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bikiniarmorbattledamage · 1 year

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How do you feel about the character design of the spirit from dead by daylight? Her back story implies that her age is high-school or younger and the outfit, if you could call it that, makes no sense with it either. Another game that is fun but feels like it's being ruined by consistently sexist skins for other female characters.

From a more general perspective, the bigger problem with The Spirit, aka Rin Yamaoka, seems to be deliberate under development so that they can employ as many tropes and gimmicks as possible, without doing more than scratching the surface - and the general conflicts of what media is and isn't comfortable with.

Specifically a lot of it seems to be hung up in the idea that while men can be inherently evil or selfish in their violent motivations in infinite ways, women who become horrors generally conform to narrower tropes that almost always portray them as a victim.

If we want to move past this in horror and related genres, we need to not just support fictional women's rights, but also their wrongs.

Rest of the post is below the cut both because it is long, but also because it contains some disturbing imagery - however I think it's worth also just juxtaposing the promotional in-game depiction of The Spirit with the other very Japanese original horror creature in Dead By Daylight... The Oni.

I should also cover, there's probably a whole thesis worth of interesting discussion that could be had about the attempt to import Japanese horror into this game... but I'm really not qualified to speak on that in any meaningful way.

-wincenworks

Looking into it, her backstory makes it very ambiguous since her lair seems to be a house from an era where traditionally unmarried women would live with their parents well after the age of majority.

And the image that accompanies her lore seems to support this:

And if they'd stuck with that, she had the potential to be very cool in the same way that Hisako is. Unfortunately, they did not do the deep dive into that and instead... well.

I can completely understand why people would conclude she is high school or younger since they decided to dive into the Japanese Schoolgirl trope as well:

Which creates a lot of issues with the default design which is less bikini armor and more... she's supposed to be naked but that won't fly so she's got convoluted bindings on instead. I don't think anyone is supposed to fap to it, I think it's supposed to emphasize she was a vulnerable girl who has become a monster due to horrific wrong that was inflicted upon her. There lies the double standard.

Becoming evil due to having evil inflicted upon you is a staple of the horror genre, often in a manner that is very critical of the society it was created in but just as an exploration of potential or imagined evil. However, how its portrayed is often different for male terrors.

For example, Jason Voorhees has the victim of childhood bullying (culminating in being drowned at a school camp) and being raised by a very disturbed parent, he is the manifestation of rage and he looks like a buff blue-collar guy in a hockey mask. But like... he's in a different game so lets look at an example from Dead by Daylight.

Leatherface is, like Rin, both victim and perpetrator. He kills because his family commanded it, because he is scared of what will happen to him and because his life was shaped such he feels he has no choice to in order to keep living. This is what he looks like:

Nothing about this design projects his status as a victim, because for male slashers victimhood is supposed to be the twist, the unbelievable backstory - for female slashers its the rule, and the mandatory backstory.

Men can be the full range from victims to pure evil, women must always be victims who started with good intentions.

-wincenworks

#the spirit #dead by daylight #the oni #the cannibal #leatherface #rin yamaoka #horror #bikini armor #character design #ask #cooking-with-scorpion #commentary #video games #Bikini Armor Battle Damage #BikiniArmorBattleDamage #BABD

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ninja-guy-yo · 1 year

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I'd be more okay with Crystalized being the ending of the ninjas' time as the protagonists if it wrapped up their stories better.

Lloyd's arc about reconciling with Garmadon and unlocking his Oni Form amounted to:

Garmadon having a temper tantrum over Lloyd saying he trusts him too hesitantly ("Can we please discuss this after we defeat the Overlord??" There is no after, this is it)

Garmadon faking his death to make Lloyd go Oni out of rage and grief, only for that to fail because even after warming up to his father and realizing he's not inherently evil for being an Oni, he's still afraid of becoming anything like him

Lloyd yelling at him for faking his death and wasting his time on an arc that went nowhere and didn't contribute to the ending

Them smiling at each other as Garmadon passes him a plank of wood, as the second-to-last characters ever seen in the show

There's mixed signals after they bond in the sewers, even though they're supposed to be on good terms at the end. Is this just what their dynamic is going to be if Garmadon ever shows up again? They care about each other but they constantly argue because their personalities clash, like the movie?

(I saw a post the other day about how this was Lloyd amicably cutting Garmadon out of his life as a toxic influence and I don't.. understand how that's what they took away from this? Scenes like that final one represent the beginning of a relationship, or rebuilding one, not the end. They're literally rebuilding their home. Maybe I didn't read it right...? I wish I was watching the show that fans make it sound like in analyses. It's better than the actual thing)

I wish I had anywhere near as much to say about each of the original four ninja, but they barely had anything to do individually. As soon as Nya's back, any arc Kai and Jay could have had was done. Not because they learned to move on from their grief and overcome their differences, but because they no longer had a reason to be sad. Instead of her brother and boyfriend, Zane is the one to learn about the benefit of grief, but again, because Nya's already back he doesn't have to deal with it when he turns his emotions back on. Zane's time as the Ice Emperor was used as a gag, and him having any issues with it at all was relegated to a book. Cole

The ninja were all crystalized and none of them, technically not even Lloyd, intentionally contributed to the Overlord's final defeat. They destroyed the Golden Weapons because they thought they were about to lose anyway, and Lloyd failed to complete what his arc throughout the season was building up to. It's pure luck that the GWs and the ninjas' powers could transform into a dragon to save Lloyd and destroy the Overlord, and wasn't foreshadowed as a possibility until it happened.

Nya returns through her own willpower, which is great, because even though it undoes her sacrifice in Seabound, she had agency in it instead of the guys making the choice for her! And then she's sidelined for the rest of the season, her powers return, and any consequences from her departure are undone. She doesn't even get to participate in the final battle on the same level as the other ninja. I never wanted or expected her to be gone, but in hindsight, what was the point of her sacrifice or return if she wouldn't have a role in the ending?

Ultimately, the six ninja and Master Wu are staples of the evergreen LEGO Ninjago franchise and removing any of them permanently isn't an option, no matter how many times it's teased. They must've had no idea Crystalized would be the final season when they wrote her sacrifice, so they had to get her return out of the way as quickly as possible to get everything back to normal before the actual arc of the season began. Which just contributes to so much of the season feeling like wasted time, because the prison arc happens as a result of that..

Instead of stories that serve as the characters' and the original Ninjago's swan song, they just did whatever random shenanigans to fill up space, and then ran out of time for the stuff that actually mattered. We know they'll all still be around in Dragons Rising, but with Doc's heavy emphasis on it being a completely new show that you can start without watching Ninjago, I doubt it'll be continuing any plot thread from it, at least not for a while. It isn't like SotFS was, where it's just the old show continuing with a new name and still heavily dependent on the past decade of lore. This is a new show with a new world and new main characters, even if the old ninja are still there to some degree. It's Ninjago: Dragons Rising Season 1, not Ninjago Season 16/17: Dragons Rising

#ninjago #ninjago crystalized #ninjago dragons rising

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thekingofwinterblog · 5 months

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Maybe this is just a flight of fancy - but your post about Kuma just made me think about how One Piece just abandoned it's more dialectical, for a lack of a better word, direction - instead of a tyrant being somebody who in the irony of history leads to revolutionary change, ala Napoleon, Nobunga, Cromwell or even Ghenghis Khann - he instead must be just a martyr - and not a Jesus, because a Jesus turns tables over and is not allways "nice", but just a caricature of some "Nietschean" "slave morality".

This can just be seen with how Luffy more and more turns from the amoral (not imoral) free spirit that never wants to be a hero and just liberates the world by his self consiousnes dominating the stagnatn oppresion, into a generic saviour, destined by literal prophecies that are fulfilled to the T, and not just by the end of history more abstractly - like hell somebody noticed how "the will of D" was basically overshadowed with the Nika stuff - from smiling because you are content and know that history will redeem everything, to just smiling because it is the magic system in a very boring and surface level way...

So yeah, even if my ideas may sound strange I'll finish that I agree - Kuma was kinda changed from a charachter that was introguing into one that may be more sympathic but ultimately less interesting - a mirror to the Gorosei, who were a human yet poignat critique of real politiks turning people into monster, who go against their compasion, that did destroy Ohara even thought they didnt want to out of a twisted "duty", into the saturday morning literal demons that call people "insects" - and as the devil that tortures souls in hell isn't really evil, so isn't an anti-semitic caricature that has a paralyzing stare - as "evil" as King Geedorah or Godzilla, just a rubber monster, not the evil in all our hearts...

Eh, i agree with some, disagree with some of the other things.

One thing i do disagree with, is the idea that the gorosei being pure evil is a problem. It's not, it's only a problem if all of them are the exact same in personality as Saturn.

The problem with Saturn is not the fact that he's pure evil, and like the rest of the celestial dragons he has a god complex, it's that he's boring.

He's just an evil asshole, who is pure evil, and frankly, his actual main purpose seems to be introducing the magic system that his side has hoarded for themselves, so that we'll have had a taste of it by the time the final conflict takes place.

The problem with Saturn is that there isnt much to him. What glimpses we see from the rest of his circle is that the rest of the gorosei have actual real opinions on the world that is in some part based on good intentions, or at least an appeal to the greater good. By contrast Saturn is just a Celestial Dragon with actual power behind him. no more, no less.

and there are ways to make that sort of characters compelling.

the youtuber Lowart, during his retrospective on the archie sonic comic breaks down pretty well how the Brotherhood of guardians from that franchise are quite frankly assholes... but it's the most extreme member of this extreme group, Locke, who is the most compelling character of the bunch, speciffically because he has been molded by his groups century's long ideology into becoming who he is. the logical end result, of a long line of extremism, who believes that the ends justify the means at any cost... and then explores how this completely ruined his, his wife's and his sons lives.

By contrast saturn is just an asshole, who does assholish things, because he is an asshole.

also as for him being an antisemetic charicature, his devil fruit is clearly a gyuki-oni, a demonic, bovine spider monster from japanese legends.

They really do look like that. they have been a part of Japanese folklore LONG before they even knew jews existed.

By sharp contrast, to saturn, while Imu hasnt been fleshed out in full yet, it's very clear that the monarch of the world has a much more distinct personality, with hopes, dreams, and has very distinct reasons to hate the people he/she does... but you also get the sense that Imu is a very lonely individual, who despite hard words, very clearly misses Lili, and seems to see Vivi as some form of getting to do things over again.

In other words, an actual character, as opposed to Saturn's Im fucking evil guys! look at me! im EVIL!!!

No in terms of good and evil, the larger problem is that the world government's opposition has lost as lot of their greyness as the story went on.

Dragon was a man who's actions was portrayed as a lot more grey than Kuma, a man who didnt mind his son becoming a pirate so long as he actually went out to see how the world was for himself, who talked nonchelantly with his subordinate about having brutually toppled a regime in a coup in their quest to destroy the world government.

There was a sense that he was on the right side of this war... but that he had no problems with shedding blood to get the war done.

Now this trait hasnt exactly been removed, but the way the manga portrays Dragon and his faction's actions has. Now rather than a bloody conflict with lots of intentional civil wars, post time skip it's portrayed more by relatively bloodless coups that doesnt kill that many people.

just look at kuma's flashback, where the king of sorbet was removed twice, and came back a third time, all because dragon didnt have him executed the first time.

The fact is, Oda did not need to make this conflict one of black and white, and it didnt have to become that, even as we saw the true, irredeemable evil at the WG's top.

I think the single biggest showcase of what a bad idea this was, is that Oda could have used the revolutionary army's raid on mariejois as a massacre, where they freed the slave, but also put as many world nobles to the sword as possible. as it is, it makes no sense for them not to do so while at the heart of their enemy's homebase, other than that this would have made them look very, very brutal.

and yeah, im not a fan of nika, or how it overshadows The Will of D.

The powerset of gear 5 is actually great, but It did not need some grandiose backstory that connects Luffy directly with the previous great figure.

I disagree though that luffy himself has become some savior hero. On the contrary, luffy's main storyline post timeskip is how he keeps dedicating himself to assassination plots against his political rivals, on his way to become pirate king.

That is the actions of a pirate, not a hero.

The problem is the fact that due to Nika, now he is entangled to become the next joy boy, not due to his own, personal qualities, but instead due to the devil fruit he ate... which is so much less compelling, and in turn makes Whitebeard denouncing Blackbeard as not able to suceed roger despite his name, as much less compelling.

#one piece #meta #saint saturn #monkey d luffy #monkey d dragon #sun god nika #the will of d #questions and answers

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atlanticbones · 8 months

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WARNING:

SPOILERS FOR SAW X

Welp, time to embarrass myself...

Okay, so, two things to bare in mind:

1. This isn't really a legitimate review, just my initial thoughts right after seeing the film.

2. I've never seen a Saw movie in my life up until this point, so my opinion may have been different had I seen the previous movies. All I knew were the premise of the series and a decent idea of who John Kramer is supposed to be.

This movie was fucking great. Up until this point, I've never had much of an incentive to watch a Saw film, I only went to see this one because my friend invited me and I thought why the hell not. Turns out going to see it was the best thing that could have happened. Not only did it drastically improve my mood, but it also gave me an incentive to check out the other films in the series.

First of all, I've always have a soft spot for Red & Blue Oni dynamics, more specifically, when the two of them are allies. Seeing two opposite personalities interact in a friendly manner is always fun to watch. While it's not as pronounced as the likes of Ronnie & Bull (friendly) from NFSMW 2005 or Kaito & Kokichi (unfriendly) from NDRV3, there's definitely a hint of this with Kramer (Blue Oni) and Amanda (Red Oni), with Amanda being more emotional and vengeful and Kramer being more calm and focused on his, shall we say, questionable form of redemption.

5D Chess anime moments are a guilty pleasure of mine. They're ridiculous, but always fun to watch and genuinely exciting when done well. I think you already know where I'm going with this one, so let's just move on.

Again, I haven't seen any of the other Saw movies, so I could've had a different opinion had I seen them, but I found Kramer to be a genuinely lovable guy in this movie. I am well aware that he isn't a good person, after all, removing someone's eyes and snapping their fingers is way too extreme of a punishment for thievery, but most other things he does in this movie is shit that I can support. Him being a father figures to that kid and attempting to save said kid at the cost of his own life was fucking heartwarming.

John Kramer is definitely still a villain, there's no two ways about it, but I like this movie's bad vs bad, lesser of two evils (sort of) dynamic. John Kramer, as an anti-villain extremist who thinks what he's doing is for the greater good, up against Dr Pederson, a genuinely fucked up scumbag. Again, I haven't watched the other Saw movies, so idk if this happened in any of them, but I loved it here. It's a good way of making a fucked up villain like Kramer, more genuinely heroic while keeping him in character.

I also love the (I swear there's a word for it, I just don't know what it is) of the final girl. This trope often involves the killer being a pure evil monster who only wants to kill and hurt people and the final girl being a heroic ultimate good guy. At first it seems like the movie is going with this, with Kramer being unflinching towards the brutality of his traps and being in complete control of a nightmare scenario, whereas Pederson has a friendly demeanour and is usually seen with a sweet smile and when her and her associates are put in the traps, she appears to be encouraging them to beat each trap. But near the end, John Kramer, the murderer with a brutal history, attempts to sacrifice himself to save a random child's life and is a sweetheart towards him, whereas Dr Pederson, turns out to be a selfish prick who's willing to let those close to her die for her own sake (also, let's not even forget her scamming sick and diseased people). As a franchise that revolves around the trope of "who you are in the dark" this is a great way to do its tenth installment.

So yeah, overall, nice film. Sorry if I sounded like a fucking idiot, my media literacy (if that's even the right term) skills aren't that good. I am definitely going to check out the other movies in this franchise cause goddamn!

#saw 10 #saw x (2023)#saw franchise #saw #saw x

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