikari, Arata, Ayato, later the Anteiku crew at the end of part 1).

Even if she had the Anteiku crew, no one truly gave that emphatic value about her life having importance and worth as a ghoul trying to LIVE in the human world amongst all the killing and violent predicaments of murder in the world, not even her uncle Renji or old man Yoshimura, even though they did look out for her. Meanwhile for Kaneki he felt like he belonged somewhere, again his most desperate desire. He felt needed as their friendship grew in training, fighting and working together, he wasn't alone anymore.

Even after getting separated after the Aogiri arc (about 6 months) and the Re time skip (about 3 years) you could always notice the subtle mentions of how much both thought of each other, Touka wanting to see him again and especially from Kaneki’s perspective even after each personality change in always mentioning Touka and Hide separately from every other important person in his life.

All personalities have mentioned her separately from everyone else (yes even centipede), “The others, Touka-chan and Hide”.

Even with the infamous bridge scene in part 1, Hide entrusted and helped Touka to expose Kaneki. And she did, however she unfortunately fell back on her violent anger issues and communication problems in truly conveying what she felt to Kaneki due to what can be seen as her fury at him being just like Arata and even Ayato to an extent. Kaneki promised never to leave her, yet he lied and left her to become stronger and shoulder all the burdens of everyone by himself in some tragic hero manner. Yet this time Kaneki genuinely believed his own lies, wanting to sacrifice himself to protect others when he said he wouldn't leave them.

However, unknown to Touka at that time, that encounter made Kaneki want to go back to Anteiku. “Touka, can I come back?”.

Haise sees her after 3 years at the second Anteiku home “Re” and cries after seeing that Touka was still alive after all this time and the encounter is titled “Inherited feelings”. Not for the person he knew the most in terms of time span, but for the beautiful person that created such a huge impression on him at the most vulnerable periods of his life after becoming a half ghoul and not having a true grasp on both worlds and companionship.

Is it unrealistic that Touka waited over 3 years for him and still had feelings only for him? “Even if time has passed, even if our bodies have changed, even if he had forgotten me completely... As long as he comes back home, things will be alright”.

Mostly yes for the majority but not strictly no… I view everything as not strictly one way with this; the main thing is about deep impressions that both instilled in each other, kinda like Star Crossed lovers, “I have faith in him, he will return”.

Touka was even willing to prioritize Kaneki’s own happiness and well being over hers as Haise in not forcing him to come back, but waiting for him come back of his own free will, even with all the new relationships Haise/Kaneki developed with other characters like the Qs family.

Time, change and distance never stopped them from still yearning to see the other, even amongst them both living different lives with different people and settings in part 2 of Re, most notably Haise/Kaneki with the Qs, CCG, Juuzou, Akira, Arima, Eto etc. Haise often visited Re just to look at her like he did with Rize even with his suppressed memories, even at times wondering what that girl(Touka) was up to. “I wonder what that person is doing today, on a date maybe?”.

Fast forward later to Touka also wondering about what Kaneki was up to in their 121-122 conversation... “Are you a virgin?”.

Black Reaper, the most savage,harsh and suicidal personality even changed his whole stance on dying simply upon looking at Touka in Cochlea.

This was also reinforced by Arimas threats in killing his ghoul friends, and the Hide inner dialogue about eventually finding a reason to live. I viewed this as a reverse of “If you died, I'd be sad” from part 1, both were scared at the very thought of the other dying. This time Touka is the gentle and kind exterior, Kaneki the violent harsh exterior not caring about his own life until someone reminded him the value of his life and the people that still care about that life. “Your life has MEANING, to us and to ME” type of thing, and as ghouls, they are hardly given any true instances of happiness, care and love that lasts before meeting a tragic end, some fuckery or death due to the harsh nature of the world.

The fact that they got together so quickly and yes rushed, after losing cafe Re and both feeling lonely and taking comfort in each other in 125 I found really emotional.

Touka asking Kaneki “Why are you crying?” was such a sweet gesture when you remember Haise crying when he first saw her in Re, but also how Kaneki felt that he was always beat a lot by the people he loved the most. And yet he was able to fully expose himself and have an extremely intimate moment with the woman that he's in love with, and to find out that she also loves him back and didn't hurt him at all this time.

Additionally was finding out that Kaneki was “dying” and how quickly they married after finding out about Touka’s pregnancy and her even CHOOSING Kaneki and their child over saving her best friend Yoriko (one of Kaneki's biggest flaws in choosing), for me only reaffirmed how desperate and strong each others feelings were for each other. Touka chose a life with Kaneki, something he wanted his mother to do… Choose him.

It's kinda like... “We lost each other before so many times, let's just confirm everything while we're still alive (The marriage bite mark and ring) because who knows when we'll lose these moments and our time together,” especially at how unforgiving shit can be with most TG relationships (AKA Eto’s parents Ukina and Kuzen, Touka’s parents Arata and Hikari and so forth).

Their love is flawed, rushed and has several problems yes with the time development and communication issues in execution... (I truly wish Ishida gave Touka more screen time and development in most of Re although she has developed and changed from Part 1 in her own way); but they are still growing and learning, nothings ever perfect. In fact even with that time discrepancy and change, its one of those relationships that's so genuine and loyal AF to me. Both can see the dark horror in each other, yet still love each other regardless and show genuine care to go through such lengths to make sure the other is okay in a world where such a thing for ghouls and humans is extremely rare. Especially during all the fuckery in the previous Underground and Dragon arcs. ALL of the Kaneki personalities agreed to literally kill and eat the Oggai children along with humans and ghouls (becoming a monster) just to see Touka again in fear of her death and hopefully to name his kid one day, repeatedly chanting her name over and over.

Touka played a prominent role and went out to save her husband with the CCG, Hide, hell even the Qs... incurring so much damn physical damage via all the fighting and all the mental/emotional stress concurred spanning days to weeks whilst fucking PREGNANT, starving herself with human food, and weakened as a ghoul.

Again, love is complicated, and it's not exactly “healthy” per say from that point of view… I'd say these two need some damn marriage counseling or some shit😂, but it is MUTUALLY genuine given the fucked up circumstances. (I'm also glad it didn't fall under the common anime/manga trope of “Will they? Won't they? shipping game that stalls for time... Just do it! Especially when TG isn't a romance manga, although it has romantic elements)

Personally for me, Touken represents an overall symbol of coexistence and hope for humans and ghouls (the positive core message of TG, even though yes I know it's not the main focal point outside all the story fuckery as a whole). It illustrates breaking past the species barrier of mutual understanding along with other ships to a degree like Ukina x Kuzen, Nishiki x Kimi etc; and I find it beautiful that Kaneki finally has a tangible reason to LIVE, with his Best Waifu Touka… And now also his Best Bro Hide and everyone else.

I wish I could add more insight, but as you can see... I'm a Touken boy through and through😅

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game-reviews-by-cody-blog · 6 years

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Second Review: Spec Ops: The Line

Spec Ops: The Line released in 2012 is the tenth title as well as a reboot, of the Spec Ops series, and the first entry since Spec Ops: Airborne Commando in 2002. This game is a stand out amongst military shooter games. Unlike most shooters you are NOT a hero and the actions you do or don’t do as you take control of Delta Force Captain Martin Walker play deep into the stories intense narrative.

Plot: The campaign for Spec Ops is very long consisting of 15 chapters total. I will to the best of my abilities try to condense this into a relativity short but compressible section hitting key plot points as the arise.

You are Delta Force Captain Martin Walker, you and your team consisting of you 1st Lieutenant Alphanso Adams and Staff Sergeant John Lugo are sent to a devastated Dubai which as been ravaged by a massive sandstorm which has nearly swallowed the entire city. You and your team are tasked with making contact with the American 33rd Infantry Battalion which volunteered to help evacuate the city before the storm by their commanding officer Colonel John Konrad. The game starts with you as the door gunner of a UH-60 Black Hawk firing a General Dynamics GAU-17/A Minigun at modified MH-6 Little Bird helicopters.This section ends with a crash as one of the Little Birds you shot at loses control and crashes into your helicopter. For some this section might feel out of place in the opening of the game but it will come back into play as a very important factor later.

in the fallowing few chapters (1-7) it is revealed the 33rd’s attempt at evacuating the civilians failed horribly and the 33rd is now a hostile force. It is revealed the failure of the evacuation lead to the 33rd tearing itself apart from the inside. A civil war ensued between those loyal to Konrad who decided to enact marshal law on those still left in Dubai and those who wished to still try to extract the civilians lead by Konrad’s former command team. Konrad’s faction, known now as the Damned 33rd won leading the chaos that the player is now witnessing. The player also discovers a CIA team known as Grey Fox was sent to Dubai to look for survivors but is now trying to clean up the ”mess” the Damned 33rd has now caused, As well the player is introduced to the radio man who constantly plays classic music and taunts the player throughout the game.

Sgt. Lugo

Chapter seven also gives the player their first look at deadly White Phosphorus an incendiary and toxic chemical substance used as a filler in a number of different munitions that can be employed for a variety of military purposes.In chapter 8: The Gate after failing to save a CIA Agent Gould from death at the hands of the Damned 33rd you and your team must push past a large enemy force at the gate. Walker makes the decision to use a nearby mortar loaded with White Phosphorus shells.Sgt. Lugo protests knowing what they are capable of but, to no avail. As you work you way though destroying the camp with the deadly shells you eventually come to a Humvee that is parked near an access tunnel to a trench. Despite seeing the numerous heat signatures through the cameras heat vison the player must fire upon the Humvee to proceed. Doing so sees the Humvee destroyed and the trench be flooded with White Phosphorus smoke. After this the player/Cpt. Walker mus now walk though the destruction they caused by walking through the gate while listening to the screams of dying men begging for death. Upon reaching the trench's access tunnel entrance you find a soldier who is barely clinging to life. he asks Cpt, Walker “Why?’ Walker simply replies “your brought it on yourself.” The dying solider replies with his last breath and pointing to the trench “we were helping” before dying. As walker and his team look into the trench they discover the burned remains of dozens of civilians.

After an argument between Adams and Lugo about the White Phosphorus being necessary Walker’s team comes across the burned remains of Konrad’s command team killed with White Phosphorus. Konrad contacts Walker from a nearby radio revealing that he had his men who “mutinied” against him killed as an example of what happens when his order of the city is disrupted. In the next chapter upon stepping outside Walker sees to men tied up on a highway overpass. One a soldier and one a civilian. Konrad contacts Walker again telling him to choose which one lives and which one dies. The player can chose one of four options, option one do nothing and walk away where Walker will be killed by snipers. Option two stall and the snipers will shoot and kill Adams. Option three kill the soldier and Konrad as well as you team members will admonish you for killing you a fellow soldier but you can still proceed through the level. Option four you kill the civilian Konrad congratulates you for keeping order and you team wants to hurry away from the place.

Chapter 10 consists of Walker and his team regrouping with the last living CIA Grey Fox member Agent Riggs. Walker and his team help Riggs steal the remaining water left in Dubai that is held in several water trucks. Unbeknownst to walker on his team Riggs’ end game was to crash the trucks killing every one left via dehydration thereby “cleaning up” the “mess” the Damned 33rd has made. After this mission Walker decides they have to try and evac the civilians before they all die of thirst. He decides to pay the Radioman a visit as he seems to be able to reach Walker and his team everywhere in the city.

Journalist Robert Darden AKA the Radfioman

Chapter 12 consists of Walker and his team working their way to the Radioman and eventually confronting him. After Walker and his team finally meet the Radioman who is revealed to be a journalist who was embedded with the 33rd, he is killed by Lugo after he sets him up to broadcast to the whole city.The team then boards a UH-60 Black Hawk and destroys the radio tower. The fallowing chapter is the same helicopter sequence as the beginning of the game. According to game developers at Yager Development the people who made Spec Ops: The Line, Walker died in the helicopter crash that occurs at the end. The rest of the game is said to be Walkers dying thoughts as he tries to cope with what he has seen and done in Dubai up to that point. There is also evidence sprinkled all though out the game that strengthens this point. One key piece being at the star of the helicopter portion of chapter 12 Walker says “Wait..wait.. this isn't right” Lugo responding “well it’s to late now” Walker says, “Nah...I mean...we did this already!” This hinting that the helicopter sequence in the opening was the true helicopter sequence.

The fallowing chapters contain the deaths of both Lugo and Adams on Walkers hell bent quest to find and confront Konrad. In chapter 15 Walker finally makes it to Konrad only to find that Konrad had killed himself some time ago and Walker’s tortured mind merely dreamed up Konrad as someone to blame to justify what he had seen in Dubai and what he had done there. When “confronting Konrad” there are one of two outcomes. Outcome one walker commits suicide and the game ends. Outcome two Walker “shoots Konrad” and he calls for extraction.

In the epilogue an extraction team arrives for Walker. One of three outcomes can happen depending on the players choice. Choice one the player does not comply with the order to disarm and instead fires on his would be rescuers and dies. Choice two the player once again does not comply with the order to disarm and instead fires on his would be rescuers, this time killing them all and picking up a radio before speaking into it and saying “gentleman, welcome to Dubai.” Choice three the player complies with with the order to disarm and is evacuated with the soldiers sent to get him.

Overall this story dose a fantastic job! The setting is believable as are the actions that the player can take. The are a lot more story elements in this game which could warrant a whole review on their own but i can’t really do that or this review would be more like a book (haha). But, this game tells a nicely done dark narrative with good characterisation of it’s limited cast and is very engaging despit its length. Score 10/10

Conrols: The controls for this game take a que from 2006′s Gears of War and is a cover based third-person shooter. Some people my gripe about how cover based systems cheapen the shooter experience however I am not one of those people and i feel this system really suits the style of game Spec Ops is. I am unaware at this time if there are any other games that share the same button layout as Spec Ops.

Overall the controls are pretty solid but sometimes feel kinda clunky. The addition of second ways firing most weapons is also pretty unique. However, it can be somewhat jarring when switching from a scoped view back to a first person view. On the whole though pretty good. Score 7/10

Graphics: This game came out in 2012 for the Xbox 360 (the version I played), Playstaytion 3, and various PC platforms. The game’s age shows a little but is overall still pretty pleasing to the eye. It has a bit of a gritty and stylized look to it that emphasises the horrors that you see.

Overall for a six year old game it still looks pretty nice. The attention to detail and the art that was made for this game in the form of graffiti looks great and is a big bonus to it’s overall look. Score 8/10

Multiplayer/Extra modes: There is a multiplayer mode in this game however it is a buggy mess with servers about as lively as a graveyard and has many balancing issues. Yager Development the studio who developed the game said they did not want to have a multiplayer in their game. However, their publisher 2K Games wanted to capitalize on the shooter multiplayer market that games like CoD had forged, this did not work however as the games multiplayer never took off.

Overall the game’s multiplayer is trash and really isn’t worth playing. The draw for the game is it’s stellar story mode. Score 2/10

Thank you for reading my review of Spec Ops: The Line, and if you have any comments or questions feel free to share them with me. I want to be able to have a dialog with people so that I can be better at doing reviews as well as making others feel like that have some input as well.

#spec ops the line #video game reviews #game reviews #video games #gaming #intense visuals

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autodiscothings · 7 years

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Prayers for the wicked must never be forsaken.

I jokingly tag all my Thane Krios reblogs and posts as ‘Sad Murder Lizard,’ but I think it sums up my thoughts on him pretty well.

When you first meet him, it’s very cool- neck snapping, vent crawling, sauntering down darkened ducts to casually take out guards, starting a gay awakening in salarian janitors… as introductions go, it’s great.

And then you learn he is dying. And holy shit, is this the trait in which his entire character is built upon; death and redemption. He tells you this, several times over:

The universe is a dark place. I'm trying to make it brighter before I die.

And later, during his loyalty mission trigger:

As I face the end of my body's time here, I find myself dwelling on my mistakes.

Well alright, it’s a suicide mission! Hop aboard, sad murder lizard, you’re recruited. Plenty of room on the Normandy with similarly inclined folk staring at the end of a barrel.

So Shepard sits and talks with Thane over tea, and the first conversations are surface- religion, his sickness, where he’s from. Given what choices you make, he can be quite dry in wit- not Garrus levels of snark, but it’s there.

The second conversation, however, is when the fucked up shit starts surfacing. You learn he’s been an assassin-in-training since he was six, given to the Compact by his parents to the hanar:

They were training me. I was not to be used and thrown away. I was an investment.

Oh but don’t act shocked- sorry, did I mislead you? They saw me as a person, honest. And anyway, I didn’t really kill my first man until I was twelve. This is normal, yes?

And if you fire back that it sounds like slavery, he gets very defensive:

They rescued us – some of us- from extinction. We owe them our lives. Don't insult me, Shepard. Anyone can refuse to serve. Few do.

So let’s talk about that Compact. When I first started writing about drell, I was trying my hardest to see it from the hanar’s point of view; that their intentions were honourable and good, and to some individual hanar, perhaps. Thane gives a mauldin Thomas Hobbes quote about the drell homeworld:

“When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, when the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man with victory or death.” As Rakhana died around them, my people slaughtered each other for mouthfuls of water.

Out of the billions left to die on Rakhana, the hanar took 375,000 drell to the ocean homeworld of Kahje. Later on, thanks to Kepral’s fucking them up, their life expectancy actually decreased: out of those 375,000, Thane tells you:

There are only a few hundred thousand of us left, after all.

I’m going to assume drell are not a mono-religion culture, but to Thane’s religion, where the literal goddess of the afterlife carries you across the sea, it’s very easy to imagine the deep effect it had to most. We the lucky ones have been carried safe and sound, and placed on welcoming shores by our saviours.

The drell at the time weren’t even space faring, nor had they discovered the Relays. They had “no fusion power,” which given the janky space science the writers are prone to can either be taken to mean actual (still a theory) fusion power, or (already proven, thanks Manhattan Project) nuclear power.

If drell were pre-nuclear power, that means Rakhana fucked itself over during their version of the industrial revolution; the hanar literally took a race that barely made aeroplanes and cars into a world full of Mass Effect relays and made them their servants.

And this fits in very nicely with what Thane tells you the third time you speak to him. That his accountability for his actions are not his own, because drell do not think of their body and souls in the way humans, asari and turians do. So when he kills, it’s on whoever ordered him to make the kill- he was the gun, not the one who pulled the trigger.

My body is merely flesh. Flesh whose reflexes were honed to kill. My body was only the tool they used. If you kill a man with your gun, do you hold your gun responsible?

As lines of defence go, it’s fairly shit, isn’t it? You can’t argue anything back to him, the game won’t let you.

It’s also of note that during this conversation he lets slip his infamous “sunset eyes” solipsism, and his Wife In The Refrigerator is mentioned.

Irikah at least gets to speak in the Foundation comic, and I like some on the things they introduced about her. We learn she was a scientist, and worked researching a cure for a hanar disease; that she really did stand defiant in the laser dot of his sniper rifle.

But it was still her role to die, and I did not get the impression she was her own person in either the comic or through Thane’s dialogue. In a 24 page comic about her husband I would understand this can be hard to achieve, but she still was a prop created for Thane.

Her death is glorified, too. There’s an entire panel of Thane kneeling in her blood; her attacker goads Thane by telling him she “tasted sweet” when she died, and of the “unspeakable” things they did to her.

And so Thane went after them all in a suitably badass manner. It’s a common storytelling trope: John Wick, Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Logan/Wolverine, The Punisher… Revenge yarns are fun to watch, but the reason for the revenge always seems to be an afterthought.

All of this could be dealt with Thane telling you what he loved about her; perhaps the pride he felt because she helped people with her work, not like him, he was just a killer- that she was a good mother; how she liked her tea- just something other than- defiant, wife, murdered.

Fridging aside, we learn that Thane tried to be a family man. In the comic, he flat out states he didn’t know how to be a husband or a father, but did it anyway. When he asks Shepard for help finding his son, we see he starts to contradict himself:

My body is blessed with the skills to take life. I didn't want that life for Kolyat. I hoped he would find his own way. If he hated me, so be it. He would not have shared the path of sin.

He calls it sin, his life. Gone is the “it was a honour, Shepard” defence and in its place is a man who knows the paths he walked down were dark:

I'm trying to make it brighter before I die.

The loyalty mission hinges on finding Kolyat so his son doesn’t make the same mistake. What’s interesting here is two things introduced to underpin this. The use of Captain Bailey, who looks the other way to help because he sees a parent who gives a damn and knows what estranged father feels like, and Mouse.

Mouse the drala’fa, the forgotten duct rat. Mouse who Thane gave chocolate to, but not Kolyat. Mouse who he took a photo of. Mouse who he used for his wetwork, to spy on his targets. Mouse, who is more observant than he lets on:

Whenever you talked about your kid, your eyes got like that. Like they was someplace else. Sad. He had that holo you took of me, you know. That's how [Kolyat] proved who he was. But when he turned it on, his eyes got like yours do.

Interestingly with Thane, I find the Renegade options reveal meatier options (and snarkier responses.) It’s through Renegade Thane begs Kolyat that he knows no other life:

I was six when the hanar began to train me. I didn't know any better. Your mother woke me from my battle sleep.

That’s him admitting it was a hard life, a life no child should have. There’s no honour of the Compact there, but a lonely man trying to reach out to his son to not make the same mistakes he did.

If the mission is a success and you slap/shoot Kolyat, Thane tells you about Irikah (in an offhand manner I take issue with, as mentioned.) But the main takeaway I get from this conversation with Shepard is this:

It is difficult. All things worth keeping are.

That’s him realising his mistakes, and having some semblance of hope for the future. The last conversation you have before the last mission, no matter if you romanced him or not, is Thane telling you he walked to his death with open eyes. That when you met him snapping necks in Dantius Towers, it was his last target, because he knew without Shepard there, he would’ve died.

If you fail the loyalty mission, Thane walks to his death again, because taking bad is not that same creating good, and that:

Entropy always wins.

If you romance him, you know he’s now terrified he’s woken from his battle sleep and had a reason to live again (Kolyat, Siha) only to have the ticking time bomb in his lungs and the Collectors remind him what little time he has left:

[I will] take the time left given and praise all I know for allowing me to walk my final days with hope and certainty that I am worthy of more than my cold isolation, solely because you believed.

So Mass Effect three happens; Thane is a bit of an afterthought here. From a cold logistical gaming writer POV, I can see why it happened, but it still sucked to endure if you: 1) romanced Thane and 2) actually liked the character.

The writers seemed that take the letter to a romanced Shepard from the Shadow Broker dossier and used it to shape Thane’s narrative for the third game, as well as for the Citadel DLC. Kepral’s isn’t magically cured in the space of six months; no space magic happens for Thane to return to the Normandy and be at your side again.

If I’m honest, I like this aspect of his story; Thane Mod exists for those that do not. In my opinion, death has always shaped his character; it is his constant companion, still.

The reunion you have as a romanced Shepard is very much him “letting you go,” in some ways. After apparently getting it on in a hospital (classy, Shep- classy) the second conversation is him telling you that:

Live well with the time you have. Perhaps we shall see each other again.

No tu fira here yet, that comes later. To fit in with the narrative of the DLC, you can perhaps argue he’s keeping himself out your way as his sickness is worse than he’s letting on. Thane knows Shepard’s role in the Reaper war is important; he would only hold them back.

Which of course means that the game codes you as single there after, and you can’t tell Vega to get jumped when he’s all flirty, or brush off other advances.

Cerberus coup time, and Captain Cutscene (aka Kai Leng and his silly sword) is here. Thane goes out in the way he wanted; not coughing in a hospital bed, but trying to do some good saving a Councillor.

Thane is at least given a goodbye here; he dies with his son and either his Siha or his “only friend” by his side. He prays for you, not him. He wants the last thing he hears to be Shepard’s prayer, not his.

No one in the game recognises the sacrifice, and you need to buy a DLC to be allowed to grieve. When Garrus stands by the memorial wall to talk about the Virmire survivor -if they died, if they didn’t- Thane isn’t mentioned. All the headcanon in the world can create a reason why, but it’s still a dick move from the writers.

The DLC memorial scene is interesting. It has a stilted, awkward Kolyat not understanding why he has to have it (which, for a race built on memories, is hilarious, and I head canon that some drell don’t see the point of memorials, since they never forget anyway.)

Even if you don’t romance him, he sends vidmails to you, his only friend. You know he tried to reach out for you, but circumstances meant you couldn’t connect.

The main interesting thing I take from the funeral scene, is that the Council want to make Thane a recognisable hero. Thane Krios’s name would be associated forever with an act of good, not his “path of sin” as an assassin. He became his wife, defiant in the sight a scope. Or rather, a Cerberus sword.

So, to summarize: Thane Krios- death becomes him, death defines him; in his sacrifice, he will be remembered as a hero, not as a villain: Your mission gave me purpose. A cause to die for. A chance to atone. I was able to speak to my son again. I can leave my body in peace.

NOTE: Despite someone who has so far written a fanfic about Kolyat and has a lot of thoughts about sassy lizards, I’ve been very quiet on Thane/Kolyat’s dynamic in this little essay. It’s an interesting one to talk about, but it deserves its own separate post, which I’ll get around to at some point.

#thane krios #I have feels about him #sad murder lizard #not quite character critical but maybe?#writer critical though holy shit #mass effect

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edge-lorde · 7 years

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I want to content create but I won’t have much time tomorrow probably so I think I’ll rate every Neanderthal based piece of popular media I remember consuming.

Parameters ARE: 1) believability. writers love to give Neanderthals special abilities that no real animals have ever ever had. These once-living creatures absolutely would not have had the ability being ascribed.

2) characterization. The Neanderthals are written as real characters and not like a monolith or like a one-dimensional movie monster.

3) hybrids. Neanderthal/modern human hybridization plays an important role in the story.

4) interspecies sex. Almost always linked to #3. a higher score in this category or #3 does not necessarily indicate a greater quality piece of media. in fact, i personally dont prefer a lot of sexual content in the media i consume. however, these concepts show up so often in neanderthal stuff, its basically part of the genre.

5) accuracy. The attempt to accurately portray how Neanderthals and modern humans are different, and the quality of it’s execution.

1st up: clan of the cave bear by Jean M. Auel.

Brief summary: a modern human girl is found and raised by neanderthals.

Believability: 5. Book was obviously well researched, but was published in the 60’s and a lot has changed since then. Also they can remember the their ancestors memories. they also have limited ability to learn new things and life in strictly hierarchical societies based around biological sex, and have a universal language they are all born knowing.

Characterization: 9. 99% of characters are Neanderthals.

Hybrids: 8. Birth of hybrid baby very important to story.

Interspecies sex: 2. warning, non-graphic description of rape. Modern human/modern human Sex plays huge role in second book in series, hybrids/ interspecies sex was discussed also but never happened. Did not read past second book because of the sheer quantity of porn, but very little of that was in the first book.

Accuracy: 6. Does good job of differentiating Neanderthals from modern humans but once again, the science has changed since the book was published.

Neanderthal by John darton

Brief summary: scientists find secret location where neanderthals have survived to the modern day, journey to the center of the earth style.

Believability: 2. They are psychic and can see through each other’s eyes. Characterization: 3. The Neanderthal characters don’t speak/ are more allegories for the progression of man or some shit.

Hybrids: 0. No mention or implication of hybrids.

Interspecies sex: 1. One iffy scene.

Accuracy: 4. Good differentiation between modern humans and Neanderthals. Good criptid vibe. But is it accurate? Hard to say.

Neanderthal parallax series by Robert j. Sawyer

Brief summary: neanderthal quantum physicist from an alternate universe where neanderthals survived and we did not falls through a portal to our world.

Believability: 4. They all supposedly see the most logical solution to a problem and just do it without making mistakes, because they just do. Also they're immune to the Pavlov’s dog learning test thing in psychology so they can all be atheists and it effects them in no other way. Come on now.

Characterization: 9. Many Neanderthal characters written as individual people.

Hybrids: 7. the conceiving of a hybrid child very important to last book.

Interspecies sex: 6. One sex scene in the second book, because there had to be one apparently. 4-6 more that are fade to black.

Accuracy: 4. You can tell the author did a lot of cursory googling, but large swaths of plot are based on incorrect assumptions. The author comes up with cool mechanics based on googleable theories, but the full implications of them are always half-baked.

The goblin reservation by Clifford d. Simak.

Brief summary: future college professor must solve mystery surrounding a dying alien planet in a sci-fi + fantasy setting. involves time travel.

Believability: 10. No fantastical powers ascribed.

Characterization: 10. There is one Neanderthal character in the book and he’s the best character in the book. Love him. Hybrids: 0. No mention or implication of hybrids.

Interspecies sex: 0. No mention or implication.

Accuracy: 5. The one Neanderthal character is treated as a character first and well written. However, it’s doubtful that the author put much effort into accuracy because the only differences between the Neanderthal and the other characters seem to be cultural. But the book was also published in the 60’s and he still holds up as a character, so maybe that’s a good thing. Could be accurate.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!! The secrets of the immortal Nicolas flamel series by Michael Scott

Brief summary: a set of teen twins get caught up in saving the world from ancient mythological gods and shit. there are immortal humans too. sorry i remember very little of the overarching plot, but damn that twist ending.

Believability: 10. There’s magic in this series but Neanderthals don’t have it by virtue of being Neanderthals.

Characterization: 10. It is revealed in the end of the last book that the main teen boy in the series was a Neanderthal the entire time. There was zero indication of this before hand, so he is written as well as any main character in a teen fantasy novel.

Hybrids: 1?. It’s implied that Neanderthals are as much human/were absorbed into the modern human population eventually, but it’s pretty irrelevant to the story.

Interspecies sex: 1. Implied the way hybrids are implied. I don’t think the kid ever even had a girlfriend throughout the series either.

Accuracy: 2. no indication the author even knew Neanderthals are supposed to look a little different. The kid ends up being immortal and legendary, all kinds of crazy time powers and shit, all of it having more to do with being human than homo neanderthalensis. Being a Neanderthal is inconsequential to his being a normal angsty teen, legendary hero, and literal god. i doubt any neanderthal research was done, or at least it was not taken into account when writing the character.

Hominids by Jordan kotzebue (webcomic).

Brief summary: all species of hominids live in a jungle together. maybe the doing of sci-fi stuff? :o

Believability: 9. Neanderthals don't seem to have any special abilities. We will see what the sci-fi genre has to offer once the comic is finished..

Characterization: 8. Many Neanderthal characters, but writing isn't as strong as it could be in general.

Hybrids: 8. Hybrid pregnancy. We will see how it pans out, once again the comic is ongoing.

Interspecies sex: 5. Definitely happens at least once, but not an explicit comic (no porn). we will see if its important to the plot later on.

Accuracy: 8. Major differences between Neanderthals and modern humans are cultural. Also Neanderthals are drawn with waists. Experts agree that they were shaped like little barrels. does go out of its way to include other types of hominids though, so its a little educational.

and last but not least Neander-chan by Lemniskate on deviantart

Brief summary: neanderthal girl falls in love with modern human boy and attempts to stop their clans from killing each other. looks like the whole thing stemmed from a simple pun.

Believability: 8. they arent ascribed any wild abilities that couldnt also be ascribed to modern humans in the story. i dont think a ton of research was done though.

Characterization: 9. many neanderthal characters with differing personalities.

Hybrids: 2. definitely implied/foreshadowed as a thing that COULD happen should the story continue, however the comic might be complete as-is.

Interspecies sex: 7. definitely happens and is important to the story, but the comic is never explicit.

Accuracy: 5. has a bit of modern humans killing off neanderthals narrative, but the story is not designed to educate. the neanderthals could be replaced with a rival group of modern humans and the story wouldnt change.

neanderthal media i am aware of but have yet to consume:

the kroods (film): gotta get in on that nic cage action.

The Ugly Little Boy: originally a short story by Isaac Asimov, later expanded with collaborator Robert Silverberg. time travellers take a neanderthal boy away from his family to the present but he has to stay in a specialized room by himself all the time i think. gotta get in on that shit but could not find at library.

if you are aware of any other neanderthal-based media not listed anywhere in the above text please contact me at http://edge-lorde.tumblr.com/ask

thank you

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gloriousgwendolinechristie · 7 years

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Recap: "Game of Thrones" - 7.02 'Stormborn'

Be a Dragon.

EW – Game of Thrones delivered on its promised faster pace of season 7 with an episode so crammed with major events, reunions, a riveting battle, deaths, and twists that it almost played like a season finale — yet this is only episode 2! After last week’s foreboding and stately premiere, “Stormborn” floored the narrative pedal, with nearly every scene delivering some kind of major consequence for our characters, setting the stage for a cross-section of battles and major power-player meet-ups. We start with:

Dragonstone: It was, quite literally, a dark and stormy night. Daenerys unexpectedly grills Varys about his loyalty because, let’s face it, on paper, his resume admittedly doesn’t sound very reassuring. That he’s a far bigger fan of King Robert than he was of her father doesn’t help either. “Incompetence should not be rewarded with blind loyalty,” shoots back Varys, in what sounds like a rare bit of modern political commentary from GoT. “You wish to know where my true loyalties lie?” he continues. “The people.” Tough to argue with that, and Dany doesn’t — though also threatens to burn him alive if he ever betrays her.

Hey, speaking of burning people alive, here’s Melisandre! She was last seen banished by Jon Snow and told to head south for killing Shireen. She went south all right, straight back to her former home that she used to share with Stannis Baratheon. I wonder if she still has some clothes there she wants to pick up.

The Red Woman is brought before Dany. She fills her in on the prophecy of Azor Ahai — a messianic figure in her Lord of Light religion; lived thousands of years ago, forged a flaming sword which he used to defeat evil; he’s prophesied to be reborn as the Prince That Was Promised, etc. etc.

Or perhaps it’s Princess That Was Promised? Experienced translator Missandei corrects Melisandre’s prophecy description.

Melisandre explains she thought Stannis was The One. Then she thought it might be Jon Snow. Now she’s not ruling out Dany either. For being some powerful Lord of Light sorcerer, Melisandre’s less confident in her Azor Ahai theory than most Game of Thrones fan blogs. Not to mention, Stannis would be so pissed if he died because of a grammar mistake.

Matchmaker Melisandre successfully gets Dany’s curiosity up about Jon Snow. Tyrion notes that he’s a decent man. She has Tyrion pen a letter to the King in the North requesting to see him and ordering him to “bend the knee” (and the Jon-Dany shippers lean forward). As much as I’d love to see Dany and Jon Snow meet, anything that Melisandre suggests based on prophecy I’m inherently wary about.

Winterfell: But not as wary as Sansa! Jon gets Tyrion’s letter — yeah, just like that. I’m pretty sure Westeros is now using FedEx instead of birds. There’s a subset of fans who always pay very strict attention to how much time characters should realistically take to get from one place to another (they’re still annoyed about Varys getting from Dorne to Meereen so fast last year). But if you try to apply your own Waze travel time estimates to characters in Westeros you’re going to go nuts. It’s probably best to just roll with it and appreciate that we’re not seeing a lot of horse-riding and campfire scenes this season.

Jon talks to Sansa about whether he should go and see her. Sansa says he shouldn’t do it, because Sansa is wrong about everything now (I kid — if we didn’t know Dany, we’d be rather wary about meeting her too; after all the fatal Stark blunders in recent years, “pulling a Stark” is probably Westeros slang for getting yourself stupid-killed).

At first, Jon is talked out of going. But then he gets another r-mail, this from Samwell, informing him that tons of precious dragonglass can be found at Dragonstone (which sounds like one of those facts that you hear and immediately feel stupid for not knowing it already).

Given the chances of scoring loads of White Walker kryptonite, Jon tells the lords in the Great Hall his plan to meet Dany. Everybody hates this idea, especially Sansa, who channels Admiral Ackbar to trap-warn him. Even cute Lyanna Mormont, who everybody loves every time she speaks, yells at Jon for knowing nothing.

Jon won’t be swayed. Frankly, he probably wants to get the hell out of there and have some new adventures anyway. He’s been looking miserable moping around Winterfell making tough political decisions while Sansa explains how stupid he is.

He does leave Sansa in charge, though, which seems to please her. One suspects this decision disappoints all the lord-bros who hang around that hall drinking all day because you know she’s going to make some changes around there.

Before he goes, Jon pays a visit to the family crypt. In slinks Littlefinger, who starts purring sweet nothings in Jon’s ear, and you can see him getting increasingly annoyed. Don’t think for a second Jon hasn’t noticed the conniving twerp’s smirking and eye-rolling in the back of his class.

Then Littlefinger creepily goes, “I love Sansa as I loved her mother,” which triggers the protective big brother in Jon to slam Baelish up against the wall and warn him to never touch his sister. Now it’s the Jon-Sansa shippers who lean forward (you pervs).

Jon Snow mounts up and takes off. We’re not sure if he’s ever going to see Winterfell again. But we’re confident now that Jon will meet the Dragon Queen who is also — we are led to assume from last season’s Bran-guided flashbacks — his aunt. This seems pretty important. Can’t Bran send Jon a letter since everybody else is sending him letters?

The Citadel: Ser Jorah isn’t doing so well. His greyscale has spread and the maesters aren’t very helpful. Sam tries to convince the grumpy Arch-Maester to let him try some radical treatment, but he won’t approve anything without several phases of successful FDA trials and suggests Ser Jorah just go kill himself. He explains this along with a bunch of facts and logical reasoning but I’m really starting to hate this guy despite being played by congenial Jim Broadbent; he’s like the epitome of an Ivory Tower out-of-touch elite.

Sam tries to cure Ser Jorah anyway because he’s awesome and believes in actually trying to do things. What follows is one of the grossest scenes in Game of Thrones, which is saying quite a bit. Sam peels off the greyscale with a knife in a procedure that looks super painful and pus-squirting disgusting. (I wonder why Sam doesn’t give the man some Milk of the Poppy; surely they have some of that laying around?) Sam finishes, but it’s unclear if this experimental Dr. House M.D-evil operation was successful. Perhaps every episode this season will have Sam tacklin some new revolting task, like a Westeros edition of Dirty Jobs.

Riverlands: Arya stops by a tavern and runs into a character we never expected to see again — Hot Pie! He’s arguably the luckiest person on the show. Everybody else is scheming and plotting and fighting and dying, while Hot Pie just continues riding out the action and making his meat-filled pastries You would think this is the last dish Arya would crave after chopping up Freys and baking them into a pie herself, but hey, a girl’s gotta eat.

Hot Pie also has a side gig as a Game of Thrones recapper, and he fills Arya in on seasons 2 through 6 (he does a decent job, though I would have thrown in Tyrion’s trial and Oberyn Martell’s arc because those parts were really cool). Arya is unsurprised about Cersei’s season finale mass-murder plot, while Hot Pie marvels at Arya, who’s now all hardened and gulping wine. “You’re pretty,” he coos, and Arya looks slightly struck; she’s not used to getting compliments.

But it’s learning that Jon Snow is back at Winterfell that really throws Arya for a loop. You can see her brain-gears turning: Hmm, murder Cersei or return to my home and reunite with my family after being kept apart for years? … That’s a toughie.

Later, Arya is accosted by wolves, but not just any wolves. Is it…? It is. Nymeria! Her long-lost direwolf who bit Joffrey that she was forced to chase off in the first season. They regard each other. “I’m finally going home; come with me,” she pleads. But Nymeria just looks at her impassively like a dog at a human who doesn’t have any snacks. Nymeria and her pack turn away.

“That’s not you…” Arya says, which is such a great line. Because the direwolf is Nymeria (and Arya knows it) but it’s also very much not Nymeria, because so much time has passed and the direwolf has changed so much. So has Arya, as we just saw in the scene with Hot Pie. The scene not only answers a long-time fan question but, even better, is used as a metaphorical mirror for Arya. As the episode’s writer Bryan Cogman says in this week’s interview with Williams about this scene, “they’re both lone wolves” (interview links are at the end of the recap).

So Arya continues her journey home. You know if she actually makes it to Winterfell, she’s going to be super pissed if Jon is gone and she’s stuck with Sansa.

King’s Landing: Cersei summons her lords for something she’s not typically very good at: trying to win people over that she considers beneath her. It’s a bit like Hillary Clinton trying to hang out with local voters in a swing state diner; this isn’t really her thing. Present are Randyll and Dickon Tarly — Samwell’s jerk father and his sorta-okay brother — whom we first met last season (Dickon was recast, by the way: Freddie Stroma played him in season 6; Tom Hopper stepped in for season 7). I love that Jaime mistakes Dickon’s name for Rickon, as if even Jaime Lannister have a tough time keeping all these damn character names straight.

Cersei smartly brands Daenerys as the return of homicidal Targaryen crazy, just like ol’ Mad King Aerys II. Sure Dany’s got a huge army and three dragons, but she’s also nuts and will kill everybody if they don’t stand up to her. Cersei is basically doing a negative campaign ad: Vote Lannister or the Targaryen Will Burn You Alive. Of course, Dany hasn’t hurt anybody in Westeros (yet) while Cersei blew up a Sept full of church-goers and her daughter-in-law. If anybody has been playing the role of Mad Queen around these parts, it sure ain’t Dany.

Mad scientist Qyburn takes Cersei down into the dragon skull room. This gorgeous set is a terrific treat for readers of George R.R. Martin’s novels. This room is described in detail in the very first A Song of Ice and Fire book, A Game of Thrones. The show didn’t have the budget to portray this in the first season, but it does now.

Qyburn reveals they have a dragon-killing secret weapon, a large spear-firing crossbow-like device that, if aimed just right, can pierce through a dragon’s eye into its brain — sorta like how that guy in the disappointing Hobbit trilogy took out Smaug. Cersei just found a way to potentially even the playing field.

Dragonstone: Daenerys has a strategy meeting with her advisors, the Greyjoys, Olenna, and Ellaria Sand. Hot-headed Ellaria wants to wipe out Cersei in King’s Landing, but Tyrion has warned against that strategy. He’s thinking that sending dragons to nuke a city probably isn’t the wisest course of action to rally the great houses to their side, and Dany agrees.

Instead, this is the idea: Strike the Lannister stronghold of Casterly Rock with the Unsullied and Dothraki army, thereby seizing Cersei’s homeland while she’s holed up in the Southern capital. Also, send the Greyjoys and Ellaria to lay siege to King’s Landing to starve out Cersei into surrendering (thereby avoiding the apparently lousy PR optics of having “foreign” forces attack the capital).

This sounds like great plan! Too bad it all goes to hell in just a few minutes. But great!

Olenna and Dany share a nifty scene together where she warns the queen against putting too much faith in clever men like Tyrion. “Commoners won’t obey you unless they fear you,” she warns. “The lords of Westeros are sheep. Are you a sheep? No. You’re a dragon. Be a dragon.” Olenna is an upper-crust blue-blood who believes you need to govern with strong-arm tactics and crush your enemies at any cost. Dany is trying to break the wheel as a reformist. But Sansa would totally retweet everything Olenna is saying.

As Tyrion said, Dany in “the great game” now. But the same could be said for nearly all our favorites. After six seasons of watching characters try to rule — and fail miserably — the core cast have gradually all stepped up into leadership roles to make the big decisions. We wonder if they’ve learned the right lessons.

Meanwhile, Missandei and Grey Worm might never see each other again. This leads to an extremely touching scene whereby stern Grey Worm finally opens up emotionally to Missandei about his feelings for her. “You are my weakness,” he says. Missandei appreciates that, but also wants more than nice words — she wants to get physical. The Unsullied commander is hesitant. This is like being asked to joust without a lance, so to speak. But he overcomes his shyness to lay with her. As Nathalie Emmanuel says in our interview, “amongst this chaos they’re like this beacon of something sweet and pure and beautiful.” We hope they are as satisfied as they can be given the limitations involved.

Greyjoy Ship at Sea: We get a moment with the Sand Snakes bragging about who they’re going to kill. This moment plays a lot better after you know what’s about to happen. Then it’s Ellaria and Yara flirting in a cabin. Theon tries to leave, but Ellaria wants to make him stand there and watch. Poor Theon, everybody always wants him to be an awkward voyeur for some reason.

Then… disaster. Euron has found them. What follows is a thrilling sequence from director Mark Mylod. One of my favorite things about GoT action scenes is they’re always unique from one another; this frantic fiery ship battle plays like nothing we’ve seen on the show before. The energy feels like a reflection of Euron, who gets one helluva entrance: His ship The Silence pierces the side of the Greyjoys’ vessel, then a manic screaming Euron rides its jaw-like walkway that clamps down on the ship, both preventing the ship from escaping and providing a way to board.

It’s apparent from the outset that the Greyjoys are being overrun. Euron is a bloody nightmare of psychotic rage-joy. Ellaria and her daughter Tyene are captured below decks, and Ellaria’s request for death is denied while Obara and Nymeria fight Euron (yes, the Sand Snake played by Jessica Henwick is named Nymeria… only Game of Thrones would have two characters with pivotal sequences in the same episode who are both named Nymeria).

Their fight is raw and brutal, with Euron turning their signature weapons against each other, piercing Obara with her spear while strangling Nymeria with her whip. Two of the three Sand Snakes are down, their bodies left to decorate the ship.

Euron also captures Yara despite her Glow-like flying pro-wrestling leap down on top of him. Theon spots them, and Euron tries to bait him into attacking. Euron has no fear. Theon is full of fear. Hot Pie and Nymeria the direwolf aren’t the only long-lost characters to return this week. Reek is back. And Reek does what Reek does — he flees, jumping over the side. Yara is heartbroken at the betrayal. But it was probably Theon’s wisest move given Euron’s fighting skills. Theon rushing at Euron would totally be pulling a Stark.

Recap: “Game of Thrones” – 7.02 ‘Stormborn’ was originally published on Glorious Gwendoline

#gwendoline christie #game of thrones #got cast #Brienne of Tarth #star wars #Captain Phasma #The Force Awakens #Mockingjay 2 #Commander Lyme #THG #The Hunger Game

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ooc-but-stylish · 7 years

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iprinny

“There’s a lot that gets me about the love story in FFXV and how it…”

Im super curious to know what your thoughts are on that absurdity with prompto’s “dramatic reveal” in chapter 13

Hoo boy. My opinion about the “dramatic reveal” is pretty much my opinion on the whole game, which is

“Good plot, terrible execution”

Prompto was an MT? Neat. However,

it should have happened earlier

it should’ve been resolved earlier

it should have had a bit more foreshadowing if it was going to be dragged out to Chapter 13 of all things.

With regards to the actual scene, my first impressions were “Damn, Prompto looks good for a guy that fell off a moving train and got tortured!” then “Oh, oh shit, this is the twist– Prompto’s gonna strangle the shit out of Noct, isn’t he? He’s right there–” and finally “…. Oh.”

The game has Prompto like “Oh, I’ve been tortured for a while in this dungeon, also I wanna tell you guys I’m a Nif/MT”(1) and the bros are like “Ok so? That doesn’t change anything. We still care about you.” which matches more the reaction parents should have when their kid comes out of the closet than anything else. One of their own revealed themselves to be part of the same army that, like, has been attacking them relentlessly on the World Map every 15 minutes ( and interrupting the important dialogue we’ll never hear again ). You know the reaction Wakka had about Rikku being Al Bhed? Yeah. I was expecting that, most likely from Gladio. But they’ve known each other since they were kids, more or less, and those of us who have played the game, regardless of whether we did or didn’t see Brotherhood or the extra media, have likely already seen proof of their unwavering friendship toward each other even in portions of the game where it wouldn’t even make much sense for them all to still be cool.(2) So this… is a waste. It reinforced what we already knew. It served no purpose except to reveal a plot-convenient serial code on his wrist to help them escape, and it raised more questions.

MTs are made from daemons made from Starscourged humans, and Niflheim would need a lot of humans, so they started making clones and infecting them. Prompto is supposedly one of them, but escaped when he was super young and adopted into the Argentum family. Okay, so who got him out of that lab? Why did he still have “no parents” in Brotherhood? Who were his parents? Were they natives to Insomnia? How did he get a nice place to live in and not end up in the outskirts/slum parts of Lucis on account of his being a foreigner? If he got a serial code imprinted when he was a baby, wouldn’t it have deformed as he grew up? How did it maintain its shape? Was the barcode the same size throughout his life? Why isn’t he wearing light-resistant armor, like the other MTs? This is stuff we’d have to read the Wiki or the strategy guide about, except I’m still asking these questions, so the answers exist nowhere. Even to this day. And people still have theories on whether the Naga in the beginning of the game ( the one that kidnapped Prompto and cried about her baby ) was actually Prompto’s mother. That’s fucked up storytelling, not because they did it on purpose, but because they didn’t.

The reveal happens and is resolved so quickly, no one has the time to process anything. A lot of this game is pretty much “Here’s this earth-shattering detail! Let us never speak of it again”.

Like, yeah, Noct is broken up he attacked Prompto and knocked him off the train, but did he process the part where he said everything was Prom’s fault and demanding that Prom stop following him around? Right to his face?

Did no one stop to think that Ardyn being able to make himself look like another person means that there’s 0 chance any of them would know for certain that their allies were their allies? Wouldn’t they be in an intensely paranoid state, questioning each other on stuff the “real” them would know about? How do any of them know Ardyn isn’t still right there, hiding in plain sight?

Details that would have worked as foreshadowing for Prompto’s reveal, instead of Ardyn dropping eleventh hour infodumps on Niflheim’s army allowing for post-hoc bullshit:

The constant Magitek encounters come specifically from the Nifs geotracking Prompto’s barcode. The party actually brings up the frequency of these attacks, but Prompto is hesitant to say anything.

None of the Magiteks attack Prompto, focusing on the other three in the party instead of “one of their own”. Possibly dumb luck, and saves every gamer the trouble of Prompto always dying first somehow.

Increased frequency of goofy Ardyn selfies and creepy Prompto pictures on any day Ardyn is with the party.

Instead of Ardyn’s “stitch in time” thing that is never explained again, and Ardyn’s immortality just being the Astrals going “Ew, cooties” and banning him from the Beyond to inflict him on the living, have this: the way 'Ardyn’ appears and disappears is by body-hopping from one Starscourge-afflicted/daemonified person to another. Some individuals are more receptive to him than others based on how far along they are in their daemonification or MT experiments. So why was he on that train, in the place of Prompto? Because something inside Prompto allowed him to be there ( enough to alter his looks but not his speech patterns ). He could drop that particular bomb in Ch 12 before telling Noctis that Prompto is in Gralea.

Ardyn’s immortality comes from the fact that when he ‘dies’, he just manifests in the next likely person to host him or maybe someone of his choosing if he wants. That adds the drama of Ardyn not really ever being dead for good, and the possibility that he could take over Prompto in his next life if he felt like it. That’s a better justification for “You have to kill this dude, then kill yourself, then kill him again” than “Because the gods said so”.

TLDR the Prompto reveal sucked ass.

(1) Let me get this out: Fuck This Game. The localization sucks in its consistency by language. Bahamut is either the Draconian or the Aetherian. Ardyn could have either vaguely “known” Gentiana died, or personally had a hand in killing her. Izunia is either a relative of Ardyn, and Noctis’s ancestor, or is a completely random name Ardyn made up that he forgot the origins of. The Japanese version of the game, rather than hinting that Prompto is an MT, has sections where Ardyn instead taunts Noctis about “Did you know he’s originally from this city?”, and when Prompto reveals it to the group he says “I’m a person of Niflheim”. Even the JP VA confirmed it. So whether or not Prompto is even a Magitek is dependent on language of the game. I can understand that they were trying to go for, but they should have been consistent. Must have been something to do with the constant rewrites of the plot.

(2) Fuck This Game Part Duh: No, seriously. It tried to eat its cake and still have it, and I’ll tell you why. The game doesn’t actually give a shit about your choices. It wants its narrative both ways, telling us that Noctis in particular has certain “fixed” character traits but giving us a choice to make him another way in his dialogue options typical of Western RPGs which have “blank slate” characters. Using both methods and no lasting plot divergences to support those choices beyond the immediate cutscene makes it so that the dialogue options have no impact on the story or make sense, suggesting you play it “Square’s way” or else the game ignores your choices, which is fundamentally not how open world western RPGs work.

A playthrough in which Noctis acts like a total jerk to Prompto and dismissing him every chance he gets will still result in Prom wanting to hear from Noct that he cared about his well being, as well as Prom expressing sadness that Noct will die.

A playthrough where Noctis puts only platonic or indifferent notes into the book he sends to Luna will still result in the scenes in Chapter 9 where he sheds a tear at her speech, laments that he wanted to save her, and then is quiet rather than impassioned and vengeful, even though he summoned Ramuh and busted a base to rescue the Regalia and to get revenge for Jared of all people.

A playthrough where the Altissian woman interrogates Noctis and Noctis answers by straight-up fucking metagaming and showing more understanding of the lore of the story than he’s ever been told and treating her with respect should count as “gaining her implicit trust”, but we still see a scene where Luna is sitting in the chair across from the Altissian woman and Imperial forces come in and surround Luna anyway, meaning the Altissian lady sold them out.

A playthrough where Noctis only ever responds maturely to Gladio, and his conversations with others have the options for him to act like a leader and the King he’s meant to be, will still result in Gladio chewing him out unnecessarily while the game clunkily tells us Noctis “is a spoiled brat/selfish”, “is being immature” and was “moping for weeks” about Luna even though we just saw her death five minutes ago and Noctis is shown to be quiet but otherwise not stalling the quest in any way. We didn’t even see a funeral, or excessive crying or outbursts, or Noctis demanding that everyone focus on his pain and staying in Altissia locked in a hotel room. He’s just quiet on a train.

Chapter 13 of the game is especially awful, when both it and Ardyn insist that Noct is supposed to be some scared, frightened puppy without his weapons when he’s wielding the most canonically powerful item in the game, casually ripping gashes in reality and insta-killing a fortress full of daemons with an anti-daemon ring, and the player is able to ignore most (if not all) stealth mechanics and blitz through that chapter with no penalty.

For those that did the side quests throughout the game, the only trait from gameplay that sticks in the narrative is that Noctis is a passive entity. He’s told to do something, he just does it. Otherwise, no matter what, even if you played the game and had Noctis act like a rude shit and played as if none of the Bros were his Bros, they’re still going to be Bros. They’re still going to care about him, including Prompto. Especially Prompto.

#iprinny #ffxv critical #ffxv negative

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theficdoctor-blog · 7 years

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Creative Writing Do’s and Don’t’s

Warning: This is the Editor in me that’s speaking. It’s going to be harsh, but when you’re writing, harsh is what you need.

My first creative writing instructor gave us an exercise on the first day of my Intro to Creative Writing class. I swear on my life this exercise will improve your writing instantly. If you just want the list, click the “keep reading”. Open a word document. Write down a few genres. Write down some clichés that makes those genres what they are and include a highly-genre’d example with it. Write as many as you can. Here’s a small example to build on:

Romance (Twilight)

The love triangle

“Their tongues battled for dominance”

The inevitable misunderstanding as a final attempt to inject drama before the resolution

Fantasy (Jupiter Ascending)

A highly detailed world/history

The chosen one

A super special important treasure/artifact/prophecy

Mystery (Scooby Doo (the live action movies))

The ”dun dun DUUUUUN” moment

The film noir style

The assistant who contributes just enough to the mystery so the detective can have all the glory and figure everything out in its entirety

Done with your list? Good. Kiss those vapid love triangles goodbye, send your needlessly convoluted history away, and dump the “dun dun DUUUUN” moment. They’re all USELESS until you learn how to properly twist them into something you can stomach. Relying on clichés kills creativity and promotes laziness. This list is highly condensed and should be used as a bare-bones reference.

When you write your stories...

DON’T:

Use clichés.

Unless you can mutate a cliché well enough to make it original (/make it your own), avoid them at all costs. They are writing suicide.

Fall in love with your work.

It’s important to feel pride in your work, but every word, every sentence, every phrase has to earn its keep. If something isn’t helping the story, cut it out; it’s useless and wastes the reader’s (and your) time.

Drench your work in purple prose.

Purple prose and excessive imagery are for prose poetry, not fiction writing. Purple prose doesn’t do anything but stroke your ego. Take, for instance, this sentence: “Luna felt her gasp caress her dainty trachea similarly to how her father cradled her in his strong, loving arms on her blessed and most anticipated day of birth, making her also remember the way, Reggie, her first boyfriend would lovingly embrace her under the moonlit glow and the cherry trees deep in the sticky, heavy summer nights of her teen years.” Chill. If you can’t say a sentence in one breath, it’s not worth keeping. This is an exposition dump. The reader has to drag their feet through it. It slows the narrative down to an agonizing pace. Just say “she gasped.” There’s no shame in using simplistic language if you know how to use it. For instance, gasping is a fast movement. You want the reader to feel the fast movement—that’s why it’s best to just say “she gasped.” She shouldn’t be stuck in a gasp for ten minutes.

Put your first draft on a pedestal.

I don’t care if you’re Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Shakespeare, Karen Russell, or Anne Rice; your first draft is always awful. Edit it, polish it, love it, commit to it. If that sounds like “too much,” then you’re gonna be stuck with writing crap, and I don’t ever wanna hear “I wish I was a better writer,” because I’m telling you right this second that you’ll never improve if you always accept your first draft as gospel.

Dump exposition on the reader.

There’s always going to be at least one writer that forces their character into a soliloquy about how “their entire village was burned down by thieves and murderers, and only they were left standing because their sainted mother tucked them away in a magical tree trunk which was blessed by whatever deity is in charge of this world.” OR, alternatively, “James climbs into Reggie’s window one day while Reggie is working at the coffee shop, finds Reggie’s diary, and reads about how Reggie was tragically in love with his twin sister before his abusive father killed both his twin sister and his mother before his eyes, and that is why Reggie is always so determined to find happiness in everything around him because he can’t bear to think back on the horrors of his past without going into seizures or spasms.” Let things unfold organically and at their own pace. Let characterization tell the story, not your general plan.

Rely on misunderstandings.

I swear that misunderstandings can be a whole sub-genre in itself for how often they’re abused. Usually, misunderstandings are used so James and Reggie will get angry at each other, Luna has to point out that they were both wrong, and James has to run through the airport after Reggie’s train (security be damned) with tears pouring down his cheeks in a desperate attempt to get Reggie back (who also dramatically brushes tears from his eyes) before he flies back to Idontknowwhereizstan for forever.

Focus on death (for the pure enjoyment of making your readers shriek “NOOOO”).

It’s lazy. It skews the stakes of your story, making all the other stakes boring. EVERYONE kills off their characters. No one’s “evil” or funny for doing it. It’s become cliche. Either start a story with death or eradicate it altogether because what’s important is the aftermath—the character development. Never ever focus on death. I don’t care what a saint little Suzie is; she’s not allowed to die from her terminal cancerheartattacklupusitis until you’ve made her human. And even then you’re not allowed to end the story with her dying either—Reggie has to be there at her bedside with the chocolate cake she’s been dreaming about having for six years. And you have to show that aftermath.

Use the same voice for every character and the narrative.

I know it’s very tempting to use the long-winded, intricate tone of The Whimsical Author, but I assure you that giving all your characters and narrative that voice will indeed hammer the final nail into the coffin on your writing career. I don’t care how smart The Author of Whimsy sounds, the Monty Python Babbling is way more interesting and varied. Your characters are ideas. You breathe life into them. They take on life of their own. If you use the same voice for everything, you’re telling your readers you can’t write worth a damn but you know what sounds kinda pretty.

Shove your characters in a corner.

This is one of the most common causes of writer’s block. If you’ve shoved your characters in a corner, you’ve stripped them of their organic movement. Characters will move and function on their own. You have to let them breathe and meander; that’s what will ensure that you’ll get a great story out of them. I don’t care how much you want James to sob and throw himself into Reggie’s arms so Reggie will save him from the school bully and also kiss James. James isn’t that kind of person. James is too prideful.

Use “(s)he felt…”

The best way to kick your reader away from their screen and scream “YOU’RE READING A STORY WRITTEN BY ME, SOMEONE. I EXIST. THESE ARE JUST CHARACTERS. YOU’RE READING SOMETHING FAKE” is to use “(s)he felt,” or “(s)he heard,” or “(s)he smelled.” It’s best to just outright state the feeling, sound, or smell rather than insist the reader see everything through the characters’ eyes. You want to draw the reader in. How can you do that if you constantly remind them they’re scrolling through AO3, trying to find more fics specifically about James and Reggie ignoring the canon and falling into each other’s arms five sentences in? “Heat radiated from his hand,” “The oven timer shrieked,” and “The scent of charcoaled biscuits filled the room” yank the reader into the scene to stand beside the characters and watch them up close.

Rely on adverbs.

The adverb is the lazy writer’s way to generate description. Take, for instance, this sentence: “Reggie scarily placed his hand by James’s head and glared at him.” Yeah, you shoved Reggie’s anger in our faces, and we have no idea what James is doing. Instead: “Reggie smacked his hand against the wall, snatching James’s attention away from Luna.” We don’t even need Reggie’s glare to know he’s mad in this context. This way, we can explore a greater range of emotions by carefully selecting our words based on connotations and speed. Jealousy, panic, varying attentions, varying reading speeds, and so on.

Use the “dun, dun, DUUUUN” moment.

I’m serious about this one. Nothing makes your story quite so flimsy, clichéd, and cartoony as the “dun, dun, DUUUN” moment. I’ve seen this moment plenty of times in workshops, and every time I have to struggle to be nice and say “maybe that makes your story seem a little clichéd. It’d give it more depth if it were open-ended or more realistic.” Don’t get me wrong. These were not incompetent writers by any stretch of the imagination. They just didn’t know what to stay away from sometimes. Writing this infamous moment into your story is the equivalent of euthanizing it and ensuring it looks like Floops’s Fooglies from Spy Kids as it goes down.

Use whatever tense or POV you want whenever you feel like it.

You can absolutely use 2nd person present tense for your story, but realize that, that sort of craft element is best kept to flash fiction-length stories. A reader (unless they’ve read Homestuck) will have a hard time reading 2nd person present tense for 12 chapters. 3rd person is nice and easy. 1st person allows you to cheat your way towards better inner-reflections for characters. Present tense indicates a sense of panic (it disallows moments for reflection). Past tense allows you to take your time. Whatever you decide to tackle, make sure you choose the right tense and point of view and stick to it. You cannot jump to whatever tense you feel like every other paragraph; there has to be a reason.

DO:

Let the characters lead the story

Time and time again I’ve seen writers get frustrated because their characters won’t conform to what they’ve planned. We forget that our characters are not dolls to play with. It’s good—GREAT, even—when your characters create a clear path for themselves! Your character knows their story. Let them guide you through it.

Remember that a writer records their characters, not forces them.

It’s hard to get a story to feel natural, yes, but if you just sit and watch your characters, they’ll tell you what to write. You don’t have to put a ton of brain power into it; it’s instinct. Keep your hands off that steering wheel. Just scribble down exactly how James’s nail taps against the wheel in frustration as Reggie leans his entire upper body out the window to demand the name of that corgi sitting on the sidewalk.

ALWAYS write literary realism.

You’re banned from genres. You have to write literary realism now. Literary realism is a record of characterization and of life progressing naturally. No clichés allowed unless you can spin them. If you can realistically see your character fitting in a Saturday morning cartoon, you’re doing it wrong.

Give your characters idiosyncrasies.

“Idiosyncrasies” boils down to odd habits and gives a lot of character with little effort on your part. This is an example of letting the character lead the story. If you don’t know enough idiosyncrasies off the top of your head, go people-watching. Why do they act the way they act? Why would Reggie cry when presented with chocolate cake? Why would Luna click her car lock button precisely four times every time she leaves it? How does James drink his soda? Why would a chin lift from Reggie make his dog instantly protective?

Be patient.

The tools you have at your disposal are versatile and vast. You have so much more to work with than you know; it’s overwhelming. Take some time and get familiar with your style. Be patient, you’ll get it.

Set deadlines.

It’s hard for me to write every day so I write one chapter every week. You must do this to keep your tools sharp and strong. It also helps to look up writing exercises (specifically from The 3 A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley; obey that word count.)

EDIT. ALWAYS EDIT. ALWAYS. EDIT. ALWAYS.

I can’t stress this enough. I don’t care if that sentence is the best one you’ve ever written. Take it out if it doesn’t help your story. I don’t care how nice the word ‘paraphernalia’ is, your 5-year-old character won’t know how to use it appropriately; it’ll throw off the reader. It’s not gonna make the kid seem smart; it’s gonna stick out like a sore thumb and announce that you have no idea how characterization works. If you’re not gutting and re-gutting your drafts, you’re not doing it right. Sometimes you have to break it down to dust and rebuild in order to make it perfect—in order to make it something you can be proud of.

Remember that every first draft is garbage (don’t worry about it).

If you can’t start your story or chapter, just write garbage (this works for school papers, too). Just write the worst first draft you can. It’s always easier to edit a physical document than it is to write something perfect from the ground up. It’s also a huge time-saver.

Write when you feel inspiration hit (because there’s no guarantee it’ll stay or come back).

Write your story from the final scene all the way back to the beginning if you must. The order doesn’t matter (of course this is why you always edit). You’ll never be in a constant state of inspiration for a scene. Write it while you can. You can adjust it to fit in your story when you get there.

Use active voice (don’t fear the simple sentence).

Passive voice makes the reader drag their feet. Using “Reggie was placed on the bed,” “James was stopped by the door,” and “I’ve been told by Luna that my writing has been lacking punch because taking my time is what I insist on doing so I have the ability to show everyone how annoying it is to read slowly” will absolutely burden your reader. It’s okay to use passive voice when you do want things to slow down (maybe during sensual scenes or silence/drama-heavy moments), but using active voice makes it easier on the reader and picks up the pace. “James placed Reggie on the bed.” “Luna smacked the door in James’s face.” “Luna said my writing lost its punch, but I just wanted to show the active voice’s benefits.”

Start your story at the beginning.

Whenever I open up a story, I scroll past the first few paragraphs because the author spends that long telling me what happened with James’s beloved pet cat he had when he was two and how it coughed up hairballs in his tiny shoes, and it is never mentioned again. Or, the author will spend the entire first chapter dumping all the history of their universe on me, so I’ll have to skip to the next one in order to get started. I don’t need your history in the form of a textbook—I don’t want it like that. I want to see it expressed through the characters. I want James to say, “Reggie, you can’t park your bike there. It’s illegal on west-facing streets” rather than see a full chapter with this kind of detail: “Back in the crisp Fall of 1952, there was a gang of 15-year-old bikers who kept the town soaked in fear. Eddie Haskell, the Two-Faced Town Tattler, was the ring leader, picking off people he saw unfit for the image he had for his town. Always, they’d park their bikes along west streets, facing their handlebars towards the sunset to indicate the day when they’d finally burn the place to the ground. This is why it is illegal to park your bike on west-facing streets.” Sure, it’s interesting, but it’s got nothing to do with Reggie and James, you’re never going to bring it up again, and you’ve wasted a paragraph (These things take up like 5 paragraphs usually). If you wanna talk about Eddie Haskell, then tell the story about Eddie Haskell, but if your story is all about Reggie and James getting over their pride and fessing up to each other, then start it there.

Incorporate the three imperative questions:

What are the stakes? Death? No. Get death out of your mind. Think deeper. What happens if the characters don’t get what they want?

What do these characters want? Ice cream, the world, Reggie. Anything. If you develop proper motive, it won’t matter what they want.

What’s the character’s motive? James wants ice cream because it’s hot out.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve exited out of a fic because I just didn’t care. “James killed Eddie.” Okay. So what? I’m supposed to care because James did something shocking? That’s it? How about: “In a fit of fear, Reggie smacked the offered chocolate ice cream cone from James’s hands. The two stared down at the wasted dessert as Reggie’s mind edged back to reality. James looked to Reggie with eyes filled with worry.”

We’ve got stakes (Reggie’s suffering), wants (James wants to give Reggie something nice and keep him comfortable; Reggie doesn’t want chocolate anywhere near him), and the motive (James and Reggie are friends; they care about each other). Every character needs a want, a drive, and stakes in order to be a decent character—a character worth caring about.

Write flash fiction.

Writing flash fiction (stories varying from 100-800 words in length) has helped me tremendously with cutting out any word, phrase, or concept that doesn’t earn its keep. A flash fiction is not a chapter of something. It is a complete story. A flash fiction is a smack of a story or a blast of fireworks. The reader will only have enough time to feel the burn on their cheek or stare in awe as the fireworks disappear into the night sky. Do not use the “once upon a time” 794 words “the end” structure. Flash fiction doesn’t work like that. You can only write enough to get the idea out and developed. Write lots of flash fiction.

Read flash fiction.

Reading flash fiction (since it’s designed to be short) is easy and fast. Flash fiction is filled to the brim with symbolism and interesting concepts (which is what this specific writing form is for). I recommend snatching up Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories edited by James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka. The longest flash fiction in there is probably just three pages long. The shortest, I believe, is just over half a page.

#This is just a basic overview #dos and donts of creative writing #advice #writing #creative writing #fan fiction #how to #how to write #how to write creatively #how to write fan fiction

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starringemiliaclarke · 7 years

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Recap: "Game of Thrones" - 7.02 'Stormborn'

Be a Dragon.

Or perhaps it’s Princess That Was Promised? Experienced translator Missandei corrects Melisandre’s prophecy description.

So Arya continues her journey home. You know if she actually makes it to Winterfell, she’s going to be super pissed if Jon is gone and she’s stuck with Sansa.

This sounds like great plan! Too bad it all goes to hell in just a few minutes. But great!

Recap: “Game of Thrones” – 7.02 ‘Stormborn’ was originally published on Enchanting Emilia Clarke

#emilia clarke #game of thrones #game of thrones cast #GOT cast #daenerys targaryen #me before you #terminator

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