#but like. it's still possible to have. for example. ramps. if you as a culture value disabled people and their work | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lokiondisneyplus · 3 years

Text

LOKI 4 PRESIDENT! For a narcissist trickster sorcerer with the personality of a praying mantis, there are few occupations in the world that would suit Loki better than president of the United States. A few years ago, in the summer of 2016, comic book writer Christopher Hastings imagined just that in a satirical limited series for Marvel titled Vote Loki.

Five years later, Vote Loki has found its way to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the fifth episode of the Disney+ series, “Journey Into Mystery,” a variant Loki (still played by Tom Hiddleston) appears in the desolate “Void” surrounded by a Mad Max-esque posse. On Loki’s tattered blazer is a red, white, and blue “Loki” button, indicating this Loki was, uh, elected to lead. Turn on the subtitles on Disney+ and you’ll find this Loki is credited as “President Loki.”

In an email to Inverse, Christopher Hastings says he had no idea this was going to happen.

“I found out [they were doing Vote Loki] when a trailer for the show featured the campaign outfit from Vote Loki,” Hastings tells Inverse.

When Inverse exchanged emails with Hastings, it was prior to the episode’s premiere, to which Hastings said he was “very curious to see exactly what from the comic gets into the show.”

“I love time travel and multiverse material,” the writer says in praise of Loki. “I am a big fan of the TVA as a setting. I'm eager to see how it goes, and what it might mean for the next phase of MCU movies, especially since multiverse wackiness seems to be a major part of those upcoming movies.”

In 2004, while a student at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Hastings wrote and illustrated The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, a serial webcomic about a doctor who is also a ninja. The series was a cult hit, at one point attracting 110,000 unique visitors a day. By 2011, Hastings was doing work for Marvel, writing single issues of A+X and Howard the Duck. With Chris Bachalo, he co-created Gwenpool — a bizarre blend of Spider-Man ex-girlfriend Gwen Stacy and Deadpool — and penned the 2016-2018 solo series The Unbelievable Gwenpool, teaming up with Japanese studio Gurihiru to create the character’s deeply unique comedic tone.

But during Gwenpool, Hastings spent the summer of 2016 playing with a different Marvel trickster: Loki. In the four-issue miniseries Vote Loki, Hastings spoofed the chaos that was the 2016 race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In Vote Loki, an ambitious Loki seeks the seat of the president with a very unique campaign strategy: being honest about lying.

With “President Loki” having a minor cameo in the MCU, Inverse caught up with Hastings to look back on his explicitly political riff that took place inside the Marvel Universe.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Take me back to the origins of Vote Loki. When did the seed for the story plant in your mind? What was going on in the world of culture/politics at that time?

Gosh, it's tough to come up with one thing specifically, because we were making the comic by the seat of our pants, and so many things got scrapped and rewritten along the way, often at the last second. But one of the core topics I wanted to cover had to do with narratives versus reality. It's kind of a given that in the world of politics, truth is this malleable thing, and now more than ever all you have to do to make people believe a lie is to repeat it enough times.

I liked the idea of Loki playing with narrative in a way that wasn't necessarily outright lying, more bending. (Except the bit about being born in Maryland. One outright lie there.) The other driving point I wanted to explore was how Americans can have a tendency to incorporate their national-level politics into part of their identity, and what that does to a person, particularly when a character like Loki is the one on the ticket.

What sort of conversations did you have with Marvel about a political satire starring Loki? What was the elevator pitch that got approval?

Like I said, things changed so many times, I'm not even entirely sure how many versions were kind of approved and then scrapped on the way to get to what was actually published. I think it was more that I assured editor Wil Moss that I could jump on the book (which Marvel was determined to make; they just hadn't decided who was writing it when I was pitching) after talking about the stuff about narrative and identity, and the basic idea that the viewpoint character shouldn't actually be Loki but a journalist covering Loki's campaign.

Vote Loki introduced the character of Nisa Contreras. What was the primary inspiration for her?

That would be my real-life friend, Nisa Contreras. She's not a journalist, but she’s someone I'm sure could take down Loki if he were a) real and b) got on her bad side. I wanted the story to be more about witnessing the tension and the comedy of Loki running for president, about not knowing what was up his sleeve. And so I came up with [a] journalist.

Vote Loki was published over the summer of 2016 when the election was ramping up in awkward ways. (“Pokémon Go to the polls!”) Did the real election influence the comic in any way, including any specific moments?

The comic was a direct response to things that were happening during the 2016 campaign, specifically that a “joke” candidate that was obviously terrible could get pretty far with enough media oxygen and a comfortable political system that ignored the disgust a lot of people had with it.

Vote Loki ran for four issues. Was there ever a possibility for more?

If it was a smash hit, I believe there would have been a President Loki to directly follow Vote Loki.

What do you think of Vote Loki's inclusion in the TV series?

Top five surreal moments of my life.

Do you think Vote Loki could be the focus of its own adapted series/movie?

Oh for sure. You wouldn't even have to take the material from our comic; there's so much more brand-new political madness that a new Vote Loki series or movie could tap into.

A lot has happened in the five years since Vote Loki was published. What are your feelings looking back now in 2021? Did your opinions on the book ever change?

There was a lot happening in American politics in 2016 I missed and wish I had been able to see to include. For example, how broken political polling has become. I had no idea, along with the rest of the country.

It was tricky to do a cohesive narrative amongst a shifting Marvel continuity we had to stay inside; a lot of feedback and demands from various sources within the company and an election that was changing every single day. It was truthfully (heh) a quite stressful book to write, but looking back on it I'm proud to see what we absolutely nailed about American culture. In particular, what we had to say about politics as entertainment and identity, and how a slippery enough politician can not only shake scandal [off] by speeding up an already fast news cycle but embrace and twist it to their advantage.

LOKI WILL AIR ITS FINAL EPISODE JULY 14 ON DISNEY+. VOTE LOKI IS AVAILABLE NOW.

#President Loki #Vote Loki

70 notes · View notes

canyouhearthelight · 3 years

Text

The Miys, Ch. 149

So, I was super busy on my normal queueing day and wasn’t able to set this up. And by ‘super busy’ I mean ‘doing laundry, weeding flower beds, and taking several naps’, bc I have upwards of 24 niblings and a super-full time job that make me exhausted.

I’m not kidding, I recently told @baelpenrose “I had a birthday party to go to, yes it’s the third Saturday in a row, don’t worry about keeping track because there are SO MANY”.

What doesn’t make me exhausted? Y’all. The likes, the comments, the reblogs, the ‘hey, this person reads my stuff AND Bael’s stuff’ ( @feral-possums-in-the-bog, @drbibliophile, looking at you in a very loving way). Also the speedrunners... all of you who have ever, at any point, found this fic and decided to read every single chapter as quickly as possible ( and have or haven’t shamed me for needing to update the masterpost or page links), you keep me going like nothing else. I, too, like a good binge read, so I know I’ve done something worth... something... when someone else binges like that.

“So the Ark is semi-organic?” I glanced over and resisted the urge to trail my fingers along the walls of the corridor.

“That would be the closest Terran approximation, yes,” they confirmed. “It is not sentient in any form, but all exposed surfaces, for example, are grown in-place of a material native to our home planet.”

“So cool,” I whispered. “Is there a benefit to that, aside from being more sustainable?”

Noah rubbed two liw alongside their sensory organs, and let out a soft buzz - essentially rubbing their face with a sigh. “It is very rare for any species that achieves sentience to reach a level of technology that allows for faster than light travel without what you refer to as sustainability being included in every aspect of their culture.”

“Oh.” I felt ashamed and focused on my feet for a few steps, paying close attention to the feeling of the deck plating through my soles, any uneven textures that I came across turning into canyons of perception.

“In the case of the material coating the surfaces of the Ark,” Noah continued, clearly picking up on my discomfort, “it serves a largely hygienic function, much as Else currently provides.”

“So, that’s what Xio was referring to when she said that Hujylsogox ships largely decontaminate themselves?”

“Indeed. Where my species absorbs impurities from the air and any surfaces we come in contact with, the lining of the corridors, rooms, and vents can purify the rest within a Galactic week.” That worked out to eleven and two-third days as we currently measured them on the Ark, or fourteen and a half days on Earth. “Biofiltration is a very common way to sanitize spaces that often house multiple species to avoid destructive interactions, although the coating we use is known to be the most efficient organic solution.”

Surrendering, I ran my fingers over the wall. Even knowing that it was grown, it still felt like sandstone under my touch. “If it is so efficient, why don’t the Ekomari use it on their ships?”

Their fingers on both vomu clacked as they tapped them together. “In absence of another organism to ingest the larger particulates, sypo is what you would consider to be too efficient.”

“Feathers clog it up?”

“Like you would not believe,” they hummed deeply - a groan, clear as day. “It actually ends up starving the sypo.”

Unbidden, my mind’s eye flashed back to the nightmares that Else had shown me early on: large flakes of the walls falling away and littering the corridor floors. “So, that was a very real thing?” There didn’t seem to be any reason to clarify, given how clearly the images had blared in my head.

“Correct. We believe that Else understood the nature of the material and was trying to show you what was happening in a way they thought you would understand.” A heavy liw gently patted my shoulder. “They meant well, even if they did not realize that it would backfire.”

I was about to ask what the Ekomari use in place of sypo as a biofilter, but my databand signaled me. Judging by the fact that it chimed, flashed, and vibrated against the bones in my wrist, this was incredibly urgent. “I’m sorry, Noah, one mom - ah, fuck…” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I mentally braced myself for what I knew would be coming in the next several days.

“Wisdom, you are distressed.”

“Departmental notification from Pranav and Zach that they will be doing system security testing over the next week. Which means Derek will be doing his best to hack into our systems and take them out, while Pranav and Zach take notes of vulnerabilities and then fix them afterward.”

The face-rubbing sigh was back. “They are not including basic ship functions in this testing, correct?”

I shook my head, relieved that I could at least provide that assurance. “Negative. Only the systems that humans will be replicating on our own once we are on Von.”

“This is still terribly inconvenient. These tests increase tension across the Ark to quite difficult levels to be around.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. It’s mostly from what happened Before, at least for the older members of the crew. I mean, we got a Global Parliament out of it, but… there were a scary few years before we got there. And then the End happened, and the hack felt like some kind of warning looking back.”

Noah buzzed thoughtfully. “You are speaking of the gap in data we found when we were trying to download your planetary database.”

A part of me wanted to laugh at the fact that Miys continued to refer to the internet as a ‘planetary database’, but the topic was so upsetting that any kind of joy felt obscene right then. “It was… another terrorist attack, honestly. They weren’t unusual, as terrifying as that is - I mean, you admitted yourself that not all of us were worth saving. There was a petrochemical hack maybe five years before this one, and the attacks had been ramping up slowly even before that. But this one.” I shook my head trying to clear the thoughts from my head. “What we were told is that this group knew we would never take action against climate change, something about how the rich corporate would never take it seriously until they had to actually live in the nature they were destroying.”

“You are doubtful of this.” Noah’s statement was far from being a question.

Couldn’t blame him, since I didn’t believe half of what we had been told, or maybe that it was only half the story. “I wasn’t old enough to remember, but it is a recorded fact that there were actual people on Earth who had more wealth than any single country on the planet, and one was particularly known for building his fortune on the backs of employees who were worked to death or nearly to death. It’s hard to believe that had nothing to do with it, you know.”

“If being reminded of this event causes such distress among your people, why run so many tests?”

“The hack killed people, Noah. It destroyed entire small countries, caused a lot of violence and wars. The ultra-rich may have been the targets, but the casualties were mostly people who never knew what was happening. We want to make sure it can’t happen again. That’s why we warn everyone what’s going on, so they know it’s not the same thing, but still do the testing.”

More clattering of vomu signaled Noah thinking again. “Your global economy depended strongly on the concept of wealth and the concept of money. But with the current economic model you exercise, such a data security breach would not impact it.”

I shrugged. “We still worry. Not to mention the fact that, at some point, someone may try. We can try all we want to avoid the catalyst of the original events, but some of our better qualities can be just as terrible with just a twist. Curiosity, confidence, and justice and easily turn into pride, vindictiveness, and prying. Which can lead to blackmail. And that’s just one example. Still sure we’re worth it?”

Another thoughtful buzz with some mild clicking. “I have seen your people endeavor to save a species that could have destroyed you. I have seen you, specifically, mourn someone who deliberately attempted to end not only your life but the lives of the entire Ark. There is much evidence to give us faith in your compassion.”

All I could do was shake my head. “I’ll try to have faith in your faith,” I murmured with a weak smile.

<< Prev Masterlist Next >>

#the miys #found family #humans are weird #science fiction #aliens #apocalypse #humans are space orcs #humans are space fae #earth is space australia #post apocalypse #post post apocalypse #original science fiction #original sci fi #original writing

52 notes · View notes

hopelikethemoon · 4 years

Text

Proof (Javier x Reader) {MTMF}

Title: Proof Rating: PG-13 Length: 1600 Warnings: Fluff. Notes: You can find everything about Maybe Today, Maybe Forever here. Set May 4th 1998. Summary: The final article comes out.

@grapemama @seawhisperer @huliabitch @pedropascalito @rogrsnbarnes @thewallpapergoesorido @twomoonstwosuns @gooddaykate @livasaurasrex @ham4arrow @plexflexico @readsalot73 @hdlynn @lokiaddicted @randomness501 @fioccodineveautunnale @roxypeanut @snivellusim @lukesrighthand @historynerd04 @mrsparknuts @synystersilenceinblacknwhite @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @exrebelshocktrooper @awesomefandomsunited @ah-callie @swhiskeys @lady-tano @beskar-droids @space-floozy @cable-kenobi @cool-ultra-nerd @himbopoes @findhimfives @pedrosdoll @frietiemeloen @arrowswithwifi @random066 @uncomicalhumour @heather-lynn @domino-oh-damn @cyarikaaa @ahopelessromanticwritersworld @im-still-a-pieceofgarbage @ksgeekgirl @yabby-girl @xqueenofthecraziesx @punkass-potato @coredrive @pascalesque @theduchessofkirkcaldy @queenquazar @sabinemorans @buckstaposition @holkaskrosnou @yespolkadotkitty @fleetwoodmactshirt @seeking-a-great–perhaps

IRREFUTABLE PROOF — DEA BRIBED COLLEGE STUDENT TO RUIN FORMER AGENT’S CREDIBILITY

The DEA has maintained that Annette Morley’s termination was related to her perfidious actions, concerning her relationship with Javier Peña. The couple sat down with The Post to clarify why they chose to conceal their relationship.

“It wasn’t an ideal situation,” said Peña when questioned about why he and Morley kept their relationship quiet while working for the DEA. “We were working to take down dangerous organizations, we couldn’t risk something happening to our daughter. We suffered to keep it a secret. Annie gave birth alone, while I filed paperwork at the office. We couldn’t risk anyone knowing that two DEA agents had a child together — our daughter would’ve become a target.”

Could they not trust the DEA with that secret? Morley was quick to clarify why she chose to lie about her daughter’s paternity, “It was hard enough to be a woman working for the government. I was subjected to sexist comments regularly and I feared how I would be treated if they knew that Javier and I were together.”

It should be noted that both Peña and Morley denied that Peña was the father of Morley’s daughter, yet only Morley was disciplined. Documents collected via the Freedom of Information Act suggest that this was an intentional decision meant to minimize Morley’s participation within the agency. Correspondence between high-level authorities, conclude a pattern of suppression targeting women throughout the agency.

The DEA ardently denies claims of sexual harassment, citing that their agents undergo a seminar about harassment in the workplace during their on boarding. Sources within the DEA have confirmed numerous reports of sexual harassment claims made against all levels of management.

Evidence provided to The Post by a source close to Peña and Morley, and verified by the University of Miami, concluded that the DEA had orchestrated a scheme to pressure one of Javier Peña’s students to falsely claim that they had been having an affair. The source showed receipts of a sizeable money transfer in return for making the claims to the University.

Following The Post’s reporting that DEA agent Chris Fiestle had numerous disciplinary claims against him, the DEA has placed him on paid leave. An anonymous source has provided The Post with information and confidently identified Fiestle as the individual who facilitated the DEA’s bribery scheme. A second source, within the agency, provided documentation of the bribery which had been signed off on by two high-level figures.

Due to the investigative journalism of The Post we are pleased to report that The Office of the Inspector General released a report that a full audit of the DEA’s inter-agency procedures, practices, and correspondences. The Post is working with the OIG to corroborate the reports made in the paper. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened a secondary review of misconduct.

———

It was done. Finally. With today’s issue of The Post, you no longer had to dread the next front page story you’d read. Vickers had exceeded your expectations — not just by addressing what you had endured, but uncovering a whole culture of misconduct.

“I don’t want to speak to the press,” You told Javier as you sat across from him at the kitchen table. The phone was ringing for the fifth time since you had gotten out of bed and you were certain it was the same type of call you’d already put up with.

MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN had been hounding you since the first article — but now it seemed to have ramped up. They were all desperate for a sit down interview.

“Not even Barbara Walters or Diane Sawyer?” Javier teased, trying to play off the obvious distress you were in. You were appreciative.

You laughed, shaking your head. “No, I’m not sitting down for 20/20. I’m humbled, but no. I’ve done what I intended to do.”

Monica sighed heavily as she folded the newspaper in half and sat it on the table beside her coffee. “I’m so glad he respected my request.”

“I told him all along that the article wouldn’t run with your name in it.” You assured her. Monica had spent the night — too anxious about the forthcoming article to spend the night at her own place. “I can’t help if the DEA brings you into it, however.”

She smiled grimly, “I know. I just don’t want my parents…” Monica shook her head, “And what about work? How am I going to work for the government if my name gets black balled?”

Javier cleared his throat, “I won’t let that happen. No daughter of mine is going to be harassed by those fuc—“

You shot him a look.

“Freaks.”

“Mommy, did daddy say a bad word?” Josie questioned as she licked the butter off her toast.

“Freaks isn’t a bad word.” You shook your head, “Josie, eat your toast right. Please?”

Josie scrunched up her nose as she folded her bread in half and ate the center out of the toast. “But fuck is bad?”

“Josie!” Javier snapped his fingers, “What have we talked about?”

She tried to look as sheepish and adorable as possible, “I sassy daddy.”

Monica stifled a laugh.

“That’s an interesting way to say you’re sorry, Josie.” His brows rose upwards as he stared at Josie. “Josefína Selina Peña—“

“I’m sorry, daddy.” Josie stuck out her bottom lip as she slid herself off her chair and walked around the table to grab at you, pressing her face against your stomach and pretending to cry.

“Are you hiding with me?” You laughed. “Do I get to play good cop?”

Monica leaned down to Josie’s height, poking her in the side, “What have we talked about bad words?”

“That they’re bad.” Josie offered quietly, before she squirmed out of your hold and dropped onto the floor as she crawled under the table.

Javier rubbed at the back of his neck, giving you a look. “We’ve created a monster.”

“We’ve created a little girl who isn’t acting like she just turned five.”

Stevie barked, padding through the kitchen and ducking under the table to join Josie.

“I a baby again!” Josie announced, remaining beneath the table.

Sofía leaned over the side of her high chair, trying to look for Josie. “Sissss!” She made grabby hands, wiggling as she tried to get out.

“Josefína.” Javier said warningly, pinching at the bridge of his nose.

She popped her head out from under the table, “Daddy are you mad?”

“No.”

“You sound mad.”

“He’s not mad, Josie.” Monica told her with a gentle smile. “But you can’t be saying grown up words.”

“But daddy says them.” Josie said as she crawled out, “I wanna be like daddy.”

“Good lord,” Javier chuckled, grinning at you. “Be like your mother, she’s a far better example.”

“Only because I mind my p’s and q’s.” You teased, nudging Javier’s foot under the table. “Good cop says to go easy.”

“Bad cop is going to eat Miss Josie’s pancakes if she doesn’t get back in her seat and eat them.” He warned and that prompted her to scramble back into her seat.

Monica started laughing again, “Is this what I miss out on every morning?”

“Every. Morning.” You shook your head. “Josie’s always getting into mischief.”

Javier fixed Monica with a droll expression. “Yesterday she ate Stevie’s kibble.”

Josie clambered back into her seat, picking up her fork and shoveling a mouthful of pancake into her mouth.

“Josie, please don’t choke.”

Javier nudged her in the ribs, “Small bites.”

“I’m stress eating.” Josie announced, making dramatic gobbling noises as she mimed eating another bite as she chewed her first.

“What are you stressed about?” Monica questioned.

“Life.”

The three of you started laughing. Josie had a hell of a sense of humor. You weren’t sure which one of you she got it from, but she could not kill with her dramatics.

“You know,” You started, looking from Monica to Javier. “That was exactly what I needed.” You rolled your eyes. “From the mouths of babes.”

“Who, me?” Josie questioned, giggling like a mad woman.

“Yes, you, goober.” You laughed.

Javier leaned over and kissed the top of her head, “No more bad words, JoJo.”

She tilted her head up towards him, grinning broadly. “But it made mommy laugh.”

He pursed his lips, “Then it’s fine. Just this once.” Javier stood up then, moving around the table to you. He rested his hands on your shoulders, squeezing both of them tightly. “Want more coffee?”

You nodded your head, “I think I may just work for a half a day today.”

“Do you still want me to stick around?” Monica questioned.

“If I get home early, you’re welcome to leave.” You assured her as you watched Javier take your cup and head for the coffee pot. “Get a jump start on your weekend.”

“Honestly, I think we may just stay in.” She shrugged, “You guys still on for dinner tomorrow?”

You nodded, moving your pancakes around your plate, dabbing up more syrup. “Javier’s cooking.”

“I hope he’s not grilling.”

“What am I cooking?”

“I don’t know,” You hummed. “What are you cooking for dinner tomorrow?”

Javier sat your coffee cup in front of you, “Wanna help make enchiladas?”

You shrugged, “Sounds good to me.”

“My favorite.” Monica smiled. “I can’t believe the semester’s almost over.”

“I can.” Javier sighed, rubbing at his forehead. “It’s still awkward.”

“We’re not bringing that up.” She offered with a shake of her head.

“You mean I shouldn’t invite Elena for dinner?”

Monica and Javier both glared at you and offered in unison a firm, “No.”

“Neither of you are any fun.” You laughed, grinning at them.

The situation with DEA was finally put behind you and now you could just savor this little family of five you’d created despite everything.

#javier pena #javier pena x reader #pedro pascal x reader

90 notes · View notes

thethoughtsfromthreeam · 4 years

Text

Monument Woman

Pairing: Marcus Pike x OC (Rosemary Carter)

Warnings: None

A/N: Enter Marcus Pike, stage right

Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit. I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.

Tag List:

@zeldasayer , @beskars , @coolmaybelateruniverse , @the-feckless-wonder , @pascalisthepunkest , @mandoandyodito , @randomness501 , @fioccodineveautunnale , @ahopelessromanticwritersworld , @lilkermit14 , @tortles [please message me to be added or subtracted]

[PART 1] [PART 2] [PART 3] [PART 4] [PART 5]

Part 6 – Step Forward, Step Back, Find Your Partner Quick

Helen tried her best to console a distraught Rosemary as Officer Garcia spoke to several of his colleagues in the hallway. Her screams had startled the director, who was already on edge due to the break-in and if the circumstances had been different, the look of surprise and horror on the officer’s face would have reduced Helen to peals of laughter. But all the situation did was add worry to her shoulders.

For nearly two hours, the officers questioned Rosemary about the break-in, about the missing piece, and they kept asking if the museum had any enemies. As much as she wanted to say Fred Breyers out of pure spite, Rosemary kept her mouth shut – sure some people weren’t always pleased with some of their program or exhibit topics, but nothing that would result in the theft of an artifact or the physical beating of a staff member. The two women were exhausted by the time the three cops left the building. Rosemary laid on the couch in her office, a wet cloth over her eyes as the lingering headache from the attack ramped up under this new stress.

“Rose, are you going to be okay?” Helen’s voice was soft, but unable to keep the worried tone at bay.

“I honestly don’t know. That statue was the only thing missing. I don’t know if I’m upset because I promised Robert we’d care for it or mad as hell that accepting that ugly ass hunk of bronze led to all of this and possibly hurt the museum’s reputation.” She sighed heavily, the now cool cloth doing little to help her. She slowly sat up, swinging her legs over the sofa’s edge.

“I wouldn’t worry about our reputation. I’m already working with Marquetta on a press release to get ahead of the game. Louis over at the Caller always does right by us, I’ll give him the scoop first and he’ll spin it in our favor.” Helen leaned back. “I’ll also call major donors today to inform them of the situation.”

“I’m sorry, Helen. I never thought this would have happened!” The younger woman groaned heavily as she tried to stand, but the director held out her hand to keep her from getting up. The body stilled.

“Did Francois’ report show anything differently than what Robert had given you?” Before Robert’s health worsened, Rosemary contacted an old friend of hers to appraise the piece as Helen wanted a second opinion for the insurance company. The in-depth discussion about the findings with Helen was moved back first by Robert’s death and then the attack. “Are we still looking at the same value?”

“I reread it the day before the attack to prep for the meeting that never obviously happened, and he seems to agree with the assessment Robert gave us. The statue was processed into the collections several months ago and I put in Robert’s information, but never got around to putting in Francois’ report.”

“Well, so long as the original value was imputed into the report, it’ll give us something for the insurance company.”

“Are we going to report it lost? What if they recover it?”

“Rose, I don’t mean to sound mean, but I doubt these officers are going to find the piece. Whoever has it is probably long gone by now.” Helen glanced over at her. “Unless a miracle happens.”

“Well good thing I believe in manifestation and miracles.” For the first time in what seemed like a long while, Rosemary smiled as her old humor began to shine through. The director smiled back, unable to let the infectious comment not affect her.

“We’ll see.”

---***---

Two Weeks Later

“Pike! Get in here!” Carmichael’s voice carried through the small cluster of offices their department occupied. “Pike!”

“I’m coming! Damn, give me a second!” Pike grumbled as he scurried from his office and across to hers. She wasn’t a loud person, so the excited shout she gave had everyone around her curious. As Pike entered the room, he could see his partner standing behind her desk, doing a little hop-dance. He raised an eyebrow.

“You need to look at this!” She pointed at the computer, her smile so big it nearly took over her face. He stopped because she was giggling, Carmichael never giggled. Whatever this was, it had to been good. Pike came around the desk and bent down to see what she was looking at and when his eyes landed on the screen, his eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped.

“This is one of them, isn’t it?” Carmichael asked, her voice quivering in excitement. He ran out of the office to the command center for the cold cases, his presence startling his crew. He looked over at the evidence board and ripped off a picture hanging in the middle before rifling through one of the boxes to find the corresponding file. He ran back to the office.

The picture in his hand was faded with time, that grainy look of age that pictures older pictures were taking on, but despite those flaws, the sculpture in the photo matched the one in the new alert in the NSAF database. The Cornucopia had always been breathtaking.

And it’s been missing since 1993.

The agents glanced over the dossier, reviewing the piece to try and discover how this priceless Russian artifact made its way to what looks like a small museum in Western Michigan. Neither had reviewed the original case file closely and both felt their jaws dropping as they read further and further into its history:

A rare example of the early Ukrainian Avant Garde art movement, The Cornucopia was created by Artem Chumak, a well-known artist from Odessa. Commissioned by the then-governor of the country as a gift to Czar Nicolas II in 1907, the piece was designed to showcase the entirety of the Ukraine in a single moment. Because the country was known for its agriculture, Chumak chose to use the image of the cornucopia as his inspiration.

The piece is made of bronze and inlaid with the following precious gemstones:

Siberian diamond

Ural sapphire

Ural ruby

Ural jade

Russian emerald

Russian opal

Ukrainian pearl

Upon the fall of the Russian empire in 1917, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna Romanov took the piece along with several others from the royal art collection when she fled Russia. She remained owner of the piece until 1920, when she sold it to the Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

In turn, the Grand Duke loaned the piece to the National Museum of History and Art and it remained with the museum until the outbreak of World War II. The ducal family took the piece back, along with several others to protect the collection from the advancement of the Nazis.

Unfortunately, the move did little good and much of the museum’s collection, including the pieces stored in the ducal family home, were taken by the Nazis, with intention of destroying them as part of the Germanization of the annexed country.

The pieces remained missing until 1949, when a team from the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (a.k.a. the Monument Men), recovered the stolen collections in a cellar in Hamburg and returned them to their respective homes. The Cornucopia was returned to the museum and was on display until the ducal family attempted to sell the piece in 1965. The sale failed and the family remained owners until the piece was loaned to the Luxembourg-American Cultural Museum in the U.S. in 1992.

In 1993, the piece was stolen from the museum and reported to the FBI’s Art Theft Squad days later. The piece has yet to be recovered despite the best attempts of the team.

Pike looked at Carmichael and they grinned at each other. While it being reported as missing didn’t mean that they had found it, it did mean that this cold case was heating up.

“Do you think we found our key?” He didn’t want to sound hopeful, but he had to admit he was optimistic that they were much closer to solving this case. The evidence they had been sifting through meticulously was painting a picture, but like a jigsaw puzzle, they were still missing pieces that brought it all together.

“I think we have.” Carmichael replied. They grinned at each other.

“Whose turn is it to go and do the interview?”

“Mine, but could you do it? Marty is out of town on business this week and I can’t leave Dinah alone.” She rarely asked to trade like this, but Pike held up his hands in understanding. They smiled, grateful they were partnered up, their work relationship had always been a smooth one.

“Sure, what could possibly happen in Michigan?”

They laughed as they started to walk to the command center.

---***---

Rosemary and Banana walked into the house, both exhausted from the day, the museum’s annual fall field trip event a cacophony of noise and excitement. The program had been exactly what Rosemary needed – something that distracted her from everything that had happened over the last month. Her stomach hurt all day from her laughter as young kids swarmed the museum in their Halloween costumes.

As she hung up her coat, she caught something out of the corner of her eye on the kitchen table. Walking over, Rosemary immediately recognized Fern’s loopy handwriting.

Hey sweetie, probate hasn’t cleared yet, but I heard word it should within the month. Not to jinx it, but welcome to Saugatuck – its’ about time! I’m also including some keys to Robert’s safety deposit boxes for safekeeping. You can’t open them until the probate has cleared, so don’t get ahead of yourself! Love you, ae-in. Always. -F

“Oh, thank god.” She huffed as she opened the bulky envelope, dumping out various keys and paperwork, including the deed to the house and the store. She had an underlying fear that something would happen, and Robert’s wishes would have been overturned and she would get nothing. “Looks like we’re here for the time being, Baba!”

Rosemary read through the papers and picked up her phone to call Fern. For the next hour, the two women chatted about the changes, what she needed to do to register ownership with the state, and more. After they said their good-byes, Rosemary pulled her jacket on and patted Banana on the head as she left the house. It was dark now, but she knew the path through the cemetery and trudged up the hill towards Robert’s grave with no problem.

“You know, I’m certain you chose this spot for some reason or another, but I think it’s to punish me for not getting enough exercise.” She groused at the polished granite, wondering how she made this walk as often as she did, and it still robbed her of her breath. She was out of shape.

Robert’s cheeky grin beamed from the porcelain cameo embedded into the stone. She had never seen anything like it, but he had told her it was common among Eastern European communities. He described how they used this horribly unflattering photo for his aunt Ionna’s cameo and that he vowed he’d choose his own rather than leave it to his relatives to decide.

She sat down on the damp ground and settle in. She was still visiting the cemetery daily and while she didn’t cry as much as she had in the beginning, her throat always felt painful after she left. Wrapping the coat around her tightly she sighed.

“You missed our field trip day. I know you loved volunteering for it and the kids who remembered you from last year asked where you were.” She smiled. “I told them you were attending as a ghost and that they couldn’t see you. I think they believed me.

“I don’t know what strings you pulled up on that cloud of yours, but Fern thinks the probate will clear next month. I’m glad, this whole process has been a pain and thank you for not making me go through it. I’d give up and just die if Fern weren’t in charge. My landlord was mad I’m breaking my lease, but I know you’re excited, you always hated that place.” She sighed as a wave of sadness washed over her.

“I miss you.” Her voice crackled with tears. “I miss you so much, Robert! I hate that you’re gone. I hate that! I hate this! And I failed you! They still haven’t found the statue and I contacted the FBI and I haven’t heard anything, and I don’t know what to do!”

She cried harder, her ribs hurting as if the pain she experienced weeks ago was still fresh. She gripped her sides as she continued to sob. She was tired and everything that had happen in the month and a half since Robert died was catching up with her. Rosemary sat in the cold evening for hours and let her sadness out. When she finally left, the exhaustion she felt forced her straight to bed when she arrived at the house. In a bit of mercy, she slept a dreamless sleep for once.

---***---

“Good morning.” The deep voice caused Marquetta to turn from the display case she was working on. A tall man with brown hair and a kind smile stood at the front desk. She watched as Bob ambled over to welcome him. She couldn’t hear their conversation after that, but she kept a subtle watch on the interaction as the two men talked. The stranger smiled again and walked past her towards the stairs and she watched up trudge up each step until he was out of sight.

“You aren’t being very subtle.” Bob’s voice sounded behind her and Marquetta jumped at the noise. She felt herself grow hot, grateful her dark skin hid the blush rushing across her cheeks. She turned to look at Bob, who was grinning at her.

“Who was that?” She tried to keep her voice steady.

“Some FBI agent wanting to talk to Rosemary.”

“FBI?” Marquette frowned before her eyebrows shot up. “FBI! Oh my god! They’re here!”

“Don’t shout. It’s rude.”

“No, Bob! Rosemary reported that statue that got stolen to the FBI! That means they know about it! They’re here for that!”

“Does that mean they’ll find the men who hurt her?” He sounded hopeful at the idea. Even if he thought her manners were lacking, Bob was deeply upset that Rosemary had been hurt the way she had been. If this young agent can help find her attackers, he was all for it.

“I bet they do if they find the statue.” The two stopped talking when Rosemary and Banana entered the building. She looked up and felt awkward when she realized they were staring at her.

“Um, is something wrong?” She sounded unsure of herself and Bob got angry, realizing that these men didn’t just rob the museum of this ugly statue, it robbed Rosemary of her self-assurance.

“Never, Rose. There is an agent from the FBI in your office. Marquetta says you contacted them.” She startled, not believing that her reporting the stolen item would bring them to her front door. They were just a small history museum in Michigan, not the Detroit Institute of Art or the Smithsonian. She figured she’d get an email or a call, but never a real agent.

“They’re here? Really?” Her eyes lit up when Bob nodded. She started to laugh because she didn’t know what else to do. Marquetta walked over to hug her and the physical contact help to ground her.

“He’s good looking, too.” Marquetta whispered in her ear. Rosemary pulled back at the comment. “Like really good looking. His butt is cute.”

The two women giggled at the comment and hugged again. Picking up the leash she dropped, the curator and her furry companion went towards the stairs, hope beginning to bubble in her chest. Maybe she hadn’t failed Robert after all, she thought. When she reached the third floor, she stopped to catch her breath before walking down to her office.

When she stepped into the doorway, she saw him standing there, looking at her walls. She couldn’t see his face, but everything about his presence radiated kindness – something she hadn’t expected from an FBI agent. When he turned to look at her as she cleared her throat, his face lit up in a smile and she couldn’t help but smile back. For the first time in weeks, she felt safe.

“I’m Special Agent Marcus Pike.” He held out his hand to her. She took it with her customary firm grip.

“I’m Rosemary Carter. Welcome to Fort Jamison.”

#marcus pike #Agent Marcus Pike #marcus pike x reader #Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal x reader #fanfic #the mentalist

35 notes · View notes

auspiciousinformant · 3 years

Text

Core Character Ranking - No Straight Roads

At this point with the game having been out for well over four and a half months, I figure that with having a small piece of fiction under my belt, and with the fandom having cooled down from the initial release but still hot enough for content to steadily be coming out from the fanbase, now is a good time for me to share my thoughts on No Straight Roads - rather, what I call the Core Characters of No Straight Roads.

I call them this because they are the collective protagonist main characters and antagonistic bosses - not filling up one bucket or another quite satisfactory. I might even make this into a series if anyone cares enough to hear my thoughts on other pieces of fiction. If you’re interested, continue below the line.

Oh, also, spoilers for No Straight Roads if you still care about that.

Disclaimer before continuing onwards - I’ve never actually played No Straight Roads! I’m not exactly a person with enough wealth to throw at my own interests and hobbies, but I feel I’ve absorbed enough through culture osmosis, 100% walkthroughs of the game, and other people’s interpretations of the game to be able to make my own informed opinions on the characters.

Also, this isn’t a “bosses” ranking list - this is a character ranking list. Meaning that individuals are going to be ranked rather than the whole. For example, Sayu will be divided into the four members behind Sayu (hereafter refered to as “Team Sayu”) as well as Sayu herself. This also means I won’t fully go on the gameplay mechanics as I don’t have enough experience with it to make a fully informed decision. I will talk about what I’ve seen though.

With that in mind, we’ll be starting as all of these lists usually do, from the bottom ranking to the top: ________________________________________________________________ 20. Eve

Now, this may come as a shock, but I absolutely despise divas. Eve was entertaining enough, but through her videos she was only relatable and likable to me before she and Zuke broke up. Mostly because I could relate with her self-loathing and her found happiness.

Still... setting someone’s hair on fire? And then being confused as to why that happened? Then completely blaming the victim and using that mistake as fuel to shut out any other potential kindred relationship for the future? I’ve seen people who do that; it’s pathetic at best and annoying to see at worst. Thankfully, due to Zuke, she does eventually come around.

Her music and boss fight are interesting enough I suppose. I like how the perspective changes and I adore when you have to switch over to Mayday and it becomes a fully chaotic mess of limbs, doubt, hatred, and rage. I live for that chaotic aesthetic.

Otherwise, she’s just... the weakest character to me in No Straight Roads.

Maybe she’ll Eve-ntually earn my respect in supplementary materials. ________________________________________________________________ 19. Sofa

The first member of Team Sayu I’m mentioning and he’s this low on the list. Ouch. Not to say that I hate him, the hate started and ended with Eve - he, along with the others don’t really have much of a personality canonically that I can see to judge him on. But in terms of his design, I’ve never been much of a fan of “overweight and silly” outside of Doctor Eggman/

Do not take this the wrong way. I am in NO way fatshaming ANYONE.

I just have never liked that design in fictional characters. See Hifumi Yamada from “Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc” for more on what I mean

Still, he’s a core member of Team Sayu and from the fanfiction I’ve read he’s one of the better characters to write with. Maybe if we got a spinoff or other related materials, he’d go up a few numbers in rank, but as it stands, he’s the weakest of the group.

Sofa-r so good, let’s move on before these puns go too far. ________________________________________________________________ 18. Mayday Yeah. I’m not a huge fan of Mayday herself. Hotheaded protagonists are fine here and there, but she’s so hot-headed I’m surprised that she didn’t have the fire aesthetic as well. I guess with it all being taken by Tatiana, they could only give her a warm color scheme so it wasn’t redundant.

Her gameplay seems fine, if a bit basic. The heavy hitter is also a hothead, who could guess. I kinda like how someone as scrawny and small as her also has the biggest heart and temper. Also the gags that come from her relating to the other bosses are hysterical and make for good protagonist material. Still, outside of her interaction with DK West, Zuke, and Team Sayu, as well as the very end of the game, there’s a lack of enough “heroic” traits that makes Mayday fall flat from just shy of ranking higher.

I don’t have a clever pun, joke, or one-liner for Mayday, so let’s go to the next person in my list. ________________________________________________________________ 17. DJ Subatomic Supernova I have never really liked disco or dance music at the best of times, but I love space. So what happens when you mix something I feel lukewarm to, something I absolutely adore, and combine it with a trait about a person I absolutely also despise?

You get space helmet man who likes fresh ice cream and goes on for minutes about how great he is and how everyone else around him are plebeians - not knowing how pretentious the stage name “Subatomic Supernova” is.

If I had made this list when I had first seen No Straight Roads, he’d be only just ahead of Eve just because I dislike her so much more than I hate egotism of DJ Subatomic Supernova. But he’s now gone higher on the list since he’s grown on me thanks to the fandom and me realizing the game is parodying the stereotypes and the industry of music. Also, Zuke’s drum solo is AMAZING with the EDM version of DJ SS’s theme. He’s even gone so far as to become half of my second favorite paring in the NSR fandom!

Shine on, you funky space man. ________________________________________________________________

16. DK West Ewah! Older of the two brothers by age, younger of the two by maturity. I absolutely love this goofball. His shadow powers are absolutely amazing to watch and while I normally don’t like rap outside of Eminem (and even then only select tracks), he grew on me a lot. He’s so unique and the culture he’s based on from what I understand was researched with a lot of respect and care.

I’ve heard (and seen) that the third fight ramps up the difficulty way too much, but considering that Mayday is attempting to repair a broken household, it makes sense it’d be such a heavy undertaking from a gameplay and story point.

Also DK West Encounter 1 is a smash hit, telling us everything we really need to know between DK West and Zuke while being an absolutely great song that reminds me of Epic Rap Battles of History for anyone that remembers that.

He overshadows his previous competition by a large margin, and I can’t wait to see more of him if that’s possible. ________________________________________________________________ 15. Yinu’s Mom As the real mastermind behind Yinu’s position in NSR, it suddenly makes so much sense as to why a literal child is in such a strict EDM hierarchy like NSR. What keeps her from going above and beyond this ranking isn’t anything more than just the pressure she puts on Yinu to perform. During the fight, and what I can only presume also happens outside of concerts in the universe of No Straight Roads, it seems like she entirely forgets the reason Yinu keeps playing the piano in the first place.

However, I am a huge sucker for family dynamics, and her stopping her assault due to the memories that Yinu was able to drag out of her through the broken piano by playing Heart of the Prodigy is enough to almost enough for me to reach the level of emotional catharsis as the ending of Pixar’s “Inside Out” did for me. And the way she shielded Yinu when they were falling, the gasp of fear that she might not survive the fall - just pure, amazing storytelling through “show, don’t tell”.

I will say, the more morbid part of me that enjoys things like Danganronpa, Your Turn To Die, and Nonary Games, had the thought of “if it weren’t for the fact that Mayday and Zuke also fell from that height and survived (and that this game is meant for younger audiences), Yinu would have became an orphan.”

Mother of the Year award goes to Yinu’s mom for being the most realistic, sympathetic, non-dead mom in fiction. ________________________________________________________________ 14. Yinu I love classical music, but I don’t really like children. Yinu is an exception to my general dislike of children. The promotion that was released before the game was a little eye-rolling, but it was also funny. Fortunately, in the game, Yinu is so much more mature and interesting than the promotional material lead us to believe. The way the piano plays plays in the base version of VS Yinu conveys just how talented she is at nine years old. It’s a shame that it slowly gets covered up by the EDM version as the battle goes on.

But her reasoning for playing the piano, through the photos you get from Yinu’s backstory is all the more reason to respect this literal child. She turned the loss of her music teacher and father into a shining passion for music. The piano being the very memento of her deceased dad - looking at the photos and then realizing what you did in shattering her piano creates a fantastic retroactive look at just how destructive Bunkbed Junction’s revolution really is to people.

We’re not even half-way down the list, and yet we already have great characters like this, so let’s keep looking. ________________________________________________________________ 13. Dodo There’s been a huge gap since the last Team Sayu member. So what makes Dodo so great compared to Sofa? Well, the deep voice that comes from the scrawny, blue man is funny to me. It caught me off-guard the first time I heard it and had me giggling for hours afterwards after I paused the video to regain my composure.

That, and mocap work is hard work. On top of that, though he’s mostly not the face everyone remembers when fans think of Sayu, it takes a lot of talent and self-confidence to dance like a cutesy mermaid despite being a male, at least in my opinion. So I see him as having high confidence, but also being like Zuke in the “chill and mostly quiet” department.

There’s not much else for me to say, since most of Team Sayu doesn’t have blatantly obvious character traits. So let’s move on. ________________________________________________________________ 12. Sayu Sayu herself is... well, not real. It’s like trying to judge any number of the Vocaloid/UTAU voice banks. Sure you can place any number of personalities and messages into it, but in reality she’s just been built as a “cutsie, wootsie, pink mermaid” idol.

Still, the personality that Team Sayu gives her is fantastic. Her fight is annoying, and lackluster even to watch, but her song is amazing in all of its forms, even if for me the vaporwave version is the least effective of all of them - and Analog Aquatics is the BEST lead-up song to it, even ahead of Heart of the Prodigy.

Hatsune Miku? Who’s that? I only see Sayu as the best Vocaloid. ________________________________________________________________ 11. Remi Technically the creator of Sayu in the first place and her designer, Remi seems to be the “all according to plan” type. To think that his passion for art would lead to a career such as NSR, and a close-knit friend group like Team Sayu. It’s something that I’m sure that every artist has had as their goal at one point or another.

I highly respect anyone with the ability to put their artwork out in public, both in real life and as a character. Even so, there are characters I like even beyond Remi, and once again, we don’t have much to go off of for him outside of the very few times we see him in Sayu’s battle.

Almost all of Team Sayu has been covered at this point - heck, even Sayu herself has already been covered. So where’s Tila you ask? Well, we’ll get to that, but not for a while. ________________________________________________________________ 10. Tatiana “Kul Fyra” Qwartz From the very moment we first hear her voice, we can tell she’s all business and order. When we watch all of NSR reject the rock music outright and listen to Tatiana’s speech afterwards? How she seems to disregard her artists own safety and prioritizing undermining Bunkbed Junction’s efforts just because she can’t bear to remember her old bandmates? Wonderfully selfish for a heartbroken character.

Also, for those who hate her time-oriented powers and how weakly linked they are to Tatiana herself? Consider this: She’s almost 50 years old by the time Bunkbed Junction starts their revolution. She’s lived long enough to be anyone in the cast’s mom - probably even old enough to be Team Sayu and Yinu’s grandma. She has only seen a progressive march of time erode at everything she ever loved and cared about.

The blazing passion within her is brought back to her through Bunkbed Junction’s actions, but through a reversal of time and a reflection of her memories. Bunkbed Junction literally shatters the world view that she constructed for herself to ignore the regret and pain that had been slowly eating her up inside without her ever even having fully realized it in the first phase. By the time Tatiana reverts back to using her Kul Fyra form, she’s trying so hard to list any number of reasons to ignore her past and focus on what little time she actually has left to work on the future.

This was a bit of a longer explanation and reasoning, but for a character as amazing and symbolically complex as Tatiana, she absolutely deserves it. And as you’ll see for the next character, this is only a fraction of my love for the characters of No Straight Roads. ________________________________________________________________9. Neon J And here we start with my absolutely favorite characters, the ones I not only enjoy reading and writing about, but that in canon I can wholeheartedly accept them for who they are, flaws and all.

My grandpa was in the navy, and to make a long story short there were some complicated things that happened that required me to live with both him and my grandma when I was really little. So already there’s something that I can latch onto and adore. Even with how cringy Neon J is at the end with him attempting to try to give an epic war hero speech, my grandpa can be the same way sometimes, and that’s okay. They kind of act similarly outside of that as well.

His design is so sleek and smooth, and sometimes I forget that he’s actually a cyborg, unlike his sons boyband creations. Normally I hate the military, war, and what it all represents at a cynical level, but when it’s portrayed in a way like No Straight Roads did for Neon J and 1010, it reminds me of the people who actually join to serve their country and the people in it, despite how few in their countries actually deserve their respect.

And yeah, I can already hear the “blah blah fiction is poorly portraying law enforcement/the military because ect ect”. I disagree. Think of it this way: Neon J is a fun example of what a leader in a military unit is. Not only that, he’s extremely loyal and willing to do what it takes to get the job done - including having a program inside 1010 that makes them explode when they fail to generate the requisite fan praise that’s likely required to keep 1010 merchandise flying off of the shelves and thus prove to the other NSR artists that even robot boybands can be used to help Vinyl City; AND use said robot boyband as weapons to fight off any threats - internal or external.

Also think about what he had to go through to become a cyborg. That means he likely had to replace everything that’s on the surface - imagine what he needed to replace underneath all of that metal. How much of his original body is left? How badly did the war he was involved in hurt him? How many comrades did he lose to try to recreate that feel in a boyband? Aren’t the implications of that so much more grand than the surface level “radar head man is bad representation of military people because he’s silly and ineffective at his job”. Furthermore, tell me of a person in the real world who lost so much of their body they literally had to become a cyborg that has a literal radar for a head.

On top of all of that he’s the second half of my second favorite pairing. Not that is has any major bearing on how great Neon J already is. Is it silly that Neon J tries to give a huge speech at the end when we know Bunkbed Junction is just trying to get to Tatiana? Yes. But it’s fun.

I salute the No Straight Roads team for creating such an amazing character . ________________________________________________________________8. Blue 1010 Robot | Purl-Hew Ah yes, now we start getting to what’s taking up most of the top 10 slots. Kind of funny that not all of the 1010 members are going into the top 5 slots with how much I ranted and raved about Neon J. But I have characters I like way more than most of the 1010 band members.

And yes, I’ll bring this up now since we’re actually talking about 1010, that will apply to all the members of 1010 so I don’t have to repeat myself: I already know that they’re meant to parody boy bands, pop bands, and how similar all of them are and ect ect ect. That doesn’t stop me from going “hee hoo pretty boys” at fictional characters. And, yes, I know they don’t canonically have names, but I’m going with what’s been accepted across the fandom. Also all of their body types are the same: I like them alot. They’re tall, in monochrome (hah, chrome), and the way they bob to the beat in their battle is fantastic and shows they are powered by music as much as any machine is in the universe of No Straight Roads.

Starting off with my least favorite of them, Purl-Hew just reminds me of Garnet from “Steven Universe”, which is not a bad thing. It’s just that outside of what we learn of Garnet, she’s a character I often forget exists. I think it’s honestly the shades and the blue, more square-like hair that makes me draw the comparison. Purl-Hew strikes me as the “cool” one. The one that recites his poetry in coffee shops and is the sensitive boy with a cold exterior. You know the kind of person I’m talking about.

Other than that, I like the 1010 branding on the side of his head. I normally don’t like hairstyles like that, but somehow with how it flows and how non-obnoxious it is, I actually find myself liking the hairstyle. Also coupled with the fact that I see him as the second eldest of all five of them, who likely cemented an identity for himself before the others, makes me like his entirety even more.

A cool dude deserves a cool transition, but since this isn’t a video, a line break will have to do. ________________________________________________________________7. Red 1010 Robot | Zimelu Zimelu is one of the ones that strikes me as the one that’s borderline trying to break free from the rest of the band and become his own artist. The mowhawk, the color red, even to what he’s likely supposed to represent in-universe. Many see him as having anger issues, and considering what 1010 is about coupled with, again the hair style and his color, yeah I can see why.

But I also see him having a somewhat tsundere side. Not overtly fully tusndere as “I-It’s not like I like you or anything!” but more of a “Hey, I got you [insert favorite food] to eat. Don’t read too much into it.” while looking off to the side to avoid seeing your reaction just because he’s not sure if he can handle the thought of him possibly being wrong and then seeing you be disappointed kind of tsundere.

I don’t see a lot of peices of work exploring this concept, and I’d love to see more of it - or heck, even other personality traits that could be lying under the rebellious design of him.

I see him as the middle child of the group, which could also add to the rebellious personality and anger issues. Not sure if anyone agrees with me on this though. ________________________________________________________________6. Yellow 1010 Robot | Haym Okay, so this is a bit weird. Haym is my second least favorite in terms of design, but third favorite because he’s supposed to be the sunny, shy, and sweet one. I see him as the second youngest of all of the 1010 members. Old enough to have experience and understand his purpose, but young enough to retain that childhood-like innocence and sweetness.

I think he’s content about his place in 1010. It’s not that he would slack off or anything, but he’d be the most comfortable with his identity out of all five of them, even years down the line. Where Purl-Hew has to upkeep his identity, Haym is fine just being who he is and happy that the crowd accepts him for who he is.

Also him saying “even your lips, which form that raaaaadiant smile~” made me smile like an idiot and my heart flutter when I first saw him - and don’t even get me started on his pose when he was saying that. So that probably has at least some bearing on his placement in this list. ________________________________________________________________5. Green 1010 Robot | Eloni Haym was weird for me to admit I still don’t fully like his design, but Eloni’s design is actually worse for me. I still don’t like the fact he looks like you could hang him on a Christmas tree or a keychain and not be out of place there. But as I learned more - especially the part where in-universe he’s the least-liked because he’s the prankster type, my heart melted for the guy.

While I myself am not a prankster or a fan of prankster types, sympathetic characters that are generally unliked in-universe for something minor or not their fault is something that will always get me to love a character. There’s also a lot of great fanfiction out there for Eloni, playing with the idea of jealousy, feelings of inadequacy, and the resulting love and support that inevitably follows from a strong supporting family.

Also, I see him as the youngest, and likely the one who thought it’d be a good idea to give everyone reindeer heads for the Christmas event instead of whatever was originally planned. The fans probably loved it anyways, even better than what was originally planned, but never knew it was Eloni’s messing around that gave them the toy-soldier-with-reindeer-heads 1010.

Second best 1010 boy deserves to be in the top 5 for all of this and more. ________________________________________________________________4. Tila Tila? You mean the one girl who only goes “pyun” a few times? The only one of Team Sayu that has any voice lines that are more than sobs, grunts, tremoring fear, and sounds of triumph?

Yes. That character. You want to know why?

First, lets start with her design. She wears an oversized hoodie and glasses - already two things I can relate to. The color contrast is just perfect between her hair, skin, and hoodie. Her design alone to me screams “high-functioning introvert”.

Her one line? Going “pyun” a few times? Absolutely adorable. I wanted to hear her say more lines, and the delivery of them being so uncertain filtered through a microphone to not come out that way as Sayu? She is definitely the shy one of the four of them. Also let’s not forget she’s Sayu’s voice actress in universe. Meaning that VS Sayu is something that Tila is singing.

Also, in the background material for Sayu, she’s the one that apologizes for using Remi’s art for one of her songs, and starts the collaboration with all four members of Team Sayu. It’s her story we follow. Not any of the other four members, though Remi does actually say something.

Though we don’t get much else of her, which prevents her from taking a spot in my top 3 picks, if we got just a little bit more from her, I’d definitely bump her to 3rd, maybe even let her take 1st. As it stands, compared to the rest of Team Sayu and Sayu herself, top 5 is nothing to sneeze at. ________________________________________________________________3. Kliff “No one like’s Kliff! He’s evil and bad!”

I mostly disagree with that statement, politely of course. Does no one like him? Seems that way in the fandom, but I like him. Is he evil? Yes, most certainly. Is he “bad”? Well, what’s the context of bad in this case? A bad plot-twist? A bad character? A bad guide? Not really. Well, except for the last part, possibly, but even then he’s still serviceable.

I mean take into context that Tatiana is Kul Fyra. On a first viewing, after having fought so many people after first meeting Kliff, most people would have forgotten that he, like Mayday, also likes Kul Fyra and was even there for her concerts. People who have insane memory would remember it, but for the rest of us, it probably came as a shock that Kliff would send a satellite into the NSR tower.

But he’s a fan that put Kul Fyra on a pillar, just like Mayday. He’d hoped that rock artists would get her back into rock music, to reignite the fire in her, so that he could enjoy her music again. He even says that he’s still her fan. He questions Tatiana “did my loyalty mean nothing to you?”.

And while yes, she didn’t technically owe him anything, the way that Tatiana shoots Kliff down so coldly after all of his attempts and his waiting - after she shut herself away from any potential future differing opinions and banning rock so she couldn’t remember the heartache - he snaps.

I’m not saying that Kliff was right, or that his reaction was fully justified. But imagine him saying he’ll be the strategic planner of NSR - after all, it was thanks to him that Mayday and Zuke got as far as they did. They knew what was coming ahead of time due to his advice. Mayday and Zuke would just be figureheads. It would be entirely realistic, and not make Kliff entirely evil.

Still, with all the hypotheticals out of the way, having an entirely selfish twist villain like Kliff was amazing. When you go through the entire story knowing how it will end on a second playthrough, suddenly his motives and what he says makes so much more sense.

I want to see (or maybe someday I’ll write) a redemption arc for Kliff. He’s not so fargone that I’d write him off as another villain for the sake of evil, but it would take actual work and effort. It’s something I look forwards to seeing in the far future.

Though he is also fun to see as an antagonist in all of these stories I read about him. ________________________________________________________________2. Zuke On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d rank Zuke an 11. From his design, to his animations, to his background, his voice, his lines - everything is an 11/10 for me.

Starting with design again, normally I’d dislike the major contrast such a saturated green against a saturated blue. But there’s other bits in Zuke’s design - his red eyes, the fact that his clothing is a good neutral base to draw away from the chaos of colors of his head - only to lead back into what looks like ultra-comfortable blue-and-green flannel with dark blue flats? It all screams the perfect chill dude to hang out with.

His personality matches too. He’s laid-back, wise, rational, humble, and kind. Almost the perfect man in every way. Though he has his limits, especially when it comes to DK West, and he’s not always the most intelligent at times. Sometimes he takes a minute to put two-and-two together, especially when he’s under pressure and nervous.

And his drumsticks being used as a walking cane when he’s not battling, admitting that it’s NSR property - recognizing that NSR itself is not bad, it just needs change. He doesn’t generally talk smack unless, again, it’s DK West. He probably says less than Mayday does out of the two, but I wasn’t counting. I was just thankful that he was talking at all, attempting to be the voice of reason in situations, telling Eve he was wrong for leaving so suddenly (even though he’s not at fault for his hair being set on fire), reconciling with DK West after Mayday gets them to talk about their feelings to each other - he experiences the most growth over the longest period of time.

In fact, it feels like we’re witnessing Zuke’s entire story through the eyes of Mayday. Sure, Mayday has a stake in the conflict, and a small bit of growth, but none nearly so much as the jolly green giant between them. Heck, he’s so good that he made DJ Subatomic Supernova’s music actually sound good.

If this wasn’t enough, he’s also one half of my favorite pairing. Where’s the other half? Where he belongs of course. ________________________________________________________________1. White 1010 Robot | Rin Look guys, my favorite character of No Straight Roads is finally here. Let me be the ideal fan and give him my utmost attention.

ATTENTION!

Hoo boy have I been waiting to talk about Rin! His design is the one that I love the most despite how simple and obviously pandering it is. I mean come on, he’s got the kind of hairstyle that just screams “typical emo/scene/goth/pop leader” without the sweeping bit of hair in front of the eye like Haym’s or other emo/scene/goth hair styles. He has no unique colors to himself (white and black are technically not colors). Heck, as a robot meant to parody pop/boybands, he technically should be the most bland and uninteresting part of 1010.

But that’s where you’d be wrong. Rin is the one who leads the flirting attempt against Mayday. Rin is the one who is focused on the most of all the 1010 members when the cutscenes play. Rin is the one who’s talking the most in the promotional video for 1010 and No Straight Roads. Even though Zimelu takes up most of the spot in the in-game photo op, Rin is the second most noticable. In the “wefies” the 1010 members make in the promotional video, Rin is front and center.

Rin is the poster child. Meaning he has the most mounting on him of all the members of 1010. And this can manifest in any number of interesting character traits. I’ve already written an (as of posting this review) three chapter fanfic on Rin and his dynamic with not only the other half of my favorite pairing, but also his dynamic with Neon J, and how both Zuke and Neon J view Rin - through what I perceive how Rin actually feels and acts when he’s not on stage.

I could probably do an entire 20 minute review on why Rin is the single-best character of No Straight Roads, both in and out of canon, but I don’t have the tools for it. And as a side note, the guitar solo that Mayday can play over the song is the single-best of all the guitar solos, the second being the one against Yinu - and that deep passion for 1010 is reflected well in the guitar solo.

Zuke may be an 11/10, but Rin is a perfect 10/10 - and I wouldn’t have it any other way . ________________________________________________________________Afterwords Finally, after an entire 4 hours of writing, I’d like to hear your thoughts on all of this, if you’ve made it this far.

What did you agree and disagree with? Feel free to comment if you want.

As for me, I think I’ll continue to browse the work of the fandom, keep an ear out for any future updates or sequels, and rock on with the amazing soundtrack of No Straight Roads jamming loudly in my ears.

Rock on fellow No Straight Roads fans! Or whatever genre you prefer to listen to.

10 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

The Best Games of 2020

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Despite how almost every other aspect of the year went, 2020 was a landmark year for video games. Not only did it see the release of highly-anticipated titles like The Last of Us Part II, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Ghost of Tsushima, and Cyberpunk 2077, but 2020 also marked the beginning of a new generation of console and PC gaming with the release of the Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and new GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD. We even got a new Half-Life game this year!

What would’ve made the gaming year ever better? Big-name video game companies could have done more to eliminate development crunch and be more transparent about their business practices with customers and the press. And we definitely could have all been nicer to each other.

But video games also helped keep us connected when we couldn’t see our friends and loved ones in person. They helped us travel to new and interesting places when we couldn’t leave our homes. Most importantly, all 20 games on our best-of-the-year list made us feel excited about this medium at a time when it was so difficult to enjoy anything else.

To that affect, Den of Geek is celebrating 20 video games our contributors and critics, as well as our community of readers, voted as the very best of 2020.

20. Star Wars: Squadrons

For the last decade or so, most Star Wars games have focused on the power fantasy of being a lightsaber-swinging, Force-wielding Jedi. That’s all well and good, but for a long time it seemed like everyone forgot that some of the most beloved Star Wars games of all time were actually space shooters like X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and Rogue Squadron. In many ways, Star Wars: Squadrons is a throwback to those games, both in terms of gameplay and design. Controls are a pitch perfect mix of arcade simplicity and strategy, requiring quick thinking about whether to focus your ship’s power on attacking or defending.

Squadrons is also much more tightly focused than other recent games from large publishers, with a breezy yet enjoyable single-player campaign, and a multiplayer mode that, while light on modes, eschews the more annoying modern conventions of the online PvP like invasive microtransactions. But Squadrons is not stuck in its old school ways.

If you have the hardware for it on PC or PS4, you can jump into the cockpit of any of the playable ships for one one of the most immersive VR modes around. Similar to how The Mandalorian has rejuvenated the live-action side of the Star Wars media empire, Squadrons is a perfect mix of all of the best things we’ve always loved about Star Wars video games, and everything we want them to be going forward. – CF

19. Journey to the Savage Planet

Science fiction writers have long held on to this idea that, if and when humankind eventually colonizes the universe, it will do so as some sort of united, utopian entity, like Starfleet. But that future seems less and less likely every day. If and when humanity spreads across the stars, it will likely be messy, absurd, and profit-motivated. Journey to the Savage Planet wallows in that type of future. As an unnamed human (or dog, if you choose), you’re dropped onto the planet AR-Y26 by Kindred, the fourth biggest intergalactic exploration company with the simple goal of collecting as many resources as possible and leaving.

The Metroidvania gameplay loop of crafting equipment to access new areas is compelling, a rarity for 3D games in the genre. And it offers plenty of surprises too. You’ll start off with the typical blaster and scanner before eventually unlocking a grappling hook that lets you swing around levels like Spider-Man. But it’s style that ultimately lifts Journey to the Savage Planet above so many other games released in 2020. For one thing, the world and the fauna you’ll encounter are incredibly unique, and well, alien. And the regular live-action updates from Kindred beamed directly to your ship are among some of the funniest and most bizarre cinematics out this year in any game, providing plenty of motivation to see this journey through to its end. – CF

18. Half-Life: Alyx

As VR gaming continues to evolve, it’s becoming clear that the technology is more than just one truly great game away from widespread adoption. If that were all it took, then Half-Life: Alyx would have put a VR set under a lot of Christmas trees.

It’s truly wild to think that we got a new Half-Life game this year and that it sometimes feels like the game’s release was barely a blip on the cultural radar. While its somewhat muted debut can be attributed to its VR exclusivity (and the fact it launched at the onset of a global health crisis), Half-Life: Alyx surpassed all possible hype by offering a truly incredibly narrative-driven adventure bolstered by some of the cleverest uses of VR technology that we’ve ever seen.

Half-Life: Alyx isn’t the first great VR game, but Valve’s glorious return to form does shows how VR can advance fundamental elements of gameplay and storytelling rather than just show familiar games from a new perspective. – MB

17. Carrion

The indie game space is where you typically see the most experimentation, and this year proved no different when the gruesome and morbid Carrion released back in July. Highly inspired by the likes of John Carpenter’s The Thing, Alien, and other cult classic horror films known for their excellent use of practical SFX, this platformer cleverly flips the script, putting you in the role of the monster to dispatch helpless scientists in the claustrophobic depths of an underground lab as an ever-growing amorphous blob creature. What follows is a brief but effective 2D platformer that is fast paced and delectably gory.

The controls could have made controlling the creature a real pain, but Phobia Game Studio recognized that the key here was letting you move swiftly through the levels. As such, gliding through vents to take down scientists from above or underneath quickly becomes second nature. Encounters still pose a good degree of challenge, however, thanks to the heavily armed soldiers that show up later in the game, but this never stops Carrion from fulfilling every horror aficionado’s devilish fantasy of being the bloodthirsty monster. – AP

16. Kentucky Route Zero

Calling Kentucky Route Zero an homage to classic point-and-click adventure games is technically correct, but it doesn’t come close to doing the experience justice. Kentucky Route Zero is more like a poem or fable in video game form. It’s a feeling, a distillation of what it’s like to come of age in the Great Recession and its fallout over the last decade. Kentucky Route Zero is an epithet for rural America told through a fever dream, an examination of a version of rural Appalachia where talking skeletons and robotic musicians live alongside gas station attendants and truck drivers.

Nothing about Kentucky Route Zero fits the typical confines of what we expect from a video game, and that includes its release. Developed by a team of only three, the first episode of the five-episode experience was released in 2013, but the final product was only realized in early 2020. That lengthy development cycle meant that the game’s scope and story could grow to only better encapsulate this moment in time, and the final product stands out as one of best games of the year. To say more is to spoil its excellent story. – CF

15. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2

Though it’s been a hot minute since skateboarding games dominated the console space, Vicarious Visions’ excellent remake collection of the first two Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater titles was a reminder of how the entire series captured a whole generation of players in the late ’90s and early ’00s. Whether it’s grinding down rails, performing kickflips, or landing the gravity-defying 1080 on a vert ramp, everything in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 feels and looks exactly as you remember it but touched up with modern flare. That’s the mark of any great remake, and why this game in particular was the best example of the practice this year.

Classic skating locations like Warehouse, School and Downtown have all been faithfully remade from the ground up for a 21st century audience, effortlessly delivering the same thrills and balanced challenge as they did before. The fact that select mechanical features like reverts, which wouldn’t arrive until later entries, have been retroactively added is also a nice touch, instantly making Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 the definitive way to experience these skateboarding classics. – AP

14. Ori and the Will of the Wisps

The fact that Ori and the Will of the Wisps managed to usurp the critically acclaimed 2015 original in most design aspects speaks to just how well Moon Studios has mastered the art of the Metroidvania. Whisking players off on another tight 10-hour journey set within a mystical forest full of secrets to discover, this 2D adventure gives off a fantastical vibe in a way few others do. It’s an expert blend between smart combat mechanics, highly polished platforming, and emotional storytelling. That it runs at a silky 60 fps both on Nintendo Switch and Xbox is the cherry on top.

The major improvements Will of the Wisps makes over Blind Forest relate to saving and combat. Whereas previously it was the responsibility of players to lay down specific checkpoints, progress is now more in line with other 2D platformers and less punishing. Combat, meanwhile, has been completely revamped with the inclusion of special charms and upgradeable skills, most of which result in more flexible enemy encounters. These tweaks are implemented without ever compromising on Ori’s core hook of magical exploration and challenging platforming, instantly making it one of the best Metroidvanias out there. – AP

13. Call of Duty: Warzone

Call of Duty: Warzone was a natural and perhaps even necessary evolution for the long-running shooter franchise, carving out a space for it in the ever-crowding battle royale genre. While it’s largely derivative of battle royale titles that came before, the staggering 150-player count, always excellent CoD controls, top-notch presentation, and flexible cash system have made it eminently popular and fun for casual players and series vets alike. The CoD fan base feels vibrant again after years of stagnation in the shadow of breakout titles like PUBG and Fortnite, and that’s without going into how Warzone has revitalized the franchise’s presence in the streaming space.

One of the best facets of the game’s design is that the large player count all but ensures that, even if a player is new to the genre or series, the chances of them being the absolute worst player in the field is very low. Better still, the “Gulag” respawn mechanic opens up the possibility for ultimate revenge should you earn your way back into the match, which is a nice way to up engagement for those who suffer disappointing deaths.

The game doesn’t feel quite as dynamic or high-stakes as some of its competitors on the market, but it’s definitely one of the easiest to pick up and play. It’s no wonder Warzone has expanded CoD’s already enormous audience over the course of 2020. – BB

12. Astro’s Playroom

With launch lineups mostly filled with graphically enhanced releases of last-gen games, the release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X has been more than a little underwhelming. The one bright spot is Astro’s Playroom, a little first-party Sony game that received virtually no pre-release hype and comes pre-installed on every PS5.

While at first glance a typical 3D platformer, Astro’s Playroom soon reveals itself to be a fantastic showcase of what’s possible with the new DualSense controller. In one level, you’re feeling the resistance from the controller’s adaptive triggers as you spring jump through obstacles dressed as a frog. In another, you’re expertly moving the controller back and forth to climb walls in a robotic monkey suit. Even just standing in the rain causes the controller to pulse ever so slightly with each drop. And all of this takes place across worlds celebrating the entire history of PlayStation, where you collect classic consoles and accessories, culminating in an unexpected boss battle throwback to an original PSX tech demo.

Astro’s Playroom may be short, but it’s an oh so sweet and exciting taste of what’s possible with the power of next-gen consoles. – CF

11. Doom Eternal

It would have been easy for Doom Eternal to be more of the same. After all, 2016’s Doom became the surprising gold-standard for single-player FPS games by virtue of its clever writing and gameplay that blended the best of classic and modern design concepts. Yet, Doom Eternal proved to be something much more than “the same but bigger.”

With its arena-like levels and resource management mechanics, Doom Eternal sometimes feels like a puzzle game set in the Doom universe. While the transition to this new style can be jarring, you soon find that Doom Eternal is speaking the same language in a different dialect. The brutal brilliance of a classic Doom game remains but it’s presented in the form of a kind of FPS dance that puts you in a state of pure zen once you figure out how to make that perfect run through a room full of demonic baddies.

Four years after Doom showed this old franchise could pull off new tricks, Doom Eternal proves that this series is at the forefront of FPS innovation once more. – MB

10. Demon’s Souls

Although initially released in 2009 for the PlayStation 3, Demon’s Souls would help define the next generation of gaming by establishing the Soulslike genre, which has influenced everything from recent Star Wars games to The Legend of Zelda. The “problem” is that the legacy of Demon’s Souls has been sort of eclipsed by the accomplishments of its successors.

That’s the beauty of the remake for the PS5. Aided by the power of the console’s next-gen hardware, developer Bluepoint Games pays homage to one of the most historically significant games of the last 15 years while wisely updating it in ways that show that the foundation of FromSoftware’s breakthrough hit remains arguably the best entry in a genre that isn’t exactly lacking in modern classics.

In a year where finding a next-gen console proved to be more difficult than any Soulslike game, Demon’s Souls remains the best reason to battle the bots at online stores in the hopes of joining gaming’s next generation as soon as possible. – MB

9. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

There were multiple times this year where couped-up players relied heavily on “bean” games to help maintain a human connection. Before Among Us dominated the Twitch streams, it was Mediatonic’s intentionally clumsy and hilarious Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout that had us competitively raging with our friends. It did so by merging the wildly popular battle royale genre with the inflatable-fueled antics of early ’90s game shows, where dodging swinging hammers and battling giant fruit against 59 others became the norm for a few weeks – all in the pursuit of winning a highly coveted crown.

Needless to say, making Fall Guys free to PS Plus subscribers for a month turned out to be a genius marketing move, urging everyone to hop into the game’s inventive gamut of levels and make a fool of themselves. Much of what sets it apart from other battle royale attempts is its low-skill barrier to entry, and thanks to frequent seasonal updates, new unlockable outfits and fresh mini-games always being added, bumbling to the top of the pack as a colorful bean remains consistent fun. – AP

8. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Animal Crossing: New Horizons should be included in history books about the Covid-19 pandemic. Releasing just as lockdowns were being instituted across the globe, New Horizons provided the escapism we so desperately needed while quarantining, attracting not just the usual Nintendo fanbase, but even those who had never played games in the past but were now looking for something to occupy their time at home. Whether we played it with friends or alone, New Horizons provided the routine and distraction that so many of us needed in a world suddenly thrown into chaos.

Of course, it helped that New Horizons is the best Animal Crossing game to date, with tons of new ways to customize your island (and yourself). And as Covid-19 restrictions have stretched much longer than many of us anticipated, New Horizons has kept pace, with Nintendo releasing a steady stream of new fish to catch, fruits to harvest, and events to participate in throughout the year. It may not be the game that everyone wanted, but New Horizons is the game that 2020 needed. – CF

7. Cyberpunk 2077

When Cyberpunk 2077’s legacy is written, there’s no doubt that the opening chapter is going to focus on the bugs, technical shortcomings, and empty promises that have turned what looked to be one of 2020’s guaranteed hits into one of modern gaming’s most debated debuts.

Yet, the reason that this game’s initial issues will likely not ultimately define it is that Cyberpunk 2077 reveals itself to be a special experience whenever you’re able to play it without crashes or bugs ruining your experience. From its stunning side quests that revive one of The Witcher 3’s best elements to its shockingly human narrative, Cyberpunk 2077 regularly showcases the undeniable talent of the individuals who battled internal and external factors to deliver their vision.

Cyberpunk 2077’s technical problems wouldn’t hurt as much as they do if there wasn’t a truly great game at the heart of them that people are begging to be able to play as intended. – MB

6. Final Fantasy VII Remake

The pressure was on for Square Enix from the moment it announced Final Fantasy VII Remake back in 2015. For those who obsessed over the original back in 1997, the prospect of a remake was the stuff dreams were made of, and this year we finally got to relive Cloud, Aerith, Barret, and Tifa’s grand adventure (the first act of it, at least) with fully updated, well, everything. Astonishingly, the remake actually lived up to expectations and delivered not just a faithful update to the original game but a modern RPG that stands as one of its generation’s best regardless of nostalgia.

The key to Square Enix’s success was its approach, which aimed not to duplicate the experience of the original game, but to capture the essence and spirit of it while using modern game design to deliver the story in a way that doesn’t feel retro or rehashed at all. The game looks dazzling by 2020 standards (Midgar never looked better) but doesn’t compromise the integrity of the original designs, and the real-time combat—arguably the biggest departure from the original—is a blast to play.

Time will tell how exactly Square Enix will follow through with the rest of the remake as we enter a new console generation, but in the meantime, they studio has left us with a terrific reimagining of the most celebrated title in the studio’s expansive oeuvre. – BB

5. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Ubisoft deserves credit for keeping a franchise like Assassin’s Creed, which is 13 years old at this point, thriving in an industry that is flooded with more open world games now than it ever has been. The series is always competitive in the genre, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla proves why: it’s as refined as any of its predecessors and delivers a balanced experience with a rich world to explore, tons of strange stories to uncover, and a mash-up milieu that combines the eerie atmosphere of 5th-century England with the otherworldly spectacle of Norse mythology.

No open world game is perfect, and Valhalla certainly has a handful of shortcomings. But it’s a bloody good time to play, and there’s so much to do that there’s no question that you get your money’s worth. Eivor’s quest for glory and domination is also arguably the most cinematic story in the entire AC catalog, with some truly breathtaking cutscenes that rival those found in more linear games that can’t sniff Valhalla’s scope. Some of the more otherworldly moments in the back half of the game are pure, unadulterated, nonsensical fun, and overall, this is one of the best entries in the series. – BB

4. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Insomniac is one of those studios that you can always rely on to deliver fun, polished games that shine in every category, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales only adds to the team’s sterling reputation. Building on the already brilliant formula the studio created with the original Marvel’s Spider-Man, Miles’s story is one of loss, friendship, identity, and the strength of the Black and Hispanic communities of Harlem.

The side-quel is also one of the best launch titles arguably ever. While it is a cross-gen game, the PS5 version is currently the best showcase of what next-gen gaming is capable of from a visual and performance standpoint. You won’t find a better-looking New York City in any other video game, period, and Insomniac’s outstanding animation work looks insanely good when bolstered by the PS5’s considerable horsepower. Miles plays differently than Peter Parker did in the original game as well, with his Venom Powers giving enemy encounters a new feel and rhythm.

Insomniac outdid itself with an excellent follow-up that would’ve been a forgettable DLC expansion in the hands of a less ambitious studio. But Miles Morales is one of the best modern-day superhero characters ever created, and it’s only right that he get a game that lives up to his greatness. – BB

3. Hades

The popularity of roguelikes has been calmly bubbling up for years now, yet only in 2020 did it truly become mainstream thanks to an ideal balance between gameplay and story as demonstrated by Hades. Players who previously took umbrage with the genre’s nature to wipe out all progress at each run’s end suddenly had a reason to jump back in, now inspired by Zagreus’ various tries to escape hell and overthrow his eponymous father. This alone sees Hades tower over most of its peers in terms of balance, further backed up by rewarding gameplay and a gorgeous comic book art style that makes the well-worn mythological Greek milieu feel fresh.

Developer Supergiant Games proved its penchant for creating flexible mechanical loops in prior titles, and in many ways, Hades feels like a culmination of all those ideas distilled in one neat package. It’s a great example of semi-randomized systems layering perfectly on top of other systems, until players eventually find themselves completing runs using distinct weapons, upgrading persistent abilities and slowly discovering which of the god’s many boons gel best with one another. Hades is always a hellishly good time. – AP

2. Ghost of Tsushima

The concept of honor has never been explored in a game as lyrically and philosophically as it is in Ghost of Tsushima, Sucker Punch’s story-driven samurai epic. Jin Sakai’s grand adventure is both brutal and beautiful, stretching across the grasslands and snowy peaks of the titular island, as he pushes the oppressive Mongol army out of his homeland, all the while wrestling internally with the kind of man, warrior, and leader he ultimately wants to be.

This game is outstanding on so many fronts that it’s difficult to list them all here. Visually, it looks so stunning that anyone who walks past your TV as you play is all but guaranteed to stop and stare for a while. The combat is fast and challenging, the stealth mechanic is on-point, the score is sweeping and sentimental, the character models are incredibly realistic, the online multiplayer mode “Legends” is actually a blast to play…and the list goes on. This poetic, pitch-perfect modern masterpiece is emblematic of the soulful, cinematic storytelling PlayStation Studios is known for, and it’s a wonderful way to send the PS4 off into the sunset. – BB

1. The Last of Us Part II (Also Reader’s Choice)

You can’t even say the name of our 2020 game of the year without sparking numerous debates that often make it nearly impossible to have a productive conversation about the game itself. That makes it that much more tempting to somehow find a kind of middle-ground that will “justify” the game’s lofty position to everyone regardless of where they stand.

The thing about The Last of Us Part 2,though, is that its divisiveness is very much part of the experience. Naughty Dog’s follow-up to arguably its greatest game is a bold attempt to live up to the franchise’s legacy by furthering what came before while trying to find its own way. Much like Ellie herself, The Last of Us Part 2 doesn’t always make the right decisions. Yet, at a time when bigger budgets are seen as an excuse to play it safe, The Last of Us Part 2 impresses through its willingness to present a big, bold, and personal adventure that is often anything but what was expected.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Anyone can generate a little controversy by saying something stupid, offensive, or hurtful. The beauty of The Last of Us Part 2’s controversy is that it stems from a heartfelt attempt to advance the conversation through indie-like passion and big budget production. – MB

The post The Best Games of 2020 appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2KKY9QG

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

3 notes · View notes

mentalisttraceur-long · 3 years

Text

Had the misfortune of ending up at The Gettier Response section of the Wikipedia page on Epistemology, and... the feeling it invokes in me is a perfect example of how I find formal philosophy to be very low-value and tedious.

Like... these are not valuable discussions. Actually they are, just not to me anymore. And not for most purposes. I go through them rapidly losing coping spoons - like "no, that's obvious wrong/incomplete", but the actual process of extracting that obviousness into words is really tedious.

I could spend days going through rebuttals to the Gettier Problem, and rebuttals to those rebuttals, and trying to suss out the way to articulate what the issue is with each one, if any. But at the end of the day, I won't be particularly enriched. I've already figured out that knowledge is inescapably probabilistic. If the Wikipedia article is any indication, a lot of the hair-splitting around the Gettier Problem depends on the premise of chasing the purely imagined ideal of certain knowledge.

Like when they say "well, if you saw what appearred to be a dog in the park, you would have justified belief that a dog is in the park, but what if that dog is actually a really convincing robot, but unbeknownst to you there actually is another real dog in the park? 🤔 checkmate simplistic reduction of knowledge as 'justifief true belief'", I could say:

In a world where convincing fake dogs are possible, observing a dog does not justify believing that a dog exists. So it was not justified true belief, merely incidentally true belief. This also reveals that what is justified is a function of what is possible. But you don't start out knowing what's possible, you have to figure that out. So you do the whole Cartesian Doubt thing and you end up at the experience axiom, and then you have to build everything back up from the raw experiences.

But like, if you're still stuck in "boolean certain truth" cognition, this reveals that everything is tainted with uncertainty. Nothing is justified. Or worse, you convince yourself that some knowledge is justified anyway because you have to somehow bridge the gap between "all we truly know are the contents of our experiences, and even that might not match with any external reality, so..." and the on-the-ground day-to-day reality that there are things you know and things that you don't know, and things you are right about and things that you're wrong about, etc. If you make the breakthrough that some beliefs are more justified than others and you don't need certainty to pick the most justified one at any given time, you can just bridge that gap in those relative terms. But if you don't make that breakthrough, you can only bridge the gap by grasping for something that still feels certain.

So either you've understood that justification and knowledge is inherently probabilistic, or you haven't. And I feel like in the former case, things like the Gettier Response and all the discourse around it are tedious and boring, like a long-ago solved problem. In the latter case, I guess it seems important? If you're still chasing certain knowledge, it's a pretty compelling problem - what are the exact criteria which must be strictly maintained?

The thing is, I'm not saying it is wrong or bad to engage these questions. It's just that they feel like growth steps that I've already traversed long ago, and a big part of what repelled me from pursuing a career in philosophy, from seriously getting into philosophy, is that this kind of entry-level stuff bored me. It substantially turned me off from formal philosophy, because it felt like a lot of waffling and debate about the obvious. But there was a time in my life when exactly these questions were valuable. In my first deliberate philosophical/epistemological growth spurt, I was grappling with questions like that. Grappling with these questions is part of the "on ramp" to stuff like knowledge and justification being probabilistic.

But what I'm trying to say is that much of the philosophy I come into contact with feels like slow, easy, and boring on-ramps. I suspect they must lead to fast, challenging, and exciting highways. If I had intersected these on-ramps at the right time in my life, I would've probably naturally progressed excitedly onto the mainstream highways, because these on-ramps would have been just the right level of challenge for where I was at mentally. But I mostly found my own on-ramps, grew my own highways. Of course I mostly built on the work of others - I just picked up the results of their work as many little building blocks disseminated through culture, divorced from the original source and context, and then I assembled them myself at my own pace. So I see these mainstream on-ramps and I suspect that if I took the time to go through them I would get to other highways which are probably just as good as mine or better, built by many more minds like me or better than me. But now I'm used to highway speeds, and slowing down to get through the mainstream on-ramps feels ways too tedious.

1 note · View note

princessbilliam · 3 years

Text

Otaku Nation: Anime's Effect on American Pop Culture

The modern age of Anime arrive in Japan in the 1960s, and within the course of the following decade or so prospered to the giant robot, distance battle genre bender that we would soon realize as the anime of now.

Evolving within the next 30 years or so, it reached a summit where it could start to overtake and eventually become an essential component of different cultures, similar to the Hollywood of the 1930s quickly grew to encompass the remainder of the planet and inform their pop culture. In precisely the exact same fashion, American pop culture becomes increasingly informed by the trends and cult reaction to anime.

On the other hand, the national awareness as to where these shows came from as well as the poor marketing of the shows made them forgettable and rather than a jump in point, they behave as a nostalgic reminder. Know more NaijaVibe is a pop culture and entertainment website

When Speed Racer came, the beginnings of a true understanding that Japan was producing something fresh and exciting started to install. The prevalence of Speed Racer was never that of its American contemporaries, but it created at a established fanbase the openness to devour newer offerings in the future in Starblazers and Robotech (a convoluted perversion of multiple animes, but nevertheless a comparative success in the countries ). Nonetheless, the effect was largely underground.

From the 1980s, the addition of Beta and VHS made it possible to join together with friends and watch more varying forms of anime. When Akira arrived in 1989, the effect was real. People who knew of Akira were lovers for life, eagerly awaiting their opportunity to partake more and more of the developing tendencies out of Japan.

For Japan's role, this age was a period of major expansion, a veritable boom in the company. The 1980s saw the success of shows such as Gundam and Dragon Ball overgrow the national consciousness and become runaway sensations. The explosion of the manga sector before hand, with serializations of works by Akira Toriyama and Katsuhiro Otomo in the early 80s simmered in the childhood of Japan and finally seeing the commercial possibilities of those functions, creating in the process a major conglomerate of companies in the Akira Committee to bring the huge funding of Akira to fruition.

By the 90s anime was the mainstream in Japan, and the result was that the ramping up of production and increased output of shows. In part because of the simple, streamlined art style, multiple artist were able to work on a single project and create episode per week for years at a time, leading to monumental runs such as the case of Dragonball (156 episodes) and Dragonball Z (276 episodes). The ability to serialize and turn a story into something that millions of youths would tune into each and every week made firms billions (of yen) and secured the sorts of industrial sponsorships and funds necessary to undertake extraordinary jobs that would require huge sums of cash to finish.

Back in America, a few executives were starting to see the impact that these shows were having in Japan. Slowly and very carefully they began taking the hottest, Dragonball Z and Sailormoon by way of example and finding timeslots first in the afternoon, before the daily retinue of American cartoons, testing the waters of marketability. In 1995, the trickle of anime into the states was only that, a relative trickle. Sailormoon aired every morning in syndication, but sliced and missing key seasons to relate the endings of significant storylines. Dragonball Z ran an equally mild run early on Saturdays in syndication that was abruptly cut when the rights to the show have been lost by the initial company and bought by Funimation.

All the while, works from Japanese specialists like Hayao Miyazaki were being overlooked, passing undetected through limited release in the countries, while making him a God of his own craft in Japan. All the while firms like Manga, Funimation, and Viz were buying up licenses and releasing small known, untraceable reveals that no one knew the origin of. The shows were treated badly, often dubbed and cut up to accommodate American audiences. Viz even launched the very first Anime magazine in 1993 using Animerica, primarily reviewing their particular products but still giving a view of this civilization that nobody knew anything about.

Butin 1995, the release of the shows in the Usa along with the premiere and rave reviews of Neon Genesis Evangelion at Japan, Otaku curiosity abroad began to spike. Otaku is a bid of a misnomer as it is a little bit of a insult in Japan, a mean spirited way to call someone a nerd. Here though, it normally signifies a purveyor of Japanese pop-culture and with all the Otaku so in fashion right now it's less of an insult than the clique. The early 90s was a time of massive growth of interest from the little known import of Anime however, and the American marketplace was not slow to react.

In 1997, tv programs made broad sweeping moves to bring displays to the mainstream. The Sci-Fi station had always needed a small market in its own latenight line up for cult classics like Vampire Hunter D, but Warner Bros finally brought the genre to primetime. And in 1998, a small known video game for the Game Boy exploded at the American market, bringing along with it its whole arsenal of marketing ploys, including the childish, but enormously popular Pokemon anime. Finally, kids throughout the nation were gluing themselves to the tv series as earnestly as their Japanese counterparts had for nearly a decade earlier hand.

Miyazaki's new film played to better reception, receiving a proper release through Miramax. Princess Mononoke has been a success in the terms of the time, even receiving the coveted two thumbs up (let alone an overview whatsoever ) out of Siskel and Ebert. Movies started to arrive in America more liberally, still finding small release, but release at least. And the shows started to pour into. At the time, the fansub scene was more or less the only way to get access to some of the more obscure titles being released in Japan. But since the market thrived, so did the licensing by major companies, and it really started to become prohibited to fansub certain shows since they might be published by a company eventually.

Thus began the closing and full assimilation of Japanese pop culture into American. The DVD format sped up the process, as more episodes of a series could be packaged into a disk than a VHS and production prices plummeted, removing a lot of the financial threat of an untested foreign product in the American marketplace. Cartoon Network surfaced its Toonami afternoon cartoon slot, in which they showcased anime that had been in existence for just a time, but was able to appeal to a much larger demographic and spread the word about these great narrative driven cartoons from throughout the ocean. An whole generation grew into the expanding popularity and became entranced by the epic storylines, amazing storytelling and capacity to show in a cartoon what many considered adult topics and much more mature perspectives on matters like competition and personal success. The Japanese ability to cross genre as well as the extremely higher production values which started to enter displays made in the late 90s and outside supposed amazing shows that appealed not only to children but to adults and outside.

What began as a crossover, gradually began to actually alter the manner in which American's promoted their tv to kids. Shows with more adult articles appeared, and in some cases emulated the Japanese structure. The authors at Pixar crafted brilliant, more maturely themed animations with no ridiculous musicals of Disney ago, and Disney even dissolved their attempted format in favor of much more adult, stories that were complete. The devolution of American quality in animations though as they attempted to match the output signal meant even more Japanese entries in the market. Now, if you flip on Fox kids in the morning you'll find more than half of those shows on are animes. And Cartoon Network nevertheless presents multiple entrances themselves, with much more adult offerings in their Adult Swim block late at night.

These days, you will find anime oriented t-shirts anyplace, an entire aisle devoted to DVD releases at Best Buy (compared to the 1 row only seven years ago) and the achievement of this Anime Network, a channel solely devoted to Anime programming. Magazines like Newtype, a Japanese trade magazine to the Anime sector is now translated and released in America every month with previews of new shows, and American directors like James Cameron are looking to direct live action versions of manga like Battle Angel Alita.

Now, we view new releases from Japan within seven weeks, and the fansub community has to scramble to keep up with what is legal and what's not legal to offer through their services. The internet itself has made it a huge community, in which a show can be recorded on Japanese television, ripped and subbed, subsequently uploaded within a couple hours for the entire world to view. There is no place over, and new displays are immediately available. And it's evident in the universities too. Japanese is one of the most pursued languages, filling up instantly with a lawn long waiting list each year, and much more segments being added each year.

2 notes · View notes

architectuul · 4 years

Text

FOMA 41: In Search Of Theatrical Halls

Lemonot, a tandem that meets between architecture and performative arts to trigger and celebrate the spontaneous theatre of everyday life, is presenting five Forgotten Masterpieces that shaped their modus operandi.

Five architectures seem at first glance completely disconnected, they are located in five different cities, designed by different architects, with different programs in diverse historical times. Yet they’re all united by the presence of prominent public interiors with a strong emphasis on the use of unique spatial languages, that make them great examples to investigate how to stage alternative forms of theatricality beyond specific theatre architecture.

In his “Texts on Theatre” describes Jacques Copeau how architecture doesn’t simply contain the drama but produces it, by co-creating its meanings, conventions and aesthetics. Staging a performance, Copeau continues, “is about acting in architecture: it is a practice that demands we pay attention to distance, scale, style, person-to-volume ratio and the immaterial architectures of light, heat and sound. Furthermore, using performativity as a design tool outside the boundaries of fictional scenographies leads to real yet unconventional spatial experiences.”

Indeed, the uncanny linguistic features of these buildings, in terms of geometry, colors, materiality or the clash between architectural layout and designated purpose, affect the way people inhabit them, enabling a peculiar acting in space as the performing of collective rituals and daily routines.

The Solimene Factory was born from the friendship of Vincenzo Solimene, called “Il Vasaio” (the Pottery Maker) and Paolo Soleri, who in 1950 traveled to Italy with the purpose to learn the art of pottery. Solimene entrusted him with the first and only project carried out in Europe, allowing him to design the factory for the production of ceramics.

Circular bases of round terra-cotta vases are embedded in the concrete cladding and decorate the facade. | Photo © Luca Bullaro

The building is as if carved into the rocks overlooking the sea, incorporating the objects it produces. From the outside a bright enamels mosaic in the form of a drapery, almost as a garment giving a hint of what is produced inside, constructed with sixteen thousand waste vases, glazed in copper green or in simple terra-cotta embedded into the facade.

If the outside is wavy and sinuous like the Amalfi domes, the inside is geometric and defines the space towards the center. This fifteen meters central skylight illuminates the objects that are produced every day by expert hands. The interior, flared upwards, follows the same archaic principle of the object that is produced: the growth of the vase on the lathe. The ramp going through the floors, defines the four stages of ceramic processing and allows us to better observe the thousands of coloured and painted dishes, cups and vases.

The pieces are fired at the top floors and slowly come down to be painted in the main atrium, as you descend into the building you see this chromatic and also geometric change - from the material to its final creation. The building accompanies you throughout the production of a single object - starting with the terracotta and gradually seeing its final shape and colours. The objects become part of this scenography, framed in every gaze. They’re simultaneously actors and props that drive the public - constraining you to squeeze and linger among them. It is an architecture that screams the craft made with hands, which is still in full fervor today.

The Scala Theatre in Bangkok was without doubt the grand old theater and the finest movie theater left in Southeast Asia. Named after the Teatro della Scala in Milan, it first opened in 1969, showing the American civil war movie “The Undefeated”. Unfortunately, it has been recently closed down, probably due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and changing consumer preferences.

Its wonder is certainly due to the central location in Bangkok, one of the most chaotic cities in the world. The most interesting part of the building is not the enclosed screening hall. Rather, it’s the covered yet open foyer, whose elegant and geometric interiors are constantly and directly contrasted by the noise of the mopeds, by the smell of street food grills and tropical plants that can be seen from the windows. Its relationship with the city is definitely theatrical.

In the past these kinds of theaters were usually situated in city centers and markets, where they became community gathering points as they supported the theater and the community. In this line, the foyer of Scala theatre acts as a proper public space, as a shaded portico that offers shelter from the heat of Bangkok. This is reflected in its overwhelming but at the same time welcoming decorations - columns that drop from the ceiling, lights in the shape of geometric flowers, floors and walls covered with velvet fabric. Thai culture is eccentric, it is flamboyant and greets you by dominating your senses.

The architecturally significant cinema’s Art Deco stylings and interiors were designed by Jira Silpkanok, which with its velvet curtains, veteran ushers, and vast auditorium, evoked the golden age of film exhibition. Specifically, the foyer consists of a huge domed ceiling, set up with bronzed art deco flowers. You are conquered by the vaulted windows that frame Bangkok as a choreographed spectacle - by the different types of textures both on the base of the columns outlining the shadows. Two stairways converge at the top taking you to the second floor, while almost touching the long chandelier that illuminates the center. A visionary architecture, where as soon as you enter it seems to be in a ship, or a spaceship.

The Bellini Theater in Palermo was first called Teatro Travaglino, from the name of a Sicilian burlesque mask. A hidden truth is hidden in its name since the theater has had to change many faces throughout the centuries. Destroyed several times by earthquakes and wars and many times rebuilt and renamed, looking for a new identity. What we have today is an incomparable Architectural stratigraphy of historical facts.

The theatre was an open living room in between privately owned palaces where the public could go in for the first time. | Photo © Lemonot

The theater has been literally carved inside a noble dwelling, the gallery and the stage are built between private houses, in fact it is still possible to see the windows of the neighbors that overlooked the main stage. It was entertaining popular operas and due to this fact, the space was constructed around a small stage with few wooden benches. Initially the main gallery had only festive purposes, banquets were set up and dances were often opened; it is only later that great artists were presented and therefore had a primarily cultural purpose.

Over time Marquises of Santa Lucia sacrificed part of their palace to build in 1726 a classic Italian-style theater with 4 tiers of boxes and entirely in decorated wood, it was called the theater of St. Lucia. The need for a more refined theater for the Elitè was entrusted to the royal architect Nicolò Puglia who accommodated more than 500 spectators.

Due to the disastrous earthquake that struck Palermo in 1726, the theater remained closed for several years, reopened only in 1742, enlarged and restored again, incorporating some neighboring houses of the Marquis Bellaroto.

In 1943 during the second world war it was also requisitioned by the US military and used as a movie theater for soldiers. In 1964 the building was damaged by a fire and subsequently recovered thanks to the intervention of the Teatro Biondo Stabile in Palermo and thanks to the professionalism of its director Claudio Grasso who regained the license from the Palermo police headquarters and returned the theater to its original function in 1980 until 2014.

Since 2019 is hosting a mixed-media installation designed by Alfredo Jarr. This operation led to many controversies - since part of Palermo’s cultural community stated that a theatre should be open only for spectacles and actual plays. The theatre layout and the museographic stage set affect and update each other in a very interesting way: the usual relationship between the proscenium (the place for the spectacle) and the platea (the place for the audience) is inverted, since the public gathers to admire the exhibition from the first, while the artworks are hosted in the latter, emptied of chairs’ rows.

Furthermore, this peculiar theatrical framework, shifting the way we look at the artifacts, activates a spontaneous layer of performativity, otherwise left behind in most traditional museum environments.

The Cistern Chapel or the Sewage Cathedral is a former pumping station designed by chief engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette and architect Charles Henry Driver. Its construction became necessary in response to the the Great Stink of 1858.

The meticulous designs and bright colors have made the Crossness Pumping Station a real Victorian-style gem. | Photo © Lemonot

Its construction became necessary when the Thames became particularly polluted enough to raise a putrid smell throughout the city. The situation was aggravated by the unusually hot climate that hit the English capital and made the stench even stronger and unpleasant. To solve the problem, the Bazalgette plan consisted in the construction of two sewers to be placed in the outermost areas of the city. One of these was the Crossness Pumping Station which, at the time, had the function of draining the putrid waters to the east by running clean water into the Thames.

The complex is covered with decorations surrounded by cast ironworks forming columns rising up from the ground floor. | Photo © Lemonot

An architecture is made of joints and unconscious paths following geometric shapes and colored corners. The light is drawn to the central octagonal arcade, which supports a frieze of regimented yet twisting leaves and tendrils and on each column flowers, leafs and fruits decorate the capitals. At the time, the highly crafts fancy curlicues of cast iron weren’t seen as an unnecessary expense - it was the first time for such functional purpose to build with opulent and organic decoration of this kind.

Indeed, there is a great sacral charge within the main octagonal space that encourages the people to gather between the columns, inviting you to look up but also to hide among the industrial spaces - that become almost domestic. All four engines were named after members of the royal family; Victoria, Albert Edward and Alexandra: for this reason the choice of colors, materials and different patterns follows a specific narrative, becoming a built embodiment of their personalities. The spatial elements are actually personified, transformed into architectural characters.

Sprawled over a high plateau above La Paz, El Alto is arguably Latin America’s largest indigenous city. At an altitude of 4800 m, colorful buildings arise and geometric facades are visible from the teleferico travelling above the altiplano. The first cholets, also called New Andean architectures, were sighted almost fifteen years ago by Freddy Mamani Silvestre. Since then, they proliferated: various architects have appropriated them in terms of style and copied them typologically.

Cholet is a portmanteau of the high-class chalet - the pitched roofs of these mansions resemble the ones of Swiss cottages and the derogatory cholo, a racist slang for an indigenous person. Mamani ‘s buildings have a common language, two or three storey and a ballroom on the highest ceiling room filled with Andean symbols, casted columns and windows with different geometrical profiles cutting the whole space. Using the colors of textiles are tracing inspiration from traditional garments and folkloric masks. These ballrooms are identified not only through iconographies but also by the use they make of it - from dances to ceremonies, to domestic inhabitation, to basketball courts or swimming pools.

Cholets are always designed in close contact with the buyer, triggering a personal and almost process of embodiment of the owner with the building itself. The building is to produce income. On the roof is our own home. The spatial experience can be read in completely opposite way, during the day the light from outside is absorbed by the colors and it seems to be in a video game, a confetti space. As soon as darkness falls, the LED lights direct you into the ballroom and surround every architectural element.

Not only the architecture itself is ornamental but the eccentricity with which the Aymara use and change the program of the space. The one of cholets is a controversial phenomenon, that nonetheless portrays the political, social and economic contemporaneity in Bolivia. On an urban level the cholets have become a symbol, recognizable monuments - able to immediately recall Andean identity nationally and internationally. Ultimately, the architecture of Crucero del Sur speaks the same language of the ceremonies that take place inside it. In these exuberant interiors, matter and performance achieved an absolute reciprocity.

—

#FOMA 41: Sabrina Morreale and Lorenzo Perri

Sabrina Morreale and Lorenzo Perri are architects, educators and co-founders of Lemonot, a design and research platform based in London. Hungry observers and compulsive collectors of anthropic mirabilia, they’re interested in all those iconographic gestures that enable the mutual immanence among objects, bodies and rituals. Their academic research focuses on contemporary folklore as a trigger for unconventional spatial languages, between geometrical abstraction and material figurativism. They’re Programme Heads of the AA Visiting school El Alto and currently teach at the Architectural Association and the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

#foma #forgotten masterpieces

2 notes · View notes

beneaththetangles · 4 years

Text

The First Duty of Every Starfleet Otaku is to the Truth, Whether it’s Scientific Truth, or Historical Truth, or Personal Truth

(It’s getting difficult to distinguish between the titles of my posts and the titles of light novels, isn’t it?)

You’ve probably heard that the winners write the history books. The victors of various conflicts (military, political, cultural, etc.) fabricate self-glorifying stories at the expense of the losers. Except that’s not how history actually works. Since winners-write-history is such a ubiquitous misconception, it’s always worth beating up on, and what brought this issue to mind most recently is a quote from The Combat Baker and Automaton Waitress, Vol. 6. The narrator states:

“Human beings are neither gods nor devils. Their behavior is not always good. However, history is written by the winners. The winners always seek to portray their path as glorious and blessed. They pretend their past—their cowardly, traitorous, oppressive and bloodstained past—never happened. Or they try to cast it in a new light. And every time they do, they make use of people incapable of protest. The dead… The defeated… They come in many forms.”

According to this light novel, history is just a web of lies crafted to glorify the powerful by taking advantage of those who can’t share their side of the story. I think that’s a fairly typical depiction of this cynical attitude toward history. And I want to burn it.

The best examples I can give are from early U.S. history, since that’s what I’ve studied the most. For example, who wrote about the American War of Independence? Well, as you might guess, Americans (the “winners”) did. But that’s not all. There are many accounts of the war by the British, their Hessian allies, Tories (people of the colonies who remained loyal to Britain), etc. It’s especially amusing to read the memoirs of various defeated British generals; they try to paint themselves in a positive light and make excuses for why they weren’t more successful. And despite these sources being written by the perceived “losers,” American historians use them in research. I know because I, an American and a historian, have used them.

It’s even more true that “losers” write the “history” when we look at the American Civil War. Unrepentant white southerners created an extensive mythology (often termed the Lost Cause) relating to the war. Starting almost as soon as the war ended, white southerners made extensive efforts to falsify why they rebelled and started the war, what slavery was like and how enslaved black southerners truly felt about it, and why the Confederacy lost. Confusion wrought by the postwar writings of these former Confederates lingers even today. The losers were so successful at embedding their version of “history” in popular culture that historians are still fighting to correct it. Ironically, white southerners themselves provided a lot of the ammunition necessary to attack the Lost Cause. You see, they ramped up their mythologizing after losing the war… but their writings from before and during the war were a lot more honest. (If you want to hear more truth about the CSA and the American Civil War from a professional historian, I’m would be happy to discuss it further on Twitter.)

There’s an episode of the 2018 version of GeGeGe no Kitaro that pretty clearly indicates this problem of losers writing history is relevant to Japan—specifically, Japan’s involvement in World War II. (For example, the Japanese have long resisted acknowledging the terrible evils Imperial Japan committed in Korea and China.) In the aforementioned anime episode, while visiting a Pacific island (possibly New Guinea), average Japanese schoolgirl Mana is shocked to find a grave marker with a Japanese inscription. She doesn’t understand why Japanese soldiers would have been fighting and dying on an island so far from Japan. A surprised Daddy Eyeball asks the question:

Mana’s confused response makes clear that her school only taught her a sanitized shadow of the war’s history. For instance, she’s surprised to hear that Japan attacked countries like Britain and America. The episode as a whole comes across as a critique of how the war is remembered in Japan. In other words, it’s saying that despite being the unequivocal loser of the Pacific War, Japan has managed to invent it’s own doctored, self-serving version of “history.”

So in the first place, “losers” have written quite a lot of “history,” but in addition, the winners-write-history paradigm collapses in the face of how history actually gets written. “History” starts with primary sources: eyewitness, contemporary accounts written close to the time of historical events by people directly connected to those events. The literate write primary sources. Not winners. Not losers. Just anybody capable of writing. If primary sources are overwhelmingly slanted toward one side of a conflict, it’s probably because the other side was largely illiterate and/or because the events happened so long ago that relatively few documents have survived the ravages of time.

And then there are secondary sources. These are the sort of history books with which you’re probably more familiar. Secondary sources are written by historians who analyze and synthesize the primary sources, piecing them together to see the big picture and create larger narratives. Historians strive to take into account the biases of their sources, and by consulting numerous primary sources, they can detect inaccuracies. This is aided by the reality that historians are distant in time from the people and events they study. For example, am I one of the winners of the American Civil War, or one of the losers? Well, the war ended more than 150 years ago, long before I even existed. There’s no logical basis for thinking of myself as being on the either side.

The idea that history is written by the winners to make themselves look good and slander their helpless victims is a simplistic justification for cynicism. “Now let me be clear,” historians are quite fallible, but “winners-write-history” isn’t a substantive critique. It’s merely a glib excuse to dismiss history without even examining the arguments or the primary sources on which those arguments are based. Fulfilling what Jean-Luc Picard termed our “duty” to “historical truth” requires that we put aside the fallacious winners-write-history paradigm, and instead face the real human complexities of the past.

#Anime #GeGeGe no Kitaro #Truth #History #Articles #Author: JeskaiAngel

1 note · View note

rigelmejo · 4 years

Text

i really do mean this, if you’re a native english speaker and you’re the type to try being a polyglot, or you just would like to learn multiple languages, and ESPECIALLY if French is a language you want to learn:

it really IS one of the easier ‘commonly studied’ languages for a native english speaker to learn. (Theoretically, Spanish is too, so you may consider that instead if it’s the language you really want to learn).

A couple years ago, I took a french class in college. I took it because in high school I’d tried to take classes and/or study the following languages independently: Spanish (1 class, learned nothing), German (2 years of classes, learned some verbs and standard conjugations, basically learned A1 kind of stuff), Chinese (1 year learning the basics and the teacher was great but I promptly forgot almost all of it), Japanese (independent study, I learned the kana and some simple words). I basically learned nothing significant - not enough to USE any of the languages in the ways I wanted to even minimally use them. I figured I was bad at learning languages.

So in college, I picked a french class to explore 2 things: 1. To see if I could even learn a language at all, by trying again with a new language I had absolutely zero experience with. 2. Because I liked the idea of studying languages, and wanted to see if I got to choose to study it on purpose if I’d do better (compared to many college classes I was required to take and hated, compared to language classes being required therefore ‘disliked’ by me in high school).

So mainly, I picked French because I had no experience studying it and thought it would be a good test of if I could learn anything substantial. I had some reasons for learning French, but none really motivated me: I figured since I live by Canada French might be useful, I figured if I ever work for the UN I could use French as one of my languages for it. So basically, the usual ‘not passionate’ reasons.

Now I do actually think passion helped me to actually learn French. So I encourage you, whatever language you are studying, to find something in that language or to do with that language that drives you and makes you passionately CARE. For me, I found a couple books. I was in a thrift store, and found 2 French graded readers from the 1930s. One was a French history book, and I found it fascinating that it was how French people from the 1930s viewed their culture and history. The other book contained letters from a 19 year old french schoolteacher as her life was more and more effected by world war 2 ramping up and then eventually occurring and changing her life. I am very interested in history, and I am even MORE personally interested in how specific people view their positions within their own perspectives. Because every person’s perspective is different - how a French person from the 1930s views their country is different than how a French person in 2020 probably would, and how we see WW2 is very different than that 19 year old woman in France in the 1930s saw it starting in her own world.

She wrote that she was shocked and impressed America had elected its first congresswoman, when in France women had no voting rights yet - and those small lines changed my whole view of what her life must’ve been like! Along with just... the idea this girl younger than me, a 19 year old, was a teacher of a classroom writing to another girl teacher at University of Michigan! For some people these details might be boring, but to me they reveal so much about what life might have been seen as back then, in those places in those perspectives. Those books are what made me WANT to learn french, CARE about learning French, get MOTIVATED to learn. For me, wanting to read French perspectives in their own language, directly from the source, is what made me care about French. I definitely think if you are studying a language (or probably anything), you will have an easier time if you can find something to care about and motivate you to study and improve. As a bonus, this interest driving your passion can help you come up with tangible actual goals you wish to accomplish.

For example, the goal of ‘I want to be fluent in French/German/whatever’ is fine. But how do you test that? With a CEFR test? I hope so, or something like that, or else you might struggle to come up with a real goal to aim toward. If you’re learning for a test, like a certificate that will allow you to work in a certain country - well that’s a real goal to envision and that you can plan for, and that goal can motivate you. But if it’s just ‘learn to C1 level fluency’ but you don’t ever plan anything measurable or tangible, how will you know you’re making progress? Get specific. If your goal is ‘fluency’ and it’s not for a test/certificate, then what do you want to DO with fluency? Talk to native speakers? Read books? Write articles in the language for a company? Translate? Travel to a location and speak with the locals about their city and culture? Decide. Decide what you want to do with that language. That’s where you’ll find your passion. That’s also where you’ll be able to figure out what real goals you’re aiming for.

For me, the real goal was “I want to read these books.” That allowed me to realize I needed plans to improve my reading ability - plans to learn words, study grammar, learn the most common words, etc. And allowed me to study according to my needs for my goals. I really suggest finding your passion, then making goals and study plans from there.

---

Okay, back to: why French is a good language to try learning, if you planned to study it anyway, and aren’t sure how to learn a language (at least in my experience).

French REALLY IS a ton like english. I can’t stress that enough. It has a huge number of cognates and that’s really the biggest reason French is approachable. So many words, at least written, look so similar to english you can guess them. The grammar is a bit different, but it is generally pretty regular so if you study it then it will be manageable. The grammar is also, while a bit different, very understandable from an english native perspective. Even when it’s different, it usually makes sense to a native english speaker. And - in reverse - if you speak French and mess up and use English grammar patterns instead of the correct french ones, often you’ll still at least be understood. The pronunciation is also quite regular and once you get used to it, sounding out new words is pretty easy (I had to learn some Russian at one point in my life and... French pronunciation/listening is such a cakewalk compared to Russian...)

When studying a language, you need a study plan. If its your first time making one, you’ll likely run into a lot of suggestions on the ‘best approach’ and a lot of different methods you can use. Look into them, try them out, and when you find what works for you, be CONSISTENT and stick with it. French is a nice language to do this experimenting on study approaches, because improvement is generally quite rapid when you find an approach that works for you. (Compared to a language very different from English - for example, it took me 2-3 months to start reading French articles online and French books and at least comprehending short sentences and skimming for some main points in simple texts like news articles/informational books. Japanese, it took me 6 months to be able to look at titles and short tweets and do the same thing, and 1 year to be able to look at simple comics aimed for preteens-teens and be able to skim those comics for main ideas - I still can’t approach an actual news article in japanese!). So a language like French, or anything more similar to English, is going to allow you to see if your study plan is working FASTER. Especially if it’s your first time trying to learn a language.

I have found, that a lot of the techniques I use to study Japanese and Chinese, I actually used successfully with French first. So now, even though my progress is much slower when I use them for Japanese and Chinese, I already know that I DO know how to do those study approaches and I DO know they give me progress over time.

One technique is to ‘switch to monolingual engagement with a language as soon as possible.’ With Japanese or Chinese, as you can imagine, it takes longer to attempt to do this because learning to read in these languages is difficult. With French? What I had to do to make this leap was: learn basic past/present/future tense (just look up “French Grammar Guide” on google and read a free one), look up a 500 most common word list (also easy to find on google), study those for a few months. Once I did that, I could start reading French materials and just occasionally looking up new words that kept appearing and confusing me. At that point, I still occasionally relied on bilingual dictionaries and grammar books. So at about month 6, I looked up French grammar guides IN FRENCH. Then I just started reading them, and that’s how I learned a lot of my more advanced grammar in French. At that point, I just continued reading french/watching french, studying French grammar in French. I still occassionally use bilingual word lookups for frustrating new unfamiliar words, but mostly I’m so lazy I prefer to guess the meaning from the context of the sentences. And if I wanted to, I know enough words to just switch to a monolingual dictionary. After about 1 year, I got comfortable enough that I can navigate french sites, french wikipedia, french books, relatively fine. I’ve had my Google account set to French since probably month 3, and so all my computers and devices always give french sites/results first, french wikipedia, french definitions, so I just got more comfortable with french over time. If I had to compare it to my english, my French now at about 2 years (only the first year actively ‘studying’ in the sense of reading vocab lists and grammar guides), is a reading level around where I was at age 12-13. Enough that I can pick up whatever and read it, its just that more complicated reading material may be a bit of a slog (like adult level fictional novels). I started practicing from month 2-3 with instructive non-fiction books, so my reading level for history books and linguistic/science books in French is a bit higher. Basically, it took me 2 years to get to where I wanted to be in French (which is incredible to me!). And when I did it, part of my study plan ended up resembling the method of ‘switching to monolingual engagement of the language’ quite a lot. My experience studying french showed me that, yes, it does work. And its very helpful for me as a study method, since I learn most happily when learning from monolingual context in the media I’m consuming.

I am well aware of where I fall short in French - listening (and pronunciation as a result of that), and writing. I can write, but the active vocabulary I can recall is very low since I haven’t spoken/written in a while and it takes a few hours of me ‘warming up’ to remember how to say the words I can read. I can write, but the grammar I can write is much WORSE than what I can read, since I didn’t do grammar drills and NEED TO eventually when improving my writing becomes a goal. Reading was always the goal, so reading is the main thing I studied for. I can text/write with french speakers, but I’m not grammatically smooth. My listening is weak, because again - I rarely practiced, it was not a goal of mine. I didn’t care about French videos or audio content, or speaking to french speakers. If that’s a goal I desire, I’ll study for it and work on those areas.

If using any kinds of study methods, I do think French is similar enough to English, that you will notice in a reasonable amount of time if your method is working for you and giving you progress. If it is, be consistent. There’s good weeks, and bad weeks where you’ll feel lost and incompetent.

---

When studying Japanese I noticed, on a much longer timeline, similar progress being made from similar methods I used. Japanese had some unique challenges for me - the biggest simply being that I have to work harder to memorize new words since they’re not cognates to english like much of French’s vocabulary is. But my methods do work for me. So if you plan to study multiple languages, from my experience... French is definitely a good ‘testing waters.’

I had to crash learn some Russian to talk to some Russian people in my life for a while, and read Russian texts etc. And the study methods and goal setting skills I picked up when studying French helped me with that too.

My basic plan was:

1. Figure out your specific goals, plan accordingly. If you don’t care about learning certain areas within speaking, listening, reading, writing - then don’t make them the priority. If you do consider some or all of these areas priorities, then make specific plans for studying each area. 2. My goals have generally always included being able to read. So the following has always helped greatly:

look up the 300-1000 most common words in the language. These are the most important vocabulary to focus on learning first. The tumblr 300 word list, and the 625 word list floating around online, are my favorite starting places. Some nice lists on Memrise of common words are also good starting places. I can learn other additional words I look up, but these common words will help me improve fastest so they’re my priority.

look up “Language X Grammar Guide.” There are free ones for pretty much any language. Find one for the language I’m studying, and focus on the basic grammar points first - specifically verb and adjective conjugations, particles if the language has any (or that thing Russian has going on etc), genders, and simple ways the language does past/present/future tense. Basically, try to read the basic grammar points first, then also skim or read over more complicated grammar points as desired just to get an overview of things I’ll eventually want to notice later. My goal here is to get used to the patterns of the language, so when I look at sentences FULL of unknown words, I can at least try to identify which words are verbs/adjectives/nouns and other kinds of words that help explain what’s going on (like/the/and/or/for/to/with/’s). The quicker I can recognize at least the basics of what’s going on in sentences, the quicker I can figure out where words end in languages with no spaces between words. The quicker I can figure out which words are vital to the understanding of some sentences (if you know which words are nouns, and are reading News, then locating verbs helps next - to figure out whats Happening to the nouns). Knowing all this helps me prioritize which words I’ll NEED to look up when I’m trying to understand native content without me looking up every single word. Also, if writing/speaking is one of my goals, it helps me quickly learn some BASIC ways to express myself (simple past/present/future tense so I can communicate any idea basically with the help of a dictionary if i need to use a new word).

After that, make engaging with native content regularly a priority. If I want to learn to read, then make myself try to read native content as practice, and use graded readers as stepping stones etc. If listening is a priority, engage with listening materials regularly (and shadow what I hear, if I want to practice pronunciation). Basically - whatever your eventual usage goal is, regularly attempt to do it NOW (even though you aren’t fully capable yet). You will learn a little more each time, and improve specifically in that area you’re aiming to be able to eventually do. And you will have a nice gauge on your progress and what areas you’re falling short and need to adjust your study plan for. With French - from months 2-3 I started reading native content. It was a SLOG to read news articles and wikipedia. Eventually that was okay, but it was still a SLOG to read my own graded readers! Eventually I got decent, but it was still a SLOG to read french fanfictions! Eventually, that got decent, but it was still a SLOG to read french fiction novels for adults. Etc. I improved, but I didn’t start out perfectly able to do it - and I didn’t WAIT until I could do it, to start TRYING to do it. A lot of my improvement in reading... came from me practicing reading, looking up words over time until I learned them, until I got good enough to learn words from context, and still SLOGGING. But I wanted to read, so I kept trying to do it. I improved. It works that way with listening too, etc.

Finally, figure out what areas are not progressing toward my goal, and come up with additional study plans for those specific areas. If I need more grammar help or to do writing drills to improve my writing, maybe I need a textbook. If I want to speak to native speakers, maybe I need to find a group/people to speak to. If my listening comprehension is atrocious but its a GOAL, maybe I need to add listening study materials like podcasts/audio lessons/LISTEN to all new words when I look them up and add audio to my study flashcards. If I need to learn more words, maybe its time for me to update the vocabulary lists I’m using, maybe use SRS flashcards, Memrise, etc.

---

A lot of that study plan I came up with for French, I ended up using when I started learning Chinese. And overall, it’s been a huge help. It’s still mostly what I stuck to. Hanzi and lack of cognates, mean that I do a lot more vocabulary flashcard grinding in the ‘knowing absolutely zero words’ stage. But the overall study plan is the same.

One thing I DID start doing for chinese, that I didn’t do before for other languages, was LISTENING from day one. I listened to Chinese shows, chinese youtube videos, chinese songs, and when I looked up most new words I looked up audio too. It wasn’t a goal for French so I don’t care too much that I never did it. But I can definitely say it helped me learn Chinese a lot EASIER than if I wasn’t doing it. I have a much better sense of listening to chinese and guessing the spelling, than I do for French. I have a much better ability to hear a word, and recognize it later when reading. Vice versa, in Chinese I’m much better at only reading a word and guessing its pronunciation based on pinyin, and it being close enough that when i HEAR a new word later I recognize it as one I’ve already read. These are simple skills but they’re super underdeveloped in my French - I struggle to do all these things in French. Now, my Chinese tone production is kind of shit - mostly because I need to do more tone drills, need to practice FULL SENTENCES more. But at least I can listen/read and link those two things in my head, and recognize them. I am certain it’s because I actively listened to Chinese from day 1 of learning, and kept doing so.

I also think, at least with chinese, the chinese subtitles that chinese content tends to have is immensely helpful. Seeing chinese subtitles especially in the early stages of study, helped me link the new sounds and words to the characters. And since I studied a grammar guide early on, seeing the chinese subtitles helps me make out the separation of words I hear, and helps me figure out which words I’m hearing are adjectives/nouns/verbs/grammar constructions etc. And, because I’m lazy, I’ll say that the DUAL english/chinese subtitles also helped me a fair bit. Again, because they helped me link the chinese sounds to the characters to the english words. When I knew no words, to even now that I know 1000+ solidly, they help me to learn new words constantly. In the very beginning, they helped a lot with me learning words/phrases that mean a few different things/have different nuance than in english. Like ‘ba le’ ‘suan le’ ‘xiang’ ‘kankan’ ‘meishi’ ‘meiguanshi’ ‘danxin’ ‘ni fangxin’ ‘bubi’ ‘xiaoxin’ ‘xing le’ ‘mingbai’ ‘dong’... just, so many super common words that have a few different english translations depending on the context of a situation and the translator’s choices.

If I go back to French and try to improve my listening comprehension, I’ll definitely be doing all these methods with French.

#rant #language learning

2 notes · View notes

argentdandelion · 4 years

Text

Things Anti-Monster Politicians Could Do (Mild)

(Mild) → (Moderate) → (Severe)→ (Extremely Angsty)

Note: This series assumes Mt. Ebott is in the U.S., based on Vegetoid’s description: “Not monitored by the USDA”. This presumably stands for the United States Department of Agriculture. However, most of the article would apply if Mt. Ebott were in other countries, too.

The anti-monster politician would ignore or dismiss monsters’ specific bodily or cultural needs, or make it inconvenient for them to fulfill particular needs. Loopholes, alternatives and workarounds to the policies are obvious, but discouraged or inconvenient.

Tactic 1: Gyftmas is Not Valid

Tactic 2: No Magic Lessons

On a slightly stronger note, anti-monster politicians (AMPs) could, rather than creating species-segregated schools, strategically adjust school rules and requirements.

AMPs (school superintendents, principals) could ban bullet patterns inside a school. In principle, this makes sense: humans could get hurt, and for particularly crowded schools, a lot of humans could get hurt at once. The AMPs could (at risk to sounding reasonable) ban bullet patterns on school grounds, so monsters can’t even do it at recess or shortly after being released from school.

School superintendents could make curriculum options that conspicuously omit magic-expression, even as an extracurricular. One plausible-sounding excuse for why they wouldn’t teach magic is due to a school being majority-human (but still close to Mt. Ebott), and humans being unable to use magic or find it as appealing or useful as monsters.

Even without specific regulations, AMPs could influence hiring decisions for human-only/human-dominant schools so they just happen to never hire magic-expression teachers, or block attempts to teach magic-expression because “it’s not part of the curriculum”. They could even block merging magic-expression lessons into art or communication classes. Alternatively, AMPs could mandate only monster-specific/monster-dominant schools need to teach magic expression, or specifically block all but monster schools from teaching it.

In total, these regulations wouldn’t endanger monsters, but only give them a sub-par species-specific education if they attend human-dominant schools. They could find workarounds, such as tutors, separate schools or parents teaching them, but it would be inconvenient.

Tactic 3: No Monster Food in Cafeterias

AMPs could suggest “accommodating monsters with magic food” (e.g, cafes, school cafeterias) is financially onerous for businesses, making monster food availability lower. They could also disguise not supplying monster food as personally not liking the cuisine or considering it unappealing to kids. After all, Chinese food is just more of a crowd-pleaser than, say, Lebanese food. Still, this would be absurd since monster food largely mimics common American foods.

Not supplying monster food would be extra inconvenient in cafeterias, because children have less of a choice in what schools or businesses they attend or work for than what cafes they visit. Even without official policies or justifications, AMPs could simply not supply any monster food, ever, in cafeterias. It would be very suspect because some schools do import food outside typical catering, and monster food would likely be healthier, tastier, or cheaper than human food. This is especially true when serving normal food a small percentage of humans are allergic to, but monster food is “made of magic” and might not contain allergens at all.

Since monsters apparently need to defecate if they eat physical food, AMPs could make this worse by forbidding them from entering student/employee bathrooms. Some possible excuses are: “so many unsupervised students/employees in one place could kill them”, or “we aren’t sure if our toilets can handle your waste”, or “monsters defecating is gross”, or “since you’re an “it” or “they”, you can’t go to the girls’ bathrooms or boys’ bathrooms) But, AMPs could suspiciously never supply a single toilet for monsters in the whole building to address the “waste” concerns, despite the existence of handicapped bathrooms/specific stalls that also serve a tiny minority. AMPs could also discourage, if not outright forbid, them from using the single-stall teachers’ bathrooms as a workaround.

Now, to make this even worse, AMPs could suggest, without any basis, that monster food is nutritionally inferior or reacts poorly with the human body. They could then use that to discredit monster-run food shops. (a la monosodium glutamate and anti-Chinese xenophobia) They could even fabricate or fudge the results for a study on monster food’s effect on humans, then use the fake results to support banning monster food from restaurants. While monsters can still eat physical food, shifting their diet to have drastically more physical food at once will surely lead to mass digestive troubles and possibly nutritional problems. (It would also sabotage humans, since monster food could be really handy in some situations.)

Tactic 4: No Body Accommodations

Taller monsters, such as Asgore, need bigger models of cars to safely fit in cars and/or comfortably drive. Smaller cars are generally more fuel-efficient, and harm pedestrians less in case of a collision. So, AMPs could make suspiciously-timed subsidies for smaller cars, outright ban big cars from cities or parking garages, or have buyback programs for bigger (and potentially monster-suitable) cars.

The AMPs could also suggest physical accommodations of any sort (e.g., entry ramps for legless monsters) would be expensive and useless. However, his particular tactic would probably cause humans with impaired mobility to team up with monsters, since they also need or greatly benefit from similar ramps. Indeed, this is classified as “mild” partly because the tactic could anger or greatly inconvenience humans, and so nudge them into making political alliances with monsters.

Workarounds

Workarounds for No Magic Lessons

Workaround 1. Gerson is hired to teach (human) history. AMPs figure he’s just teaching (human) history, and on the face of it he’d be a good history teacher. But Gerson just happens to make asides on monster history when it parallels human issues, and just happens to give demonstrations of bullet patterns in monster history, or re-creates artistic patterns throughout human history using his own bullets.

Workaround 2. A monster P.E. teacher (e.g., Undyne) notices the rule says “students can’t use bullet patterns inside school/on school grounds”. The monster demonstrates bullet patterns for the students to actually practice later. Better yet, the monster P.E. teacher takes one step outside the school’s legal property (e.g., a surrounding field, in the parking lot, on the roof), shows off bullet patterns, and has students take turns stepping just outside official school property to demonstrate. The monster teaches them how to express bullet patterns in an athletic way to justify it being part of athletic curriculum. Or, the monster realizes it’s still legal for P.E. teachers to play dodgeball with students (which can hurt), and so does “magic ball” instead, controlling bullet damage so it does exactly as much damage as getting hit by a dodgeball. (The monster P.E. teacher could probably say, “Frisk survived because they were so good at dodging! Knowing how to dodge magic attacks will keep humans safe in human-monster conflict!”)

Workaround 3. One reason/excuse for not teaching magic at a majority human school is the fact humans can’t use magic, and it not being important in human society. However, a function on Frisk’s monster-made cell phone changed their SOUL to Yellow mode, allowing them to emit bullets like a monster. (if in a very simplified fashion) Monsters providing SOUL mode technology or magical objects that emit bullets means humans wouldn’t feel left out in magic expression classes. Furthermore, of course human children would want to learn how to use magic in some way, even if it took years of practice. If humans with yellow SOULs can naturally emit bullets, that would cause an even greater faux pas to AMPs. People would probably argue they’d want to cultivate their abilities, and not providing magic lessons even as an extracurricular is discriminatory to Yellow SOULs.

Workaround 4. Humans can, in fact, use magic after monsters return to the Surface, and monsters teach them how to use magic.1 The fun and utility of humans knowing how to use magic encourages human-monster integration. While Tactic 2 suggests magic classes are of little to no use in purely human/human-dominant schools, the school with one or multiple magic classes in GlitchTale seems to be human-dominant.

Workarounds for No Monster Food at Cafeterias

Workaround 1: Monster students just bring bagged lunches. Alternatively, for teenagers allowed to go off-grounds for lunch, there could be a monster restaurant for cheap that’s very close to the school.

Workaround 2: Internet personalities who specialize in recording eating food or visiting restaurants make a point of eating monster food. They could even repeatedly swear or say really funny things to make the videos super-popular.

Workaround 3: Monster food-engineers supply magic-food equivalents to common allergen-containing foods, like oysters or peanut butter, allowing allergic people to taste what they’ve been missing out on and feel “normal”. The video would be highly “wholesome” and saccharine in a way that would make it super-popular, like unexpected puppies.

Workaround 4: An actual Chinese restaurateur makes a satirical video comparing monster food xenophobia to historic Chinese-food xenophobia.

Workaround 5: The fact monster food converts to energy (presumably upon being swallowed) heals HP (presumably minor injuries, in non-video-game terms), and probably doesn't contribute to weight gain 2 means it would be popular among humans, who might pack some monster food in their school lunches. Monster food's popularity and convenience among humans would just highlight AMPs' absurd monster-food restriction.

Made with the help of Batter-Sempai, CinnamonAzzy and Ihasafandom.

If you enjoyed this post, you may be interested in the author's Patreon and Ko-Fi.

Related Works Chara's Stomach Rumbles (a possible side effect of eating only monster food) The Perils of an All-Monster Food Diet (More detail on problems with eating entirely monster food. Still doesn't justify banning monster food from cafeterias, however) Undertale Character Heights (listed chronologically. Part 2 to 4 covers how human-designed objects and buildings are ill-suited for extra-wide or tall monsters)

The fan works GlitchTale (Season 2) and Endertale feature this. In GlitchTale, humans regain use of magic very quickly, suggesting they've kept theoretical knowledge on it, even if they couldn't actually use it. In Endertale, Frisk learns magic over three years. ↩︎

In the fanfiction Long Road (specifically Chapter 4), monster food is popular among humans for similar reasons. ↩︎

#Undertale #Post-Pacifist #Meta #Analysis #Things Anti-Monster Politicians Could Do

14 notes · View notes